Holocracy

[2Cent]

Came across this new idea for company structure.

Overview: http://www.holacracy.org/how-it-works/
In depth: http://www.holacracy.org/intro

It runs a company without a hierarchy, but with distributed leadership. It's basically giving people freedom and authority in their role without needing the permission of a boss who might not know anything about the subject.

Is it just me, or would this fix the main reason why we are trying to get away from work.

[arebelspy]

Isn't that basically what Zappos is doing now, with no managers?

There are big flaws--sometimes you need people to take charge, to delegate, etc.  Someone to direct a vision.

The dream of getting rid of middle managers who don't provide value is nice, but I find it hard to picture something like this working on a large scale.  You and 5 buddies in a startup?  Absolutely.

20,000+ employees without a hierarchy?  That's a lot tougher.

Go read articles on the Zappos transition, both the pros and cons (many are written spinning it positively, so you have to dig more past media fluff to read some criticism from employees who stayed and didn't take the buyout)--the making their own goals and badges seems like a particularly weird and ineffective (from what I've seen and heard) idea.

[2Cent]

Yea, Zappos is the biggest example of a Holocracy.
A large reason for it is that it scales better than hierarchy. And I guess if a person with a vision etc is needed, you can just create that role. It's not like there is no management. It's just organised in a different way.

[arebelspy]

I love that Tony tries new things.  I think very highly of him.

This idea I'm more skeptical of, especially after hearing results from the insiders.

Have you seen it be effective at a large scale?

I feel it's like communism--great in theory, very lacking in reality.

It also has a similar loafing problem, so the analogy may go a bit deeper than that surface joke.

[marina]

I'm a software developer and work for a company that operates this way: no official managers, just 1 owner and flat structure otherwise.  There are about 90 of us and it's scaled well so far, but we'll see how the future goes.

I was skeptical when deciding to take this job and still see flaws in it, but then again... there were plenty of flaws at my previous job with a traditional corporation in the same industry as well.   One interesting thing is that leadership/un-official hierarchy does emerge: if someone has been working on a product or in an area for a long time and becomes an expert there, he becomes a de-facto leader whom other people look to for guidance.  The most important thing for companies who want to avoid traditional management structures is good hiring.. you have to hire people who are pro-active and don't need someone to tell them what to do, and this is very difficult.

BTW, side note: my company is quite Mustachian in other ways: we are distributed/ work from home (though I happen to live near the office so I come in often), have higher-than-market salaries, but no fancy benefits and a VERY spare office.  Everyone can buy whatever he or she needs for work (equipment, software, etc) with the company card, remote employees can travel to the office whenever they want, and there's no vacation policy or set hours.  (Sometimes I think this actually makes us work *more* than in a traditional 9-5 office job with x weeks of vacation, though!)

[Chris22]

In my experience, all of my employers have had a hierarchy, but operate as a pseudo-holocracy.  No one is telling me what to do and how to do it every day, I have an overall job and manage it as I see fit to hit various deadlines, etc.  I have people who work for me who do the same.  I only step in when I have a problem.  My boss doesn't tell me what to do as much as he requests data from me on certain things which monitor progress.  My bosses are effectively the various business directors I support who request analysis from me and propose initiatives I support.  We're a very old, very conservative company, but because we are lean, we are all empowered to just do what needs to be done with very little day to day managing. 

[RedmondStash]

This sounds like the Valve model: flat structure, no obvious leaders/managers, employees deciding for themselves where they can make their most valuable contribution to the company. For non-geeks out there, Valve is a tremendously successful game company that also created Steam, which is the main online platform people use to buy and download PC video games, and which basically prints money for them. They're so wealthy that they take all 300-ish of their employees -- and their families -- on a week-long vacation to Hawaii every year.

There are good and bad things about that model. It's got some benefits if you have lots of money and aren't bound to any schedule, and if you also have a seasoned, skilled, and very self-directed workforce. But not everyone is comfortable determining their own workload. It's also really slow and bureaucratic, because everything ends up being done by consensus and the art of persuasion. And you can end up with the wrong people in leadership roles, just because no one else stepped in for that project.

This model requires every employee to have a specific social/mental skillset in addition to their other task-related skillsets. Not everyone has it or has the aptitude for it, just like not everyone has the aptitude for any skillset.

[big_slacker]

This sounds like the Valve model: flat structure, no obvious leaders/managers, employees deciding for themselves where they can make their most valuable contribution to the company. For non-geeks out there, Valve is a tremendously successful game company that also created Steam, which is the main online platform people use to buy and download PC video games, and which basically prints money for them. They're so wealthy that they take all 300-ish of their employees -- and their families -- on a week-long vacation to Hawaii every year.

There are good and bad things about that model. It's got some benefits if you have lots of money and aren't bound to any schedule, and if you also have a seasoned, skilled, and very self-directed workforce. But not everyone is comfortable determining their own workload. It's also really slow and bureaucratic, because everything ends up being done by consensus and the art of persuasion. And you can end up with the wrong people in leadership roles, just because no one else stepped in for that project.

This model requires every employee to have a specific social/mental skillset in addition to their other task-related skillsets. Not everyone has it or has the aptitude for it, just like not everyone has the aptitude for any skillset.

My brother works for Valve. He likes it but it can be cliquish and some people go by the wayside due to perception rather than performance. I think it's fine for a company that size, but try doing it with something like Ford or Microsoft and the company would implode in a month or two. :)