Does anyone have any advice or tips about setting up Holacracy from the get go? I am working with a startup that just filed our business license last week and the biggest challenge we are running into is the company isn't bringing in enough money for people to be spending more time on the project, so taking on a huge mental shift to Holacracy on top of getting the company up and going is proving to be a challenge. Anyone have any experience with this?
Posted in Practicing Holacracy •
By Ruth •
09/30/2015
Implementing Holacracy from the very beginning
8 Replies
Frederik Fleischmann
10/02/2015
10/02/2015
Hello Ruth, I am in a similar situation. Maybe a few steps ahead: we have already adopted the constitution and are working with Holacracy. If you are interested in sharing experiences, please contact me through personal message so we can set up a skype call. Cheers, Frederik
Paul Codd
10/07/2015
10/07/2015
I'm also in a similar situation and would be interested in being a part of any shared work we might do to trial solutions for early stage startups.
Rebecca Brover
10/13/2015
10/13/2015
Hi Ruth,
I am in the same place with my organization. We are about two months in and are gaining momentum as an organization. We just had our first governance meeting and accepted four proposals. It was tricky but we made it through.
I am also interested in sharing this work with others. Please feel free to message me directly!
Ruben @ Springest
10/24/2015
10/24/2015
A book on this topic would do it more justice, but my main advice is to have someone really passionate about it in a position to push it through. Maybe this sounds paradoxical, but in my experience it takes a strong leader (i.e. with a following) to make sure people invest the resources to adopt Holacracy.
Juliane Martina Röll
10/26/2015
10/26/2015
Ruth, I am not completely clear about your request: what is your role in the situation, and why do you want to work with Holacracy there?
I am with Ruben here: If there is someone who is passionate about it in the right position (e.g. a founder), and ideally competent in teaching / coaching the team, then Holacracy can be relatively easy for people to learn right from the start - and not a "huge mental shift" that comes "on top of" doing the ordinary work required.
If you do not have such a person, it might be a bad idea to start off with Holacracy. It might be worth working more conventionally first until some operations stabilise, and then introduce what is needed.
Christel Hofman
10/27/2015
10/27/2015
Hi Ruth,
I'm helping to implement holacracy in 2 start up organisations. Not all the members were thrilled about the holacracy way of working. Many questions and energy leak was the result. When the founders decided to work with holacracy for the minimum of 6 months with an evaluation after 3 months and by signing the constitution the energy leak stopped and everybody tries to make the best of it. It looks like work got back to "normal" again and the first benefits have been achieved: much more efficient meetings!
Juliane Martina Röll
10/27/2015
10/27/2015
Originally Posted by Christel Hofman:
When the founders decided to work with holacracy for the minimum of 6 months with an evaluation after 3 months and by signing the constitution the energy leak stopped and everybody tries to make the best of it.
This is really interesting, I think! I have found that when channeling tensions-about-Holacracy through Holacracy ("I use a formal Holacracy meeting to process a frustration I have with Holacracy"), big aha-moments can occur! There is something very powerful in "closing" the system, in making it formal and binding (as opposed to using "inspirations from" Holacracy or other systems, which then ultimately always rely on informal power structures). Possibly food for another thread rather than this one, but I was too excited to hold back. 
Daesun
11/05/2015
11/05/2015
Also there is a really great conference call about it that I just happen to download in my drive.
(Learning Implementations) https://drive.google.com/open?...4H5DZWEpfdzlZMGFPa3M