Holacracy Community of Practice Archive

Posted in Practicing Holacracy • By Xavier Boëmare • 08/23/2017

Objection / Test / Integration

I see sometimes, in the objection round, partners having the same objection to a proposal. In that case, I wander what’s the “best” or more “efficient” way to deal with this ?

The "standard" is : You get and test the objections one by one, and integrate them one by one in the integration stage, then new objection round.

However, I wander if a more efficient way could be to coach the circle members to not raise an objection that has already been raised, knowing that if the new proposal does not fit, they will have the opportunity to raise it on the objection round following the integration.

If the objection is shared by multiple partners, them can work together during the integration (that's the idea of the integration : collective intelligence), and if the new proposal does not fit for all (but the facilitator will only focus on the objector and proposer's tensions), they can still object during the new objection round.

This way, I might have saved the time for getting, testing, integrating all the objections that were the same during the first objection round.

But maybe there’s a downside I don’t see here. Any thoughts ? Experiences ? Safe enough to try ?

4 Replies

Jean-Michel Gode
08/23/2017

Hi Xavier,

From my perspective, an objection is a tension. So I'd follow the "One person, one tension at a time" rule and integrate the valid objections one by one under the "standard".

I wouldn't coach the circle members to not raise an objection that has already been raised. The objection might be different regarding the role sensing the tension... and if the tension is the "same", it will drop with the previous integration.

Even non valid, objections might give information to the circle, so it would be a loss not to take advantage of them. (That's my thought, in any event).

Regards,
Jean-Michel

Bernard Marie Chiquet
08/23/2017

Hey [@mention:491495232183315418] quick thoughts here ! As a participant during Objection Round, if I sense a Tension I'd like to raise as an Objection AND if I think such Obj. has already been raised and captured, I would not object so that the circle would go faster, knowing it's safe enough to try because I may always object later during next Objection Round that follows Integration. As a coach, I would offer that tip and from my experience, people get very quickly to that, except some times when they are emotionally attached to the tension they sense. As a Facilitator, when asking for Objection, I may even use the question "Do you see any *other* reason why this would cause harm or move us backwards, do you have any Objection?" when I sense multiple Partners may sense the same Objection? In my experience, this helps a lot.

Another piece: (in my interpretation of the constitution) a captured Objection during the Obj. Round may not be *shared* by multiple Partners per construction of the process itself, it is *owned* (from a process perspective) by the Partner who has raised it, even if other Partners may think they have the same Objection - which they never can be sure of, and that is one piece of downside I see here. And of course during Integration everyone may help the Objector to amend the proposal. Another downside I sea here is a potential trap to fall back into looking for consensus during integration by losing accountability/ownership which is certainly what we probably don't want.

Juliane Martina Röll
08/24/2017

I think Bernard Marie's suggestion to ask for any other objections is excellent.

I would like to add on more point: in my view, there is no such thing as "having the same objection" as stated in the original question. Objections are personal. They may seem to be "the same", contentwise, but in their nature, they are clearly not.

It is up to the tension holders to judge wether their objection needs to be raised or not, not to any other person, especially not the facilitator, to judge wether it is "same" or not.

Bernard Marie Chiquet
08/24/2017

Martina Röll posted:

It is up to the tension holders to judge wether their objection needs to be raised or not, not to any other person, especially not the facilitator, to judge wether it is "same" or not.

[@mention:457575321027129860] I fully agree on that one!