3 Topics
Create location specific groups
Hi is it possible to create a group or forum just for a place - like Seattle for example to invite those to talk who are geographically together? Thanks!
09/17/2015
Principles
Hey Mike, I think you may have had a question in the recent Office Hours that I had a thought about. I'm not saying it is a great idea or you should, but if you had something you wanted people to align to, you can include written agreements as attachments in any other membership/employment agreem...
12/02/2015
Practitioner Marketplace
I hear about a lot of people who want a place to practice Holacracy. If you are an independent practitioner or are working in an organization that does not (yet) run with Holacracy, and are looking for a place I am talking to you! If there is no better way to facilitate these connections, perhaps...
06/27/2016
99 Replies
Requesting Checklist and Matrices
Originally Posted by max588:Thanks Eric, I take that the role that it is request of needs to approve as well.Max, Right. If the role filler is already doing it anyway, then w/ the duty to bring transparency, that could be adding to tactical meeting checklist. However, if the recurring action is s...
08/30/2015
Setting up roles/circles
Samantha, With 17 people, you may want 2 circles to start. Get everyone a starting role w/ a purpose or accountability, or use Stephan's discovery process or something like that. 17 people is a pretty big GCC and can be unwieldy even if you have professional expert facilitation, so that is why I ...
08/28/2015
Humor in Holacracy?
I find that my humor is pretty much always present, and I can feel free to be myself and express it at different times...when the circle is comfortable enough to engage in process without feeling too scared or shut down about learning the rules...or even when they are, but we have a rapport. I ca...
09/04/2015
Anchor Circle Redux
Hey Keith - I think if you hold a governance meeting in your board, remove your highest sub circle, and then retain as a role if needed, plus retain all the policies and roles, that basically re-creates the appropriate anchor circle.You can rename Board and edit purpose, or whoever LL of Anchor c...
12/02/2015
Third Party Contractors - Partners?
I think de minimus role assignments for contractors and some onboarding for the close partners is my quick answer, though I appreciate Margaux and others have weighed in...
12/02/2015
Constitution Versions
Hi Keith, I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply faster! Sometimes it may seem that we have abandoned...I often wish I could prioritize more time on these forums.All you have to do is take whatever power that originally ratified the prior version, and they sign the new declation for the new versi...
12/02/2015
Process Breakdown in the Anchor Circle
What kind of process breakdown are you talking about? The facilitator of the circle can actually declare one. Is that an option? http://www.holacracy.org/constitution#352
12/02/2015
capacity and priorities in different circles
The lead link of a super circle can set priorities, but it is still up to role fillers to align to them and decide what and how to integrate that.See letter c for duty to align to circle goals: http://www.holacracy.org/constitution#413If a person is doing their best to align to priorities, then ...
12/02/2015
Constitution and Meeting Cards in Spanish
Frederik - I have heard form several others that they want to translate the constitution, etc. I am not aware of spanish speaking coaches, so if anyone does know of any I would love to know! It is a need we have not been able to fulfill ourselves.So I will promote this conversation among those w...
12/04/2015
cross link or rep link
You could start by creating a new role with the activities that you want to expect Anita. I'm being genuine here! Maybe it is a cross link or a rep link, but perhaps defining a custom role to help with this issue would be even more effective. I have seen other teams operating within a broader org...
12/10/2015
Anchor Circle Redux
Keith, I am not sure if you will lose access to the the history of your current Anchor Circle; there is a chance it may not be accessible after this move. I would write GlassFrog Customer Support if anything goes awry or now with that question if you haven't made the move yet! http://glassfrog.co...
12/13/2015
The role of works council
Gerald, I am so glad you are bringing this up. With limited hands on work in Europe I don't have much experience to draw on here.However, my generic thought is that we need an "app" that could even map the existing regulations and structures into an organization via roles and policies. This could...
12/13/2015
Roles vs. Business Functions
I also see roles as business functions. They can scale to as high level, large, or granular and small as you like. Even roles can "evolve" or mature over time, growing, and differentiating, and then splitting, or combining.
12/19/2015
The Dark Side: Firing in Holacracy
Frederik,I would say one aspect of Holacracy is that it allows you to separate out organizational fit and termination from just role fit / performance per se.A few practices/principles:No one person firesClear pathways for assessing a fit for the organization that may or may not result in an exit...
12/19/2015
Peer Rating via Reinventing Organisations
Yeah, guessing Eric is right; HolacracyOne's compensation system has been upgraded and perhaps that is why Brian didn't write about the old one in the Holacracy book. That was a process based comp system, which at least compensation was:determined by more than one personprocess was transparentinc...
12/19/2015
Peer Rating via Reinventing Organisations
I haven't been able to locate the spreadsheet, but if I do I will share Denis. Is it accurate that you are looking to devise a process for peer feedback rather than a compensation system?Can you say more about the tension if it is not compensation (the big bear!)? Maybe we can help in other ways ...
12/22/2015
Partner Relationships Domain?
My short answer is that part of the work of the organization is figuring out what agreements are needed of partners, and what roles, policies, etc. are needed for the organization to enact its purpose. There is a question for each organization to continually answer of what is the work of the orga...
12/22/2015
Process Breakdown in the Anchor Circle
I think Dennis is right - it depends on what kind of process breakdown. If from a failed Governance process then the circle facilitator declares and addresses.I haven't seen this play out (yet) where there is a type of process breakdown and no one able to address it.You could install an out of th...
12/22/2015
Anyone want to join HolacracyOne?
If anyone is interested, please fill out the form Brian linked above - that is the best way to formally express your intent! Thanks for your consideration.
12/22/2015
NEW Certified Holacracy Training Events
All!If you are working to implement Holacracy in your organization, or as an external coach, I cannot recommend our Coach Training enough.Here are some highlights and if you attended years ago (even just a couple), the design has changed for even more coaching time! We have an open Holacracy coac...
12/31/2015
NEW Certified Holacracy Training Events
So those in the United States wanting to get trained in the first part of 2016 should also consider heading to Amsterdam in March. Let me know if I can help you with your decision. It is a really worthwhile training with a supportive and skilled community of practice.
12/31/2015
Holacracy in a Union Shop
Al, I am not aware of that in the US yet, though I think Arca is probably entering into that territory in Italy if they have not already.There is also some ground work being laid in the Washington State government as we continue our work there, so we may know more later this year. I believe we c...
01/08/2016
Starting Holacracy with Small Department?
Here is a story about a similar situation: https://ocio.wa.gov/news/what-...cy-experience-so-far
01/26/2016
Lead link Role
Absolutely - and it can be a great exercise for them to articulate the roles that they are doing. Usually it is something, and not just manager. As Margaux said, it would be difficult to assign a Lead Link to someone who didn't fill key roles in the circle. It is also desirable to fill roles or b...
01/22/2016
Election Objections
There are very few objections that would actually be valid in my experience. Since as Facilitator, if one surfaces, you can simply remove that candidate, that is one way to handle it. In fact, I cant imagine a successful election objection unless a person who is nominated is objecting themselves ...
01/20/2016
How to quickly process governance tensions
Couple of brief thoughts Rob (aside from the slack idea, will respond later to that too):I would suggest sticking with the discipline of simply bringing up proposals as the fastest way forward to more efficiency along with stuff like using asynchronous proposals, and not necessarily "pitching" pr...
03/08/2016
Going Without A Lead Link
Question, as anyone questioned the existence of the circle itself? If there is really no need for LL-ing, then why have an additional circle? Making a proposal to dissolve the circle or re-shape it with the current context in mind could be a good way to get data about that. Distributing LL author...
03/23/2016
Going Without A Lead Link
Paul, I wasn't questioning the need for the work or the roles; just the circle in its current configuration. Circle boundaries can dramatically be reshaped over time based on new contexts...and if there is no need for a LL between the roles in the circle, then I question the circle (not the roles...
03/23/2016
Going Without A Lead Link
Paul, I am so glad you posted this here! First thought is that I love the experimentation. As long as you all continue to process tensions, then I would think you can weather the disruption of the experiment.Second thought is that I am really unsure how this is constitutional. Here is why: all c...
03/21/2016
Going Without A Lead Link
To Serge's point - in our GlassFrog team for example, the Product Manager role sets development priorities, not the LL...it could stay on LL or be defined on a more appropriate role, perhaps depending on fit for role, clarity of process, maturity of team, etc.
03/21/2016
Going Without A Lead Link
One other thought -- if you've literally delegated all functions to every role in the circle then each role has the autocratic authority to act like Lead Link in my view, so wonder how that would work in your circle, Paul... thoughts? So I can simply assign someone to a role, as if I were LL, or ...
03/21/2016
Time as a domain
This is a really good point Kevin; I remember something you all had that was kind of like a "sunset" clause that said when certain old policies would expire to help push those conversations along.Documenting roles and policies based on exactly where you are as a starting point is really good coac...
05/21/2016
Time as a domain
Carrie, I suggest incremental reframes or changes to the policies. You intuitively know this is reinforcing the prior paradigm. While this may be the case, I don't see anything necessarily invalid in constraining/restricting Lead Links from assigning people to a role until/unless something else h...
05/20/2016
Processing Tensions Around Shared Domains
You might try a circle policy instead of a domain Jenn, along with a role with accountabilities for supporting the space. This role could be multi filled or even filled by everyone.The policy could say "you may only use the play ground if you enlist the help of another (role name) and help clean ...
05/25/2016
Reusable roles
Roberto, I think a company wide policy would be fine, if you truly have a tension about needing certain aspects to be included as a standardized practice.I like minimum or even starting requirements, allowing the sub circles to have plenty of autonomy to restructure as needed.I would not do this ...
05/31/2016
Legal adoption of Holacracy in France
Fabian: Yes, the CEO or "power holder(s)" who ratify / decide to adopt Holacracy retain the right to change that decision.Most organizations will make an "operational adoption" to try Holacracy within the organization before even considering a legal adoption. Until this happens, then sure the rat...
06/04/2016
Holacracy in creative environments
Koen: Many teams think that their team is special, and that Holacracy will not work for them. Setting the expectation that it will take 6+ months to give it a fair try will help.Consider Zappos, where many teams are "creative" and doing brand work, marketing, even party planning, etc. and all sor...
06/04/2016
Responsibilities of Role Filling
This is really common Jenn for organizations to realize they want to be more clear and have more transparency into what work is getting committed to and done. This issue is often brought to light when organizations implement Holacracy, and I think the best approach is to provide whatever educatio...
06/13/2016
Facilitator as Proposer
Keith, Using your judgment with the constitution as your guide is what I would say. If as the elected facilitator you think you are the best fit to facilitate, then that is your call (in absence of any policies to the contrary). Handing off facilitation of a proposal or part of a proposal is done...
07/24/2016
Modifying the tactical meeting process
Margaux, That "scrum" app is just one possibility, and a minimalistic version. I think the answer to #2 is no if you are talking about the tactical, in whatever format, yet there is an answer that helps you with this.#1 - I say yes. My interpretation is that you don't even need a policy to modify...
09/25/2016
Authority lead link
Cathy, Here is a quick answer for another perspective, even though it sounds like you will talk with Bernard Marie...I tend to want to investigate why-- what happened, why are they not followed, is it a pattern, or a one off thing? Do people know about the policies? Often more tension processing,...
09/25/2016
Can I include a condition in a domain ?
Xavier: I think you can go either way, as long as the domain is an activity or process that you want to "exclusively" control; I am not sure if that would be a valid domain as written, as I wonder "what is the activity or property you are looking to control".... one time we had a domain which was...
10/05/2016
McClelland model and Holacracy
I would love to see people practices around Belbin type roles, talents, types, styles, etc. I think these practices could be helpful for Holacracy implementations, though care is needed to make sure explicit agreement is achieved to use them or else make sure there are no implicit expectations. W...
11/29/2016
Holacracy and Liberating Structures.
I have started exploring this book thanks to [@mention:450819477778576386] and have found a few processes promising for purpose exploration, retrospectives, learning processes, and strategy so far. I think it is really promising Andrea...I dont have the book with me, so all for now. Glad to hear ...
12/12/2016
Niklas Luhmann´s System Theory
Elena, I am familiar with Luhmann and also don't recommend that people read him ha, -- not easy reading! However it does speak to the self replicating nature of systems, and it sheds light on the difficulty we have when changing our relational or social dynamics / systems. Holacracy creates a na...
01/03/2017
Holacracy and B-corps
Also, I wonder if [@mention:452086181435829042] or [@mention:452086181438481077] know about this question you are raising [@mention:452086181438015612].
01/15/2017
Too small to start?
Hi Fajar: I agree with everything Margaux says, and want to underscore that it is not easy...though it can be easier to have success on a small team instead of at a larger scale. You can sign up for GlassFrog Premium and use the habit program content to help you in addition to training.https://gl...
03/31/2017
Policy overruling Constitution
Xavier,Yes, I would coach people as such: Is it right to say that no policy can override the constitution unless specified in the constitution itself ?Only the ratifiers have the authority to make constitutional amendments as Margaux points out. In most organizations the anchor circle is not the ...
04/01/2017
SOC 2 Compliance
Geoff, I have had organizations needing to comply with various auditing or other standards. I recommend to start out with a role that can champion and implement what is needed regarding this. Then you have the issue of needing to encode anything you want to expect into governance. Hope you will k...
11/27/2017
Optional accountability
If you have an accountability that says... "Optionally responding to community of practice posts" then I agree it is both redundant and doesn't do anything except confuse the issue since one always reviews accountabilities, acts if appropriate, and then prioritizes those potential actions.If it i...
11/27/2017
A New Management Library
Jeffrey, In the past few years, I reference this one. It supplements Holacracy nicely without ever referencing it. Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Building Leaders by Breaking the Rules, Book by L. David Marquet
12/04/2017
Taking Questions
Geoff, a few thoughts, since tactical meetings should feel open enough and like easy wins often, then I am glad you are inquiring into approaches here, to not unnecessarily /unproductively shut things down...if the person wants to take questions, then it sounds like an invitation for questions o...
05/17/2018