My first Holacracy Governance meeting

Yesterday I attended my first Governance meeting at Evolving Organisation. It was everything I expected it to be.

As Website Manager, I'd taken in the suggestion that we needed to refresh our brand for a new website. I felt that the branding shouldn't be owned by the Website Manager as it's really sits across the business as a whole, being present in every touch point, such as business cards, presentations etc.

So I raised a tension, and it got processed into a Brand Guardian role. And today I'm energising that role. And I find myself thinking about the wider implications of rebranding rather than what would be in the best interests of Website Manager.

It took about 5 minutes to define the new role and another 5 to process a tension that was raised against it. The impact on our business that took just ten minutes to integrate could be huge.

At the end of the meeting, our Facilitator, Nick, asked if we have everything we needed. My initial answer wanted to be NO, but I realised before it came out of my mouth that I have everything I need to take the next couple of steps forward. And that's all I need.

And I can't go wrong. Energising the new role might well create tensions in people but we all know that they'll get processed into useful change soon enough.

The Brand Guardian role is 'good enough'. It may well be unrecognisable in a few months from its original incarnation and all the better for it.

The power of Holacracy simply blows me away.

How does change get processed in your business?

An exhausting week

It's been a manic week for me at Evolving Organisation. It's really my first week in. I've found myself putting in a huge amount of energy and I'm exhausted.

I ask myself whether this is good. I'm energised but I'm not grounded. Maybe it's like the first flush of love.

The best metaphor I have is being  dumped, unexpectedly, on the most beautiful tropical island.

You would spend some time getting orientated, finding food, water, shelter first and I suspect that would be pretty draining. Getting what's needed to sustain life.

Soon enough, you'd be sitting under your palm leaf shelter, with the waves lapping over your feet supping on  a fresh coconut.

Holacracy: there's gonna be a whole lot a pain right?

A recurring thread in my musings around implementing Holacracy is that it’s going to be damn painful for some folks; particularly for those transitioning to Holacracy from a traditional organisational model.

A key feature of Holacracy is that it enables (read forces) clear separation of roles from the people who fill them. In his book ‘Holacracy: The Revolutionary Management System that Abolishes Hierarchy’, Brian Robertson refers to this as “separating roles from souls”.

You are not what you do. The great majority of people, I’d hasten to bet, have wedded their identities quite firmly to their occupational behaviours.

And, I’d wager that most people when asked the question ‘Who are you?’ would respond with their profession with responses like ‘I’m a fireman’ or ‘I’m a business analyst’.

You’ll see it with actors - particularly those on a long running series - when interviewed. Some refer to ‘I’ when actually they should be referring to the character's name. They’ve linked the behaviour of acting out a character to their own identity.

People that have done this and then lose their job or retire can often become depressed. They lose their identity when they no longer do (or get recognised) for the thing they use to do.

Try it yourself. I know if I try to answer the question without using references to what I do it kind of leaves me feeling a little bit of a void.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not laying blame for people wiring their brains wrong - I think it’s a pretty common case in our current state of evolution. We’re all at it until we become sufficiently self-aware.

And it’s going to be tough if people don’t have some useful thinking strategies to hand.

Which leads me to NLP and the useful tools and models for managing your own thinking that it provides.

One tool in particular is the ‘Logical Levels’ model by Robert Dilts. It defines 6 layers of self.

• Spirit (or purpose): A collective space, greater than ourselves. What we are here for. What we are a shared part of.
• Identity: Who are we. We all have a sense of identity nestled in there somewhere. 
• Values and Beliefs: What we hold to be true. What we value. These are key influences on what motivates (and demotivates) us. 
• Capabilities: Our skills. What we know how to do. 
• Behaviour: What are we doing. The acting of using our skills in our environment. 
• Environment: Where we are. Where we do the things we do. 

I’ve experienced a whole host of techniques built around this model and I can see many of them coming to the fore as we build the new mindsets needed for organisational models like Holacracy.

That said, if you insist in linking your identity to your profession, I guess you could unhinge the job title or role and refer to yourself as an ‘energiser of roles’. Maybe. Try that at the next BBQ, see how it goes.

Here's why you should care about Holacracy

This article is by Adam Pisoni, co-founder and former CTO of Yammer. He is also a founder of Responsive.org, a new movement dedicated to helping companies become more agile, adaptive and empowering.

It's such a thoughtfully put together piece on why Holacracy is so significant. And why you should be interested.

http://firstround.com/review/heres-why-you-should-care-about-holacracy/

Springest recorded their Holacracy tactical meeting

This is great. The people at Springest have put this great little video together from their weekly tactical meeting. 

If, like me, you're looking for references of Holacracy in action then you'll appreciate this.

I've suggested that we do the same at Evolving Organisation, so maybe we'll have one to share shortly too.

https://youtu.be/12KBvyJlwxA

The journey begins ...

I have a background as an entrepreneur having co-founded a number of businesses: my largest and probably the greatest learning curve being a £16m software consultancy that I started when I was 27 and left ten years later. I’ve also worked independently as a facilitator, mentor, executive coach and even a phobia therapist.

The truth is since leaving the software consultancy I’ve been rather stuck between a rock and a hard place. I’m a lousy employee because I need to be personally accountable and empowered and most companies that I’ve worked for could never provide this and the prospect of building another business left me feeling emotionally drained. And until recently I didn’t know why.

You see, when I was building the software consultancy my instinct said build it around the people. I wanted to create empowered people, empowered teams. I wanted my staff to love their jobs and work for the fulfillment and purpose that it gave them. I knew that I shouldn’t be at the top, leading from the top.

All the ‘experienced’ people around me said build it according to a traditional management structure. Unfortunately instinct didn’t manifest into a tangible argument for going the people route and neither were there concrete examples of how you could build a competitive, profitable, people focused business and I’m disappointed to say that I relented and did it the traditional way.

I was never happy with that decision and I eventually left because of it. That time has stuck with me ever since and I’ve been quietly kicking myself in the pants that I didn’t trust my instincts all along.

They say that emotions stay with you until you extract the learning from them. I had to wait 10 years for the learning to arrive. And that learning came in the form of a book called Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux. When I read about his Evolutionary Teal organisations it rocked my world. It was just the kind of thing I had been striving for.

I realise now that 10-15 years ago there were no concrete models for building an organisation like my instinct said I should. I would have had to invent it myself. Maybe that was my calling in life. Anyway - I missed that one!

My light bulb moment was suddenly realising that the many interests and frustrations of my life to date coalesced into a calling: to rescue the workplace. Knowing that there were concrete models available made all the difference. I could see how my experience in business and technology and my on-going interest in personal development and work as a coach and therapist would come together.

I went onto discover Holacracy and I’m now determined to become an expert in this field.

I’m now a visiting partner at Evolving Organisation, a Holacracy training and consulting company in the UK - which of course uses Holacracy as their organisation model. My plan is to cut my teeth here and progress to a Holacracy Practitioner and then onto a Holacracy coach.  And I’d like to see EO create opportunities for me to work on the front line of organisational change.

This blog is my journey. My opportunity to share my learning and learn from my readers.

I hope you find it useful.