It's a really interesting shift though from today where our culture idolizes these heroic super hero leaders. You know, ironically that gets in the way of others in the organization being a hero in their piece of it. And it makes the organization addicted to its CEO. And it's no wonder we see skyrocketing CEO pay and all of these other issues, when we treat them as these superheroes and the company couldn't possible survive without them at the helm. But imagine if we did that to our kids. Where would our next generation be if we looked at our children that way. I think holacracy invites CEOs into a different relationship with their company. It takes, ironically, the ultimate heroic act. The last heroic act of that superhero CEO is often to let go of power into a process that will distribute power and hold it better than the CEO will. Kind of like the last heroic act of a monarch might be to adopt a constitution and allow self organization in society as opposed to top down autocratic rule.
Rob: What you describe as holacracy or Koestler describes as holarchy sounds a lot like systems theory, what's the relationship between systems theory and holacracy.
BR: Well it's certainly heavily informed by and I think holacracy is treating a company as a whole system, with all of the key elements and aspects of systems and also enabling it to act more like a whole system and kind of work at that level. That's the way nature systems work anyway. What holacracy has done, whereas Koestler introduced the concept of a holarchy as a type of structure, holacracy has built the processes around it that you need to have a company actually embody that. It's one thing to go from principles - just to take principles and say we want a company that has more autonomy but what does that actually mean?
What holacracy has added is a tangible set of rules, there's a constitution for holacracy that spells out rules of the game for actually doing this, for distributing a governance process that allows each team to self organize and decision methods and rules that allow each team to structure itself. And distribute authority and autonomy. I think that's the key addition there that the system of holacracy has added, it's not just a type of structure it's actually processes wrapped around it to enact it.
Rob: Talk a little bit more about the constitution, people think of the constitution of the United States. How is it similar and different? I did one interview with a team that analyzed 150 plus national constitutions to look at their similarities and differences and they found that 40 years ago the US constitution was the one that everybody copied but not anymore. So explain the idea of the holacracy constitution and how it is similar or different from a national constitution.
BR: There are some parallels and definitely some differences. If you think of what constitutions first did back when, take the founding of the US for example, there was a desire to move away from the rule of a monarch of an autocratic ruler who has unlimited authority to interfere into the lives of people and to allow more autonomy, more freedom, more self organization. If you want to do that, you've got to put power somewhere. I think that was the interesting challenge that the founding fathers faced and their answer was this idea of a constitutional protection. The constitution was there to enshrine some basic freedoms, some basic rights. It also provided a rule set so that the people knew the fundamental law of the land, if you will, instead of residing in a king, resided in a document.
In that sense that's very similar to what happens in a company that uses the holacracy constitution. Instead of the ultimate power of the company resting with the CEO who's kind of above the law, with holacracy the ultimate power rests in a constitutional process which means a document that everyone can go look at. To use another metaphor, in a game or sport or something like that you kind of don't want the coach or ref or worse the team captain making up the rules as they go. You want to know that we're all playing by the same rules, and those are rules people can reference and have a conversation about them if they need to. And that's what holacracy's constitution enables in a company. it gives you a law of the land so that the heroic CEO can release power into something other than just total chaos. The CEO can say " This rule-set, this is now the rules of the game, this is how we're going to organize and I"m bound by the rules just like everyone else."
It really shifts the nature of power in the company in a pretty major way when anyone can turn to the CEO and remind them at times "Wait a minute, you don't have the power to make that decision" or sometimes I'll see in my organization, I might be one of the founders but when I get a little too actively involved-- I'm a recovering micro-manager-- when I get a little to involved in somebody else's work, they will sometimes remind me, "Wait a minute, you know that's actually mine judgement call to make, not yours" and it's pretty remarkable when people can have that level of autonomy. What allows them to do that comfortable is they know I've said "Look this constitution is the rules of the game at our company and I want to be held to these rules just like everyone else." It kind of enshrines empowerment into the basic core structure, which is one of the ironies, there's a lot of talk of empowerment in businesses today, but one of the ironies of it is, if you need a heroic leader to empower you, you're kind of in a disempowering system. What holacracy does is allow those empowering leaders to say, you don't even need leaders to empower you anymore, there's a constitution that protects your basic power in this organization, and that also defines some responsibilities because power can't come without accountability and without alignment. So it kind of puts all of that together in an overall rule-set.
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