Edward:
Holacracy is a new form of governance that includes a number of other systems like sociocracy. The “will” of the organization governs and not the human members. The latter must in fact intuit the former and come into accord with it. Brian Robertson is the creator of holacracy. Or is it that holacracy is the creator of Brian? Brian describes it per below.
From http://integralvisioning.org/article.php?story=br-holacracy
“From the root ‘holarchy,’ holacracy means governance by the organizational entity itself – not governance by the people within the organization or by those who own the organization, as in all previous systems of governance, but by organization’s own ‘free wil.’ With Holacracy in place, the natural consciousness of an organization is freed to emerge and govern itself, steering the organizational entity towards its own telos, shaping itself to its own natural order. Every organization has its own individual ‘voice,’ entirely and radically different from the voices of the people associated with the organization – just as the organization persists even as individuals come and go, so too does its voice. The subtle sound of the organizational voice is always there, struggling to tell us its needs and pursue its own purpose in the world, but it is usually hidden by a cacophony of human ego. It can be heard sometimes when individuals come together in a transpersonal space – a space beyond ego, beyond fear, beyond hope, and beyond desire – to sense and facilitate the emergence of whatever needs to emerge now. Holacracy requires that this transpersonal space arise often and easily for organizational steering, and the many aspects of Holacracy all aim to facilitate this level of human dynamics.”
You can learn more at www.holacracy.org
Hi Edward,
You asked me what I thought of Holacracy. I’ve now had a chance to scan some of the concepts and it seems fine as an organizational principle, but it left me somewhat uneasy. I’ve now put my finger on that unease. It all hinges on a concept called ‘the limits of tolerance’. Under the consent model a decision is made if it is withion the limits of tolerance. To be more specific, any objection to a decision must indicate taht the decision will take the organization outside the limits of tolerance, if it does not do so it is not considered.
This then places an enormous burden on defining the limits of tolerance and this is the weak spot. I was pleased to read that Robertson has made social responsibility one of the limits on his organization. But what kind of social responsibility is he talking about? Does holarcracy include the voices of stakeholders and people affected by the organization’s activities? Do the circles of interest extend beyond the organization?
I was frankly disturbed by the idea that an organization might have its own individual voice. I thought organizations were simply tools. There is a danger in any organization becoming simply self-perpetuating. But a voice? Let’s not anthropomorphize organizations.
This also takes us to the question of social holons. I don’t believe their are social holons. Any organization is simply a heap of holons/individuals. All purpose and meaning is derived from the members of the organization.
Finally, suppose al Qaeda decided to run itself using holarcracy? Isn’t this more or less how it operates already? A voice that is no longer under the control of its creators but which now inspires independent cells. And what happens when then are two or more competing holarcracies, say a US centred oil company competing against a Chinese oil company for the rights to African oil. What if bribing the tinpot dictator and his cronies is within the ‘limits of tolerance’?
Ray
There is an edited transcript at the following link of Brian’s audio presentation on consent. It discusses some of the ideas you bring up. It might not completely answer your questions but it might fill in a couple of them a bit.
http://www.sociocracyinaction.ca/transcript.htm
I’m moving Ray’s questions to the forum so that we can discuss this. Please participate there, thanks.
Which forum is that? (please forgive my ignorance)
On the right hand side of this blog (on the front page) are a list of options, one of which is “forums.” Click and there’s a thread called holacracy.
Art and Maggie Dutton of Sociocracy in Action had a phone conversation with Brian Robertson and it was transcribed at the following link:
http://www.sociocracyinaction.ca/InterviewBrian.html