Comments on: Holacracy

By: Edward Berge

Edward Berge — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:18:00 +0000

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

By: Edward Berge

Edward Berge — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:01:18 +0000

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.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:47:39 +0000

Which forum is that? (please forgive my ignorance)

By: Edward

Edward — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:08:14 +0000

I’m moving Ray’s questions to the forum so that we can discuss this. Please participate there, thanks.

By: Edward

Edward — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:23:43 +0000

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

By: ray

ray — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 07:27:43 +0000

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