Does anyone really care? A few of us asked what was up with the ad for a CEO at I-I. Here’s some more (old now already) news on further staff leaving I-I, in droves apparently. Is this holacracy at work? Yo, wassup?
http://www.vincenthorn.com/2006/11/27/integral-institute-ceo-drama/#comment-193615
Neo Says:
November 30th, 2006 at 10:58 am ÂÂ
Not only did the CEO resign, the COO was fired, the Marketing Director, Art Director, Customer Service Manager, ILP Kit Product Manager and Media Manager walked out with more considering it. What could this mean?
From what I have heard and I live with an I-I employee is that last week Ken had another I’m a badass Wyatt Earp type of days and basically fired both the CEO & COO, (the CEO would have been fired if he hadnt resigned). Ken is a crazy micromanager who really is pretty insane to deal with on a daily basis and the drama was too much for some people, including Steve who confronted Ken about it, sort of the genesis of it all.
The other unnerving part about all of this is how Ken played out the internal conflict, he presented it as a calculated momentous change on a conf call to I-I backers and then announced an I-I mega conference in Denver next year.
My respect for I-I has further plummeted because of this unsettling news, I am begining to doubt that it will survive and if it does it will be severely flawed in the way it operates, the level of transparency is shockingly low for a “second tier” organization.
PS: Did anyone find that Turquoise CEO part as funny as I did? C’mon Ken hire yourself already, you know you want to!
[A post-technologial/post-human future.
Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies - I
by Debashish on Sat 02 Dec 2006 02:24 AM PST ]
http://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2006/12/2/2543457.html#793102
Jason, I heard that I-I was instituting Brian Robertson’s holacracy governance paradigm. Didn’t they do that? It’s not supposed to be about autocratic rule. Do you know if they scrapped that program? And if not, I’d love to hear how holacracy justifies this type of sovereignty. Are you out there Brian?
It seems like although Ken is advertising for a “turquoise CEO” I-I already has one; himself. He formally isn’t, but based on the information of the last days you can deduct he does act like one. From a management point of view that will be the source of a lot of problems. Any experienced CEO would think twice before stepping into such a problematic situation.
And although I tend not to use spiral dynamics anymore because of the way I see it misused I cannot resist to comment here that Ken’s style of management (seen from the distance I am at) looks more blue or red then turquoise…..
Hi Folks,
A quick clarification about Holacracy and I-I:
I-I was indeed in the early phases of adopting Holacracy (they still weren’t fully up-to-speed, but they were steadily learning). Every one of the day-to-day management and staff whom I spoke with during a visit last month (a good majority of the staff) were quite excited about it’s potential to do some good at I-I, including many of the folks who left and many of the folks still there. Regarding recent events, Holacracy had not been put in place at the Board level at all (at least not yet), so what happened recently was not a result of a Holacratic practice – it was outside Holacracy’s structure. I’m also not sure where things stand now; I haven’t yet had an opportunity to get a pulse on what’s going on over there presently.
Cheers!
- Brian Robertson
Brian: Thanks for responding. A legitimate question appears to be can holacracy work in an organization where one person has complete and absolute decision-making authority and micro-manages everyone else? I’ve read that Ken will adopt holacracy but it must be “changed” to accomodate a “full” AQAL system. Meaning his interpretaton of integral, which is defined by his absolute authority.
It seems ironic that you developed holacracy in part from using Ken’s model but that it probably won’t work at I-I unless it is “transformed” into something else entirely. Time will tell. In any event I laud you for developing holacracy and I-I (not synomymous with Ken) for wanting to implement it. Let’s hope it “works” for the sake of the integral movement, as I-I, like it or not, is in the public eye as the vanguard test case.
C’mon folks, is this a joke? A true turquoise CEO wouldn’t go near I-I. Ken understands turquoise intellectually but that is not his personal level of development. What Ken wants is for I-I to be the vehicle for his work. To be honest he should change it from I-I to the KW Institute and that would be perfectly legitimate and okay by me. But let’s cut the hyperbole about it being integrative – it’s not, it’s exclusive. It’s a one-man show.
The former CEO of I-I, Steve Frazee, has posted a letter at the same site that Edward started this thread with:
http://vincenthorn.com/
And next to that Steve started to give more further background information on his Zaadz account:
http://frazee.zaadz.com/blog/2006/12/integral_university_fact_or_fiction
He comes across like a mature, stable guy who saw the difference between Ken the genius writer and Ken the unable, problematic manager and made his conclusions and resigned from I-I.
After reading Steve’s Zaadz post and comments I am grateful to Steve for the transparancy. Commentators note that in “regular” business such disputes between owner and CEO should remain private, that it’s none of our business. But I thought integral was NOT about “regular” business from a lower level? Should not day to day business be available to all, not only in the company but outside it? I say YES from the so-called integral perspective and I for one thank Steve for having the integrity (part of being integral) to do so and please keep up the good work.
And then there’s the issue of Ken’s health. I for one, and I think most of us in general (but you can speak for yourselves) feel deeply for Ken and hope the best for him personally. But to suggest that he cannot be criticized for his leadership fiasco because of his illness is lame in the extreme and further indicative of fusing your lines and/or quadrants instead of differentiating them. I say: Go AQAL yourself! And get well soon Ken.
I think so too, Edward. The I-I is publicly claiming to be the first real integral organisation and by being open about it’s successes AND its failures the whole integral community can learn. And although I cannot really see if Steve isn’t throwing dirt, from my point of view he doesn’t seem to. I also wish Ken all the healing he can get to return to good health again.
“fusing your lines and/or quadrants”
AND/OR………………..? fusing???? LOL.