Open Integral

Brian Robertson explains that in holacracy the “free will” of an organization is what governs, not the people in the organization. However the people in the organization will have perceive the organization’s will by “allowing this transpersonal space to arise often and easily for organizational steering.” (1)

The usual consent process in sociocracy allows for reasonable and paramount objections, but presumably the standard for such objections in holacracy is the “transpersonal,” or an altitute higher than rationality. And here we have the crux of the situation: Who decides what is the requisite transpersonal altitute to be able to determine the will of the organization and what is an acceptable objection?

This was discussed in an I-I forum and Peter Merry asked a similar question. (2) He wondered how holacracy would deal with a “closed” green objection to a yellow proposal, as they simply cannot see what is best for the organization, i.e., they don’t have the transpersonal signified to see its “will.” He concludes the following:

“at some point has to draw the line, or else you end up going round in circles. someone has to say – ‘we have heard you, got the essence of the objection, integrated it, and are now going to move on. if you cannot live with this, then you can choose to leave this group.’”

It seems we’ll inevitabley have someone(s) speaking for the “highest” altitude and intepreting others’ objections relative to their intepretation. And is the leader’s intepretations based on some outside evaluation of altitude? Or is it just an internal, circular process? Are such leaders elected to those positions or were they self-chosen? Can they be elected out or is election by consent not valid if those not consenting (objecting) are deemed of insufficent altitude to make such decisions? What if some outside source deemed the objecting parties to be of sufficient altitude? What if this whole notion of having a sufficient altitude to intepret correctly the will of the organization is itself just another manifestation of the hegemonic application of the myth of the given and speaking for God or the Ultimate Reality?

Oops, does that mean I’m green for asking the questions or raising the objections?

1. http://holacracy.org/?page=about_intro

2. http://multiplex.integralinstitute.org/Public/cs/forums/thread/12122.aspx 

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