Empowering for holacracy

Empowering for holacracy

There’s a ghost going around management theories. It’s holacracy knocking on your door and telling you, you need it to make your organization ready for the 21st Century. For some holacracy is the future of organizations for others the sure downfall. Let’s start by looking at what holacracy actually means. Holacracy means that organizations do not use hierarchical organization charts but instead give their employees the power to take leadership through responsibility and accountability. Pretty much the dream of every CEO isn’t it? Imagine a business that is run by highly dedicated employees who take responsibility for their areas of expertise and run them with a focus on accountability.

Pretty great news also for employees. Research finds that more than 83% of knowledge workers today feel disengaged at work. What better way to re-engage them than giving employees the power to create meaning, purpose and control of their daily work.

And they lived happily ever after. This would be the end of this blogpost if there wouldn’t be one pioneering company that is leading the way to holacracy: Zappos. News however report, that in less than a year 18% of the company’s’ employees have opted for severance packages and left. Money over meaning? Now, why do employees choose to leave the company that would give them seemingly what every employee dreams of?

One theory is that only small, start-ups can change their management style. Pretty bad news for established companies. You will have to keep on working like you do forevermore. Critics point out that all is nice and well when things are fine but how does holacracy fare during times of crisis? Clear roles are needed in order to know who proverbially speaking will hold the fire-hose and who will drive the truck.

On the other hand, Zappos’ CEO, Tony Hsieh, himself points out that while a lot of employees are leaving the company they still have a basis of highly skilled professionals who will lead the way in creating the new management style.

We’d like to offer a third approach. It is common sense that change never is easy. In personal life, we experience it every January when we as a New Year’s resolution decide to regularly work out again. Nowadays there are luckily apps that can help us create those healthy habits. If only there would be apps out there that support holacracy the same way.

In fact there are. Fingertip believes that all organizations can become holacratic and Fingertip can help create this as a habit. The statement is that every one is a decision maker and that decisions are made on all levels of an organization.

●     Fingertip empowers every employee to create decision proposals and to decide about these proposals.

●     Fingertip operates with the clear roles of RACI that manage responsibility and accountability and we provide a transparent work environment that is built on trust. In other words, we the decision as to who will drive the firetruck and who will put out the fire is built in into Fingertip.

●     Fingertip creates decision specific teams based on the needs of that specific decision. So, people, skills and information are gathered to work on a problem, to find the best solution and to execute it.

●     Fingertip promotes rotating leadership by knowledge. This means the one with the most skills in one area will become the CEO of it.

Organizations will develop the way they work and it is now time for technology companies to find ways to support this new way of working through their innovations.  We all have fears when it comes to change but let’s try to focus on turning fear into opportunities. What is the biggest opportunity you see in working in a holacratic organization?