What we use (and don't) from holacracy

What we use (and don't) from holacracy

We integrated some tools from holacracy first in 2014, then in 2016 after a 1 day training on holacracy. Against all external advice we decided to NOT adopt the entire constitution, our guts just told us "no", and finally in 2017 we discovered Sociocracy 3.0 in a training and why our gut said no. Long life sociocracy!

What we currently use:

  • Defining the purpose of roles and circles

  • Glassfrog

  • Creating and attributing roles to people

  • Evolving roles: the roles change and the people filling the roles change

  • The Lead Link holds the responsibility of ensuring the circle enacts its purpose and that there is a good fit between people and roles

  • "Governance" means relating to roles

  • The differentiation between governance (role) and tactical (operational) questions (addressed in different meetings)

  • Our governance and tactical meetings agendas are inspired by holacracy's format - we must admit that our governance works pretty well and we don't need anymore many governance meetings ;-)

  • Having a clearly defined facilitator, note taker (secretary)

  • Consent & integrative decision making processes

What we currently don't use:

  • 100% of the constitution's rules (we have not signed it)

  • Rep Links: we tried using them for a while in our super governance sessions but the habit has kind of been dropped. Instead we used the quarterly meeting to address supercircle issues with whoever was there.

  • Cross links

  • Permanent secretary and facilitator roles: we rotate this role and decide who does it at the beginning of the meeting.

  • We have not really adapted holacracy for our volunteer teams who decide to work as they wish

In case you are wondering what some of these words mean, you can check out this holacracy glossary.

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