
Zappos is going holacratic: no job titles, no managers, no hierarchy (2013) - ASquare
http://qz.com/161210/zappos-is-going-holacratic-no-job-titles-no-managers-no-hierarchy/
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autokad
I found this helpful:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/01/15/making-s...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/01/15/making-
sense-of-zappos-and-holacracy/)

there are job titles, there are managers, and there is of course hierarchy.
its just different.

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gingerlime
Thanks for the link!

This quote sums it up for me

> In fact, to an outsider, it is a wonder that anyone in a holacracy ever
> masters these detailed procedures without the help of a resident lawyer, or
> that people ever have time to get anything done and deliver value to
> customers, given the time and effort needed to master and comply with these
> immensely complicated internal procedures.

I tried reading the original post, some links, holacracy.org, watched some
videos. Had a look at the constitution[0].

It all sounds terribly confusing and complicated. Maybe if you're in this, it
makes more sense. To me as a total outsider I couldn't make any, even though
the metaphors sound sensible.

[0] [http://holacracy.org/constitution](http://holacracy.org/constitution)

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coreyh14444
Interesting, but this is 9 months old.

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dang
Good catch. We added the date to the title.

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programminggeek
There will be a lot of interesting learning to come out of this. I'm not sure
if it is better or just different. Perhaps it's better because it IS
different.

At some point companies have to try it and see what works and what doesn't.
Interesting to see Zappos do that.

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bane
Good, now they'll just suffer under the tyranny of the informal de-facto
organizational structure. Now instead of getting work done, people will
dedicate their time to internal politics and jostling for group position.

The best part is that issues are usually resolved by either those who can yell
the loudest or most deftly maneuver the wild-west political environment.
Survival for those not at the top means finding the dominant group think and
ensuring membership in that group, preferably under a patron you provide
favors to in exchange for ensuring membership in the strongest group in the
office. As an employee, over the long wrong, this kind of organization is a
nightmare, where to next for my career? What happens when I leave, what do I
put on my resume to demonstrate increasing skills and levels of
responsibility? Even worse, wait until you get a few conspiratorial bad actors
in the organization and now there's nobody who can cut that cancer out of the
organization and get things working right again.

I'm sure Hsieh is going to enjoy working in shipping or filing when the alpha
male and his coterie comes knocking on the corner office. I'm sure salaries,
bonuses and other pay structure will be flattened out across the board.

Oh wait

>CEOs who sign on to Holacracy agree to cede some level of power.

So there's still a CEO

> It’s not leaderless. There are certainly people who hold a bigger scope of
> purpose for the organization than others.

Oh I see.

So what this is is one of those organizational plans that _denies_
organizational structure while still formally observing one. So not only do
you get all the downsides of the informal organizational structure, you aren't
even aware that there is a formal one until you get slapped across the
paycheck for not observing it.

And how are decision made in a holacracy? _reads up on holacracy (oh my god I
haven 't seen such vague handwavy nonsense since my cousin tried to get my mom
hooked on healing through crystal vibrations_, well they don't quite come out
and say it, but it appears to be through layers of committees. If one
committee is bad for making quick, agile, well reasoned decisions, imagine
fractal layers of nested committees. It makes congress look like a well
functioning organization.

This all sounds vaguely familiar _reads up more on the topic_...oh yeah
"autonomous work teams". Yeah...those. That worked great the last 5 times it
was tried at any kind of scale.

I remember working for a "title-free flat organization" once. I was managing a
contract with an outside firm and during a meeting, I introduced myself as the
program manager for this work. After the meeting my CEO took me aside and said
that she really objected to me using the term "manager" when representing
myself. I noted that what I called myself was an industry normal term and the
other organization needed that as a communication token. She insisted that in
our company nobody had such hierarchical titles. I told her I objected that we
were being thought of as faceless replaceable cogs in the company and offered
to switch jobs with one of the new interns if we really were flat or were just
pretending. The next week I received my business cards with "Program Manager"
on the card. Three months later we started introducing titles again when
issues in development were being left unresolved because nobody could assume
the role of dictator and push through needed work prioritization schedules --
people had literally just stopped working on the product and started working
on personal interest pet projects.

The best part is when this all falls apart, the One True Scottsman will come
out of the highlands and proclaim that holacracy was not well implemented in
this organization and that's why it failed. The impossibly vague materials
available on how it works ensures this.

Here's a decent writeup on what Holacracy _actually_ is, in favorable terms.
You'll note it appears to basically be a conference system, designed to get
$4k out of conference participants while also ensuring it's vague enough that
they have to come to the conference 2 or 3 times to "get it."
[http://organizationalphysics.com/2014/03/09/an-inside-
look-a...](http://organizationalphysics.com/2014/03/09/an-inside-look-at-
holacracy/)

It also appears to be a revision and rebranding of a previously described
organizational theory called Sociocracy
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy)

interesting debate on this here in the comments
[http://www.sociocracy.info/holacracy-
sociocracy/](http://www.sociocracy.info/holacracy-sociocracy/)

An oft cited big company that successfully uses this model is Gore. You can
read the reviews on Glassdoor about what the problems employees have with the
company [http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/W-L-Gore-
Reviews-E3044.htm](http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/W-L-Gore-
Reviews-E3044.htm)

Here's some highlights from just the first couple pages:

\- "things move somewhat slowly"

\- "Something of a popularity contest at times, the feedback you receive can
be quite inaccurate and harsh. The culture is both an asset and a
hindrance...Need to bring in some experienced persons and start running like a
normal company."

\- "Good ole boy system in place."

\- "Change is not welcome - older employees tend to fear new ideas that are
being brought onto the table. "

\- "Waiting on people to continue with your projects can take a very long
time"

\- "Not much room for advancement if you start in manufacturing."

\- "-No work life balance for those in operations (professional and production
associates) due to no processes, backups, or proper business planning. This is
a direct reflection of poor/incompetent leadership...Not a quality driven
company. Most products I had experience with cannot be made the same way twice
and product specs are vague at best..."

\- "The most nepotistic company I have ever had the experience working at in
my career."

\- "Good ol’ boys network is alive and well at Gore along with the friends and
family plan. “Successful” leaders have at least 3+ family members working
within Gore"

\- "Firefighting is rewarded and encouraged. 99% of these fires would be
avoided if they had a clue about a quality culture."

\- "Career development is a joke."

\- "The Lattice “Flat” structure is real within Gore but there are lattice
layers with stairs between the layers (those that have the access to the
stairs are good ol’ boys and are well connected)."

\- "Difficult to quickly make decisions"

\- "office politics,...more who you know not what you know"

So, decisions by committee make things move slowly (no duh), nepotism and
informal power structures dominate, quality culture is low, lack of direction,
business planning, leaders are those that can rally the most troops (usually
by hiring relatives), not provide the best business practices. Basically all
the things you'd expect from a flat organization.

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xmmx
Does anyone else hate the new quartz layout?

