Holacracy: How to Decentralize Your Company for Higher Performance

Brian Robertson has become one of the major proponents of a revolutionary idea:

Get rid of the bosses.

For centuries we’ve been laboring under the idea that societies can effectively be managed from the center (central planning). And for almost as long we’ve thought those companies that performed best would be scientifically managed (Taylorism).

In other words, people should be assigned according to their functional role in a hierarchy — to be ordered around or put to use like a cog in a machine. People could be made productive.

But this view of organizations and human beings will soon be obsolete.

Why?

Because paradoxically, people are more productive when they’re treated more like people than machines. They’re more creative when they have greater autonomy. And they’re more efficient when everyone is focusing on the mission, rather than managing others.

The companies that decentralize will outperform those who do not. Hierarchies become holarchies.

In other words, holacracy tells us that organizations should be build around capabilities. It is not just a way to transform your organization. It’s scalable to all of society.

Curious about getting rid of bosses? Watch this talk.

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