About measuring Holacracy 1.

I suppose holacracy is usually sold by great stories, testimonials and reasoning around key values. I have bought the idea about a year ago in a taster workshop, but I was unable to resell it the same way.

For a long time I thought I was missing a piece. Luckily I was patient enough to let time work for me and by now it turned out that mostly others missed pieces. Also today there are some fellows who have actually found their pieces. But that is far from enough.

Missing a piece may mean missing a whole different prespective.

During getting to know holacracy I have learnt that human consciousness has typical stages. On top of that it is not surprising that human cooperation has the very same stages. Between developmental stages there is a need to make a leap. And that leap is frightening. It is a crisis for the mind. It is a crisis for the cooperation as well. But adoption is always a result of a crisis. In some cases a proactive one, in others a reactive one.

What I did not see when I dived into this complex organizational transformation project that I tried to force more than one step a time.

To be able to adopt holacracy you have to be prepared to change several things at once:

- The way you look at work

- The way you do your work

- The way you communicate at work

- The way you do meetings prepare and make decisions

- The way you govern, build strategy and sense operations

All this at once. That is the hard part. It is such a cultural shock that even very intelligent people back off when trying it. Some do it consciously and admit their hardships while others explain themselves that holacracy is wrong. I admit I backed off several times.

Our mind protects itself from accepting new perspectives. It is a risk for our integrity. 

I came to the conclusion that there is a clear need for data and facts that lie behind the great stories and testimonials. I want to start a conversation with you about measuring holacratic operation. Some future holacracy users demand tangible results as rewards. For some ROI is simply necessary to start a deployment.

In a next post I will further explore the ways how holacratic operation could be measured. Please do not hesitate to join in a conversation about it.