This is the story of introducing holacracy at a New Zealand tech company, whose CTO gave Sandy a one-line instruction: “I’d like you to make it happen.” Come along and learn from Sandy Mamoli’s successes and failures in her team’s quest to create a truly self-organising organisation. Learn what worked and what didn’t, and find out how the team resolved the question of whether they had joined a cult or actually improved their business.

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How I tried Holacracy
and lived to tell the tale

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We want to collaborate better!

4. — Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos
“Every time the size of
a city doubles,
innovation and
productivity increase
by 15%. When
companies get bigger,
innovation and
productivity go
down.”

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Responsible adults
move authority to where the information is

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What is Holacracy?

7. A method of decentralised
management and
organisational governance
in which authority and
decision-making are
distributed throughout
autonomous, self-
organising teams

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Holacracy is a method for
creating a truly self-
organising organisation

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Sociocracy 1970
Holacracy 2009

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Title Text

11. —Miki Szikszai, CEO, Snapper
“Scientology
meets agile meets
paleo meets
crossfit.”

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Let’s try this!

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1. Autonomous circles
2. Roles
3. Tensions & consent
Key concepts

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1. Autonomous Circles

15. This is Pippa …

16. International circle
Create new customers &
develop services for existing customers
Purpose
Accountabilities
• Create demand for Snapper’s services
• Deliver a pipeline of customers
• Customer satisfaction
• Operational management/service life cycle

17. On the go
International circle

18. Snapper General Circle
International
On the go
iOS
Android
On the go
Wellington
“Make transport ticketing more attractive”

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Title Text
A hierarchy of purpose
- not people

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2. Roles

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What I really do
Board Report
Writer
Refund
issuer
Customer
insights
Audit co-
ordinator
My job description

22. Job crafting
• split work into
smaller roles
• develop new skills
• dynamic allocation

23. Employment law

24. Defining roles
• tedious but paid off
• helped us focus on
the important parts

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Roles today
• roles are part of people’s daily lives
• check-up every 3 months

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3. Tensions & consent

27. The gap between what is
and what could be
Tensions

28. decision making by
consent

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Look outs
• meeting formats didn’t work for us
• don’t wait for a meeting to act

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3 years in…

31. • Holacracy across the
entire business
• Things no longer fall
through the cracks
• Snapper can grow
and remain agile

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“Things were definitely difficult in the beginning.
The rigid rules felt at odds with the
organisational culture.
However, we didn’t give up, tried everything for
ourselves and things have worked out well.”
— Anthony, Business Analyst

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“This is everything I ever wished for.
But it’s really hard because I sometimes feel
overwhelmed. And I miss my friends in finance.”
— Kathryn, Finance

34. Keen to try it for
yourself?

35. live with the strange language

36. … to start with

37. follow the principles
- not the rules

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What I think about
Holacracy now

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Holacracy, Agile and common
sense will make a big
difference

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Holacracy will amplify the
culture that's already in place.
It won’t change or improve it!

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It’s not about doing Holacracy
but about being holacratic!

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Download slides:
https://nomad8.com/
articles/holacracy-slides
sandy@nomad8.com
www.nomad8.com
@smamol