Do we need Managers? Holacracy and the Self-Managing Organisations with Mohammed Ali Vakil
Is it possible for a group of people to self-manage and lead their organisations through distributed authority and decision making? In this episode, our guest, Mohammed Ali Vakil helps us understand the remarkable power of Holacracy and how this is changing the way organisations are led and managed.
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About Mohammed Ali Vakil
Pic: Mohammad Ali Vakil
Mohammed Ali Vakil is the co-founder of Calm Achiever. They're official partners for Getting Things Done (GTD) and Holacracy in India. They've trained 2000+ individuals in GTD from some of the top companies in India including Google, Deloitte, Barclays, Embassy Group & FutureGenerali.
As a Holacracy Coach Ali's passionate about helping organizations structure themselves to increase team engagement, agility and purposeful work. Ali can be reached at ali@calmachiever.com
Resources
Book: Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World by Brian Robertson
Brian Robertson's Keynote talk at Agile India
Transcript
Sowmya 00:11
Hello everyone and welcome to The Workwise Pod, a weekly podcast in which your hosts Sujatha Rao and Deepak Menon talk about how we can make our workplaces more fair, just unfulfilling while still getting big results and meeting those KPIs. In today's episode, Deepak and Sujatha are talking to Muhammad Ali Vakil about a new way of structuring and running organisations- Holacracies. Stay tuned.
Deepak 00:43
Sujatha startups seem to have this infectious energy, an esprit de corps, creativity, innovation, ownership, quick to fail quick to scale approach. However, as they mature, they exhibit stereotypical corporate culture - risk aversion love for rules and protocols, low innovation, people working in silos, they make fewer accounting mistakes, but miss larger opportunities, what is going on?
Sujatha 01:11
Structure drives behaviour Deepak. I've always had this belief that the biggest determinant of Organisational Behaviour and culture is the Organisational Structure that any organisation adopts. When startups are small, they invariably have flat organisational structures, right? Everyone works without a manager inspecting, you know what needs to be done, people pick up whatever they want and can do. And so there are a few bottlenecks to speed and innovation. But when startups start to scale, they seem to adopt default organisational structures that seem to be hierarchies, right? So you have managers, and then you have managers for managers, and then managers for those managers, and so on and so on - until this pyramid of accounting and responsibility creates a permission based work culture that seems to kill creativity and innovation.
Deepak 02:13
Exactly. And I'm sure corporations too, must be fed up of this work culture. They might not prefer the madness of startups. But they surely must be a better way of organising work that allows more flexibility, more ownership. It's almost like the startup seemed to have a read like structure, flexible but strong. While corporate seem to have a tree like structure, strong but not flexible. I wonder if there's anything in between a best of both worlds in a sense?
Sujatha 02:43
Well, I think today, we have more models that we can look at, as compared to say 20-25 years back, for example, we have you know, Frederic Laloux's idea of the TEAL organisation, right there is this, the concept of an E equals c model. And, of course, the holacracy model that Brian Robertson has been talking about, and that seems to hold a lot of promise. Some of these models are now beginning to be experimented and adopted in India as well. And today to talk with us about holacracy, we have Muhammad Ali Vakil. Ali is the co founder of Calm Achiever. They are the official partners for getting things done, and Holacracy in India, and Ali is passionate about helping organisations structure themselves in ways that increase team engagement, agility and purposeful work. Welcome to the podcast, Ali.
Ali 03:48
Oh, thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. And Hi, Deepak. Good to be here.
Deepak 03:52
Hi, welcome. Welcome to the show, Ali.
Ali 03:54
Thank you.
Sujatha 03:56
So Ali, let's start off with the absolute basics. Right. What is holacracy? Yeah, you know, I'm so glad to hear your introduction, because that leads in so perfectly to what how we define holacracy. And at the core of it, it is a way of structuring organisations. Most organisations as you know, they have a default structure,a typical management hierarchy. And holacracy is an alternative to the management hierarchy. Another way to structure yourself where people can show up at work with more autonomy, self management practice where they can serve the purpose of the organisation. So it's a new way of really structuring the organisation to really allow for purposeful work to happen within the organisation. Right, so when, when did holacracy start off? How did it start? right and when and where did it really start taking off?
Ali 04:58
Yeah, yeah, I think a lot have credit to Brian Robertson. So it was really his brainchild where it originated from, and I was drawn to something much bigger. But he wrote, he was working for some one of the top companies, which was one of supposedly one of the best places to work. And he really felt restricted in the work he was doing in terms of whenever he wanted to get something done, there was your bureaucracy, they were permissions required. And he felt, you know, there's something wrong about, you know, the way we are structuring organisations, especially the company that I'm working, supposedly one of the best places to work, why am I feeling so restricted. And then, in order to really search for a better way to work, he founded his own organisation, a software development company, and he really used it as a laboratory to experiment with different ways of working. And he tried a whole lot of things, flat organisations, he tried sociocracy, and different ways of how you manage organisations and make decisions. And out of that evolved a new system, from his learnings, and he called this system -holacracy. And yeah, this I think, if I have to say when it holacracy began, it was around 2007, when the idea of the name came up, and it became a thing that, you know, people could use, or he was using in his organisation.
Deepak 06:24
And the second question is, how did really take off? Or when did it really take off?
Ali 06:28
I think it really took off 2013-14 or I think 2014, i don't get the years exactly right. But some of the larger companies really took notice. And one of them really comes to mind is Zappos. I think when Zappos really, you know, went full on with holacracy, people really took notice that, alright, Zappos is around that began a couple of 1000 people, and if that company is now going full on with holacracy, so this is a real viable alternative that we can consider compared to how we typically structuring. So I think that was really a tipping point, that caught a lot of attention. What is also interesting is, when people think about companies adopting holacracy, I think what comes to mind is okay, this is something for tech organisations or something in Silicon Valley that, you know, these are the kind of organisations that will find it useful, or perhaps even startups, but what is interesting is, if you actually look at the kind of organisations adopting holacracy and there is a list out there that is published on the Holacracy website, you will find most of the organisations are not these software companies, they are, you know, be real estate companies could be a lot of educational universities, and you've got manufacturing, you know, this whole variety of organisations that are exploring this new way of working. So, I found it really interesting. Initially, when I approached Holacracy, I thought, Okay, this is going to be something that tech companies and I have to kind of adapt to that their mindset, but it is really not that it is really a new offering, a new way of work for any organisation who wants to explore these, this future of work and these new principles that are out there, like the TEAL principles Sujatha mentioned.
Deepak 08:11
So what got you interested it in the first place?
Ali 08:14
Yeah, good question, what got me interested. So I joined the work world, right after college and coming from a Gujarati family, you are, we always kind of told from a very young age, you have to get into business, you have to get into business, and you don't have any other option. So right after completing my studies, I joined the family business. And, and this was in real estate, and I found it, as soon I joined the business, I found it really chaotic. Because the business had grown to a size my father started the company still running it. But this was in 2013 2006, is when I joined the business and real estate was booming, companies expanding, we're starting more projects and with some scale comes more complexity. And me entering into that organisation, that complexity, I found it really overwhelming. And I was always looking, you know, how do we how do we manage our organisations better. And for a long time, I tried implementing a whole lot of different systems in place so that, you know, the organisation can function in a particular way. And I don't have to get involved in the nitty gritty. And one of the things that really bothered me when I joined was a lot of people asking me permission to do even some of the smallest things. And here I was, maybe I was 25 or so when I joined the company. And almost everyone was older to me, right? Right from the, say, the customer care team, to the engineers to the legal team. And it was so awkward for me that they are asking me permission for you know, even some of the smaller things of like, what is this? Why is people asking me there is they are hired to do the work. They are the experts. So, yeah, but that experience initially really led me to search for what are some good systems that we can implement in our company, so that I'm not involved in a day to day basis and the system can take care of itself. While a lot of things work, I really didn't really get my answer. Because anytime I would create a system it would break. And then I would go back and create another system or like back to square one, right? So fast forward to 2015. That's when I found myself not only just managing my family business, but also a school, I started drawing comics. So that was a hobby I adopted and we started Calm Achiever, a company to train individuals and organisations GTD, so I found myself really stretched. And still, in my search for systems, I came across holacracy and what I was reading an article about holacracy, and it really switched a flip in my mind. And it made me realise that all this time, the reason why it was not working out for me in terms of implementing those systems, is because I was looking at my organisation like a machine that okay, this is the machine out there. And I'm gonna go ahead and you know, have this perfect systems and it's going to work so perfectly and beautifully, like a well oiled machine and it's gonna be all cool. And I realised that was the wrong mental model of looking at organisations, especially in today's fast paced world - better model that would work is to look at your organization's like a Living Organism that is that needs to constantly adapt and evolve in its environment in order to meet its purpose. Therefore, with that model, what kind of system can we put in place so that your organizations can adapt and evolve in this fast paced world by giving autonomy and freedom to people to serve the purpose of the organisation. So that was like a big shift for me. And that kind of led me down to this path of exploring the opposite.
Sujatha 11:39
So, Ali describe for us a typical Holacratic structure,
Ali 11:45
I would yet the first thing I would say is when you look when a company adopts holacracy, it looks very different than a management hierarchy. And let me tell you what is different about it. I think if I had to use a metaphor or analogy, I would say it the structure of the organisation is like the structure of nature, nature, if you look at a human body, or if you look at nature, it doesn't have a top down command and control structure. Right, it's got this holarchic structure, what I mean by that is you have like, if you look at the human body, right, it's got structure at every level, the cell has a certain structure, right, and within that, it has its own system of doing things. And then beyond the cell, you have let's say it comes together and you have a larger function that is serving its purpose and beyond that, you have another function that is the organ that is doing its thing and we could be the heart or could be the lungs etc. And then all these are coordinating together in order to fulfil another purpose for the human body and each is doing its own thing without really interfering with each other. That is why when we are here on this podcast, we can pay attention to each other without really thinking about what is my cell doing- is there enough blood being pumped in my body. So that is how holacracy is structured, it has hierarchy, but it is hierarchy of purpose, not hierarchy of people. So if you look in our organisation is used to look at the structure of a holocraphic organisation or practising holacracy you will see that there is structure but it is broken down based on the work of the organisation and not necessarily the people. So you could have one person in multiple parts of the organisation, but not necessarily in like an management hierarchy. Yeah. So basically these two things, its structure like you know, like how nature structure and you will find that it has a lot of roles, because it those rules are a breakdown of the purpose of the organisation and not the people.
Sujatha 13:42
So, the the idea of roles is very central to holacracy overall right, because as you pointed out, people can occupy multiple roles at the same time, right. So your role is not connected to let's say, a job description or a designation. Could you expand on that a little bit more Ali? How are they decision making roles? Are they implementing roles or other you know, accountability roles, how does this work in a holacracy?
Ali 14:12
Yeah, so, every role that is created has very clear, has a lot of clarity into what that role is expected to be doing. So a role would have a purpose, the purpose of this role, you could have for example, we have a role called Holacracy Coach is a very simple one, I am showing up in a way, I'm showing up in this role as a Holacracy Coach explaining what holacracy is all about, in a way. So it has a purpose. It has accountabilities, what is expected of that role, and yeah, it may have something called a domain that is what is this role kind of responsible for all what is a property of the role, but without getting too technical about it. Once someone fills a role, they have the freedom and the autonomy to do whatever is necessary to fulfil the purpose of the role. As long as it does not violate any other rule in the organisation, and this is very different from how typically organisations function, right? Typically, you have a job description, and maybe you look at the job description when he joined the organisation, and then you put in your draw, then you maybe never look at it again, in order to kind of do what you're supposed to do, you are expected that I will do this, and nothing else. If I needed to go beyond this, I need to ask permission, or I need to check with someone, and in Holacracy it is the opposite. Do whatever it takes to fulfil the purpose as long as it does not violate any boundaries? Well, we all know we need good boundaries in order to keep the organisation safe. But there's a kind of a switch over there. And yeah, the other part about Roles, it's very freeing and very beneficial to the organisation. So I'll give an example when we shifted to holacracy in our real estate company, this interesting thing happened - earlier our organisation had these silos. So you have the customer care department, you have the property care department, you had marketing department, and people were in a way stuck in those departments, right? Because they were part of it. And this structure kind of enabled that you have silos. And the moment we said, okay, now it's role based. Alright, so the customer care team has multiple roles, and anyone who wants can fill those roles. Similarly, marketing has certain roles, anyone whose talents match those accountabilities can fill those roles. So as a result, we had people who were originally in those departments now cross-filling those departments. And it allowed so much perspective that Oh, now that I've been marketing circle, we don't call the department. Now that I'm in this circle, I can see things that I've not seen before. And now that because they're filling both customer care and say marketing, etc. And for the organisation, we could become more leaner, because with a few people, we can really allow for more people to express themselves across departments.
Deepak 16:55
And who decides these rules?
Ali 16:58
Oh, that is such a good question. Once you've adopted holacracy fully, the roles evolve based on what we call in holacracy. tensions. Right? And tension may not necessarily be a bad thing, you think of it of any issue that comes up. Right. And you feel my issue is not getting addressed. Because there is a lack of a Role or an accountability or some expectation that I'm not getting, there is a governance process through which they can go ahead and proposed a Role. And as long as that proposal doesn't do harm, that Role gets created. So it is that is the that's the beauty of this Holacracy system that is an evolving system. It is not expected that there are a few people up in management who will decide the structure of the organisation, and once in six months, or one year or five years, he will do a reorg there these small incremental changes that are happening constantly based on tensions people are sensing and the organisation evolves that way.
Deepak 17:55
One more question. How does the governance structure get created?
Ali 17:59
Yeah. How does the governance process work? What it is, it is a process that anyone in the organisation can use in order to bring about a change in the structure, and usually these are small incremental changes to that their tensions get addressed. And that process is the heart of what we call the holacracy constitution. And so when an organisation adopts holacracy, first step is for the person who holds- a Person at the top, typically, the CEO or the owner, signs the Constitution, and is basically saying that from now on, we are going to follow these rules in order to clarify how power is distributed within the organisation. Now, one thing I want to sort of clarify, because when people hear that, oh, the CEO signing the Constitution, oh, my God is what this is sound so crazy reason why it's not that crazy. Or it is maybe some a little bit crazy, to some extent, but it's really useful, especially if you want to build a purposeful organisation, or an organisation that is serving a purpose is - At the heart of the Constitution is this governance process? Right? That's like, that's really the core of it, if I had to really drill it down, and what makes holacracy holacracy. And what makes the constitution the Constitution is this governance process. So basically, what you're in a way signing to is how, how the governance process works. There are other things that are important that supports this, but you know, we I just want since you brought about how this comes about, is really the constitution that identifies the governance process, allowing people to use it in order for the organisation to evolve.
Sujatha 19:34
I think in one of the fundamental changes that I've been struck with when you look at Holacracy as compared to say, traditional organising structures, is holacracy attempts to make explicit or as transparent as possible -Power right and where it lies and what it does, which is very liberating, because in most other structures Power is not explicit, you know it right. You know, it's there. And you sense it, but it's, it's, it's influenced, but it's hidden, right. Whereas holacracy, I feel, in many ways, attempts at least to bring a level of transparency to it, or how, how would you respond to that? That's a fair comment.
Ali 20:20
Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the things that really any organisation that will, that decides to go on this journey, one of the things that will immediately kind of become so apparent to them is that how much holacracy brings about clarity? I would say if there's, if I can call it if Holacracy has values and what is it really values it values clarity. It just just comes out So kind of, evidently, as people make this journey, so yeah, holacracy really clarifies how power is distributed within the organisation. And it's very fluid, but it's not. Okay, so this is how power is organised. And it's kind of stuck there. No, it's kind of a very fluid. And that fluidness is based on how the organisation needs to adapt to serve the purpose. So I kind of like to make this shift, because people think, Oh, my God, so how power is now distributed? How are decisions made? How are, who's the boss anymore? You know, what happens? Because this is one way of thinking, and a couple of ways to think about it. So in some ways, when a person fills a role, that person filling the role becomes the CEO of his role, he becomes the the boss of his role, and then he's deciding how is the best way I can serve my role and my purpose. So the shift that you're making is, and I kind of felt that when I made that shift, that earlier, I had this burden of leadership and this burden of being the boss in some ways, and I didn't really want that, I don't want people coming up to me, anytime they asking me for permission, it's not serving me, nor is it serving the organisation, not serving them. And what I wanted is an organisation full of leaders with each of them is serving their own individual role in order to serve the purpose of the organisation. And then in some ways, if you ask, then who's the boss, really, the boss is the purpose. You are, we are all coming together in this organisation to serve the purpose. And everything that we do all the decisions that we make is checking, are we serving the purpose? Or are we? Is it harming the purpose, the governance process is all designed around protecting the purpose.
Deepak 22:24
what has been your learning from adopting holacracy and helping other companies adopt holacracy.
Ali 22:32
there's been a whole lot of learning. And I would say that any organisation adopting holacracy, to look at it as a journey, this is not a one time thing that, okay, we want to get this a get a consultant or do it ourselves. And we will adopt a proxy and we are in a self managed, it is really a long term journey. And I like to give this example that how long does it take to master to get even good at leadership in a management hierarchy. And you know, anyone who in the working world know that it can take decades to maybe a lifetime to get good and master it. That's the same for Holacracy, it is a different way of working, a different way, or how power is structured and organised. And it's really a journey. And it's sort of a journey, like time journey, right. But in every step, there is, I would say, a reward. If, as you get good at it, you see things you see people really being empowered, people really bringing their full selves to work. And it's a very powerful sort of journey any organisation can take, I'll share an example, that really touched me when we adopted holacracy in our organisation, so this is a real estate company. And I remember doing this in our, in our customer care team, and there was a girl in a customer care team. And she was, she's been there long enough to understand, you know, the processes, how Customer Care works, how what our clients are like, and interacting with them. But she was always very quiet, always kind of very reserved, always saying yes to whatever the manager says. And as we started transitioning to holacracy, and she realised that, you know, now she has a voice, a space to speak up, space to share her issues, speak to make decisions. So one of her concerns was she wanted, we would buy gifts for our clients. And she always need to ask permission in terms of what gift to buy, taking budget, taking approval. And as our customer base grew, it became sort of a pain for her to do that. So then she proposed in our governance meeting, she proposed a policy to have her role having the freedom to buy gifts, as long as it is within a certain budget. So if it's within 500 rupees, or I think 1,000 rupees, something like that, she can go ahead and purchase without really asking permission. And everyone like no like, yeah, this sounds like such a good idea. So there were no objections. It got approved, there was a policy and so within, like, I don't know, a few minutes or so that own governance proposal didn't take time. And she got the freedom and autonomy to make the decision. And I saw sort of a different girl walking out of that room. After that meeting, right there was a different you know, the way she was walking and stepping out and, you know, shoulders high that - Wow she did something that was never thought she imagined possible. And yeah, so the amount of freedom that it gives, but also in a way that serves the organisation makes it really make this a very powerful and fulfilling practice.
Sujatha 25:18
So the way that you approach it, is that a difference? When an existing organisation when an organisation that's been in existence for 10-15 years or 20 years, begins to think about shifting themselves towards holacracy. Right? And that journey versus let's say, a really young organisation, a startup, right, that's, that's just starting off, and actually moving with that holacracy model in mind? Will the journeys or pathways be different?
Ali 25:49
Yeah, I would say, every, probably every organisation will have a unique pathway to this system, because every organisation is unique in, in many ways. So yeah, in some ways, you know, it's very easy for a startup, because you're starting out fresh, and you know, you can start off with this new system, and kind of grow with it. And it is more challenging for an existing organisation already having a structure already having a culture, already having a way of doing things. Now you're asking them to shift. So you really need to ease that in and really understand what are the organisation needs, and then based on that, make those adaptive changes, or adapt your adoption to those changes. And I think that's where, you know, a good coach comes helpful, because I remember when I did it, I was just, you know, I was crazy guy was just so excited with this new system. And because in a way I had the power to do, I just went ahead and jumped into it. And in many ways, it backfired. Because I didn't have the experience or the foresight, like, what am I doing here? I just read a book. And I said, let me jump into it. And then I realised No, I really need training in this because this is a big shift. That's what then made me do the practitioner and the coaches training eventually in Amsterdam, when they came back, and I got more mature along the way to help organisations and my own organisations. So yeah, the the path is different. And I think someone, a coach will usually assess, you know, where is it that the organisation needs help? And what part of holacracy would make sense right now for their adoption, and then slowly move forward in their maturity to the adoption?
Sujatha 27:18
Right? Are there any first principles that need to be considered, I mean, one, of course, is, you know, seeking help and support and, you know, looking at professional coaching, maybe enriching yourself, but any first step of first principles that organisations need to become aware of as they start this journey?
Ali 27:40
yeah, I would, you know, say, let's say if an organisation approaches me and says, okay, we want to do this, I'll be very curious to know, like, what is why and what is it triggering this need for it? If any organisation is doing is like a fad, or this sounds cool, let's do it. I'll say that's really not the right reason to do it. Because this is a big shift. And at some point, it obviously will reduce the pain, but there's some there can be some pain in this when you're making the shift. So I would be very curious to know why. And what I'm looking for, when I sort of ask, you know, why is it that you want to do holacracy? I would write to understand how the person at the top? - What are his reasons for doing it? If he's not bought into it? If he says, No, no, I'm cool, you know, the way of working is fine is my team, they need to kind of fix themselves. So we not want to put her operasi for them, I would really kind of take him deeper is is this a good fit or not? Right? Because, you know, if he feels I need to operate in a different way, if I need to operate in different way and my teammates to operate in different way, that eventually just kind of want to cause a lot of friction, unless you're saying that team is totally autonomous and they can do their way, This is different than maybe it could work. But if he's already integral part, and you know, you want the person on the top to be really bought in. And the other thing I would look at is, if an organisation- if they have a CEO, or the owner on top, who feels like and this is not a judgement call about right or wrong, it's just I would say management style. But if they have the management style, where they really want to get involved in every nitty gritty detail, and they want, they see themselves as kind of the answer to all the problems, maybe holacracy is not the right fit for them. And maybe they're very successful. That's, you know, it's working for them. But that's something I would look out for when I am sort of helping organisations make the shift. Also, in making the shift, we wouldn't we need to get people on board with this change as well. So we wouldn't just go into it. Like on day one, we would give people an experience. So typically what we do is we tell them look, if you want to adopt Holacracy, first experience it that and through then a workshop we actually get their organisations mapped onto this new structure. And we tell them look bringing your tensions, bring in your issues. Let's see how this process would actually address your concerns and issues in this new way with governance and what we call tactical meetings etc. And then if you feel like this is the right way, then we go around making a plan for that like, Okay, this is how you can go ahead and do it.
Deepak 30:08
So you've quite brilliantly put out what are the internal conditions that are that have to be there for you to adopt an alternate management model? What are the externalities, externalities, that are also forcing some companies to move away from the conventional command and control model? And looking at other models? Like holacracy, for example?
Ali 30:37
Yeah, wow, that's a brilliant, brilliant question in terms of what are the externalities. Yeah, absolutely. You know, something interesting, interesting to observe is that we look at, let's say, last 50 years or last 100 years, almost everything has sort of evolved dramatically in the last 50 to 100 years, the way whether it's money systems, whether it's political systems, whether it's agriculture, whether it's almost everything is dramatically changed, and the pace of change is only increasing. However, if you see how we structure organisations, it has pretty much remained consistent across even broadly, if you see how organisation is structured, it is pretty much the same since last a 50, to maybe even 100 years. And I would say that the structure, the management hierarchy, right has been a very, very useful structure for those last 100 years or so, because it got us to where we are today. However, given how fast the world is changing, given how the new workforce that is coming into the world, this this younger generation, millennial generation, I part of the millennials, who are I can call myself the younger generation, given how this generation is now perhaps forming the majority of the workforce, at least to some extent, how now they are, how their views of how work should be what really motivates them is now driving, what's happening at work. I think it's time therefore, for organisations to thrive in this environment, they need to innovate their structure, if they are going to stick on to that structure, they are really holding themselves back in terms of what is possible for them, that their organisations, their communities, and I would say, yeah, that's a big driving force or other driving forces, for organisation for the need to evolve. Because we are living in this fast paced world, product, innovation, gig economy, and all these new things are coming up. And this old way is no longer serving organisations.
Sujatha 32:43
So, for people who are interested in beginning this journey, you know, there are a lot of resources available. And we'll put some of them up on our website, but any recommendations from you as to where they could begin the learning journey?
Ali 32:58
Yeah, so I would say to do some really good videos out there that introduce holacracy is it's kind of a good start. So there's a TED talk out there and more Google talks out there. And there's the holacracy book that goes more in depth. But I've also seen that the both the videos and the book, they raise more questions than they answer, because it's very difficult to understand it without really experiencing it. So one of the things that we do is without sort of a larger investment, or a larger time, investment as well, usually never wanted to do a workshop, we give them an experience of what it's like. So I would say if, after going through resources, you feel Oh, this is really interesting. I'll say no - explore by going through that one or two day workshop- really experience what it's like that is going to give you a sort of a visceral feel, what this is and how it actually works. And the chance to answer those questions. And then from there, you will have a much better idea. Is this something that you want to do for your team or your organisation? Or maybe it's not for you? That's, that's a call you can take.
Deepak 33:56
So one question I had, is there a holacracy light model?
Ali 34:01
Oh, there is no holacracy light model. But But I have some good news. And maybe I could say you maybe you're the could be the first podcast might be even hearing this, because it's really fresh news in some way. So holocracy, version five is coming out. So the holacracy constitution currently that is being adopted by organisation is 4.1. And the major change between 4.1 to version five is what version five has made possible is what we call a modular adoption, right. So in a modular adoption, you do not have to adopt the full constitution in one go, which was the case in 4.1. In version five, they have rewritten the constitution where you can adopt parts of it that really serves your business needs. And then on the part of maturity, see your business needs and then adopt the other articles of the organisation, which in a way kind of serves the need for someone to having Holacracy Light because you're not really adopting the full thing only what you need
Sujatha 34:57
and I think the Constitution version Five is available on the holacracy website right now as well.
Ali 35:04
Yeah, it is. So it's very interesting. You know, this is an open source document. And and people can go in and contribute on GitHub and really kind of bring their experiences and suggest changes. So yeah, just like an open source software, this is an open source document, it is available on the website, you can go ahead and read it. And if you want to even be like contributing, and go ahead and contribute,
Deepak 35:25
what are the real life examples of companies adopting holacracy? You mentioned Zappos and of course, mentioned some of the companies that you're working with, but some examples of organisations who have adopted Holacracy
Ali 35:39
Yeah, I think that last approximate count in terms of an official list or list that has been carrying around 2000 Plus, probably more now that have adopted holacracy. And it has ranged from government organisations, I know that so when I did my training, they were people from the Dubai government who were there and they were undergoing training. So there are agencies in the Dubai government who are who have adopted holacracy. I recently saw Emaar properties, and if you maybe Google it, you'll find it. So Emaar properties is the company that built Burj Khalifa. Right, they recently adopted holacracy. And it's doing very well in Europe. So I know a lot of companies there have adopted, the David Allen company, I mentioned that. Yeah, I know, some startups have done it.
Deepak 36:25
So this is an area that Sujatha and I are both very excited about. So we like self managed teams, self manage organisations or we want to see it work, you know, you're biased towards it. So I'm very glad to have you on the show. Very lovely talking to you. I learned a lot about holacracy meaning one thing is to read the book and the TED talk, but one thing is to actually converse to someone who's adopted holacracy. And we're so glad to have you on the show. Yeah, thank
Ali 36:57
you. Thank you so much, Deepak and Sujatha Yeah, I love to talk about this stuff we just talking about it gets me excited and brings back memories about the journey itself. So and it's always lovely to connect. self management is really sort of cutting edge at the moment kind of feels good to meet other people who are having an interest in this. And yeah, I really hope that more people jump on this waggon towards self management being a very fulfilling journey for me, and I think it would be for others as well. Yeah, thank
Sujatha 37:26
Thank you Ali. Hierarchy of purpose, not hierarchy of people. I think that's what I'm going to take away from this conversation. Thank you so much.
Sowmya 37:37
Thank you for listening. Next week, we are talking to Sahana Chattopadhyay about that dreaded cross that so many of us bear – the workplace meeting. You will find the resources referred to in this episode in the shownotes, and more information on our website www.workwisepod.com. We would love to hear from you. Comment on the website or write to us at hello@workwisepod.com. Credits go to Sanjali Ranjan for the cover art and Derek Clegg for the intro and outro music. Today's episode was mixed, produced and edited by me- Sowmya Karun. Don't forget to subscribe to the Workwise Pod on your favourite podcasting platform. We'll see you next week.
