Four Hacks Every Holacracy Role-Filler Should Know

OK, calling these hacks is a bit deceptive because they don’t break any rules, but they kinda feel like hacks.

Note: As Holacracy constitution version 5.0 rolls out, I’ll combine terms like “Lead Link/Circle Lead” to cover related concepts regardless of the version you’re using.

Outsource your work

Just because you fill a role doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll do the work. Filling a role is like being an entrepreneur. And caring about a role just means you’re expected to care about that zone of work — how you get there is up to you. It’s self-organization at every level, including within your own role, as you can determine how best to organize yourself and your available resources to fulfill the role’s defined purpose.

For example, for a time I filled a graphic design role even though I’m not a professional graphic designer. Instead, I hired a professional designer for most projects. The work I did was mostly about scoping out the project, getting budget approval, and working with the contractor.

This is important to know because new practitioners tend to take a limited view (and interpretation) of their role, rather than considering creative ways to fulfill those same expectations.

Here are some examples of when knowing this can be helpful:

• Someone asks the Curriculum Support role to develop a quiz for the software development course. The role-filler thinks the outcome technically fits her role, but doesn’t want to accept the project because she doesn’t have subject-matter expertise in software development. Remind her that: 1) if she thinks it fits her role (and is an outcome that makes sense), then she must accept it and track it; 2) she can achieve that outcome by scheduling regular meetings with the course instructor, harvesting their wisdom, and evolving the quiz based on their feedback.
• Organizations with a lot of volunteer staff or seasonal employees for whom a lot of training in Holacracy practice isn’t worth the cost may find that, instead of creating roles for temporary staff, they could create a single role (e.g. “Volunteer Voice”) whose purpose and accountabilities include the management of ongoing work the volunteers perform.
• As a Lead Link/Circle Lead, you’re having a hard time finding a role-filler for a specific role. Well, even if the expertise isn’t available in-house, is there anyone with experience managing a contract? Often just having a role-filler with good generalist or project management skills is good enough. For example, someone may fill the “Bookkeeper” role, but they primarily just act as a liaison to an outside accounting firm.

Note: I’m in no way saying these are always the right way to go. They are just illustrative examples.

Request your perfect outcome

Basically, this means: request the thing you want; not just the thing you think someone can give you. Say you’re having a hard time explaining to customers why your products are better than your competitor’s, and you’d like the Website Manager to create a visual diagram highlighting how your product stacks up.

But instead of requesting that specific thing (i.e. the visual diagram) as the project, consider requesting instead, “Webpage clearly differentiates us from competitors,” and leave it up to their judgment how best to achieve that outcome.

“Never be so sure of what you want, you wouldn’t take something better.”

Chris Voss

Of course, you can also provide the suggestion that a diagram may be a great way to achieve that outcome, and if you’re certain that’s the only way to do it, then fine. Ask for that. But I’ve found practitioners often end up limiting themselves (and their circles) by taking on too much responsibility and trying to be too specific. One of the best things about Holacracy practice is that you can easily unburden yourself from having to figure out how someone else will achieve an outcome.

Here are some examples of when knowing this can be helpful:

• During a tactical meeting, you bring up an agenda item to explain an issue and after about 5 minutes the discussion has become a debate about 2 or 3 possible solutions. Instead of trying to figure out how to resolve the problem now, you just ask the role responsible for a project like, “The issue never occurs again.”
• You request a project from another role like “Translations completed for all marketing materials,” and while the Marketing role is accountable for dealing with translations, the role-filler doesn’t think that specific outcome makes sense. Rather than debate back and forth, or waste time trying to guess something they’d find acceptable, instead just ask: “Well, given what I’ve explained about the issue, what outcome would make sense to you?”

Think of a project request like making a proposal in governance; you should start with your 100%. Don’t begin by watering it down. It’s not your job to figure out how they’ll get there. It’s your job to figure out what you want. That’s part of the magic of the definition of a project as simply “an outcome.”

Make meetings serve you

Don’t go to a tactical or governance meeting just because you think you’re supposed to. If you need to go, go. But don’t unconsciously go out of a vague sense of obligation. Make meetings serve you, which means a few things:

• Skip meetings when necessary. Meeting times are always a compromise of many competing priorities and schedules, and sometimes it doesn’t make sense to go. The question to ask yourself is, “If everyone else was totally fine if I skipped this meeting, would I still want to go?”
• Arrive late, or leave early. If you can only spare a little time, don’t hesitate to drop in unannounced. Or, if you have something specific you want to address, don’t feel bad for limiting your involvement to that one issue. Just say, “Hey, I’m leaving early, so a pitch to the Facilitator to prioritize any items that involve me.”
• Selfishly add your own agenda items. It’s not your job to make sure you’re not taking up too much of the group’s time. It’s the Facilitator’s. The process wants you to be selfish because you know best what you want. And if you don’t add your own items, your suppressed tension just tends to leak out during someone else’s item anyway. Since the Facilitator is responsible for prioritizing items, and we are all just taking turns, you can focus solely on getting what you need.
• Schedule your own thought-partnership meetings. Tactical and governance meetings are the foundation of Holacracy practice, but they’re rarely the only meetings you’ll need. Want to focus on a specific project you’re working on? Well, send out some meeting invites and put others’ wisdom to work. And they don’t even need relevant roles to do it. In fact, people are often more willing to offer help when it’s clear you see it as a gift, not an expectation.

Leave a role

Holacracy’s dynamic governance allows us to continually evolve the roles we fill — but that’s not the only way the organization evolves. Deciding who is in what role can also transform the organizational landscape. Too often role-fillers forget that, unless an explicit policy says otherwise, they can vacate any role that they fill.

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

Michael Porter

Don’t think of this as abandoning your responsibilities. It’s not. Remember, it’s the Lead Link’s/Circle Lead’s responsibility to find role-fillers, not yours. Vacating a role actually opens up new possibilities. Even just sharing your intent to vacate a role can trigger a clarifying conversation. But doing nothing and hiding the pain of not wanting to fill a role isn’t helping you or the organization.

Here are some real examples of when I used this:

• I’ve been in the Training Design role in HolacracyOne for a long time. And it got to the point where I wasn’t energizing it much, but I was still feeling the burden of having to process messages, and track and review numerous projects. So, I informed the Lead Link/Circle Lead that I wanted to vacate the role. Now, in this case, the response I got was something like, “Well, you’re still the best fit I can find in the organization, and even if you rarely do anything, you’re still my first choice.” With that knowledge, I continued to fill the role for another 6 months, but I felt so much more comfortable de-prioritizing it.
• In a governance meeting, the Lead Link/Circle Lead proposed a new accountability on my role that I didn’t like. But as I reflected, I realized that the accountability actually did fit the role, I just didn’t want to be doing that work. That is, my tension wasn’t purely from the role’s perspective, it was from me personally. So, what did I do? Well, I didn’t raise an objection. Instead I immediately wrote an email to the Lead Link/Circle Lead of that circle that I wanted to vacate that role.

Conclusion

If Holacracy is like a game, then its rules are just the beginning. The artistry comes from how players decide to apply and enact the rules; how they weave them together to elegantly resolve their unique challenges. These “hacks” are some of the most important (and under-appreciated) strategic moves practitioners have available to them. Don’t be afraid to use them.

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Read “Introducing the Holacracy Practitioner’s Guide” to find more articles.