It was actually a lot of fun and very productive when it was a small team of people who knew and respected each other.
Scaled up to a bigger company, it turned into the nastiest political nightmare I've ever seen.
The "no managers" thing is also an illusion. There's always someone who can fire people or give them raises. Those people become the de facto managers even if they have some different title.
Employees are extremely good at picking up on who they need to impress to get raises and promotions, even if you try to pretend that they aren't managers.
There's also a classic essay, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness", that is about parts of the feminist movement but directly applies to holacracy at companies.
If you're anti-manager, a small or single person company or consultancy can be great.
PragmaticPulp|4 years ago
It was actually a lot of fun and very productive when it was a small team of people who knew and respected each other.
Scaled up to a bigger company, it turned into the nastiest political nightmare I've ever seen.
The "no managers" thing is also an illusion. There's always someone who can fire people or give them raises. Those people become the de facto managers even if they have some different title.
Employees are extremely good at picking up on who they need to impress to get raises and promotions, even if you try to pretend that they aren't managers.
code_biologist|4 years ago
• HN discussion of holacracy at Valve: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9512866
• Holacracy and the mirage of the boss-less workplace: Lessons from the failures at Github, Medium & Buffer: https://medium.com/battle-room/holacracy-and-the-mirage-of-t...
There's also a classic essay, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness", that is about parts of the feminist movement but directly applies to holacracy at companies.
If you're anti-manager, a small or single person company or consultancy can be great.
paranorman|4 years ago