DESIGNING WORK

ORGANISATIONS

JASWINDER SINGH
MBA06071
SECTION B

Write a letter to Late Zappos Founder Tony Hsieh mentioning what

you know about Holacracy and why you think it's a good or a flawed
organizational structure.
To

Late Tony Hseih

Zappos Inc.

Las Vegas, Nevada

United States of America

Subject: Brief discussion about a new organization structure ‘Holacracy’

Dear Tony

Which organisational structure is being followed by the companies from the past century? It
is top down hierarchy model, in which the authority and power is with the top level
management only and the others have to follow their orders, making it not so good
organizational structure. But with the passage of time how we deal within and outside our
organization has changed, to cope up with the changes organizations need to develop new
and effective models for operations.

What is Holacracy?

The official holacracy website defines holacracy as: “a real world tested social technology for
agile and purposeful organization. It radically changes how an organization is structured, how
decisions are made, and how power is distributed.”

In simple words holacracy changes your organizations old top-down hierarchy model to a
decentralized management and organizational governance. It distributes the authority
between team members, and it gives decision making power through a holarchy of self-
organizing teams.

What changes does holacracy brings?

In the old hierarchy models, there are job descriptions provided for every position, the work
is pre-defined, the main change holacracy brings is the introduction of Roles instead of Job
description. Holacracy states that the job titles are vaguely described and the person is doing
different work as prescribed in the description. Roles are clearly defined with respect to that
purpose it will serve, its accountability, authority, and activities under that role. When the
purpose of that role is served it is scrapped, a single person can handle multiple roles. With
the clear demarcation roles, a chain is created where responsibility, accountability and
decision making is distributed properly.

In holacracy model, the roles are structured under different circles, a set of circles is created
one within the other or we can say one circle is bigger than other. Circles are organized
hierarchically, and the broader circle assigns responsibilities and accountability to the smaller
circle. The smaller circles work on their own as well to achieve their goals to the fullest.
Circles conduct their meetings and assign roles to its members.

Will holacracy work?

Holacracy is a modern concept but there are some early adopters who tried this concept and
got the results, to give you an apt example, I will talk about Twitter founder Ev Williams
content platform Medium. Stirman, a manager compares his experience, in which he states
that, with traditional management, the tensions of top level management were given to lower
levels whom do know nothing about how to solve those problems, and the lower level
problems were even taken into consideration. Holacracy makes people accountable and
responsible for the tensions they feel and themselves resort those tensions.

What are the advantages of holacracy?

• With the application of holacracy in the organization, it improves agility, efficiency,

transparency, innovation and accountability in an organization.
• Holacracy provides a platform to the team members where there concerns can be
addressed and they are encouraged to take initiatives.
• It reduces the burden on top level leaders.
• Holacracy makes individual more responsible for their own thoughts and actions.
• Holacracy promotes lean and adaptable organization.
• It facilitates highly effective meetings.
• In the holacracy model the authority is clearly distributed between members.
• The work is conducted with the pre defined purpose in mind.

After a careful consideration of all the above mentioned points, it is clearly visible that
holacracy is a modern organization method, but it provides a lot of positive points to consider
like members become more accountable for their work, the meetings gets fruitful, there are
more chances of innovation, employees are more motivated, and many more benefits. So,
you should apply this structure in your organization to get the better results.
Thanks and Regards

Jaswinder Singh

MBA06071

Indian Institute of Management, Sirmaur

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy#:~:text=Holacracy%20is%20a%20method%20of,ves
ted%20in%20a%20management%20hierarchy.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264977984_Holacracy_-
_A_Radical_Approach_to_Organizational_Design

https://www.fastcompany.com/3044352/the-secrets-of-holacracy