Holacracy as a new structure for organisation and decision-making at ZEGG ecovillage, Germany

Transcription

1 Holacracy as a new structure for organisation and decision-making at ZEGG ecovillage, Germany For many years the community took important decisions by consensus in a plenary meeting. Most members became tired of long decision-making processes due to uninformed participants delaying the decisions and were inspired by a new decision-making model and organisational structure called Holacracy. In a Holacracy Working Group looked into how to apply Holacracy best to the community with seminar business organism that ZEGG is. After one year of preparation the community adopted the new model, which allows the flexible and adaptable operating structures needed for our type of community. Decisions are still based on consensus but are related more closely to the working areas. Some existing structures were incorporated into the new modified system of Holacracy. Which decisions are made where at ZEGG? Social decisions: All full community members come together in a plenary meeting to decide about fundamental social decisions e.g. new members or long-term guests. This usually happens once or twice per year. Significant financial and planning decisions (e.g. those over 20,000 euros or concerning what kind of buildings we want to build) are made by a circle of stewards (in German, Träger). This is a special group of committed full community members who decided to take on full responsibility for the financial affairs. In return they enjoy slight financial advantages but they also carry the responsibility of raising money to cover deficits if the accounts do not balance. This is a group of about 30 ZEGG members and they make the major financial decisions by consensus. New members are accepted into this group by consensus if they apply and fulfil the conditions. One financial condition is making a loan to the community of This circle of stewards meets regularly, at least twice a year and in between if issues are pending. All other decisions are made by a Management Team or are taken directly in the Circle (see below) related to the specific work area. These Circles operate with Holacracy.

2 What is Holacracy? Holacracy is a complete operating system for an organization, embedding flexibility and adaptive capacity in the heart of the organization. The name refers to governance by holarchy, or the natural structure of the organization itself. There are three main elements to ZEGG s Holacracy model: the organizational structure based on self-governing Circles; the governance structure process which distinguishes between the tactical and strategic meetings; dynamic flexible control or steering, based on an emergent approach. Self-governing Circles cover particular work areas or other aspects of the community. We looked at the different work fields in the community and made clear distinctions about responsibilities. Now work areas are organized as self-governing Circles with a high degree of independence to take their decisions for the benefit of the community and to fulfil the purpose of each Circle. The existing working areas are: Supply Circle (kitchen, purchasing, garden, harvest and food storage) Seminar Business Circle Site Team Circle (maintenance of buildings, site, infrastructure) Finance Office & Managing Director Circle Social Circle

3 These Circles meet regularly once a month and have defined aims, roles, and accountabilities. Most of them also have sub-circles. The meetings use the methods of integrative decision-making and dynamic steering. Each meeting is clearly scheduled as either an operative, strategic or steering meeting. The top-level operational organ (implementation organ) is the Management Team. Each Circle uses integrative elections to choose a representative who represents the context and interests of the Circle in the management team: this is the rep link. A second link person, the lead link, is responsible for ensuring that the intentions of the broader management team are carried into the Circle. In Holacracy this link is determined by the management team, in ZEGG we often have this role also chosen by the Circle itself. The management team takes decisions which are beyond the responsibility of one Circle. Widerranging financial decisions are made, current developments are reflected upon and strategic decisions are prepared. If we have very general decisions to be taken, the management team calls for a plenary of the stewards or of all full members. The most significant decisions are then taken by the full community by consensus. Holacracy model

4 Some more details about how we work with the different elements of Holacracy Self-organization is run by means of the governance structure process, which distinguishes between the operational and strategic (policy) processes: the former is focussed on getting the work done, the latter is how we organize ourselves to get the work done. Distinguishing between tactical and strategic meetings enables a more focused and effective decision-making culture, which boosts the quality of both operational and policy processes. Operationally, each Circle holds a weekly tactical meeting, allowing the Circle members to coordinate their work by exchanging information and taking operational decisions. In addition to the weekly tactical meetings, the Circle assembles less frequently (e.g. each month) for a strategic meeting. This meeting is about formal policy decisions, roles and responsibilities, which are created, changed or dropped through Integrative Decision-Making. Appointing roles and responsibilities can be made using Integrative Elections : this encourages voting for someone due to their competencies and not out of friendliness. In the first round nominations are spoken out loud so that everybody involved can listen to the reasons why each person believes their nominee is competent for this job. Then there is a second round where everyone integrates the information they just heard, considers who they now want to vote for and indicates their final vote. The person who receives the most votes is then elected, if he/she agrees to accept the outcome (since no one stands for election it can occur that someone is suggested and elected without actively choosing to be nominated). The advantage is that you can hear why people vote for you it creates more transparency and trust. The community likes this new way of election and we use it often in the Circles, although more rarely in the full community. Another element of Holacracy is the practice of dynamic steering. This is a form of the emergent approach. The goal is to find a workable decision for the moment, not necessarily the best decision. The best decision emerges over time, as new information is integrated into the decision. The goal of this principle is to arrive at the best solution in the long run, by always looking for a workable way forward during meetings and by continuously integrating new information as it becomes available over time. This serves to eliminate a lot of noise, and helps the organization take quick, workable decisions that are steered dynamically over time on the basis of real tangible situations. The aspects of the ZEGG s Holacracy model described here directly affect the agility and productivity of our community because decisions can be made much more quickly when the goal is to make a workable decision. Previously we were often blocked by the attempt to find the best decision once and

5 for ever. In addition, these principles result in qualitatively better solutions in the long run. The model can be understood as a practice of organization and communication which leads to: more efficient decision-making more clarity as to who is responsible for what the replacement of hierarchy and plenary-based democracy with self-organized Circles (holons) that can have either very specialized or wide-ranging scopes clear information flows between the working areas (Circles and links) remembering the community s vision at all times as the foundation of its actions. During the community s intensive time in January 2011 we elected the highest organ in the holacratic structure, the Vision Council. Its scope is not operational. Instead, members of the Vision Council are entrusted with the role of adopting a transpersonal view of ZEGG. It explores the questions: What does ZEGG want to give to the world? What does the world want from ZEGG? It then formulates appropriate tasks which it delegates to the Management Team. We have the following roles represented in our Vision Council: Ecology and sustainability Economy Research and education Community, children and elderly people Spirituality, love and relationships Regional outreach International outreach Three of the members of the Vision Council have never lived at ZEGG; having external members in this body offers an important outside perspective. Our community has been implementing this model for two years now and the process is still not finished. At the moment we can say Holacracy made our decision-making process more fluid and more clearly connected to the responsibilities that people actually have. On the other hand, the Holacracy model was designed for hierarchical companies who want to flatten the pyramid of hierarchy. It was not designed for intentional communities. Our task is to adapt it to our needs and to incorporate the community with all its social aspects into a business-oriented structure

6 such as Holacracy. This is not easy and is an ongoing task for us. For example, in a Holacracygoverned business, the normal idea would be that all staff members are part of one Circle and thus represented in the decision-making structure. However, ZEGG has many members who are selfemployed or who work outside of the community: these are not yet part of any Circle. So the question of representation and information flow is not yet fully solved. Nonetheless, we are confident we can develop the next steps by walking further along the path. Ina Meyer-Stoll, Achim Ecker, ZEGG community, Germany