“Boss-less” organisation

In our recent class on Organisational Culture, we were introduced to an online clothing and shoe store called Zappos.  One aspect about the company that really drew me in was its management and organisation structure that is simply known as Holacracy – a distributed leadership system that focuses on self management/autonomy. One of the most unique aspect of this style is that all the members in organisation have the same power.

The main goal of Holacracy is to allow for distributed decision making while giving everyone the opportunity to work on what they do best. Unlike a normal organisational structure where  the structure of the company is divided on the basis of the levels of management such as CEO at the top of the hierarchy and staff or employees below, Holacracy is based on circles or departments.  Instead of organising the employees, the company organises the work. Employees aren’t delegated any work, they themselves voluntarily choose what they want to do and group themselves into ‘circles’ on the basis of the job they have chosen to do.  Each of the circles have a ‘Lead link’ who are managers that are only responsible for assigning work and overseeing it. The ‘lead link’ do not have the authority to determine how the work should be done and finished.

Zappos’ blogpost accurately describes how Holacracy looks like and how it has affected the lives of their employees. The main points that are described in the blog is how Holacracy has lead to transparency, equal distribution of authority and how it has empowered their employees.  These blog posts helped as a proof as to how Holacracy is a good way to go.

However, according to me, it is quite difficult for a big company to change its structure immediately. As said in the blog post, The managers are trained to step back and allow other people to step up and have an equal level in terms of power. For large companies with 20 000 employees, this process is quite a lengthy one. But above all, I do recommend small start-ups to adopt this organisational structure. There will be a very positive environment as the employees will be much more motivated, employees will  build close relationships to their ‘managers’ and their colleagues. This will also positively influence the image of the company. Holacracy also overall impacts the organisational culture, as it is mentioned in the blog post. It builds onto a sense of empowerment and trust that leads the employees to prioritise their work and their goals.

 

 

References:

  • “What Does Leadership in Self-Organization Look Like?” Zappos Insights. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2016. <https://www.zapposinsights.com/blog/item/what-does-leadership-in-selforganization-look-like>.
  • Zappos: A Workplace Where No One And Everyone Is The Boss.” NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2016. <http://www.npr.org/2015/07/21/421148128/zappos-a-workplace-where-no-one-and-everyone-is-the-boss>.
  • Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2016. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2015/07/20/the-5-types-of-organizational-structures-part-5-holacratic-organizations/#15be39956778>.

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Spam prevention powered by Akismet