What if you didn’t have any boss? Your employer told you that you are your own boss. What if you were accountable and answerable to nobody but just yourself? How would you feel about that?

 

A new concept called Holacracy advocates just that. No bosses, no titles-everyone working for the gains of the company at an equal footing.

The concept is interesting and is owned by Holacracy

 

The latest company to join Holacracy is Zappos. Reactions to the email sent by CEO Tony Hsieh were varied. His letter stated –

“As previously stated, self-management and self-organization is not for everyone, and not everyone will necessarily want to move forward in the direction of the Best Customers Strategy and the strategy statements that were recently rolled out. Therefore, there will be a special version of “the offer” on a company-wide scale, in which each employee will be offered at least 3 months severance (and up to 3 months of COBRA reimbursement for benefits) if he/she feels that self-management, self-organization, and our Best Customers Strategy and strategy statements as published in Glass Frog are not the right fit. (For employees that have been with Zappos for 4 or more years, the offer will be 1 month for every year worked at Zappos, along with up to 3 months of COBRA reimbursement for benefits.)”

 

More than 200 employees decided to look for jobs elsewhere because they are unsure of how the system would evolve. But most of them decided to stick around and gaze the changing field themselves.

 

The concept of Holacracy is still new and evolving but it could be categorized as a corporate version of socialism. Holacracy is “a system that removes traditional management hierarchies allowing employees to self-organize to complete work in a way that increases productivity for the company, fosters innovation and empowers anyone in the company with the ability to make decisions that push the company forward.”

 

Time will tell if this method will stay on or die.

Written by Suchitra Sharma