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Differentiating Role and Soul

December 10, 2010 - 2:00pm

Do any of these symptoms show up in your organization?

  • Lots of meetings with lots of discussion to reach consensus on things
  • E-mails fly around with lots of people cc’d, often for unclear reasons
  • People check-in with everyone before making decisions, and expect others will too
  • People have lots of ideas about what “we” should do… but “we” doesn’t do it

These are all symptoms of lack of clarity, and many organizations suffer from them.  When we’re not clear who needs to be involved in a decision or who has the authority to make it, we often default to getting everyone involved for lack of a better option.  That at least allows a decision to get made (sometimes), and no one’s toes get stepped on (usually), though it sure has a price.  It also points to a much deeper issue – a lack of clarity of what roles (not people) are needed given the organization’s purpose, what work each of those roles (not people) needs to do, and what authority each of those roles (not people) needs to do it.  Until we have differentiated the organizational roles from the people doing them, we will have a fusion of the people and the organization which limits both.

Example Role Definition
Role:  Marketing & PR
Purpose: Generate buzz about Holacracy
Scope:
  - Social networking & mailing list functions
  - Content & functionality of public website
Accountabilities:
  - Promoting & marketing trainings
  - Pursuing PR & speaking opportunities

The medicine for this fusion is organizational clarity – a defined structure for how the organization will pursue its purpose.  This structure has nothing to do with the people, and it is best defined without reference to them – people come in later, to energize the Roles the organization needs to pursue its purpose.  To define a Role without reference to the people, give the Role a descriptive name, and one or more related activities which the person filling the Role will energize for the organization.  This Role-holder must have authority to execute upon and make decisions around those activities, and may also have defined limits of authority or constraints which ensure other Roles can do their work effectively as well.  With Roles defined around what’s needed for the purpose, we can then look at our available talent and assign the best-fit to energize each Role – and most of us will fill multiple roles quite naturally.  (Done well, this is quite different from a conventional job description exercise – more on that in a future post.) 

Once we have this clarity – or better yet, a trusted process for continually generating this clarity over time – we can then find relief from the symptoms above.  We no longer need meetings for everything, as we know exactly which other roles to involve in various activities and decisions.  And when we do engage in a discussion we can do so without creating an expectation of consensus, because everyone is crystal clear on which role owns the decision.  We no longer need to cc everyone on e-mails or check-in with everyone before making a decision, as we now know which roles should be involved in what and to what extent we should involve them…  and just as important, to what extent we should just use our best judgment and make a decision autocratically.  Organizational clarity frees us to be a good leader when we’re filling a role and need to balance input with expediency, and a good follower when another role owns a decision and shuts down discussion to make a judgment call.

So, how can you move towards this kind of organizational clarity?  Here are a few of my techniques:

  • When Seeking Consensus:  When a discussion seems to be seeking consensus among the people about what decision to make, I ask “Is it clear what Role holds the authority to make this decision?”
  • When Involving Everyone:  When lots of people are pulled into a meeting (or e-mail chain), I ask “What Roles need to be involved and why?”
  • When There’s Fusion:  When a given human is habitually referenced by name as someone to check with or work with, especially if it’s a founder, I ask “What Role is it that needs to be consulted, and what Role is asking?”

These questions begin to highlight the lack of clarity and habitual fusion that necessarily exists in the early-stages of any effort – and often still exists quite a bit later, despite fancy job descriptions and org charts that pretend otherwise.  And it is in answering these questions that something emerges beyond just the group of people – only then is a true organization born, as its own differentiated entity.

In Holacracy, generating this kind of grounded clarity happens through a defined governance process: each team holds regular governance meetings, which use Holacracy’s structured Integrative Decision-Making process to give everyone a voice and rapidly integrate needed perspectives.  The output of that integrative process is clarity around Roles and their autocratic authorities, which are later assigned to team members to energize – thus moving from an unconscious fusion of the humans and their work to a clear differentiation and then conscious integration of “role and soul”.


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Comments

Submitted by Deborah Boyar on December 11, 2010 - 11:51pm. #

Crystal clear and very accessible article.  Well-written!

Submitted by Diederick (not verified) on December 14, 2010 - 5:49am. #

Thanks for this Brian, I find it's one of the most valuable distinctions made by Holacracy... Really learning to differentiate between the two of them can and will transform the organization. Awesome!

Submitted by Bruno Heufelder (not verified) on December 14, 2010 - 5:49am. #

Thanks for your good post Brian. I have observed these symtoms often, specially in big organizations. Thanks for the powerfull questions.

I am expecting to meet you in Zürich on 2011.

Submitted by Eddie Marmol (not verified) on December 14, 2010 - 9:22am. #

I enjoyed reading this well-thought-out article.

Submitted by Ellis Megee (not verified) on December 14, 2010 - 11:44am. #

This makes sense and provides clarity beyond average advise.

It certainly creates a great option of sorting out difficult areas of responsibility and how best to create a strong organization.

Submitted by Anouk Brack (not verified) on December 14, 2010 - 4:57pm. #

I like it! It takes practice definitely, but this post at least helps recognize the symptoms of confusion between soul and role clearer.

Now I would love to see some examples of role & accountabilities overviews. Do people mostly make an excell page / google doc or what?

Thanks! Anouk

Submitted by Brian Robertson on December 14, 2010 - 8:13pm. #

Thanks for the comments all, really appreciate the feedback & engagement!

Anouk:  You can actually see HolacracyOne's roles & accountabilities as examples if you like - see the "Inside HolacracyOne" link on our About Us page (and please forgive the formatting issues seen in some of the roles & accountabilities - we'll fix those as time allows).

We use our Holacracy Support Software during our Governance Meetings; it tracks our continually-evolving structure, roles, accountabilities, and policies, and includes an option to make those outputs transparent on the web.  See our Software page for more info.  Google Docs or a Wiki are both viable options as well, though the software takes care of some manual effort that's required otherwise, and generally makes the process easier.

Regards,

- Brian

Submitted by Cecile Green (not verified) on December 15, 2010 - 7:45pm. #

This is fabulous Brian! Really appreciate you writing and posting this. I love the way that you described the mechanics of this distinction: confering a Role to an individual is a distribution of power. A passing off  of the autocratic power that normally is concentrated in one or a few individuals. I suddenly have another angle on or image of 'distributed control'.Your specific questions to use in building this engine of continuous distinction are beautifully simple practices to integrate. Thank you!

Submitted by Evan (not verified) on December 21, 2010 - 8:58am. #

It is great to see more and more of this material and wisdom making it into public writing. Sharing these insights is an important step on the way to broader acceptance.

Thank you,

Evan

Submitted by Joe Perez (not verified) on January 11, 2011 - 5:05pm. #

An insightful post, thanks. I've just added the HolacracyOne blog to my blog's blogroll. Looking forward to following along...

Submitted by Mai Vu (not verified) on July 7, 2011 - 1:13pm. #

WAIT! you didn't address the SOUL part in your article.  You were very clear about the ROLE part, but the title promissed to "differentiate Role and Soul".

I want some "soul food" baby!

Let's talk.  We have got to talk about the soul part, if you truly want to liberate the soul of organizations. 

Submitted by Brian Robertson on July 8, 2011 - 6:52am. #

Hi Mai - I'm afraid I'd need to write a book to do full justice to that topic!  This post was actually meant to just be about differentiating the organization's roles from the human souls filling them; for comments on the organization's "soul" - or what I might use that language to reference anyway - see my first post, Beyond Serving Stakeholders.  It only scratches the surface, though I discuss this more in our free webinars if you'd like to join one of those.

Thanks for reading!

- Brian

Submitted by Bernard Marie Chiquet on September 16, 2011 - 2:27am. #

Hi Brian,

I am currently translating your Blog Post "Differentiating Role and Soul" and trying to localize the title.

What do you mean by Differentiating Role and Soul?  Do you mean Differentiating People from Roles and Higher Purpose of the Org.?

Is this correct? Any comment there, so i can do a great translation?

Thanks

Bernard Marie

Submitted by Brian Robertson on September 16, 2011 - 1:09pm. #

Hi Bernard Marie,

Yes; the more-common state in organizations today is a fusion between so many of the humans ("souls") involved, and the various roles they fill on behalf of the organization and its purpose.  It's like a parent fused with their child and projecting their own needs on the child and vice-versa.  The first step in finding a more healthy, adult-to-adult relationship of autonomous entities is first to differentiate from that kind of fused co-dependent relationship, to then allow for a healthy integration (not fusion) which honors appropriate boundaries.

Hope that helps!

- Brian

Submitted by Bernard Marie Chiquet on September 16, 2011 - 2:07pm. #

Thanks Brian.

 

Submitted by Dussaucy Jean-Claude (not verified) on December 31, 2011 - 5:12am. #

Bonjour à tous, 

C'est simplement ce qu'on appelle le décentrage !

 

Cdlt.

Submitted by jseav19 (not verified) on March 9, 2012 - 1:54pm. #

Thanks for the compelling topic, Brian.

I'd love to hear your perspective on the following observations:

In modern / progressively governed organizations, we often see many of the characteristics you described in your post,

  • large cc'd groups on email discussions
  • needing to discuss everything with everyone before deciding
  • consensus seeking etc
In organizational cultures where everyone's voice is the taken-for-granted value, qualities such as authority (to decide), autonomony (to make decisions), and decisiveness in general can actually be the enemy to the modern / progressive cultural paradigm.
 
If you're still with me, and we take this a step further, the power 'structure' is in place within this modern / progressive cultural environment and that very same structure is a somewhat taboo or sensitive subject. In a land of fused roles and souls bringing to light that fusion, that embedded and perhaps even unconscious power structure, is like bring a parent's fused relationship to his/her child to light. The result is that the light bringer herself becomes the enemy who is threatening the very structure that has "worked" up until now.
 
I know you know integral theory and I do as well, but I'm trying to speak to the the mean green meme or boomeritis phenomena. The green shadow if you will. Or better yet, in a green flatland culture, the biggest red ego-drive runs the show. Therefore, a more evolved holocratic / integral structure can be quite threatening to that structure. How do we deal with that?
 
Can you write your answer without using integral-speak to make the question just a touch more challenging?
 
With gratitude,  : )
 
Jesse Seavers
Boulder, CO

Submitted by Olivier Compagne on May 10, 2012 - 11:30pm. #

Hi Jesse,

I'd like to try to answer your question. There are different ways to answer it depending on who is the "we" trying to deal with a potential resistance to Holacracy, and who is resisting. 

The easy answer - but which has a lot of wisdom - is to simply NOT try to deal with it. Some organizations and some people are not ready for Holacracy. If they see it as a threat, it makes sense to reject it. In the grand scheme of things, who are we to tell them what they should do? So offering, suggesting, inviting to Holacracy, for sure. But trying to convince reluctant folks, I don't think it serves them nor us nor the "Holacracy movement".

That said, there are ways to invite that are better than others. One thing I love about Holacracy, and that makes it a truly "Integral" system in my opinion, is that it integrates so many polarities. For example, it is not more individual- than collective-oriented, it is both: individually autocratic for each person in their Roles / collective making of governance via the Integrative Decision Making process. Beena Sharma explains it really well in a dialogue on Polarities and Human Development.

Besides the fact that Holacracy integrates polarities may be a good "argument" in itself for integrally-informed people, it is also a guarantee that you can find pretty much anything in Holacracy that will peak their interest. Whether they are sensible to the spiritual dimension of Holacracy's focus on evolutionary purpose, or rather to the down-to-earth aspect of using metrics and focusing on "next actions", they will find it in Holacracy. Whether they prefer "structure" over "free flow", they will find it in Holacracy. Of course, it means that Holacracy would also confront them to the other side of their preferred polarities - which is where a lot of resistance and projection can happen. But these can be discovered a bit later as they directly experience Holacracy. By then, if they choose to give up on Holacracy, they will have to choose to ALSO give up on their preferred side of the polarities that Holacracy protected so well.

Holacracy is a balanced system, it's a gestalt where you can hardly take a part out without breaking the balance. Some people are just not ready for it, and it's fine. For the others, as much as they are likely to always find something they dislike, they are as likely to find something they like. And they are likely to find even more of it when they accept to emphasize that aspect they dislike. It is a quite amazing paradox. I like the metaphor of the road, which is very limiting and constraining, but also allows to go vastly faster.

Here are some thoughts on the issue, I hope they are somehow helpful.

Olivier 

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About the Author

Brian Robertson
Brian is a seasoned entrepreneur & organization builder, and a recovering CEO - a job he now helps free others from with Holacracy.
 

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