I often receive requests or invitations via e-mail, which are sent to me as an individual but are really about the work of HolacracyOne as an organization. Often the sender is interested in Holacracy and is generously reaching out to me in some way to support or connect with the work. This creates a fascinating challenge; while my own enthusiasm often leaves me wanting to respond individually, Holacracy expressly pushes against that kind of fusion of human and organization.
My discipline is to remember that I’m a representative of HolacracyOne’s work in the world, not the other way around — unlike the more common pattern with many public-facing thought-leaders, where it is very much the other way around. The Holacracy operating system has a focus on generating organizational clarity and acting from that clarity. That means acting from clearly-differentiated roles with clear accountability and authority, all differentiated from us humans involved — so when someone e-mails me individually about Holacracy, my first goal is to ensure they get an organizational response from HolacracyOne, not a personal response from a founder fused with that organization.
So when I receive an incoming query, my first mental check is: “Do I fill a role with accountability for processing this kind of message?” (You can find a list of the roles I fill and their accountabilities here). If I don’t, then my responsibility to HolacracyOne and my fellow partners is to avoid the temptation to jump in and respond as a “heroic leader” — that is, someone responding from their personal compass outside of clear organizational roles and authorities. While that actually might serve the immediate need just fine, it would severely limit an organization taking shape beyond the individuals (see my prior blog post for more on this).
So instead of responding personally, I do another mental check: “Which role or circle within HolacracyOne has an accountability for processing messages like this?” If there’s a clear answer, I forward the query to the holder of that role. If there’s no clear answer, I forward the query to our Customer Relations role, which holds an accountability for fielding inbound messages when there’s no clear role to direct them to. Sometimes that leads to a dialog to better understand what the requester is looking for and how it matches with HolacracyOne’s channels for engagement. And sometimes, a requester seeks something outside of what HolacracyOne provides. In that case, absent any sensed tension to expand our standard offerings, the requester will get a clear, respectful “HolacracyOne can’t help you” (see my prior blog post on the value of a clear “no”).
So what about when the incoming message is truly directed at me personally and not in my capacity as a partner of HolacracyOne? Well, if that’s really true, then I’ll respond personally — easy enough. However, my commitment to HolacracyOne is to avoid engaging personally around queries that have to do with the work of HolacracyOne; meaning anything Holacracy-related. The Holacracy system has a strong focus on building an organization that can express its unique capacity for creative expression in the world, unshackled from any single heroic leader. And that means liberating founders like myself from an unconscious fusion with the organization, which in turn frees both to more deeply find and express their paths in life.
