Holacracy & Change
On this Monday morning as I entered
the office, there were a bunch of people sitting in a circular fashion in a
near center of the floor. The table was vibrant yellow with almost 4 males and
3 females discussing over something. “Kitna sugar daalna Hai?” a guy sitting on
the chair questioned. Everyone in the group started discussing about various
factors. A guy said “Price badhega and margin maintain karna hai” and there was
almost discussion about spectrum of factors for almost an hour. It was getting
interesting as everybody had really insightful perspectives about the product. After
the meeting was over, I approached one of the member in the team and asked
“Which product meeting was this?” and he said it was a circle meeting of new
product design for new food product.
NEW WAY!
The concept is based on zero to one
and one to hundred way. The zero to one circle is concentrated on ideation of
product, creation on product. It Is based on the fundamental of going from
nothing to something and as it is stated by the author of the book zero to one,
vertical progress is achieved by doing something absolutely new that is going
zero to one! It includes circles like New product development, Research and
Development, Packaging team, etc. Another circle is concentrated on how to keep
the wheel rotating after the product is launch into the market! It includes
circles like Manufacturing, supply chains, etc. One of the sections in one to
hundred circle is Sales and Distribution team which is responsible to
distribute and manage various sales channels like Aadhar, B2B, Kirana stores,
etc. Overlapping these two circle is the Data to Business circle. Data to
Business team is responsible for analyzing data and share the insights with
current market trends, consumer behaviour pattern with respect to each of the two-circle
vis a vis zero to one and one to hundred. There is a support group which
manages and supports all the above hyperbole called as the “Expert Group”. The
Expert Group includes varied teams like People Office, Supply chain,
Technology, Quality Management. who provides support to all the teams of zero
to one and one to hundred.
BRAND ENTREPRENEUR
“Brand entrepreneur” acts as the nucleus in
the cell of the organization. The
Brand entrepreneur is responsible to provide brief to the creation of product
team i.e. zero to one circle and also is responsible to manage the procurement
and sales. He/ She is responsible to coordinate with one to hundred circle in
order to keep the wheel rotating once the product is launched into the market!
He/ She is accountable right from the product creation to the sale of the
product. If we want to establish an analogy between a two groups, then brand
manager is called as Brand Entrepreneur. Under Brand Entrepreneur there are two
to three product leads working who are managing day to day sales activities,
etc. However, this product leads do not have any say in product briefing. The
brand entrepreneur directly reports to the CEO of one to hundred and strategy team.
There are various circles working in zero to one category as mentioned (e.g.
New Product Development). Every circle has one a head/lead. This head or lead
is the subject matter expert and there are bunch of people who are specialist
in a particular category (e.g. Sauces). There are bunch of people reporting to him.
These people are specialist in a particular product category. Along with this,
they need to execute all the activities which a required by Brand Entrepreneur
for product development. The Head/Lead of the zero to one circle is responsible
for ensuring all the work is delivered by the team as per the brief provided by
Brand Entrepreneur and provide supervision if any team member is facing issues.
As a result, a person in the circle needs to report to the lead as well as work
with Brand Entrepreneur. Thus, it can be said that the organization structure
is matrix in nature.
Every
week there is circle meeting where all the people of different circles from
both zero to one and one to hundred circles gathers and discuss about the
product. The Brand Entrepreneur prepares a plan called as NAG chart or Network
draw where the plan is discussed and timelines are prepared as per the consent
of every person representing every circle instead of the traditional
consensus method discussion in the meetings. The Expert group is responsible to
work across all the circles and provide support as per the requirement.
According to Foss et al, “It is not necessarily those firms that are
largest or have the most resources that do best, but rather those that are
smartest, those that see the new opportunities, and those that develop new ways
of doing business” .To sustain in this
ever changing environment, the best policy for the companies is following
Darwin’s theory of adoption to change.
The term “Holacracy” comes from the
concept of “holarchy”, a term coined by Arthur Koestler who defined a “holon”
as a whole that is a part of a larger whole and a “holarchy” as the connection
between holon.
Holacracy is like an
operating system of organization. It is a predefined set of standards and
procedures, governing rules, and guidelines that an organization can use to
enable themselves to wind up self-managed and self-organized by giving each
worker (rather than just management) the power to innovate, make changes, and
have a voice.
In holacracy, the organization consists of
hierarchy of self-organizing circles in which every employee energizes multiple
roles with every role having defined purpose with a clear description of the
work which and necessary responsibility and authorities to implement the
function of the role. Decision making is distributed throughout the
organization as information flows through all business levels and decision
making thus becomes consent-based decision making rather than consensus
based!
As the company grows, it
sometimes becomes slower to sense and respond to consumers requirement and
feedback, because of the existing hierarchy layer employees needed to go
through to get things done. Holacracy is an instrument that enables every
employee to quickly surface and act on the feedback provided by the customer so
that an organization can ceaselessly provide finest service regardless the size
and other attributes.
Based
on the statistical operationalization of 97 companies, it is observed that
around 3.16% of the companies follow Holacracy in Industry retail sector.
According to the report by Problems and Perspectives in Management, Volume
16, Issue 1, 2018 ,It can be said that Holacracy works wonders if the
organization has a dynamic culture and self-driven
employees and who needs more agile approach.
FMCG 2.0 is planning to
understand the customers needs and with rapidly changing customer demands needs,
it needs to stay updated with the trends and a holistic perspective can be
obtained by allowing everyone in the organization to suggest and implement the
necessary proposition. Because the decision making is divided, every employee
is given the opportunity to act on the tensions they feel in the organization.
It can be therefore said that holacracy is the way forward!
The theory of Holacracy looks promising but now it depends on how the
organization adopts this revolutionary structure!
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