How to Accept Complaining and also Challenge It — When someone complains, I’m generally very sympathetic. But I also don’t want to lead someone astray by enabling an unhealthy victim story. Blaming someone else for not meeting a need of yours is confusing responsibility to and responsibility for. So, while I want to listen and be supportive, I don’t…

How Your Limiting Beliefs Actually Make Sense (and what to do about it) — Human beings are smart. Though there may be arguable exceptions to that claim, it seems generally true that our intelligence comes from (or is expressed through) our amazing capacity to learn. A baby bites its bottle, then bites its own finger, and notices the difference. We can say then that…

Holacracy Practitioner’s Guide — Learning Holacracy isn’t just like learning a new language, it actually is learning a new language. And for the most part, the new words you need to know, like “Accountability,” and, “Domain” are defined in the Holacracy constitution. However, the constitution doesn’t provide a complete list. So, I wrote an updated set of definitions for practitioners that I think has four advantages:

We love to collaborate, but what does “collaborate” mean? My business partner, Olivier Compagne, says it this way… If we really want a role to “collaborate” with another role, then it’s much clearer to specify the nature of that collaboration. Do we want the role to “consider suggestions” from another role? Or, “integrate objections”? Or, even “integrate input”? Or, do we really mean “Execute… as directed” by another role? Some options are better than others depending on the context, but regardless of which one we choose, Holacracy pushes us to make a conscious decision about it.

In order to achieve any result, you must be willing to accept its opposite. For example, if you want to get to California from the east coast of the United States, you must go west. But if you’re completely, obsessively, unbendingly attached to the strategy of “going west,” you’ll never reach your destination. Why? Because inevitably you’re going to run into a river, a mountain, or a dead end. When that happens, you’ll have to adapt. You’ll need to go south or north, or maybe even east. “East? Travel east!? But that’s literally the opposite of what I need to do!!!”

Do we need to clarify something obvious? Probably not. If it’s obvious, then it’s obvious. The very definition of the word “obvious” precludes the question. Yet, some argue that clarity is helpful for its own sake. “Even if something seems obvious,” they might say, “it may be worth exploring further.”…

Holacracy® Practitioner’s Guide — Introduced in Holacracy Constitution v5, rules about “relational agreements” were added as a complement to governance. This made some things more clear, but also introduced some complexity. But before I say too much about them, I need to introduce a presupposition that I’ll also emphasize several times through the article…

Holacracy® Practitioner’s Guide — Strictly speaking, “Holacracy” is just a set of rules without any explicit principles, but of course philosophical principles impact which rules are included and how they are defined. Here’s one you should know… Persuasion is more powerful than force. It’s hard to make someone do something they don’t want to…

Holacracy Practitioner’s Guide — You need to know that while all of the rules in the Holacracy Constitution are important, they are not equally so. Thankfully, the differences are more clear in Constitution version 5.0 because it specifies which rules can be replaced with a policy. Note: See the “Notes” section at the end…