Practising holacracy in real life - by letting it go

On Saturday my collaborators on thesunnyway.com, a website dedicated to pioneering a new view on life, human beings and environmentalism met in order to take our project, only 2 months young, to the next level. The initiator, Megan, had come to a point where she was feeling she was chasing a lot of people, all volunteers, and having to remind them to stick to their commitments in order to be able to get content for the site in time. Things were becoming personal and complicated. In order to sail around this cliff in our passion and work for this project, Megan and I had talked about introducing the practise of holacracy. We had a little plan, who would say and do what before we headed into teh meeting. Five of the six most committed people on the site gathered in her sunny, leafy Brooklyn backyard and took a step back - where we all clear on what our mission actually was? No, wrong start.... What the sunny way's mission was? This is one of the main characteristics in holacracy - rather than primarily looking at the people or positions involved, the focus is on the organization itself. We are trying to figure out what it needs, where it wants to go. There is a listening involved that goes beyond the personal sphere. It might have needs, a vision and a path, that has nothing to do with what the individuals are thinking about it. And this became beatifully clear during this meeting. There was no need to use a formal meeting structure, which holacracy provides. The meeting was a real flow. As we spoke about the vision, written out on a piece of paper in the middle of our circle we kept becoming aware of this truly not being about any of us personally. Each of us can fulfill a role, each of us was of use, to the sunnyway itself. What we needed first of all was two things - to keep our focus on the development and needs of the site, and to establish a system of transparency - a google group, where everyone would post their weekly projects and commitments every Monday, visible to all, and where, if they were unable to meet them they would state so, so that everyone was on the same (web)page :-)

In the process of meeting, we also came up with a creative way to address writer's block and the 'problem' of having more ideas than we can individually follow up on.

A couple of days later, on a follow up phone call, it is already becoming clear that we will split up some of the responsibilities, Megan is now carrying alone in the near future.

We were prepared to use the meeting structure of holacracy in order to assist ourselves in not getting caught up in personal issues. Thanks to the clarity, openness and willingness of the participants to take responsibility, this wasn't necessary. In a parodoxical way, the most holacratic thing to do was to can those plans, to be present and respond to what was arising in front of us. This way of working together, we came to see, is a part of the site as important and inspiring as the content itself. It is a thrilling way to learn and to work.