logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Can Management Principles from Zappos’ Holacracy Teach Nonprofits?

Ruth McCambridge
January 2, 2014
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

 

Zappos

December 30, 2013; Quartz

For anyone who is a fan of participatory management, chaotic thinking, etc., this new experiment in the corporate sector will seem like another step in what has been a twenty-five year journey to replace the industrial model hierarchy with something more suited to the twenty-first century workplace. We’d love to hear what you think about this.

Zappos, the online retail outlet, is notable from the outside for outstanding customer service that leaves the buyer with the sense of being listened to while at the same time being served with enormous efficiency. Now, CEO Tony Hsieh has plans to transform Zappos through implementing a “self-governing” operating system with no job titles and no managers.

The system is called a “holacracy” based on the Greek word holon—a whole that’s part of a greater whole. The “holarchy” will distribute power more evenly among the corporation’s 1500 employees, and organization will be done through 400 different circles in which employees can have any number of roles. All of this is aided by and aimed at producing “radical transparency,” and Hsieh believes that it will result in high adaptability, saying, “Darwin said that it’s not the fastest or strongest that survive. It’s the ones most adaptive to change.”

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Hsieh is being helped in this venture by Brian Robertson from the management consultancy HolacracyOne. “Zappos’ focus on core values and culture has done a remarkably good job of getting around the limits of a conventional corporate structure,” says Robertson, “Leaders that already understand the limits of conventional structures are the ones that are attracted to holacracy.”

Free Download: 10 Ways to Kill Your Nonprofit
“We’re classically trained to think of ‘work’ in the traditional paradigm,” says John Bunch, who, along with Alexis Gonzales-Black, is leading the transition to holacracy at Zappos. “One of the core principles is people taking personal accountability for their work. It’s not leaderless. There are certainly people who hold a bigger scope of purpose for the organization than others. What it does do is distribute leadership into each role. Everybody is expected to lead and be an entrepreneur in their own roles, and holacracy empowers them to do so.”

John Bunch, who is working to help implement the change, says the system is “politics-free [and] quickly evolving to define and operate the purpose of the organization, responding to market and real-world conditions in real time. It’s creating a structure in which people have flexibility to pursue what they’re passionate about.”

Robertson says that “a high capacity to see the complex systems at play in their organizations,” can aid the success of holocracy. “It’s not linear or a matter of just following the logical argument; it’s seeing the cloud of interconnections and influences, beyond just cause and effect thinking.”—Ruth McCambridge

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor Emerita of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

More about: Corporate Social ResponsibilityManagementManagement and LeadershipNonprofit NewsOrganizational culture and its drivers

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

NPQ_Winter_2022Subscribe Today
You might also like
How to Align Assets with Mission: Small Steps That Nonprofits Can Take
Anna Smukowski
So You Want to Walk in Someone Else’s Shoes?
Heather Hiscox
It’s Time for Philanthropy to Reimagine BIPOC Leadership Transitions
Cathy Dang and Liz Sak
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Shared Leadership in a Human Rights Fund
Clare Gibson Nangle, Rebecca Olschner-Wood and Frances Tennyson-d’Eyncourt
Walking the Talk: Reclaiming Dignity through Humanistic Management
Elizabeth Castillo

Popular Webinars

Remaking the Economy

Black Food Sovereignty, Community Stories

Register Now

Combating Disinformation and Misinformation in 21st-Century Social Movements

Register Now

Remaking the Economy

Closing the Racial Wealth Gap

Register Now
You might also like
How to Align Assets with Mission: Small Steps That...
Anna Smukowski
So You Want to Walk in Someone Else’s Shoes?
Heather Hiscox
It’s Time for Philanthropy to Reimagine BIPOC Leadership...
Cathy Dang and Liz Sak

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.