Introducing: The Structure-Oriented Culture (Part 1)

A Way Forward for Holacracy and Self-Management

Tradition is a fence around the Law. -Talmud

I have previously said that Holacracy® is different from many other organizational approaches to self-management or “teal organization,” because its practice is fundamentally, “structure-oriented.”

“Structure,” in this sense, means social structures, so things like explicitly defined expectations, roles, authorities, and restrictions of a group or organization. And structure-oriented approaches like Holacracy gave the world an innovative new paradigm for getting work done together.

Note: I would consider approaches like Agile, Lean, Six Sigma, or OKRs, as other illustrative examples of using structure rather than culture, as the primary means of coordination, though with varying degrees of emphasis.

In a “culture-orientation,” the emphasis or priority is generally about shaping the organization’s underlying beliefs, values, and behaviors above anything else. For more on this read, Don’t Change People When You Can Change Structures.

For example, if there was a team conflict about role-assignment, a traditional manager might be expected to just jump in and resolve it, meaning that the emphasis is on the manager’s capacities and skills.

In a structure-oriented practice like Holacracy, the team would first look towards its set of explicit agreements, policies, or roles (i.e. its “structure”) for guidance. And if needed, they’d follow their own consent-based meeting process to update the expectations and remove the conflict.

And from my experience, people seem attracted to structure-oriented activities or practices (to the degree that they are) because of how a structure-based approach brings comfort and clarity to our interactions that is often missing.

But there’s a catch.

A structure doesn’t do anything, no matter how clear it is, on its own. The people have to care about it. They have to use it. Using a clear structure certainly helps, but it’s rarely sufficient.

The “Structure-Oriented Culture” Approach

Knowing that structures alone aren’t sufficient, I’ve come to believe that single most critical factor in an organization’s success or failure with any structure-oriented practice is the degree to which their culture values their structure.

More specifically, I believe the health and stability of a group’s practice is reflected and reinforced by their habits and norms around structure. 

These norms express the group’s collective beliefs about the importance, meaning, or utility of making their own expectations of each other explicit. 

An example of a norm-about-structure, and some of the beliefs that contribute to it, would be something like:

If my theory is correct, then a “structure-oriented culture” approach (a poor but accurate label) would prioritize these behavior patterns and beliefs for intervention and clarification even over the structures (i.e. roles, agreements, rules, etc.) themselves. 

Said another way, traditional approaches (and the current trends) in organizational development emphasize culture largely to the exclusion of structure. In response to this, practices like Holacracy emerged to bring back the validity and importance of structure, yet in doing so they have, either intentionally or unintentionally, deprioritized cultural concerns.

When Differentiation Becomes Disassociation

A “structure-oriented culture,” approach puts culture as the primary frame-of-reference (i.e. the term “structure-oriented” modifies the term “culture”). But the specific elements of culture we’re concerned with are those that make structure matter to the people—whatever the specifics of that structure happen to be.

Said another way, it’s a cultural approach that emphasizes the appropriate use of structure, not a structural approach that emphasizes the appropriate use of culture.

This “structure-oriented culture” approach is therefore transparent in its normative view of the proper and improper use of structures, but it does so in a way that is appropriately calibrated to the realities that people are going to do what they’re going to do—both collectively and as individuals.

A rule and structure can operate as independent cause-for-action (i.e. you follow it because it’s a rule without reference to other considerations), but the structure’s normative pressure is only potential pressure—it’s the norms around it that will ultimately determine its meaning.

This simple summary is this: most approaches to self-management do not emphasize structure enough, while something like traditional Holacracy practice emphasizes culture too little (or actively de-emphasizes it).

What is needed then is a way forward that is more integrated and holistic. A way to balance the polarities of structure and culture in a more humane and sustainable way.

The Structure System

“So, what exactly is new about it, then?” Well, at the risk of repeating myself, the core difference in my approach is that the rules (whatever they are) are subordinate to the overall system of norms. This approach certainly includes (or aligns with) other approaches like Holacracy, but, and this is the important part, it does not require it.

Again, you can have lots and lots of great rules, but they won’t do anything if the group’s habits and norms push them in the opposite direction. Meaning, a “structure-orientation” is measured, defined, or changed by understanding how the group’s explicit structures are (or are not) reinforced through their shared norms.

A way to visualize this norm-based approach is to think in terms of a, “structure system,” so that any consideration of a structure necessitates consideration of the appropriate means for exploring, encoding, enforcing, and evolving it.

In this model, it is the system itself that is the preferred unit of analysis. Meaning, the focus is on how a structure is operationalized, not the substance of the structure itself (i.e. norms > structure).

So, for example, if a team is having difficulty with people not responding quickly enough to each other’s’ emails, the primary question driving their solution would be, “How might we as a team encode and enforce a rule or agreement to resolve this issue?” rather than focusing vaguely on expectations or mindsets.

Conclusion

I’ve got a lot more to say about all of this, but for now, I just wanted to introduce the general hypothesis that I’ve been working on for the last year. It has been in the background of many of my articles, but it felt like time to just come out and say it plainly.

Of course, most of my experience with a structure-oriented practice is with Holacracy, so I want to make it clear that Holacracy is still a practice I recommend and support. And good luck to anyone who thinks they can come up with a better set of minimally viable rules to help a large group of people achieve a shared purpose.

And among the many things that Holacracy contributed, one of them was maybe that it provided many of the necessary factors needed to make structure more meaningful to people. For example…

•  You’re not going to trust a structure that is inconsistently defined, and Holacracy provides its own structure-language with stable definitions that everyone can understand (e.g. An “accountability” is defined as an “ongoing-activity”). 

• You’re not going to trust a structure that is inaccurate or outdated, and Holacracy provides a way to ensure that the structure is the most accurate and up-to-date (i.e. requisite) it can reasonably be. 

• Since you’re never going to be able to objectively determine when something needs to be captured explicitly as structure and when it can remain implicit, structures should be based on felt “tension,” and encoded through team consent.

But, and this is the key point, Holacracy never identified all of the factors needed. Its constitution includes all of the necessary features of structure to make structure matter, but it doesn’t address how to make the people care about that structure.

That is where the “structure-oriented culture” idea comes in. So, if you’re looking for a more systematic and predictable way to shift your organization’s culture, or if you’re looking for a more humane or empathetic version of Holacracy, then stay tuned because this may be it.

Coming Next: “Introducing the Four Types of Explicit Expectations: Values, Guidelines, Rules, and Laws (Part 2).”

---

I’ve also just created a very simple and basic community platform for anyone who wants to discuss these ideas in more detail. You can find it here: https://soc.discourse.group/. I’ve already hosted some presentations and videos on it, but it’s very new and very basic. If you’d like to make some contributions to a radical new way of thinking about collaboration that is both more effective and more humane, then please join me over there!

---