Role Definition and Allocation

By the very nature of the division of labor in organizations, people end up taking up certain roles. Colleagues often feel a need for clarity around these roles, for example "I need help with X: who can I talk to?", "I have an idea to change something in this domain: who would be the natural person to make that happen?", "We agreed to do something that didn't get done: who was the person that committed to this?".

There is value, therefore, in creating clarity on roles and commitments. Some people can be allergic to any formality or clarity, as it reminds them of traditional, static hierarchies, job titles and job definitions. Remember, roles can be fluidly created, modified, exchanged and scrapped, using peer-based rather than top-down processes.

In traditional organizations, managers act on behalf of those below them. Many such ‘management’ tasks disappear in self-managing organizations. Those that are still needed can be distributed among team members. For example:

• Anticipating: Everyone can anticipate the future, but some teams might find it useful to have one person dedicate time to anticipate the need for long term changes.
• Planning: This can be further broken down, for instance into shift planning, raw material planning, etc. Setting objectives: Individuals and teams can set objectives to spur themselves on. One person can take the lead using the advice process.
• Monitoring performance indicators: Compiling data into easy to understand insights to share with the team.
• Recruiting: Taking the lead in the recruitment process of new team members.
• On-boarding: Taking the lead in organizing the on-boarding of new team members.
• Coaching: Coaching junior team members, or anyone asking for coaching.
• Mediating: Mediating conflicts.
• Facilitating: Facilitating team meetings and decision making processes.
• Scribe: Documenting important conversations and decisions of the team.
• Knowledge management: Capturing and codifying insights.
• Continuous improvement: Taking the lead in maintaining processes for continuous improvement.
• Coordinating with outside parties: Being the contact person for certain constituencies outside of the team ("I'm coordinating with the marketing team") or outside the organization ("I'm coordinating with hospitals, you are liaising with pharmacies").
• Sensing team mood: Sensing how the team as a whole and persons within the team feel, and initiate conversations when needed.
• Organizing social events: Creating events that build community feeling.

The advice process is the basis for which to make decision in these roles.

Self-management

The ability to craft a role that caters to one’s strengths not only has the potential to strengthen the organization, it is a clear example of managing one’s self. There are no managers or bosses in Teal organizations that decide roles, Rather roles are self-determined with the consent of peers.

Wholeness

Equally, it is evident that the better the match between a person’s strengths/interests and their role, the more likely it is they can express themselves fully and freely via work.

Evolutionary purpose

When processes and a culture exists that help roles evolve continuously, it helps the organization adapt and support its evolving purpose.

A well defined process to create, modify and assign roles

In Holacratic language, people don’t have a job, but fill a number of roles. (The Holacracy constitution defines a role as consisting of three specific elements: a “purpose” to express; possibly one or more “domains” to control; and a set of “accountabilities” to enact. Some roles will have all three of these parts, though often roles will start out with only a purpose or just a single accountability and evolve from there. A purpose tells us why the role exists: what it aims to achieve. A domain (of which there may be several) specifies something the role has the exclusive authority to control on behalf of the organization— in other words, this role’s “property,” which no other role can mess with. And each accountability is an ongoing activity that the role has the authority to perform and is expected to perform or otherwise manage for the organization.^[1]

When someone senses that a new role must be created or an existing role amended or discarded, they bring it up within their team in a governance meeting. Governance meetings are specific meetings where only questions related to roles and collaboration are to be discussed. A detailed description of the governance meeting process can be found here.

Holacracy's constitution calls for organizing roles into “circles”. The roles a circle contains are a breakdown of what’s needed to express its overall purpose, enact its accountabilities, and control its domains. Circles (“sub-circles”) are in turn grouped within broader circles (“super-circles”) in a nesting fashion all the way up until the biggest circle contains the entire organization (the “anchor circle”).^[2]

In Holacracy, each sub-circle contains a special governance role called the “Lead Link” which is appointed by the super-circle to represent its interests in the sub-circle. The Lead Link does not manage the circle but does have the authority to assign people to roles and to set priorities within that circle.

Holacracy's constitution stipulates that certain specific roles (the facilitator, the secretary, the Lead Link and the "Rep Link") are appointed using a consent-based election. All other roles are appointed by the person holding the team's Lead Link role. (See Holacracy's constitution for a detailed description of the process).

An internal "Role Market place" to help in trading roles

HolacracyOne has set up a company-wide Role Market Place in order to make trading roles easy (in holacratic language, this is an “app;” it’s not part of the basic operating system). On the company’s intranet is a file where colleagues can “rate” every role they currently fill, using a scale of -3 to +3:

• If they find the role energizing (+) or draining (-).
• If they find their talents aligned (+) or not (-) with this role.
• If they find their current skills and knowledge conducive to (+) or limiting in (-) this role.

Using the same scale of -3 to +3, people can also signal their interest in roles currently filled by other people. The market place helps people wanting to offload or pick up roles.

A formal process for defining and allocating roles which takes place once each year

As a Morning Star colleague, you write a personal mission statement (“Personal Commercial Mission” in Morning Star’s language) and spell out all of the roles you commit to perform in a document called the Colleague Letter of Understanding (or simply CLOU). Roles at Morning Star are defined very specifically, so you might well hold 20 or 30 different roles (one might be receiver of tomatoes at the unloading station, another might be trainer of seasonal whole peel sorters). For each role, you specify;

• what it does,
• what authority you believe you should have (act, recommend, decide, or a combination thereof),
• what indicators will help you understand if you are doing a good job, and
• what improvements you hope to make on those indicators.

In a continuous process like Morning Star’s, each person in the chain receives tomatoes or paste in some form from someone upstream and delivers them in another form to someone downstream. This might explain why colleagues at Morning Star chose to discuss the CLOUs, once written or updated, not in a team setting but in a series of one-on-one discussions with colleagues up and downstream.

Here is a sample CLOU document (link to be fixed). A more detailed discussions of CLOUs can be found here.^[3]

https://corporate-rebels.com/morning-star/ article on Corporate rebels blog describes the conditions for the proper functioning of self-management at Morning Star

A consent based election process to allocate roles within teams

Sociocracy.info describes the Sociocratic election process in the following way:

The circle meets for the purpose of deciding who is the best available person for a job. Election is by the consent of all members present or their consent to using a method other than consent. Alternate methods may include range voting, preference voting, majority vote, etc. The group may also consent to delegating the final decision.

1. The election leader reads the job description. The job description defines the aim of the election. As an aim, it establishes the basis for argument and consent. The group may have previously defined the functions and tasks of the person to be elected and consented to the job description, or it may be done in the same meeting. The election leader may have been previously elected, may be the regular leader of the group, or may be elected in the same meeting. This is determined by the size and complexity of the organization and the nature of the election, whether, for example, it is expected to be highly competitive or is a key position.
2. Nominations are submitted in writing as simply X nominates X. Circle members may nominate themselves. They may nominate someone who is not a member of the circle or nominate an “outside search” for someone not currently a member of the circle.
3. Members give their arguments for the person they nominated. All arguments for one nominee are presented in the same round, asking the additional nominators if they have arguments to add to those of the first person to present. The election leader should monitor whether arguments are based on the job description and the ability of the person to fulfill its requirements and stop the presenter if they are not.
4. Nominators change or withdraw nominations. After arguments in favor of nominations are presented, members are given the opportunity to change or withdraw their nominations.
5. Open discussion or rounds on the qualifications of nominated members. Depending on the size of the circle, members may do rounds to discuss the candidates or have open discussion facilitated by the election leader. At this time any concerns about or objections to candidates may be addressed by the candidate or other by other members of the circle. When appropriate, the election leader may suggest that one person seems to be the best candidate. The group must consent to this decision.
6. Candidates accept or decline. When one candidate has received the consent of all members present, that candidate is asked if they will accept the position. Candidates are not allowed to decline before this point because some candidates migh decline prematurely for fear of standing for election or inappropriately believing themselves to be unqualified. On hearing why their peers have elected them, candidates are more likely to accept.

Candidates may also accept with provisions, such as a modification in the job description, additional financial or personal support, etc. The group must decide to accept these changes by consent. If they do not, another round may be conducted to elect another of the candidates nominated or a new election conducted.^[4]

An internal recruitment process in which future colleagues interview candidates for a role.

At Sun Hydraulics, minor role changes often take place organically, by people simply stepping up to take on a role or opening a conversation about the need for someone to take on that role.

When a larger role is created or an existing set of roles becomes available (say there is a need for an automation engineer), an internal recruitment process takes place. Candidates are interviewed by the colleagues who will work most closely with the person filling the new role.

Space to grow and explore

Members fill roles that are created, exchanged and discontinued in response to current needs. They aren’t put in a box with a job title. There is space to grow and explore. Some artisans become leaders, entrepreneurs or designers. Leaders: A program called Bunkar Sakhi (meaning Artisan Leader) allows artisans to receive leadership training. They then help fellow artisans to achieve best quality in their work. Entrepreneurs: Jaipur Rugs artisans have opened centers of weaving in their homes. They have become tour guides for customers and visitors. Artist: Under the Manchaha Program (meaning Artisan Original), Jaipur Rug artisans create and design their own rugs.

For more insight, please look at the following blog articles from the founder:

• Business is Art

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