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Holacracy at Zappos: It’s either the future of management or a social experiment gone awry

Written by Brandon Klein | Jan 28, 2015 4:59:35 PM

“The hardest part is operating in two worlds right now,” says Hsieh, who currently sits in 16 circles and holds a few dozen roles including lead link of the “experiential SWAT team” and “contribution appraiser.” He and others explain that becoming familiar with the Holacracy Constitution is like learning the rules of poker, football, or any game. The next step is entering the arena.

“Now they have the basics of the rules,” Alexis Gonzales-Black, a Zappos recruiter who is co-leading the transition, tells Quartz. “2014 was about the scalability of getting the nuts and bolts, the meetings, the circles, the work captured [in the online system called GlassFrog]. 2015 is about the qualitative implementation of Holacracy.”