Beyond the Holacracy Hype

This Harvard Business Review article provides a nuanced analysis of holacracy and self-management organizational experiments, revealing that these approaches work best when implemented selectively rather than wholesale. Engineering leaders will learn that successful self-managed organizations share three key characteristics: teams as core structure, self-governing teams, and distributed contextual leadership. The authors advocate for a 'piecemeal approach' - strategically implementing self-management principles where adaptability is crucial while maintaining traditional structures where reliability is paramount, helping leaders avoid the pitfalls of organizational fads.