success? Choosing an effective organizational model early on, informed by the latest management science. XR is a decentralized network designed to resemble a holacracy, an operating structure for self-organization tested by tech companies like Google $GOOGL -2.47%, Zappos, and Medium. Anyone can join XR so long as they adhere to its 10 core principles and values, including a commitment to nonviolence
While holacracy, too, has received its share of criticism as it, too, has gained traction, the system is credited for providing a basic framework for effective self-organization. At a holacracy training session at Zappos, the online shoe retailer, in 2013, HolacracyOne co-founder Brian Robertson, who invented the system, described his creation as providing “a rule system for anarchy.”
Circular logic
The defining feature of a holacracy is its circular hierarchical structure, which is quite different from the static pyramid hierarchies most organizations employ today. The flattened hierarchy, combined with a focus on granular roles over broader job titles, as well as distributed decision-making and clear frameworks for conflict resolution, makes holacracy a more dynamic and scalable option for self-organizing entities like XR.
The movement has learned from the mistakes of Occupy Wall Street, which was weighed down by crowded general assemblies that made decisions by consensus, which quickly became a hindrance to progress. By contrast, holacracy is designed to protect against that kind of gridlock by empowering individuals to act with full sovereignty within the scope of their roles, while retaining a democratic bent through its governance and integrated decision-making processes.
Daniel Thorson, who has explored the concept of societal and ecological collapse through his podcast Emerge: Making Sense of What’s Next, participated in the UK protests this past autumn. While he wasn’t initially aware of XR’s holacratic design, he observed that anyone was empowered to act as they desired, so long as it was in accordance with the movement’s principles. He kept up-to-date on the campaign’s UK strategy through a widely broadcast channel on Telegram, the encrypted messaging service. Transparent information flow is a core tenet of holacracy because it fosters trust, the lynchpin of all effective self-organized systems.
Thorson, who also participated in Occupy Wall Street, was struck by the way XR participants were noticeably more in control of their emotions than the Occupiers were, evidenced by a more cool-headed approach to protesting.
The XR movement itself has its roots in the spiritual. In 2016, Bradbrook attended an ayahuasca ceremony in Costa Rica for activists with the intention of discerning the “codes for social change.” (Ayahuasca is a plant-based medicine thought to have a mind-opening effect.)
Not long after, Bradbrook, a former biophysicist, met Hallam, a former organic farmer who is pursuing a PhD at King’s College London centered on how to create social change; and together they began laying the groundwork for XR. The activists studied notable protest movements in modern history and determined that nonviolence, promoted by the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., has by far been the most effective strategy. Their message was bolstered by the work of Jem Bendell, a professor of sustainability leadership at the University of Cumbria, who published a viral academic paper in July 2018 “discussing the need for deep adaptation in the face of impending ecological meh.
Using holacracy as an operating system, they scaled XR globally in relatively fast order, starting with the group’s official founding in October 2018 and accelerating with mass protests in April and October of this year. The campaign has brought attention to the climate emergency, but it is still far from persuading political leaders to meet its demands, which include a commitment by the British government to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Based on their academic research, XR’s leaders predict it will take 3.5% of the population getting involved to affect systemic change.
As XR strategizes for its next phase in 2020, it is also integrating lessons Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, which is leaderless out of necessity. “We admire their Bruce Lee, be-like-water approach,” says Harrington, though he is quick to note a core difference between the two is XR’s commitment to non-violence. Either way, he says, “Hong Kong shows us the value of keeping something in the news long enough
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