Every traditional hierarchical company has its own approach to age-old questions like how to hire, fire, and compensate employees.  Whether it involves a 360-degree peer evaluation or a quarterly performance review, your organization has likely found some unique solution based on its individual needs. Each of these solutions will be built on top of the management hierarchy, meaning there’s likely a manager involved somewhere in those processes. 

When you update your operating system to Holacracy, you might find that you want to evolve the way that you handle these tasks . . . or not.  

A number of experienced Holacracy-powered companies have begun experimenting with new approaches that fit their company’s evolving culture and needs.  Some have even begun to exchange ideas with other Holacracy-powered organizations, further developing and adapting the prototypes of others.  You can learn about a few of these novel approaches here.

And while we think all of this trailblazing is awesome, it’s not at all required. 

Many companies find they can adopt their old approaches to their new organizational “operating system” by switching out responsibilities that used to belong to managers to new roles with some minor tweaks. In fact, that’s a great place to start, while you’re building your Holacracy skills.