Discussion on Holacracy and Taylorism

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Previously, the structures of organizations have been seen as something that is separate from
the strategy and they were only designed in the way which can bring efficiency and synergy within
organization. However, this is not the case as per current research, in which it has been suggested
that there is a strong linkage among structure and strategy (Whittington, 2006). The structure of
organization should complement the strategy with an aim of gaining its greater advantages. The
structure cannot be seen in isolation with the strategy and it is not comprised of only a chart of
hierarchy, but represents the procedures, people, culture, technology and all related factors which
can support or block the success of any well designed strategy. It has been offered by Kaplan and
Norton (2001), that whenever an organization formulate new strategy, it has to bring some changes
into its structure for effective implementation of strategy. Given this view, both the strategy and
structure are inevitable for the success of organization and there should be level of compatibility
among both of them. An innovation strategy can never be implemented into hard core bureaucratic
structure, which focuses mainly on maintaining the strict control within organization (Keller,
Parameswaran and Jacob, 2011). It is necessary to adopt open structure with greater flexibility to
change, which is characterized by high involvement of employees. On the other hand, it has also
been offered by some researchers that strategy follows structure, however, there is greater
agreement on the notion that both structure and strategy support each other and their alignment help
to gain competitive advantage in long run.
Holacracy:
The Holacracy is the new paradigm of managing control with the organization. According t
the holacracy views, the organizations are decentralized by the one who is in charge of the
organization and employees are offered discretion to choose their roles (Robertson, 2007). In
contrast the bureaucracy is recognized as strict hierarchy and focuses mainly on creating synergies
within organization. The bureaucratic structures restrict the involvement of employees in decision
making and it has been considered as restricting the innovative capabilities of employees. The
contemporary organizations are moving towards holacractic structures in which employees are
empowered and open to perform creatively. In holacracy, the roles are defined and employees have
the discretion to select from many, which may not be the case in traditional team based work.
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In Zappos, the CEO has gave the discretion to employees to choose their roles according to
holacracy approach. They are based on the fact that none of idea from any employee can be rejected
without any valid reason of objecting the idea. They are openly creating and there are no rules for
performing any given task. Employees can perform task in the way desired by them.
The innovative culture requires the flat structures within organization with less command
and control and more empowerment to perform any task. Innovation requires fewer layers of
management and strict control can restrict innovative capabilities of employees and organization.
Flexibility should be maintained within structure of organization with an aim of enhancing
creativity and developing new ideas.
Taylorism:
The workers in developed countries are more concerned about their personal welfare. They
want to be respected by their employers instead of being treated like the machines to improve the
efficiency of organization (Bain et al., 2002). The focus on Taylorism was on equity in which
employees were paid according to their efforts and they were not receiving wages in case of
disobeying the orders of managers. There were no rights of employees and employee protection
organizations were powerless (Maier, 1970). The employees today in Australia, Europe and
America have least level of acceptance for such Taylorism. There are organizations for protection
of labor and human rights and employees have awareness of their rights. The contemporary
employees demands for more open environment with relaxed hierarchy and greater autonomy to
work. The organizations are turning towards team work and they are making the employees self-
managing. Therefore, the expectations of employees are aligned with concept of empowerment and
they have no acceptance for Taylorism.
Mainly the call centers were considering it as a machine as motivated by the Taylorism and
they were relying on average handling time principle which is line with time and motion offered by
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