In a governance meeting with Holacracy, when a proposal is brought to address a tension, everyone can have a chance to raise objections, which need to be integrated as we change the proposal before we get to some final output. This is one of the biggest learning curves for people new to Holacracy, because there’s a very specific definition of objection. And there are actually a few things that must be true for whatever you’re sensing to actually count as an objection that we have to integrate.
And one of those is that whatever you’re sensing, it’s got to be a reason why adopting this proposal would move us backwards or cause harm. Because if it wouldn’t move us backwards or cause harm, if it’s just maybe a better idea, or a way of addressing something else important, then it’s actually a different tension. It’s something else that you might want to add to the agenda, and then we can process it, and then we can get it integrated. But it’s not actually a reason why this proposal is going to cause harm or move us backwards. So that definition and that rule helps us sort through all of those better ideas and other tensions that might otherwise distract us from processing the proposer’s tension.
Continue reading “Valid Objections in Holacracy”