Adhocracy

1 Overview

In general, some people or groups because of ego and weaknesses in certain type of organizations such as meritocracy, take functions as protagonists and prominence places, the best seats or hierarchical positions or any kind whatever; and for this, those type of people or groups use all the attributes necessary for their favour, even to be start by making part of a privileged place to prove the greatest impact and performance in their services or functions, because have the best arguments, the best rhetoric, etc. But they without realizing it, or worse, in full awareness of this, generate an individualism and selfishness that can reach pathological degrees, and what is worse, generate a division at group level where only the individualism is the most important as goal of self-assertion and idolatry.

However, Adhocracy is a form of self-management that tends towards to the magical anarchism. In a state of adhocracy, the tasks are performed by themselves, there is no friction between people, there is no hierarchy, bureaucracy, commissions or assembly. All people are happy in the adhocracy and engage in what interests them.

Groups or participants in a adhocratic organization in its deepest sense, obtain as result a fraternal union in all activities, and even becomes a way of life where everything is made acquiring a favourable dimension for the community, reaching the best performance as a team. Therefore, if the exercise of Adhocracy were to be carried deeper into the meaning of being, it can get the assessable grace of transcending the last frontier that man needs to reach, that is transcend from ego "me" to migrate to "us".

Obviously this is what we believe if all groups or participants works adhocratically, but does not always appear to be like this. These articles are reflections and attempted solutions to some common problems in the Adhocracy.

2 What is the meaning about Adhocracy?

Adhocracy is a form of organization which attempts to minimize the time spent to the organization itself, to devote that time to the goals of the organization. Another name of Adhocracy could be Hacelocracia: "If you think you need to do something, go and do it." This term originates from Spanish language (hacelo = do it) and (cracia = cracy).

The principle would be "rough consensus and running code", that is, a vague consensus on whether what is to be done is suitable for the group, accompanied by his practical demonstration. Nobody cares about the opinions, because the focus is on the realization of ideas and solving problems.

In fact, it is to convert the energy needed to make a decision on the realization of these ideas. The opposite of this is known as bikeshedding.

In adhocracy there is a general idea of ​​where things are going or not! In adhocracy it is expected that if you see a problem not waste time trying to convince others that you are right, but tell me what, how and when are you going to solve it. If someone helps you, great, if not, do it yourself, unless someone completely against it and even is right.

The important thing is to have fun and not fight unnecessarily.

The decision-making bodies are minimized, but this does not mean there is no communication, but changes the focus with which things are proposed.

For example, there are ways of speaking that are not welcome, as any sentence that begins "... should", "would have to ...", "would be good ..." because they indicate that you have an idea but you do not have the will to do it. That is, you want them do that for you.. The worst is "would have to ..." but not because it sounds like order, but because you are saying that you do not feel part of the group.

3 Bikeshedding

Bikeshedding is the act of discuss trivial details in order (deliberate or unconscious) to delay tasks. It is one of the main problems of the Adhocracy. Bike-shedder is recognized immediately because the announcer adds unnecessary complexity to a simple task or using us inclusive but undetermined, resulting in the task is not assigned to anyone, usually with the statements "we must ...", "should be ...", etc.

3.1 History

The following text was originally used to explain this behaviour:

3.1.1 Why should I care what colour the bike-shed is?

The very short answer is that it should not. The more or less long answer is that just because you're able to build a bike-shed does not mean you should prevent others from building one just because you do not like the colour they plan to paint it. It is a metaphor indicating that you need not argue about every little feature just because you know enough to do so. Some people have commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of change.

This phenomenon, also called Parkinson's law of triviality suggests that most people think, discuss and objecting too much about trivial things that they feel empowered to do (like a bike-shed) and not on complex things you may not understand all its implications (such as a nuclear power plant, in the original example).
This makes reaching consensus difficult or impossible. Here we have to act adhocratically about trivial and reversible issues, then it decreases the difficulty.

3.2 How to solve it

Ask kindly to bike-shedder to be responsible for what s/he is proposing :)

Two things can happen here:

• S/He pays attention is bikeshedding and does the task.
• Does nothing

The two things are fine.

4 Burn out people management

People involved with desire and time in a adhocratic group are the most important thing is that group. There are people with more or less time, more or less like more or less involvement.

All this should not matter or be measured such as Meritocracy. The important thing is that when you say you're going to be.

However there are people who tend to load too many tasks to shoulder and burn out themselves. The important Adhocracy thing is to know manage burn out people to prevent fights, separations and demotivation of those not involved in the fight.

You always have to remind each other that we are not champions of the revolution in adhocracy, because nobody is going to make a Soviet poster unless in a joke tone. Moreover, if someone feels the hero or heroine of the group, then do a poster with her/his face :)

4.1 Distinguishing burn out people

When a participant starts to complain that her/his do not receive help in the tasks self-assigned, it is because s/he is starting to burn out.

When discussions about who has the longest list of incomplete tasks appear, you have to get close and look for one that we know all.

4.2 Preventing burn out people

Such problems always arise with maintenance.

Nobody likes repetitive tasks in an adhocratic group, so always try to relegate. This does not means assign certain tasks a person or commission. What you need to do is take the boring tasks among all participants, so nobody has to waste time doing maintenance when you could be doing cool things.

Relegate tasks also it means being attentive to who is always responsible for the same because it considers vital and try to relieve it. No need to complain, but if you complain it is because something we're missing.

Conversely, instead of complaining because you always have to do the same, bring back the problem so that someone else accept help or arrange for you. Sometimes the way is not doing what you can not. If someone does not takes up is because it was not so necessary.

4.3 Managing burn out people

If all said above failed and a person burn outs, the group has to immediately relieve everything s/he is doing, but s/he does not want. Sometimes it is hard to realize that someone is doing more than her/him can and start releasing things that doesn't gives more pleasure do it.

5 Generations and cliques

Groups can be open or closed, but there are always parts of people. Some can not participate more, others come and want to start participating.

One of the main problems of horizontal or non-hierarchical groups are the generations of participants. The fraternal relations prevail, there is the risk of implicitly prevent participation to new participants because they share the same anecdotes and ways of working that are already in the group since its inception.

New participants must have at least one company, a shadow, which can go in case of doubts about the functioning of the group.

When new participants do not understand what's going on, they prefer to focus on another thing. It is a question of assessing whether the group wants to grow, be inclusive or remain as it is.

5.1 Cliques

The groups have to be aware that eventually form cliques. It's not about groups operating from the dark to control the group or lower orders, but if people get along better with each other than with the others, who share close relations of friendship and also shared views on the group, its problems and how to solve them.

Cliques can begin to take themselves as representative of the group and take informal consensus on their own. The problem arises when these decisions are made without communicating to the group, because it was not perceived that is at fault.

This results in others the feeling that their participation is not welcome or unnecessary, leaving to participate and giving reasons cliques to remain so.

If you are part of a clique, remember that a conversation with beers on what is happening in the group is a partial assessment does not include those that are not.

That said, you could not be friends with everyone, but be open, communicate and be aware that although the group is non-hierarchical, there are power relations that can not be ignored.