Getting Roles Done

Getting Roles Done (GRD):

  • Could you show me your roles?
  • Relevancy: Do you have projects / next actions set for each role?
  • No: Kill the role in Governance
  • Do you have a clear / valid purpose for each role?
  • Is purpose aligned with the purpose of the Circle's purpose? 
  • Do the end goals of your projects help to reach the purpose? 
  • Do you have any individual projects / any individual actions that do not match any of your purposes / accountabilities?
  • Yes: Create the role in governance 

Setting a 'Ferrari-like' purpose for your role

Think big:
When defining a purpose, a person should “think big” and dream, rather than being held back by pessimism as to whether the purpose is feasible. A purpose should be not be fully achievable, but instead should be aspirational.
To illustrate this concept, HolacracyOne uses the analogy of considering oneself as a Ferrari rather than a slow, underpowered compact car when assuming the position of a role filler. The role filler should buy into the purpose of the role and move forward with it aggressively. The person filling the role should use their best judgment to push the role forward toward achieving the purpose without seeking approval or consensus during the implementation. The only limitation on this is that your action cannot violate a domain. Utmost in your mind should be the realisation that you have been placed in that role because your lead link has assessed that you are the best person to fulfil that purpose.
 (Read more on zappos blog) 
Role should have one Purpose:
If you feel that your accountabilities, and the projects derived from your role fit more than one purpose (that have a complete different outcome) then probably you should split the Role in to multiple Roles (with different Purpose). 

Bringing new role or accountability to Governance. 

If an Individual Action becomes recurrent and isn’t already called for in the explicit Governance, the Partner should bring a Proposal to a Governance Meeting to encode it in the Governance, or should otherwise find a way to stop performing the Individual Action.

Acting on the purpose of your role

The inspirational purpose should help you defining new ideas / projects to fulfil your role. The next questions you should use as an instrument: 
"What would you do if you had all the time in the world?"