By admin 
Not long ago, I stumbled across something unexpected while scrolling Facebook Marketplace. Amidst the usual secondhand IKEA furniture and well-loved kids’ toys, there it was: A copy of Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World. (Free to a good home.)
Now, I’ve been familiar with Holacracy for years—enough to speak to it in conversations and contrast it with other frameworks like EOS and LEAN—but I’d never actually read the book cover to cover. So I jumped at the chance to pick it up.
When I arrived to grab it, the man handing it over was warm and unhurried. As we chatted, I asked him the obvious question: “So… why are you getting rid of this?” I half-expected him to say what many others have in recent years: that Holacracy didn’t work, or their company had ditched it in favor of something more traditional.
But what he said caught me off guard.
That moment sparked this post—because while the buzz around Holacracy has cooled, that exchange reminded me that sometimes, when things go quiet, it doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared. It might just mean they’ve integrated.
Let’s explore whether Holacracy still matters, where it fits today, and how something like TimeCrafting (alongside ideas from The Productivity Diet) can enhance systems like it—or any other productivity framework you’re using.
Holacracy: What It Promised and Why It Piqued So Many Minds
Holacracy was born from the frustration of rigid org charts and top-heavy decision-making. Created by Brian Robertson in the early 2000s, it offered a new way to work: structured, yet decentralized. Instead of traditional roles and reporting lines, you’d have self-organizing “circles” and clear roles governed by a constitution—not a manager.
It sounded like productivity utopia, especially for teams drowning in meetings and bureaucratic sludge.
When Zappos adopted Holacracy in 2013, headlines exploded. “No more managers!” “Job titles, gone!” “Work, reinvented!”
It was a compelling pitch, especially for those of us entrenched in frameworks like EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) and LEAN. Holacracy wasn’t just another playbook—it was a complete operating system.
From Poster Child to Cautionary Tale?
But hype can be a double-edged sword.
While some companies like Zappos went all in—offering severance packages to employees unwilling to adapt—others like Medium pulled the plug after trying it out. The story was often the same: the idea of Holacracy was great, but the implementation? Complex, time-consuming, and hard to sustain.
In many ways, Holacracy became a cautionary tale about radical change. The hype faded, and so did the headlines.
Which is why spotting that book on Marketplace felt like seeing a relic from a different productivity era. Is Holacracy… over?
Not quite.
So… Is Holacracy Still Alive?
Here’s the thing: Holacracy may not be trending, but it’s far from extinct.
Over 1,000 organizations still use it in some form today—especially in smaller, innovation-driven companies where flexibility and autonomy are essential. In Europe in particular, companies like Viisi and Springest have adapted it successfully, shaping it to their unique cultures.
But almost none of these organizations use Holacracy by the book anymore. They’ve taken what works and modified the rest. In fact, that’s become a bit of a pattern.
It’s not that Holacracy failed—it just matured into something quieter, something more adaptable. A modular framework, not a monolithic mandate.
Which leads us to something I’ve seen repeatedly in my own work: any system—Holacracy, EOS, LEAN—needs to be shaped by the people using it.
No framework survives on structure alone. It lives or dies by how it’s applied and how its users relate to it.
Enter TimeCrafting: A Personal Layer to Any System
No matter how your team or company is structured, the real magic happens in the daily decisions made by individuals. And that’s where TimeCrafting comes in.
I designed TimeCrafting to be personal productivity for the real world. It’s simple, flexible, and durable. It works whether you’re operating in a hierarchy, a Holacracy, or something in-between.
Let’s take a look at how the three elements of TimeCrafting can support and amplify any framework.
Time Theming
One of the biggest struggles in Holacracy is role overload. You might be in multiple circles with multiple accountabilities. Without a way to carve out time for each, your day turns into a swirl of context-switching chaos.
That’s where theming saves you.
Assigning daily or horizontal themes helps you prioritize where your focus goes. If Tuesday is “Team Day” and Friday is “Planning,” then you’ve already created boundaries—ones that Holacracy’s distributed structure can support.
In EOS, where quarterly goals (rocks) take center stage, theming ensures you’re actually making time for the important work that moves those rocks.
Attention Paths
Time Theming tells you when to work on something. Attention Paths guide how.
In The Productivity Diet, I talk about matching your energy to your effort. High-focus tasks go in your high-energy zones. Lower-energy tasks? They belong in your cognitive valleys.
In Holacracy, nobody’s telling you when to work on what—you need to self-regulate. That freedom is a gift and a trap. Attention Paths help you stay aligned with your best rhythms, whether you’re operating autonomously or within a structured role.
In a LEAN system, this kind of alignment reduces waste—not just in materials or effort, but in your attention.
Reflective Practice
No system is perfect. Not Holacracy (ask Zappos). Not EOS. Not TimeCrafting.
But systems improve when you take time to reflect.
Holacracy builds this in through governance meetings. EOS gives you quarterly reviews. TimeCrafting brings it to the personal level—a weekly review where you examine what worked, what didn’t, and where your focus slipped.
It’s not about beating yourself up. It’s about iteration. Just like agile teams adjust their backlog, you adjust your approach.
What Holacracy (and Every Framework) Can Learn from Personal Productivity
If you’ve ever tried to shift your team to a new operating system—be it Holacracy, EOS, or something homegrown—you’ve probably noticed this: The framework can only take you so far.
The rest? It’s personal.
That’s why I don’t pit frameworks against each other. I integrate them. I take the organizational scaffolding from one, the communication rhythms from another, and pair them with individual practices like TimeCrafting.
Because here’s the truth: There’s no perfect productivity system. Only a system that works for you—and your team—right now.
And that system will change. It should.
Your needs evolve. Your people evolve. Your workflow, your energy, your goals… they’re all in motion.
So the question isn’t “Should we be using Holacracy?”
The question is: Are we using what we’re using well?
And if not: What’s missing?
Sometimes it’s structure. Sometimes it’s clarity. And sometimes, it’s personal agency. That’s where TimeCrafting fills the gaps—by giving each team member a way to navigate their time with intention, no matter the system they’re in.
The End of the Story (and the Beginning of Something More)
Back to the guy from Facebook Marketplace.
When I asked him why he was giving away his copy of Holacracy, he didn’t tell me it was outdated. He didn’t roll his eyes or launch into a rant about failed experiments.
He said, simply, “I know it so well, I don’t need the book anymore.”
That stuck with me.
Because it’s a quiet reminder that even when the spotlight fades, some systems are still alive and well—not because they’re trendy, but because they’ve become second nature.
That’s the kind of system I want to help people build.
Want to Go Deeper with Your Team?
If you’re using (or considering using) Holacracy, EOS, LEAN—or any productivity or management framework—and want to integrate TimeCrafting into it, I’d love to help.
Let’s build something that works with how your people work.
Contact me to talk about hosting a virtual workshop for your team. We’ll explore how to weave TimeCrafting into whatever system you’re running so it’s not just effective—it’s sustainable.