Brian Robertson: Authority, Clarity, Limits, System | Work 20XX Ep49

Brian Robertson: Authority, Clarity, Limits, System | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep49 from Running Remote
English Transcript
© Copyright 2025 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved

Cold Open:
OK,
So I think we will
get ready to go here
In three, two one.

Jeff Frick:
Welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick. Coming to you from Austin, Texas. And let me tell you, it's warm in Austin today. Special edition of Work 20XX We're on the road here at Running Remote  excited to do a great collaboration with them and come down  and talk to  really the leaders  of everything remote. But what's more important  to know is that  most of the  best practices to run fully  remote companies are also applicable to hybrid companies in office companies, and everything in between. So there's a lot of great lessons and it's been  a packed agenda Two stages  going nonstop and we're excited to have our next guest. He actually just got off the main stage so he should  be fresh and have all those things top of mind.  So welcoming in, he's  Brian Robertson the co-founder of Holacracy.

Brian Robertson:
Thank you.

Jeff Frick:
Brian, great to see you. So getting  ready for this I saw your TED Talk  on Holacracy a few years back. Give people a  basic 101 that what is it  all about?

Brian Robertson:
Yeah. So Holacracy is a  management framework. It's a different way than we're used to break down  and structure Who does what?  What do we expect of each other? Who has what authority? Ultimately,  what it does is create a system  that is deeply empowering, where people know what they can do without going  to the meetings, without running things up the flagpole. It gives people a ground of, significant ability to  self-lead and self-manage.

Jeff Frick:
Okay. So I'm going to use an example that you just used which I thought was pretty illustrative and that was  comparing a traffic intersection that has lights or stop signs with one that's a roundabout. And you made a really interesting compare. One is you give up control of when you go and when you don't go. And the other one you kind of have to you have to  work it out. You have some agency, you have some responsibility. The net/net is one's  a lot more safer. One gets a lot more traffic through. One is a lot better than the other.

Brian Robertson:
Yeah. And that's the  roundabout, right.  We consistently  see in studies. They're more efficient, more effective, safer all of these. And yet they also require more of the driver. In a typical  stoplight you get to just wait to be told what to do just like in a  typical company. And yet it works better when people retain more responsibility for leadership. And you have to in a roundabout, right. And yet a lot of our companies look more like stoplights. People are  waiting and outsourcing their agency and leadership to the system the managers the management hierarchy or even just the meetings. As opposed to really retaining their leadership capacity and coordinating themselves in real time with others. When you do that, it works better. It's harder,  but it works better.

Jeff Frick:
Right, right. And kind of this concept of, of, you know,  getting rid of pure  command and control and you talk about not only the roundabout but just the way  that cities operate and that  the way things flow and get done, that there isn't  some Master commander  sitting at the top looking down like a train switcher guy kind of operating everything that everyone's kind of doing their piece with their agency to fulfill whatever they're trying to get done.

Brian Robertson:
Yeah. In fact, there's been studies on this too. And cities tend to, as they get larger, they get more, there's more innovation per resident. Right, the average different measures of  innovation, productivity tends to go up  as cities get larger. But we see the exact opposite in companies. As companies get larger, the productivity and innovation  per person go down, not up. And that, I think is a symptom of the very different  control system. Cities are more self-organizing. They leave people more  freedom to locally adapt and to figure out what makes sense to them and to lead  their own life.  Whereas a lot of  companies are trying to structure in a more, top down command and control way, which actually works great for very simple problem sets. But we live in a world today of overwhelming complexity, and complex adaptive systems don't work well with that. And that's exactly what  companies have to be today,  

Jeff Frick:
Right. Now it's interesting. There's a lot of talk about empowerment which kind of goes  with agency and empowering people to have more responsibility. But you made an interesting take. Don't empower the people. You empower the system. Explain the nuance there.

Brian Robertson:
Yeah, well, one just notice the paradox and the irony. If you need someone else to empower you if you need the boss the leader to empower you what does that say about you and the system you're in? You're in a fundamentally disempowering system. If you have to  sit around and wait for somebody else  to empower you. So there's  an irony there. And as a leader if you just go  to your team tomorrow and you  tell everyone ‘Good news,  you're empowered!’ you don't get an empowered team. You get a lot of confused people because people know there's really limits on their empowerment. There must be something they shouldn't do without going to the right process or person  or whatever. So if you want to really empower people, what you need to do is  empower the system they're in by clarifying limits and constraints. If you don't know  your limits, you don't know  your freedom. If you don't know what you really shouldn't do without talking  to somebody or getting approval  somewhere then you don't know what you can do without talking to anyone. You don't know what's yours to lead. So ironically the thing we often push  against in empowerment is structure. We often try to  get rid of it and to some extent that's really useful when the structure is is useless and bureaucracy. But what we  need to do equally is focus on  how do we clarify the structure we really need the limits we really need and how do we keep it agile so we can evolve it? We don't just get calcified structure that can never change. How do we get structure that is nimble? That's learning  with us so that  everyone knows  exactly where the limits  of their authority are. Because then they're invited to step up and use real power within those limits.

Jeff Frick:
So you talked about this concept that that again is feels at first blush  as being in conflict. But that freedom  does better with limits. And that actually  you get more freedom within a defined  set of limits. Is that for clarity sake? I wonder if you can, expound on that a little bit.

Brian Robertson:
Yeah. Well so When people don't know where the limits are, they're going to spend a lot of time and energy trying to either tiptoe around and look for the limits or just be cautious and conservative. Right. There was a study  on this with kids that illustrated  it really well. Kindergartners. they measured some Department  of Education did this. They measured how far out did they  spread in the field to play at recess?  And they found that  kids mostly clustered pretty close in near  the playground and until they added a fence around the far out  perimeter of the property. And the fence was, you know, two feet high, it wasn't keeping  anyone out or in. As soon as  they did that the kids  spread out. That used  the freedom. They knew where  the boundary was. And so they  filled the space and they did so  confidently and safely. Now you can bring that. We're not that different than kindergartners in workforces sometimes.

Jeff Frick:
No we’re not Right?

Brian Robertson:
When people don't know what they shouldn't do. The natural impulse is to be either a little cautious a little conservative And kind of keep in or just let's be safe. Let's call  that meeting and try to socialize the thing and get the buy in. Right It's very expensive  and time consuming. When you clarify the limits for people you can  invite them to spread out  to use their freedom. Go lead. Don't, you know as an entrepreneur I've been an entrepreneur for decades. I don't go check in with everybody before I do  anything right. I know where the  things are I really need to. And I focus  on clarifying that in my company  and for others And then I lead. I use my judgment I use my power and I lead and I trust when I end up accidentally doing something that's maybe less  than desirable that becomes great learning fodder, right? We can use that to clarify how do we improve a process or a policy or a limit so we don't make that mistake again. The tensions become the fuel for evolution in our company when we have an agile system like that at play.

Jeff Frick:
Okay, so another  interesting one was you talked about  the illusion of limits. So there's one thing to know your limits. And then  unfortunately we put limits on ourselves that maybe shouldn't be there. Or you know, maybe we're putting way too many limits that inhibit our ability to do more.

Brian Robertson:
Yeah.  Yeah. Exactly. And this goes back to the clarity thing. When people don't know what the limits are they tend to assume what they are. And the assumption’s often very conservative. And sometimes this is a challenge when you're trying to change your culture. Right, if people have if they're in the habit of not using real autonomy and authority then even if you try to change that the habit still remains, you know? So the culture change here is an important one. And what we're  really trying to do  in the work I do  in the framework I use is shift people from a more restrictive culture which is in most companies today there's an implicit norm that says, don't do anything  you don't normally do without getting permission, and you get permission either by running it up the management chain or more likely by calling a big meeting and socializing it. And make sure everyone's bought in which is very expensive and time consuming. Right, and the default culture though is don't act outside  of your normal thing without  permission. And what we want  to do is flip that to a permissive culture that says, you know what? Use your judgment and lead, even if it means doing things  you don't normally do. You have permission by default to take any action or any decision you want in the company, unless there's a rule against it. And when you  have that then the  emphasis becomes, let's clarify the  minimally sufficient rules to keep  things safe and that we can do partly over time  by learning together when we need to add a limit. Right, and when you get people used to that culture you end up with a  company that looks like a company full of business partners  or entrepreneurs, not employees. Right, and this happened in my career. I hit a point where I said, I am done with employees. I want to I want the whole company to feel like co-founders who are really owning and using real authority. And to  do that you need a culture  that says Own your role and lead. Make decisions, use judgment, don't call the meetings, don't run it up the flagpole. Use your authority. And what we'll focus on instead is getting the clarity of when you really shouldn't do that. And if you can trust that clarity you can trust  your freedom.

Jeff Frick:
So why are you  asking me? Why haven’t you done it already, right? That's your  response.   So one of the concepts within Holacracy which is different and I know people are probably excited to hear about is roles instead of job descriptions. First off, nobody likes writing job descriptions. And to  your point no one actually ever looks at them again after they got written, after they got hired. And you made a funny line. Nobody goes to the job description to find the person that they need to do something. Because it's in  their job description. So talk about defining roles and how that's a  different kind of strategy.

Brian Robertson:
Yeah. So we use a role structure that. So the role it's just a small function. You might fill ten roles or 20 roles or more. And maybe on  many different teams. In your in your company that's normal. Just like in life we fill many roles in our life. You know, we might be  a father and a husband and the kitchen cleaner and whatever other roles. And when you define the roles not looking for perfect theoretical clarity which is how job descriptions are often defined but minimally sufficient clarity. Let's just capture in this role  enough to give somebody  a general orientation and to solve any issues we've actually  really had. So many of the roles when I start working with a company with this many of the roles are very lightweight. They just have a clear purpose that tells people why they're doing what they're doing. Maybe 1 or 2 explicit expectations, because we know there's been past issues and this clarity is important to capture. And then from there go and let's learn together. And we add expectations over time to these roles as we figure out what we really need to be able to count on. Right. So for example, true story. Long ago in one of the companies I founded, we had a case I do a lot of public speaking like this. And I fill a role called spokesperson one of 20 roles in  this company I filled and I worked with somebody in a role called Casting Agent who had to  book me for talks and would often get frustrated because she'd go and you know she'd build a relationship with  a conference organizer and negotiate the terms the talk and all that. And she’d present it  to me at the end. And sometimes  I'd say ‘Nah.’ It's not a good fit you know not the  right market or not big enough or whatever. It's not worth my time. And she felt really disempowered, right. She spent a lot of time and energy on this. And I shoot it down at the end. So we have a  process in place where she can propose changes to any other role in this team. We're both in the  marketing team together. These two roles. So she proposes ‘Hey, let's add an accountability an expectation’ on the spokesperson  role that I fill. Right, it's actually notice not about her and I. It's about  the roles. It's already depersonalized a level she proposes adding the expectation on the  spokesperson role for documenting the  criteria you're going to use  to accept or reject engagements, and sticking with it. And it took about two minutes in that meeting process for that expectation to get added. And then she turns to me and says, so when will you have that  drafted for me by you think and the interesting footnote of the story I'm the founder of this company and a seasoned CEO for many years. She was our newest hire right out of college. And in  what company do you know where the newest hire? Right out of college in two minutes, can add an expectation onto the founder and then turn  to him and say so when will you have that done for me by? Right? That's agile, structured, right? And that's learning. And now the roles are real because they're capturing what  we've really learned together   we need to do. People reference their roles. They look up  colleagues roles to know what they can request of them. And more importantly, we have a meta process, a governance process we call it to evolve all these roles and the policies  and all that. So everything in the structure can stay agile and nimble. We can remove structure when it's in the way we can add structure when there's ambiguity slowing us down like that case. When structure becomes agile we can trust it and we can go fast.

Jeff Frick:
So how long did it take you to give her the goods?

Brian Robertson:
Yeah, I don't  remember. Probably. Honestly, a few weeks at that point.

Jeff Frick:
Oh, come on. So it's interesting. There's a lot of conversation here about, clarity of goals and making sure that people are aligned. And I think Sacha [Connor] was talking that when she does her  workshops with people. Is everybody on board with the goals? Yeah. Is everybody excited  about the goals? Yeah. Okay, everybody write down the goals. Not three things are written down the same but you've  really generalized that clarity at a  higher level is really key kind of almost  a key attribute of a highly functioning organization. So I wonder if you could  speak to that a little bit why clarity is important and how you can expand it well beyond just the goals or one particular area but really adopt it as a  company wide philosophy.

Brian Robertson:
I think for me, this is one of the most important jobs of any leader in the organization, from the very top to literally anyone. Organizational clarity. Organizational clarity is needed for everything else. It enables speed. It it cuts down on all the politics and all the mess. If you're in a  remote environment a lot of the tools we have in in person environments  are meant to make up for lack of clarity. We have more meetings we have more face time It's a lot harder when you're remote and you're on Zoom. Clarity is even more important. Organizational clarity doesn't just stop at the projects and  actions and goals which is where most organizations get the importance of all right, we need clear you know actions Who's going  to do what? And clear goals. That's the kind of, you know, runway level. But we need the 50,000ft view as well. We need clear purpose and we need in between, which is about the roles and the expectations. The more we have clarity throughout from the broadest, highest level purpose to how do we  break down that work? What are the roles? What do we expect  of each other? Who's making which decisions? And then the goals and the projects and the actions and all that stuff. That level of clarity enables people to  self-manage and self lead. When you have all that clarity, you don't need to go to the meetings. You don't need to go to the managers. These are the fallbacks we have when we don't know who makes a decision. And then a lot of managers  get stuck in  firefighting mode where you know instead of instead of architecting the system and clarifying things they're jumping and putting out fires and and that can be quite addictive, right? It feels good to be the superhero that gets to jump in and save the day.

Jeff Frick:
Right, right. When you're not actually doing anything of material wealth.

Brian Robertson:
Yeah, but I like to think  that the role of  a good leader or manager  in a company is much like a parent,  right? When I have a two year old and they run out into the middle of the road, it's appropriate to be a superhero fire fight, save the day, grab them, pull them out, out of the way. But don't stop there. Teach them to look both ways. But don't stop there. Teach them to look both ways. If you still have  to do that when they're 20, you missed something. You know, like your goal is to obsolete yourself. Your goal is to build the structures in them so that you don't need  to be the superhero leader saving the day for them. Right, and I think  we can apply that as a manager or a leader in a company to  how do we  use clarity to work ourselves  out of a job? This is what every  entrepreneur needs to do. Right, and I think the best companies they don't need  managers per se. They need  entrepreneurs. And that the role  of a manager shifts to more like the role of an entrepreneur. Create clarity so that people can lead themselves instead of them  jumping in and calling all the shots making all  the decisions.

Jeff Frick:
Yeah that's great. Well said  and very clear. I must,  I have to say.

Brian Robertson:
Thank you.

Jeff Frick:
Well, , it's really been a treat. I love the the philosophy. And I think the  clarity message is so important and can be expanded so far beyond. And then  like you say, basically try to write yourself out of the job by giving people the autonomy so they know what to do. All right. Thanks again  for stopping by.

Brian Robertson:
Thank you so much,  appreciate it.

Jeff Frick:
And congrats on the book, the TED Talk. You got all kinds  of stuff going on.

Brian Robertson:
Yes, indeed.

Jeff Frick:
All right. He's Brian, I'm Jeff. You're watching Work 20XX. We're coming to you from Running Remote in Austin, Texas. It is hot  in Austin, Texas. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Take care.

Cold Close
Oh, thank you,
thank you.
That was fun.
Thank you.

Brian Robertson: Authority, Clarity, Limits, System | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep49 from Running Remote
English Transcript

‍
© Copyright 2025 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved