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Ok, it's been 5 years and I want to talk about Zappos going "Teal" and Holacratic. In 2015, I was invited by employees at Zappos (not Tony) to speak to my experiences at a firm (Undercurrent) run via Holacracy. I asked to interview employees (about 12-15) before I spoke.
I didn't select the interviewees, but at least of half of them were in actual tears over the radical changes being proposed. The feelings of loss were visceral. I went out for a drink after these interviews and an employee threw a punch at me, assuming I was a Holacracy coach.
See my response as the time: https://academy.nobl.io/holacracy-boondoggle/
This one employee was convinced I was in support of "firing all bosses" as was stated in an internal memo. Of course, I wasn't. I am grateful for his peers that took him aside and explained that I wasn't a Holacracy coach.
I did meet with Tony that day. I genuinely respect Tony for his foresight and courage to put customer service first. His reputation is well earned. He, however, wouldn't look me in the eye and told me he went "teal" to speed up teams that were "too slow" for his needs.
I told him that if I were him, I would have built a skunks work team to move at the speed of his ideas vs disrupting the whole org. Admittedly, he didn't engage with me directly but he did attend my talk, in the back of the room by himself.
I left and went home. I don't like being unhelpful. I put together some reflections for Tony and team. Here they are: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mz1M3OwC5P4HHg0VQvEjId_QAOHMRbGOOtrTOg-TxVc/edit?usp=sharing
In retrospect, this doc is emblematic to how I/we think about the future of work. If you disagree, we welcome the debate.
Also in retrospect, Tony deserves his hero-worship. He made a cost-center a point of difference and his employees genuinely adored him. I would have loved to debate him further, and I am sad to miss that opportunity.
My final point here is that I am incredibly judgmental toward the internal coaching folks at Zappos who started the Holacracy work and then bailed to start their own consultancies and still today promote ideas and concepts they themselves didn't stick around to validate.
