Holacracy: The Revolutionary Management System that Abolishes Hierarchy

by Brian J. Robertson

Some roles will have all three of these parts, though often roles will start out with only a purpose or just a single accountability and evolve from there. A purpose tells us why the role exists: what it aims to achieve. A domain (of which there may be several) specifies something the role has the exclusive authority to control on behalf of the organization—in other words, this role’s “property,” which no other role can mess with. And each accountability is an ongoing activity that the role has the authority to perform and is expected to perform or otherwise manage for the organization. This coupling of authority with accountability helps avoid the situation we often see, in which people are held responsible for something they don’t have the authority to actually do.