If you read through our blog post about how we’re a little bit different as a creative agency, you might have noticed that we adhere to a management style called “Holacracy.”

“Hang on,” you may have said to yourself, being the discerning reader you are. “Just what in the heck is Holacracy?” Allow us to explain.

Well, for starters, Holacracy is unfortunately not a sequel to Mike Judge’s 2006 cult classic comedy Idiocracy. We’re sorry to break this news to you. What Holacracy is, however, is a new way of looking at organizational structure and hierarchy within a company.

If you’ve been in business long enough, chances are you’ve had a boss or a manager who made work simply miserable: micro-managing you, holding their power over your head, treating you–as our Spanish-speaking friends would say–like mierda. And that sucks. It makes coming into work each day a chore, and–if you’re in the creative industry–usually results in uninspired work.

Or, alternatively, maybe you’ve had fine bosses. Hell, maybe you’ve even had fantastic bosses. But you’d likely be lying if you said you’ve never been caught in a never-ending email chain, or found yourself in another pointless meeting and thought, “There has to be a better way to do this.”

Holacracy flips that on its head. It’s a flat management style that removes the word “boss” from the lexicon and empowers everyone in an organization to achieve self-manage through autonomy. Whereas traditional work hierarchies tie employees hands together–often forcing each minute detail of work to be approved by a line of command–Holacracy allows our employees to work nimbly and independently of superiors to produce outstanding creative materials for your brand. It helps each individual on our team be agile in responding to your needs–if something needs to be tweaked or perfected. By freeing up the time and creativity of those who work for us, we know we will create the best possible work for your brand.

It’s a management style that keeps everyone’s focus within an organization on achieving the overarching goals–in this case, the satisfaction of our clients–and allows every individual the ability to take complete ownership over specific tasks therein. It also demands full organizational transparency. That means never hearing “just get this done” or any conjugation therein. Basically, it means treating our employees like, well, humans, and allowing them the personal agency they need to evolve and adapt their work output to the needs of our clients in real-time.

Holacracy necessitates a team-first mentality from everyone in an agency; people need to be willing to do whatever it takes to make a client happy. It also eliminates, by default, any employees within a company structure who would be “just floating through” the 9-5: Holacracy ensures that employees remain engaged and active throughout the creative cycle and thus reduces the stresses placed on a traditional agency by deadweight. And by putting so much additional responsibility in the hands of each employee, our staff is inherently more invested not only in the success of our agency but also in the success of your brand.

Does it mean sometimes people need to wear more than one hat? Sure. Does it also make for a significantly happier workforce who actually enjoy being around each other? You bet. And in the end, that results in much better work for our clients.