The ssv.network DAO’s constitution is based on the Holacracy management model and its constitution (version 5).
Holacracy is a decentralized management framework for running a company without a top-down, centralized hierarchy of managers and subordinates commanding the action, but still allowing an organization to break down work, create clear structure, create clear expectations, boundaries, controls, and get alignment.
We adapted it to meet the ideals of a DAO-like organization. As a result, we get a DAO-Holacracy hybrid constitution:
Holacracy is a distributed authority model optimized for evolutionary design and a perfect starting point for our DAO.
“What Holacracy is good at is harnessing human consciousness and human wisdom to come up with a governance structure to express a Purpose best.” -Brian Robertson, Founder of Holacracy
Our constitution (
It’s not about the people; it’s about the process and decouples roles from souls.
When it comes to decision-making, democracy and automation are often truly poor ways of making a lot of decisions, especially among a large group that doesn’t necessarily have deep context. But if the alternative is a centralized hierarchy, we’re missing something.
A DAO has its limitations when you are trying to automate or democratize everything, and some things are not ideal for that. Some things need human sense-making and human judgment. Some things aren’t best left to an entirely automated process. And some things aren’t best left to a democratic vote of the membership interests.
Holacracy is good at harnessing human consciousness, human-wisdom to come up with a governance structure to express a purpose best. So it’s a purpose-driven structure, and there are controls in the processes that make sure the governance stays kind of aligned with that purpose but do allow human judgment and wisdom.
Where it gets exciting is the integration of a DAO and Holacracy. On the one hand, you can have an organization that is governed by Holacracy and allows that human wisdom. On the other hand, we also have a token, and that token is distributed among our community (see whom we serve: ). This is where we’re integrating components of a DAO into Holacracy, and certain decisions will require the ratification of a majority or some other mechanism of the token holders.
For example, sometimes leadership is not best done with a group. It’s best done by giving one person authority within boundaries and letting that person go lead for the purpose of their role and the organization. Holacracy does that well. The DAO comes in where you do need ratification among a larger group. We can have such key roles appointed by ratification of the token holders where the DAO delegates power to one or a group of people, but the delegation of that power itself, or the selection of the person for the role that has the power, may need ratification among the broader token holders.
That’s what we’re working towards.
We believe a DAO-Holacracy hybrid model will work for any organization that wants to benefit from decentralized community governance or management and, at the same time, the benefits of centralized decision-making within community-ratified boundaries.