Did you know that Iron Horse Brewery doesn’t have a top down management system?
For the last 6 years we have been transitioning from a top down management organization to one that uses holacracy as our guiding principle for running our brewery. What is holacracy and what the f*ck does it have to do with beer? Holacracy is a decentralized organizational structure that distributes authority and decision-making throughout a company’s teams, rather than concentrating it at the top. Does this mean we are in a constant state of flux and its total anarchy at the brewery? Yes and no. We are in a constant state of flux, not because it’s total chaos, but because flat management allows cousins to influence and bring to light things that aren’t working and empowers them to work towards making change in real time. We adamantly say no to Bossholes. I’m still trying to figure out if holacracy has anything to do with beer or does it need to for this group of humans to thrive in this flat management world we are creating.
I started my job here at Iron Horse Brewery about two years ago and my goal was to create events both small and large that focussed on our brewery mission to bring people together over fermented beverages and to also make our community space a place where all are welcome. I knew of the Dirtbag Carnivals that IHB had in the past but never had been to one. No Bossholes tasked me with bringing it back or told me what it should look like but I had this gut feeling that it was the event that would get all of our cousins, second cousins, and diehard fans excited about events being back again in our post Covid world. My gut was right and honestly I don’t know if I would have listened to my gut and Dirtbag would have even happened without flat management. It was my third large event I put on for Iron Horse and I knew by then that getting feedback from all my cousins about what this event had looked like in the past and what we wanted it to look like in the future was key. They were all in and wanted to help me create the new and improved Carnival we all wanted to be a part of. What does flat management have to do with dirtbags? I’m still trying to figure that out too but telling the world that Bossholes aren’t allowed feels like the most Dirtbag thing you can do. That and coming to headquarters to eat your weight in hot dogs.
What does our Ex-officio Bosshole feel about flat management? Here is just a tiny peak into the mind of Greg Parker-
“self-organization is nearing the underlying principle of the entire universe. no one needs to tell a star where to burn or to tell a frog to eat a bug and find them by the water’s edge, these beings know their place in the cosmos. Humans, on the other hand, have lost their way and those that are afraid of not knowing what to do with themselves have created structures to tell others what they should do with their time, hierarchy and control. Projection is a nasty and beautiful part of the human imagination. Fermentation is a self-organized process. There is no conductor of the yeast’s behavior, the yeast know why the cosmos has brought them here.”
The cosmos has brought you Dirtbag Carnival for one more year. Come check it out because it may not be back next year.
