From 0a93cbd5c10bfaf6eb440b12ca89dd9e1629a97a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Brian Robertson Date: Thu, 20 May 2021 18:11:56 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Swapped order of Articles 2 & 4 Per discussion in #358. No other edits to content in this change, just swapped the article order. --- Adoption Declaration.md | 8 +- Holacracy-Constitution.md | 150 +++++++++++++++++++------------------- 2 files changed, 79 insertions(+), 79 deletions(-) diff --git a/Adoption Declaration.md b/Adoption Declaration.md index 659ac39..491841b 100644 --- a/Adoption Declaration.md +++ b/Adoption Declaration.md @@ -7,17 +7,17 @@ The Ratifier(s) named below hereby adopt the following sections of the Holacracy - Article 1 is required to use any other rules of the Constitution. -#### [\_\_] Article 2: Distributed Authority +#### [\_\_] Article 2: Rules of Cooperation -- If this Article is not adopted, Role Leads must align all actions and decisions with any guidance or directions given by a Circle Lead of their Circle or any broader Circle, unless otherwise specified by a broader Circle Lead or by the Ratifiers. +- If this Article is not adopted, Circle Leads may specify the duties a Partner has to cooperate with others while working within their Circle, unless otherwise specified by a broader Circle Lead or by the Ratifiers. #### [\_\_] Article 3: Tactical Meetings - If this Article is not adopted, the Organization will continue its current meeting habits, until otherwise changed by a Circle Lead for their Circle, or until otherwise specified by a broader Circle Lead or by the Ratifiers. -#### [\_\_] Article 4: Rules of Cooperation +#### [\_\_] Article 4: Distributed Authority -- If this Article is not adopted, Circle Leads may specify the duties a Partner has to cooperate with others while working within their Circle, unless otherwise specified by a broader Circle Lead or by the Ratifiers. +- If this Article is not adopted, Role Leads must align all actions and decisions with any guidance or directions given by a Circle Lead of their Circle or any broader Circle, unless otherwise specified by a broader Circle Lead or by the Ratifiers. #### [\_\_] Article 5: Governance Process diff --git a/Holacracy-Constitution.md b/Holacracy-Constitution.md index 72ded57..cbe6515 100644 --- a/Holacracy-Constitution.md +++ b/Holacracy-Constitution.md @@ -129,137 +129,137 @@ A Circle may add Accountabilities or Domains to the Circle Lead Role, and later A Circle may remove any Accountabilities, Domains, authorities, or functions of its own Circle Lead Role. It can do this either by placing them on another Role in the Circle, or by defining an alternate means of enacting them. Doing this automatically removes the relevant authority or element from the Circle's Circle Lead Role, for as long as the delegation remains in place. -## Article 2: Distributed Authority +## Article 2: Rules of Cooperation -As a Role Lead, you have the authority to take any action or make any decision to enact your Role’s Purpose or Accountabilities, as long as you don't break a rule defined in this Constitution. When prioritizing and choosing among your potential actions, you may use your own reasonable judgment of the relative value to the Organization of each. +### 2.1 Duty of Transparency -### 2.1 Constraints on Authority +As a Partner, you have the duty to provide transparency to Role Leads in the Organization upon their request, as follows: -As a Role Lead, you must honor the following constraints on your authority. +- **(a) Projects & Next-Actions:** You must share any Projects and Next-Actions you are tracking for the Organization. +- **(b) Relative Priority:** You must share your judgment of the relative priority of any of your Projects or Next-Actions vs. anything else competing for your attention. +- **(c) Projections:** You must provide a projection of when you expect to complete any of your Projects or Next-Actions. A rough estimate is enough, considering your current context and priorities. Detailed analysis or planning is not required, and this projection is not a commitment in any way. Unless Governance says otherwise, you have no duty to track the projection or follow-up with the recipient if it changes. +- **(d) Checklist Items:** You must verify completion of any recurring actions that you perform for your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization. If requested, you must continue to share these verifications regularly, until you believe they are no longer useful. +- **(e) Metrics:** You must share any metrics you collect in your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization. If requested, you must continue to share these metrics regularly, until you determine they are no longer useful. +- **(f) Progress Updates:** You must share a summary of progress you've made in your Roles or towards any of your Projects since the last update you shared. If requested, you must continue to share these updates regularly, until you determine they are no longer useful. +- **(g) Other Information:** You must share any other information that's readily available to you and won't cause harm to share. -#### 2.1.1 Don't Violate Policies +### 2.2 Duty of Processing -While acting in a Role, you may not violate any Policies of the Role itself or of any Circle containing the Role. +As a Partner, you have the duty to promptly process messages and requests from Role Leads in the Organization, as follows: -#### 2.1.2 Get Permission Before Impacting Domains +- **(a) Requests to Clarify:** Others may ask you to clarify the next steps for any of your Projects or for any Accountability of your Roles. You must then determine and communicate a Next-Action to move it forward, if there are any you could take. If there are not, you must instead share what you’re waiting for before you can take a Next-Action. +- **(b) Requests for Projects & Next-Actions:** Others may ask you to take on a specific Next-Action or Project. You must accept and track it if you believe it would make sense to work towards in one of your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization, at least in the absence of competing priorities. If you don't, then you must either explain your reasoning, or suggest something else you believe will meet the requester’s goal instead. +- **(c) Requests to Impact Domain:** Others may ask to impact a Domain controlled by one of your Roles. You must allow the impact if you see no reason it will reduce your capacity to enact your Role's Purpose or Accountabilities. If you do see such a reason, you must explain it to the requester. -In service of your Role, you have the authority to impact and control your Role's Domains. +### 2.3 Duty of Prioritization -You may also impact any Domain held by a Circle containing your Role and not further delegated, or any Domain such a Circle itself may impact. But if you believe your impact will be substantially difficult or expensive to undo, you need to get permission. +As a Partner, you have a duty to prioritize your attention in alignment with the following: -You may not exert control or cause a material impact on a Domain delegated to a Role or Circle that doesn't contain your Role, unless you get permission. Nor may you do so on a Domain owned by another sovereign entity without permission. +- **(a) Processing:** You must generally prioritize processing inbound messages to your Roles from other Role Leads over executing your own Next-Actions. However, you may delay processing messages until you can batch process at a convenient time, as long as your processing is still prompt. Processing includes engaging in any duties in this Article, and then sharing how you processed the message upon request. Processing does not include executing upon any Next-Actions or Projects you capture. +- **(b) Meetings:** You must prioritize attending any meeting defined in this Constitution over executing your own Next-Actions, but only when another Partner explicitly requests this prioritization for a specific meeting. You may still decline the request if you already have plans scheduled over the meeting time. +- **(c) Circle Priorities:** When choosing what to work on in a Role, you must consider any official Strategies or relative prioritizations of that Role, of any Circle holding that Role, and of any Super-Circle thereof. You must then treat these official priorities as more important to the Organization than your own individual priorities or your own judgment of the Organization's priorities. Official priorities of a Circle are those defined by a Circle Lead, or by any other Roles or processes with the authority to resolve priority conflicts and define Strategies for that Circle. +- **(d) Deadlines:** If the Governance or any official Strategy or prioritization of a Circle includes a deadline specifying when something must be done by, no one may interpret that as a mandate to meet that deadline regardless of the impact of doing so. Instead, you must interpret that as an official prioritization of any actions needed to hit that deadline over any other actions for that Circle, and act accordingly. A Circle Lead or another Role or process with the authority to resolve priority conflicts across Roles may overrule this prioritization. -When you need permission to impact a Domain, you may get it from whomever controls that Domain. You may also get permission by announcing your intent to take a specific action, and inviting anyone with a relevant Domain to object. You must then wait a reasonable time to allow responses. If no one objects in that time, you then have permission to impact any Domains owned by any Role in the Organization that your announcement reached. You may assume a written announcement has reached anyone who typically reads messages in the channel you used. Any permission so granted only applies while taking the specific action you announced. A Policy may change or constrain this process. +### 2.4 Relational Agreements -#### 2.1.3 Get Authorization Before Spending Money +As a Partner, you may have ***“Relational Agreements”*** with other Partners. These are agreements about how you will relate together while working in the Organization, or about how you will fulfill your general functions as Partners of the Organization. They may add to or clarify the duties in this Article, but they may not conflict with them. -You may not spend any money or other assets unless you first get authorized to do so. This authorization must come from a Role that already has control of those resources for spending purposes. It counts as spending if you dispose of significant property of the Organization, or significantly limit any of its rights. +Relational Agreements must remain focused on shaping behaviors that generally underpin work; they may not set expectations of work to do in a Role, nor expectations about how a Partner will prioritize across different Roles. Further, they may only specify concrete acts to do or behavioral constraints to honor; they may not include promises to achieve specific outcomes or embody abstract qualities. -To get authorized to spend, you must announce your intent to spend in writing to the Role you're seeking authorization from. You must share this announcement where all Partners serving as Role Leads of that Role or within that Role will typically see it. Your statement must include the reason for the spending, and the Role you'll spend from. You must then wait a reasonable time to allow consideration and responses. Any recipient of your announcement may escalate the spending for extra consideration, and you may not proceed with the spending if escalated. However, a Role Lead of the Role you're seeking authorization from may reverse an escalation, as may the person who escalated it. Once a reasonable time has passed and no escalations stand, your Role gains control of those resources. You may spend them for your stated purpose, or further authorize others to. The Role you got this authorization from also loses this control, however a Role Lead of that Role may revoke the authorization at any time. +As a Partner, you may request a Relational Agreement of another Partner for your own personal preferences or to serve a Role you fill. That Partner may accept or reject the requested Relational Agreement based on their own personal preferences. Unless otherwise agreed, either party may later terminate the Relational Agreement by notifying the other party. -A Policy may change this process in any way, or directly authorize a Role to control spending of the Circle's resources. +As a Partner, you have a duty to align your behavior with any written Relational Agreements you have made. Anyone facilitating a meeting or process for the Organization may also enforce these Relational Agreements during that meeting or process, as long as they don't conflict with anything defined in this Constitution. -### 2.2 Interpretation Authority -As a Partner, you may use your reasonable judgment to interpret this Constitution and anything under its authority. You may further interpret how these apply within any specific situation you face, and act based on your interpretations. However, you must interpret all Governance in the context of the Purpose and Accountabilities of the Circle containing it, and within any official interpretation rulings of that Circle or any Super-Circle thereof. You may not use any interpretations that conflict with that context or those rulings. +## Article 3: Tactical Meetings -#### 2.2.1 Conflicts of Interpretation +Any Partner may convene a ***“Tactical Meeting”*** to assist Partners in engaging each other in their responsibilities and duties. In addition, the Secretary of each Circle is accountable for scheduling regular Tactical Meetings for the Circle. -As a Partner, your interpretation of this Constitution and the Organization's Governance may sometimes conflict with another Partner's. When that happens, either party may ask the Secretary of any affected Circle to rule on which interpretation to use, and the Secretary is accountable for interpreting the Constitution and anything under its authority upon request. After a Secretary responds, everyone must align with that Secretary's ruling until the relevant text or context changes. +### 3.1 Attendance -After ruling on an interpretation, a Secretary may publish the ruling and the logic behind it. If published, the Secretary of that Circle and any contained Circles must attempt to align with that logic in any future rulings. However, a Secretary may still contradict it once a compelling new circumstance renders the logic obsolete. +For regular Tactical Meetings convened by a Circle's Secretary, all of the Circle's Roles are invited unless a Policy says otherwise. For other Tactical Meetings, the Partner convening the meeting must specify the Roles invited to that meeting. All Partners serving as Role Leads of those Roles are then invited to attend and represent those Roles, unless the convener narrows the invitation to include only a subset of Role Leads for a Role. -You may appeal a Secretary's interpretation to the Secretary of any Super-Circle. A Super-Circle Secretary may overrule the interpretation of any Sub-Circle Secretary. +### 3.2 Meeting Process -#### 2.2.2 Striking Invalid Governance +The Facilitator of a Circle is accountable for facilitating the Circle's regular Tactical Meetings, and its Secretary is accountable for capturing and publishing Tactical Meeting outputs. For Tactical Meetings convened by someone other than a Circle's Secretary, the Partner convening a Tactical Meeting must facilitate it and capture its outputs, or appoint another volunteer or appropriate Role to do so. -Any Partner may ask a Circle's Secretary to rule on the validity of any Governance within that Circle or any Sub-Circle thereof. If the Secretary concludes it violates the rules of this Constitution, the Secretary must strike it from the Circle's records. After doing so, the Secretary must promptly communicate what they struck and why to all Partners filling Roles within that Circle. +Unless a Policy says otherwise, the person facilitating the meeting must use the following process: -### 2.3 Individual Initiative +- **(a) Check-in Round:** Each participant in turn shares their current state, or offers another opening comment for the meeting. Responses are not allowed. +- **(b) Checklist Review:** Each participant verifies completion of any recurring actions that they are regularly reporting on for their Roles in the meeting. +- **(c) Metrics Review:** Each participant shares any metrics that they are regularly reporting on for their Roles in the meeting. +- **(d) Progress Updates:** Each participant highlights progress in any Project or other initiative that they are regularly reporting on for their Roles in the meeting. Participants may only share progress made since a prior report, and not the general status of any work. +- **(e) Build Agenda:** Participants build an agenda of items to process within the meeting. Each participant may add as many agenda items as desired by providing a short label for each, with no explanation or discussion allowed. Participants may add more agenda items after this step, between the processing of any existing agenda items. +- **(f) Triage Items:** To process each agenda item, the agenda item owner may make requests of another participant, either in that participant's general capacity as a Partner, or to a Role that participant represents in the meeting. However, requests to a Role may only be made in service of a Role the requester represents in the meeting. The person facilitating the meeting manages the time allowed for each agenda item to allow space for the entire agenda, and may cut off processing any item after its due share of meeting time. +- **(g) Closing Round:** Each participant in turn shares a closing reflection on the meeting. Responses are not allowed. -As a Partner, in some cases you are authorized to take ***“Individual Initiative”*** by acting beyond the authority of your Roles or by breaking rules in this Constitution. +A Policy of a Circle may specify an alternate process or amend this default process for Tactical Meetings called by any of the Circle's Roles. -#### 2.3.1 Allowed Situations -You may only take Individual Initiative when all of the following are true: +## Article 4: Distributed Authority -- **(a)** You are acting in good faith to serve the Purpose or express the Accountabilities of some Role within the Organization. -- **(b)** You believe your action would resolve or prevent more Tension for the Organization than it would likely create. -- **(c)** Your action would not commit the Organization to any spending beyond what you’re already authorized to spend. -- **(d)** If your action would violate any Policies or Domains, you believe much value would be lost from delaying to get permission or change Governance. +As a Role Lead, you have the authority to take any action or make any decision to enact your Role’s Purpose or Accountabilities, as long as you don't break a rule defined in this Constitution. When prioritizing and choosing among your potential actions, you may use your own reasonable judgment of the relative value to the Organization of each. -#### 2.3.2 Communication & Restoration +### 4.1 Constraints on Authority -Upon taking Individual Initiative, you must explain your action to any Role Leads who you believe may be significantly impacted. Upon request of any such Role Lead, you must take further actions to help resolve any Tensions created by your Individual Initiative. You must also refrain from taking similar Individual Initiative upon request of any such Role Lead. +As a Role Lead, you must honor the following constraints on your authority. -You must prioritize the communication and restoration required by this section over your regular work. However, a Circle Lead of a Circle that contains all Roles affected by your action may change this default priority. +#### 4.1.1 Don't Violate Policies +While acting in a Role, you may not violate any Policies of the Role itself or of any Circle containing the Role. -## Article 3: Tactical Meetings +#### 4.1.2 Get Permission Before Impacting Domains -Any Partner may convene a ***“Tactical Meeting”*** to assist Partners in engaging each other in their responsibilities and duties. In addition, the Secretary of each Circle is accountable for scheduling regular Tactical Meetings for the Circle. +In service of your Role, you have the authority to impact and control your Role's Domains. -### 3.1 Attendance +You may also impact any Domain held by a Circle containing your Role and not further delegated, or any Domain such a Circle itself may impact. But if you believe your impact will be substantially difficult or expensive to undo, you need to get permission. -For regular Tactical Meetings convened by a Circle's Secretary, all of the Circle's Roles are invited unless a Policy says otherwise. For other Tactical Meetings, the Partner convening the meeting must specify the Roles invited to that meeting. All Partners serving as Role Leads of those Roles are then invited to attend and represent those Roles, unless the convener narrows the invitation to include only a subset of Role Leads for a Role. +You may not exert control or cause a material impact on a Domain delegated to a Role or Circle that doesn't contain your Role, unless you get permission. Nor may you do so on a Domain owned by another sovereign entity without permission. -### 3.2 Meeting Process +When you need permission to impact a Domain, you may get it from whomever controls that Domain. You may also get permission by announcing your intent to take a specific action, and inviting anyone with a relevant Domain to object. You must then wait a reasonable time to allow responses. If no one objects in that time, you then have permission to impact any Domains owned by any Role in the Organization that your announcement reached. You may assume a written announcement has reached anyone who typically reads messages in the channel you used. Any permission so granted only applies while taking the specific action you announced. A Policy may change or constrain this process. -The Facilitator of a Circle is accountable for facilitating the Circle's regular Tactical Meetings, and its Secretary is accountable for capturing and publishing Tactical Meeting outputs. For Tactical Meetings convened by someone other than a Circle's Secretary, the Partner convening a Tactical Meeting must facilitate it and capture its outputs, or appoint another volunteer or appropriate Role to do so. +#### 4.1.3 Get Authorization Before Spending Money -Unless a Policy says otherwise, the person facilitating the meeting must use the following process: +You may not spend any money or other assets unless you first get authorized to do so. This authorization must come from a Role that already has control of those resources for spending purposes. It counts as spending if you dispose of significant property of the Organization, or significantly limit any of its rights. -- **(a) Check-in Round:** Each participant in turn shares their current state, or offers another opening comment for the meeting. Responses are not allowed. -- **(b) Checklist Review:** Each participant verifies completion of any recurring actions that they are regularly reporting on for their Roles in the meeting. -- **(c) Metrics Review:** Each participant shares any metrics that they are regularly reporting on for their Roles in the meeting. -- **(d) Progress Updates:** Each participant highlights progress in any Project or other initiative that they are regularly reporting on for their Roles in the meeting. Participants may only share progress made since a prior report, and not the general status of any work. -- **(e) Build Agenda:** Participants build an agenda of items to process within the meeting. Each participant may add as many agenda items as desired by providing a short label for each, with no explanation or discussion allowed. Participants may add more agenda items after this step, between the processing of any existing agenda items. -- **(f) Triage Items:** To process each agenda item, the agenda item owner may make requests of another participant, either in that participant's general capacity as a Partner, or to a Role that participant represents in the meeting. However, requests to a Role may only be made in service of a Role the requester represents in the meeting. The person facilitating the meeting manages the time allowed for each agenda item to allow space for the entire agenda, and may cut off processing any item after its due share of meeting time. -- **(g) Closing Round:** Each participant in turn shares a closing reflection on the meeting. Responses are not allowed. +To get authorized to spend, you must announce your intent to spend in writing to the Role you're seeking authorization from. You must share this announcement where all Partners serving as Role Leads of that Role or within that Role will typically see it. Your statement must include the reason for the spending, and the Role you'll spend from. You must then wait a reasonable time to allow consideration and responses. Any recipient of your announcement may escalate the spending for extra consideration, and you may not proceed with the spending if escalated. However, a Role Lead of the Role you're seeking authorization from may reverse an escalation, as may the person who escalated it. Once a reasonable time has passed and no escalations stand, your Role gains control of those resources. You may spend them for your stated purpose, or further authorize others to. The Role you got this authorization from also loses this control, however a Role Lead of that Role may revoke the authorization at any time. -A Policy of a Circle may specify an alternate process or amend this default process for Tactical Meetings called by any of the Circle's Roles. +A Policy may change this process in any way, or directly authorize a Role to control spending of the Circle's resources. +### 4.2 Interpretation Authority -## Article 4: Rules of Cooperation +As a Partner, you may use your reasonable judgment to interpret this Constitution and anything under its authority. You may further interpret how these apply within any specific situation you face, and act based on your interpretations. However, you must interpret all Governance in the context of the Purpose and Accountabilities of the Circle containing it, and within any official interpretation rulings of that Circle or any Super-Circle thereof. You may not use any interpretations that conflict with that context or those rulings. -### 4.1 Duty of Transparency +#### 4.2.1 Conflicts of Interpretation -As a Partner, you have the duty to provide transparency to Role Leads in the Organization upon their request, as follows: +As a Partner, your interpretation of this Constitution and the Organization's Governance may sometimes conflict with another Partner's. When that happens, either party may ask the Secretary of any affected Circle to rule on which interpretation to use, and the Secretary is accountable for interpreting the Constitution and anything under its authority upon request. After a Secretary responds, everyone must align with that Secretary's ruling until the relevant text or context changes. -- **(a) Projects & Next-Actions:** You must share any Projects and Next-Actions you are tracking for the Organization. -- **(b) Relative Priority:** You must share your judgment of the relative priority of any of your Projects or Next-Actions vs. anything else competing for your attention. -- **(c) Projections:** You must provide a projection of when you expect to complete any of your Projects or Next-Actions. A rough estimate is enough, considering your current context and priorities. Detailed analysis or planning is not required, and this projection is not a commitment in any way. Unless Governance says otherwise, you have no duty to track the projection or follow-up with the recipient if it changes. -- **(d) Checklist Items:** You must verify completion of any recurring actions that you perform for your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization. If requested, you must continue to share these verifications regularly, until you believe they are no longer useful. -- **(e) Metrics:** You must share any metrics you collect in your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization. If requested, you must continue to share these metrics regularly, until you determine they are no longer useful. -- **(f) Progress Updates:** You must share a summary of progress you've made in your Roles or towards any of your Projects since the last update you shared. If requested, you must continue to share these updates regularly, until you determine they are no longer useful. -- **(g) Other Information:** You must share any other information that's readily available to you and won't cause harm to share. +After ruling on an interpretation, a Secretary may publish the ruling and the logic behind it. If published, the Secretary of that Circle and any contained Circles must attempt to align with that logic in any future rulings. However, a Secretary may still contradict it once a compelling new circumstance renders the logic obsolete. -### 4.2 Duty of Processing +You may appeal a Secretary's interpretation to the Secretary of any Super-Circle. A Super-Circle Secretary may overrule the interpretation of any Sub-Circle Secretary. -As a Partner, you have the duty to promptly process messages and requests from Role Leads in the Organization, as follows: +#### 4.2.2 Striking Invalid Governance -- **(a) Requests to Clarify:** Others may ask you to clarify the next steps for any of your Projects or for any Accountability of your Roles. You must then determine and communicate a Next-Action to move it forward, if there are any you could take. If there are not, you must instead share what you’re waiting for before you can take a Next-Action. -- **(b) Requests for Projects & Next-Actions:** Others may ask you to take on a specific Next-Action or Project. You must accept and track it if you believe it would make sense to work towards in one of your Roles or as a Partner of the Organization, at least in the absence of competing priorities. If you don't, then you must either explain your reasoning, or suggest something else you believe will meet the requester’s goal instead. -- **(c) Requests to Impact Domain:** Others may ask to impact a Domain controlled by one of your Roles. You must allow the impact if you see no reason it will reduce your capacity to enact your Role's Purpose or Accountabilities. If you do see such a reason, you must explain it to the requester. +Any Partner may ask a Circle's Secretary to rule on the validity of any Governance within that Circle or any Sub-Circle thereof. If the Secretary concludes it violates the rules of this Constitution, the Secretary must strike it from the Circle's records. After doing so, the Secretary must promptly communicate what they struck and why to all Partners filling Roles within that Circle. -### 4.3 Duty of Prioritization +### 4.3 Individual Initiative -As a Partner, you have a duty to prioritize your attention in alignment with the following: +As a Partner, in some cases you are authorized to take ***“Individual Initiative”*** by acting beyond the authority of your Roles or by breaking rules in this Constitution. -- **(a) Processing:** You must generally prioritize processing inbound messages to your Roles from other Role Leads over executing your own Next-Actions. However, you may delay processing messages until you can batch process at a convenient time, as long as your processing is still prompt. Processing includes engaging in any duties in this Article, and then sharing how you processed the message upon request. Processing does not include executing upon any Next-Actions or Projects you capture. -- **(b) Meetings:** You must prioritize attending any meeting defined in this Constitution over executing your own Next-Actions, but only when another Partner explicitly requests this prioritization for a specific meeting. You may still decline the request if you already have plans scheduled over the meeting time. -- **(c) Circle Priorities:** When choosing what to work on in a Role, you must consider any official Strategies or relative prioritizations of that Role, of any Circle holding that Role, and of any Super-Circle thereof. You must then treat these official priorities as more important to the Organization than your own individual priorities or your own judgment of the Organization's priorities. Official priorities of a Circle are those defined by a Circle Lead, or by any other Roles or processes with the authority to resolve priority conflicts and define Strategies for that Circle. -- **(d) Deadlines:** If the Governance or any official Strategy or prioritization of a Circle includes a deadline specifying when something must be done by, no one may interpret that as a mandate to meet that deadline regardless of the impact of doing so. Instead, you must interpret that as an official prioritization of any actions needed to hit that deadline over any other actions for that Circle, and act accordingly. A Circle Lead or another Role or process with the authority to resolve priority conflicts across Roles may overrule this prioritization. +#### 4.3.1 Allowed Situations -### 4.4 Relational Agreements +You may only take Individual Initiative when all of the following are true: -As a Partner, you may have ***“Relational Agreements”*** with other Partners. These are agreements about how you will relate together while working in the Organization, or about how you will fulfill your general functions as Partners of the Organization. They may add to or clarify the duties in this Article, but they may not conflict with them. +- **(a)** You are acting in good faith to serve the Purpose or express the Accountabilities of some Role within the Organization. +- **(b)** You believe your action would resolve or prevent more Tension for the Organization than it would likely create. +- **(c)** Your action would not commit the Organization to any spending beyond what you’re already authorized to spend. +- **(d)** If your action would violate any Policies or Domains, you believe much value would be lost from delaying to get permission or change Governance. -Relational Agreements must remain focused on shaping behaviors that generally underpin work; they may not set expectations of work to do in a Role, nor expectations about how a Partner will prioritize across different Roles. Further, they may only specify concrete acts to do or behavioral constraints to honor; they may not include promises to achieve specific outcomes or embody abstract qualities. +#### 4.3.2 Communication & Restoration -As a Partner, you may request a Relational Agreement of another Partner for your own personal preferences or to serve a Role you fill. That Partner may accept or reject the requested Relational Agreement based on their own personal preferences. Unless otherwise agreed, either party may later terminate the Relational Agreement by notifying the other party. +Upon taking Individual Initiative, you must explain your action to any Role Leads who you believe may be significantly impacted. Upon request of any such Role Lead, you must take further actions to help resolve any Tensions created by your Individual Initiative. You must also refrain from taking similar Individual Initiative upon request of any such Role Lead. -As a Partner, you have a duty to align your behavior with any written Relational Agreements you have made. Anyone facilitating a meeting or process for the Organization may also enforce these Relational Agreements during that meeting or process, as long as they don't conflict with anything defined in this Constitution. +You must prioritize the communication and restoration required by this section over your regular work. However, a Circle Lead of a Circle that contains all Roles affected by your action may change this default priority. ## Article 5: Governance Process