How to update a role description when reality and the written role drift apart.
Roles only stay useful if they match what people actually do. As work shifts, role descriptions drift — someone does something nobody's accountable for, or a role lists things that nobody does anymore. Closing that gap is what changing roles is about.
In Holacracy this gap is called a : the difference between how things are and how they could be. Tensions are the fuel for changing your organisation. See Holacracy's Understanding Tensions for more on this idea. How formal the process should be depends on your organisation. Below are three approaches, from lightest to most structured. Pick the one that fits your team today. You can change later.
Often the founder, team lead, or operations person writes and updates roles as the organisation grows. New responsibility appears? They add it. Someone leaves? They reassign.
- Small teams (under ~10 people) with one person who has a clear overview.
- Fast-changing situations where group decisions would slow things down.
- The team trusts that person to reflect reality.
- Roles drifting out of sync with what people actually do (one person can't see everything).
- Roles feeling imposed rather than agreed.
Each person updates the roles they hold, with a quick heads-up to the team. The team lead reviews periodically to keep the picture coherent.
- Trust is high and people know their own work best.
- The team values speed and ownership over consensus.
- Roles that overlap or contradict each other.
- Scope creep — people adding to their own role without the team checking.
every team member with edit access can update their roles at app.moralfabric.org/roles . Agree as a team how big a change needs a check-in first. The most rigorous option, and the one Holacracy is built around. Role changes go through a short, structured group decision so everyone agrees and the change is visible. The full method is described on < Holacracy.org > under How It Works .
- Larger or more complex teams where role clarity really matters.
- Organisations that want decisions traceable.
- Teams that have invested time in learning the practice.
- Needs a trained facilitator and secretary to run smoothly.
- Feels heavy at first. Most teams take a few rounds to get comfortable.
Add a role change proposal to your team's weekly meeting agenda. Don't edit the role yet. For a new role, include the proposed Purpose and Accountabilities. For an existing role, copy the current ones and mark your changes.
In the meeting, anyone can ask clarifying questions or raise an objection. Objections aren't vetoes — they're information that refines the proposal. The team works through them until everyone can live with the result. This is usually done as part of the team's weekly meeting; Holacracy's Tactical Meetings page has more on the meeting format.
if a role has multiple people, the team lead can assign each person's focus (their slice of the role) without going through governance.
Holacracy takes practice. A Holacracy coach can help you set it up, train facilitators, and figure out the right pace. Find one in Moral Fabric's service providers directory (filter by "Holacracy" or "Organisational design").