How Visa Became a 'Chaordic' Organization

Dee Hock, the founder of Visa brought a very purpose-driven concept of the organization to the world of finance. He believed that organizations and institutions are not laws of nature -- they are creations of people who have come together in pursuit of shared moral purpose.1 That is, a purpose that lays a stake in the ground, setting out a preferred mode of conduct and/or end-state of existence. A moral purpose unambiguously captures that which people jointly wish to become, to which all can say with conviction,

Hock was unambiguous about the moral dimension of purpose: "Making a profit is not a purpose. It may be an objective; it may be a necessity; it may be a gratification; but it is not a purpose!"2

In his role as the founder and inaugural CEO of VISA, Dee Hock eschewed hierarchy, co-creating the world’s largest chaordic organization. Today, we might view VISA as just another financial services company, predicated on profit, but its origins lie in a set of explicit beliefs about how the world ought to be. Hock set aside banking as it was, and opened-up the bigger idea of value exchange as it could be. He and his collaborators were able to fashion a distributed ownership structure and governance model explicitly designed to prevent domination, and the congealing of wealth and power.

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  Has an enduring purpose and principles
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  Powered from the periphery, unified from the core
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  Exists to enable self-organizing parts
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  Equitably distributes power, rights, responsibilities and rewards
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  Can only be led, not managed
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  Compatible with the human spirit and biosphere

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  What if ownership was in the form of an irrevocable right of participation, rather than stock: rights that cannot be raided, traded, bought or sold, but only acquired by application and acceptance of membership?
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  What if it were self-organizing, with participants having the right to self-organize at any time, for any reason, at any scale, with irrevocable rights of participation in governance at any greater scale?
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  What if governance was distributive, with no individual, institution, or combination of either or both, particularly management, able to dominate deliberations or control decisions at any scale?

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  Addressing economic inequality by empowering people traditionally excluded from the financial system
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  Empowering underserved communities and supporting local economies everywhere
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  Driving sustainable commerce in pursuit of a more sustainable world

We can think about moral purpose, then, not only as an organization’s North Star, but as its gravitational pull, from which an organization’s principles, people, concept, constitution, and practices flow.

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  Why you exist and what you ought to become
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  Sets out a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence that is preferable to its opposite
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  Offers meaning, not rhetorical platitudes
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  Commonly shared, not siloed
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  Motivational, not operational

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  Healthy Organizations

  Hock argues that healthy organizations have strong, actualized moral purpose.
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  Meaning from Work

  Hock believes that people should be able to derive a sense of life purpose from the work they do.
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  Ought to Bes

  Hock argues that organizations, even banks and financial services, should concern themselves with the big question of how the world ought to be, and move towards that state.
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  Chaordic not Managed

  Hock's organizational model is not hierarchical or managerial but about workers enabling self-organized parts to cooperate towards shared ends.

Experiences & Observations

Thinking of a foundation you are close to, how do you experience its moral purpose? Could it be described as a 'gravational pull" that gives your life substantial meaning?

Reactions & Impressions

How do you react to the idea that every organization needs a moral purpose to be healthy, and that the production of profit is not a moral purpose?

Questions & Hunches to test

Thinking of a foundation you are close to, how might you learn more about the perception of its moral purpose in different parts of the organization?