Dee Hock founded Visa’s global payment organization and developed the idea of a chaordic organization: an adaptive system combining order and chaos. His books and essays use Visa’s formation to explore shared purpose, distributed governance, leadership and institutional change. — Dee Hock Publications.

Infographic for "Lessons from Dee Hock".

On Organization and Leadership

  1. Community Around Shared Purpose: Hock envisioned healthier organizations as communities held together by a shared purpose that appeals to people’s higher aspirations. — Birth of the Chaordic Age Excerpt.
  2. Let Purpose Guide Behavior: A clear, shared purpose and sound principles can guide people more effectively than increasingly elaborate rules. — Chaordic Age Organizations.
  3. Recognize Institutional Transition: Hock argued in 1996 that industrial-era institutions were giving way to a much larger shift in culture and society. — Birth of the Chaordic Age.
  4. Clear Out Old Mental Models: New ideas are hard to adopt while familiar but outdated assumptions still occupy the mind. — Perception and Perspective.
  5. Organizations Depend on People: Hock described organizations as mental constructs made real by people’s minds, hearts and spirit, not by assets or formal documents alone. — The Nature and Reality of Organizations.
  6. Lead in Every Direction: Hock placed managing oneself first, then earning the support of superiors and peers, before directing people under one’s authority. — Managing, Leading, and Following.
  7. Put Integrity Before Experience: When hiring and promoting, Hock emphasized integrity and motivation ahead of experience; skill and experience are more useful when those foundations are present. — Chip Conley’s Dee Hock Interview.
  8. Draw Out Rather Than Command: Hock distinguished leadership from coercion: a leader shows the way and helps people bring forth capabilities they already possess. — Managing, Leading, and Following.
  9. See Individual and Community Together: Hock argued that individual well-being and community well-being are inseparable even though each person remains distinct. — Community and the Exchange of Value.
  10. Apply an Ethical Short Course: Hock’s leadership short course asks people to avoid doing to others what they themselves abhor, and to do for others what they have appreciated receiving. — Fast Company Management Supplement.

On Chaordic Systems (Blending Chaos and Order)

  1. Blend Order and Chaos: Hock coined “chaordic” for a self-organizing, adaptive system that exhibits characteristics of both order and chaos. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.
  2. Build Community Through Giving: For Hock, community is sustained by non-monetary exchanges—care, trust, generosity and other things people share without demanding payment. — Community and the Exchange of Value.
  3. Design Visa as a Network: Hock concluded that no single bank or conventional corporation could run the value-exchange system he envisioned; it required a new organization linking diverse participants. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.
  4. Distribute and Share Governance: In Hock’s Visa design, power and function were distributed, participants could self-organize, and decisions had to include those affected. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.
  5. Learn from Biological Systems: When conceiving Visa, Hock asked what an organization based on biological concepts and principles might look like, rather than starting with a conventional hierarchy. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.
  6. Treat Organizations as Shared Beliefs: Hock argued that an organization is a mental construct embodied by people who share purposes and principles, not a physical object or set of documents. — The Nature and Reality of Organizations.

On Purpose and Principles

  1. Define Purpose Before Structure: Hock began chaordic design by seeking a clear purpose that members could jointly find meaningful, before settling the organization’s structure. — Birth of the Chaordic Age Excerpt.
  2. Let Principles Govern Decisions: Hock described common principles as an institutional “genetic code” that guides distributed decisions while preserving the organization’s core purpose. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.

On Management and Control

  1. Enable Instead of Micromanage: Hock argued that after choosing good people and encouraging them to lead themselves and one another, a manager should recognize their work and stay out of their way. — Managing, Leading, and Following.
  2. Manage Yourself First: Hock called management of one’s own integrity, character, judgment and actions the first responsibility of anyone who manages others. — Managing, Leading, and Following.
  3. Move Beyond Command and Control: Hock criticized Industrial Age command-and-control organizations for suppressing judgment, initiative and human ingenuity. — Chaordic Age Organizations.
  4. Keep Money a Tool: Hock acknowledged that money and markets are useful tools, while warning against treating them as the defining purpose or value of community. — Community and the Exchange of Value.

On Change and the Future

  1. Give the Future Deliberate Attention: Hock urged people to devote their best thought and energy to how future organizations ought to be, rather than simply extrapolating from the present. — Perception and Perspective.
  2. Recognize Institutional Failure: Hock diagnosed an epidemic of institutions that persist while failing to fulfill the purposes for which they were created. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.
  3. Reconceive the Institution: Faced with an unworkable card network, Hock argued that the problem was institutional and designed a new form of cooperation among banks rather than relying on existing organizational forms. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.
  4. Use Purpose Instead of Rigid Plans: Hock warned that fixed long-range plans can lead organizations to force events into a preconceived model; he preferred clear purpose and sound principles for adapting in periods of rapid change. — Chaordic Age Organizations.
  5. Understand the Age of Mind-Crafting: Hock described the information age as an age of mind-crafting, in which information and software amplify mental rather than muscular power. — Chaordic Age Organizations.

On Mindset and Perspective

  1. Learn From Failure: Hock argued that growth often comes from recognizing failure, admitting it, learning from it and trying again, not from assuming success proves one is right. — Managing, Leading, and Following.
  2. Examine the Lens of Perspective: Hock warned that an internal model built from habit, experience and bias can distort what people perceive and imagine about the future. — Perception and Perspective.
  3. Ask the Foundational Design Question: When conceiving Visa, Hock began by asking what an ideal organization could be if existing constraints were set aside, then worked toward principles before structure. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.

On Life and Philosophy

  1. Treat Life as Becoming: Hock wrote that life is a process of becoming rather than something to be fully known, commanded or controlled. — Desire for Control and Certainty.
  2. Free Human Ingenuity: Hock considered human ingenuity abundant but underused, and blamed mechanistic hierarchies for suppressing it. — Managing, Leading, and Following.
  3. Recognize Interdependence in Life: Hock described living systems as cycles of giving and receiving and argued that people and things are both independent and interdependent. — Community and the Exchange of Value.
  4. Enable Ordinary People to Achieve More: From Visa’s early experience, Hock concluded that ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things when they have the right conditions and liberty to try. — The Birth of the Chaordic Century.