I work with HolacracyOne, the company behind Holacracy. We definitely have a lot of work to do to explain Holacracy outside of our trainings & consulting services - we're a young company and haven't focused on that as much so far, but it's definitely something on our radar (especially after this press storm).

To answer your question, the secret sauce of Holacracy is the Holacracy Constitution – it replaces the CEO in deciding how decisions get made and how we organize. See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=31MljhiyxZ8

Also, you might be interested in two blog posts published in the past couple days in reaction to the often-inaccurrate press: - "Five Misconceptions About Holacracy" https://medium.com/about-holacracy/da84d8ba15e1 - "Holacracy at Zappos" by a Zappos' employee: http://rianschmidt.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/holacracy-at-zap...