The way groups are working together is not working. But introducing new structures alone is not enough. Tamila and Simon talk to me about how we need to develop our ways of seeing, being and working together if we want to act in the highest possible alignment with our vision. A key part of this is using the lens of Power, Belonging and Justice (PBJ) and strengthening our muscle in Conflict Resilience. Strap in for some powerful wisdom, giggles and deep learning.

Harmonize is a worker-owned cooperative that helps groups work together through Comprehensive Organizational Development and Analysis (CODA™). Tamila and Simon are the co-founders of Harmonize.

Resources:

• Harmonize’s website

• Harmonize’s courses

• Simon’s blog series on the Common Mistakes in Self-Management

• And his article ‘Autopsy of a Failed Holacracy’

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 19 with Simon Mont back in 2018

• Ep. 33 with Margaret Wheatley

• Ep. 37 with Miki Kashtan

 

SINA (Social Innovation Academy) is a network of social enterprise incubators in Uganda and neighbouring countries with a mission of supporting marginalised young people to create their own solutions to social problems in their communities.There are currently more than 10 SINA communities which have catalysed 70+ social enterprises and more than 500 jobs. The goal is to create a global movement of 1,000 SINAs and 100,000 social enterprises by 2035.

Etienne Salborn, founder, and Tonny Wamboga, Operations Lead, talk to me about SINA’s model in which self-organisation plays a central role. How do scholars take on key roles? What is the ‘confusion stage’? What are common misconceptions of self-organisation? What are the specific cultural challenges of learning self-organisation in Uganda? We talk about these questions and more in our conversation.

Resources:

• SINA’s website: https://www.socialinnovationacademy.org/

• More about the SINA framework

• A case study about SINA (non-academic)

• An academic master thesis on the agency aspect of scholars in SINA

• Masters of Social Change, a SINA documentary about refugee activists and social entrepreneurs

• Etienne on the Out of the Clouds podcast talking about the SINA founding story and the model

 

Bernadette Wesley’s work is all about bridging the world of inner development with the world of being in an organisation together. We talk about Deliberately Developmental Organisations (DDOs); self-organisation and why changing structures is not enough; the Inner Development Goals (IDGs); and three practices that Bernadette has found particularly powerful: Peer Learning Spaces, Immunity to Change Maps, and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Tapping.

Bernadette is an Associate Partner with Fraendi, and is the Coordinator for the Inner Development Goals (IDG) Hub in Porto, Portugal, centering on Adult Development in SDG oriented organisations.

Resources:

• An overview of being a Deliberately Developmental Organisation (DDO)

• Learn more about Peer Learning Spaces

• Experiential Guide: Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Tapping

• “Organizational Adaptability and Resilience: The Invisible Culture”, an article by Bernadette Wesley

• Learn more about Fraendi

Jon Alexander is the author of the hugely popular 2022 book ‘Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us’. He talks to me about the people he interviewed and the stories he collected which show how it’s possible to go from what he calls a ‘Consumer’ mindset to a ‘Citizen’ mindset – like Taiwan’s innovative approach during the COVID pandemic. We also discuss the Three P’s of Participatory Organisations, what leadership would need to look like in a Citizen Future, and why we should try to create ‘safe uncertainty’.

Resources:

• Jon’s website where you can order the book Citizens

• Follow Jon on Twitter: @jonjalex

• The book Jon mentions by Ece Temelkuran, Together: 10 Choices for a Better Now

• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

• • Ep. 83 with Imandeep Kaur, featured in the book Citizens

  • Ep. 64 with Bayo Akomolafe

 

What would it look like to reimagine the systems of a whole city? To really involve citizens in addressing the huge challenges we face today? Imandeep Kaur reflects on what she has learned in the last ten years from being part of an ecosystem of social entrepreneurs in Birmingham who are cultivating ‘radical reimagination’.

From TEDx Brum, to Impact Hub Birmingham, to Dark Matter Labs and finally as the director of CIVIC SQUARE, where she has been greatly influenced by Kate Raworth’s work on Doughnut Economics, Immy shares some deep insights and big questions from her journey about systems change and leadership.

Resources:

• CIVIC SQUARE’s website

• The Doughnut Economics website

• Blogs and other resources related to Dark Matter Labs’ #BreakingTheRules project

• More Dark Matter Labs provocations from their Medium blog

• Indy Johar, one of Immy’s key influences, in a video conversation with Jordan Hall about the need for a new organisational theory and practice

• Related Leadermorphosis episode:

  • One of my favourite conversations with friend of Immy, Meg Lightheart

Three authors of the book ‘Made Without Managers: One Company’s Journey to New Ways of Working’ join me to talk about what they have learned at Mayden, a cloud based health tech solutions organisation in the UK. Ruth Waterfield (developer and scrum master), Taryn Burden (product owner of Mayden’s new ways of working) and Philippa Kindon (coach) share how Mayden’s ways of working have evolved over the years, including what career progression looks like, the role of directors in a bossless organisation, and what have been their biggest challenges.

Resources:

• Order the book ‘Made Without Managers: One Company’s Journey to New Ways of Working’ from Amazon here
• Read the blog about the Mayden book here

Erik is an executive advisor on transformation and the future of work, leadership, and collaboration, and the author of ‘Teal Dots in an Orange World.’ We talk about how this 'new ways of working' movement is evolving, and in particular a positive trend that Erik calls 'fragmented organisations' that's happening because it's hard to scale self-managed or 'teal' practices and principles in a uniform way. Erik shares what he has observed, particularly in larger organisations, including challenges like interfacing with the outside world when you are a progressive organisation. Finally, we explore leadership and 'futures literacy' as an important skill. I love Erik's articulate and thoughtful style and I think this was a great sense-making conversation.

Resources:

• Erik’s book, ‘Teal Dots in an Orange World’
• The HBR article ‘Managing the whitespace’
• Bill Anderson talking about transformation at scale at Roche, on the Brave New Work podcast
• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:
• The episode with Peter Koenig about Source
• The episode with Tom Nixon about Source
• The books Erik mentioned:
• ‘Imaginable’ by Jane McGonical
• ‘Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century’ by Riel Miller et al.

For the past year, the Municipality of Slagelse in Denmark has been experimenting with autonomous teams. Of the 8,000 employees, some 25-30 units so far have opted in to learn how to make decisions as a team using key principles of Sociocracy. Mette Aagaard, Head of Development, shares what they have been learning and why she thinks it is the responsibility of the public sector to develop societies, and workplaces, that are fit for humans.

Anyone wondering how to introduce self-managing teams in a large public sector organisation, this episode is for you!

Resources:

• The video of Mette talking to Ted Rau at the Global Sociocracy Conference
• The Leadermorphosis episode with Ted Rau talking about Sociocracy

Lina shares the story of her time at Finnish commercial real estate company Technopolis where she led the transformation of the Lithuania business unit. Inspired by Frederic Laloux's book Reinventing Organisations, she got the mandate from her boss to run her business unit of 20 people in a totally different way, with no managers. She shares the story of what her team learned, the challenges they faced, and the results they achieved.

Highlights include some harsh but valuable feedback from her team about how decisions are made; a group learning to handle their own conflicts; and a chief accountant who went above and beyond to help the team exceed a seemingly impossible sales target.

Since recording, Lina has teamed up with other progressive leadership practitioners to help organisations in Lithuania transform to self-managing ways of working.

Resources:

• The Leadermorphosis episode with Dunia and Jabi from K2K Emocionando

Sofia and Luís talk about the self-organisation journey at global software engineering company, Mindera. With 900+ employees and counting, they have evolved as a company without managers through experiments guided by questions like: Will this bring more autonomy? Is it human friendly? This has resulted in some remarkable employee-designed processes, like their self-managed salary system, and their unique office space in Porto, Portugal.

Sofia, Mindera’s co-founder, and Luís (whose title is ‘Self-Organisation Enthusiast and Learning Geek’) share what they have learned from their journey and how they have developed as individuals themselves.

Resources:

• The Mindera employee handbook
• Luís’ talk from the Teal Around the World conference
• Mindera’s website (check out the blogs about why they have no managers, and how their salary process has evolved)

Aaron Dignan, author of Brave New Work and founder of The Ready, is back on the podcast, this time to talk about how his new software startup, Murmur, can help organisations scale new ways of working. We talk about the importance of team agreements and how to keep them alive, plus what Aaron and his colleagues have been learning from their latest explorations in the worlds of self-management, DAOs and their Brave New Work podcast.

Resources:

• Learn more about Murmur: https://www.murmur.com/
• Learn more about The Ready, Aaron’s book Brave New Work: https://theready.com/ and you can buy the Tension and Practice cards here
• Listen to the previous Leadermorphosis episode with Aaron here
• Listen to the episode of me on Aaron and Rodney’s Brave New Work podcast talking about embracing discomfort and transforming conflicts – on Apple podcast; Spotify

Ria Baeck and J.D. Nasaw. Ria and J.D. are both coaches and facilitators who combine scientific research of trauma with embodied practices of collective intelligence and wisdom. 

In our conversation, we discuss questions like: what does trauma have to do with new ways of working? How can we be more conscious collaborators? What are examples of embodied practices we can use so that our journey of new ways of working is not only an intellectual one?

Ria has thirty years of experience as a therapist, and J.D. is particularly interested in the intersection of somatics, self-management, social justice, and regeneration. Both are associates at Greaterthan for which they have developed a course called Trauma Informed Collaboration.

Resources:

• More information about the Trauma Informed Collaboration course
• Greaterthan’s website
• Learn more about Enspiral
• Learn more about Percolab
• A beginner’s guide to Polyvagal Theory from Rhythm of Regulation
• See also the Leadermorphosis episode with Miki Kashtan

In this episode we talk all about psychological safety – the misconceptions, what it actually means in practice, what we can learn about it through an equity lens, and how we can design organisational structures that support it (like decision-making protocols).

We also talk about how August does onboarding and creates an adult learning environment through feedback, peer reviews and the role of a ‘Development Advocate’, plus how they relate to the ‘new ways of working’ movement right now.

Tirzah and Mike are teammates at August Public Inc., an organisation and leadership development and change management firm. Tirzah leads August's Equity & Inclusion practice and Mike is a Founding Partner.

Resources:

• Download the August white paper ‘Looking at Psychological Safety Through an Equity Lens’

• Learn more about August and their other insights via their website

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 45 with Prof. Amy Edmondson

• Ep. 41 with Michael Y. Lee about the interpersonal risks research (safe spaces and interaction scripts)

• Michael Y. Lee’s research paper ‘Fostering Positive Relational Dynamics in Teams: The Power of Spaces and Interaction Scripts’ (Academy of Management Journal, 2020)

• Book: ‘Confronting our Freedom: Leading a Culture of Chosen Accountability and Belonging’ by Peter Block and Peter Koestenbaum

 

Alice Sheldon is the author of ‘Why Weren’t We Taught This at School?’ and the founder of Needs Understanding, an approach for finding creative solutions and building relationships at home and at work. I love how Alice shares practical tools and stories to bring to life some of the principles of Nonviolent Communication. She also coaches me through an example of an organisation where there is a tension between two groups: those who are enthusiastic about self-management and those sceptical about it. A great episode if you want to upgrade your self-awareness and communication skills.

Resources:

• The Needs Understanding website www.needs-understanding.com
• Alice’s book, ‘Why Weren’t We Taught This at School?’
• The needs list PDF we mention (and other useful lists)

Matt Perez realised that his successful career as a boss in a Silicon Valley tech company had made him a worse person and so he co-founded Nearsoft in 2007 to be a company that works for everyone. His recent book, Radical Companies Without Bosses or Employees, takes self-organisation one step further to include co-ownership so that people aren’t dependent on what he calls ‘enlightened monarchs.’ We talk about what he’s been learning, including the development of a distribution mechanism that decentralises ownership and supports egalitarian and equitable wealth sharing based on contribution.

Resources:

• Matt’s book ‘Radical Companies’
• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:
• Listen to the episode with Anabel Montiel to learn more about Nearsoft
• Listen to the episode with Jabi Salcedo and Dunia Reverter from K2K

Kate Beecroft works on ecosystem and community building at Centrifuge, the decentralised asset financing protocol. She has been involved in Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) since 2018 and brings to them her experience of self-managing organisations as the co-founder of Greaterthan and a long-time member of Enspiral. We talk about common critiques of DAOs and Web3, as well as how we could share learning more across the worlds of self-managing organisations, DAOs and cooperatives.

For listeners totally new to the world of DAOs and Web3, here are two starting points:

• This Forbes article: What Are DAOs And Why You Should Pay Attention
• The Brave New Work podcast episode with Chase Chapman (see also their DAO mini-series)

Resources:

• The paper Kate co-authored, The Dissensus Protocol
• The episode of the ‘On the Other Side’ podcast we mention
• Elizabeth M. Renieris’ article ‘Amid the Hype over Web3, Informed Skepticism Is Critical’
• Richard D. Bartlett, Stephen Reid and Rufus Pollock on Critical Exploration of Web3 (YouTube video)
• Enspiral’s website

Swarnalakshmi Ravi is the former national prime minister of India's Inclusive Neighbourhood Children's Parliament. The children’s parliament movement is an example of how simple but effective governance principles and structures can make children’s voices heard and empower them to take collective action on issues that affect their lives. Swarna shares her experiences both as a child participating in these parliaments and now as an adult supporting the development of the Provisional World Children’s Parliament. What can we learn from this movement about inclusion, accessibility and collaboration?

Resources:

• The documentary ‘Power to the Children’: https://www.powertothechildren-film.com/
• The book ‘Hello, Neighbourocracy!’: https://leanpub.com/helloneighbourocracy
• See also Sociocracy for All’s websites for more resources related to neighbourhood and children’s parliaments: https://www.sociocracyforall.org/

Marwa Farouq leads the Global Operations Circle in Teach for All, which is a global network of partner organisations developing collective leadership to improve education and expand opportunity for all children. Marwa shares what she’s learned from exploring new ways of working at Teach for All, including dismantling the senior leadership team, moving decisions closer to the work, embracing tensions and liberating untapped leadership through their core value of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Marwa is originally from Egypt and over her almost 20-year career she has led organisational development, culture transformation, and change management initiatives as well as being a seasoned executive coach and Nonviolent Communication practitioner.

Resources:

• Teach for All’s website https://teachforall.org/
• A video where two Teach for All network leaders share ‘The Leadership Mindset Shifts That Have Enabled Progress in Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion’ https://teachforall.org/news/leadership-mindset-shifts-have-enabled-progress-diversity-equity-inclusion
• About Frederic Laloux’s book, Reinventing Organizations https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/
• About Nonviolent Communication https://www.cnvc.org/

Ravi Resck was born to hippy parents in Brazil, became a computer network engineer, and then travelled the world as a guitarist, discovering a love of facilitation and social design. Today he goes by tags like hacktivist, org designer, facilitator, and systems mapper, sharing social technologies with others in a fun and accessible way. He works as a consultant at Target Teal, a collective exploring new ways of working, including an open-source fork of Holacracy called Organic Organization (or O2). We talk about why he believes lessons from self-management and Sociocratic-inspired models benefit all organisations, not just the ‘already-converted’, and Ravi shares some of his favourite examples of organisations and communities at the cutting edge of new ways of collaborating. Ravi is definitely one to watch in the future of work space!

Resources:

• Target Teal’s website https://targetteal.com/en/
• Learn more about Organic Organization https://targetteal.com/en/organic-organization/
• Sociocracy for All’s page about Sociocracy with Youth, including the Children’s Parliament movement https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy-with-youth/
• H3Uni’s website https://www.h3uni.org/

Jos de Blok is the founder of Buurtzorg, a home care organisation in the Netherlands with 15,000 nurses and no managers. We talk about how their decentralised, human approach has helped them during the pandemic, why he believes ‘protocolising things’ in organisations does damage, and his advice for leaders and traditional top-down organisations that are embarking on transformation processes. It was an honour to talk to one of my heroes and to hear him speak with such heart. Enjoy!

Resources:

• My interview with the Buurtzorg nurses from the Houten team: https://leadermorphosis.co/ep-26-buurtzorg-and-the-power-of-self-managed-teams-of-nurses
• More about the book ‘Organizational Innovation by Integrating Simplification: Learning from Buurtzorg Nederland’ https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-11725-6

Michael Bungay Stanier is on a mission to ‘un-weird coaching’ and make it a skill set available to anyone. His books have sold over a million copies and Michael has taught more than 200,000 people. As a big fan of his writing, I wanted to talk to him about why being more ‘coach-like’ is so valuable – both for us and for the people we work with – and how to get better at it.

We also discussed what Michael’s learned from handing over the role of CEO at the company he founded, his new book ‘How to Begin’, and why he’s interested in exploring the power of giving away power...

Resources:

• Michael’s website https://www.mbs.works/
• Michael’s new book, ‘How to Begin: A Proven Plan to Start Something That Matters’ https://www.mbs.works/how-to-begin/
• Michael’s podcast ‘Two Pages with MBS’ https://www.mbs.works/2-pages-podcast/
• The book Michael mentions: ‘The Power of Giving Away Power’ by Matthew Barzun

The current models for how we measure things in organisations tend to produce compliance at their best, and dysfunctions at their worst. Andy Brogan has developed an alternative tool called Confirmation Practices that he hopes could one day completely shift how we see regulation, accreditation and accountability in general. Joined by Helen Sanderson, we discuss examples of where Confirmation Practices have made a difference (such as in a pathology service) and why this tool helps ‘put the elephant in the room’. It’s all about going from scorekeeping to sense making.

Andy Brogan is the founding partner of Easier Inc, providing consultancy services to a range of clients and sectors and is particularly passionate about the future of public services. Before that he worked in healthcare as a  senior manager in the NHS (National Health Service) in the UK.

Helen Sanderson has been on the podcast before and is the founder of Wellbeing Teams, the first self-managed teams in social care to be inspected by the Care Quality Commission (receiving an Outstanding rating in their first inspection in 2019). After three years of being a provider, she and her colleagues now provide support to other organisations who want to use the principles and practices of Wellbeing Teams.

Resources:

• Andy’s websites: www.easierinc.com and www.nextstageradicals.net
• Helen’s website: www.helensandersonassociates.co.uk
• The Wellbeing Teams website: www.wellbeingteams.org

On Twitter:

• Andy https://twitter.com/AndyTBrogan
• Helen https://twitter.com/HelenWBTeam

Margaret Heffernan is an author, speaker, business leader and professor. She has written six books and her TED talks have been seen by more than 12 million people. We talk about the ‘status quo trap’ in organisations, myths about whistleblowers, her thoughts on self-management and learning to embrace tough questions. Finally, she shares why her main focus now is the climate crisis.

Follow Margaret on Twitter: @M_Heffernan

Resources:

• Margaret’s website and more information about her latest book
• Margaret’s Medium post ‘Three problems of power’
• Margaret’s brilliant TED talks

Miki is the seed founder and Emma a founding member of the Nonviolent Global Liberation community (NGL), which runs entirely as a gift economy. They and NGL as a whole are knee-deep in visionary experimentation about what it would take to realign humanity with life through online and community living experiments.

Even without bosses we can still struggle to embody new ways of being together because of our internalised systems of patriarchal conditioning and capitalist thinking. The capacity lens gives us a way to examine this and make more conscious choices together. As Miki puts it, “Everyone who gets into it falls in love with it, because it moves us from rigidity to flexibility, from predictability to emergence, from coercion to willingness, from judgement to tenderness. Who wouldn't want that?” 

An incredibly valuable episode if you are wrestling with topics like fairness, how to distribute tasks and roles, leadership in a bossless environment, how to avoid burnout or how to deal with overwhelm in the face of huge societal challenges.

Resources:

• Nonviolent Global Liberation website

• Miki and NGL’s learning packet called ‘Resource flow systems: from incentive to willingness’ 

• Link to capacity lens course (access to video recordings only)

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 37 with Miki Kashtan on the three shifts

Pasteur Byabeza is the lead link of the Student Care Circle at Davis College, a higher learning institution in Rwanda. He is one of the pioneers who has been driving the college’s transition to becoming a self-managed, Holacratic organisation. Though they are early in their journey, taking steps like disbanding the global council and replacing management hierarchies with distributed decision making have already had a huge impact on people’s engagement levels. Pasteur shares what he has learned so far with honesty and contagious passion.

Resources:

• The Davis College website
• To learn more about Holacracy, you can listen to Leadermorphosis episodes 31 and 32 with Holacracy pioneer Brian Roberston or visit the Holacracy website
• Other education-related episodes of Leadermorphosis include:
  • Ep. 46 – students from Learnlife talking about a new, self-directed paradigm of learning in the education sector
  • Ep. 16 – Marianne Osorio talking about Sociocracy in schools and more

Bayo Akomolafe is a Nigerian author, professor, chief curator of The Emergence Network and is often known for his poetic and provocative take on big topics such as global crisis and social change. We talk about what he calls 'generative incapacitation' and the kind of leadership that’s needed in these times, how the Covid pandemic is disrupting our norms, embracing failure and allowing ourselves to be lost... and I also posed some questions to him about my worries regarding the reinventing work movement. It's a deep conversation so perhaps listen to this out on a walk!

Resources:

• Bayo’s website
• A beautiful conversation with Bayo on For The Wild on slowing down for urgent times
• A video of Bayo being interviewed by friend of the Leadermorphosis podcast Skeena Rathor for Extinction Rebellion ideas exchange
• • (And you can listen to my conversation with Skeena here, Leadermorphosis ep. 47)
• The conversation with Miki Kashtan I reference (Leadermorphosis ep. 37)
• The conversation with Margaret Wheatley I reference (Leadermorphosis ep. 33)

“Command authority is a poor basis for life.” Jocelyn Davis is an author, speaker and the former head of R&D at global consultancy The Forum Corporation. We talk about how she weaves together the threads of leadership, Eastern philosophy and dramatic literature. Her insights on group development, leadership as influence, and ‘climate’ in teams are really relevant for those interested in self-managing organisations.

Resources:

• Jocelyn's book The Art of Quiet Influence
• Jocelyn’s website
• Jocelyn’s article about 8 traps for leaders in the corporate world
• Jocelyn on Twitter: @JocelynRDavis

Sam Conniff and Alex Barker’s books ‘Be More Pirate’ and ‘How to Be More Pirate’ have sparked a movement of people around the world who want to shake things up, to create new business models and systems that are better for people and planet. The tagline on their website says: "Being more pirate is a shift in your mindset; a willingness to think differently, to challenge and be challenged, and to stop asking for permission to do what you know is right.” I wanted to talk to Sam and Alex about what we can learn from the golden age of pirates 300 years ago, and to share some examples of organisations that have been inspired to transform.

Resources:

• Be More Pirate website
• Be More Pirate meetup events (online and in-person)
• Reinventing Organisations website (about Frederic Laloux's work)

How to follow Alex and Sam:

• Twitter: @AlexandraBarke1 and @SamConniff

Topi Jokinen is one of the founders of a small Finnish company in the construction sector called Vertia. Since 2018, Topi has been leading a transformation in the company based on the idea of self-organising cells to help it grow and develop. He is perhaps the first CEO I have met who has done this level of personal and professional development and he shares with heart and humility what his leadership journey has been. We also talk about Vertia’s radical structures and practices, such as a transparent and collaborative salary model, as well as what Topi has learned about stepping back and letting go as a co-founder and CEO.

Resources:

• The Vertia case study produced by Amara Collaboration
• Vertia’s website
• A page about the Advice Process and collaborative decision making from the Reinventing Organisations wiki

How to follow Topi:

• Twitter: @TopiJokinen

Filmmakers Anna Thomson and David Baksh talk to me about Yoghurt Utopia, their documentary about a yoghurt company whose mission is to provide work and accommodation for people living with mental illness in the Catalonia region in Spain. Having spent several years with some of the workers of La Fageda and its inimitable founder, Cristobal Colon, they share what they have learned about this remarkable workplace and what lessons we can learn in terms of diversity, inclusion, and meaning at work.

Resources:

• Link to watch the Yoghurt Utopia documentary (NB: you need to create a free account with Waterbear to access)
• The trailer for the Yoghurt Utopia documentary
• The Yoghurt Utopia Facebook page, where you can follow updates about what film festivals it’s featured in, where you can see it etc.
• Anna Thomson’s article for The Huffington Post about the film
• ‘Cultivating a worker’s paradise’, article in The Guardian

The La Fageda website (in Catalan)

Yuji Yamada is the founder of EnFlow and is interested in exploring the differences between approaching organisational transformation from a ‘Western lens’ and a Japanese lens. We talk about teal organisations from Frederic Laloux’s book ‘Reinventing Organisations’ (which has sold 100,000 copies in Japan) and Yuji’s homegrown concept of ‘Jinen management’. Could East Asian organisations be at an advantage in developing new ways of working by drawing on their ancient wisdom and inherent cultural paradigms of interconnectedness? 

How to follow Yuji:

• Twitter: @yujiyamada0522

Resources:

• Yuji’s Medium post, ‘The trends of Teal organization in Japan’
• The book ‘The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently’ by Richard E. Nisbett

Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

• Ep. 55 with Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organisations
• Ep. 5 with Tom Nixon, founder of Maptio
• Ep. 49 with Peter Koenig about sourcework

Rich and Nati are the founders of collaboration consultancy The Hum and part of the Enspiral network. Between them, they have a background in activism, engineering, community organising and entrepreneurship and are well-respected thought leaders when it comes to decentralised organisations, self-managing teams and collaborative culture. We talk about personal shifts, ‘trojan horse’ radical practices, and ideas for moving from a domination society to a partnership society.

How to follow Rich and Nati:

• Twitter: @RichDecibels and @LombardoNati

Resources:

• The Hum’s online course (next guided programme starts on the 11th of March 2021)
• Learn more about Riane Eisler, who Rich mentions at the start
• The microsolidarity programme Nati mentioned
• The Enspiral website
• Loomio’s website

Nand Kishore Chaudhary is the remarkable founder of Jaipur Rugs, a company employing 40,000 weavers in 600 villages selling beautiful carpets in 40 countries. The artisans – most of them women in India’s “untouchable” class – are the “heroes of the business”, and self-managed principles like distributed decision making have long been a hallmark of the company. We talk about how N. K. Chaudhary has created a “business ashram”, where people find their clarity of purpose and gain higher consciousness, as well as his thoughts on humble leadership and how Jaipur Rugs will evolve self-management further.

Resources:

• Jaipur Living website and N. K. Chaudhary’s website
• Doug Kirkpatrick’s blog, ‘Jaipur Rugs: Self-managed art that you can walk on’
• A Forbes article about the book The Healing Organisation, which features Jaipur Rugs as one of its examples
• An extract from the book ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits’
• The book ‘The Healing Organisation: Awakening the Conscience of Business to Help Save the World’ by Raj Sisodia and Michael J. Gelb

Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

• Ep. 14 with Doug Kirkpatrick
• Ep. 42 with Ved Krishna from Yash Pakka

Anna Elgh is the CEO of Svenska Retursystem, a Swedish circular economy logistics company. We talk about the transformations she has led at the company since joining in 2014, from Lean to nearly three years of moving towards self-managing teams. She shares what she has learned about transforming conflicts, distributed decision making, disbanding the management team, as well as leadership and the power of letting go.

Resources:

• Svenska Retursystem’s website
• The book Lisa has co-authored with Karin Tenelius, Moose Heads on the Table
• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:
• • Ep. 55 with Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organisations
  • Ep. 37 with Miki Kashtan about the inner shifts that need to happen for self-management to work
  • Ep 45. with Amy Edmondson about psychological safety and climate (vs culture)
• The Enneagram Institute
• Tuff Leadership Training

Deerns Spain, a team of around 60 engineers, has been on a transformation journey since March 2020. Inspired by K2K Emocionando, they now work without managers which means that everyone is “creating our company all the time”. I talked to Miquel Castellvi (General Coordinator), Blanca Capdevila (People & Culture) and Pau Riera (Commitment Coordinator) who shared stories about how they changed their organisational structure, their self-managing salary process, giving feedback and dealing with conflicts, and the role of the Values and Culture team.

Resources:

• Deerns Spain website

• Article in El Pais about Deerns Spain and other ‘teal’ organisations in Spain

• Miquel and Blanca on the Autogestión con Pancho Mora podcast (in Spanish)

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 55 with Frederic Laloux

• Ep. 53 with Jabi and Dunia from K2K Emocionando

• Ep. 78 with Sofia and Luís from Mindera

 

Frederic Laloux is the author of the book 'Reinventing Organisations' and one of the leading figures in the new ways of working movement, coining the term ‘teal organisation’ which consists of three breakthroughs: self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose. We talk about how we can use juicy questions to explore new frontiers of what’s possible in our organisations and lives. Questions like: “Where are you participating in a system where you're actually out of integrity?” Frederic shares examples from conversations he’s had with CEOs of big corporations and inspiring stories he’s encountered of radical initiatives that have come from all levels of organisations.

Resources:

• Transcript of our conversation here
• The Reinventing Organisations website
• Frederic’s library of more than 100 ‘Insights for the Journey’ videos
• • Here’s the one on ‘growth pain’ we reference
  • And the one about the leader of the hospital
• A video about Interface being a circular economy company from Meaning Conference
• The book Wilful Blindness by Margaret Heffernan

Bill Fischer is a Professor of Innovation Management at IMD and Simone Cicero is the cofounder of Boundaryless and co-creator of the Platform Design Toolkit. We talk about what they have learned from years of studying and collaborating with the Chinese company Haier Group, whose Rendanheyi organisational model has been praised internationally as one of the most revolutionary management ideas of the 21st century. Our conversation explores the extraordinary leadership of CEO Zhang Ruimin, eliminating bureaucracy, designing an organisation to enable thousands of self-managed microenterprises, and what this model means for the future of work.

How to follow Bill and Simone:

• Twitter: @bill_fischer and @meedabyte

You can read the transcript version here.

Resources:

• Link to sign up for Bill and Simone’s RenDanHeYi masterclass in October (link gives you a 25% discount with the code LEADERMORPHOSIS)
• The EEEO Toolkit Draft Download webpage (a set of tools to support the creation of an Entrepreneurial Organisation)
• The Boundaryless Haier webinar YouTube playlist
• Corporate Rebels’ post about Haier
• Bill’s chapter ‘Ecosystems as an engine for innovation and learning’ in the book ‘Ecosystems Inc’
• Bill’s IMD profile where you can find more of his publications
• Simone’s interview with Bill on the Boundaryless podcast
• Alicia Hennig‘s paper on Daoism in Management

Jabi Salcedo and Dunia Reverter are coordinators at K2K Emocionando, a Spanish consultancy that has transformed more than 85 organisations from traditional to self-managing over the last two decades. We talk about the radical components of their methodology, such as removing manager roles, balancing salaries, shared decision-making and profit sharing. Jabi and Dunia share what they’ve learned from the transformations they have been part of, the kinds of shifts they’ve seen, and what some of the biggest challenges can be.

How to follow Dunia:

• Twitter: @reverter_dunia

Resources:

• My blog about the 10 components for abolishing hierarchy that K2K employs in their transformations
• The signup page for the NER by K2K Advanced Online Seminar in English, starting on the 23rd of September 2020
• Corporate Rebels’ blogs about K2K and their pioneering founder, Koldo Saratxaga

Jorge Silva is the co-founder of 10Pines, a self-managing software development company in Argentina. We talk about three key practices they have as a horizontal organisation, what they’re learning, and Jorge’s vision to spread this way of working in South America.

How to follow Jorge:

• Twitter: @jor_silva

Resources:

• A web page about 10Pines’ culture
• Jorge’s blog about how 10Pines does recruitment
• More about Loomio, the tool they use for decisions
• The Leadermorphosis episode with Anabel Montiel from Nearsoft, a self-managing software company in Mexico

Mark Eddleston, new ways of working consultant and coach and cofounder of the Reinventing Work movement, interviews Lisa Gill as they look back on 50 episodes of the Leadermorphosis podcast. Which conversations have changed their thinking? How has the podcast evolved? What is the next phase of the new ways of working movement?

How to follow Mark:

• Twitter: @marco_eds

Resources:

• Reinventing Work website
• Mark's website
• The book Lisa Gill and Karin Tenelius have written, Moose Heads on the Table
• Leadermorphosis episodes we referred to:
  • Margaret Wheatley
  • Miki Kashtan
  • Helen Sanderson
  • Skeen Rathor
  • Buurtzorg nurses
  • Chuck Blakeman
  • Gary Hamel

Dr Tjanara Goreng Goreng is a Wakka Wakka Wulli Wulli Traditional Owner from Central Queensland, Australia, and Robyn Katz is the founder of Talkpoint, which curates peer-to-peer learning experiences to humanise work. We talk about Tjanara’s PhD research which draws parallels between aboriginal culture and eldership, and Robert Kegan’s psychological development research and the idea of “sacred leadership”. Both women share what they have learned through their own personal transformation journeys, and what’s needed now in the world in terms of leadership development.

Resources:

• Talkpoint page featuring videos and other content about Tjanara’s sacred leadership doctorate
• OneINMA Global (website for sacred leadership mentoring, programs and transformational leadership consulting)
• Tjanara’s book “A Long Way from No Go”
• Leadermorphosis episode with Margaret Wheatley talking about warriors for the human spirit
• About Theory U

 

Peter Koenig has spent the last decade researching principles for how founders organise and materialise their enterprises, projects and initiatives – what he calls sourcework. We talk about the role of source and source principles and the idea of seeing organisations as energetic fields. We talk about why his work has sparked debate in “new ways of working” circles, as well as how we can use the lens of source to diagnose decentralised organisations when we seem to get stuck. Peter also shares some insights from 30 years of running money seminars, and why money is such a great place to hide our deepest shadows.

Resources:

• Upcoming money workshop (based on Peter's work) by Tim Malnick
• The Role of Source introduction workshop by Tom Nixon
• A website about source principles curated by Tom Nixon
• Peter’s website
• Tom Nixon’s blog about Reinventing Organisations and source (with a comment from Frederic Laloux at the end)
• Frederic Laloux’s video on new roles for top leaders, including the role of source
• Peter’s book 30 Lies About Money

Luz Iglesias, Director of Recruitment, and Edwin Jansen, Head of Corporate Development, work at Ian Martin Group, a self-managed, teal recruitment company with 400 employees across Canada and India. They share examples and stories of the initiatives, decisions and creativity that have sprung up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic without any central coordination, and how adaptability and humanity can flow freely in a self-organised system because of the mindset shift it facilitates. As former managers, they reflect on how liberating it is to distribute the responsibility of responding, strategising and taking care of people operations.

How to follow Ian Martin Group:

• Twitter: IanMartinGroup

Resources:

• Leadermorphosis episode with Edwin Jansen about Fitzii, part of Ian Martin Group
• Book: The Decision Maker by Dennis Bakke
• Video: Luz talking about decision-making and IMG's 'teal operating system' from Loomio
• About Patrick Lencioni’s “thematic goal” concept
• Leadermorphosis episode with Aaron Dignan, author of Brave New Work

Skeena Rathor, who co-leads the Vision Sensing circle in Extinction Rebellion, shares insights from inside this decentralised movement – how their Holacratic, Sociocratic structures support its collective purpose, the work they’re doing with Miki Kashtan to transform power dynamics, and why Skeena’s dream is for XR to become a touchstone for the work of co-liberation. We also talk about how XR is responding to COVID-19 and their AloneTogether campaign.

How to follow Extinction Rebellion:

• Twitter: @ExtinctionR

Resources:

• Extinction Rebellion’s website and its AloneTogether handbook
• The Leadermorphosis podcast episode with Miki Kashtan
• Aimee Groth’s article about XR that mentions ‘shadow work’
• Palmer Parker’s thoughts on paradox
• Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine
• Frederic Laloux’s video on two types of pain along the journey

Devin Carberry, Director of Learning Programs, and two learners, 16-year-old Gerard Almenara, and 12-year-old Samir Shariputra Chopra, share their experiences of what it’s like to be part of Learnlife in Barcelona. Learnlife is reinventing education by creating an open ecosystem for a lifelong learning paradigm. People of all ages are supported to become self-directed learners and develop the skills to be responsible community members. This is the future of education and the Learnlife model has much to teach us about how to upgrade our organisations, too.

How to follow Learnlife:

• Twitter: @wearelearnlife

Resources:

• Learnlife website

I'm thrilled to have adrienne maree brown on the podcast, someone who 'grows ideas in public' through her writing, her podcasts and her music. Ideas like Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice.

We talk about what it means to be in right relationship with change, how to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, sustainable relationships, Pleasure Activism, three thoughts about leadership, what adrienne would do if she was mayor of a large city, and finally some of her favourite practices at the moment.

Resources:

• adrienne’s website where you can find links to her writing and podcasts

• Audre Lorde’s essay ‘Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power’

• Maurice Mitchell’s article ‘Building Resilient Organizations: Toward Joy and Durable Power During a Crisis’

• The Embodiment institute 

• Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity 

• The Chani app

• Related podcast episodes:

• Ep. 37 with Miki Kashtan

 

Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and the author of “Teaming” and “The Fearless Organisation”. We talk about her journey of researching psychological safety and teaming, as well as the paper she co-wrote about self-managing organisations. Amy shares insightful and practical lessons about leadership, how to be a good team member, and the future of work.

How to follow Amy:

• Twitter: @AmyCEdmondson

Resources:

• Amy’s profile on the HBS page including her work
• “Self-Managing Organizations: Exploring the Limits of Less Hierarchical Organizing” – Amy Edmondon and Michael Y. Lee’s research paper
• See also the episode with Michael Y. Lee to hear more about the research he and Amy published about self-managing organisations

 

Vivek Menon leads a high growth business unit at Danfoss Power Solutions called eSteering. Their purpose is to build the future steering solutions for off road vehicles. He shares how eSteering works without managers and why he thinks the future of organisations, especially large ones, is building the capacity to be ambidextrous – creating ecosystems where traditionally structured and decentralised teams or units can coexist. Vivek believes there are three components to develop when it comes to self-management: structures, processes, and mindset and behaviours.

How to follow Vivek:

• Twitter: @Menon_Viv

Resources:

• Vivek’s LinkedIn blogs on self-managed teams the eSteering Danfoss way, and how they work without managers
• An article about eSteering working without managers on the Danfoss website
• Videos about eSteering’s “why”, structures, processes, and mindsets

Bonnitta Roy is an author, trainer and creator of the OPO (Open Participatory Organisation), which is a framework people are using to experiment with more collaborative ways of working. She is well-loved in the world of Agile for her approaches to complexity and thinking about human systems. Bonnitta shares examples from her work of moves we can make towards more open and participatory organisations.

How to follow Bonnitta:

• Twitter: @bonnittaroy

Resources:

• The OPO Manifesto
• You can preview Bonnitta’s upcoming book, Our Future at Work, at Medium

Ved Krishna is Strategy Head at Yash Pakka, a compostable tableware manufacturer based in Faizabad, India that has been experimenting with organisational self-management since 1999. Ved talks with a lot of heart and honesty about his journey of taking over the family business, then firing himself as CEO and now working from a place of deeper purpose. He also shares the ups and downs of trying to develop self-management in a culture where hierarchy is very strongly ingrained.

How to follow Ved:

• Twitter: @ved_krish

Resources:

• Ved’s TEDx talk
• Chuk website and Yash Papers website
• Susan Basterfield’s LinkedIn blog about Yash
• Jingle Bell school website