Leadermorphosis – Details, episodes & analysis

For episode 100, Lisa talks with her colleagues Eva Vilella, Trevor Hudson, and Kajsa Thelander Sadio from Tuff Leadership Training about what it's really like to work inside a self-managing organisation. They explore how working at Tuff has transformed each of them, their culture of continuous development with practices like "pebbles" and "mooseheads," and the genuine challenges alongside the beauty – from coordination difficulties to the loneliness of autonomy. A rare inside look at self-management with all its complexity, humor, and humanity.

Resources:

• Moose Heads on the Table – book by Lisa and Karin from Tuff

• Lisa's blog, 'The tyranny of the inner boss'

• Trevor's blog about relationship conversations at work

• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

• Ep. 12 with Karin Tenelius, co-founder of Tuff

• Ep. 85 with Bernadette Wesley on Deliberately Developmental Organisations

If we want to practise alternatives to hierarchy, what needs to be in place? Perttu has twenty years' experience as an organisational consultant and I've been really enjoying his research papers on Radically Decentralised Organisations.

We talk about the four things needed for a Radically Decentralised Organisation to be sustainable, leaderless leadership, group dynamics we need to be aware of, and some interesting case studies in Finland, particularly in the public sector.

Resources:

• Perttu's paper, "Leaderless Leadership in Radically Decentralised Organisations" https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380008457_Leaderless_leadership_in_radically_decentralized_organizations

• Perttu's website: https://perttusalovaara.com/en/

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 37 with Miki Kashtan

• Ep. 78 with Sofia and Luís from Mindera

• Ep. 41 with Michael Y. Lee

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

What can the realm of self-management and new ways of working learn from the realm of polyamory, Relationship Anarchy and open relationships? And how can practices in self-organising work teams help us improve our personal relationships?

Ted Rau is the co-founder of Sociocracy for All and author of books like 'Who Decides Who Decides?' and 'Many Voices One Song'. In his personal life, he has been in monogamous relationships and, for the last seven years, in open relationships. We explore the parallels across personal and professional relationships, like what it means to 'be in choice', consent decision-making as a mindset more than a process, holding multiple roles, and agreement-making.

Resources:

• The link to buy Ted's books

• The HBR article I mention, 'The Little Things that Affect Our Work Relationships'

• Alanna Irving's blog about Relationship Retrospectives

• Miki Kashtan's blog about flow, decision-making and conflict 

• Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord (wouldn't it be fun to have an equivalent smorgasbord for our work relationships?)

• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

• Ep. 27 with Ted Rau

• Ep. 35 with Alanna Irving

Douglas Rauch was thinking of selling his construction business until he read Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux. After that, Aquadec went on a transformation journey to becoming a self-managing company. Douglas and his daughter Jessica share the ups and downs of this process over the last five years, including why their initial approach was a spectacular failure, why it was an inner shift that ended up making the difference, and something called "S**t Day."

Resources:

• Jessica and Douglas' talk at Teal Around the World 2023

• Jessica and Douglas on The Better Work Australia Podcast

• The Better Work Australia Podcast website

• Aquadec's website

Kimberly Loh works in the worlds of conflict resolution, coaching, embodiment and mindfulness. She is also the co-author of 'Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart.' We talk about learning to be aware of patterns we have when it comes to engaging with conflict, and Kim shares some ground rules for having 'Compassionate Conversations', as well as some really useful self-reflective practices to help us be more conscious of how we show up in conversations, especially 'difficult' ones. We also cover topics like power, hierarchies, and why human beings rarely learn how to 'do' conflict well.

Resources:

• Kim Loh's website

• How to order the book 'Compassionate Conversations'

• A link to Kim's course, 'Heart Connections: Strategies for Navigating Conflict & Difference'

Since 2014, Sanjay Fernandes and his colleagues at SOLE Colombia have been teaching citizens the principles of a Self-Organised Learning Environment. He is passionate about reimagining learning and tackling issues like inequality, inspired by decades of research by Sugata Mitra which has shown that SOLEs allow children (and people in general) to learn almost anything. 

To date, more than 450,000 Colombians have participated in SOLEs and Sanjay shares some wonderful stories of how this methodology has reawakened people's curiosity and sense of being an active citizen. Whether in public libraries, schools or organisations, we talk about the value of asking big questions and searching for the answers together, and the role of the 'Granny Cloud' – a network of encouraging non-experts.

Resources:

• Learn more about SOLE Colombia

• Sugata Mitra's TED talk

• Start SOLE website

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