Episode Transcript
Lisa: So Bonnitta, maybe if we can start with – because I know you’ve started to talk about the work that you’re doing by starting with these three things which are things that you think are really useful to think about when people are dealing with situations above a certain level of complexity. So one of them is to organize in a different way, and here we can obviously start to talk about OPO and what that is and isn’t. And the second one is about lowering the threshold for action, and the third one is about sense-making up hierarchies. So maybe you could say a little bit about those three things and then we can dive into them in a bit more detail and sort of go with the flow from there?
Bonnitta: Yeah, glad you started with that framing because it’s the kind of framing I’d like to work with, so people kind of know where we are going with all of this, right? So it is actually inclusive of the larger picture of my work, and it’s exactly how succinctly that you put it. So it’s always above a certain level of complexity, right? So you know, there’s many things in our life that we do that are not that complex. There’s – if you’re fortunate enough not to have conflicts in business and it’s doing well, there’s no need to search for more subtle or nuanced or more complex systems thinking.
So it’s always above a certain level of complexity, but of course we know that even the quote-unquote simplest companies are steeped in global markets and global supply chains. And just – even if you’re just a local market and a local supply chain, the media that we use is the internet and there’s a lot of complexity in terms of competing for people’s attention and stuff like that. So most business can take a great deal from this notion of above a certain level of complexity. And then finally, there is also complexity in the human system. So even if you’re running a local bakery, the human system itself is quite complex.
So certainly that’s the framing, and so when you reach this threshold of complexity, there’s in my work there’s three bullet points. The first is to organize in a way in which your human system is sensing as much information, as much cues in the environment as it can, and so you can draw from that. So you get the sense that you’ve organized in such a way that the humans with what they’ve known, cause a human sensing network, like a big satellite, right? That’s getting cues, early detection kills in the environment.
So the OPO – open participatory organization – is kind of a platform or handbook or a toolkit to experiment with ways of organizing toward that goal, right? More open so you get more information in, more participation so that even when your employees are, you know, not at their desk and they’re in their home life, they can listen for cues that may be signals that are important for their work. You know, say this notion of organizing to sense more so you can make sense of what’s going on better. And that’s the OPO work proper – organizational development or design work.
The second bullet is lower the thresholds for action. So once you’re capable of detecting early cues, you kind of get a sense of what’s going on – I’ll give you a real-life example of these three after we outline them – but once you sense it, once you have people getting a sense of early cues, you want a way for that to turn into response. It doesn’t make any sense to get all this settled information if then it has to go through analysis and a complex decision path and reports and documents and contracts and sign off, but then it’s too late. So you need to be able to lower the thresholds for action. You could say empower employees – this is one of the ways we talk about that.
And the third thing is, if you just do those two things, you have a tendency that you’ve got everybody going out in all kinds of directions, right? It’s really like – if you’re listening to this and you’re an owner of a company, you know, you could – I can feel how nervous you might be. As you build those two capacities, you need to build information flows such that the local actions are interpreted into the larger and larger contexts, right? So that – yes, people are empowered, yes, they’re interpreting cues, but what is the larger context? So that’s the up hierarchy – how do we make sense up into larger and larger context, up to the organizational whole. How do we make sure that that’s happening in the system also? Especially, you know, that would be happening in the human system.
That’s basically the design – the 360 design of the OPO. So it includes the organizational development piece, the action threshold piece, and then this thing called a sense-making up hierarchy.
Lisa: Right. So it’s like the first two, as you say, like by themselves could kind of result in chaos, but then the third one principle of of that kind of sense-making, and for me is kind of about balancing the individual and the collective a little bit. Like, yes, I sort of connection to: okay, what’s this all for? What’s the purpose of this? And is it serving the purpose of the organization by making these decisions?
Bonnitta: Exactly, you know, and so that’s exactly right. It’s – you have to have a way for people at the local level, if they’re action-oriented, to prioritize according to at least the next higher perspective, or what we call strategic hall. It’s the next higher perspective, and then that – what happens there has to at least see the next higher perspective. And in a – or even in a very large organization, there’s not that many jumps up, you know.
Lisa: So so these are like – this is like a hierarchy of perspectives, just to clarify. It’s not like a hierarchy of management layers, but rather, like, you’re going up the hierarchy, you’re kind of zooming out almost and looking more and more in the whole.
Bonnitta: Exactly. In the OPO, we talk about strategy as strategic perspectives. So strategy is a perspective, and there’s different levels of perspectives. If you went into a company that built an organization – a fairly large organization – based on OPO, you could in fact see it as a management hierarchy, because over here they’re working on a higher perspective, you know. But basically what they are is designing communication information flows so that there’s this tumbling of the larger perspective from the local information.
The reason why they’re not managers is that they don’t have any disciplinary role over people. You know, so there are certain aspects of – they would kind of look like managers because a lot of times managers are defined by, you know, that they’re working on different time frames and larger strategic perspectives. But they would have no direct reports down the operational chain or something, you know. So that – so if you look closely, you would see that something’s different, but if you just kind of walk through, you might see them as a managerial class.
Lisa: I’m wondering like, you know, for people listening who are working within an organization that that, let’s say, is more traditionally structured, or at least they’re not totally decentralized or self-managing yet, what are some – because I know the last time we spoke, you use this term like “OPO moves,” that there are some moves you can make. So what are some examples of OPO moves that people could make in their organizations to start to shift into a more kind of open participatory paradigm, I guess?
Bonnitta: Yes, so we call them OPO moves. It’s just saying, instead of doing this, try that, right? So in – and in my work, we’ve experimented with some things that seemed profitable, beneficial, so we offer them in training in the book.
So an OPO move, for example, is – if you are working – I’ll give you something I just did the other day. So I’m working with a contact who has a very large project in Washington DC, and he is constantly feeding me meetings. I’m getting meeting after meeting after meeting because his project’s very large and he’s getting a lot of people on board. So I feel – I notice there’s a power asymmetry because I have a lot more relevant information and knowledge than he does, you know? So this was going on for a little while, and it started to get very active. So I said, “Listen, before we have the next conversation, why don’t we meet and why don’t I help you become the lead contact, so you can solve more the conversation right down there in DC with your all these connections you have before then it goes to me.”
Right, so I’m kind of in a consulting relationship, and when I first started working with consultants, they confused me because they would never put me in connection with their client if they weren’t there. Right, that’s a conventional consulting thing. Right, they don’t want – they don’t want direct access because then they think they’ll be cut out, because what is the point if they put their client in direct contact with the person who has the knowledge, etc.
So this was an OPO move. This was me saying, “Oh, you don’t even have to worry about that. I’m just gonna – I’m just gonna give you as much knowledge as you can.” It’s like that – it’s kind of the opposite. The knowledge bearer taking them – you know, if I was worried and not open and participatory, I’d be like, “I’m the knowledge bearer. Why are they gonna need me, giving them all the things I know?” He’s pretty much up to snuff, so that the whole project’s in process. I’m like, “You can pretty much at this point make the calls. We’re like – we’re like right at the same point of this emergent thing, and then just keep me updated.” Right?
So it’s kind of this notion of: what does the system need? What is better for the system? What is more whole for the system? Not is what is – how can I contract and defend my territory? Right, so that’s – that was an OPO move. There’s – there’s – that, you know, I hadn’t thought about it that way, but there’s just many, many OPO moves.
One time, for example, I had a situation where at a very, very large on-site crew – we’ve been a very large landscape design building construction company – and the head of the crew every year would come to me and ask, you know, for raises. And these were Latino people, and there was just a lot of pressure on us because we worked for the rich and famous. And every year over the winter, they would contact our crews and try to steal them. They would give them housing on their beautiful properties and all these packages. They would try to steal them because we had the best crew in the whole Northwest Connecticut.
Also, because they were Latino, they had a certain culture where if you gave one a raise, you’d have to give them all a raise. But after a while, it was me not negotiating salary, but competing with my client for my own people. So what are you doing in this situation, right? So there’s a lot of different tenants in the OPO toolkit. What is – you want to release complexity, so you don’t want to make these moves that start an arms race. So basically, I was in an arms race with my employees through my clients, and he – this was clear to me.
So you don’t want to make that move that that is always comes back to kick you in your butt, and you pay – you pay more later. You pay later, but you pay more later. It escalates that. So the other thing that was happening was that I realized that there was – what was operating in the system was this tension between the Latino way where everybody was more communalism, where everybody needed to rise together, and what I was looking at in terms of my organizational budget, my projections, how I could justify values and stuff like that.
And the key person for me was the head of the crew. He was much more complex thinker, much more organizational. The rest of the crew were much more followers. So I had very little insight into how much tension that team would hold if their salary increases started to float. But he did – he lived with – I mean, half of them were his family. He lived with all the complaining and the this and which ones would stay and which ones would move. He knew more than me which ones were really essential to his job.
So I basically moved toward just giving him a budget and he could spread out, you know, “Here’s X number of dollars of raises. You can spread them out however you want.” Right? Now, this is a sense in which you opened participation. It was not – it’s not like more it made more people participate, but it didn’t make everybody happy or, you know, kind of spread out some of this pain. But it took advantage of the local knowledge of the system.
And I remember it really irritated the owner of the company because the head of the crew took most of the money, and by comparison, you know, and he just thought that was way over-valuation for this position. And I said, “No, because he is also being paid to handle all the conflict that’s now in the system because he’s changed that culture.” Right?
So that wasn’t really easy. I don’t think the owner of the company ever understood it. I just said, you know, “Just look at the big picture, don’t look at all these like little strange movements that I’m doing.” So this – this is kind of like – some of the people that are listening probably, they have already understood, these are kinds of clever or beneficial moves to me, but it’s a typical OPO move, you know. So there’s just that – there’s just – there’s just lots of them.
Lisa: Yeah, something that comes to mind as you’re talking about some of these examples is that so many managers or leaders who’ve been, you know, conditioned for decades in a totally different way of thinking and organizing – so many of them don’t even know there’s a choice of moves, you know. Like, I think about a conversation I had once with some managers who were debating how to decide how to like distribute a bonus, like how to pick which two people would get it in the team. And they were saying, “Should it be arbitrary? Should we pick at random? Should we do it based on merit?” And I asked them like, “Have you – why don’t you ask the team to decide? Like, why don’t they come up with that criteria?” And that was just totally – there was silence then. They totally didn’t expect that question, and they didn’t know what to do with it.
So what, you know – how can we, how can – how can we as individuals start to, I guess, open minds to the possibility that there are multiple moves? That, as you said, like instead of making this move, kind of stopping in my tracks and thinking, “Oh, hang on a minute, is there another move I could make, a more OPO move that would better contribute to the system or the other thing that we’re trying to achieve?”
Bonnitta: Yeah, so I think part of it comes from – I mean, the question is why don’t people in higher positions even come up with those ideas, and if they do, what is it about those ideas that they’re very resistant to? I mean, the anxiety is a real thing. The resistance is a real thing. And I think it comes from people not understanding what the actual participation of a manager is in our advanced society today. There’s a lot more agency in the employees than they want to admit, and so that makes them anxious, right?
And there’s a certain level at which they understand that there’s a kind of hyper-spin in what they’re doing, that it’s not really real, that they manage to sustain that by the cooperation of the employees who play the game also. So this puts managers in a very precarious position. So just understanding what is the function of a manager, being able to come to terms with that and see that it’s beneficial. Okay, so and then, you know, their role would be more to continue this flow of participation down through the system, continue this flow of sense-making up from the system, you know, that they are – have a role to play, but they’re caught between also conventional and expectations also for their – for their role.
Yeah, so I think it’s about – in my own experience, it’s about coming to terms with the fact that action doesn’t flow from a manager’s decision down, that they – after a certain point in business, you realize you’re actually of this – this system anyways, you know? If you say something, people just aren’t gonna – they’re not just machines. They’re just not going to do exactly what you say. They’re gonna interpret it, they’re going to misinterpret it, they’re gonna push back, they’re gonna create subsets, they’re gonna experiment. So so you realize that there’s a constant participation going on anyways, and so why don’t I work with what is actually happening then work with this illusion that the structures are what they actually are?
So I think that’s – that’s would be bit liberating for people in management positions, to kind of understand what their role is in – in – in the fact that it’s a human system anyways. And we did this people’s trial once where I put the managers on trial and I said, “You have to justify your existence to these – these – these workers.” They were all agile workers. So you need an investor, but it was really – you know, I asked for volunteers, and it was really good because the agile – the employees level concede that managers were under a lot of stress structurally.
And eventually it helped managers really come to terms, “Well, what is my positive role?” Like, because I am working really hard. But basically in the workshop, I say that managers or consultants in many cases or coaches – but we basically do three things. Number one, we regulate the ethics of people around us. I mean, this is a big deal. This is like, you know, life coaches. A lot of managers are life coaches. They’re working with the individual, the human scale. So regulating aspects.
The second thing we’re doing is we’re adding perspectives that are not in the team, right? So if I’m a manager and I’m close to my team, but I’m also close to leadership team, I can constantly bring those perspectives in, right? So I’m up-levelling perspectives in the team. Also, as an outsider, I have a perspective that doesn’t arise in the team, so I can – I can ask naive questions, you know. So this – this is a big deal.
And the third thing that a manager does, especially in a conventional organization – it’s a little hard and a more collaborative situation – is they what I call make this call – they call the shots. So there are certain times in every organization and every project and every team when analysis will not give you what is the preferred choice. Doesn’t matter how much – and then someone, you just have to do something because if you do something, then I should actually get more information from the environment. And a lot of times that’s the manager’s role, just to say which direction they’re going to do, which choice they’re going to take, despite the fact there are no better reasons or more powerful evidence, right?
So this is something that we have to remind ourselves in self-managed teams, that it’s often the case you need – you need some kind of process where that also happens, that – or else you just – you just fall into analysis paralysis.
Lisa: Yeah, I think hence why a lot of self-managing teams, you know, adults, some kind of decision-making framework, you know, inspired by some of the principles of like sociocracy and holacracy, you know: “good enough for now,” “safe enough to try.” At some point, you just have to try something, right? Call the shot and then review.
Bonnitta: Exactly. And agile people do a lot of things. They put in poker decks – hmm – anxiety out of it. It’s almost like, okay, we’re going to use a little ramp in this little intuition. We’re gonna let the chips fall what they were. So it’s collaborative, but no one has made the call, no one has to stand out. It’s the person who does that, which is – it’s both a status thing and a liability, because the person now has to do that over and over again. So yeah, there are cool ways in which people have integrate that need into – into these systems, you know. So that’s also funny.
Lisa: Can you say a bit more about the first one you mentioned, about regulating effects? Can you – can you say more about that, give an example maybe?
Bonnitta: Yeah, so we all know that when teams work together, people come together too. There’s a lot of tension, there’s a lot of external constraints, and we’re emotional beings, and so we have primarily grown up helping each other regulate their effects. So for example, if you’re really sad, then the care urge comes up in me, and then I go and I help you with that. If you’re – sometimes in very sporty situations, if you’re angry, then I can – I can like challenge you, and then we get very sporty about our argument.
So it’s not always dampening, but it’s always kind of where is the place for this emotion to go. We’re social beings. It’s very hard for us to sit alone with our emotions, right? So we do this naturally, but as you get to more and more collaborative environments, you get less dyads. So you’ll see in these truly collaborative environments, some will be angry and they have to sit with their anger, nobody goes in and tries to help that. Or someone’s sad and people witness and presents it, you don’t go over there and you try to regulate each other’s – outright. This is a very healthy collaborative environment. It makes people grow, it creates potential, but that needs to be scaffolded and facilitated.
So coaches or managers know how to add a little – a little help when it’s needed, and to allow the system to process, as social as it is, to process its own tensions. As all humans, you know, we’re trying to make whole human beings. And so this is actually a big part of what managers or coaches or consultants do. It’s just that it’s never named, and if we can name it, then we can provide design training programs that make them better, exactly at that, right?
Lisa: Yeah, that’s clarifying because I think I made an assumption because of the language, like regulating our effects, that there – I think it could be misinterpreted as like, “Let’s suppress that.” You know, “Emotions are not OK, let’s, you know, kind of cork that” or something. But what you’re describing is much more like we’re human beings that these are like living systems. We’re gonna have feelings, we’re going to have tensions, there’s going to be situations where, you know, the whole group might be feeling this and one person feels this. And so facilitating and an allowing space for that to be processed, for that to be heard, for that to be transformed rather than ignored or, you know, brushed aside.
Bonnitta: Yes, that’s – that’s really key. I think, and I think that word transforming is really the goal, you know? So I say regulate – that’s – that’s when people usually start by feeling that. But actually the goal is exactly what you said: how you take the positive energy, you know? At a certain point, you see, “Oh wow, there’s so much energy in the system.” It’s energy for free, right? That’s what we talk about when I teach, you know. So how can I change that from being contracted – “It shouldn’t be here, I’m overwhelmed with emotion” – to “Oh my god, this is energy for free. There’s so much energy in the system. What can we do with this, you know, as a team?” So that’s – that’s the trans – transformation. That’s an OPO.
Lisa: Yeah, yeah. And it’s – I guess it’s like the human body, right? Like, if – if suddenly the temperature changes, our body regulates to kind of like adjusts. “Okay, we need to sweat or we need to do this or whatever.” So it’s kind of – it’s not a mechanistic move, it’s a humanistic movement.
Bonnitta: Emory, exactly! It’s a perfect example because we’re trying to move to seeing human systems as holistic, right? So part of the regulations homeostatic – you need some homeostatic regulation in the system so that everybody can anchor themselves in that. And then, you know, let’s say you’re going to run a marathon – well, your heart rate might have to go way, way up, right? And so that’s far from equilibrium, but the system knows how to have baseline homeostasis around that.
So these are good – these are good OPO terms for working in human systems, because we want to see them as as complex organic responsive holistic processes.
Lisa: That’s great. Yeah, I wonder if – if that’s – if we could lead into talking about trust practices, as I know that’s something that you’ve written about, and it seems relevant in terms of, you know, lowering the threshold for action and also in terms of what we were talking about in terms of how those three roles of a manager that you mentioned, for example. So what is – what are trust practices and what are some examples of those?
Bonnitta: Yeah, it’s a great question. So I’m gonna – I love love how you introduce the body. So I’m gonna use that as a bridge, and I probably do that many times. So when people come together as a collective, there’s a group. We were talking about training people to, you know, have these homeostatic – but it’s also very human and natural and organic. We do it anyways. We’re just trying to make it more conscious so we can make it more beneficial, and I have to be not have – have to have it be so painful to work these things out in an unconscious way.
So trust is something that is a natural emergent pattern of human interaction. And when I do my trust workshops, we basically have people put a little guy in the middle and say that’s you, and then an outer ring – inner ring and say, you know, who the – who’s the people are you trust most? And then it’s a second ring. And you’ll notice that some people make it into the first ring, but then there’s a person you’re reluctant to put them in the first ring – they go and the on the ring.
And you start to actually experiencing yourself that there’s a – there’s a measuring tape, there’s a certain natural metric that you’re using. Now it turns out it’s very complex. When I first started doing this, I thought, “Oh, everybody booty is gonna have the same metric.” It’s the one I have. And it turns out there’s multiple metrics at play, depending upon different contexts.
So when we do the trust workshop, it’s a larger conversation that I won’t get into, but it’s really fascinating. The point being made here is that trust network is something that emanates from each person through everyday ordinary interactions. So this kind of reframes is an OPO refrain, because if you’re a coach working on, “Are going to add trust to my team,” you can’t work at the emergent pattern. You have to work at the lived experience because that’s where it emanates from.
Now it turns out that if you do work at the emergent pattern, many of them will change some of the lived experience. But we can try to go there directly. That’s an OPO move because it releases the complexity. So first we see we are all emanating these patterns. That we also see that it changes – like I’ll say, “Five years ago, was that different?” You know, so there’s always coming and going.
I just want to make this caveat: when we do our trust network, it’s not whether people are trustworthy, it’s just what our experiences, because you’ll notice some people that make it very close to your inner circle actually – somebody else is in there in a circle and not yours. And this is a great way to triangulate – expand your trust network. You can trust that third person because they made it into the inner circle of your inner circle. Anyways, these are just things we learn about ourselves.
The interesting thing in terms of how it works at the collective level is that there are complex feed loops between trust, action thresholds, and power. So it’s too reductive to say, like, some people say, you know, the power and trust are in conflict, or – it’s not so clear. They’re not just – they can amplify and influence each other in positive ways under certain conditions. They could attract or influence each other in negative ways under certain contexts. So it’s all very complex territory.
The basic understanding here in the OPO is that the greater the trust in the system, the lower the thresholds for action. Now, this is something that’s hard for people understand, because many people see that they trust people because they’re predictable. And we look at that and say, “Well, that’s actually a low trust environment.” If you trust someone only because they’re predictable, only because you’ve contracted and you’ve made it, like, tight agreements, this is actually a low trust environment.
Because people will also notice that they’ll go like, “Yeah, but I trust that person, and he’s crazy person. I, you know, I let them do anything, and somehow I still trust them.” That’s a very high trust environment. So the more autonomy you allowed someone, the more action spectrum of action you allow someone, it’s actually a great higher trust environment.
So first we have to look at that in this more clear way. I’d like to say it problematizes some of the blockchain community because they’re trying to build transgression-less communities. It’s a very low trust environment. So this is – this is something – it’s an OPO refrain. So first we – we see that. But if you’re working in a high trust environment, truly true trust, then you are allowing people more wiggle room in the way they behave, and so you’re lowering the thresholds for action, right?
So it’s the same with children, you know. When children aren’t trustworthy, you have them on a tight string, and they’re more trustworthy, are you give them more money, let them take the bus – you lower their action thresholds. You increase their potential actions they can take. So in a system, as you’re increasing trust in an open collaborative system, then you’re lowering the thresholds for action.
So that sounds all cool, but what also happens – like how the body has these complex feed loops – as you lower the thresholds for action, you’re going to have more hierarchical stratification, because in any system the skill sets are not the same. So when people go off it, exercise their skills given permission, you will start to see a hierarchy of skill sets. And that will be a – a power asymmetry. Once you have X amount of power asymmetry in the system, it starts to erode trust.
So you have this kind of like wobbly, like a two-cycle engine. And so you need a third term, you need a third dynamic, which all human systems have, and that is: How then do you work on the power asymmetry? Because you want high trust, you want wealth or action thresholds, but how do you work on the power asymmetry?
So of course that third part we talked about, the sense-making of hierarchy helps, because you have shared larger narratives. But also skill training, role exploration, experimentation with out-of-the-box thinking, where people with quote-unquote “lesser skills” start to actually make a higher contribution.
So this is something that we’re just beginning to learn how to do this, to not contract because it is – it is natural for high trust, low action thresholds, increased stratification. But instead of freaking out about that, you know, and say, “Oh, we all have to be equal, we had to go back to consensus, someone has too much power.” Or conventionally, the people that then – once the team stratifies, the person at the top is looking for a management job because they know there’s – it’s – there’s something irritating the system.
So we can look at that in a more generative way and say, “What can we go in, keep trust, time, keeping action thresholds well, and address the fact that human – people at a certain point won’t tell certain amounts of power asymmetry?” It’s the same with these experiments they do with the monkeys where, you know, one gets the good part great, the other one gets like, you know, banana peel and – even the monkey in the – in the cage that’s getting the grade, once he realizes the other guy, the other guy is getting a bad deal, it irritates them, you know? This is basic human and animal and body homeostatic, you know, a dynamic.
Lisa: That’s really – that’s really insightful. I like the idea of looking at trust from a lived experience perspective instead of trying to add something or, you know. It’s – it’s like acknowledging what is currently and then kind of together exploring, “Well, what, you know, what do we do with that? And what would need to change for the trust to raise the levels of trust or to the lower the thresholds of action?” But having those three dimensions as well, so that it’s not – because I think so often it’s people get stuck in these binary exactly mindsets, right? That it’s like, “Oh, either we’re a pyramid bureaucratic, you know, hierarchy, or it’s self-organizing, which means no structure, no leadership, no hierarchy.” And it’s – and it’s – it’s so much more, you know, dynamic and complex than that. It’s much more. So I think those three things are – are helpful.
And it reminds me also of – there’s this organization in – in Scotland called Cornerstone, a social care company, and I interviewed the CEO for the podcast some months back. And – and they developed this what they call the Cornerstone triangle, which is the three C’s. So competence, clarity – oh no, it’s not three C’s, it’s two C’s and – and – confidence, clarity, and autonomy. But I can see some parallels there between what you’re saying, cause it’s like, “Okay, if there’s a tension, if something’s getting stuck in the system, is it – is it a question of people don’t have clarity about what the bigger picture is or, you know, what – what – what we’re working towards or what’s needed? Or is it that people don’t have the competence and therefore need some more training or, you know, so coaching or whatever? Well, is it that they don’t feel like they have the autonomy to move?” Right, if the threshold faction is too high. Yeah, so yeah, I think it’s really helpful to have these frameworks so that when you’re just looking at, you know, that’s kind of something didn’t work, and then being like, “Oh, okay, that was a bad move,” we’re actually going, “Okay, let’s look at those three lenses, one in there. What – what can we play around with?”
Bonnitta: Yes. So you’ll see that those three by different names exist everywhere. There – so in self-determination theory, their autonomy relationality and tasks, I think. In my work it’s autonomy, relationality, and agency. And their work, the autonomy – autonomy, clarity is shared clarity, so that’s relationality, competency – that’s tasks. In Dave Snowden’s anthro-complexity, he’s got identity, which is autonomy, identity, something like interaction, which is relationality, and intelligence, which for him, coming from the field there’s the task is always skill set.
You see them – there – they’re everywhere, and so it’s a very, very robust triangle, very, very robust heuristic to work with because under lays all these moves. And so, you know, that’s why you can trust it. Because you have people like the CEO intuitively working with the same dimensions. And so underneath here is a pattern, what I call source code for – deep code for emergent patterns of human action. It just confirms that these three are fundamental to human systems, and people name them in different ways, but they’ve all point to the same kind of complex dynamic processes.
Lisa: Yeah, I’m – I’m curious about like, what’s – what’s next for OPO? Like, is there – is there a community? I – I know that you’re writing a book at the moment. How would you like it to sort of grow and evolve? And what does your sub-vision for it?
Bonnitta: Yes, oh, okay. Oh, I think mostly lives as a meme, which I think is great. It’s not a closed governance system, it’s just a way for people to kind of name what direction they think the future of work is in. So basically, my work is in a publication called “Our Future at Work: What Is Emerging.” So – so to answer your question, there – there are some people that are starting – a lot of people are doing OPO moves. They call it by different things. There are a few handful people that have started companies committed to only OPO principles. This is a very big learning curve, but it does have some very interesting outcomes, saying benefits nothing around long enough.
But I have to share you what I just – a story that I – I go once a year to a company that is committed to OPO principles, and we’re in this – to do strategic kind of meeting. And they were committing to one of my principles, and I was like, “Really? You guys are going to lose so much money, you know, in my head, you know.” And they were like almost – they were more committed to my principle in this conversation than I was. I could feel myself wanting, “Well, you know, a little, you know…” And in that process, they came up with an idea – I can’t remember what the scenario was – that was so cool, like just by using them as a constraint. So you can use the OPO principles as a constraint because you don’t know, “Well, but isn’t there something else we could do?” Right? So that was exciting to see.
And a lot of – a lot of what’s next for OPO is based on or dependent upon just getting feedback from people trying those experience experiments. So as we said at the beginning, the OPO is the first part of those three things, how to organize the sense better. I think the second one is pretty easy for people understand, how to lower thresholds for action.
So currently I’m heavily invested in the third one, and I’m working with Dave Snowden. Cognitive Edge has just put out their PSE sense-making website. I’m – have been writing my own handbook for the TAP tool will go on their website and be available. So once we can then start – or it’s the only tool that works on those three domains that we talked about that everywhere. So once we can start automating this through sense-making technology, we can learn more about how it actually works in the human system. Get a fence of hand scoring in small communities, but then we can start to receive real-time information about human systems. And I think that’s where the next level of my work will be because, you know, I – I’ve been around long enough to know that the model and the theory can get you started, but you need – you need the information coming back with – this research hasn’t been done before. So I think it’s really exciting. And then, you know, it’ll re-inform some of our directions. It will create new ideas, and it may improve or – or by some of the assumptions we’ve had the beginning.
So this whole notion – people say, “Can you clarify what a sense-making up hierarchy is?” And I say no, because it really depends upon a disowning technology and which is at the early stages of that now. So yeah, that’s very exciting. I can’t wait. I can’t wait.
Lisa: I do – I think I heard you say once that that the one of the great things about OPO is that it’s – it’s giving a – there’s an opportunity create a shared language for a lot of things that people are doing intuitively or, you know, starting to play around with. And – and it just, I think, gives people confidence and a sense of community and learning together if they’re like, “Oh yeah, we are trying something,” right? That – “Oh, you’re calling it that? Oh yeah, that makes sense. And let’s be more conscious about it.”
Bonnitta: Exactly. And it shows people that instead arguing about the signifiers, what you call it, you see, “Oh, we’re actually doing the same thing.” And the other day I heard from one of my – I have three people in Stockholm that are – how we met, you know. That’s how we met working a lot with these principles, these fundamental codes or principles or moves. And one of the benefits is – one consultant had was he was with a team, and they already had like these – these intuitions, but they went around and around and around, and they were using sports metaphors. And – and the OPO has this term of a location, you know, that there are different locations, different locations of cultures.
So he could see that he – that they were already kind of working in these terms because they were saying, “Well, you know, if you played football, there’s different rules, and it’s – feels different. But then I can play golf.” So he said, “That’s just like how we use locations in the OPO, that you don’t have to have the same rules and aligned culture. You have locations.” And so just crystallized – like they were really brainstorming, but they couldn’t see what they had, right? And so if you learn some of the OPO tools, you can collapse that into something that you can show people, “Ah, you already had this. You just didn’t see it.” Right? So that’s cool, the way the people are – are using – using some of the – yeah.
Lisa: I always ask guests on this podcast the question, you know, for people listening who are on a journey towards being a more self-managing organization or perhaps a more open or participatory or conscious organization, whatever terms they may be working with, you know, what would your advice be, or perhaps what are some sort of dipping the toe type moves that people could make to start playing around with some of these OPO principles in their context?
Bonnitta: On Medium, in the publication “Our Future at Work,” there’s a little article called the “OPO Manifesto,” and it has some principles that can generate really creative conversations. And so just to start perhaps with using those principles as provocative – that’s how the agile movement started, right? For example, it’s basically it’s set up just like agile, you know, agile process over – or product over process, or whatever. People over documentation. I can’t remember how it goes.
But in the OPO manifesto, it’s the same way: access over – reciprocity this over that, more of this, less of that. And just see how that might open – open up the system and increase participation. If you move – what would it be to move from – not just get rid of, but move more from this direction to that direction, and just just – I’m hoping that a lot of that reading can give people insights into parts of their days that could use some of that help in a different direction. Yeah, but the good place to start is with the principles and have a good conversation around that. Even if it’s like, “Oh, that’s crazy. We would never do that.” And then ask for what is it? What is it that’s – that’s irritating you, or what where’s the fare arising? What’s the risk? “Ah, well, maybe that’s the problem right there, living with unnecessary risk that we don’t have,” you know. So that’s one thing.
In people at very large organizations, it’s a little tougher because it always comes down to – so many people are working full speed, full out, overwhelmed with too much complexity already. So what I work with them, the very first work with them is: where can we release complexity? If you can’t release complexity in your situation right now, you can’t do anything else. You can’t start moving around the furniture in your room. So that’s a much more difficult challenge, if you’re already a CEO and you’re already kind of in over your head. But those are two entry points, I would say. The smaller scale, the principles themselves. The larger scale…
Lisa: So in kind of wrapping up, are there any final words of wisdom or, you know, tips or pointers that you’d like to share with listeners that perhaps you wish someone had given to you at some point?
Bonnitta: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I think most people have a sense that what is real at work in the way we talk about what’s happening at work, there’s a gap. I think it’s pretty transparent now that people know that’s true. So – but I remember when I first was running – you know, I started three companies on the ground up, and that discrepancy was very painful for me. Like, I think, “What – like why these people coming in and telling us to do that? It doesn’t make any sense,” right?
But so to trust the lived experience and try to work closer to that, that’s – that’s the first step because that is really real. But the second is try to have language that more represents the actual experience. Try to move away from the conventional ways of talking about things. There’s this term called kayfabe or kayfaby, depending on who you talk to. It’s a term in the World Wrestling. It means like it’s the pretense, like the wrestlers are actually pretending, but the audience is willing to pretend also, and that’s what sustains the entertainment, really.
And so there’s something like that that also happens in organizations. And true transformation, where you want to go, if you want this kind of transformation in the workplace, you have to get closer to talking about what is actually happening and to trust that that’s true for everyone. Everybody’s living in between this gap between what is real and then the surface thing that goes on as if it were real in organizations.
So I wish someone could have told me that, like say, “Look, it’s true. There’s something kind of crazy about the way we are in companies and in business. There’s spin at many different levels. There’s a spin you’re gonna tell your clients, and then you’ll realize your own sales people are starting to believe their own spin.” And then you’re like, “What is that, you know?”
So if – so if – if management schools could like just prepare people at this level because it is seems to be kind of what we do as humans, I think that if someone had told me that, it would have – would have been much easier to be confident about some of this as I experiment my way through.
Lisa: Thank you so much, Bonnitta!
