Challenges

This feature only applies to episodes with transcripts, which is a small number at this time.

Pasteur Byabeza on transitioning to self-management at Davis College

...al and develop those skills. Especially those basic communication skills that you expect everybody to have. And poor listening skills can really be a challenge to a team - those are skills that people have to be really intentional about. We're very intentional on helping our team to develop those skills. Tho...more
...e that you start from totally influences the journey and how you see the journey. So I'm curious to hear from you, what have been some of the biggest challenges in this shift? Has it been challenging for, for certain people? Has there been resistance? What have been some of the painful moments along the way? ...more
... challenging for, for certain people? Has there been resistance? What have been some of the painful moments along the way? What have been the biggest challenges? Pasteur Byabeza: You're right. Of course, every every change comes with the challenges. You mentioned resistance - and yes, resistance was there. Li...more
...the painful moments along the way? What have been the biggest challenges? Pasteur Byabeza: You're right. Of course, every every change comes with the challenges. You mentioned resistance - and yes, resistance was there. Like any other change, of course, you expect some people to resist. I would say it took so...more
...esist some changes. So I would say our institution has exercised a lot of patience, and hopefully it will pay off. So of course, there are many other challenges, but that's actually the main one. Another challenge that I believe we face is that no other higher learning institution had practiced self manageme...more
...exercised a lot of patience, and hopefully it will pay off. So of course, there are many other challenges, but that's actually the main one. Another challenge that I believe we face is that no other higher learning institution had practiced self management before. So that was a very big challenge. So in an ...more
.... Another challenge that I believe we face is that no other higher learning institution had practiced self management before. So that was a very big challenge. So in an African context, or across the globe, I do not think that there are many higher learning institution that practice holacracy and self manag...more
...metimes people may not want to try it out. Or maybe they can be reluctant because they don't have a reference. And that was really one of the biggest challenges we faced. But it's very productive, and people should know that it's important to try something out. And you know, you can learn on the way. There ar...more
...ccess, gave us every assurance that we needed to invite everybody into this new system. And that's how we wrote it out officially. There is one more challenge - and this one is connected to what was just mentioned. As a higher learning institution, we operate under directives that are set by our regulators....more
...nternally and externally to ensure that we set up a model that will be acceptable to our regulators, and partners. So that was another very important challenge that I should mention....more
...rchical positions. So for them, saying that things are getting done without managers, without positions - for them, it's unthinkable. So that was the challenge - because they themselves are built, those organisations themselves, are hierarchical....more

Edwin Jansen on how people adopt self-management at Fitzii
...or maybe ten people, four years ago when we started and we, like everyone, had read Laloux's book and were quite inspired by that and we had seen the challenges or the limitations, I like to say, of the 'Green, Orange' paradigm. And after reading the Laloux's book we realised these are the limitations of the ...more
...n Jansen: Well, after reading Laloux's book we obviously started experimenting with the advice process and yeah, that obviously works quite well. One challenge there is people not intuitively knowing in each case how much advice to get and what vehicles, like: "Should I post this and seek feedback? Should I ...more
...the most challenging aspects of becoming a Teal or self-managing organisation? And what are the things that perhaps people don't realise are gonna be challenges? Edwin Jansen: Well, the first thing I would say is all or at least many of the challenges that people think that they're going to have don't materia...more
... the things that perhaps people don't realise are gonna be challenges? Edwin Jansen: Well, the first thing I would say is all or at least many of the challenges that people think that they're going to have don't materialise, like, if people can set their own salaries, they're all going to pay themselves all t...more
...mised, it's not optimal; you make mistakes. But it's an iterative process where these practices just get more nuanced and powerful over time. So the challenge has not been in the development or implementation of these practices. The challenge is always in how the individual receives the feedback that they'r...more
...e practices just get more nuanced and powerful over time. So the challenge has not been in the development or implementation of these practices. The challenge is always in how the individual receives the feedback that they're getting or as they're bumping up against the business challenges or fears that bus...more
...ese practices. The challenge is always in how the individual receives the feedback that they're getting or as they're bumping up against the business challenges or fears that business just brings up in people in hitting performance targets or whatever that is. And then power over people or we approach a situa...more
...id to give that feedback or have that conversation with people, it's all in the interpersonal work and the personal transformations: that's where the challenge is but that's also where the fun is: that's where the development and growth and meaningful work is. So, yeah, it's nothing to be afraid of because w...more
... light on it. And sunlight is the best disinfectant. So we just constantly are talking through things and working through things. And so, yes, it's a challenge but I don't know if that's the right word to use. It's the fodder that we have to learn and grow and develop as people....more
...rney themselves: either they want to become a self-managing organisation, or they're in the weeds of it and navigating all of these opportunities and challenges. What words would you like to give them? Edwin Jansen: Well, it's like preaching to the converted, right? I'm sure if someone's listening to your pod...more

Aaron Dignan on being complexity conscious and people positive

...there's very little in it that's completely original. A lot of it was learned from other organisations, from other thinkers from trial and error. The challenge is not that the right things haven't been said, it's that they haven't been heard. And so my hope was to sort of package something that was, you know...more
... or changing the system. And in my view first of all, they're really hard to pull apart - they both happen all the time. And secondly, there are some challenges, I think, with focusing just on the individual - both in scale and in nature. So, the the challenge of course, is that, you know, it's very difficult...more
...appen all the time. And secondly, there are some challenges, I think, with focusing just on the individual - both in scale and in nature. So, the the challenge of course, is that, you know, it's very difficult to coach 300,000 people. So, that's quite an ambitious undertaking to say that you're going to acti...more
...he direction of, 'let me change you in the way I think I need to change you', or let management hire me to do that, which is even worse. So there's a challenge there. What I do think is true is that if you change the environment, if you change the context and the container - then personal change is bound to ...more
... about your own personal perspective? Because, you know, you're a founder and a leader yourself, and The Ready is growing. What have been some of the challenges for you? And what have you learned personally about leadership and working in this way with others? Aaron Dignan: This has been an interesting one fo...more
...irst time I've done this from scratch. So with my former firm, we kind of transitioned to this way of working from an older way. And that had its own challenges, obviously. But we sort of, you know, navigated them. With this one, I think it's been a different set of challenges. Because the identity of the fir...more
... older way. And that had its own challenges, obviously. But we sort of, you know, navigated them. With this one, I think it's been a different set of challenges. Because the identity of the firm, and the community and the boundaries and all that stuff that gets formed over time, was fluid and was actually co-...more
...Lisa Gill: Can you share some examples of practices or ways of caring for the garden that you think might be helpful for listeners facing the same challenge? Aaron Dignan: Yeah, so one of them is just showing up. So if we have a monthly meeting that we all come to share, and half the people don't come, th...more
...rld is we do the analysis and the diagnosis of the company through some big assessment over three months. And then we say, you know, the five biggest challenges are lack of trust, and lack of this lack of that, because those were the average winners. But I love the old joke - Jeff Bezos walks into a bar and t...more

Jorge Silva on horizontal structures and participatory culture at 10Pines

...w you've grown...to about 80 plus people, I think? Jorge Silva: 85, yeah, right now... a lot of people. Lisa Gill: Yeah. And I guess that also brings challenges with it as you grow and so on. For listeners, if they came to visit 10Pines, I guess, pre pandemic - what would we notice? What would feel different?...more
...Lisa Gill: Yeah, definitely. What have been some of the challenges? Like have you found people, even though you have a thorough recruitment process, have you found that some people join and find it challenging to ada...more
...nd that's it. So important to be a gardener in this respect because it's like, it's your personal coach that is helping you. And this is a really big challenge for everyone, because everyone potentially can be a gardener. And it's a challenge for us to train and to give the tools to the gardeners to understa...more
... your personal coach that is helping you. And this is a really big challenge for everyone, because everyone potentially can be a gardener. And it's a challenge for us to train and to give the tools to the gardeners to understand their role, and what they can do. So one of the big challenges right now is to f...more
...rdener. And it's a challenge for us to train and to give the tools to the gardeners to understand their role, and what they can do. So one of the big challenges right now is to find tools and to give them tools to do a better job in terms of gardening....more
...ht now. We are also working a lot in the onboarding process so they can understand what to expect from a gardener. I think this is one of the biggest challenges where we are working right now....more
...Lisa Gill: What are some of the other big challenges or big questions that you're asking at the moment - you know, particularly as you continue to grow. What are some things where you're thinking, okay,...more
...ght? Because you can grow in terms of hierarchy. Sometimes most people understand growing in terms of scaling positions in a hierarchy. So one of the challenges is to work around that, and know how to deal with that. And I'm starting to move to a purpose-driven company, where you try to help people to find th...more

Beetroot’s founders on purpose, self-management, and shocking people with trust

...ly different thing, when you're building a big organisation distributed in many locations, and that's something we thought of - that's where the real challenge started. And we came to a point where we felt that: "Okay, this is probably where most organisations introduce middle manager...oh, that will be so n...more
...re when we were scaling - we were growing very quickly from let's say, 30 to 100 people. And somewhere along that growth you started to see different challenges. And we had created our model of self-management - we didn't call it, we call it 'reversed hierarchy', and we had our own little pictures that we wer...more
... 'reversed hierarchy', and we had our own little pictures that we were painting and felt very revolutionary, and so on. And at the same time we faced challenges, and you kind of tended to go: "Okay, but what did we learn in business school? What do you do now? Well, probably you introduce some middle manageme...more
...ng to do there I think, and I think it takes people time (even though they have the permission, so to speak) to really get used to: "Oh, I can really challenge something or suggest something", and I'm wondering, in terms of onboarding and recruiting and personal development within the organisation, what have...more
...ly not be in there. I'm still there, but a bit more distance now and we definitely taking the next step by that. Andreas Flodström: And talking about challenges, maybe more of an organisation challenge than a personal one, but when we are growing quickly, we're working with the mindset as the base point, and ...more
... bit more distance now and we definitely taking the next step by that. Andreas Flodström: And talking about challenges, maybe more of an organisation challenge than a personal one, but when we are growing quickly, we're working with the mindset as the base point, and so on but sometimes things feels messy, a...more

Gary Hamel on busting bureaucracy for good
... Is it what you hoped for, or do you think we still have a long way to go? Gary Hamel: Kind of both. I'm pleased at some progress, but mindful of the challenge ahead. When I wrote that book a decade ago, it seemed to me that we were at a point in time where organisations were facing challenges that lay outsi...more
... mindful of the challenge ahead. When I wrote that book a decade ago, it seemed to me that we were at a point in time where organisations were facing challenges that lay outside the performance envelope of the bureaucratic top down model, which we all know ofand have grown up with. And yet there were few alte...more
...out having organisations that are hierarchies of administrative capability, we need organisations that are networks of entrepreneurs. So that's a big challenge. But we've done other difficult things as a species....more
...Lisa Gill: Yes, I really agree with those three challenges. What in your experience, and in your work, have been ways that you've helped people or seen people navigating those challenges or finding their own ...more
...gree with those three challenges. What in your experience, and in your work, have been ways that you've helped people or seen people navigating those challenges or finding their own way of addressing them? Gary Hamel: We are early on in this. So I don't want to make bold claims. But I think we've had some int...more
...the other axis, you have a set of principles, we need to be more open, we need to be more experimental. We need to be more meritocratic. And then the challenge is, ok, if we took any of those principles seriously, what would change? The way we've been trying to tackle this with some organisations - most rec...more

Nand Kishore Chaudhary from Jaipur Rugs on love, collective consciousness and self-management

...fessionals work with our older, uneducated people in different departments to develop a deep understanding of the business processes. I also took the challenge to teach them the basic fundamentals to manage the business and people like ours, which they never learned in schools and colleges. We also worked on...more
...Lisa Gill: What are you finding are the biggest challenges in terms of this ambition to be self-managing? Clearly you see an alignment there between what your ambitions are for the company and self-management...more
...re for the company and self-management. What has been most challenging so far in trying to start to implement that? NK Chaudhary: There are two major challenges, from my own experience, in implementing self-management. The first is: how to create a core team of professionals who are naturally naturally inclin...more
...Lisa Gill: I know that when you and I spoke before you shared that. And you just mentioned there again, as well, that one of the challenges is in the head office, and you've learned a few lessons I think about hiring people and realising that perhaps the mindset change isn't possible or t...more
...ears. In this period, I had the opportunity to train and develop a network of about 15,000 tribal women in the art of rug weaving. Initially, I faced challenges working with them. But I knew that love, empathy and respect could make the relationship much easier. In just a matter of three or four years they st...more

Bill Fischer and Simone Cicero on Haier and the entrepreneurial organisation

...er branding that they have created is so strong. The people that end up working there are entrepreneurial people. **And I always say that one of the challenges of the organisation of the future is really about finding a way to attract the entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs will be able to do enterprise out...more
...r this organisation? And I think they have succeeded to some extent to create this attractive magnet for these kinds of people. This is going to be a challenge for most of organisations that I think we will have in in the future. B Fischer: So I think that after about 35 years, the people who hate change ar...more
...he number one); and unlocking people’s potential. **This is the simplified version that you can, you can use. And of course, you know, there will be challenges because China and the West today are different. They are different in many, many ways. And one, I think, of the most important ways we are different ...more
...volved with the organisation. So it’ll be interesting to see those people who haven’t come up in that world, fresh from the source, so to speak, what challenges they’ll face in unlearning and learning this new way. B Fischer: So, one of the things is for sure — the people who run the micro-enterprises, quite...more
...L Gill: Yeah…You know, I have a drama background, so when I used to audition for plays, you would get one type of director that would try and challenge you in the audition straightaway and put you on edge and make you uncomfortable and get you to do something radical, and then you’d get a different k...more

Lisa Gill and Mark Eddleston celebrate 50 episodes of Leadermorphosis

...g that: What are the practices that they're cultivating from a human perspective? What's the inner work that they've been doing? What are some of the challenges they're struggling with? And also, I think really sparked by Simon Mont's work around - it's not enough to just change our structures and processes, ...more
...lar turning point I think, was speaking to Margaret Wheatley. And that's another one. I think it's the most downloaded episode that one, and it still challenges me. There's still almost like a dissonance in me with that one because of this point that she made about finding islands of sanity and letting go of ...more
...re about something, or if I have a real burning question then I'll go and seek out one of those people, or if I hear common questions, or real thorny challenges people are wrestling with, I'll go and seek out someone who I know is going to shed some really valuable insights. And I've also been trying my best ...more
... who have parts of their organisation in India, have reached out and said: "Ah, I'd really like to talk to Ved to understand how he's navigated those challenges culturally, and what self-management can look like there. So that's been really interesting. And then the example that I mentioned, kind of generical...more
...rmation from something that I already had a pretty strong sense of. And I think it's quite common that people are bumping up against some of the same challenges and it seems like most many of these organisations struggle with recognising that some kind of feedback system is really important, for example to be...more

Peter Koenig on source, money and consciousness
...ce of this resonance towards them, repeated hundreds of times and in different kinds of iterations. And where they are challenged. I've been inviting challenge all the time from the very start because I'm putting out something which seems to be wrong, I want to know, and I want to be able to test. So where p...more
...Lisa Gill: It's a good starting point. And I think I'll come back to some of the common challenges that come up when I talk to people and when I've seen your work discussed out there. So perhaps a good place to go from here then is for you to share...more
...because if you look at his various levels, he's bringing people up from the level before, well okay, bringing them up to green, where I would say the challenge is that many of these greens think they're yellow or turquoise and they've just got it at an intellectual level. But actually, there's a whole transf...more
... piece of work for people who haven't traditionally had power to do in terms of learning and practicing to make decisions, to ask for when I need, to challenge things, to question things, to create proposals, to be a source of initiatives, and when that happens, I think only when both of those shifts in thos...more
...eah. I'm curious because it's all been a lots of agreement right now, so maybe we can dive into some more challenging questions. So one of the common challenges of the source work that comes up, (I know you've experienced it, and I've experienced it in my conversations with other people, particularly in my ci...more

Michael Y. Lee on lessons from researching self-managing organisations

...of the leader as building the right structures and processes to support self-management, to support empowerment. And I think that this is based on or challenges the often misguided notion that structures are inherently restrictive and coercive, when in reality, I think it's much more about structures can actu...more
... it's structured hierarchically. And so we're so used to that. We're so habituated to operating within that type of structure that, in many ways, the challenge is how do we unlearn all of these habits? And so I think, on the one hand, it's both: there are promising signs of growing interest in this and I als...more
...ace to face. And so what are some of your findings in that field? Michael Y. Lee: I think globally dispersed teams face a kind of extreme case of the challenge that every team faces, which is: how do you avoid these negative, dysfunctional, hierarchical dynamics from dominating, such as people feeling afraid...more
...ostering better team dynamics; speaking up, sharing aspects of your personal life, like getting to know each other as people, talking about difficult challenges at work - these are all risky behaviors in most hierarchical structures, and certainly in a team where these negative dynamics are pre-existing. And ...more
...y week the team would get together and each person would answer the same set of questions such as: "how are you feeling about your work? What are the challenges that you're facing?" etc. etc. And so those questions prompted each individual to engage in that kind of open sharing that we know is helpful for fac...more

Margaret Heffernan on how to act our way out of the status quo trap

...et over that status quo trap. But I do believe quite strongly that it's very hard to do that. You need some allies or soulmates with you - partly to challenge your own thinking, and partly to help you have arguments and debates about how it might be better, and just to get different perspectives on the prob...more
...tten about large global organisations who have done some innovative experiments in this direction. How do you manage that? Because that's a different challenge, I imagine. Margaret Heffernan: Well it's quite interesting. I think people make a great deal about self management. And it's important. But when I ...more
...out, if not out. So that's terrific. So what is the new framework with which the G7 is thinking about how they are going to work together to address challenges like the climate crisis? Well, it turns out, it's all about collaboration. It's about collaboration. It's about consensus. It's about cooperation. It...more
...hat we were talking about earlier in the conversation about the sense of learned helplessness or powerlessness that people often feel - it's the same challenge, right? How do we help people to see that they do have power, that they do have choice? Margaret Heffernan: The answer is, we don't help them. We fi...more

Amy Edmondson on psychological safety and the future of work

...e culture or the climate. To me, the most important thing they can do is just start out by just being more open themselves, being more open about the challenge that lies ahead, you know: “Wow, we’ve got this really challenging project. I’m excited about it but I’m nervous also.” So when I say something like ...more
...e way. So the Learning Zone, it’s a little bit like the research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who talked about ‘flow’, where you have this sense of the challenge and your ability to meet the challenge being in a nice state of balance. You know, this isn’t off in a hammock with a glass of lemonade, this is real...more
...tle bit like the research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who talked about ‘flow’, where you have this sense of the challenge and your ability to meet the challenge being in a nice state of balance. You know, this isn’t off in a hammock with a glass of lemonade, this is really feeling that you’re being put to goo...more
...ll the time in ways that didn’t use to be as fashionable, so I worry sometimes. But I think the coming generation of leaders does recognise that the challenges that lie ahead are huge. So as long as you can get beyond the “It’s all about me” mindset, the writing is on the wall that this is gonna take everyth...more

Buurtzorg and the power of self-managed teams of nurses
...Lisa Gill: What other sort of challenges or difficulties have you had in the team and how have you overcome them? Chila: Production is a challenge. Lisa Gill: In what way? What do you mean b...more
...Lisa Gill: What other sort of challenges or difficulties have you had in the team and how have you overcome them? Chila: Production is a challenge. Lisa Gill: In what way? What do you mean by production? Chila: You have to have enough clients to get enough money. Because only clients generate mo...more
...e sick or on holiday, it's unproductive time, and there's no money for the company. Lisa Gill: Ah, like productivity. Chila: Yeah. So that's always a challenge, because you have the holidays, and you have to go to courses and people get sick, and you have to go to the office. But [the organisation] wants abo...more

Anna Elgh on self-managing teams and shifting conflicts at Svenska Retursystem

... my mission in different companies where I've worked to work for a way of engaging all employees and working together. So I thought this was really a challenge and also a situation where I thought that I could really add some good things to the company. So really, the main purpose of this journey was to cre...more
...I have very good help from Tuff Training - I had very good help from from Karin Tenelius of course. I think personally for me, it has really been a challenge to have the patience and not to step forward when the organisation is asking for structure and decisions. And I mean, this is really something that I...more

Frederic Laloux with an invitation to reclaim integrity and aliveness

...ling we need. And then saying: “And this cannot continue and we will invent our way out of this.” Right? And then throw that like red meat, like as a challenge to the organisation. Like: help us solve this because, we at the top in traditional organisations can’t solve this. ...more
... about when my parents’ friend confronted me — I, like you, get excited by that. So I do like to lean into difficult questions and and when something challenges my worldview, I get excited about that. And I think I’m realising that I’m more and more interested in the kinds of things that we’re talking about n...more