Learning

...gues. A lead link is a little different from a traditional manager - but it is somehow the closest to it, compared to other roles. So when I say I've learned to have an optimistic positive view of my colleagues, what I mean is that there's this belief that people dislike their work, and have to be tightly ...more

...an is that there's this belief that people dislike their work, and have to be tightly controlled - forced or even threatened to do their work. I have learned that people take pride in doing a good job, and inherently get great satisfaction from their work. That was lesson number one. My second lesson is t...more

...ple take pride in doing a good job, and inherently get great satisfaction from their work. That was lesson number one. My second lesson is that I've learned that information flow and access to information are really critical in a self managed circle. For a self managed team to be able to make good decisio...more

...sions they make. So that's why I said, it's very important to have access to information. So that was lesson two. Another very important lesson I've learned is that there is more accountability in a self manage team than in a traditional structure. So you probably know this misconception that in a self ma...more

...o hold each other accountable - shouldn't be some radical transparency in some psychological sense, you see. Another very important lesson that I've learned - and actually, this is the most important part. I should have started with it. It's crucial for all team members to develop skills that are needed f...more

...Lisa Gill: Yes, thank you for sharing that. It's interesting. I'm learning more and more as I speak to people on the podcast that there are so many different dimensions - and the culture that you start from totally influence...more

...me of my colleagues a lot of time to fully embrace the philosophy of self management. You see, as you know, operating in a self managed team requires learning and unlearning certain things. So I can confidently say that some of my colleagues never fully embraced this shift, because different people have dif...more

...f. 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 African context, or across the globe, I do not think tha...more

...ed 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 management. So, because of that, you can understand why most people were a little bit skeptical. We like...more

...y most people were a little bit skeptical. We like the idea of self management. It's brilliant - but is it really something that can work in a higher learning institution, or other organisations, or practice holacracy from other fields? Does it work for our business? We don't know, we don't have any other h...more

...w 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. Our main regulatory institution is called the Higher Learning Education Coun...more

...d. As a higher learning institution, we operate under directives that are set by our regulators. Our main regulatory institution is called the Higher Learning Education Council, the Rwandan Higher Learning Education Council. This is a government agency. So we knew that reorganising our structure could poten...more

... under directives that are set by our regulators. Our main regulatory institution is called the Higher Learning Education Council, the Rwandan Higher Learning Education Council. This is a government agency. So we knew that reorganising our structure could potentially create some skepticism from their side. ...more

...Lisa Gill: I'm wondering, especially for people listening who are perhaps in higher learning institutions, or in schools or universities or any kind of situation where they're exploring self management as well - what would be your words of ad...more

...d that comes from a culture of embracing growth mindset. Another one is drawing the owl. That's our terminology, but it means getting things done and learning as you go. So those three together have really made a tremendous impact in our transition. So it's very important to set up institutional cultures th...more

...s or something. You know, I've spoken to people from mature self managing organisations that share these level of insights. And it sounds like you've learned so much already about what it takes to make this shift - some of the things that are challenging, some of the traps and misconceptions. So I'm just s...more

...n a study of medical error and I thought, well, errors are really important for learning — we learn from mistakes, it’s one of the core mechanisms of learning for human beings and probably should be an important phenomenon for organisations as well. So I came in to study… [and] I realised intuitively that ...more

... beings and probably should be an important phenomenon for organisations as well. So I came in to study… [and] I realised intuitively that where the learning happens is in teams because teams are doing the work. There’s some work, of course, that’s still done very much by individuals working alone, but an ...more

... but ultimately drawing on older literature I decided it was really this phenomenon called psychological safety at work. And the more I thought about learning and learning environments, the more I thought that learning environments are those that are characterised by psychological safety. So I wanted to st...more

...ly drawing on older literature I decided it was really this phenomenon called psychological safety at work. And the more I thought about learning and learning environments, the more I thought that learning environments are those that are characterised by psychological safety. So I wanted to study it in oth...more

... really this phenomenon called psychological safety at work. And the more I thought about learning and learning environments, the more I thought that learning environments are those that are characterised by psychological safety. So I wanted to study it in other contexts: in manufacturing, in service, not ...more

...f psychological safety that has since been used in hundreds of studies, in and out of healthcare, and finding that it has all sorts of connections to learning behaviours, but also to performance… And so, it’s been a kind of meandering journey and when you publish a paper that gets attention, other people pi...more

...LG: Yeah, that’s really helpful. Circling back to what you started talking about with your original interest in learning organisations… for me, a really useful model you have in your book “Teaming” that I share with people all the time is this four-box model about how t...more

...really useful model you have in your book “Teaming” that I share with people all the time is this four-box model about how to create what you call a “Learning Zone”. Because I think, especially when I‘m talking to people about exploring more self-managing or Agile ways of working, sometimes the misconceptio...more

...ortable.” I want people to be willing to take risks, but I don’t want people to be in the Comfort Zone, is one of the boxes in that model. And so the Learning Zone, as you point out, is the zone where you feel both very motivated to do a good job — and that means you probably care; maybe you care about the ...more

... in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world. Things will go well and not well at different times, and not always in a predictable 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 abi...more

...nventing Organisations’, and there are some very profound case studies in there. The self-managing organisation to me as a construct is much like the learning organisation in that it’s huge. It’s huge, it’s important, it’s aspirational, it’s what so many of us want. So those are huge aspirations, and psych...more

...l safety is just this sort of psychological, interpersonal experience that I would argue, it’s hard to have a genuinely self-managing organisation or learning organisation without some level of psychological safety. But they’re very different research targets — one has got lots of moving parts, you’ve gotta...more

...l find it unhelpful. That’s OK. Each and every one of us must be willing to learn from our missteps as well as from our successes. This is gonna be a learning process. Someone decides: “OK, I’d like to exercise a little more leadership at work, make a bigger difference for others, and for the task at work.”...more

...ities — psychological safety, and motivation and accountability — it’s both those things, not one or the other, that really creates an environment of learning and high performing teams. And that starts with thinking about more than just myself and seeing myself as being responsible for what shows up around ...more

...le. And even with a group of colleagues, for example - where we have lots of practices where we come together and talk openly about things that we're learning and that we're struggling with - it's taken so long for me to let down that pretense of having it all together. And it's amazing. It really makes me...more

...uff is in my subconscious, how do you know what you don't know? Bernadette Wesley: Well, there's three I'd like to cover. The first one which is peer learning spaces. The second one is the immunity to change process and parts of ourselves. And the third one would be somatic, easy and highly effective interv...more

...Bernadette Wesley: First one. Ok. So, in our organisation one of the groups I work with is Fraendi. And so we've developed this practice, called peer learning spaces. That's the language we use with clients, but internally, we actually call them developmental pods or dev pods for short. One of the colleague...more

...op calling it dev pods because it sounds like death pods. But this is kind of a death. This is the death of the ego. But let's not go there! So peer learning spaces is an easier way to take it in. It's where we learn together. So it's a place within the organization where - from the everyone culture book -...more

...a place within the organization where - from the everyone culture book - there's like these places home, groove and edge - and you're working on your learning edges, but you need a home base place to work on those. Yes, you want them embedded in meetings and practices and everything that you do throughout ...more

...s them in a different way. And just to name that. There's no right way, it's all an experiment. This is all a co-creation. So when creating your peer learning space, if it's within an organisation - and we also do them with senior leaders who have something in common, like all CTOs or something like that - ...more

...You could break that into two groups. And you just come together to start playing around: What are your developmental edges right now? Where are your learning edges? What's challenging for you? We do keep it personal and keep that center of gravity of why we're in this room together. It's around Fraendi, or...more

...stions around it. Well, what's our responsibility here if something comes up that's between two people in the room together? And often we say if your learning edge is asking for that space, for that person to have that feedback conversation, that's difficult. And that's what you're going to do. That's what ...more

...hat person to have that feedback conversation, that's difficult. And that's what you're going to do. That's what you're going to do that will be your learning edge - to ask that person for that conversation outside of here, or to ask for support if you need a third person there. In other words, we don't ha...more

... someone walking you through the process to get to what would be a good change goal to put down. We don't do the Immunity to Change work in our peer learning space, because it requires another space for a small group and is usually facilitated. Or you can get the book and you can walk yourself through the ...more

...ke to say to them that perhaps you haven't said yet, or you would feel sad if you didn't get a chance to say? Bernadette Wesley: I think, the biggest learning for me in the last year - and I didn't mention it so I'll mention it here - has been diving deep into something called internal family systems. And i...more

...n schools and colleges. We also worked on the philosophy, 'finding yourself through losing yourself'. The more I lose myself, the more I find myself. Learning, unlearning and relearning is a continuous process and it brings the childlike innocence, which is important for the business to follow this in an or...more

...ou're really interested in taking it to the next level in terms of self-management. And really kind of decentralising. What is important to you about learning more about this and helping the organisation evolve in that way? NK Chaudhary: The problem started when I established the head office in 1999 in Jaip...more

...hen 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 that they're too ingrained. So as you grow ...more

...ng self-management principles to fulfil the purpose of their organisation even more strongly? What advice would you give them in terms of what you're learning so far? NK Chaudhary: Find yourself through losing yourself. Because the more you lose yourself, the more you will find yourself. The problem is not ...more

...Lisa Gill: I think this is something that I'm learning more and more that if we really want everyone to flourish and create an environment based on self-management principles, it's not going to happen by ...more

...se what we see, what we hear, what we listen to, is only 10 to 15%. And 80% is hidden in the iceberg. I also went to see Otto Scharmer in Boston, and learned about Theory U and then I started working on my own iceberg. And that changed me a lot. Because what I found was that whatever we do, we work very ha...more

...Lisa Gill: Yeah. I'm curious what else you've learned because I'm sure many people listening are perhaps even envious that you've spoken to some of my big heroes like Frederic Laloux and Doug and Miki, y...more

...ople listening are perhaps even envious that you've spoken to some of my big heroes like Frederic Laloux and Doug and Miki, you mentioned what you've learned from Otto Scharmer, for example. Are there other key lessons that you've learned so far about self-management that you think would be useful to share...more

...es like Frederic Laloux and Doug and Miki, you mentioned what you've learned from Otto Scharmer, for example. Are there other key lessons that you've learned so far about self-management that you think would be useful to share? NK Chaudhary: I think when I meet all these great, great people, I see they are...more

...ary: I think when I meet all these great, great people, I see they are highly conscious people. And the world is moving towards consciousness. What I learned from them is how everybody can realise that when we are driven by the unconscious, this is in autopilot mode. So how to break the autopilot mode by b...more

...like 'Reinventing Organisations', I just became fascinated that this was possible and discovered all of these case studies and I just wanted more. My learning appetite sped up and that was yeah, my way into this world really. And now there's a growing community of people like yourself, and the more people I...more

...'re writing and very often on your podcast, you'll have the authors on. And in your writing, you're able to synthesise all the key themes that you've learned. So I think there's a lot of listeners that really really appreciate that. Now, you mentioned your book. Would you like to tell us any more about th...more

... in Sweden from the 90s onwards, (most of them small organisations in many different sectors), and the lessons, (sometimes painful lessons), that she learned along the way. And then my input - I guess I was a bit of a journalist. So I was interviewing her and interviewing some of the companies and then I a...more

...perhaps from the beginning, and this is something I recognise in myself a few years ago, when I first experienced transitioning to self-management, I learned about the new practices and then in my second experience I thought, okay, so we just apply those practices. And I think it was thanks to one of my fa...more

...e been doing it several years, and we've been following your podcast and I've contacted guests on your podcast, and we've had conversations, and I've learned from them. And we've like iterated some of their practices..." - that's really exciting that that's starting to happen....more

...nt that it's really tough, it's hard, but it's so worthwhile, and it's so rewarding, so, the commitment. And it really is a practice; it's a lifelong learning journey and everyone I speak to says that so that I think that's been a confirmation from something that I already had a pretty strong sense of. And ...more

...do you go big and transform everything at once? There's no one way to do it but I think it has to start with self and also to think about: "What's my learning edge in this? What's going to be difficult for me in this? What do I have to let go of in order to do this?" Because yeah, it's gonna be tough; chang...more

...eople who have a different perspective and to have a kind of, healthy debate. So that's also part of my hope as the podcast continues. In terms of my learning - I guess a sort of meta learning from the podcast has been how transformational conversations are: that yeah, I'm not the same person I was when I s...more

...tive and to have a kind of, healthy debate. So that's also part of my hope as the podcast continues. In terms of my learning - I guess a sort of meta learning from the podcast has been how transformational conversations are: that yeah, I'm not the same person I was when I started the podcast. Through these ...more

...ortant for our relationship, the Open Collective team is much more emergent and less explicit on how decisions are made. But it works. And it's great learning for me to be much more comfortable with very emergent decision-making or less explicit processes. And just trust it. It's more the approach of 'ok, ...more

...distributed and decentralized organisations, which is money and how we collaborate with money. What has been your journey with that and what have you learned? What are some insights that you could share with listeners about collaborating with money in a non hierarchical way? Alanna Irving: Collaborating wi...more

...ly good advice. Thank you. I'm wondering, as you look back through your journey with all of this stuff, what has been the most challenging or painful learning moment for you, do you think? Alanna Irving: Wow. I think my experience leaving Enspiral was pretty challenging. It was a big combination of me burni...more

...n to my leadership development. But also feeling like to actually grow I needed to step out, challenge myself in new ways, take some of the stuff I'd learned and apply it in new contexts and see what that's like. I had to let it get to a point where the things that weren't working were right in my face be...more

...too far or stretching too much, or saying yes to too many things, or having too much passion. I've done all of those things, in many ways. But I have learned a couple of things along the way. I think some other life experiences that I've had have helped me reflect on it - some health issues, I have a disa...more

...Lisa Gill: We have covered covered so many different topics. I'm wondering what is on the horizon for you. Do you have a learning edge at the moment? Or a question that you're holding on another topic or a juicy challenge that you're exploring currently? Alanna Irving: In recent...more

...'s about the cool stuff that we cannot predict - 'we're going to just go into this together and be in relationship and respond to what comes up, keep learning and keep building and we don't exactly know where it's going to go'. I think that possibility and that space is super scary. But I think that's why ...more

...al culture of learning, and experimenting. and trying and finding a way that works. But I think the challenge for any organisation is that continuous learning, and bringing people on the journey - like we talked about new starters, depending on where they came from, it might be so new to them, and they're j...more

...ur role in Mayden, and it could be something that you've overcome, or it could be something that you're still wrestling with now, or keen to - like a learning edge that you're working on. Philippa Kindon: I'm happy to start. So, something that I find challenging is so much of what we do, and there's so much...more

...rough this? And we really do support each other in that time and time again, Taryn Burden: Answering your question about areas of personal growth and learning kind of ties into what Philippa was saying, because we were massively involved in the staff day, actually, all three of us were. But it is one of the...more

...left alone so that they can get on with the work that they need to get on with, whatever that might be. It's a forever journey. I'm in the process of learning, and have learned, but continue to learn. Ruth Waterfield: Yeah, I think my challenges have been similar in a way. I really love the Agile principle,...more

...they can get on with the work that they need to get on with, whatever that might be. It's a forever journey. I'm in the process of learning, and have learned, but continue to learn. Ruth Waterfield: Yeah, I think my challenges have been similar in a way. I really love the Agile principle, that's people and...more

...choose which ones they take on. I know a lot of organisations who really struggle with that, and now you're like 950 teams. So how do you create that learning culture? Jos de Blok: I think it starts with not wanting to create a culture. So I think that my idea was when you're creating an environment where i...more

...much came across when I met Marian and Sheila and Yolanda and Houten, and they talked about the trust and they talked about, really that it's a steep learning curve at the beginning because it was really like they owned their own business and they had to do everything. And they talked about their coach also...more

...hat are transforming and I imagine you've talked to many people in these organisations, yourself as well. So what are your thoughts and what have you learned in trying to support these people? Jos de Blok: Yeah, like you just said about when leaders say: "We created a self-organised organisation" or someth...more

...nd great rewards in that I think, once people are able to get there, but that transformation, as you say, is a big one. And I'm wondering what you've learned or what your reflections are in terms of what helps leaders in that transformation? Jos de Blok: What helps? Yeah, I think the very basic thing is to...more

...son in your personal life and your work? I think a lot of people will appreciate if you show your feelings, but all these patterns, the things you've learned and the way you had to you had to deal with all those dilemmas in your daily work, have put a focus on your more or less, (I call it) cohort characte...more

...ay. And so that's the components. Developing a stable mind, creating direct perception, learning how to perceive more fully, mind body awareness, and learning to work with these very strong emotions - so that we can be in these places that provoke and trigger us and be of service. So the whole meaning of be...more

...re in the grips of this overbearing 1984 kind of machine of Big Brother. So we all got excited when some corporations, some corporate leaders started learning to meditate. One of them was the CEO of Monsanto. And at the time, my colleague was in a meditation group in which he was part of this - this is just...more

...Lisa Gill: I wonder if you could share something about what you've learned about community and how to foster a sense of community, as you said that that was really important. What have you learned there. Margaret Wheatley: C...more

...something about what you've learned about community and how to foster a sense of community, as you said that that was really important. What have you learned there. Margaret Wheatley: Critical. Well, you know, all of the dynamics at play right now are destructive of community - fighting over fewer resource...more

...he community and the boundaries and all that stuff that gets formed over time, was fluid and was actually co-owned from a very early stage. What I've learned is that you can share a commons, and have self organisation and self management, if the initial kind of intent and boundaries and simple rules are in...more

...t's a hard one to sort of break the habit on. Beyond that, it's really just about getting what you give. I mean, we have a remote culture. And we've learned a lot that if you don't care for the garden - if everybody just goes back and cooks dishes with vegetables - then you lose something. So there has to...more

...nvestment when everybody has autonomy and freedom to do what they will, and they have different relationships with the firm. And so I think I've also learned that there are times we need to ask for that - there are times we need to expect to make agreements around it. But we do need to care for this thing,...more

...cale them - bring them to life. Start by starting - just do something, start that looping process of going from tension to practice to experiment to learning to what's next. And then look for what's next after that, and keep following the thread. And if you find that you and your team or you and the commun...more

...I would have just leaned on the fact that I'm the co-founder, and we're doing this because I say so! Jorge Silva: Yeah. So I think this is one of the learning points that I have. And it's really interesting when I say to other co-founders from other companies - and they are hierarchical - and they just unde...more

...d so I'm really happy that you're taking that on as your mission - to share stories and to spread the word and to teach people, you know, what you're learning so that they can be inspired and try things too. Jorge Silva: Yeah, sure. Yeah....more

...go back to normality, we need everyone to collaborate. And if we don't go that way, it is really hard to get rid of this virus. So I think one of the learning points here is that collaboration really is a game where you perform better. And the other thing is, sometimes when we talk about these kinds of ide...more

...ves and taking responsibility for their power. But there's also a huge 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...more

...hem, inevitably, they leak out in some way. And that's why tyranny of structurelessness in organisations, when we try and get rid of hierarchy, and I learned this early on in my journey. I was very anti-hierarchy and now, I understand that if we try and reject hierarchy, we try and eliminate it, it shows u...more

... my purpose or our purpose together or not? And in terms of talking about the money work, I think there is great potential there and I think it is a learning edge for people exploring new ways of working to really interrogate our relationship to money. So I guess, on that front, in terms of the potential f...more

...namic between ourselves where we completed each other - really different kind of persons and personalities - but we completed ourselves. So the joint learning experience there was extremely key in the beginning. Andreas Flodström: But then I think to talk about personally for me, one of the hardest thing is...more

... that other people in the organisation are still a bit dependent on that energy. And so I've had conversations with you both about realising that and learning how to step back in a way, not literally, but more in terms of your way of being, so that other people really get that they are co-responsible, that ...more

...Lisa Gill: I guess in starting to wrap up our conversation, you've had an amazing seven years since starting the company and have learned a lot along the way. What would your advice be to people listening who are in self-managing organisations of their own or perhaps thinking about tran...more

...so I think what was intriguing to me about holacracy was the fact that it was a very different approach that was highly structured. And so what I've learned from my research is that this unique approach has the potential to help organisations resolve a core tension, which is the core tension between coord...more

...t the brain out of those things until it becomes a new habit because we know that these things are good for collaboration, and that we haven't really learned how to do that with each other in an effective way at scale, I think. Michael Y. Lee: Yeah I totally agree and that's something that I've thought a l...more

...oing things - and Keith and I have a lot of experience in that ourselves - even doing things as a duo is an enormous difference. In terms of support, learning, comfort, you name it... and not feeling so exposed etc. And so that aspect is also something that is not instinctive for most people....more

...y'd say all the kinds of things you want in a mature organisation. They are Kaospilots, they give people, the students a chance to organise their own learning, truly from the ground up. I never went to an alternative school, I didn't shape my own education, I had some more freedom than most people. But this...more

...Lisa Gill: So the parallels between what 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 the...more

...a Retursystem. I've never been in a position for as many years as I have been here but I think that is what giving me also a lot of energy - that I'm learning new things every day. I think it's often difficult - the higher up the organisation you go, the less feedback you tend to get from people. It can fee...more

... They were only a pain in the ass. Sorry! Lisa Gill: No, I love it! [Laughing] It's great. Chila: You can go edit it. Jolanda: You get progression of learning how you have to deal with problems. And you find out things that you didn't think you could do. Marian: And you stimulate each other. "You can do it!...more

...Lisa Gill: Yes, I mean, that's how most of the world's greatest innovations occurred, right? By people connecting random things and learning something new. Gary Hamel: And by trying things that didn't work. One of my one of my great frustrations - so I now live in Silicon Valley and I've s...more