Miki Kashtan on the three shifts needed for self-managing organisations to thrive
...d a lot of concrete advice. Miki talks to me about what she believes are the three fundamental shifts that need to happen within us as humans and the systems that we're operating in, in order to collaborate in a self managing way. So it's a really deep conversation about navigating power, about mindset shi...more
...s that people lived in. So fundamentally, our structures are not designed to attend to needs. And if I want a really resilient, robust self managing system, sooner or later, it will need to realign itself with needs. Because otherwise, there comes a moment where it's like, wait a minute, we're self manag...more
...Lisa Gill: Yeah, that's so interesting, because so many people working in self managing systems, have this complaint and say to me: "the one thing we're really struggling with is, you know, how do we get people to take a shared ownership of the ...more
Aaron Dignan on being complexity conscious and people positive
...root of all the humanistic thinking about work. And then the complexity conscious was really more about the systemic understanding. So, you know, in systems theory, there are lots of different kinds of systems - simple systems, complicated, complex, chaotic, disordered, etc. We really, as a culture, think...more
...then the complexity conscious was really more about the systemic understanding. So, you know, in systems theory, there are lots of different kinds of systems - simple systems, complicated, complex, chaotic, disordered, etc. We really, as a culture, think about everything as complicated. So, you know, a wat...more
...ty conscious was really more about the systemic understanding. So, you know, in systems theory, there are lots of different kinds of systems - simple systems, complicated, complex, chaotic, disordered, etc. We really, as a culture, think about everything as complicated. So, you know, a watch is complicated...more
Frederic Laloux with an invitation to reclaim integrity and aliveness
... my own thinking. And just in my own life, just facing the fact that so much of what we do is deeply destructive. That the very basis of our economic system is an extractive system that does just irreparable damage to the planet. One way that I framed it at the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis was that...more
...st in my own life, just facing the fact that so much of what we do is deeply destructive. That the very basis of our economic system is an extractive system that does just irreparable damage to the planet. One way that I framed it at the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis was that the Covid virus seems t...more
...re we okay with that deep down?
I remember a conversation I had with a group of CEOs in Brazil… I was asking them, “Where are you participating in a system where you’re actually acting out of integrity?” And it’s so interesting because one of them was honest enough to say, “Frederic, I don’t even know wh...more
Bill Fischer and Simone Cicero on Haier and the entrepreneurial organisation
...cise Zhang Ruimin and put him in the same camp of this slightly outdated heroic archetype of a leader. But he has this lovely phrase about creating a system where everyone can be a CEO of themselves. And I’m interested in what your experience is of leadership more generally at Haier and how leadership eme...more
...look like elsewhere in the organisation? How is leadership encouraged? What does that look like? Do they have leadership training? Or do you design a system and leadership emerges?
S Cicero: Well, I think there is an interesting aspect, which is the constraint definition. And there’s a lot of leadership ...more
...y complex organisations, they’re mostly managed by constraints. And this is an expression of complexity in general. When you need to manage a complex system, you need to work by setting constraints so that you can flourish within certain directions that don’t, for example, create asymmetric risks. **So I ...more
Bernadette Wesley on bridging inner and outer transformation
...metimes the first thing I do is send the link to innerdevelopmentgoals.org. And I've done that with some non-profits in the U.S.A working around food systems. And it really helps land it. Of course, they work around the SDGs. And I prefer to work with organisations who are obviously moving in a direction ...more
...work because it's still really a challenge for me, honestly. I want to show up looking good. It's just in my DNA. It's in my family of origin's value system of success. It's still my learning edge, honestly. Even though, in other settings - no problem. But at work, it's still really, really a challenge fo...more
...ng up even though it's scary, and the fears that come with that. And that we show up anyway. Just sharing that out loud does something to our nervous system. It connects us to each other and hopefully does something to the field between us now and to whoever will be listening. Those micro-moments make a d...more
Margaret Wheatley on leadership and Warriors for the Human Spirit
...ite naive, was that, people will just greet it with open arms and be very thankful for it. Because the paradigm of the new science of self-organising systems, which is another way of understanding self-managing systems - you can organise and get order without control - that was the fundamental 'aha' moment...more
... and be very thankful for it. Because the paradigm of the new science of self-organising systems, which is another way of understanding self-managing systems - you can organise and get order without control - that was the fundamental 'aha' moment for me when I was studying the new science. I mean, I still ...more
...s well as all possibilities. So I'm not interested in - I no longer hold the possibility that we can create change at that level of organisations or systems. I know, we can wake people up at the individual level. And that's where all evolution occurs. And that requires dedication. It requires commitment, ...more
Jos de Blok on Buurtzorg and the virtues of humanising, not protocolising
... with what we want to achieve? How can we focus on the patient care on one side, but also care for ourselves on the other side and also deal with the system sides. Because it's always complicated. We are in a very complicated environment at the moment where the ministry and the care authority are making p...more
...ment at the moment where the ministry and the care authority are making plans which are not really based on a vision and on content. So it's really a system thing, which can also create a lot of bureaucracy again, but it feels like we are a collective and that feels very good - that we are aligned, that w...more
...at ways you think that how you're set up and your culture helped you navigate that, especially given, as you said, the kind of battle almost with the system and different things going on in the government. So what have been some of the main lessons and things that you're proud of in terms of how you respo...more
Michael Y. Lee on lessons from researching self-managing organisations
...Lisa Gill: Yeah, and I know that your dissertation recently, a big focus of that was holacracy which is obviously a self-management system designed to help create those structures and processes so that we don't slip back into all power hierarchies. But we'll come back to holacracy in a m...more
...about holacracy specifically that sparked your interest and made you think, "Oh, yeah, I want to dig more deeply into that particular self-management system"? Michael Y. Lee: I came into my dissertation - I had worked in self-managed teams before and had really positive experiences from those work experie...more
...ource of attention and authority in the organisation. So just to say, I think that the insight, or the takeaway from that is that there is no perfect system, that every system has its own tendencies and can maybe help resolve some tensions, but can introduce new trade offs. And so recognising what the ten...more
Pasteur Byabeza on transitioning to self-management at Davis College
...Lisa Gill: Pastor, thank you for being here. I know that at Davis College you decided to use holacracy as a self management system. And I think many listeners of the podcast will be familiar with holacracy. But I think it would be really interesting if you could share with us wha...more
...anagement is worth trying. So the next step was then to test that hypothesis. And based on the feedback we received with the early success of the new system in pilot circles, everyone at Davis College, and Akilah, was invited to transition into holacracy. That's how we disbanded the global cancer. We did...more
...I guess, it'd be interesting to hear your experience personally. I know that in your current role, you have evolved into a role called in a holacracy system, a lead link, and you're the lead link of the Student Care Circle. So how has the experience been for you? What have you learned in that new role? Pa...more
Peter Koenig on source, money and consciousness
...ext of Frederick Laloux's work in terms of orange and green, and teal? Peter Koenig: I'm not an expert on spiral dynamics, although I have a parallel system and I know, superficially. I love Frederick Laloux and his work. And actually, thanks to Tom who you've mentioned, he actually came the first time we...more
...fectly the ideology, because I had it myself once. It's going back a while, going back 20, 30 years, I was really right to believe in self-organising systems and I think I mentioned to you once, I was in a group for 10 years. We called ourselves 'self-organising' and were experimenting with this and actual...more
...I think. Because God has impregnated your idea, and the whole thing is, you know, sort of round like that. Now there are people who believe in social systems and secular things who might dispute that, but I would say it's not worth trying to get into the mysticism, in terms practical things, in terms of lo...more
Gary Hamel on busting bureaucracy for good
...eir imagination, their passion, their creativity. So we have a long way to go and I'm under no illusions of how difficult this is because as a social system, a social structure, bureaucracy is one of the most ubiquitous and deeply entrenched systems - there's a rather powerful coalition around it and so I...more
...no illusions of how difficult this is because as a social system, a social structure, bureaucracy is one of the most ubiquitous and deeply entrenched systems - there's a rather powerful coalition around it and so I think it's going to take a lot more effort to change that. Having said that, we've changed s...more
... territory is a matrix. Not to make this sound too complicated, because it's really not. But a matrix where on one axis, you have the core management systems - how we hire, how we promote, how we compensate, how we plan, how we allocate resources, how we coordinate, and on the other axis, you have a set of...more
Ruth, Taryn and Philippa from Mayden, a health tech company that’s Made Without Managers
...at to be here with you, Lisa. We are a software company based in Bath. We do software, particularly around healthcare services and patient management systems, and we're really excited about data and innovation in this space, and so that's kind of where we occupy a lot of our space and energy. But we're obv...more
...e really excited to be here, and thanks for having us, looking forward to speaking about our way of working. I guess it would be worth mentioning the system that we provide mainly occupies a space for mental health, but we're also exploring other healthcare sectors as our organisation grows and develops....more
...f when they join us. So obviously, when you join Mayden, you'll get set up on a laptop and the basics of what you need to know and our communication systems. But then I'll spend a morning with a new starter just talking through some of the language and an understanding around the role of the director, how...more
Beetroot’s founders on purpose, self-management, and shocking people with trust
...n a way is an advantage because people don't have as much experience perhaps, of really hierarchical workplaces. And yet, I think still the education system and my understanding is the culture generally in Ukraine is quite hierarchical, so there's still some unlearning to do there I think, and I think it ...more
...n that transition, in terms of getting used to 'the Beetroot way' of working. Andreas Flodström: I can maybe comment first on the overall educational system and what with what luggage people come into the organisation. So most of the Ukrainian education system has a, you could call it, 'Soviet legacy', wh...more
...aybe comment first on the overall educational system and what with what luggage people come into the organisation. So most of the Ukrainian education system has a, you could call it, 'Soviet legacy', which means it's very fact-based, it's not based on you taking various initiatives and so on. That's the o...more
Edwin Jansen on how people adopt self-management at Fitzii
... and said, "What did they have in common?" And what they found was that amongst all of these various HR practices, whether it's having a compensation system performance management, that the biggest difference or the biggest driver of a high-performing culture, was how effectively that culture did what the...more
...ctually do GDM: they did a Generative Decision Making the leadership team, and they decided to move towards adopting what they call a 'Teal Operating System', so they found that to be a useful analogy. And then we've just been working through it. So we have a number of committees or working groups that a...more
...ms of helping people transition to self-management? Edwin Jansen: Yes, it absolutely is. I mean, India has been working in a hierarchical, caste type system for many generations. So the deference that generally the people in India have for their parents and for controlling power structures is very differ...more
Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz on acting your way into a new kind of organising with Liberating Structures
...sults of what we were doing, Lisa, were mysterious. It's like, what just happened? How could that be? We had an experience in Ohio with a big health system, and we were doing sort of an early version of Wise Crowds, and User Experience Fishbowl. And we had them doing the work. And Henri and I were both g...more
...an institute - and I mean, Keith was very much at the centre of that too - called Plexus Institute, that was devoted to spreading ideas about complex systems, you know, and the notion that you could use those ideas and those concepts as a way of organising, you know, as a way of running organisations. And...more
...ose ideas and those concepts as a way of organising, you know, as a way of running organisations. And so the idea was that organisations are complex systems, they're not machines. And therefore we shouldn't run them like machines, you know. That they are not controllable, or hierarchical systems don't rea...more
Buurtzorg and the power of self-managed teams of nurses
...in patients homes. It was founded by Jos de Blok, who was himself, formerly a nurse. And he was really frustrated with how mechanistic the healthcare system had become and turning patients into numbers and dehumanising them. So he started Buurtzorg, because he wanted to create a business model where teams...more
... skills in your team. Jolanda: And Buurtzorg is also very far ahead in terms of the digital stuff, with planning for example. We have a very good ICT system....more
...Lisa Gill: Tell me about that. How does that support you, the IT system? Because I understand it's quite key to having self-managing teams at Buurtzorg. Chila: Because it makes everything very simple. You can find everyth...more
Amy Edmondson on psychological safety and the future of work
...k that’s a really valuable dimension to talk about.
AE:
And I love how you just put that because to me that’s exactly right. There’s the structures, systems, tools and then there’s the human. And they both are equally important. I mean you can’t just come in however you might do it and sort of alter the c...more
...LG:
It strikes me that, as you said, the systems piece and the human piece are both important, and it’s also the case that it’s not just leaders that are responsible for creating this climate of psy...more
Margaret Heffernan on how to act our way out of the status quo trap
...ot the only one. So do not think you can think your way to the answer. You can't, it's impossible. You have to do something different and see how the system responds. From that you've learned something that you can build on. But absolutely, none of us can solve these real world problems in our heads. It's...more
Anna Elgh on self-managing teams and shifting conflicts at Svenska Retursystem
...he decisions. So it was a huge change that the company was in need of. So we started off establishing a new way of working. We wanted to establish a system and a way of working with systematic improvements based on the Lean Thinking Principles and I've worked with that in many previous companies, and I'v...more
Lisa Gill and Mark Eddleston celebrate 50 episodes of Leadermorphosis
...umping 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 able to know, as Miki Kashtan put it: "we learn by knowing our impact on others". And I know like, Bryan Ungar...more
Alanna Irving on leadership, decisions and money in bossless organisations
...g to be able to take money and turn it into information, and then do lots of creative and highly flexible things without all the baggage from all the systems we use to manipulate money in mainstream society. And there are pros and cons to that. Some of the stuff that's been developed in mainstream society ...more