Episodes
Tamila Gresham and Simon Mont from Harmonize on new ways of seeing, being and working together
The way groups are working together is not working. But introducing new structures alone is not enough. Tamila and Simon talk to me about how we need to develop our ways of seeing, being and working together if we want to act in the highest possible alignment with our vision. A key part of this is u
Ep. 95
May 21, 2024
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Etienne Salborn and Tonny Wamboga on SINA, self-organisation and ‘freesponsibility’
SINA (Social Innovation Academy) is a network of social enterprise incubators in Uganda and neighbouring countries with a mission of supporting marginalised young people to create their own solutions to social problems in their communities.There are currently more than 10 SINA communities which have
Ep. 94
Mar 28, 2024
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Tirzah Enumah and Mike Arauz from August Public Inc. on psychological safety, equity and inclusion
In this episode we talk all about psychological safety – the misconceptions, what it actually means in practice, what we can learn about it through an equity lens, and how we can design organisational structures that support it (like decision-making protocols). We also talk about how August does onb
Ep. 93
Feb 28, 2024
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Miki Kashtan and Emma Quayle from NGL on the capacity lens as a path to reinvent ourselves and our organisations
Miki is the seed founder and Emma a founding member of the Nonviolent Global Liberation community (NGL), which runs entirely as a gift economy. They and NGL as a whole are knee-deep in visionary experimentation about what it would take to realign humanity with life through online and community livin
Ep. 92
Feb 1, 2024
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Miquel, Blanca and Pau from Deerns Spain on becoming a self-managing engineering company
Deerns Spain, a team of around 60 engineers, has been on a transformation journey since March 2020. Inspired by K2K Emocionando, they now work without managers which means that everyone is “creating our company all the time”. I talked to Miquel Castellvi (General Coordinator), Blanca Capdevila (Peop
Ep. 91
Sep 26, 2023
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adrienne maree brown on Emergent Strategy and being in right relationship with change
I'm thrilled to have adrienne maree brown on the podcast, someone who 'grows ideas in public' through her writing, her podcasts and her music. Ideas like Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice. We talk about what it means to be in right relationship with
Ep. 90
May 31, 2023
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Ted Rau on parallels between Relationship Anarchy and self-management
What can the realm of self-management and new ways of working learn from the realm of polyamory, Relationship Anarchy and open relationships? And how can practices in self-organising work teams help us improve our personal relationships? Ted Rau is the co-founder of Sociocracy for All and author of
Ep. 89
May 10, 2023
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Jessica and Douglas Rauch from Aquadec on tradesmen and teal
Douglas Rauch was thinking of selling his construction business until he read Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux. After that, Aquadec went on a transformation journey to becoming a self-managing company. Douglas and his daughter Jessica share the ups and downs of this process over the last
Ep. 88
Apr 25, 2023
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Kimberly Loh on Compassionate Conversations and understanding our patterns in conflicts
Kimberly Loh works in the worlds of conflict resolution, coaching, embodiment and mindfulness. She is also the co-author of ‘Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart.’ We talk about learning to be aware of patterns we have when it comes to engaging with conflict, and Kim s
Ep. 87
Apr 12, 2023
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Sanjay Fernandes on Self-Organised Learning Environments in Colombia
Since 2014, Sanjay Fernandes and his colleagues at SOLE Colombia have been teaching citizens the principles of a Self-Organised Learning Environment. He is passionate about reimagining learning and tackling issues like inequality, inspired by decades of research by Sugata Mitra which has shown that
Ep. 86
Mar 23, 2023
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Bernadette Wesley on bridging inner and outer transformation
Bernadette Wesley’s work is all about bridging the world of inner development with the world of being in an organisation together. We talk about Deliberately Developmental Organisations (DDOs); self-organisation and why changing structures is not enough; the Inner Development Goals (IDGs); and three
Ep. 85
Mar 8, 2023
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Transcript
Jon Alexander on the possibility of opening up a Citizen Future
Jon Alexander is the author of the hugely popular 2022 book ‘Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us’. He talks to me about the people he interviewed and the stories he collected which show how it’s possible to go from what he calls a ‘Consumer’ mindset to a ‘Citizen’ mindset – like
Ep. 84
Feb 22, 2023
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Imandeep Kaur on reimagining social and civic infrastructures for the challenges of the 21st century
What would it look like to reimagine the systems of a whole city? To really involve citizens in addressing the huge challenges we face today? Imandeep Kaur reflects on what she has learned in the last ten years from being part of an ecosystem of social entrepreneurs in Birmingham who are cultivating
Ep. 83
Feb 9, 2023
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Ruth, Taryn and Philippa from Mayden, a health tech company that’s Made Without Managers
Three authors of the book ‘Made Without Managers: One Company’s Journey to New Ways of Working’ join me to talk about what they have learned at Mayden, a cloud based health tech solutions organisation in the UK. Ruth Waterfield (developer and scrum master), Taryn Burden (product owner of Mayden’s ne
Ep. 82
Jan 11, 2023
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Erik Korsvik Østergaard on fragmented organisations and futures literacy
Erik is an executive advisor on transformation and the future of work, leadership, and collaboration, and the author of ‘Teal Dots in an Orange World.’ We talk about how this 'new ways of working' movement is evolving, and in particular a positive trend that Erik calls 'fragmented organisations' tha
Ep. 81
Nov 23, 2022
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Mette Aagaard on how a public sector organisation with 8,000 employees is exploring autonomous teams
For the past year, the Municipality of Slagelse in Denmark has been experimenting with autonomous teams. Of the 8,000 employees, some 25-30 units so far have opted in to learn how to make decisions as a team using key principles of Sociocracy. Mette Aagaard, Head of Development, shares what they hav
Ep. 80
Sep 20, 2022
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Lina Maskoliūnė on lessons from a self-managed business experiment in Lithuania
Lina shares the story of her time at Finnish commercial real estate company Technopolis where she led the transformation of the Lithuania business unit. Inspired by Frederic Laloux's book Reinventing Organisations, she got the mandate from her boss to run her business unit of 20 people in a totally
Ep. 79
Sep 7, 2022
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Sofia Reis and Luís Alberto Simões on experiments guided by autonomy and connection at Mindera
Sofia and Luís talk about the self-organisation journey at global software engineering company, Mindera. With 900+ employees and counting, they have evolved as a company without managers through experiments guided by questions like: Will this bring more autonomy? Is it human friendly? This has resul
Ep. 78
Aug 17, 2022
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Aaron Dignan on using software to help scale new ways of working
Aaron Dignan, author of Brave New Work and founder of The Ready, is back on the podcast, this time to talk about how his new software startup, Murmur, can help organisations scale new ways of working. We talk about the importance of team agreements and how to keep them alive, plus what Aaron and his
Ep. 77
Aug 2, 2022
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Ria Baeck and J.D. Nasaw on trauma informed collaboration
Ria Baeck and J.D. Nasaw. Ria and J.D. are both coaches and facilitators who combine scientific research of trauma with embodied practices of collective intelligence and wisdom. In our conversation, we discuss questions like: what does trauma have to do with new ways of working? How can we be more
Ep. 76
Jun 29, 2022
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Alice Sheldon on needs understanding and the partnership paradigm
Alice Sheldon is the author of ‘Why Weren’t We Taught This at School?’ and the founder of Needs Understanding, an approach for finding creative solutions and building relationships at home and at work. I love how Alice shares practical tools and stories to bring to life some of the principles of Non
Ep. 75
Jun 13, 2022
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Matt Perez on going from a fiat hierarchy to a radical company without bosses or employees
Matt Perez realised that his successful career as a boss in a Silicon Valley tech company had made him a worse person and so he co-founded Nearsoft in 2007 to be a company that works for everyone. His recent book, Radical Companies Without Bosses or Employees, takes self-organisation one step furthe
Ep. 74
May 6, 2022
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Kate Beecroft on the critiques and possibilities of DAOs
Kate Beecroft works on ecosystem and community building at Centrifuge, the decentralised asset financing protocol. She has been involved in Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) since 2018 and brings to them her experience of self-managing organisations as the co-founder of Greaterthan and a
Ep. 73
Feb 24, 2022
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Swarnalakshmi Ravi on Inclusive Neighbourhood Children’s Parliaments
Swarnalakshmi Ravi is the former national prime minister of India's Inclusive Neighbourhood Children's Parliament. The children’s parliament movement is an example of how simple but effective governance principles and structures can make children’s voices heard and empower them to take collective ac
Ep. 72
Feb 9, 2022
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Marwa Farouq on new ways of working, diversity, equity and inclusion at Teach for All
Marwa Farouq leads the Global Operations Circle in Teach for All, which is a global network of partner organisations developing collective leadership to improve education and expand opportunity for all children. Marwa shares what she’s learned from exploring new ways of working at Teach for All, inc
Ep. 71
Jan 17, 2022
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Ravi Resck on social systems that foster win-win-win relationships
Ravi Resck was born to hippy parents in Brazil, became a computer network engineer, and then travelled the world as a guitarist, discovering a love of facilitation and social design. Today he goes by tags like hacktivist, org designer, facilitator, and systems mapper, sharing social technologies wit
Ep. 70
Jan 4, 2022
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Jos de Blok on Buurtzorg and the virtues of humanising, not protocolising
Jos de Blok is the founder of Buurtzorg, a home care organisation in the Netherlands with 15,000 nurses and no managers. We talk about how their decentralised, human approach has helped them during the pandemic, why he believes ‘protocolising things’ in organisations does damage, and his advice for
Ep. 69
Dec 5, 2021
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Michael Bungay Stanier on the value of being more coach-like
Michael Bungay Stanier is on a mission to ‘un-weird coaching’ and make it a skill set available to anyone. His books have sold over a million copies and Michael has taught more than 200,000 people. As a big fan of his writing, I wanted to talk to him about why being more ‘coach-like’ is so valuable
Ep. 68
Nov 22, 2021
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Andy Brogan and Helen Sanderson on reinventing performance management (for real!)
The current models for how we measure things in organisations tend to produce compliance at their best, and dysfunctions at their worst. Andy Brogan has developed an alternative tool called Confirmation Practices that he hopes could one day completely shift how we see regulation, accreditation and a
Ep. 67
Nov 9, 2021
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Margaret Heffernan on how to act our way out of the status quo trap
Margaret Heffernan is an author, speaker, business leader and professor. She has written six books and her TED talks have been seen by more than 12 million people. We talk about the ‘status quo trap’ in organisations, myths about whistleblowers, her thoughts on self-management and learning to embrac
Ep. 66
Oct 12, 2021
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Pasteur Byabeza on transitioning to self-management at Davis College
Pasteur Byabeza is the lead link of the Student Care Circle at Davis College, a higher learning institution in Rwanda. He is one of the pioneers who has been driving the college’s transition to becoming a self-managed, Holacratic organisation. Though they are early in their journey, taking steps lik
Ep. 65
Sep 27, 2021
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Bayo Akomolafe on generative incapacitation and embracing failure
Bayo Akomolafe is a Nigerian author, professor, chief curator of The Emergence Network and is often known for his poetic and provocative take on big topics such as global crisis and social change. We talk about what he calls 'generative incapacitation' and the kind of leadership that’s needed in the
Ep. 64
Sep 10, 2021
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Jocelyn Davis on leadership as influence and group development
“Command authority is a poor basis for life.” Jocelyn Davis is an author, speaker and the former head of R&D at global consultancy The Forum Corporation. We talk about how she weaves together the threads of leadership, Eastern philosophy and dramatic literature. Her insights on group development, le
Ep. 63
Jul 1, 2021
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Alex Barker and Sam Conniff on what we can learn from being more pirate
Sam Conniff and Alex Barker’s books ‘Be More Pirate’ and ‘How to Be More Pirate’ have sparked a movement of people around the world who want to shake things up, to create new business models and systems that are better for people and planet. The tagline on their website says: "Being more pirate is a
Ep. 62
Jun 10, 2021
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Topi Jokinen on levelling up a construction firm with self-organisation
Topi Jokinen is one of the founders of a small Finnish company in the construction sector called Vertia. Since 2018, Topi has been leading a transformation in the company based on the idea of self-organising cells to help it grow and develop. He is perhaps the first CEO I have met who has done this
Ep. 61
May 25, 2021
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Anna Thomson and David Baksh on Yoghurt Utopia and meaning at work
Filmmakers Anna Thomson and David Baksh talk to me about Yoghurt Utopia, their documentary about a yoghurt company whose mission is to provide work and accommodation for people living with mental illness in the Catalonia region in Spain. Having spent several years with some of the workers of La Fage
Ep. 60
Mar 30, 2021
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Yuji Yamada on Reinventing Organisations through a Japanese lens
Yuji Yamada is the founder of EnFlow and is interested in exploring the differences between approaching organisational transformation from a ‘Western lens’ and a Japanese lens. We talk about teal organisations from Frederic Laloux’s book ‘Reinventing Organisations’ (which has sold 100,000 copies in
Ep. 59
Mar 1, 2021
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Richard D. Bartlett and Natalia Lombardo from The Hum on going from a domination to a partnership society
Rich and Nati are the founders of collaboration consultancy The Hum and part of the Enspiral network. Between them, they have a background in activism, engineering, community organising and entrepreneurship and are well-respected thought leaders when it comes to decentralised organisations, self-man
Ep. 58
Feb 15, 2021
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Nand Kishore Chaudhary from Jaipur Rugs on love, collective consciousness and self-management
Nand Kishore Chaudhary is the remarkable founder of Jaipur Rugs, a company employing 40,000 weavers in 600 villages selling beautiful carpets in 40 countries. The artisans – most of them women in India’s “untouchable” class – are the “heroes of the business”, and self-managed principles like distrib
Ep. 57
Feb 2, 2021
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Anna Elgh on self-managing teams and shifting conflicts at Svenska Retursystem
Anna Elgh is the CEO of Svenska Retursystem, a Swedish circular economy logistics company. We talk about the transformations she has led at the company since joining in 2014, from Lean to nearly three years of moving towards self-managing teams. She shares what she has learned about transforming con
Ep. 56
Nov 3, 2020
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Frederic Laloux with an invitation to reclaim integrity and aliveness
Frederic Laloux is the author of the book 'Reinventing Organisations' and one of the leading figures in the new ways of working movement, coining the term ‘teal organisation’ which consists of three breakthroughs: self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose. We talk about how we can use jui
Ep. 55
Oct 9, 2020
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Bill Fischer and Simone Cicero on Haier and the entrepreneurial organisation
Bill Fischer is a Professor of Innovation Management at IMD and Simone Cicero is the cofounder of Boundaryless and co-creator of the Platform Design Toolkit. We talk about what they have learned from years of studying and collaborating with the Chinese company Haier Group, whose Rendanheyi organisat
Ep. 54
Sep 10, 2020
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Jabi Salcedo and Dunia Reverter on K2K’s 10 keys to becoming a self-managing organisation
Jabi Salcedo and Dunia Reverter are coordinators at K2K Emocionando, a Spanish consultancy that has transformed more than 85 organisations from traditional to self-managing over the last two decades. We talk about the radical components of their methodology, such as removing manager roles, balancing
Ep. 53
Aug 27, 2020
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Jorge Silva on horizontal structures and participatory culture at 10Pines
Jorge Silva is the co-founder of 10Pines, a self-managing software development company in Argentina. We talk about three key practices they have as a horizontal organisation, what they’re learning, and Jorge’s vision to spread this way of working in South America. How to follow Jorge: Twitter: @jor
Ep. 52
Jul 2, 2020
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Lisa Gill and Mark Eddleston celebrate 50 episodes of Leadermorphosis
Mark Eddleston, new ways of working consultant and coach and cofounder of the Reinventing Work movement, interviews Lisa Gill as they look back on 50 episodes of the Leadermorphosis podcast. Which conversations have changed their thinking? How has the podcast evolved? What is the next phase of the n
Ep. 51
Jun 16, 2020
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Dr Tjanara Goreng Goreng and Robyn Katz on sacred leadership
Dr Tjanara Goreng Goreng is a Wakka Wakka Wulli Wulli Traditional Owner from Central Queensland, Australia, and Robyn Katz is the founder of Talkpoint, which curates peer-to-peer learning experiences to humanise work. We talk about Tjanara’s PhD research which draws parallels between aboriginal cult
Ep. 50
Jun 3, 2020
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Peter Koenig on source, money and consciousness
Peter Koenig has spent the last decade researching principles for how founders organise and materialise their enterprises, projects and initiatives – what he calls sourcework. We talk about the role of source and source principles and the idea of seeing organisations as energetic fields. We talk abo
Ep. 49
May 6, 2020
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Luz and Edwin from Ian Martin Group on adaptability in a crisis
Luz Iglesias, Director of Recruitment, and Edwin Jansen, Head of Corporate Development, work at Ian Martin Group, a self-managed, teal recruitment company with 400 employees across Canada and India. They share examples and stories of the initiatives, decisions and creativity that have sprung up in r
Ep. 48
Apr 29, 2020
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Skeena Rathor on Extinction Rebellion, paradoxes and transformation
Skeena Rathor, who co-leads the Vision Sensing circle in Extinction Rebellion, shares insights from inside this decentralised movement – how their Holacratic, Sociocratic structures support its collective purpose, the work they’re doing with Miki Kashtan to transform power dynamics, and why Skeena’s
Ep. 47
Apr 17, 2020
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Learnlife learners on self-determined, lifelong learning
Devin Carberry, Director of Learning Programs, and two learners, 16-year-old Gerard Almenara, and 12-year-old Samir Shariputra Chopra, share their experiences of what it’s like to be part of Learnlife in Barcelona. Learnlife is reinventing education by creating an open ecosystem for a lifelong learn
Ep. 46
Mar 26, 2020
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Amy Edmondson on psychological safety and the future of work
Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and the author of “Teaming” and “The Fearless Organisation”. We talk about her journey of researching psychological safety and teaming, as well as the paper she co-wrote about self-managing organisations.
Ep. 45
Mar 10, 2020
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Vivek Menon on ambidextrous organisations
Vivek Menon leads a high growth business unit at Danfoss Power Solutions called eSteering. Their purpose is to build the future steering solutions for off road vehicles. He shares how eSteering works without managers and why he thinks the future of organisations, especially large ones, is building t
Ep. 44
Feb 20, 2020
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Bonnitta Roy on sensemaking and open, participatory organisations
Bonnitta Roy is an author, trainer and creator of the OPO (Open Participatory Organisation), which is a framework people are using to experiment with more collaborative ways of working. She is well-loved in the world of Agile for her approaches to complexity and thinking about human systems. Bonnitt
Ep. 43
Feb 14, 2020
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Ved Krishna on self-management in an Indian paper factory
Ved Krishna is Strategy Head at Yash Pakka, a compostable tableware manufacturer based in Faizabad, India that has been experimenting with organisational self-management since 1999. Ved talks with a lot of heart and honesty about his journey of taking over the family business, then firing himself as
Ep. 42
Feb 3, 2020
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Michael Y. Lee on lessons from researching self-managing organisations
Michael Y. Lee is an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD who researches novel and innovative ways of organising. After reading the paper he co-authored with Amy Edmondson on self-managing organisations, I wanted to talk to him to get his academic perspective on this phenomena.
Ep. 41
Dec 15, 2019
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Bryan Ungard on Decurion and Deliberately Developmental Organisations
Bryan Ungard is the Chief Purpose Officer at Decurion. Decurion is a parent company of a number of businesses, including movie theatres, real estate and senior living, but it's less famous for what it does and more for why and how it does it (as featured in the book “An Everyone Culture”). We talk a
Ep. 40
Nov 6, 2019
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Beetroot’s founders on purpose, self-management, and shocking people with trust
Andreas Flodström and Gustav Henman are the founders of Beetroot, a remarkable IT company set up in 2012 to create social impact in Ukraine. We talk about how culture has played an important role in their self-managed way of organising, the challenges of scaling (from 380 to 1000+ in the next four y
Ep. 39
Oct 14, 2019
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Meg Lightheart on leadership, diversity and mindsets for self-management
Meg Lightheart is a leadership and presentation coach and helps organisations become more inclusive and agile. Meg shares what she’s learned from her research, work, and her own personal experiences as a trans woman about topics like leadership, adult development, and diversity, equity and inclusion
Ep. 38
Sep 30, 2019
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Miki Kashtan on the three shifts needed for self-managing organisations to thrive
Miki Kashtan is an author and an international teacher and practitioner of Nonviolent Communication. In this conversation we talk about the three different places shifts need to occur in order for a self-managing human system to thrive, and how we can start to talk about needs more in order to awake
Ep. 37
Sep 16, 2019
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Manuel Küblböck on models for self-organisation at Gini
Manuel Küblböck is an org design and transformation coach at German fintech company Gini. We talk about the models Gini has developed for self-organisation and how they have defined together terms like power, hierarchy, and autonomy. He also shares challenges like how to foster leadership in a self-
Ep. 36
Sep 3, 2019
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Alanna Irving on leadership, decisions and money in bossless organisations
Alanna Irving is a facilitator, entrepreneur and community builder and is the Executive Director of Open Source Collective. We talk about her chapter in the new book Better Work Together about growing distributed leadership, working together in bossless organisations, collaborating with money, and h
Ep. 35
Jul 26, 2019
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Edwin Jansen on how people adopt self-management at Fitzii
Edwin Jansen is Head of Marketing at Fitzii, a recruitment company based in Canada. We talk about the three stages of self-management adoption he’s noticed (Head, Heart, Habit) and why it’s so challenging for us human beings in the “messy middle” stage. Edwin also shares some practices that Fitzii h
Ep. 34
Jul 12, 2019
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Margaret Wheatley on leadership and Warriors for the Human Spirit
Margaret Wheatley is an author known for bringing lenses like anthropology and quantum science to the fields of leadership and organisational design. In this thoughtful conversation, she challenges the idea of large-scale change in favour of creating “islands of sanity” and doing meaningful work in
Ep. 33
Apr 7, 2019
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Brian Robertson on Holacracy and self-managing organisations (Part 2)
In Part 2 of this conversation with Brian Robertson, Brian answers listeners’ questions from Twitter. Why does the Holacracy framework appear so rigid when other self-managing systems are more organic and flexible? What happened with Holacracy at Medium and Zappos? What’s the difference between Hola
Ep. 32
Mar 27, 2019
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Brian Robertson on Holacracy and self-managing organisations (Part 1)
Brian Roberston is the pioneer of Holacracy, a customisable self-management system used by over 1,000 organisations around the world. In Part 1 of this conversation, we talk about some misconceptions about Holacracy, complementary practices to Holacracy like Nonviolent Communication and Authentic Re
Ep. 31
Mar 26, 2019
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Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz on acting your way into a new kind of organising with Liberating Structures
Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless are the authors of “The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures”. We talk about how Liberating Structures can help you “act your way into a totally new way of organising”, for example, reinventing how we do strategy. Henri and Keith share the fundamental prin
Ep. 30
Mar 10, 2019
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Aaron Dignan on being complexity conscious and people positive
Aaron Dignan, founder of global organisational transformation and coaching practice The Ready, talks about his new book “Brave New Work”. We explore how organisations can reinvent themselves and upgrade their “OS”, not through top-down change, but through principles-based experiments from the edges
Ep. 29
Mar 6, 2019
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Tom van der Lubbe on salaries and purpose in self-managing organisations
Tom van der Lubbe, the co-founder of a small, Dutch mortgage advice company called Viisi, had an existential crisis at a young age and has been conscious of doing purposeful work ever since. We talk about the science of motivation and management and how Viisi has developed a simple but powerful appr
Ep. 28
Feb 24, 2019
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Ted Rau on running organisations as equals with Sociocracy
Ted Rau is the co-founder of Sociocracy for All and co-author of the book Many Voices, One Song. In this conversation we talk about how we can distribute authority in organisations and relate to each other as equals using Sociocracy, the “power over, power under” tendencies we have as human beings,
Ep. 27
Feb 6, 2019
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Buurtzorg and the power of self-managed teams of nurses
Buurtzorg is a remarkable organisation: 15,000 employees working in 850 self-managed teams to deliver home care to patients in the Netherlands. The results, including both patient and employee satisfaction, are so outstanding that Buurtzorg-inspired models are popping up all over the world. I got th
Ep. 26
Dec 17, 2018
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Edel Harris on transforming social care in Scotland
Learn about the remarkable transformation journey CEO Edel Harris has been leading with one of Scotland’s largest charities, Cornerstone. It began by taking three months out of the business to visit inspiring companies around the world like Southwest Airlines and Buurtzorg. Two years in, Cornerstone
Ep. 25
Nov 28, 2018
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Sarah Houseman on new governance for the Anthropocene
Researcher and entrepreneur Sarah Houseman shares insights from her PhD research into new governance systems in not for profit organisations. Looking at the lived experiences and practices of four non-hierarchical NGOs, we explore questions like “How we can see our organisations as systems?” and “Ho
Ep. 24
Nov 8, 2018
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Gary Hamel on busting bureaucracy for good
Gary Hamel is one of the world’s leading business thinkers, Professor at London Business School and director of The Management Lab. In this conversation, we talk about how we can bust bureaucracy for good, make our organisations more experimental, and reinvent what it means to be a leader.How to fol
Ep. 23
Sep 27, 2018
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Chuck Blakeman on rehumanising organisations
Chuck Blakeman is an entrepreneur, author, and speaker passionate about giving people their brains back in organisations. Although we’ve left the technologies of the industrialist age behind, outdated assumptions and practices are still very much alive in most workplaces today. Chuck shares insights
Ep. 22
Aug 15, 2018
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Zoe Nicholson from Here on reconnecting to an organisation’s purpose
Zoe Nicholson shares the role of Chief Executive at healthcare social enterprise Here in the UK and describes her job as tethering the organisation to its purpose. She shares some of the practices they’ve developed at Here, inspired by sources like Frederic Laloux’s “Reinventing Organisations” and m
Ep. 21
Jul 12, 2018
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Anabel Montiel from Nearsoft on people development in a horizontal organisation
Anabel Montiel, psychologist and People Developer at Mexican IT company Nearsoft, shares how she has helped the company grow to 300+ people without sacrificing its culture and what personal growth and development can look like in a horizontal organisation. She also talks about how feedback is built
Ep. 20
Jun 21, 2018
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Simon Mont from Harmonize on why changing the structures of organisations isn’t enough
Simon Mont, founder of Harmonize, talks about his article “Autopsy of a Failed Holacracy” and the debate it provoked. He believes that if we really want to reimagine our organisations, we need to look at individuals, the organisation, and the larger economic system – changing organisational structur
Ep. 19
Jun 4, 2018
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Edwin van der Geest from Incentro on being a self-managed learning organisation
Edwin van der Geest, former Managing Director and Self-Management Ambassador at IT company Incentro, talks about the transformation he led for several years. He shares practices they’ve developed, including self-set salaries and Minimum Viable Teams, and the challenges and triumphs they experienced
Ep. 18
May 17, 2018
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Bjorn Lunden from BL Information on scrapping stupid rules in companies
Björn Lundén, the founder of Björn Lundén Information in Sweden, is an original rebel. He doesn’t believe in rules or bosses or ‘secret salaries’. We talk about how his company of 115 employees has been self-managed for over thirty years, his thoughts on the future of work, and why so few interested
Ep. 17
May 2, 2018
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Marianne Osorio from Wondering School on liberating education
Marianne Osorio is researching “liberating education” and shares what she’s learnt so far from democratic schools in her home country, Brazil, and beyond. We also talk about a documentary she’s making about schools in the Netherlands using Sociocracy to facilitate dialogue and consent-based decision
Ep. 16
Apr 12, 2018
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People from Hack and Paint on self-management in a remote team
Marin Petrov and Christian Haniszewski have worked at some of the most creative companies in the world but wanted to create their own company with freedom at its core. Thus, Hack and Paint was born. I talked to Marin, Christian and three of their teammates, Martina Petkov, Miglena Chervenkova, and S
Ep. 15
Mar 27, 2018
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Doug Kirkpatrick from The Self-Management Institute on principles for self-managing organisations
Doug Kirkpatrick, co-founder of The Self-Management Institute, original team member of Morning Star and author of “Beyond Empowerment”, shares his insights about common misconceptions of self-management, what it really takes to have self-management work, and the example of Haier (the largest applian
Ep. 14
Feb 8, 2018
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Ed Gonsalves from The Cooplexity Institute on breaking paradigms through play
Ed Gonsalves has spent more than two decades studying the concept of play and specialises in designing senior executive programmes for high performance teams in entrepreneurial and large organisations. Is it possible to discover new paradigms of working and leading by incorporate unstructured play i
Ep. 13
Jan 29, 2018
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Karin Tenelius from Tuff Leadership Training on giving away the authority
Karin has been experimenting with employee-driven organisations and self-managing teams since the nineties. She shares the approach she’s developed which involves “giving all of the authority away” and then coaching people in a higher level of communication skills, resulting in radical and rapid tra
Ep. 12
Dec 8, 2017
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Lotta Croiset van Uchelen from Schuberg Philis on self-steering teams and wholeness
IT infrastructure company Schuberg Philis has over 250 people and no managers. Lotta Croiset van Uchelen, Chief DNA Officer, and Daniela Resch, Wellbeing Researcher, talk about how engineers are organised in self-steering teams. They share examples of practices that are “hygienic”, dynamic systems a
Ep. 11
Nov 23, 2017
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Samantha Slade from Percolab on practicing self-management
Samantha Slade is the cofounder of Percolab, an international community of companies interested in exploring what the future of organisations can be. Based in Montreal, Canada, she is writing a book on the seven practices to help organisations become more horizontal and rewire us for self-management
Ep. 10
Oct 30, 2017
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Helen Sanderson from HSA on reinventing home care
Helen Sanderson is a leader of several social enterprises specialising in “person-centred care.” She shares her story of stepping back as CEO of her company HSA to create a self-managing team and all the leadership and culture challenges they encountered along the way. Helen also announces a new and
Ep. 9
Oct 11, 2017
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Paul Taylor from Bromford Labs on rethinking failure in your organisation
Paul Taylor, as a ‘Lab Coach’ at social enterprise Bromford, is on a mission to change how organisations perceive failure. Inspired by radical, self-management pioneers like healthcare company Buurtzorg, he shares some of the working-out-loud experiments he’s been running to innovate product and ser
Ep. 8
Sep 18, 2017
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Joost Minnaar from Corporate Rebels on making work more fun
Joost Minnaar shares his insights from visiting more than 50 of the most inspiring workplaces around the world. Appalled by the statistic that only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work, Joost co-founded The Corporate Rebels to make work more fun. We talk about The Corporate Rebels Canvas,
Ep. 7
Aug 30, 2017
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David Tomas from Cyberclick on the happiest company in the world
David is the cofounder of digital marketing company Cyberclick in Barcelona organised around happiness. Far from being a gimmick, though, he has developed ways of measuring happiness and creating a self-managing company where people can find fulfillment at work. We talk about the power of habit, sca
Ep. 6
Jun 21, 2017
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Tom Nixon from Maptio on creative authority in self-managing companies
Tom Nixon is an entrepreneur and coach who works with founders to help them realise their ideas, and supports organisations to reconnect them to their purpose. We talk about his latest venture Maptio which is a mapping tool for self-managing organisations. How do you avoid creative entropy as your c
Ep. 5
Jun 13, 2017
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Francesca Pick from OuiShare on a lab for new ways of working
Francesca Pick is a project manager, consultant and speaker that works on how tech can change business, society and human interaction. She is a Connector at OuiShare, which she describes as a lab for new ways of working, and her latest project is Cobudget, a collaborative funding tool. We talk about
Ep. 4
Jun 6, 2017
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Jurriaan Kamer from Agile CIO on agile organisations and beyond
This episode features Jurriaan Kamer, the founder of Agile CIO and member of The Ready. He helps organisations become adaptive, responsive, self-organising ecosystems by implementing new practices, structures, rhythms and technologies that enable transparency, openness, innovation and a progressive
Ep. 3
May 30, 2017
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Susan Basterfield from Enspiral on self-management
Susan Basterfield is a Foundation Catalyst and Ambassador within the self-managing collective Enspiral and helps individuals and organisations worldwide experiment with new ways of working and being. She is also co-author of Reinventing Startups and has developed a a five-week immersive online prog
Ep. 2
May 24, 2017
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Perry Timms from PTHR on reinventing HR and work
My guest this episode is Perry Timms, author of the book "Transformational HR" and a practitioner who has spent the last twenty years in technology, organisational change and HR. He is also a global and TEDx speaker on the future of work, and a WorldBlu® certified Freedom at Work Consultant and Coac
Ep. 1
May 9, 2017
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