Teams

..., due to my personal experience. So that's how I became interested in going that part. So when we started off with Tuff we decided to start with two teams: the management team and the IT team. And I think the IT sector is more advanced in this field because the IT team had already decided to start their...more

...cause I think the idea of giving more control and more mandates to the organisation and together that we were actually creating more cross-functional teams - where the decisions were made more and more -that was something that, for some members of the team, it wasn't their cup of tea. So we had several c...more

...dn't feel that this journey was in their interest. So when they left I actually did the same as I'd done with the IT team: I sat down with their own teams - it was the Operation team, Production and Logistics and it was the Sales and Marketing team. So it was actually two teams that are really crucial f...more

...I sat down with their own teams - it was the Operation team, Production and Logistics and it was the Sales and Marketing team. So it was actually two teams that are really crucial for our deliveries in the organisation - and had a discussion with them on what they wanted to do and if they wanted to try o...more

...o CEOs or senior leaders who are frustrated there are pockets of the organisation that are really on board and moving really fast. But then there are teams and parts of the organisation that are really struggling or resisting or slow. And it's so easy I think at that point to give up and think well, mayb...more

...Lisa Gill: How do you see your role now, now that the management team has dissolved? And I'm assuming those three teams you mentioned (IT and the other two teams) that they're still self-managed, that they haven't reinstalled the manager. How do you see your role as CE...more

...ill: How do you see your role now, now that the management team has dissolved? And I'm assuming those three teams you mentioned (IT and the other two teams) that they're still self-managed, that they haven't reinstalled the manager. How do you see your role as CEO now and I guess, what does leadership lo...more

...we have several positions that used to be in the old management team and I'm no longer their manager, they don't have a manager as the self-organised teams don't have a manager - so work more in groups where we need to work. So I think, more and more, that the organisation is using me more as a support a...more

... They found a different way to contribute to the organisation? Anna Elgh: Yes, but we are still in the phase where some of the company is some of the teams have managers. So some of the managers from the management teams, they are still manager for their team and that's working fine. But of course, I thi...more

...na Elgh: Yes, but we are still in the phase where some of the company is some of the teams have managers. So some of the managers from the management teams, they are still manager for their team and that's working fine. But of course, I think there is this question in the air: where are we going and are ...more

... a manager? But we've never taken that decision. It has to evolve and it has to be driven from the organisation - what the next step is for different teams....more

...Lisa Gill: Yeah, it sounds like you've started with teams where there's the most or natural energy towards experimenting with this way of working, like the IT team, the Management team and then those other t...more

...s where there's the most or natural energy towards experimenting with this way of working, like the IT team, the Management team and then those other teams, and the managers left. So I think that's a good approach to not enforce this or to rush it, but to allow it to evolve in the organisation and as you...more

...problem or an obstacle in how should we do now - I can take an example. But how are we supposed to take decisions in the new organisation? One of the teams got this task to look through - well, how can we do? How are we supposed to think when we take decisions? And also to clarify, we have some different...more

.... They ended up in a process that is 100 times better than the way we used to do things and they managed to set up a process that could work both for teams with a manager and teams without a manager....more

...ess that is 100 times better than the way we used to do things and they managed to set up a process that could work both for teams with a manager and teams without a manager....more

... has to take on responsibility of their journey and decide when it's time for them to take the next step, and what is the next step for the different teams. And what what is clear is that many of the self-organised teams that we have in the organisation, they don't want to go back to the old way of work...more

...'s time for them to take the next step, and what is the next step for the different teams. And what what is clear is that many of the self-organised teams that we have in the organisation, they don't want to go back to the old way of working. So you're very clear about that. And then we have other teams...more

...teams that we have in the organisation, they don't want to go back to the old way of working. So you're very clear about that. And then we have other teams that are not really, but also are self-organised, that feel that it's not really efficient right now - we need to do some changes. And the hard thing...more

...hing now is not to fall back and start taking top down decisions, to really continue to be in this even though we see such positive effects that some teams, other teams must find their way. I can just go to myself, I'm no longer the same to your managers that I used to be. So if the organisation should ...more

...ot to fall back and start taking top down decisions, to really continue to be in this even though we see such positive effects that some teams, other teams must find their way. I can just go to myself, I'm no longer the same to your managers that I used to be. So if the organisation should take a decisi...more

...eople that you've spoken to - other CEOs or leaders have asked you this, but for people listening who are on their own journey towards self-organised teams or towards more Lean or Agile ways of working, having gone through this journey yourself and, of course, it's ongoing, but what advice would you give...more

... and things that you're proud of in terms of how you responded? Jos de Blok: I think what we saw when it started, we learned very fast from the first teams who had to deal with Covid. So it started in Holland, in the south, and we created a kind of what we call the Crisis Team, but with different people,...more

...w we can get them in different places and otherwise we will make them ourselves. But we saw there was a lot of resilience. And if you look at the way teams dealt with it, was very flexible. So what we saw was that the teams were immediately in action when there was Corona in this village or in this neigh...more

...m ourselves. But we saw there was a lot of resilience. And if you look at the way teams dealt with it, was very flexible. So what we saw was that the teams were immediately in action when there was Corona in this village or in this neighborhood where they were working. We heard it also from others that ...more

...starting command and control strategy; so top down, it's crisis, now we have to put clear protocols on everything. And we said, no, we should ask the teams what they need in their daily work, how they deal with it and then we can translate it into guidelines also for the other teams. So there was continu...more

...no, we should ask the teams what they need in their daily work, how they deal with it and then we can translate it into guidelines also for the other teams. So there was continuous communication every day. The Crisis Team was 24 hours a day available. So we said, okay, everybody should be able to go with...more

... own daily work - try to find ways to deal with it in the best possible way. And that's what I heard also from the environment that people said your teams and your nurses responded differently than all the other organisations. So they were seen as strong, capable, responsible people who took care of all...more

...I've read things about Buurtzorg that you have this amazing ability to, as you say, not protocolise things. I think it's also the same when different teams have developed new products or services, that it's very much share the ideas and see where they spread and allow the teams to choose which ones they ...more

...so the same when different teams have developed new products or services, that it's very much share the ideas and see where they spread and allow the teams to 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 t...more

...ey spread and allow the teams to 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 yo...more

...ation. But it has to come from the daily practice. So my idea was that, okay when we create this, when we have these environments, when we have these teams who enjoy working together, who feel confident about what they're doing because they are the owners of their daily work, who feel the space to explor...more

... power, or have had power in the past? Because I find that that can so easily sabotage and even the most beautifully set up environment of autonomous teams and things like that. So do you think it's enough to create the environment? Or do you think there's also something else needed? Because it's kind of...more

...depends on what you consider as the environment. So for me, it's also the reflection. So you have to be aware that there is always a dynamic in these teams and when there is pressure like we have now with Covid, we should argue, we should discuss what does it do with us? Does it influence our behaviour i...more

...and that we can contribute so that their lives can become better. Our nurses have these networks. So when you see in Amsterdam, even when some of the teams are in these buildings, where they also take care of homeless people and we do it together. So for me, it's very important that we say, okay, healthc...more

...m a sort of traditional organisation, and they're trying to implement. So I talk to a lot of organisations in that sector who are creating autonomous teams, they're bringing in coaches to support them, but they come across challenges, like, for example, managers feeling really threatened by it and saying...more

...sistent. So it should not be something just taught by some people who said: "Okay we have an idea, we structure it in another way, we make autonomous teams". Now it's about dialogue; it's about reflection, about how do you see your work? How do you see these different roles in an organisation? And if you...more

...ind that that's really valuable for people, especially in organisations, maybe slightly different to Buurtzorg where there's lots of cross-functional teams and complexity and a mix of managers and I think in an organisation where there's very competent nurses, they're really kind of driving most of the o...more

...o get out of the way and support them. But it seems to me like in other organisations, where as I said, there are lots of different cross-functional teams and lots of other layers of complexity, that it's even more challenging and you need to have even stronger levels of communication skills, building t...more

... talking about, I think that a lot of them even don't know exactly what they're talking about. So that's my perception. I've been a lot in management teams and I've talked a lot with CEOs from all kinds of companies and when I see this language, then I see uncertainty - I see that people don't really kno...more

... eager to start something, but they don't have a good business model. That's also what I see sometimes at Buurtzorg - that they say: "This working in teams and taking care of people - wonderful! We also want to do it". But, (I have these discussions a lot in the UK, within the NHS), you need to have a cl...more

...more detail if there's an opportunity. And that really started to enable us to have a foundation to our self-managing approach, it was this idea that teams can be self-managing. Agile really gave us that way into stripping out middle management, stripping out any kind of command or control, really challe...more

...anisation. So 2013 was that sort of key moment there. And then fast forward a couple of years, that's going really well for the software development teams. And you know, those in the organisation at the time, which I think we're probably around about thirty to forty people, thought this could work for t...more

... but we also kind of had an organisation of two halves, which was kind of where some of the pain points came for us. Because you had your development teams who are already self-managing within a company that had line management, because they had the Scrum methodology to support their agile self-managemen...more

...ning to you, what strikes me is there was both a drive of necessity and organisational effectiveness in terms of how to make the software development teams more effective, less siloed, etc. But it also sounds like there were some key principles as well, and kind of almost like philosophies or worldviews ...more

...What about transparency? How are we enabling contribution? And they came out of a place of, well, what kind of culture do we want? How do we want our teams to feel like and I think as we've already mentioned, a lot of it has come out of, well, something's not working or there's some pain. So what are we ...more

...Gill: Yeah, I love that. I'd love to talk a bit about leadership. I think there are a lot of misconceptions when people start exploring self-managing teams that there, you know, should be no leadership, there should be no leaders. And I want to talk about this in two parts, because I know in Mayden, that...more

...lenge, to champion. And it's really exciting to see that emerging from our own. And these are conversations that they had with members of staff, with teams across the business. And actually, that's another piece of work that we want to take forward and really explore further. I don't know if Ruth might h...more

... influence those around them, what you say, how you act, it matters. People see that and are influenced by it. And so, thinking about the development teams, we've taken an approach where every one of our 30 plus software developers are all developers, there's no senior, mid-senior, we don't hire on that ...more

...really value is us being a bit more back in person, so much of our culture is experienced and our ways of working is learned through osmosis. And the teams are really great. Each team has their way of expressing it as well. So, I can tell and train everyone on the bare bones and the blueprint so to speak...more

...y special way and a unique way to them. And so we also want them to experience their team's approach, their team's self-managing way of working. Some teams use Scrum, some teams use other Agile methodology to organise themselves. So you want the individual to experience it for a while, and then have anot...more

...ique way to them. And so we also want them to experience their team's approach, their team's self-managing way of working. Some teams use Scrum, some teams use other Agile methodology to organise themselves. So you want the individual to experience it for a while, and then have another touch point of a b...more

...kind of touch points, but also lived experience that happens as well. Ruth Waterfield: Just as a small example, often when developers join one of our teams, I'm the scrum master for a team, and that is a servant-leadership role. So I do have a place in coaching and facilitating, but I'm not in charge. I ...more

... what drives the ability to make progress. Philippa Kindon: Yeah, I would agree with Ruth completely and add a couple of things if I may. Some of our teams are not completely guided by Scrum and Agile, but most teams now have some form of retrospective or team space where that is the space to have those ...more

...eah, I would agree with Ruth completely and add a couple of things if I may. Some of our teams are not completely guided by Scrum and Agile, but most teams now have some form of retrospective or team space where that is the space to have those kinds of conversations. We have made use of team coaching. So...more

...s of conversations. We have made use of team coaching. So a very similar function to the Scrum Master, but not somebody that's completely embedded in teams. And any team at any point can say, "We think we need a bit of help with something, can you hold a space for us, hold a space for a difficult convers...more

...d that adult-to-adult space, and what those kinds of conversations can look and feel like. And another one that we've really introduced and encourage teams to use is the ladder of inference, where you can really start to recognise some of your own underlying assumptions, and you can help one another to r...more

...o them, and they're just starting out on the journey, versus somebody like Ruth, who's had lots of experience of working as a Scrum Master and across teams, would be a little bit more au fait to different feedback conversations. It's meeting everybody where they're at, and supporting them on their journe...more

...d love to ask you. But I'd love to know what your advice would be for listeners who are on their own journeys with new ways of working, self-managing teams perhaps, what advice would you have valued when you joined, for example, or what has stayed with you? Ruth Waterfield: I think the shorter you can ma...more

...it is done by people coordinating and collaborating and communicating with each other in very important, rich ways. So, I thought: “OK I’ll study how teams learn from mistakes” and what happened was I got data on mistakes, or at least experts in the medical setting had collected these data over a six-mon...more

...sing a survey instrument. And the relationship between these two data sources was kind of odd because it fundamentally was suggesting that the better teams were making more mistakes, not fewer. And I had fervently believed it would be the other way around. I then, after my surprise, started thinking abou...more

...e mistakes that do get made can be covered up — unless they lead to something awful, they can be covered up. So I started thinking, maybe the better teams aren’t making more mistakes, maybe the better teams are those where people are more willing and able to talk about mistakes. And so I didn’t have a n...more

...ss they lead to something awful, they can be covered up. So I started thinking, maybe the better teams aren’t making more mistakes, maybe the better teams are those where people are more willing and able to talk about mistakes. And so I didn’t have a name for it at that point, but I thought this was at ...more

... you’re really with the next generation of leaders, what are you finding is increasingly important in terms of building leadership capacities for the teams and organisations of the future? AE: You know I think it’s this — I don’t know what the right word is, but the kind of emotional muscle to deal with...more

... 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 me. So some people listen...more

...either. AE: Exactly. We underestimate the degree to which the old model doesn’t work. And then we think: “Let’s try something new like self-managing teams, let’s try Agile — oh it didn’t work, so we go back to the old way.” But the old way wasn’t working, we just didn’t know it wasn’t working. ...more

...ess hierarchical, more productive dynamics, and that's something that I know a lot of listeners are in that context; where they're in these dispersed teams, and they're wanting to work in a decentralised way, and in some ways, they're setup to do that, but in other ways, it's really, really difficult whe...more

...eally, really difficult when you're not face to face. And so what are some of your findings in that field? Michael Y. Lee: I think globally dispersed teams face a kind of extreme case of the challenge that every team faces, which is: how do you avoid these negative, dysfunctional, hierarchical dynamics f...more

...eractions together in a way they wouldn't on their own. And so, the combination or I think, spaces and scripts can be an interesting set of tools for teams to use to facilitate these more positive dynamics. And I think specifically for globally dispersed teams, what we found was that they didn't have to ...more

...ripts can be an interesting set of tools for teams to use to facilitate these more positive dynamics. And I think specifically for globally dispersed teams, what we found was that they didn't have to be face to face - these interactions could happen over long distances and in relatively short periods of ...more

...l feels kind of weird to be doing this. And so that's such an interesting edge - that we know it's good, we know it actually leads to good things for teams and for individuals but yet, it's not something we would really do on our own, because it's not comfortable....more

... humans have because of our hard wiring, and actually steer them into more positive behaviors that we know are going to be better for individuals and teams and organisations?...more

...u're working in a self-managing organisation, or working in a hierarchical structure, we know that these are the types of qualities that are good for teams, that are part of effective leadership. And we know also, I think, from many of the wisdom traditions, that this is also probably just good for indiv...more

...join us. I think we were five? Jolanda: At first we started with four, but after a month Sheila joined. And then we were six. And now there are three teams in in Houten. Marian: And what we had to do was look for a location. I spent the money for a location. We found it together and made our home, I thin...more

... will be okay. That's what he does. And that's true. Marian: And you speak a lot with each other... Chila: Yeah, there is a good communication in the teams. Marian: We give each other feedback. Chila: That's also a problem sometimes in the self-leadership thing. Because if you cannot do that in a team, i...more

... sooner or later. So we do that. Sometimes it's difficult, but most of time we manage. And it's been ten years, so... Jolanda: But there are a lot of teams that have a lot of problems. Chila: Yes, of course, it is difficult. Marian: It's not possible that you have any one leader, everyone is the same. An...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 everything. So for one client, you can order stuff for the client or mate...more

... to buy flowers, because we lost our colleague. And we had a hard time. So she came by and she brought us that. But she also has many difficulties in teams to solve. And sometimes they are not to be solved because there are people who don't see that they don't belong there. They want to be a leader and i...more

...stant pressure to make cuts in the public sector, perhaps we'll see many more Buurtzorg-inspired examples popping up like Helen Sanderson's Wellbeing Teams in England, or Cornerstone, the social care company in Scotland. If you haven't heard those Leadermorphosis episodes, I really recommend them. I've p...more

...we associate with managers anyway. In any case, I think my interpretation, or maybe my belief in general is that there is leadership in self-managing teams, but it's a chosen kind of leadership. It's a leadership where we all step into our own authority in different ways and it's dynamic. Its leaderful, ...more

...wants to change the future for themselves and for the country, and so on, and we are also then working in this interesting world of like self-managed teams and experimenting with this new paradigm of how to run an organisation. And these three things, they play along quite well, because we are in the ind...more

...le plan; we are 380 people now in total, and we plan to be more than 1000 people in around four years from now, while still being this decentralised, teams decision-making and so on, which I actually think on the other end, that approach gives that opportunity as well because growing in this way means th...more

...one; making sure that we are actually doing the right things and so on. And now since we have grown up and have this coordination or functions in the teams and so on, this is something that more and more lands on the whole organisation, so that the organisation is more and more involved in these sort of ...more

...tatives from these teams to talk with each other. Because, yeah, the overstaffed team can bullshit you as a leader, but they can’t bullshit the other teams, right? Like the other teams will say: “You are understaffed, and we’re in pain. We need help!” And so in this case, that was all that was needed. I...more

...alk with each other. Because, yeah, the overstaffed team can bullshit you as a leader, but they can’t bullshit the other teams, right? Like the other teams will say: “You are understaffed, and we’re in pain. We need help!” And so in this case, that was all that was needed. It’s a it’s a big shift for le...more

...us, we'll find out. But it has been somewhat proven that we can pair with those tensions. And that's the basis of your first experiment. So a lot of teams that we'll work with - here's a tension, here's a few practices we're willing to consider - now you have everything you need to go do an experiment. ...more