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 her own journey, including how to run Agile Scrum on your personal relationship. How to follow Alanna: Twitter: @alannairving Resources: Alanna’s website Alanna’s course on Full Circle Leadership on t...
Jul 26, 2019•55 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast 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 has developed around “radical responsibility”, such as feedback, teal onboarding, and the Role Advice Process, as well as his own personal journey of transformation as a former manager. How to follow E...
Jul 12, 2019•54 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast 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 a local context. She talks about restoring leadership as a noble profession, her take on the growing number of self-managing organisations today, and how we can train as “Warriors for the Human Spirit...
Apr 07, 2019•52 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Holacracy and Sociocracy? Why isn’t Holacracy totally open source? How to follow Brian: Twitter: @h1brian Resources: Holacracy events calendar Offer for listeners: 30% off for HolacracyOne taster workshop...
Mar 27, 2019•46 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Relating, and about Brian’s personal journey to achieving his purpose of changing how people relate to power. How to follow Brian: Twitter: @h1brian Resources: Holacracy events calendar Offer for listen...
Mar 26, 2019•59 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast 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 principles of Liberating Structures and examples of powerful transformations, in organisations and schools, catalysed by simply having different kinds of conversations. Resources: Liberating Structures we...
Mar 10, 2019•53 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast 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 in. How to follow Aaron: Twitter: @aarondignan Resources: “Brave New Work” book website Aaron’s Medium article about the OS Canvas...
Mar 06, 2019•48 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast 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 approach to salaries. He also shares his thoughts on adapting the organisational self-management system Holacracy and how to create an honest feedback culture where the responsibility sits with teams and...
Feb 24, 2019•58 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast 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, the paradoxes and shadow sides of Sociocracy to watch out for, and how we can implement such an approach without becoming "top-down". If you’re interested in transforming your organisation, but stepp...
Feb 06, 2019•42 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast 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 the chance to talk to three nurses from Team Houten, all of whom came from a traditional, large healthcare company, and hear firsthand what it’s like to work in such a high-freedom, high-responsibility ...
Dec 17, 2018•41 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast 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 has lost nine layers of management in favour of nurturing self-managing local care and support teams. Austerity has made it painfully tough for the social care sector, but here’s a story of how one o...
Nov 28, 2018•46 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast 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 “How can we participate differently and unlearn dominative behaviours that have previously been rewarded in hierarchical organisations?” (The companies featured in her research are: Friends of the Earth ...
Nov 08, 2018•46 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast 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 follow Gary: Twitter: @profhamel More resources: Gary’s website: http://www.garyhamel.com/...
Sep 27, 2018•51 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast 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 about the origins of management versus leadership, distributed decision-making, and how to unlearn old habits to shift our organisational culture into what he calls the participation age. Listen to l...
Aug 15, 2018•55 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast 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 mindfulness, as well as some of the challenges of working in a highly regulated and hierarchical sector. How to follow Zoe: Twitter: @zoenicholson4 More resources: Here’s website http://hereweare.org.u...
Jul 12, 2018•46 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast 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 into the culture at Nearsoft, right from the onboarding process. How to follow Anabel: Twitter: @anabel More resources: Nearsoft website https://nearsoft.com/ Learn more about WorldBlu http://www.worl...
Jun 21, 2018•36 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast 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 structures alone isn’t enough. We talk about nonprofits, leadership, and how we can connect the dots across organisational transformation communities. How to follow Simon: Twitter: @harmonizework More resour...
Jun 04, 2018•37 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast 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 along the way. Follow Edwin: https://twitter.com/edwinvdg More resources: Edwin’s new website www.edition.to/en/...
May 17, 2018•40 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast 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 visitors actually implement this way of working when they return to their own companies. More resources: “ A Liar’s Voyage ”, a 60-minute documentary on YouTube about Björn Lundén The Björn Lundén we...
May 02, 2018•37 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast 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 decisions amongst students and educators. How to follow Marianne: Twitter: @WonderingSchool More resources: http://www.wonderingschool.org/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/school-circles-documentary-film#/...
Apr 12, 2018•41 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Stefan Doychev, about the challenges of working in a self-managing team, especially when no one is based in the same country. In particular, we talk about the importance of personal development, being ...
Mar 27, 2018•38 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast 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 appliance manufacturer in the world) in China which is organised into 4,000 self-managing teams. How to follow Doug: Twitter: @Redshifter3 More resources: Doug’s book “Beyond Empowerment: The Age of the Sel...
Feb 08, 2018•49 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast 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 into our learning experiences? What do carnaval, prisons and nature have to do with self-managing teams? Ed, an associate professor at Toulouse Business School, Barcelona and the co-founder of The Coop...
Jan 29, 2018•43 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast 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 transformations. Listen to learn about how she transformed nearly a dozen companies and the successes (and failures) she encountered along the way. How to follow Karin: On Twitter: @ktenelius Website: ht...
Dec 08, 2017•35 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast 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 as well as what the well-being researchers are discovering about current challenges and areas for improvement. How to follow Lotta and Daniela: Check out their culture blogs at https://stories.schuberg...
Nov 23, 2017•37 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast 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. In this episode, she shares some insights from the book; her journey as the cofounder of a living systems, self-managing organisation; and her thoughts on how it’s possible to reinvent financial mo...
Oct 30, 2017•33 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast 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 exciting project which involves self-managed well-being teams, à la Buurtzorg in the Netherlands, with an ambitious mission to scale from six to 600 in under three years. And beneath all of this is a...
Oct 11, 2017•46 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast 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 service development and reinvent management. How to follow Paul: Twitter: @PaulBromford Website: https://paulitaylor.com/ Other resources: Bromford’s publicly accessible Trello board Team of Teams websi...
Sep 18, 2017•43 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast 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, supportive leadership, why we should be wary of the latest organisational fads, and how to involve employees in running experiments in your company to create an inspiring workplace. How to follow Joos...
Aug 30, 2017•39 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 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, scaleup companies and inspiring Mondays. How to follow David: Twitter: @davidtomas Website: http://www.davidtomas.com/ Book of the week: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by K...
Jun 21, 2017•38 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast 
