Leadermorphosis

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 schoo...

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 Med...

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...

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 app...

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 health...

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 team...

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 rewarde...

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/

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...

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 sect...

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: @ana...

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...

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.e...

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 resou...

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:...

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 ba...

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 fo...

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 tea...

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 (...

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 imp...

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...

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, w...

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...

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 e...

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....