Leadermorphosis

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 using the lens of Power, Belonging and Justice (PBJ) and strengthening our muscle in Conflict Resilience. Strap in for some powerful wisdom, giggles and deep learning.

Harmonize is a worker-owned cooperative that helps groups work together through Comprehensive Organizational Development and Analysis (CODA™). Tamila and Simon are the co-founders of Harmonize.

Resources:

• Harmonize’s website

• Harmonize’s courses

• Simon’s blog series on the Common Mistakes in Self-Management

• And his article ‘Autopsy of a Failed Holacracy’

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 19 with Simon Mont back in 2018

• Ep. 33 with Margaret Wheatley

• Ep. 37 with Miki Kashtan

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 catalysed 70+ social enterprises and more than 500 jobs. The goal is to create a global movement of 1,000 SINAs and 100,000 social enterprises by 2035.

Etienne Salborn, founder, and Tonny Wamboga, Operations Lead, talk to me about SINA’s model in which self-organisation plays a central role. How do scholars take on key roles? What is the ‘confusion stage’? What are common misconceptions of self-organisation? What are the specific cultural challenges of learning self-organisation in Uganda? We talk about these questions and more in our conversation.

Resources:

• SINA’s website: https://www.socialinnovationacademy.org/

• More about the SINA framework

• A case study about SINA (non-academic)

• An academic master thesis on the agency aspect of scholars in SINA

• Masters of Social Change, a SINA documentary about refugee activists and social entrepreneurs

• Etienne on the Out of the Clouds podcast talking about the SINA founding story and the model

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 onboarding and creates an adult learning environment through feedback, peer reviews and the role of a ‘Development Advocate’, plus how they relate to the ‘new ways of working’ movement right now.

Tirzah and Mike are teammates at August Public Inc., an organisation and leadership development and change management firm. Tirzah leads August's Equity & Inclusion practice and Mike is a Founding Partner.

Resources:

• Download the August white paper ‘Looking at Psychological Safety Through an Equity Lens’

• Learn more about August and their other insights via their website

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 45 with Prof. Amy Edmondson

• Ep. 41 with Michael Y. Lee about the interpersonal risks research (safe spaces and interaction scripts)

• Michael Y. Lee’s research paper ‘Fostering Positive Relational Dynamics in Teams: The Power of Spaces and Interaction Scripts’ (Academy of Management Journal, 2020)

• Book: ‘Confronting our Freedom: Leading a Culture of Chosen Accountability and Belonging’ by Peter Block and Peter Koestenbaum

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 living experiments.

Even without bosses we can still struggle to embody new ways of being together because of our internalised systems of patriarchal conditioning and capitalist thinking. The capacity lens gives us a way to examine this and make more conscious choices together. As Miki puts it, “Everyone who gets into it falls in love with it, because it moves us from rigidity to flexibility, from predictability to emergence, from coercion to willingness, from judgement to tenderness. Who wouldn't want that?” 

An incredibly valuable episode if you are wrestling with topics like fairness, how to distribute tasks and roles, leadership in a bossless environment, how to avoid burnout or how to deal with overwhelm in the face of huge societal challenges.

Resources:

• Nonviolent Global Liberation website

• Miki and NGL’s learning packet called ‘Resource flow systems: from incentive to willingness’ 

• Link to capacity lens course (access to video recordings only)

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 37 with Miki Kashtan on the three shifts

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 (People & Culture) and Pau Riera (Commitment Coordinator) who shared stories about how they changed their organisational structure, their self-managing salary process, giving feedback and dealing with conflicts, and the role of the Values and Culture team.

Resources:

• Deerns Spain website

• Article in El Pais about Deerns Spain and other ‘teal’ organisations in Spain

• Miquel and Blanca on the Autogestión con Pancho Mora podcast (in Spanish)

• Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

• Ep. 55 with Frederic Laloux

• Ep. 53 with Jabi and Dunia from K2K Emocionando

• Ep. 78 with Sofia and Luís from Mindera

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 change, how to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, sustainable relationships, Pleasure Activism, three thoughts about leadership, what adrienne would do if she was mayor of a large city, and finally some of her favourite practices at the moment.

Resources:

• adrienne’s website where you can find links to her writing and podcasts

• Audre Lorde’s essay ‘Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power’

• Maurice Mitchell’s article ‘Building Resilient Organizations: Toward Joy and Durable Power During a Crisis’

• The Embodiment institute 

• Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity 

• The Chani app

• Related podcast episodes:

• Ep. 37 with Miki Kashtan

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 books like ‘Who Decides Who Decides?’ and ‘Many Voices One Song’. In his personal life, he has been in monogamous relationships and, for the last seven years, in open relationships. We explore the parallels across personal and professional relationships, like what it means to ‘be in choice’, consent decision-making as a mindset more than a process, holding multiple roles, and agreement-making.

Resources:

• The link to buy Ted’s books

• The HBR article I mention, ‘The Little Things that Affect Our Work Relationships’

• Alanna Irving’s blog about Relationship Retrospectives

• Miki Kashtan’s blog about flow, decision-making and conflict 

• Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord (wouldn’t it be fun to have an equivalent smorgasbord for our work relationships?)

• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

• Ep. 27 with Ted Rau

• Ep. 35 with Alanna Irving

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 five years, including why their initial approach was a spectacular failure, why it was an inner shift that ended up making the difference, and something called “S**t Day.”

Resources:

• Jessica and Douglas' talk at Teal Around the World 2023

• Jessica and Douglas on The Better Work Australia Podcast

• The Better Work Australia Podcast website

• Aquadec’s website

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 shares some ground rules for having ‘Compassionate Conversations’, as well as some really useful self-reflective practices to help us be more conscious of how we show up in conversations, especially ‘difficult’ ones. We also cover topics like power, hierarchies, and why human beings rarely learn how to 'do' conflict well.

Resources:

• Kim Loh’s website

• How to order the book ‘Compassionate Conversations’

• A link to Kim’s course, ‘Heart Connections: Strategies for Navigating Conflict & Difference’

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 SOLEs allow children (and people in general) to learn almost anything. 

To date, more than 450,000 Colombians have participated in SOLEs and Sanjay shares some wonderful stories of how this methodology has reawakened people’s curiosity and sense of being an active citizen. Whether in public libraries, schools or organisations, we talk about the value of asking big questions and searching for the answers together, and the role of the ‘Granny Cloud’ – a network of encouraging non-experts.

Resources:

• Learn more about SOLE Colombia

• Sugata Mitra’s TED talk

• Start SOLE website