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 Cooplexity Institute, shares what he has learnt.

How to follow Ed:

• On Twitter: @EddyGonsalves

More resources:

• 'The Land' (Erin Davis, 2015) – a short documentary film about the nature of play, risk and hazard set in a "adventure" playground in North Wales
• Contact us for further resources and references about play and organisational learning (Ed being an academic, he has plenty!)

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: http://karintenelius.com/

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.schubergphilis.com/

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 models in business, including self-set salaries.

How to follow Samantha:

• Twitter: @Sam5

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 deeply personal sense of purpose...

How to follow Helen:

• Twitter: @HelenHSAUK
• Website: helensandersonassociates.co.uk

Other resources:

• Helen's podcast on SoundCloud

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 website

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 Joost:

• Twitter: @corp_rebels
• Website: http://corporate-rebels.com/

Book(s) of the week:

• Check out The Corporate Rebels' favourite books here

Other resources:

• Download The Corporate Rebels Canvas
• Check out the moodforce app Joost mentioned
• The Jurgen Appelo article we talk about on "the right time for organisational dictatorship"

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 Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

Relevant links:

• David's "Lunes Inspiradores" podcast
• The Power of Habit website

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 company grows? How do you get people to step into their responsibility? What is the role of the founder or CEO?

How to follow Tom:

• Twitter: @tomnixon
• Website: https://tomnixon.co.uk/

Book of the week:

• Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux (again!)

Relevant links:

• Register to get access to the Maptio beta
• Tom's blog about resolving the awkward paradox in Frederic Laloux's Reinventing Organisations

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 practices she and her colleagues have developed at OuiShare like Minimum Viable Bureaucracy and we debate whether organisations with no hierarchies exist.

How to follow Francesca:

• Twitter: @francescapick
• Website: http://www.francescapick.com/

Book of the week:

• Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation to Join the Conversation on Next-Stage Organizations by Frederic Laloux and Etienne Appert

Relevant links:

• Click here to buy tickets for OuiShare Fest in Paris, 5th-7th July
• Here's the thought-provoking blog we talk about by Francesca: Cut the bullshit: organisations with no hierarchy don't exist