Leadermorphosis

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

Bernadette Wesley's work is all about bridging the world of inner development with the world of being in an organisation together. We talk about Deliberately Developmental Organisations (DDOs); self-organisation and why changing structures is not enough; the Inner Development Goals (IDGs); and three practices that Bernadette has found particularly powerful: Peer Learning Spaces, Immunity to Change Maps, and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Tapping.

Bernadette is an Associate Partner with Fraendi, and is the Coordinator for the Inner Development Goals (IDG) Hub in Porto, Portugal, centering on Adult Development in SDG oriented organisations.

Resources:

• An overview of being a Deliberately Developmental Organisation (DDO)

• Learn more about Peer Learning Spaces

• Experiential Guide: Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Tapping

• "Organizational Adaptability and Resilience: The Invisible Culture", an article by Bernadette Wesley

• Learn more about Fraendi

Jon Alexander is the author of the hugely popular 2022 book 'Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us'. He talks to me about the people he interviewed and the stories he collected which show how it's possible to go from what he calls a 'Consumer' mindset to a 'Citizen' mindset – like Taiwan's innovative approach during the COVID pandemic. We also discuss the Three P's of Participatory Organisations, what leadership would need to look like in a Citizen Future, and why we should try to create 'safe uncertainty'.

Resources:

• Jon's website where you can order the book Citizens

• Follow Jon on Twitter: @jonjalex

• The book Jon mentions by Ece Temelkuran, Together: 10 Choices for a Better Now

• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

• • Ep. 83 with Imandeep Kaur, featured in the book Citizens

  • Ep. 64 with Bayo Akomolafe

What would it look like to reimagine the systems of a whole city? To really involve citizens in addressing the huge challenges we face today? Imandeep Kaur reflects on what she has learned in the last ten years from being part of an ecosystem of social entrepreneurs in Birmingham who are cultivating 'radical reimagination'.

From TEDx Brum, to Impact Hub Birmingham, to Dark Matter Labs and finally as the director of CIVIC SQUARE, where she has been greatly influenced by Kate Raworth's work on Doughnut Economics, Immy shares some deep insights and big questions from her journey about systems change and leadership.

Resources:

• CIVIC SQUARE's website

• The Doughnut Economics website

• Blogs and other resources related to Dark Matter Labs' #BreakingTheRules project

• More Dark Matter Labs provocations from their Medium blog

• Indy Johar, one of Immy's key influences, in a video conversation with Jordan Hall about the need for a new organisational theory and practice

• Related Leadermorphosis episode:

  • One of my favourite conversations with friend of Immy, Meg Lightheart

Three authors of the book 'Made Without Managers: One Company's Journey to New Ways of Working' join me to talk about what they have learned at Mayden, a cloud based health tech solutions organisation in the UK. Ruth Waterfield (developer and scrum master), Taryn Burden (product owner of Mayden's new ways of working) and Philippa Kindon (coach) share how Mayden's ways of working have evolved over the years, including what career progression looks like, the role of directors in a bossless organisation, and what have been their biggest challenges.

Resources:

• Order the book 'Made Without Managers: One Company's Journey to New Ways of Working' from Amazon here
• Read the blog about the Mayden book here

Erik is an executive advisor on transformation and the future of work, leadership, and collaboration, and the author of 'Teal Dots in an Orange World.' We talk about how this 'new ways of working' movement is evolving, and in particular a positive trend that Erik calls 'fragmented organisations' that's happening because it's hard to scale self-managed or 'teal' practices and principles in a uniform way. Erik shares what he has observed, particularly in larger organisations, including challenges like interfacing with the outside world when you are a progressive organisation. Finally, we explore leadership and 'futures literacy' as an important skill. I love Erik's articulate and thoughtful style and I think this was a great sense-making conversation.

Resources:

• Erik's book, 'Teal Dots in an Orange World'
• The HBR article 'Managing the whitespace'
• Bill Anderson talking about transformation at scale at Roche, on the Brave New Work podcast
• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:
• The episode with Peter Koenig about Source
• The episode with Tom Nixon about Source
• The books Erik mentioned:
• 'Imaginable' by Jane McGonical
• 'Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century' by Riel Miller et al.

For the past year, the Municipality of Slagelse in Denmark has been experimenting with autonomous teams. Of the 8,000 employees, some 25-30 units so far have opted in to learn how to make decisions as a team using key principles of Sociocracy. Mette Aagaard, Head of Development, shares what they have been learning and why she thinks it is the responsibility of the public sector to develop societies, and workplaces, that are fit for humans.

Anyone wondering how to introduce self-managing teams in a large public sector organisation, this episode is for you!

Resources:

• The video of Mette talking to Ted Rau at the Global Sociocracy Conference
• The Leadermorphosis episode with Ted Rau talking about Sociocracy

Lina shares the story of her time at Finnish commercial real estate company Technopolis where she led the transformation of the Lithuania business unit. Inspired by Frederic Laloux's book Reinventing Organisations, she got the mandate from her boss to run her business unit of 20 people in a totally different way, with no managers. She shares the story of what her team learned, the challenges they faced, and the results they achieved.

Highlights include some harsh but valuable feedback from her team about how decisions are made; a group learning to handle their own conflicts; and a chief accountant who went above and beyond to help the team exceed a seemingly impossible sales target.

Since recording, Lina has teamed up with other progressive leadership practitioners to help organisations in Lithuania transform to self-managing ways of working.

Resources:

• The Leadermorphosis episode with Dunia and Jabi from K2K Emocionando

Sofia and Luís talk about the self-organisation journey at global software engineering company, Mindera. With 900+ employees and counting, they have evolved as a company without managers through experiments guided by questions like: Will this bring more autonomy? Is it human friendly? This has resulted in some remarkable employee-designed processes, like their self-managed salary system, and their unique office space in Porto, Portugal.

Sofia, Mindera's co-founder, and Luís (whose title is 'Self-Organisation Enthusiast and Learning Geek') share what they have learned from their journey and how they have developed as individuals themselves.

Resources:

• The Mindera employee handbook
• Luís' talk from the Teal Around the World conference
• Mindera's website (check out the blogs about why they have no managers, and how their salary process has evolved)

Aaron Dignan, author of Brave New Work and founder of The Ready, is back on the podcast, this time to talk about how his new software startup, Murmur, can help organisations scale new ways of working. We talk about the importance of team agreements and how to keep them alive, plus what Aaron and his colleagues have been learning from their latest explorations in the worlds of self-management, DAOs and their Brave New Work podcast.

Resources:

• Learn more about Murmur: https://www.murmur.com/
• Learn more about The Ready, Aaron's book Brave New Work: https://theready.com/ and you can buy the Tension and Practice cards here
• Listen to the previous Leadermorphosis episode with Aaron here
• Listen to the episode of me on Aaron and Rodney's Brave New Work podcast talking about embracing discomfort and transforming conflicts – on Apple podcast; Spotify