Leadermorphosis

Devin Carberry, Director of Learning Programs, and two learners, 16-year-old Gerard Almenara, and 12-year-old Samir Shariputra Chopra, share their experiences of what it's like to be part of Learnlife in Barcelona. Learnlife is reinventing education by creating an open ecosystem for a lifelong learning paradigm. People of all ages are supported to become self-directed learners and develop the skills to be responsible community members. This is the future of education and the Learnlife model has much to teach us about how to upgrade our organisations, too.

How to follow Learnlife:

• Twitter: @wearelearnlife

Resources:

• Learnlife website

Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and the author of "Teaming" and "The Fearless Organisation". We talk about her journey of researching psychological safety and teaming, as well as the paper she co-wrote about self-managing organisations. Amy shares insightful and practical lessons about leadership, how to be a good team member, and the future of work.

How to follow Amy:

• Twitter: @AmyCEdmondson

Resources:

• Amy's profile on the HBS page including her work
• "Self-Managing Organizations: Exploring the Limits of Less Hierarchical Organizing" – Amy Edmondon and Michael Y. Lee's research paper
• See also the episode with Michael Y. Lee to hear more about the research he and Amy published about self-managing organisations

Vivek Menon leads a high growth business unit at Danfoss Power Solutions called eSteering. Their purpose is to build the future steering solutions for off road vehicles. He shares how eSteering works without managers and why he thinks the future of organisations, especially large ones, is building the capacity to be ambidextrous – creating ecosystems where traditionally structured and decentralised teams or units can coexist. Vivek believes there are three components to develop when it comes to self-management: structures, processes, and mindset and behaviours.

How to follow Vivek:

• Twitter: @Menon_Viv

Resources:

• Vivek's LinkedIn blogs on self-managed teams the eSteering Danfoss way, and how they work without managers
• An article about eSteering working without managers on the Danfoss website
• Videos about eSteering's "why", structures, processes, and mindsets

Bonnitta Roy is an author, trainer and creator of the OPO (Open Participatory Organisation), which is a framework people are using to experiment with more collaborative ways of working. She is well-loved in the world of Agile for her approaches to complexity and thinking about human systems. Bonnitta shares examples from her work of moves we can make towards more open and participatory organisations.

How to follow Bonnitta:

• Twitter: @bonnittaroy

Resources:

• The OPO Manifesto
• You can preview Bonnitta's upcoming book, Our Future at Work, at Medium

Ved Krishna is Strategy Head at Yash Pakka, a compostable tableware manufacturer based in Faizabad, India that has been experimenting with organisational self-management since 1999. Ved talks with a lot of heart and honesty about his journey of taking over the family business, then firing himself as CEO and now working from a place of deeper purpose. He also shares the ups and downs of trying to develop self-management in a culture where hierarchy is very strongly ingrained.

How to follow Ved:

• Twitter: @ved_krish

Resources:

• Ved's TEDx talk
• Chuk website and Yash Papers website
• Susan Basterfield's LinkedIn blog about Yash
• Jingle Bell school website

Michael Y. Lee is an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD who researches novel and innovative ways of organising. After reading the paper he co-authored with Amy Edmondson on self-managing organisations, I wanted to talk to him to get his academic perspective on this phenomena. He shares what we can learn from self-managing organisations about leadership and how to collaborate in a more decentralised way without sacrificing coordination. We also discuss his research into the two key mechanisms that helped foster positive relational dynamics in a global distributed team.

How to follow Michael:

• Twitter: @yanche

Resources:

• "Self-Managing Organizations: Exploring the Limits of Less Hierarchical Organizing" – Michael and Amy Edmondon's research paper
• Michael's website, featuring his key research

Bryan Ungard is the Chief Purpose Officer at Decurion. Decurion is a parent company of a number of businesses, including movie theatres, real estate and senior living, but it's less famous for what it does and more for why and how it does it (as featured in the book "An Everyone Culture"). We talk about Deliberately Developmental Organisations, Bryan's thoughts on why feedback can be dangerous, what he makes of the trend towards self-managing organisations, and how we can help our organisations become more conscious.

How to follow Bryan:

• Twitter: @ungard

Resources:

• The book "An Everyone Culture"
• Decurion's website
• Carol Sanford's website (author of "No More Feedback" and "The Regenerative Business")

Andreas Flodström and Gustav Henman are the founders of Beetroot, a remarkable IT company set up in 2012 to create social impact in Ukraine. We talk about how culture has played an important role in their self-managed way of organising, the challenges of scaling (from 380 to 1000+ in the next four years), and the tough leadership lessons they've learned as founders as the company has grown.

Follow Beetroot:

• Twitter: @beetroot_se

Resources:

• The Beetroot website
• A blog I wrote for the Corporate Rebels about Beetroot

Meg Lightheart is a leadership and presentation coach and helps organisations become more inclusive and agile. Meg shares what she's learned from her research, work, and her own personal experiences as a trans woman about topics like leadership, adult development, and diversity, equity and inclusion. It's an insightful and thoughtful conversation full of humour and heart.

Follow Meg:

• Twitter: @megalightheart

Resources:

• Meg's website
• Book: In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life by Robert Kegan
• Book: Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Article: Seven Transformations of Leadership by David Rooke and Bill Torbert
• Theory U levels of listening

Miki Kashtan is an author and an international teacher and practitioner of Nonviolent Communication. In this conversation we talk about the three different places shifts need to occur in order for a self-managing human system to thrive, and how we can start to talk about needs more in order to awaken the collective responsibility of groups of people working together. She also shares the five core systems we need to redesign in our organisations as well as the mindset shifts and dialogue skills we need to develop in order to collaborate on a deeper, more purposeful level.

Resources:

• Miki's website, The Fearless Heart
• Aligning systems with purpose and values (distinguishes the five core systems) on the Center for Efficient Collaboration website
• For learning more about nonviolent communication: The Center for Nonviolent Communication website