In today's Work Matters, host Thomas Bertels welcomes Niels Pflaeging. Niels is a well-known speaker, consultant, and author of "OpenSpace Beta" and "Leading with Flexible Targets."

His open-source Beta Codex Network grew out of the Beyond Budgeting movement and expanded into a broader framework to drive transformation from alpha - top down, command and control - towards beta - decentralized, cell-based, agile ways of working.

He discusses the proliferation of outdated management models and how the underlying mental models hinder an organization's ability to make change.

From there, Niels unpacks what we can learn from pioneers such as Southwest, Toyota, and Handelsbanken. And lastly, he puts Beta in the context of "The Big Quit" and shares how command and control models stifle potential, human motivation, and the joy of work. He reveals how management's role is to create conditions for work to succeed and that leadership functions best when it hires great people - and gets out of the way.