Introduction

Jos de Blok is the founder of Buurtzorg, a home care organisation in the Netherlands with 15,000 nurses and no managers. We talk about how their decentralised, human approach has helped them during the pandemic, why he believes ‘protocolising things’ in organisations does damage, and his advice for leaders and traditional top-down organisations that are embarking on transformation processes. It was an honour to talk to one of my heroes and to hear him speak with such heart. Enjoy!

Resources:

• My interview with the Buurtzorg nurses from the Houten team: https://leadermorphosis.co/ep-26-buurtzorg-and-the-power-of-self-managed-teams-of-nurses
• More about the book ‘Organizational Innovation by Integrating Simplification: Learning from Buurtzorg Nederland’ https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-11725-6