What can the realm of self-management and new ways of working learn from the realm of polyamory, Relationship Anarchy and open relationships? And how can practices in self-organising work teams help us improve our personal relationships?

Ted Rau is the co-founder of Sociocracy for All and author of books like ‘Who Decides Who Decides?’ and ‘Many Voices One Song’. In his personal life, he has been in monogamous relationships and, for the last seven years, in open relationships. We explore the parallels across personal and professional relationships, like what it means to ‘be in choice’, consent decision-making as a mindset more than a process, holding multiple roles, and agreement-making.

Resources:

• The link to buy Ted’s books

• The HBR article I mention, ‘The Little Things that Affect Our Work Relationships’

• Alanna Irving’s blog about Relationship Retrospectives

• Miki Kashtan’s blog about flow, decision-making and conflict 

• Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord (wouldn’t it be fun to have an equivalent smorgasbord for our work relationships?)

• Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

• Ep. 27 with Ted Rau

• Ep. 35 with Alanna Irving