Leadermorphosis

Tamila Gresham and Simon Mont from Harmonize discuss developing ways of collaboration, using the lens of Power, Belonging, and Justice. They emphasize the need to align ways of seeing, being, and working together. Topics include conflict resilience, organizational dynamics, humility in management, and finding joy in collaborative environments.

SINA (Social Innovation Academy) is a network of social enterprise incubators in Uganda and neighbouring countries with a mission of supporting marginalised young people to create their own solutions to social problems in their communities.There are currently more than 10 SINA communities which have catalysed 70+ social enterprises and more than 500 jobs. The goal is to create a global movement of 1,000 SINAs and 100,000 social enterprises by 2035. Etienne Salborn, founder, and Tonny Wamboga, Operations Lead, talk to me about SINA’s model in which self-organisation plays a central role. How do scholars take on key roles? What is the ‘confusion stage’? What are common misconceptions of self-organisation? What are the specific cultural challenges of learning self-organisation in Uganda? We talk about these questions and more in our conversation. Resources: SINA’s website: https://www.socialinnovationacademy.org/ More about the SINA framework A case study about SINA (non-academic) An academic master thesis on the agency aspect of scholars in SINA Masters of Social Change, a SINA documentary about refugee activists and social entrepreneurs Etienne on the Out of the Clouds podcast talking about the SINA founding story and the model  

In this episode we talk all about psychological safety – the misconceptions, what it actually means in practice, what we can learn about it through an equity lens, and how we can design organisational structures that support it (like decision-making protocols). We also talk about how August does onboarding and creates an adult learning environment through feedback, peer reviews and the role of a ‘Development Advocate’, plus how they relate to the ‘new ways of working’ movement right now. Tirzah and Mike are teammates at August Public Inc., an organisation and leadership development and change management firm. Tirzah leads August's Equity & Inclusion practice and Mike is a Founding Partner. Resources: Download the August white paper ‘Looking at Psychological Safety Through an Equity Lens’ Learn more about August and their other insights via their website Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes: Ep. 45 with Prof. Amy Edmondson Ep. 41 with Michael Y. Lee about the interpersonal risks research (safe spaces and interaction scripts) Michael Y. Lee’s research paper ‘Fostering Positive Relational Dynamics in Teams: The Power of Spaces and Interaction Scripts’ (Academy of Management Journal, 2020) Book: ‘Confronting our Freedom: Leading a Culture of Chosen Accountability and Belonging’ by Peter Block and Peter Koestenbaum  

Miki and Emma from NGL discuss reinventing organizations through the capacity lens, moving from coercion to tenderness. They explore topics like fairness, leadership in a bossless environment, and avoiding burnout. The episode offers valuable insights for those facing societal challenges.

Deerns Spain shares their journey to become a self-managing engineering company. They discuss their transformation process, self-managing salary process, addressing conflicts, emotional KPIs, and future plans. They also explore the challenges of work-life balance and the importance of self-care.

adrienne maree brown, a writer, podcaster, and musician, discusses being in a right relationship with change, embracing discomfort and navigating tension, pleasure activism, reflecting on icons and inspirational figures, leadership within the new ways of working, and taking control of one's life.

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  

Douglas Rauch was thinking of selling his construction business until he read Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux. After that, Aquadec went on a transformation journey to becoming a self-managing company. Douglas and his daughter Jessica share the ups and downs of this process over the last five years, including why their initial approach was a spectacular failure, why it was an inner shift that ended up making the difference, and something called “S**t Day.” Resources: Jessica and Douglas' talk at Teal Around the World 2023 Jessica and Douglas on The Better Work Australia Podcast The Better Work Australia Podcast website Aquadec’s website  

Kimberly Loh works in the worlds of conflict resolution, coaching, embodiment and mindfulness. She is also the co-author of ‘Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart.’ We talk about learning to be aware of patterns we have when it comes to engaging with conflict, and Kim shares some ground rules for having ‘Compassionate Conversations’, as well as some really useful self-reflective practices to help us be more conscious of how we show up in conversations, especially ‘difficult’ ones. We also cover topics like power, hierarchies, and why human beings rarely learn how to 'do' conflict well. Resources: Kim Loh’s website How to order the book ‘Compassionate Conversations’ A link to Kim’s course, ‘Heart Connections: Strategies for Navigating Conflict & Difference’

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