Leadermorphosis

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

Manuel Küblböck is an org design and transformation coach at German fintech company Gini. We talk about the models Gini has developed for self-organisation and how they have defined together terms like power, hierarchy, and autonomy. He also shares challenges like how to foster leadership in a self-organising company, how to make decisions effectively together and how to develop healthy relationships within the team. How to follow Manuel: Twitter: @ManuelKublbock Resources: Manuel’s blogs: “How we lead in a self-organised company” “How we make decentralised decisions” “Why we treat employees like adults”  

Alanna Irving is a facilitator, entrepreneur and community builder and is the Executive Director of Open Source Collective. We talk about her chapter in the new book Better Work Together about growing distributed leadership, working together in bossless organisations, collaborating with money, and her own journey, including how to run Agile Scrum on your personal relationship. How to follow Alanna: Twitter: @alannairving Resources: Alanna’s website Alanna’s course on Full Circle Leadership on the Better Work Together platform The Better Work Together book Running Agile Scrum on our relationship (Alanna’s blog) Enspiral Loomio - collaborative decision making tool; Cobudget - collaborate budgeting tool

Edwin Jansen is Head of Marketing at Fitzii, a recruitment company based in Canada. We talk about the three stages of self-management adoption he’s noticed (Head, Heart, Habit) and why it’s so challenging for us human beings in the “messy middle” stage. Edwin also shares some practices that Fitzii has developed around “radical responsibility”, such as feedback, teal onboarding, and the Role Advice Process, as well as his own personal journey of transformation as a former manager. How to follow Edwin: Twitter: @EdwinJnsn Resources: Edwin’s blog on how people adopt self-management at Fitzii Edwin’s blog about the role advice process Samantha Slade’s article about Generative Decision Making Enneagram personality type indicator

Margaret Wheatley is an author known for bringing lenses like anthropology and quantum science to the fields of leadership and organisational design. In this thoughtful conversation, she challenges the idea of large-scale change in favour of creating “islands of sanity” and doing meaningful work in a local context. She talks about restoring leadership as a noble profession, her take on the growing number of self-managing organisations today, and how we can train as “Warriors for the Human Spirit.” Resources: Margaret’s website Warriors for the Human Spirit trainings Margaret’s book “Who Do We Choose to Be?”

In Part 2 of this conversation with Brian Robertson, Brian answers listeners’ questions from Twitter. Why does the Holacracy framework appear so rigid when other self-managing systems are more organic and flexible? What happened with Holacracy at Medium and Zappos? What’s the difference between Holacracy and Sociocracy? Why isn’t Holacracy totally open source? How to follow Brian: Twitter: @h1brian Resources: Holacracy events calendar Offer for listeners: 30% off for HolacracyOne taster workshop on the 16th of April that Brian is leading. Click here and enter the code: INSIDER Frederic Laloux’s video on adopting a ready-made system for self-management (note: I did get it the wrong way round in the conversation, sorry Frederic!)

Brian Roberston is the pioneer of Holacracy, a customisable self-management system used by over 1,000 organisations around the world. In Part 1 of this conversation, we talk about some misconceptions about Holacracy, complementary practices to Holacracy like Nonviolent Communication and Authentic Relating, and about Brian’s personal journey to achieving his purpose of changing how people relate to power. How to follow Brian: Twitter: @h1brian Resources: Holacracy events calendar Offer for listeners: 30% off for HolacracyOne taster workshop on the 16th of April that Brian is leading. Click here and enter the code: INSIDER Authentic Relating website The Center for Nonviolent Communication website

Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless are the authors of “The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures”. We talk about how Liberating Structures can help you “act your way into a totally new way of organising”, for example, reinventing how we do strategy. Henri and Keith share the fundamental principles of Liberating Structures and examples of powerful transformations, in organisations and schools, catalysed by simply having different kinds of conversations. Resources: Liberating Structures website Keith’s blog about liberating strategy Liberating Structures app for Android, for Apple