Leadermorphosis

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

Aaron Dignan, founder of global organisational transformation and coaching practice The Ready, talks about his new book “Brave New Work”. We explore how organisations can reinvent themselves and upgrade their “OS”, not through top-down change, but through principles-based experiments from the edges in. How to follow Aaron: Twitter: @aarondignan Resources: “Brave New Work” book website Aaron’s Medium article about the OS Canvas

Tom van der Lubbe, the co-founder of a small, Dutch mortgage advice company called Viisi, had an existential crisis at a young age and has been conscious of doing purposeful work ever since. We talk about the science of motivation and management and how Viisi has developed a simple but powerful approach to salaries. He also shares his thoughts on adapting the organisational self-management system Holacracy and how to create an honest feedback culture where the responsibility sits with teams and individuals, not managers. Resources: Corporate Rebels article about Viisi The Story of Viisi (Slideshare) Viisi website (in Dutch) Does money really affect motivation? (HBR article) Corporate Rebels article about Bol

Ted Rau is the co-founder of Sociocracy for All and co-author of the book Many Voices, One Song. In this conversation we talk about how we can distribute authority in organisations and relate to each other as equals using Sociocracy, the “power over, power under” tendencies we have as human beings, the paradoxes and shadow sides of Sociocracy to watch out for, and how we can implement such an approach without becoming "top-down". If you’re interested in transforming your organisation, but stepping into nothing feels daunting, or you’re curious about Sociocracy and what tools like consent-based decision making could make possible, then this episode is for you. How to follow Ted: Twitter: @Sociocracy4All More resources: Buy the book Many Voices, One Song Sociocracy for All website The Center for Nonviolent Communication website

Buurtzorg is a remarkable organisation: 15,000 employees working in 850 self-managed teams to deliver home care to patients in the Netherlands. The results, including both patient and employee satisfaction, are so outstanding that Buurtzorg-inspired models are popping up all over the world. I got the chance to talk to three nurses from Team Houten, all of whom came from a traditional, large healthcare company, and hear firsthand what it’s like to work in such a high-freedom, high-responsibility environment. Listen to this wonderful conversation with three passionate and charismatic women – Marian, Chila and Jolanda – and discover what they’ve learned over the last nine years about tough conversations, teamwork, and personal development. Resources: Buurtzorg website Related episodes: Leadermorphosis episode 9 featuring Helen Sanderson and the self-managing wellbeing teams she’s created in the UK, also inspired by Buurtzorg Leadermorphosis episode 25 with Edel Harris who shares how Cornerstone, one of the largest social care companies in Scotland, is piloting self-managing teams