We live, as they say, in interesting times. Not a day goes by that I don’t come across something new, bold, different in the world of work. Lots of what I come across can be put into the tent that is, self-managed teams or self-organised ways of working. Shunning the corporatisation of work (and remember the word corporate comes from corpus meaning body which we’ve come to know as corpse – as in a no-longer-living one) and instead, breathing life into the fellowship or the band of brothers/sisters that organises themselves, that works out what’s best and that delivers on the promises that enterprises make to their customers and clients.
Enterprises is the word I’ve used a lot more lately to describe the collection of people under the same brand/banner/purpose. Rather than organisation (the act of organising stuff and people into a predictable shape of form) or business (the busy-ness of making money) or even company (though I like company as companions in some endeavour or other).
Enterprises has a feel of, well enterprise. Of spirit. Discovery. Journey. Voyage. It’s like Elon Musk meets Frodo Baggins. Enterprises has a start-up feel of anything’s possible. Like Pied Piper in the HBO box set Silicon Valley.
So enterprises ALSO to me is symbolic of Peter Senge’s masterful vision of the learning organisation. ANYTHING I’ve seen in the self-organised world (and I’ve now read about and experienced a lot in this world – so anyone who thinks this is always going to be minority sport, best start to think again) can be traced back to Senge’s work. So the learning organisation – not a new concept – and the self-organised enterprise – a seemingly new concept are coming together to change the world of learning right before our eyes. Why? How? Here goes.
Take Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They are a shining example of managerless, but exceptional quality of work in the software world. They have learning as the power source behind their unique way of working. They learn, innovate and work in pairs. They have a shared vision; they work to a known mental model; they achieve personal mastery through their togetherness (so also achieve joint mastery); they (of course) learn as a team and they adopt systems thinking in order to do what they do so well. The system at play here is rotational pairing; of project accountability and planning and doing “out loud” for all to see; to a set of highly scrutinised work standards by each other and their hi-tech anthropologist design / assurance pair and by their striving for continual improvement in planning, allocation, distribution, technical skills and design flair.
Also take Buurtzorg in the Netherlands. Teams of 12 self-managed nurses administering home-based medical care. They work out their routines, get to know their patients, their families and neighbours who can look out for the patient to avoid emergencies and panic where possible and have a budget for development that they manage between the 12 of them. They’re all accountable to each other – have again, a systems thinking wrap around which includes a social network to connect back to the other teams of 12; to the tiny corporate centre and to the CEO Jos de Blok. They have team learning through their shared management of the budget and other resources, they achieve mastery in patient care not in medicinal administration and target achievement; their mental model is one of the patient as a human in a system of support that had been previously disabled; and their shared vision is of the restoration of patient-centred not administration-centric care.
Take Grupo Salinas – one of Central America’s most vast enterprises. They have 90,000 people working in retail, media, telecommunications, consulting and more. In their system of employee care they encourage constant personal mastery through their own academy open to all employees; they have a vision to be the most sustainable and humane organisation in Latin America; they have the mental model of a family; they all learn together across the variety of enterprises in the family of brands and they believe in mastery through life skills and professional competence.
Take Widen. A technology company in Madison, Wisconsin. Where the vision is of a technology company that cares about its people because they care about each other and their clients. Through the employ of people with disabilities to socially cohesive roles within the company that make them and everyone else feel part of something more responsible and far reaching every hour not just once a year. Where the mastery is encouraged through open and collaborative methods of learning and sharing. Where the mental model is of a decentralised organisation that puts people of any role or position in the enterprise driving seat to create new teams, new functions and new ventures within the company infrastructure. Where the system is freedom-centred, open and communicative and decisions like the construction of a gym on-site is taken by removing the corporate benefits scheme no-one really liked and moving the funding towards the internal refurb. Where a Kudos board gives everyone the chance to appreciate, share and experience the joy of helping each other out and learning together.
Research into learning methods – pedagogical teaching methods, Montessori alternatives, coaching and mentoring, online applications, reading books and features, lectures and seminars, videos, simulations and experiential scenarios – comes out with a similar conclusion: learning is best when it is self-determined. Russell Ackoff’s 1990’s work into the democratic organisation revealed that human development is:
So the self-organised world and the self-determined learner exist and influence each other. The more self-determined people are about their learning, the more likely they are to want to pursue and experience more working in a self-managed way.
So does a self-managed team create the frames for self-organised learners? Or do self-organised learners eventually create a self-managed team and enterprise?
This question – and how you can make the most of the power in self-organised learning – will be the feature of my sessions at the World Of Learning conference in October 2016.