Unlearn to learn: cairns to guide your journey

Written By Catherine Jaeger

What the heck is a self-managed organization, anyway?  What’s a human centric organization? What is the future of work through the lens of progressive organizations?

self management books

What’s possible?

Who is doing this?

Where do I go to unlearn and start my journey?

I’m sharing a few suggestions to explore this broad topic and this movement, using the guides that I have personally found useful and insightful.

I invite you to consider these cairns as starting vectors - they are by no means exhaustive.

For those looking for a description of self-managed organization, I’ll offer this one which just scratches the surface:

Harvard researchers Amy Edmonson and Michael Y. Lee have described self-managing organizations as “those that radically decentralize authority in a formal and systematic way throughout the organization.”    

Description courtesy of Kate Beecroft: https://medium.com/centrifuge/k-factory-the-ins-and-outs-of-a-self-managing-organization-35e3c0fc2c2a

I want to share 2 of my foundational cairns.

First - I credit Susan Basterfield with the phrase “unlearn to learn” which I first heard when she and Lisa Gill guided my cohort of GreaterThan’s Practical Self Management. To move forward, we need to be aware of our biases and shed many of our long-standing beliefs and practices. We need to change.

Second - to Doug Kirkpatrick for advancing 2 fundamental principles that form the underpinning of self-managed organizations: 1) do no harm (noncoercion) and 2) keep your commitments. I’ve tested these principles against so many others out there and, truly, I agree with him that all self managed principles boil down to these 2 principles. It is that simple, and that challenging.

Notably missing from these cairns: personal development and growth, and awareness of social, emotional, and leadership intelligence. ‘Start with yourself’ is critical to this movement and worthy of its own space.

If you have time for just one resource, I’ve offered a ** as a worthy cairn.

pioneering books that launched and continue to inspire the self-management and Teal movements:

Maverick by Ricardo Semler

Reinventing organizations by Frederick Laloux 

self managed organizations | new organizational structures: networks of autonomous teams

watch

These made an impact on me. Which videos resonated with you?  

blogs

Too many to choose from. Here’s just a taste …  

articles

Again, too many to choose from. I selected Ricardo’s because it gives a narrative feel for his journey.

books

There are many, many books. These are ones that I’ve read. What books are your favorites?

  • ** Lead Together : The Bold, Brave, Intentional Path to Scaling Your Business by Brent Lowe, Susan Basterfield, Travis Marsh  Keep this next to you as a field guide.

  • ** The No-Limits Enterprise: Organizational Self-Management in the New World of Work by Doug Kirkpatrick This, too, is a field guide to keep close.

  • Beyond Empowerment by Doug Kirkpatrick

  • Mooseheads on the Table by Lisa Gill and Karin Tenelius

  • Going Horizontal by Samantha Slade

  • Humanocracy by Gary Hamel

  • Work with Source by Tom Nixon

podcasts

There are many podcasts. These are ones that I regularly listen to. Which ones inspire you?

  • Inspired Teams  - Hosted by Catherine Jaeger. Where we explore how human centered organizations make working together better.

  • Leadermorphsis  -  Hosted by Lisa Gill, a podcast about self-management and leadership 

  • Brave New Work -  Hosted by The Ready. What's stopping us from doing the best work of our lives? It's the way we work.

  • Boundaryless  -   Hosted by Simone Cicero and Stina Heikkila, with other occasional co-hosts. Explore the newly emerging perspectives about how we organize at scale in a rapidly changing world

Catherine Jaeger
Previous

A mending mindset to celebrate imperfections
Next

Some buzz about DAOs