Leadermorphosis

Isaac Getz is a business philosopher and professor at ESCP Business School, and the co-author, with Brian Carney, of Freedom, Inc., the book that gave us the idea of the liberated company and sparked a movement that included 500 organisations at its peak.
We talk about why a liberated company is a philosophy rather than a blueprint, and what inner work this asks of a leader. We also cover why liberated companies tolerate tries rather than errors, why you uncover your values rather than invent them, and why none of this is laissez-faire.
Resources:
Freedom, Inc. book site

"The rarest commodity is leadership without ego" TEDx talk by Leadership Without Ego book co-author and liberating leader Bob Davids  

"Liberating leadership: How the initiative-freeing radical organizational form has been successfully adopted" seminal California Management Review article 

"The liberated company theoretical concept: current issues and the intimidating complexity of organizational design" Journal of Organization Design article

Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

Ep. 55 with Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organisations

Ep. 41 with Michael Y. Lee on what the academic world is learning about decentralised organisations

Ep. 12 with Karin Tenelius, co-founder of Tuff

Michael Bungay Stanier returns to Leadermorphosis, and this time we get right into the messy, human heart of work: our relationships. Michael is the author of the bestselling The Coaching Habit and, most recently, How to Work with (Almost) Anyone. He is on a mission to un-weird the soft stuff, to make better working relationships something we build on purpose rather than leave to chance.
We talk about why the quality of your working relationships is so crucial for happiness and success, and about what Michael calls the Best Possible Relationship: one that is safe, vital and repairable. We get into how to upgrade our relationships, including how to have healthy conflict, as well as misunderstandings of psychological safety.
Resources:
Check out the 10th anniversary edition of Michael's book The Coaching Habit

The Change Signal episode with Liane Davey about why we need more conflict, not less

The Enemies Project YouTube channel we mentioned

Related Leadermorphosis podcast episodes:

Ep. 68 - my first conversation with Michael about being more coaching

Ep. 45 with Prof. Amy Edmondson

Ep. 100 with my colleagues from Tuff about pebbles conversations and some of our other practices

Chorus was born out of the merger of three traditionally structured care organisations in 2017, but today its 1,000 employees work in 20+ self-managing, local teams. Strategic Coach Angela Williamson share this remarkable transformation story and how inner development – and not just structural development – has been key. Chorus began as an experiment asking the question: "What if the people closest to the work were trusted to make most decisions themselves?"
Resources:
Corporate Rebels' blog about Chorus and their organisational model

Chorus website https://chorus.org.au/

Mia Mingus on the Nothing Never Happens podcast talking about reimagining accountability

My blog about the tyranny of the inner boss

Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

Ep. 69 with Jos de Blok, founder of Buurtzorg

Ep. 26 with the nurses at Buurtzorg

Ep. 96 with Xavier Costa about love in self-managing organisations

Ep. 67 with Andy Brogan and Helen Sanderson about Confirmation Practices

Ep. 85 with Bernadette Wesley about Deliberately Developmental Organisations

If you ask employees at EPPO who the CEO is, they will answer: there is no CEO! In this episode, Rodrigo Ventre shares the story of transforming his father's company into a self-managing organisation. We talk about his lifelong passion for human development and the increasingly radical experiments he has encouraged in the domains of business, culture, and governance.
It was not an easy journey, but today EPPO is celebrated in Brazil for its innovative organisational model and being an inspiring place to work. This episode is a warts-and-all story including insights from a systems level, but also from Rodrigo as a father and a human being.
Resources:
The EPPO case study from INSEAD

More about Target Teal in Brazil (where you can also learn more about Organic Organization or O2)

Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

Ep. 70 with Ravi Resck on the future of work movement in Brazil

Ep. 41 with Michael Y. Lee on what the academic world is learning about decentralised organisations

Ep. 55 with Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organisations

Natacha is the co-founder of Freche Freunde, a leading children's healthy snacks brand. She shares insights from the two-year transformation journey she led at the 80-person company – what she says were the hardest two years of her life. Through experiments with Holacracy and self-management, the biggest challenge turned out to be her own personal development. In this honest and beautiful story, Natacha shares the ups and downs of the process and what her next adventures will be.
Resources:
Natacha's conversation with friend of the pod Manuel Küblböck

Related Leadermorphosis episodes:

Ep. 49 with Peter Koenig about Source

Ep. 94 with SINA, Uganda