Self-managing organisations
Exploring new ways of working and looking for support?
When new ways of working aren’t working
Many organisations are exploring new ways of working today, whether it’s self-organisation, Agile teams, trust-based leadership, Teal, or systems like Sociocracy or Holacracy. More and more people are discovering what’s possible when teams and individuals have more autonomy and accountability.
At the same time, many people who are experimenting with these approaches are struggling with complaints like:
“We’ve given people permission, why aren’t they self-managing?”
“People are using self-organisation as an excuse to do whatever they want!”
“Things feel worse now than they were before…”
“How do you have a culture of accountability without becoming top-down again?”
“Former managers are struggling with being more coaching…”
“It’s taking so much effort – we do also need to do actual work as well!”
“This doesn’t seem to be good for diversity, equity and inclusion…”
“Some people really like what we’re exploring, others are really sceptical or even totally resistant!”
Recognise any of these?
Tuff as a transformation partner
In order for new ways of working to actually work, two things are crucial:
Leaders unlearning the top-down way of being that is ingrained in all of us and training in a way of being that is more empowering, trust-based and adult-to-adult
A culture of increased trust and openness in which people are co-responsible for dealing with tensions and conflicts in a healthy way, and holding each other accountable
Tuff creates unique partnerships with each organisation depending on your level of ambition and current status. This usually involves:
Places on our open Tuff training programmes or the creation of internal training programmes
Tuff Collaboration Coaching to help shift the culture and upgrade the level of collaboration in teams
Tuff coaching for key roles, such as senior leaders, in how to embody a more adult-to-adult way of being throughout the transformation process
Outcomes with Tuff
Some typical outcomes of transformation processes towards greater autonomy in teams are:
Increased employee and customer satisfaction
Changes are initiated and driven from all across the organisation as if by magic
Leaders gain back time for strategy and business development work
Decreased absenteeism
Historic, unresolved conflicts are transformed
Increased ability to attract and retain talent
Tuff’s credentials in new ways of working
We have twenty years of experience supporting organisations to work with different degrees of self-organising.
Moose Heads on the Table
Read our book featuring stories and insights about how our co-founder Karin Tenelius helped transform companies on the path to self-management.
Leadermorphosis
Listen to our podcast where Lisa Gill (Thinker’s 50 Radar list 2020) interviews leading figures in the world of new ways of working such as Frederic Laloux, adrienne maree brown, and Jos de Blok.
Coaching for self-managing organisations
Do you have a challenge related to working in a decentralised organisation? Whether you are a CEO, founder or leader who wants support with how to lead the transformation an empowering way, or a team-member struggling with how to collaborate without traditional hierarchy, our self-management specialists at Tuff can help.
Session with Karin or Lisa
€500
We have more than twenty years' experience with supporting organisations on a journey to becoming self-managed, decentralised or teal and can offer powerful coaching sessions in how to have breakthroughs in this way of working.
Book a session
Want to know more?
We'd be happy to have a conversation with you about your needs and to share the different ways Tuff could support you.
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More and more is being written about self-managing and decentralised ways of working, with organisations like Haier and Buurtzorg capturing the attention of management and business thinkers the world over. However, most (if not all) of the focus in these case studies tends to be on structures and processes. Don’t get me wrong, structures and processes are extremely important. But they are not enough if we truly want our organisations to shift.
There is a lot happening today in the world around leadership and how we work together in our organizations. New progressive ways of working are being explored more and more, and we continue to wrestle with what leadership is, and should be, going forward. Many would say that we’re in the midst of a paradigm shift, where we, on a large scale, are moving from more traditional hierarchical top-down ways of working to less hierarchical more bottom-up self-directed or self-managed ways.
Edwin Jansen is Head of Marketing at Fitzii which is a hiring platform for small and medium businesses based in Canada. Every February for the last four years, Fitzii has celebrated what they call “Valenteal’s Day”, as it marks the anniversary of when they decided to become a teal, self-managing organisation.