Zanini from December last year, where we talked about why it matters to unleash the human potential and build organizations and companies that work on a new paradigm based on providing agency to each and everyone in your organization and company. So if this is your first time joining the OnPoint format, rest assured, we'll ensure that everyone leaves with the meaningful and practical takeaways, where we'll also share some of the learnings that we have done about how we actually start implementing this. My name is Jacob. I'm going to be your main facilitator. I'm going to be a communicator and your guide for these 45 minutes. We'll start out with some input. We'll give you some practical examples and ideas, and then we'll have a Q&A. So please feel...so please write down any questions you have and put them in the chat later on. We'll give the option of having a Q&A. So, what we're going to do is we'll shortly touch upon why it matters, and then we're going to look into what it is. But our main focus is going to be how. It's how you can start, where you should come out, and what we have learned from doing this that can be useful to moving along with this. We're going to do this in a quite honest and direct way. We're going to be quite blunt with some of the ideas and suggestions we'll share. We're going to tell you a little bit of what we think works. We've also learned with the different companies we've done these transformations in the last 10 years, what we also learned that doesn't work. So we're going to be quite honest and direct. So, many tradition organizations are built upon the command and control approach. And you might recognize in many of these words that you see on the screen, hieracracy, bottlenecks, silos and policies. This is organizations that are built for super optimization, is very good for mass productions and repeated processes over and over again. But they're not really built for turbulent and accelerated times of change and transformation. So slowly over time, this paradigm has built organizations that become rigid, has low speeds and bad learning and also... So slowly just become this kind of organization where you actually just feel trapped as an individual. So what we want to do is today spend time exploring what really can make a difference and how can unleash that potential. But before we continue, let's hear a little bit from Michele, who will share some of their thoughts and learnings, which is presented in the book they wrote five years ago together with Gary Hamel, Humanocracy. Well, that's a good question. I know we don't have all the time we need to kind of deal with it in total depth, but maybe I'll try to paint a little bit of a thumbnail sketch. You know, and I would start with basically the, you know, the premise of the organization. What is it trying to do? What is the management leadership system designed to do? Right. And so here I would draw a distinction between traditional management, bureaucratic management, or however you want to call it, which is really focused on maximizing compliance and conformance. And it's really for the sake of efficiency. Right. And, and, you know, and repeatability at scale, which are important for sure, but not the only thing that matter. So I would say that's, that's one model and it's the traditional model. The companies that we've studied and spent a lot of time in that, that we call humanocracies are really moved by a different kind of premise, which is more about how do you maximize contribution? Right. How do you maximize accomplishment for the sake of impact? And, and in these organizations, you know, in a way they flip, what is the instrument and what is the agent? So in a traditional organization, people are resources, right. And human resources, we call them at times. I most, most, more, more, more often than not. And, and the organization uses people to drive particular outcomes, but that's a very instrumental view of human beings. And Jacob, I don't know if you have been in instrumental relationships. Well, you're the instrument. They're not particularly good one, not particularly healthy. They're often kind of toxic, you know, so, you know, instead, you know, what these organizations are trying to do is they, they, they understand that people are, you know, reservoirs of a lot of ingenuity and insights and initiative. And so the, it's the organization that is the instrument for these people to have impact. So if we look at this, the humanocracy is actually a management system that is assigned to maximize contribution for the sake of impact. So this is, this is where it, where it's really as important to move, move beyond that. So it's an organization designed, and there, it's a whole bundle of different designs where each organization's create their own management system that suits their ways, that gives room for maximizing contribution agency to the individual. Many of us has learned that in most traditional organizations, we actually are put into structures and process, that boxes the human potential in. So this is about reversing this, creating rather than being as a human and appendix to a process, actually create the human in the center of the process. So let's explore a little bit more that. So what is it that they do differently? Enough of the abstract, that maybe then I'll jump into some of the features, right? Because then this worldview, this, this world, you know, this perspective on human beings at work, then drives different kinds of practices. And maybe I'll just give you my top 10. Like in these organizations and, you know, in the book and other places, we highlight a number of organizations in different sectors, different geographies that maybe do things slightly differently because of specific situations and context and cultural, you know, factors and so on. But they all more or less reflect a common set of practices. So the first one, maybe the most visible is that they have a very flat pyramid. Typically, they have half the number of layers, the half the number of managers and administrators. And, and, and so it's, it's, it's much flatter there. And that's because the work of managing the work of leading is distributed. So you don't need a lot of professional managers and administrator because that work gets syndicated. So that's number one, a flat pyramid. The second and kind of related to that is that you have a dramatic reduction in the number of top mandates and rules. It's not that rules don't exist and control doesn't exist. In fact, there's a lot of control, but it's kind of engineered and orchestrated in different ways. So you just have, it's much leaner at the top and the less rule driven. It's also an organization that is quite disaggregated into a lot of small self-directed teams. They're almost like a little collection of startups, you know, and each has as close as you can get to a P and L or, or a fundamental kind of a very simple articulation of value creation. So as opposed to like 20,000 KPIs, right. Um, uh, the organization is not only disaggregated, but it's also a bit of a kind of a community. So you have ways for these different operating units to come together. So you have, you have coordination, you have collaboration, but it comes horizontally, not top down. Right. So, so, you know, you don't have centralization as the driving force for consistency. You have this kind of peer to peer horizontal kind of, uh, uh, adjustment and coordination. Um, the other thing that you see in a lot of these companies is that they've all kind of gotten rid of the typical calendar driven yearly cycles of planning of resource allocation of budgeting. And they much, they operate in like much faster cycles. So 90 day monthly cycles where, you know, you compare your performance relative to where you want it to be. And you, and you revisit some assumptions about like, do I have the right resources? Do I actually have more resources than I need? Can I flow those back to other, other teams? And so it's just a much faster, a cycle of decision-making. Um, you also have a very different understanding of what a leader is. So a leader is kind of accountable to the people in the team, not the other way around. So it's kind of inverted accountability and, and they're there to enable and support, not kind of command and control. Right. And, and if they're kind of incompetent or not adding value, they kind of get voted off the island. There's, there's a deep accountability to the team for creating value, enabling them. Uh, a couple more, actually, I think that that's number seven. So I've, I've, I've, uh, no six, I've four more. Um, uh, back to this point about, um, uh, rapid cycles. You know, one of the, one of the things that makes that possible is that there's a lot of fluidity in resource allocation. So you have like market like mechanisms that allow you to move people and capital around, right? Depending on where the opportunity lies. So it becomes much more fluid, less political, less siloed. And again, if you want to take, we can get into some examples of this because I, but, but that's a very important feature. Um, you have, uh, as I mentioned before, you have control, but the how of control is reinvented. So instead of having control coming through oversight, a lot of very specific decision-making rules and rights, and, and a lot of fear of failure, you have control through, you know, deep competence, you know, transparency, shared values, a shared aspiration and skin in the game. That is, you are actually, uh, going to live through the consequences of the decisions you make, right? So basically you still have control, but it comes, it's much more supportive and enabling than, than stifling. Last two, you know, and I talked a little bit about aspiration before and goals, you know, all these companies, you know, they basically institutionalize ways for you to think far more boldly about where you can, you can go and what you can accomplish. Um, and so basically it's not about like, can we do two or 3% better than last year our competitors? Can we do 10 X better? Can we do things that like no other person in the industry would even dare to think about? And they may not necessarily reach that aspiration every time. In fact, they often fall short, but, uh, you'll never outrun your aspiration. And, and, and so like an innovation and these companies are typically quite innovative comes from the gap between resources and, and your aspiration. And so they have a way to, to make everyone really think very boldly, right. And go beyond the status quo. And the last one, and maybe more fundamental, which kind of bleeds into also mindsets and behaviors is that everyone in the company feels and acts like an owner. They feel like this is my company. This is my unit. I'm on the hook to deliver and I have full control. Right. And so, as I said, it's partly about mindsets and behaviors. You really feel and act like that, but it's also about practices, like the autonomy of these units. I talked about the skin in the game, the fact that you live through the consequences of your decision also reinforces that. So those are the 10 things. Cool. So these are the 10 fundamentals of humanocracy. And just to summarize what Michele said. And what we also want to hear is just highlight two of those we think actually has worked a lot when we do the transformation. It's first and foremost create an organization based with lots of self-managed, self-autonomous, semi-autonomous, but also core connected teams who then become a team of communities. And that community is the fundamental structure of that organization. So this is how you actually begin to set up is creating this kind of team vibe and also connecting the teams and being responsive to each other. So let's hear a little bit more about how leaders can do to drive humanocracy. You know, there's no blueprint, right? But there are some lessons. So and the first lesson to me is that leadership really does matter. So you don't necessarily have to be a CXO to light the fires of institutional renewal. But having some enthusiasm and support can really, from the top, can really make a difference. And I think there are four qualities in particular that leaders that do this do this well and see it through exhibit. The first is that they've opened their minds to the possibility that there are different ways we can organize and lead. And companies that do this are not necessarily benchmarking other companies in their industry because, honestly, there aren't that many benchmarks, right? And on the personal level, they're also open to a major organization where their roles are quite different, right? So open minds, openness to new ideas, new perspectives, new models is one. The second is kind of courage, you know, so like, you know, you need to basically be able to take a leap into a new territory, which doesn't necessarily need to be taking big risks. In fact, maybe the biggest risk is not doing anything at all. That incrementalism and the status quo is more risky than an alternative. But you do need to kind of, you know, take heart, right, that there is, you need to make a change. And I think, by the way, on a personal level, there's, you need the courage to resist the kind of temptation to issue decrees, to share your autonomy, you know, to make the shift from command and control to mentor and mobilize. So I think that's like number, number two, courage. The third thing I think that leaders exhibit when they do this well is that they have systemic thinking. So you just can't change one element of the organization and then create, you think that you're going to get a metamorphosis. And that's often when like a lot of transformation journeys fall short. You know, companies think, oh, let's just reorganize this part of our structure. Let's create some agile teams over here. Or let's change, let's train leaders in empathy. And, you know, that will help. Those are all worthwhile things to do. But if they're not connected into like a bigger design and understanding that literally everything needs to change, you know, with the way in the end, like eventually, not all at the same time. But, you know, the way you allocate resources and the way you define roles, the way you set performance, the way you compensate people, all those things will need to be revisited. And you do need to take that kind of approach, you know, saying eventually things will be quite different and we need to take, we need to tackle these things because they're kind of interlinked. So systemic thinking would be number three. And then the last one and maybe most important is perseverance. So doing all this work that I mentioned before, reconstructing assumptions, behaviors, roles, processes, you know, takes time. Right. And in a lot of these companies, you know, what you see is people are not thinking of this as a program, but a quest. You know, you're never quite done. And as soon as you kind of get to one peak, you see future challenges, you know, that will kind of stretch you even further. So these are the four invitations for leaders that we heard from Minkiela. So open your mind to new perspective ideas. You have this kind of courage to do this shift. Also take the whole system into account to a holistic, more holistic approach. And also, last but not least, think about it as a mission rather than a program. So it's about creating this kind of movement where it's something that is built into the DNA of the organization over time. So how does it really look in a practical? How do you start with your transformation to what's a humanocracy? So this is like, this is actually the big questions. How do you actually build or transform your organization? First and foremost, what we learned is that you actually need to change the way you do change. Many companies approach this way that they normally do change. They didn't. And that is really counterproductive. You want to empower your employees. So you need to empower the transformation itself. So it's not about creating this central control with lots of planning and lots of project diligence. And what we think is much more about, you know, finding this trap of you create the organization with big heads and small hands approach. Go small and experiment. Drop this idea of the big project with the whole organization at once. Big gatherings and lots of leadership development and mindset programs. It's too much top down. It's much more about building locally. Also, another thing we've experienced when we do this change is this kind of harmonizing idea or assumption. Where many organizations also like to transform every area in their organization or department to go in the same path and make them look the same. Make room for different ways and it might look differently. So if you're talking to a finance department, it might look differently in the finance department than it does in the research and development department and in the operation or the customer service department. Be open to different ways of doing this. And I'll elaborate that a bit more. What we have learned over and over again is that most of these very big transformations go astray. They die out and they fail out and become like many other of the, you know, 70 to 90% of other changes that normally don't succeed or create impact. So the last 10 years, we have supported a lot of organizations doing this and transforming them into a humanocracy. And it can be actually summarized into four fundamental pillars that we should believe should guide your transformation. So I'm going to explore those four basic pillars. The first pillar is what we sometimes refer to as the Trojan Mars approach. That is about having big dreams, start small and scale fast. This means that we normally recognize or actually suggest that we create small hacks in the system, challenge the status quo and also create new ways of working. When we say small, we really mean small. Try it in a small team, an apartment. And if you meet too much pushback, start even smaller. Anything that challenge you out of your comfort zone and build new learnings, that is the key you want to take. And don't think perfection, think progression. One step in the right direction towards more humanocracy and empowerment. We believe in the agile transformation locally with iterative experiments, build learning that works for you and remove what doesn't. Also, be inspired to get help from someone to try new iterations. Iterate, iterate and iterate. And one of the key, you know, quality is, is it good enough for now? If it's safe enough to try and can we change it when we've got some more learning, then it's a go. Are all experiments equally good? No. Many organizations create experiments focusing very much on mindset and individual behavior. It's just too fragile and does not build a sustainable transformation. Leaving the transformation to the glucose levels of our frontal lobes and good intentions is just not enough and will often lead to frustration and relapses into old ways of working. You can't think your way to a humanocracy. You need to create experiments, iterations, learnings and feedback in the hardwired side of your organization. Make it real, not just an experiment. Don't build things on top of your organization. Build it into your organization. This brings us to the second pillar, which Michele also touched upon. This is, you know, the transformation is a holistic transformation. That means that everything needs to move. And that means also that we both work with mindset, behavior and culture. Exactly, for example, moving from a control culture to a trust culture. But we strongly recommend that you start with hacking your organization structures and processes. This drives both new behaviors and influences mindsets and assumptions in the way people approach this. So, for instance, design a real inclusion of decision in departments when you have a new meeting process, a new decision process where you do this differently. And just a simple trick in any type of meeting that can disrupt the process that you normally do is turn taking in meetings and consent decisions rather than majority or the lone leader or those who just speak the most. Build also clear structures with assigned mandates, authority, accountability and agency to both teams and roles within the team. So, practice a much more eyes on but hands off approach in your interactions with each other. When you delegate someone or empower someone to do something and give that person agency, then give it to that person. So, when you begin to transform structures and processes, you open up the option of new behaviors. And new behaviors actually also build new insights and mindsets. So, when you look at your organization, find an area and begin to experiment in that area. Find somewhere who gets it. The third pillar is to build a movement. We approach the change from much more peer to peer approach and thinking rather than a top down process. Small actions beat big plans, and sharing stories and ideas across the organization and across different teams is a key driver in transforming. So, when you build experiments and build on that, slowly share the stories by letting colleagues tell other colleagues about what they've done, what they've learned. We have to trust that people who are like themselves, and we like to trust people who are like ourselves, and creating a room for peer-to-peers to story sharing and having conversation about what they've learned is actually a big key. Having a peer-to-peer conversation is gold nuggets in the transformation. Build local ownership and proudness by helping and coaching them to fighting their own way into a humanocracy. Inspire each other and share learning. And also, get people who've done this, been on this journey already, to actually come and share their perspectives, their ideas and their suggestions. When you start out, focus on those in your organization who gets it. Those who are inspired, who has the boldness, who think this sounds like a really cool idea, who don't want to miss out, who are suffering definitely from organizational FOMO, and let them spread the learning and insight of their own journey into other ways of working and unleash their potential and agency. So this is about creating this kind of movement within the organization rather than creating this kind of classical structural change approach. Finally, the fourth pillar. Many of us have asked us where to start, and the answer is not to start a single place. But approach this, especially in large organizations, both in a vertical or horizontal world. And what do we actually mean by that? We actually have learned and we actually propose to first carve out one section of the organization with one or two management layers. So this kind of area of your organization can be your first experimentation. And a typical pitfall we see here is creating this artificial organization on top of the normal operational structures and processes. Don't do that. It's actually a pitfall because it becomes something that is away from your everyday job. It's something that we put on top and we put it on top of what already needs to be done. So make it real as a part of everyday work and operation. This is what we call the vertical transformation. This is, you know, the deep dive into this. So choose a section or an area of the organization who gets it and is not presently dealing with a crisis. The moment that you're doing it in a team or an area that there is a crisis, you actually set that up for failure. So try to find someone that is quite operational and quite working with that. So this is really important. And also we have discovered over and over again that the moment you take a very, very hands-on operational part of the organization, they get it and they get it fast. They easily transform because it's almost just a little tweak of what they're already doing. In the vertical transformation, you challenge the status quo and experiment with new organizations and new structures and processes. Figure out what works, inspire others, and then you put that into the whole movement across the organization. Second, in the chosen organizational areas, begin training on all levels. Get them to understand the change and help them understand the new ways of working and how they are being a leader. Train internal front runners or super users who think that this is a good idea and want to try it out. In this way of working, everyone becomes a leader. Everybody becomes a leader. And what means by everybody becomes a leader is that everybody should learn a little bit of leadership skills. Listening, facilitating, understanding, and so on. The horizontal change, what we mean by that is actually working within the existing organization structures. That means that we don't challenge the way that the rest of the organization works, because then we all of a sudden have a very big transformation and that is a really, really hard work. So what we do here is build on that, communicating and sharing learnings across the organization, supporting the movement, creating the room for sharing these ideas, and building to create the mindset for the next organization areas for transformation. And here, so over time, you slowly transform one team and one department, one or two at a time, by integrating the vertical and the organization horizontally. Do that simultaneously. Large scale organizations can achieve this much more sustainable transformation and impactful transformation by supporting that this is both a vertical and horizontal approach, where changes are efficiently embedded in both individual and collective levels. So just to summarize the four pillars. Start experimenting and do it boldly by creating real change and impact with addressing existing organization structures and processes. Transform them towards humanocracy. Build a movement and also build momentum by having this holistic approach. So just a few good advices. So the first one is start small, then iterate fast. Pick up one or two pilot teams, a carve out area, define a clear and also, you know, this is what we want to try out. Then use the Trojan mice to actually do small, safe to try changes in the local area. Another. Also, actually, we want to have these guiding consent criterias. Is it good enough now? Safe enough to try and can we change it later. Then make meetings, inclusive meetings as your lever. You know, implement a very simple, disciplined meeting format to make decisions where everybody feel invited. Build agenda, rounds, turn taking, clear facilitator, and also set up the whole structure around this. Separate purposes so that you have different meetings, for instance. So we have operational meetings and another is a governance meetings and so forth. The expected effect would be some quick wins on clearer decisions, shorter meetings, and faster executions to build momentum. We've seen this over and over again. Spend time on clarifying purposes, roles, and accountabilities early on. In each team, have a consent to a shared purpose and also three to six concrete accountabilities. Describe key roles that is in the role and also keep the role, you know, descriptions lightweight and living and just them frequently based on whatever learnings you've done. Then build a local support spine, form an area or mix of leaders and interested employees to steer the journey and also remove any bloggers as we go along. Train super users that can be internal facilitators and coaches that can support the team and also create this critical mass for moving on. And communicate like a movement, which is not a project, simple stories, concrete behaviors, change and results. Leverage the informal influences and amplify the peer to peer learning. So basically summary is just saying start with pilots, tighten the meeting muscles, make work explicit via roles and accountability, scaffold the integration purposes by having a group of people and super users and communicate the small wins throughout through influencers and iterate restlessly and try over and over again to create this more sustainable transformation. So what we also learned is that it is not easy and you should also expect that this is not a quick fix. This is actually normally a long term transformation where you actually need to focus on how it would roll over time. Most of the transformations we've done, we have spent working together with the organization for actually between one and two years, depending on how it looks like locally. And also empowering the organization to self set up the structure to continuously improve and do that. Once again, like Michele said, think of this as a mission rather than a program. This is a continuous journey. So that's actually some of the things that we have learned from doing this. So also here, this is about some of the challenges that we see along the way, but also why it's still worth it. It is about changing the fundamentals of the organizational structure. It is also working with counterproductive behaviors. We have lots of people who are trained in fulfilling one role, who are trained at receiving orders or instructions. And the moment you say, let's reverse this. Let's move from a reactive behavior to a proactive behavior. Let's, we're going to put you out of your box that the organization put you in to unleash your potential. Then we actually see big transformations, both in the individual and also in the team. Normally we would say there is a kind of a before and after, a kind of a aha moment, where people actually get what it means. They actually understand it. They actually like, whoa, this means that I'm allowed to do this? Yes. And this is also about, as Rasmus has asked, about creating this kind of owner mindset. It's like one of the questions we use very much when we do this is, if you were the manager of this team or this department, what would you do? And if it's good enough for now, safe enough to try, and we can adjust it as we go along, then there is no reason not to do it. So what we've seen over and over again as results, why it's worth this, is that we see organizations where employers actually feel much more empowered. They have a continuous improvement at the core of their way of working. They are actually also much better at using each other's expertise, improving decisions and results. We've also seen over and over again higher revenues, but also higher returns. A feeling of better psychological safety because there is structure and clarity and transparency. And also stronger talent attractions, less bureaucracy. And this is, you know, and faster decisions. This is actually one of the things that really goes over and over again is how fast you can come from a decision to execution. The time frame for that has just been so much shortened down. So let's go a little bit into some of the questions. We think it's worth it. And we also think it is time to unleash the human potential. Break down some of the boxes. Create the structures that actually gives room for people to evolve and also, you know, explore what they want to do and actually do the things they are good at. So please write down in the text and in the chat, sorry, and do this kind of Q&A and I'll try to answer them best as we go along. So we have like two questions. And the second one is, if I want to get started, what is the one thing that I could do differently from tomorrow? I think one of the first things you can start by doing tomorrow is actually begin to make decisions in a different way. So the first step would be in using the meeting as leverage. So how can we create different types of meeting? Many of us have spent a humongous amount of hours in meetings where we're actually feeling tired and worn out when we leave the meetings, because actually we just spend time listening to what other people have to say. So here we actually want to invite people to go in and contribute to the decision. So creating this structure and creating this kind of movement would be a very good first step to start doing something differently. Another thing would also to get someone to come out and inspire you, both the leadership level, but also the employees level, and have this kind of, you know, talk about what is this? How does it look like? But beginning slowly to get a deeper understanding of what the whole transformation is all about. But also, why do you do it? Because it is about doing something quite differently. It is a shift in mindset, a shift in behavior, a shift in structures and processes. Here. So we do also see changes in the whole, you know, system of bonuses and pay. And we also address that. But that is normally a very, very sensitive subject. And we actually recommend organizations in the beginning not to start with the toughest questions, because that is a tough and a sensitive question. But we have seen organizations as they mature, slowly, much more become human, uh, humanocratic and also work with much more involvement and engagement, that they actually begin slowly to challenge their own bonus and pay role systems. And they actually work with new models. And in at least five of the companies we work with, they come up with five different approaches and models that they thought suit their culture, their way of working and their way of, of the, of the, of the, of their structures and their processes. Cool. Cool. So are there any key metrics to track success for the transformation? There are some key metrics, uh, metrics that I would actually look into. And one of the things is talent attraction. We had one company who actually had, you know, at least three people each, one, one team, uh, where they had like three people resigning each year. And when we were done, it was actually zero for a long time. And that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but it was like, they had just a whole bunch of new talent attraction coming up, especially when it comes to that. Another one is the ability to execute, the ability to transform a decision into a behavior, which is also what we see is the time gap between those two are very, very short because of the inclusive meeting process. When you create an inclusive decision process in meetings, there's like two things happening. One, every voice is heard, which is really important. Two, when every voice is heard, even though I might not agree with the decision, but I consent to the decision, I also take ownership of the decision. That means that I actually go out of meeting and also have this kind of, yes, I know we've made this decision. Everybody knows I've not been talked to or sold a decision that I dislike or disapprove of. So I think that's extremely important to keep in mind. Cool. Any more questions that are out there? We have four minutes left. And we know that it takes a little bit of some seconds before that the chat goes through. I'll just give you the time. Okay. So, when you are ready to start unleashing the human potential in your organization, and once again, as I said before, don't think your whole organization at once. Think about chunks. Think about bits of the organization. We are very happy to continue the discussion. This is something that is very heartfelt for us. And some of, you know, some of these very important areas that we think can actually create a little bit of a better world. So, thank you very much for joining in. And you can reach out. These are my contact information if you want to know more. And you will receive a follow-up email with a link also to the recording of this. And where you actually will be able, for those of you who found it a little bit hard to understand the English version or the English speak, that there will be an option for having a translated version in that one. So, thank you for joining and hope to see you again next time.