Defining the Leadership Model and Design of the 21st Century Organisation #e20s

First up, Lee Bryant about leading 21st century firms. This talks is part of an expert panel about Defining the leadership model and design of the 21st century organization. Here are my notes.

So, what comes first social tech or new organizational structures, Lee asks.

Step 1 is deal with your org chart, your organizational structure. The culture of work is changing. We are talking about human resources instead of resourceful humans. Productivity has gone quantum. 12 people is the new army.

Hierarchy is one dimension of the organization. It exists and will continue to exist, but it is very expensive to get things done. We will move to small, coordinate agile teams. The general manager that has no specific skills is not something of the future and are generic best-practices.
Communities and networks are the new structure (or actually the old structure of the org). Podular working (Dave Gray) needs an underpinning service platform.
There are companies doing this, like Kyocera (amoeba management), Morningstar (self-management), and Valve (no management, you're desk is on wheels). Valve has a great handbook for new employees.
Now we're talking about Holocracy (which builds on sociocracy - Gerard Endenburg), which relates to the same.

Dunbar number is the ideal number for the size of a division. That's a 12 teams of 12.

A good question to ask is: how would we do this if we were a startup?

Common features of new organizational thinking:

  • small teams
  • networked operations
  • not over-optimized
  • emphasis on autonomy
  • emphasis on agility

Leadership is needed more than ever.

Next up, Bernard Marie Chiquet about 'Holacracy, A social technology for purposeful organizations'.
Key elements:

  • constitional power - rule of law and property rights, no more rulers
  • purpose - purpose driven organization
  • organizational structure - organizing the work, not the people
  • dynamic steering - includes a governance process, operations, etc.
Some recent links I collected about 'holocracy'.

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