One of the founding beliefs of Remotely is that we know better and should do better. Better at what? Everything.
We not only have the knowledge we already need somewhere in our world, but the wisdom is freely available to anyone willing to seek it. This is especially true regarding organizational design and leadership in a world where teams are distributed, untethered from geographical co-location, and rather suddenly thrust into a new work style.
As the shock wears off, visionary leaders are beginning to reimagine their organizations and how they can optimize their operations and improve the performance of their people. Some are even beginning to ask, is there a better framework or model for collaborating, innovating, and accomplishing our objectives then how we’ve been doing things? Are we doing the right things? in the right ways?
Where a decade ago, enterprises were not ready for a deeper level of transformation, many leaders see the opportunity to go from surviving to thriving in a new market environment. Still, the efforts to usher in the era of Social Business and Enterprise 2.0 lead to many lessons, and to many organizations who are now thriving, remotely. The difference between those thriving and those lagging? A different kind of culture with different mindsets, governance, systems, beliefs, and alignment amongst the people in the company and across the ecosystem.
In fact, there have been futurists, visionaries, and thought leaders modeling the future of work and how to improve the quality and consistency of outcomes since we developed concepts of management. While this pandemic has been painful in too many ways to count, we may yet find a silver lining in a greater willingness of more leaders around the world to embrace governance models which may have been unplausible before the benefits of remote work became visible this past year.
In furthering this discussion, please join me this Thursday afternoon December 17, 2020 at 1pm PT when I will interview the cofounders of Governance Alive, John Buck and Monika Megyesi about their work to advance decentralized leadership with Sociocracy. For the last 12 years, they have been on the forefront of this movement, working with leaders from around the world to develop their governance model that unleashes the full potential value of the organization and its people.
In the spirit of Self Management, Sociocracy embraces many of the same concepts and practices which were part of my advisory work in advancing Social Business. It is a process and a way of working with others in almost any size organization, to distribute decision making and create a work culture that is inclusive of every voice, and respectful of every human. From what I have seen so far, it is based around establishing a common foundation upon which to work – a set of agreements about what we are doing, why we are doing it, and ultimately how we will do it together.
That said, I have much more to learn in the coming days as I prepare for the discussion. Most especially regarding how to better explain Sociocracy to others.
PS: Of note, Sociocracy formed/inspired part of the basis of Holacracy, so you may already be aware of some of these ideas. If so, I’d ask you to throw out your preconceptions, and join me as I look more deeply at what role the more flexible approach of Sociocracy might play in supporting the remote work revolution. Many thanks to Jess Allen of Governance Alive for reaching out to us, for introducing us to Sociocracy, and helping us set up this conversation and exploration of decentralized decision making.