What do we do when many people find the job meaningless and demotivating?

What do we do when our employees, colleagues and friends struggle at work, are bored, perhaps depressed and some think about whether there is any point in continuing? Can we think ahead towards new ways of organizing and managing work that motivates, bring out the best in us and creates results? Can we together create a new management philosophy? Yes, we can if we know how to get started.

“One of the challenges associated with companies becoming hierarchical. They become bureaucratic. They get slow. They become risk averse” (Kenneth C. Frazier).

In NoOffice, we work with ideas around this and which may interest you, your board and your colleagues - it's about management, holacracy, blue-green organization, and self-governing groups.

We manage ourselves together with our team. We work because we want to and like it. In addition, we are motivated, perform, and deliver. We get to use both our expertise and our best qualities to achieve goals together with the group we belong to. It is a form of self-directed leadership in self-directed groups.

It is about agile organizational forms, holacracy and self-governing groups.

We must look towards a horizontal organizational system that is based on flat decision-making processes, and ignore hierarchy and pyramid when it comes to the distribution of responsibility and power. For some, it may seem strange and lead to disrepute, but it has already been introduced in several organizations in several countries across the globe. It is important that we tame our ego (our selfishness).

"You are no more important than a fly or a straw, but still the most important thing in the world" (Det Sunne Samfunn by E. Fromm). Society is constantly changing, and this affects the way we organize ourselves. The world is a place for individual and collective development that enables us to realize our unique potential, become what we want and work with what we want. We should not be preconceived, but be willing to tame our ego, our selfishness. We must look at ourselves from a distance and perhaps experience how the fears, ambitions and desires of our ego have ruled our lives. We must learn to minimize the urge to control, to look good, and to fit in. We may experience that this results in a shift, where we increase our capacity to trust others and trust life. This should result in us no longer meeting adversity and suspicion with fear, regret, and shame, but see these as opportunities to increase our self-confidence. 

What does this mean for the organization or our workplace?

It is radical to have such big thoughts about changing, but several organizations have already had success with this type of organization and found that it is going great. Examples: Cato Senteret - Son in Norway and BUURTZORG - The Netherlands

How does such an organization work?

In NoOffice, we want to help transform outdated commando hierarchies into agile, self-governing organizational networks. With a flatter organizational form, we make a conscious choice about how our company is managed and operates. We look at management systems where the members of a team or enterprise (company) clearly, clearly, and automatically interact to complete tasks and achieve the company's goals. This is done through increased ownership and commitment. We see that employees' lack of commitment has reached new heights, and research shows that the majority of employees are less concerned with their work and the company they are employed in. We want to address this directly to the employees in the form of real and clear ownership of their work.

Distributed authority is important because we turn things upside down in relation to how authority works. Safety checks have been built into the system to prevent damage to the organization. This means that it will not be essential to ask for permission and that employees can drive on. This form of organization can be used by anyone:

·      Companies

·      Nonprofits

·      Public and private

The new metaphor is the organization as a living organism or a living system

Life, in all its evolutionary wisdom, guides ecosystems of unfathomable dimensions, always towards more holistic complexity and consciousness. Changes in nature occur all the time in a self-organized urge for change that comes from every cell in all organisms without the need for central management and control.

3 fundamental breakthroughs for holacracy or self-governing groups that are self-reinforcing:

1.     Self-management (Self-management or self-managed groups)

2.     Wholeness (Wholeness or holistic thinking)

3.     Self-development (Evolutionary purpose or the organization as a living organism)

You don't have to go for all three at the same time, you can start with self-governed groups or holistic thinking. Here, each individual must find their own way and choose what you and your colleagues find most natural or important right now.

In the next blog, we will look at each of these elements separately.