By Frederic Laloux and originally published at https://thejourney.reinventingorganizations.com/about.html
How this series came to life
When I wrote the book Reinventing Organizations, I thought I was done with the topic. But since the book came out, I’ve had a number of conversations with CEOs who are boldly transforming their organizations. And across the conversations, I noticed some patterns. There are some misunderstandings that showed up often, some pitfalls that quite a few of these organizations discovered. Certain questions came back again and again. A few approaches seem to work really well for different companies.
Suddenly I found my notebook full of interesting insights … and I felt it would be sad not to share them.
Is this video series a rehash of Reinventing Organizations?
No. That would be boring!
I wrote the book Reinventing Organizations to try and answer this question: is it possible to structure and run organizations in entirely new, more life-giving ways? I believe the answer is now quite obviously: yes, we can!
But this opens up a whole new question: Then how do you do it? How do you transform an organization of, say, 100, or 1000, or 100,000 people? This is a whole new field opening up in front of our eyes.
The exciting thing is that there are now so many organizations taking that journey that we are starting to get some answers to that question, even if we have still much to learn. This video series is my contribution to this new field. My hope is that this will stimulate other people to share their own insights and contributions and that this field gets quickly populated with our collective wisdom.
Who are these videos for?
The series is meant first and foremost for people in organizations that are boldly reinventing their management practices. The series’s purpose is not academic (it’s not based on systematic research and I don’t claim statistical evidence for what I put forward) but instead highly practical. I’ve spent a lot of time structuring my thoughts in the hope of making the series as powerful as possible.
My hope is that you’ll browse through the list of videos and stumble upon a number of them that are so relevant for where you are that you say, “Wow, I’m glad I watched this. I need to share this with my colleagues!” You can also watch them as you’re looking at your journey ahead, to help you prepare for what might come and navigate the twists and turns with more grace and joy.
I believe the videos can also be powerful for the coaches, consultants, and facilitators in this field. I could see you binge-watch the videos, take copious notes, and turn this into a pretty content-rich, self-paced training course. At the end, there’s not much I’ll know that you won’t!
The videos assume that you are familiar with the contents of the book. The videos would be tedious (and long!) if I had to rehash all the necessary background every time. (What is self-management? Who is FAVI? What does “Orange” mean? … )
Why videos?
I chose to create a video series rather than a book because I figured that speaking into a camera would be easier, faster, and more fun than living for months in a Word editor.
I also figured it would be much easier for you to share! Found a video that’s really relevant for you right now? Just share it with everyone in the organization! That certainly beats photocopying three pages of a book and sending that around.
What I do here is quite low tech and home-bred. I set up a camera, shoot, add an intro and ending, and share it with you. It’s not scripted or rehearsed, so forgive my (hopefully not too frequent) fumbling and hesitations. If I were to aim for any more polish, I would probably not do it at all.
I hope to create and share something like one or two videos a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Slowly but surely, I’ll work my way through the list. I’m happy to take special requests!
Paywall to access (Not really!)
These videos don’t live behind a paywall. Restricting access is just not a beautiful business model. Instead, the videos live in the gift economy. The gift economy asks some simple, beautiful questions. What can you and what do you want to give back? What would be generous in a way that feels really good – not too much, not too little? What gift would honor who you are and would honor me and my work at the same time?
More about why I chose to put the videos in the gift economy and how it works here.
Contact-related information:
I receive many more emails and messages than I can respond to, and I’m sorry that in many cases I’m not able to send you a personal reply.
There are good answers to be found to many questions I receive on the RO wiki, in the RO conversation platform, and at EnliveningEdge, the news hub, as well as in this video series, of course!
Republished with permission.
Featured Image/graphic link added by Enlivening Edge Magazine
