Navigating Between Worlds: The Leadership Journey That Matters Now

In March, we will gather again for the Business 3.0 Leadership Circle—a small, immersive retreat for leaders navigating a world that no longer fits old maps.

This is not a one-off program or a fixed curriculum. The Circle unfolds through a series of retreats each year, with participants joining when the timing is right for them. Some come once. Others return as new thresholds appear. Over time, cohorts will form a wider community of practice—a shared field of inquiry.

Each retreat is similar, yet different. It adapts to the season, the people who gather, and the ongoing shifts in the world.

If you recognize yourself in this—if you sense that leadership today is less about having the right answers and more about learning how to navigate well—then this retreat may be part of your path.

Next retreat:
📅 March 26–29, 2026
📍 Möllan, Sweden

More details and registration here:
👉 https://innrwrks.com/cases/leadership-circle
👉 https://tally.so/r/2EXWRb

Why This Work, Now

Many leaders are standing at an in-between.

The old leadership logic—optimize, control, extract, grow—no longer fits the reality we are operating in. At the same time, the new way of leading has not fully landed. It is sensed more than articulated. Felt in the body before it is clear in the mind.

This is not a failure of leadership.
It is the context of leadership now.

What we call Business 3.0 starts from a simple but radical shift: organizations are living systems, not machines. Leadership, in turn, becomes less about control and more about coherence, resilience, and relational intelligence.

In this landscape, the inner state of leaders is no longer a private matter. Reactive nervous systems create reactive organizations. Unprocessed pressure shows up as short-termism, mistrust, and burnout—no matter how strong the strategy looks on paper.

And yet, most leaders are given very few spaces where they can slow down without losing credibility, speak honestly without performing, and re-orient from a deeper place.

A Sneak Peek: Multi-Intelligence & Complex Challenges

Alongside the retreat work, we’re in the final stages of a new white paper on applying Multi-Intelligence (MI) to complex challenges in society and organizations.

The paper explores how cognitive intelligence alone is insufficient for navigating today’s realities—and how emotional, somatic, and intuitive intelligences play a decisive role in sense-making, decision-making, and collective resilience.

You can take a look at the draft here (public release coming in a few days):
👉 https://www.notion.so/White-Paper-Draft-Applying-Multi-Intelligence-MI-to-Address-Complex-Challenges-in-Society-and-Org-2e6faba93f148010ad9ae6738225e3b7

This work underpins much of what we do at Innrwrks—from leadership circles to organizational sensing and long-term strategy.

Recent Reflections on Business 3.0

Finally, we’ve also been contributing to the wider conversation around Business 3.0 and the deeper shifts underway.

Two recent pieces by Amit Paul may be especially worth reading:

• Business 3.0: Entering the Age of the Living System
  👉

Breadcrumbs by Amit Paul

Business 3.0: Entering the age of the living enterprise

We are living through a time where once-in-a-century events happen every year; recent examples include eg. natural disasters, kinetic and customs war and pandemics. This world of uncertainty requires new practices for how we fund, govern, and structure business. This is what Business 3.0 proposes…

Read more

8 months ago · 11 likes · Amit Paul

• The AI Transformation Will Kill the Company (As We Know It)
  👉

Breadcrumbs by Amit Paul

The AI Transformation will kill the start-up as we know it.

A less common topic in discussions about the AI revolution is the institutional pressure it is creating. As someone who has spent almost a decade deep diving into organizational forms and financial tools, I’m seeing this shift occur in real time. I want to articulate what may be about to unfold…

Read more

6 months ago · 7 likes · 4 comments · Amit Paul

Both pieces explore, from different angles, the same underlying question:
What kind of organizations—and what kind of leadership—are actually fit for the world now emerging?

🎙️ If you want even more thoughts, conversations and explorations in this realm—the World of Wisdom podcast will soon hit the 300 episode milestone:

👉 https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/worldofwisdom

Alrighty then, those were a few humble updates from us.

We wish you a splendid season!

/Nils, Amit and friends

You are getting this update because you subscribe to updates from Innrwrks, World of Wisdom or the RCO community. Our updates are usually few and far apart as to not spam anyone’s inbox.

- RCO: An organisational form for regenerative business. Dive deeper.

- Waves Gathering: 11-13th of September, Helsinki, Finland. Ticket.

- NordicArc: Retreat 16-19th October, Möllan, Sweden. Invite.

Time for an update!

Nils and Amit has been quietly busy at Innrwrks. There are many things cooking in our transformation lab and the reach and network of our pod is beginning to reach quite far and wide.

We wanted to send you an invite, inviting you into some of the things happening. Or just simply letting you know so that you know. It is clear to us that after almost half a decade of preparation and subtle movements there is a clear acceleration. Shift is happening.

🌱 RCO

Our organisational model the RCO is beginning to take flight. What is an RCO? A hybrid organisational form. A dialectical approach to profit and purpose. A scaffold for accountability. Read more at: https://rco.life

Here are a few examples:

- We are working with a coalition of large industrial players 🏭 to set up a Net Zero RCO in the south of Sweden.

- We are formulating an investment hypothesis 💰 and setting up a vehicle for Post Impact Investment as an RCO.

- We are supporting a a community 👥, a venture accelerator 🏎️ and a fund 🏦 to incorporate RCO principles into their structures to scaffold their purpose.

🌊 Waves

Amit is co-curating and moderating The 5th Waves gathering 11-13th of September.

This will be a dive into a new pedagogy for systemic change. 300 systemic change makers, investors, wealth holders, entrepreneurs and thought leaders from all over the world gather in Helsinki. This is a space to find both the others and another way.

We explore the question: How can we be with destabilisation without disassociating and despair? The intention is to increase our agency.

🗺️ Side tracks: Education & AI, Institutional innovation, The new economy, Ways of being together

🔑 Key Notes/Seminars: Dave Snowden, Nora Bateson, Samantha Sweetwater, Jenny Grettve and many more

🎟️ Tickets and info: https://wavesgathering.com/

☔️ Retreat: NordicArc

Are you longing to grow your capacity and resilience as a leader in a time between worlds?

16-19th of October we’ll host our first ever Innrwrks retreat where we partner up with investor and yogi Erika Hombert. We will build resilience and agency for leaders in a time between worlds. We are living in the midst of crisis. This calls for new ways of knowing, being and doing. That is what we will explore at the NordicArc. ❗️We only have limited spots left.❗️ Is one of them for you?

🪢 Check out the invite for more info. Sign up here.

☝️Want more?

🎙️ World of Wisdom Podcast: Dialoge with thought leaders on systems change

⛰️ Transformative impact summit: Sept, New York. Nils will host a workshop.

📕 Innrwrks Substack, Amit’s Substack and Nils' website

🩱And we’re partnering with Jumpsuite Agency in the US more to come!

And this is only the start of it. Looking forward to seeing you this fall!

Amit & Nils

After reading this you may want to:

👉 Apply for the Nordic Dialogues (Invite)

👉 Sign up and show your interest for a Koherent demo for your organisation

👉 Check out what’s new on rco.life

👉 Take a listen to the World of Wisdom Podcast

👉 Check out the Innrwrks site and E3IC particularly

Time flies and we’ve been keeping busy. Many things are moving and it felt like it was time to share what we’ve been up to at Innrwrks - the transformation lab.

🗣️ Nordic Dialogues I: Innrwrks is hosting the first Nordic Dialogues in partnership with Nordic Circular Hotspot, Leapfrog Projets, Institute for Transition and EIFFF. Business is one of the most powerful technologies humans have ever invented. It's time to bring business back into connection with life. Part of that is to reinvent how we fund businesses.

So. We gather the first movers and doers for a dialogue on the 19th of November in Helsinki: What is healthy growth in a changing world? How bring capital back into alignment with what its funding? Want to find out more? Invite, Positional paper, Sponsorship offer, Apply to join

👥 Koherent enables next level teamwork by deploying the power of AI to assist with our communication. Koherent is not about  replacing humans with AI, it is about unlocking the potential in human to human relationships. Curious? Sign up for a demo for your organisation here. We’re in a stealth pilot phase so we need to be picky still, but if you sign up you're on our short list. Our initial feedback is off the charts when it comes to enabling team communication.

🪢 The RCO: There are plenty of new articles in our library and a few conference presentation that we’ve added to RCO.life. Perhaps you’d want to take a look at the work we’ve been doing regarding: Funding the RCO, Spelling out what an RCO could become and why the RCO is good for business. The development of the framework as well as the work we are doing in implementation is really taking shape. Perhaps you’re about to start a project that should be an RCO?

🎙️The World of Wisdom Podcast (for instance: Spotify, Substack): Is where Amit continues to interview thought leaders weekly on subjects relating to the transformation and transition towards regenerative futures. Lately we’ve been particularly inspired by Vicki Saunders, Vanessa Andreotti and Tanjua Prasad. Subscribe on your podcast platform of choice to never miss an episode!

💡E3IC - Innrwrks reimagining innovation: We’re going to the Change Chemistry roundtable at the Nike headquarters in the end of October to introduce E3IC. The initiative is based on the work we’ve done with the RCO and tackles reimagining innovation of materials. We’ll be addressing some of the biggest consumer goods brands on the planet alongside with some of the largest chemical companies. How can we revitalise innovation of materials that enable the sustainable, circular and regenerative agenda?

Plenty of links to lean into if you’re curious. What does it spark in you? Is it time for us to work together on something? We’d love to hear from you in the comments or just reach out.

/Amit and Nils

The presentation included descriptions of the three main parts of the RCO: A sourcecode, the dialectic use of two organisational forms and the life cycle. The full webinar is attached below. For more information please visit rco.life

The parts of the RCO

Sourcecode

The sourcecode is the backbone of the RCO. The horizon towards which we are looking. This where you formulate your purpose, your key guiding principles and basic processes of governance that will be popularised throughout the entire organism. The Sourcecode is recommended to be kept short and readable. Free from legal jargon and focused on the essentials.

A strong recommendation is to formulate your purpose in the form a question. Questions are powerful because they draw us in, they invite further and deeper exploration and it allows you to imagine an answer for yourself. The question should be relevant for the whole RCO as well as the company or companies affiliated with the association. This is a nudge away from the certain, solution orientation of business towards the more inquisitive fundamental promise of the scientific (or artistic) method where the journey is the where the main share of the value lies.

Organisational dialectic

The RCO is modeled after life and a common trait in life is self balancing or recursive systems. This type of “opponent processing” is incorporated in many parts of life, like our own left and right hemisphere. Different purpose, different strengths, different operating logics. The RCO consist of a company - directed, project oriented, for profit and an association - purpose driven, relationally oriented, not for profit.

One could express the relationship as the company employing the association to keep it on track towards its purpose by offering it 10% of shares. These are preference shares that come with the right to appoint 50% of the board - this ensures a strong for-purpose orientation on the board - and a right to VETO a change of purpose in the company as well as any new founders should their terms or profile not match what is stated in the Sourcecode. This way the association becomes a co-creator with insight but not with too much power. The association itself will focus on the non-profit side (e.g. building the field, public opinion, events, awareness raising etc.) except its duties in terms of heading an election committee and being a good owner for the company.

These two entities are different, should be different and individuals can participate in both of them. When they do the are also invited to shift perspectives. Keeping both the directed operations and the purpose in one’s attention is an invitation to resource the potential of diversity and complexity to ultimately lead to better solutions. This is a crucial practice in the complex and perhaps increasingly chaotic world we are facing.

The life cycle

The final part is the life cycle. An organisation is a living system. It consist of a large part of living things. What if we started treating it as one? We propose that companies also sprout, mature, might need a succession, decay and die. That they have different needs in different parts of their life cycle. What if the legal form evolved with the company?

It is healthy for living things to be able to develop and evolve their focus. Initially it is likely healthy to grow. What the right size of the venture is for your particular company is between the association, the company founders and the investors. They negotiate when the company will stop growing and move into a complexification or maturation phase. In that phase the priorities are different. The RCO allows a differentiation of a company without having to grow the company in itself much larger. Instead building other entities, connected to the same question and affiliated (and funded) through the association might be a better way of doing it. Research shows that around 150-200 people is when a company’s governance systems begin costing more than the actual value creating operations themselves. What if you would build a string of 150-200 people companies that gradually cover different aspects or hypothesis of your purpose? Each very clear and efficient in their own operations. Each contributing to the value creation of the others and the ecosystem as a whole.

There might be need for companies to go through a succession depending on the nature of the business. Either founders have had enough or the nature of the business requires a different context. There is a possibility to sell the company.

The last step is the decay/death of the company and potentially of the entire RCO. We’ve proposed a mechanism for decomposing the company and redistributing the resources (financial and otherwise) back to the (eco-)system. Allowing for new expressions of the company’s purpose take form, more suited to the context/society as it looks like then.

Summation

The RCO is a toolbox not a solution per-see. It is a different way of thinking and organising companies as living systems. It invites conscious design also in the way we structure and grow companies. The structure is currently being adapted, implemented and will be tested in a number of companies in northern Europe. This is a high level intro to the main components of the RCO. If you’re curious for more, listen to the whole webinar (below), visit rco.life or connect.

This webinar was hosted by innrwrks

Here is a summary of what we addressed during our webinar:

Initially we did a short recap of the previous webinars. Our proposal is that many of us feel stuck in a world that we know not to be regenerative and yet we feel unable to access that which feels more right, more alive. The question is then how do we get there?

In the review of the personal we propose that what might be happening right now is the death of a cultural epoch that some call modernity. This is the rational, progress oriented, industrial perspective that has come under question due to the consequences it has on our environment. Instead this would be replace by something that is ‘yet to be born’ we propose that this something would come closer to the principles of life. Working with interconnectedness, diversity and resilience as its source. For this thing to emerge we do however need to get unstuck. To come back into relationship with the planet as responsible stewards rather than an extractive force.

Playing with perspectives we’re proposing that a way to begin getting unstuck is to check your bearings towards how you interact with the world through your worldviews. Lynn Murphy makes a distinction between a psychological (me oriented) and a spiritual (bigger than I oriented) approach. Paul Chefurka proposes (Ladder of awareness) that most of us map onto a relationship with the world that is can be simplified as: asleep - one problem - many problems - many interconnected problems - many inter connected problems that start with me. Weaving these together creates the following framework:

Pushing on to review the systemic we reminded ourselves of the G. Bateson quote: “The major problems in the world is the result of the difference between how nature works and how people think.” Suggesting that our stuckness in the systemic would also benefit from a shift in how we spend our energy. Away from spending energy to keep up the view that the world is rational, mechanistic, certain processes towards a more relaxed approach that instead accepts the world as embodied, relational and uncertain. The latter world is the world our current biology, physics and chemistry suggests we are actually living in. Yet in order to live into this world we need to find bridges that allow us to invite more humans away from where we are currently stuck towards the new. Three such bridges are the topics of Value, Risk and Efficiency.

For instance our current concept value (in business) emphasise value as being fully captured by financial capital. Most of us know however that this is hardly the case, there are many different values or currency streams at play. For instance the relationship that enabled the exchange, the raw materials (from nature) that make up the product etc. Another example would be efficiency: if the world is certain then efficiency is making a great plan and then executing but if we can’t know the outcome then we’d have to put more trust in the relationships and instead experiment to find the most efficient way. These are trivial examples with deep implications. If we can find ways to relax the upholding of (acting as if) the world as rational, mechanistic and certain this could be the beginning of shifting entire systems.

The path for doing it is to have the courage to begin acting from this world we are seeing. To do that, the relational is key.

Three ways of looking at the relational:

• Attention - what we pay attention to and care for or attend to is what we are in relationship to.

• Contact - relationship is only there if we are in contact. This goes for humans and living things but also objects. Unless we are in contact there is no relationship.

• Exchange - relationship means some sort of exchange, however subtle.

If we are stuck in the personal (i.e. our relationship to ourselves) and stuck in the systemic (i.e. our relationship to the world at large) and we don’t feel like we have any agency or place to go then finding ways to get unstuck we can do this by shifting attention, contact or exchange in how we relate to the people and things around us.

We proceeded to propose 3 ways of getting unstuck before we went into a simple practice. We revisited the model described in the previous piece by Carol Sanford of 4 different minds. Things, Processes, Relationships, Essence. Noticing that shifting between each of these levels (that of course actually operate continuously and simultaneously) will both enable and limit us. Moving towards essence will reduce speed/pressure and increase space. Moving towards things will increase speed/pressure and reduce space.

3 ways to get unstuck:

• shift your attention: put your focus on another level. See what is possible there. For instance if your contract negotiation is stuck (thing) perhaps ask the person across from you about their family (relation) or what they really care about (essence)

• establish contact: connect deeper within yourself to another level than where you currently ‘are’. For instance if you are getting upset or angry as a result of whatever is happening around you (process), perhaps connecting with why you showed up in the first place (relation) might reduce some pressure

• increase exchange: focus on what is flowing (or not) and explore how to enable more flow. For instance if you feel like you’re work is a drain since it is out of alignment with who you ‘really are’ perhaps see how you can show up as who you’d like to be to a larger degree (relation). Perhaps by exploring new ways of facilitating meetings (process) or increasing the exchange between your essence and the circumstance (thing) you are interacting with.

Another, more fundamental perspective, that we see from these quite basic examples is to consider tension as a potential source for energy. Put in another way if you can ‘be with’ and notice where you are not fully relaxed - that is a potential path for unlocking more potential in your life.

We then shifted into practice in breakout rooms exploring if we could notice how relationships can limit or enable us.

Next session on the RCO will be held on the 11th of April 2024. Sign up here.

Recording from the webinar:

Deck:

Innrwrks Regenerative Business 3

1.72MB ∙ PDF file

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These things are not abstract they are subtle. The key takeaway is this: we need to attend to the world differently to be able to act systemically. That is what we spoke about in the webinar. You can see the webinar in its entirety below as well as find the presentation.

Here’s what we touched:

The meta crisis: The idea that we live in a world of interconnected, simultaneous crisis where everything has to do with everything else. We need to let go of our hope of simple solutions. Curious for more depth? Here is a 30 min video by Jonathan Rowson (director of Perspectiva) that gives a nice overview.

An important part of beginning to address something like a meta crisis is looking deeply at its causes. As we dig through historical, political, economical, sociological, cultural layers we will begin to understand that the causes are related to how we see the world. Carol Sanford puts it like this: Our consciousness (what we can see and perceive in the world) will determine to a large degree what skills or capacities we build in the world. Those capacities will in turn define what we (can) do. Ultimately our actions collectively make up our culture. The culture in turn defines what we can see and round and round it goes.

To return to the roads as mentioned in the intro: we could think about these as trampled forrest paths that gradually become widened and eventually turned into roads. Eventually roads that define entire landscapes. Even though the roads make the landscape sick it is very hard to change the roads. Unless you start building a capacity to move differently and that requires seeing and being differently.

The main thesis of this webinar is that our systems are designed to handle a rational, certain and mechanical world. It is just that the world is not like that at all. Like Gregory Bateson says: The main problems in the world are the result of the difference between how the world works and how people think. The ‘solutions’ we are working on and proposing is exactly what has lead us to where we are right now.

What we are proposing is that the world is rather embodied, uncertain and relational. We review some theory that underpins this in the webinar. When we begin exploring the world as such, it begins to look different.

We touched upon 3 bridges: topics that we can talk about in both of these world views: Value, Risk and Efficiency. These are terms that allow us to meet people where they are. They hold the potential to practice the new world view, the systemic and relational world view. One aligned with using life (instead of a machine) as a model for how we move in the world.

We touched upon 2 tools that one can use to begin uncovering the systemic world. One is the consciousness - capacity - culture framework described above. The other is also by Carol Sanford and proposes that we engage with the world with 4 ‘minds’.

• Thing mind: The objects that we are creating

• Process mind: The process that then go ahead and create the tings we see.

• Relational mind: The relationships that we then weave into the processes that then make the things

• Essence mind: The essence or core that allows you to find the others (create the relationships) and then engage in processes that then result in things.

As you can see - these minds are interdependent and depending on where we focus our attention will give very different approaches or solutions. We’ll talk more about the potential that lies in spending more time in the essence and relational mind than in process and thing mind (where we usually spend our time) in the next webinar… Tag along on the 28th!

The invitation and the final question was “What could you relax that would increase your agency?” Because our experience of shifting is that it might not be about adding more. Rather taking away. Relaxing demands on rationality so that we can sense our body. Relax demands on knowing so that we can fully be with and get curious about the uncertain. Relax our incessant looking at parts to begin feeling into the whole relational world we’re living in. Relaxing gets us closer. There is nothing you have to do right right now other than taking the next step and notice what that changes. Before you know it everything might be different.

This was a very short summary of what we talked about. If you found it hard to grasp - well it’s because it is! Take a look at the webinar if you want more resolution. Or get in touch if you want to talk more in-depth.

Full slide deck for the curious.

Innrwrks Regenerative Business 2

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You’ll find the full video from the first event below if you are curious. The webinar was hosted by Nils von Heijne and Amit Paul supporting and summing up.

Here are a couple of high level take aways from the session today:

After the first breakout room we where we looked at our current understanding what is happening we got to hear three voices. The underlying thread is confusion of living in this time between worlds (Zac Steins terminology). That confusion expresses itself in many different modes.

• What is coming next?

• What is valuable? Now / in the future?

• What of this is personal and what is collective? What about our time is extraordinary?

This lead us to explore the concept of Paul Chefurka as well as Vanessa Machado de Oliveira.

Paul Chefurka in his work on the Ladder of Awareness brings us through ways to be in the world from ‘dead asleep’ through seeing one problem, seeing several problems, seeing several interconnected problem, seeing it as an inseparable interconnected whole which also then implicates you and me.

Vanessa Machado de Oliveira points in her seminal book Hospicing modernity to the possibility that it is Modernity that is dying. An important strand of work in this world we are living in is hospicing it. Helping it let go.

Nils presents a perspective on these models with an invitation to a structure. And an invitation to feel into the frameworks we were speaking of.

After that we went into a second break-out inviting participants to explore: how they guide themselves and how we support others through this transition? Not look at what we are not doing but rather what we are doing.

Some aspects that were shared by the participants that Amit continued to reflect on after this break out:

• We are taking care of ourselves, we are taking care of some of those around us. How do we grow this? How can we have a bigger effect? Amit provided the reflection that this question in itself might be part of the trappings of modernity. What if we are already doing enough?

• The importance of cultivating compassion and love for oneself. It is ok to be wrong.

• The struggle to bridge the spiritual and personal. What are my ideas? What are the requirements of the world we live in? This conversation becomes real in childrearing. Amit notices that part of the efficiency of the modern projects is that it has injected itself in almost all aspects of our lives. This will be a topic for the next session on the systemic.

• An appreciation for being in spaces like this one. With others that hold this type of inquiry. Of belonging. Of being reminded that we are not alone.

• Remembering that the little things actually do matter. That it helps. That it allows us to pass it forward.

If you are curious about the full session please watch below:

Here are also the slides for download if you are curious:

Innrwrks Regenerative Business 1

4.89MB ∙ PDF file

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The same team and same hosts with an evolution of the exploration. Noticing that ‘just’ working with the inner is not enough. Unless we apply and practice in the world we live in, nothing will change.

The Innrwrks founding team are entrepreneurs at heart and believe in business as an incredible power. It has certainly reshaped our current world. What does the ongoing regenerative transformation of business look like?

As Innrwrks is moving towards becoming what we call a transformation lab and studio. So will the second season of this podcast address our guiding question:

How do we transform business to create the world we want our kids to live in?

Come along!

I would like you touch upon three concepts that stood out throughout the season:

Connection at the centre

Connection is one of those topics that seem to be incredibly central, more or less on every level:

• On the company level we can speak of connection to what is going on in the legislative environment and ones customers to be able to navigate the highly uncertain times we live in.

• On the team level we can speak of connection to one another to be able to deliver on goals in an agile way and to adapt as conditions and contexts change.

• On the individual level we can speak of it in terms of trauma, e.g. not to be stuck or caught in singular identities or connect to ones deeper desires and longing so that we find life and work meaningful and avoid burning out or languishing. Brene Brown says: “Authenticity is belonging to yourself” (belonging as being connected for the purpose of this article).

We see it yet again in more resent research that it pays off to be connected. The oxford wellness study shows across a number of metrics that happy workers deliver better. Happiness in our thinking would be a result of feeling connection with the work one does, the company or ones team.  In other words, investing in connection is not something soft or nice to have, the study shows statistically significant improvement in ROA, Tobin’s q and reduced volatility across a number of metrics.

Want to dive deeper? Connection came up in a number of episodes:

Krisin Grimsdottir on belonging

Ricky Goodall on authentic relating

Victoria Vallström

Johan Reunanen

Andrew Horn

Imran Rehman

Helena Önneby

Self organisation as a fact of life

There is a trend right now to talk about self-organisation as this mysterious thing that happens at the fringes of society. Some of our podcast guests argue that it’s not. In fact, as long as we are dealing with living beings these will self-organise. The question is whether we can successfully use structure to liberate instead of limit the potential of our organisation.

What does it mean? Well if we have a strict structure with lots of formal controls, what tends to happen? Well usually you will figure out how to get things done anyways. Like, don’t talk to the IT guy on mondays but do talk to him after the coffee break on tuesdays and see if he cannot get you the thing he needs without the formal request. And if I bring some chocolate while I ask, then it’ll be a higher probability that I get things done. That’s also self-organisation. Or if I know that my friend has the bosses ear, why not let her ask on my behalf?

So does that mean that we should have no structure? Well probably not. That’s risky too. It gives room for people to just do whatever they are used to doing, i.e. a tyranny of structure-lessness where our biases can come into full, unregulated play.

We had a couple of discussion on this theme. And it’s not intuitive always how to get it done but some take aways that stuck with me related to the topic:

• Do your thing and get out of the way. Do what you think will be best for your organisation or team and then let people respond as they need to. Don’t close the door. Don’t turn off your phone. Stay available and respond when needed. But watch curiously for how your ‘change’ propagates thought the organisation and see if you need to adjust for unintended consequences.

• See if you can find out how things are and modulate them towards a desired outcome. That is very different from working from how things ‘should have been’ if everyone did what it said in their work description.

• Quit your goals, start working with horizons. It means let’s get together to navigate towards a common horizon and liberate our teams and colleagues to get us there instead of staying addicted to hitting specific mountaintops on the way. Moving towards a horizon is nice too since you never get there - it means that we have continuous incentive to keep adapting to the changing conditions. Contrast that approach to goal setting as first taking specific mountain tops - and when you get there, then what? Down again?

If you feel like digging deeper in this track check out:

Eugenio Molina on self-organisation and doing your thing and getting out of the way

Getur Palmason on tools for organisational analysis

Ted Rau on sociocracy and self-management

Giles Hutchins on regenerative leadership

Niklas Huss on the transformation of large public organisations

Johan Thiel on entrepreneurship as navigation

Why we play might become central in what comes next

Finally I’ll add a perspective on this worldview shift that some we’re talking about. It relates to play.

I enjoy reading and thinking through what seems to be coming next and stumbled on an excellent book called “The structure of world history” (Karatani, 2014). The author proposes that we have spent too much time and energy worrying about the means of production and should have instead looked at our means of exchange as the driver for how our society is structured.

Initially we were exchanging reciprocally (gifting). This was efficient in that particular context. Yet society started changed and this increased shifted the dominant mode of exchange toward coercion. The second paradigm was relating to domination or violence. There was a long period where strength and kinetic power was the main driver for material success. Then there was a third shift. We moved increasingly into trade as the dominant mode of exchange. The increasingly interconnected world rewarded this mode of exchange. Capitalism, communism and other economically driven -isms during the past few hundred years qualify into this paradigm. And right now he argues, as do we at Innerworks, we are at the cusp of something else. Another shift. What mode of exchange will take over when trade seizes to be the dominant system? What mode of exchange hold the potential to rebalance our current time?

An argument made by the Nordic meta modern school is that that thing we are moving towards is play. They define 4 different human interactions: cooperation, competition, trade and play. These are very similar to what Karatani proposed. Their argument is that we have cooperated, competed and traded and now we’ll need to do all of that but playfully. We cooperate to increase our leverage in the game, we compete not to kill the other but to get to keep playing, and we trade to be able to acquire things to play at a higher level. A similar idea lives in James Carse’s Infinite games. I.e. we will have to gift, coerce and trade but with the ultimate goal is to get to keep playing.

If play is the dominant mode of exchange that moves us away from the maximisation and it will allow us to also take in contexts. Play can mean that we actually perform the other modes of exchange but with a different end in mind. Play does not mean that we don’t do things well, a kid playing can be incredibly serious yet only keep doing it if it’s enjoyable. It is a fundamental shift of worldview from getting to an end to actually engrossing ourselves in the process itself - making sure we get to do as much of it as possible.

What would it mean for your business to stop trying to ‘out-compete’ your competitors and instead seeing them as partners in raising the overall level of the game you’re playing? What would it mean to put relationships at the centre rather than winning? What is the first thing you or your team would stop doing if you took this blog post seriously?

Written by Amit Paul (Substack)

Amit Paul (co-founder of Innerworks) takes us into the weeds of the book Deep change by Robert Quinn. There are excerpts from the book from 1996 with some deep provcations that are probably useful for anyone involved in or preparing to undertake a change process.

This episode deals with maps and territory, sacred cows, a day at the beach, lost soldiers in the Italian alps during the second world war, organisations in homeostasis not sustained operation, what it means to reinvent yourself periodically, what it means to build the bridge while you are walking on it, conditions for empowerment, why excellence is a form of deviance and much more.

4 takeaways from the episode are:

• There is no such thing as a sustainable organisation, organisations are constantly dynamically rebalancing.

• Either you are in a process of deep change or you are in slow death.

• There is no such thing as changing others, if you are not changing too there will only be talk about change, no action.

• Are you willing to feel incompetent for a while? How do you continuously reinvent yourself?

Intrigued? Take a listen.

If you want to follow all our episodes, take part in the conversation, get more resources and links from episodes and take part in events subscribe at meaningfulworkpodcast.substack.com

Links

Deep Change; Discovering the leader within, Robert Quinn (1996)

Johari window: The 4 parts of the model. Things you know that others don’t know, things that others know that you don’t know, things that you and others know, things that noone knows.

Open space technology

Eugenio Moliní is an experienced change management consultant who has worked in 100s of organisations across Europe for the past several decades. This conversation criss-cross the boarder of self organisation and self management and is a use ful guide into task based management from a person who has dedicated his life to liberating people to do the best work possible in the work context.

We explore many different aspects of less violent work. Like why the image of the organisation as an entity driving towards a peak is misleading and perhaps its more like pushing towards a horizon. We explore when we became addicted to goals and strategy as ends vs markers for that we are on the path. When did redundant become an excuse for getting rid of people? Why is it really that self-organisation is inevitable? What should we think of when thinking about self management? And a lot more.

An extract by Amit

Towards the end of our conversation we explored some principles to incorporate when designing work that allows people to self-manage and follow their passion:

1. Promote interconnectedness - in channels or between channels.

Life is fundamentally inter connected. Diversity and inter connectedness are crucial aspects of life. It does not mean maximise interconnectedness since that will just ‘create an amoeba that will die of heat-death’ as Eugnio puts it so clearly. Rather optimise for the communication that will serve the information needed in the different parts of the organisation through interconnected communication channels within and between parts.

2. Bring the future to the now.

To achieve any goal is to move towards a horizon. Change means a new state that we are not in at this particular time. People in general do not like change, nor are open to doing things differently. It is hard to do things differently. So, how do we offer change? By offering the people that cannot imagine the new way of working, an experience of what it would be working in that new way. That is the fundamental behind bringing the future to the now.

3. Do you thing and get out of the way.

Do your thing and get out of the way. Don’t try to control the effects of your actions, that’s impossible. Instead. Do what you believe you need to do and then stay connected to the organisation. Stay connected, especially if you are delivering difficult messages to people. Other than that you keep faith in the process as well as your values and principles and keep looking towards that horizon you are steering towards.

And some other nuggets that I picked up on the way:

• Remember that if your management systems appraises you (or anyone) by other peoples work this leads to people having to controlling people. Any such system will kill self-management. Not self organisation as defined in this conversation but self-management. If anything self-organisation will just find different routes.

• Two simple rules of thumb:

  • For teams of more than (ca) 5 people: you need to put a manager.

  • The moment a company becomes ca 150 people they need to develop management systems that take more resources than the people that are producing, that are doing the real work. That is when management becomes a goal in itself. If you want people to self-manage then you need to make other decisions.

And there was much, much more in this conversation. So I strongly recommend that you listen to the whole thing.

Together with Victoria Vallström, we dive deep into the research on meaningful work and workplaces, what creates engagement and how we can avoid burnout. We explore how connection may just be the secret we're all looking for.

Victoria Vallström is a passionate leader, consultant, and lifelong learner with over 20 years of experience in the software development industry. Her curiosity for understanding the fundamental aspects of human interaction has propelled her to explore various aspects of the field, leading to her success in both startups and established companies.

Throughout her career, Victoria has held a variety of leadership roles, including board positions, executive roles, and first-line management positions. She has gained invaluable experience working in diverse environments, such as Silicon Valley, Boston, Bangalore, and India. Currently based in Gothenburg, Sweden, she has spent the past four years as a leadership consultant through her own company and as a co-founder of Yomi Labs.

Victoria's pursuit of knowledge extends beyond her professional life, as she avidly explores research and literature on the social aspects of humanity and how people interact with one another. To share her findings and engage with other curious minds, she hosts the Bitcurious podcast.

Links and more reading

Bitcurious podcast: https://anchor.fm/abitcurious (also available where all podcasts live)

"A podcast about us, humans working and creating things together."

A podcast that explores concepts and fundamentals often hidden in buzzwords or systems in the work world. Fundamentals that often can improve our collaboration and creation. A curation of the science on each topic. Covering things from flow, organizational fairness, burnout, reflective thinking, power, social interaction, autonomy, and perfectionism to various theories of social interaction.

Bitcurious podcast website: 

Yomilabs (co-founder, provides organizational development)

Victoria Vallström LinkedIn

In this episode, Nils and Loïc Le Meur explore the intersection of meaningful work, inner work and entrepreneurship - and how indigenous traditions are increasingly being brought into modern society and the startup industry.

Loïc is a visionary French entrepreneur and the founder of PAUA, an organization dedicated to bringing together entrepreneurs, consciousness explorers, and conscious business leaders. With a strong background in technology and a passion for personal growth, Le Meur's career spans over two decades in the tech and entrepreneurial space.

Le Meur began his career as a serial entrepreneur, founding several successful companies, including Ublog, a blogging platform, and LeWeb, one of Europe's leading tech conferences. Despite his success in the tech industry, Le Meur felt a calling to explore the intersection of consciousness, entrepreneurship, and technology.

In response to this calling, he founded PAUA, an innovative organization designed to explore uncharted territories in consciousness and technology. PAUA's mission is to rediscover ancient wisdom and unveil new technologies that offer a broader and richer perception of reality. The organization is dedicated to fostering a community of like-minded individuals who share a passion for personal growth, consciousness expansion, and positive change.

Links and further reading

- Fear No Evil (book recommendation)

- PAUA.life

- loic.substack.com

The 9 questions of the Organisational network analysis

The Organisational Network Analysis (ONA) asks 3 questions in 3 different domains so in total 9 questions in 3 buckets:

Bucket 1 - The functional network: Name the people you typically collaborate with, name the people you connect with to get the job done, name the people that you can go to in order to secure faster progress (agility for short)

Bucket 2 - Cultural network: Name the people you feel energised by, name the people you go to for support and name the people you feel open and honest with (trust for short)

Bucket 3 - Leadership network: Name the people you look to for guidance, name the people that stretch your thinking, name the people that actively support your development.

All of these are relevant in the work place in different ways. Gestur is pointing to the cultural being by far the most important in terms of worker satisfaction and retainment of workforce. Their studies show that most currently successful companies score high in bucket 1 and that this might be a sign of trouble in the longer run.

What are the metrics for high employee retainment? When do people stay? When they feel energised by their work, when they feel like they belong and when they are engaged in what is meaningful to them.

What does the future of organisations look like?

The vision of the future of the organisation beyond the hierarchal organisation that took us to the initial part of the industrial revolution. This turned into the matrix organisation, later augmented by the in-official project organisation which takes us basically up to today. Complete sees a clear trend. The future of the organisation may operate in 3 layers in order to prioritise agility in a complex world: A strategic layer at the top - An expert layer at the base and a connective / polymath layer in the middle that is synergising and synthesizing the knowledge.

And there is a lot more thought provoking stuff in this episode. Enjoy!

Links and further reading

Ted talk of Dr Alan Watkins: Why you feel what you feel

Interoception: The very basic basics of interoception

Andrew Huberman Podcast on Meditation

complete-coherence.com

Gestur Palmason (LinkedIn)

Sociocracy is one of those organisational models that have gained lots of attention and momentum over the past few year. Ted Rau is the operational leader of Sociocracy4all and shares some of his experience and key questions around the framework.

How should one start?

Ted points to that it is important to bring in more people than yourself to start with. If there are a few of you it becomes less threatening and you get to practice what you preach from early on and most of this system is about practice.

What does decision making look like, is it really slow?

Sociocracy is based on the consent model. It means that you are biased towards allowing people to try unless it will cause harm to the organisation. It also means that the circles decide themselves what part is most important for them to achieve the task or area or goal that they are pursuing. The big threshold is the responsibility. If you are in a circle and consent you are co-responsible. You are not encourage to object if you do not think it’s safe it is your responsibility to. Fundamentally Sociocracy is a way for organisations to negotiate between different perspectives explicitly and balance opposing forces like profit and purpose or de-centralisation vs speed. All of this is built into the method.

What is the key barrier?

It is to take the jump and decentralise power. But it also has to do with the capacity of people. This method requires a lot of capacity in people to see and view their internal preferences. It is moving away from preference and moving towards experimentation. And in doing so we empower and enable our coworkers to take full ownership and responsibility over the different tasks and put it in the hands of their colleagues to regulate when we veer from what is best for the organisation. Ted says that this system is one of the few that he’s found that is fit for the job of navigating in the complex times we live in.

[This is a write up by Amit and does not contain direct quotes from the interview. To hear the entire conversation take a listen!]

Links

Ted Rau

Sociociracy for all

Consent

Deep level diversity; Reasons for inviting more diversity in our organisation through awareness and structure.

Non violent communication

The Work - Byron Katie. An inquiry method that invites self-responsibility.

Johan M. Reunanen stands as an esteemed authority in the realm of sustainability, not merely in guiding corporations towards eco-conscious practices, but also in cultivating more compassionate corporate environments. In this captivating episode, Johan and Nils delve into the pivotal role of forging robust relationships within the workplace and unveil the blueprint for achieving this.

Together, they navigate the dynamic synergy between honesty, respect, trust, and acceptance, unraveling how these elements can inspire a culture of benevolent leadership that elevates the entire organization. They embark on a fascinating exploration of the transformation of the workplace, shifting from a zero-sum game of cutthroat competition and cold transactions to a harmonious, win-win relational culture that nurtures value for every participant and their interconnected ecosystems.

If you have yet to encounter Johan's insightful perspectives, this is an opportunity that should not be overlooked. Prepare to be inspired, enlightened, and motivated to champion a new way of thinking about the interplay between sustainability, leadership, and workplace culture.

PS. This description was AI assisted in it’s generation… fun right?!

Questions explored in the episode:

• What are some simple tools to help people work better together?

• How do we foster functional relationships in the workplace?

Connect with Johan on LinkedIn

Giles Hutchins is the author of Regenerative Leadership with Laura Storm and most recently Leading by nature. He is an activist for regenerative leadership and supports the paradigm shift towards an interconnected leadership that is systemic and is fueled by love.

In this episode we get into the weeds. What are the barriers to love? Why is loving ourself so important? What does it mean to be in flow with the unfolding moment and not get in the way of life? Why are forgiveness, trust and love important capacities for making the mindset shift into the regenerative leadership paradigm.

Giles is a strong advocate for the view of organisations as living systems where leadership becomes a spiritual undertaking. It is not that work is inherently meaningful but there is a way for us to make work a part of our meaning making. And an integral part of our learning and development as humans. Giles focus is to lead leaders into this journey without them having to burn out or retreat from the business world but rather foster these capacities and perspectives through practices with active professionals.

This is a hands-on, tangible, clear conversation about what leadership in from a fully complexity aware paradigm could look like.

Links and resources from the episode

Flow (One of the best sellers on flow Stealing fire - Jamie Wheal)

Regenerative leadership - Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm

Leading by nature - Giles Hutchins

Claire Graves

Theory U - Otto Scharmer

Joseph Cambell

C.G. Jung - Individuation

Christopher Alexander

Giles Hutchins

Nature of Business / Leading by nature

Helena Önneby is a coach, facilitator and HR professional. She is the author on 3 books on topics concerning intuition, flow and love in the workplace and in our lives.

This conversation revolves around why we should bother. And the topic of fear and love as opposed forces came up. If we can show up fully at work that is the only way that we can build our full capacity and potential into work. As soon as we start protecting ourselves we do not have energy to spend on the tasks that are at hand. Helena relates the story of how she herself began to integrate these practices and what unfolded as a result.

This is also a special episode since it resulted in a co-creation. Two articles on a topic that we have playfully labled the ÖP [UP] framework. It explores a fear and love axis and a control and flow axis. The result are 4 states that we might find ourselves in at work. Paralysis, Escape, Parenting and Thriving. Which one are you in? If you are curious about this deeper conversation you find part 1 here and part 2 here.

This conversation touched upon so much more, belonging, authenticity, the second job and why we need to stop doing it, psychological safety, constellation work and heart centred leadership. Enjoy!

Links and further reading

Helena Önneby’s Webpage, LinkedIn, Instagram

ÖP Framework. Two articles (Part 1, Part 2) of writing as a result of this conversation where we deal with love and fear related to control and flow. Author: Amit Paul

Belonging vs Authenticity (Fiona English)

“The opposite of belonging is fitting in” (An article by Brene on the topic) Brené Brown “Braving the Wilderness”

Never split the difference - Chris Voss

Psychological safety - Amy Edmonsson

Second Job (Article by Chip McLean) - Originally by Robert Keagan

Constellation (IFS)

Heart Centered Leadership - Danielle Laporte

This conversation is a rich conversation with Imran Rehman, employee experience specialist. We speak of some of the fundamentals of his work and some unconventional yet powerful insights into how we can do culture work. Here are some of my (Amit’s) favourite takeaways from the conversation:

Structure, spaces and stories.

Imran relates that he often works with these three components initially as he steps into an organisation. To create a structure, usually one that centers around the team since, in his experience, teams become increasingly important in times of change when power is distributed away from the center of the organisation towards the periphery. This means a structure that empowers team leads with what they need to run effective teams is critical. The second parameter spaces are the meetings and context. When can we actually get out of the ‘getting things done’ and checking the boxes type meetings and think wider and broader about what we are doing? Fostering the conditions for belonging, psychological safety and ultimately flow experiences. The stories are the way that we understand what is going on. As we start changing the meetings (spaces) we might start having room for other stories and with those new stories we will start seeing the culture take form provided that we allow structure to follow.

Kokoro - mastery of the fundamentals

Kokoro is a tool for empowering teams to get control of data to follow their own progress over time. As Imran states clearly “Team comparison can and should only be done through temporal comparison, social comparison [editors note: between teams] is not helpful. Even if a team is deceiving themselves that will sooner or later catch up and the team will start to perform. That is our experience.” This is why Kokoro focus on Belonging, psychological safety and flow experiences in their pulse measurements. It’s a short survey that you can keep coming back to. Then the data is put in the hands of team leads and Kokoro helps the team leads implement retrospectives in their organisations. Based on those two components they will start creating the structure and support they need. This rhymes well with one of the meanings of Kokoro: to master the fundamentals and allow leaders to practice them again and again.

We speak of many more things in this conversation like why it’s important to realise we are more than just one identity. How we can get to meaning through simplicity if we remove the obvious (like profit). And we speak about emotions and their primary place in forming culture, that it’s time to put the story of the stimuli and respons model to rest when it comes to emotions and realise they are culturally conditioned primarily.

A few more words about Imran:

Imran is an employee-experience specialist with an expertise in strengthening and building belonging and psychological safe environments in groups and teams. Based in Austria, he is a leadership coach as well as CEO of Kokoro, a web-based tool that helps busy leaders get the best out of themselves and their teams with a data-informed approach. Reach out to talk about coaching, team development, leadership and also about dogs 🐕.Connect with him here:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imranrehman/

Twitter: @ImsRehman  Email: imran@bekokoro.com Webpage: https://bekokoro.com/

Links to further resources:

Marcus Buckingham on Engagement

Lisa Feldman Barrett on Emotions

Gabór Maté - The myth of normal (Youtube talk on the book)

Retrospectives

Self-determination theory and autonomy (There are 3 parts in this podcast that are really rich with resources)

The science of belonging

Psychological safety

The problem of transfer in leadership training - a motivation to why training should be done in the job context not removed at leadership retreats.

Andrew Horn is a serial entrepreneur, speaker and writer based in Austin, Texas. Co-founder and CEO of Tribute.co He has been featured on TED.com, founded an INC500 company, keynotes for the Fortune 500 and serves as a personal coach to “second mountain” entrepreneurs. He is the man behind the four-question framework known as “Social Flow” - a simple method for becoming more self aware, creating deeper connections and fostering more meaningful work. In this episode, Andrew and Nils explore how we can find our individual purpose, ask better questions, create deeper connections, change ourselves using our social identity and help others feel comfortable being themselves.

Links and more reading

Man’s Search for Meaning (book)

Into the Wild (book)

Boxed breathing

Social Flow

The Identity Model of Change

itsandrewhorn.com

tribute.co