The Future Bossless Organization Is Already Here

The coming decade will bring greater changes than most people can imagine. According to some predictions, the world of 2030 will be more different from 2019 than 2019 is from 1969 – the year the first human walked on the moon.

The list of technologies already affecting us today and set to fundamentally reshape entire societies, organizations, and people's everyday lives is long: artificial intelligence, quantum computers, advanced robotics, ultra-fast 5G networks, and blockchain are just a few recurring examples – alongside a myriad of other innovations in an extremely short time that we cannot yet envision. Today's complexity is high, even higher than our society and organizations can handle. The ongoing exponential pace of development only increases that complexity further.

Today is simply the last day that everything will move this slowly.

We stand before a gigantic societal shift driven by technological innovation that is affecting societal structures, values, and the way we organize ourselves. Modern society today is built on values and assumptions about individuals and companies as independent, rational actors competing over limited resources in a free market. My gain comes at the cost of your loss. If I control the external environment, it becomes predictable. Natural consequences of this mindset are competitive thinking and top-down management. The ongoing information revolution, with the internet at its forefront, is now rewriting the rules and transforming society fundamentally – just as the printing press paved the way for industrial society with nation states, democracy, universities, capitalism, and modern companies.

Companies and organizations that still organize themselves based on industrial society's ideas of top-down management, five-year plans, and competition between individuals and firms are becoming slow and increasingly struggling to survive and thrive in a world that is more interconnected, global, and rapidly changing than ever. Those that go first and instead organize themselves around principles of distributed leadership, higher collective intelligence, and adaptability are the new winners.

The organizational paradigm of the future is bossless and is often called "self-organization", "self-management", or "teal". Today, these new-old ideas lean on a growing body of research and best practice. Research is currently underway at the Stockholm School of Economics to clarify the extent to which this organizational model affects and is affected by people's vertical development and decision-making efficiency. Results from previous research already point to such connections existing. Bossless organizations appear, given the right conditions, to be more agile, efficient, motivating, and innovative than traditionally managed ones.

After a decade of driving change projects taking companies' leadership, culture, and structure in the direction of more self-leadership and self-organization, I draw the same conclusion as the research. Best practice and an increasing number of actors choosing to go first tell the same story. Some examples of bossless and self-organizing companies in Sweden and globally include Comprend, Tenant & Partner, Netlight, Centigo, Patagonia, Buurtzorg, and Zappos. My insight into these and ongoing transformation projects speaks to even more companies – many well-known – currently investing time and resources to become pioneers and take the step into the new.

When the environment is uncertain, a common reaction is to want to take control and create more predictability. When external complexity increases, we instead need to increase the inner complexity of people and organizations. More variables, perspectives, and possibilities require more from us. The more interconnected, global, and rapidly changing world we are entering rewards distributed leadership, collective intelligence, and rapid adaptability. To move forward, we therefore often need to act directly against structural capital, established experience, and gut instinct. We simply need to become a little more comfortable with not always being in control.

The transformation journey is of course no walk in the park. It requires more leadership from more people, not less. It demands that we challenge job titles, management teams, specialists, clearly defined teams, and traditional employee and leadership development. It requires a way of working that strives toward higher self-awareness, greater compassion, increased trust, stronger collaboration, and radical transparency. It demands more orientation toward long-term purpose rather than profit maximization. All of this places high demands on self-awareness and efficiency from both employees and the organization.

Here we encounter some challenges. Current thinking encourages us from an early age to be independent, rational individuals who gain advantages by climbing and getting ahead. A self-organizing structure instead builds on us both honoring the competence and experience that makes each of us unique, while also acknowledging that each of us has limited perspectives and resources. A new way of working requires a radically new way of thinking and acting, where on a deeper level we realize and embrace that collaboration and "win-win" releases more synergy than competition and "win-lose."

We stand at the threshold of the 2020s. The world of 2030 will be very different from the world of 2019. Those trying to survive in the information society with industrial society values and ways of working are destined to fail. Adaptability is rewarded over conservatism. Companies that instead boldly choose to go first and build their organization on principles of distributed leadership, collaboration, and "win-win" rather than centralization, competition, and "win-lose" are the new winners.

There are unfortunately no quick fixes. But some advice for those considering taking the step is to listen, prototype, and learn from both the successes and mistakes of those who have gone before.

Concrete actions common to these pioneers include:

• A clear organizational purpose that everything else connects to

• Prototyping and learning integrated into the culture

• Feedback and development built into all processes

• Focus on self-leadership and awareness among all employees

• Focus on psychological trust and interpersonal relationships

Today is the last day that everything will move this slowly. Are you and your organization prepared? Where will you be in ten years? Do you and your organization have the inner complexity required to navigate and create value in the information society?

---

This post is written by Stellar Capacity faculty member, entrepreneur, and speaker Stefan Ekwall.

Want to learn more about self-organization and leading self-organizing teams? Explore Stellar Capacity's leadership programs and subscribe to our newsletter for updates on leadership and digitalization. We also offer deep dives, workshops, and tailor-made training programs for companies and organizations looking to develop their capacity for self-organization and distributed leadership.

You can read more by Stefan on his blog.