S01E05 The two key principles of autonomous organisations - with Mehmet Yitmen
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Show Notes
In S01E05 of the Rethink Culture podcast, Mehmet Yitmen, co-founder at ACM Agile, talks about the principles of autonomous organisations and the process he uses to transform traditional hierarchical organisations into self-organising ones. Yitmen has worked with tens of organisations in Europe and the Middle East to transform them using agile and self-management principles over 20 years and carries a deeply ingrained practitioners perspective of the future of work.
He argues that our hierarchical, command-and-control way of working has been inspired by the industrial revolution. Similarly, autonomous, and self-managed organisations are inspired by the internet revolution, which is leaderless, distributed and transparent - qualities that reflect in the new ways of working.
He sees two elements as the foundation of autonomous organisations - alignment (through purpose, values and principles) and transparency (so that teams can self-correct and re-align).
Yitmen also discusses some of the risks of applying autonomous principles - how individuals have to be 100% accountable for their work, and how managers need to unlearn when they no longer need to manage people.
He also discusses how in autonomous organisations, traditional HR functions like hiring, training and development need to happen locally within a team, while the role of a horizontal HR function is to support and coach staff.
Further references:
ACM Agile: https://www.acmagile.com/
Mehmet Yitmen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehmet-yitmen-a3723718
Vodafone: Our Agile Story book https://www.acmagile.com/books/our-agile-story
Reinventing organisations by Frederic Laloux https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/
Corporate Rebels: https://www.corporate-rebels.com/