Reinventing Organizations
A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness
by Frederic Laloux · first published 2014
68% recommend32% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Case studies of a dozen self-managing, non-hierarchical organizations, including Buurtzorg and Morningstar, with practical detail on how flat structures work. Suits founders and managers rethinking company management.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The uplifting message of Reinventing Organizations has resonated with readers all over the world, and they have turned it, one conversation at a time, into a word-of-mouth phenomenon. The book has helped shift the conversation from what’s broken with management today to what’s possible. It is inspiring thousands of organizations—corporations and nonprofits, schools and hospitals—to adopt radically more powerful, soulful, and purposeful practices. The book resonates widely, but not everyone has time to devote to a dense 360-page management book. This illustrated version conveys the main ide
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…proof that our hiring process needed to improve, for him it was proof that our supervision process needed to improve. There's a great book about companies run through bottom-up decision making called Reinventing Organizations. My take away was that bottom up can work at any scale, but it requires true believers at the top who are constantly working hard at making themselves unnecessary. Once the true believers walk out organizations…
on “I do whatever I want at work and I haven’t been fired yet” ↗…change my daily behaviour, I'm maximizing for myself. This is not a prisoner dilemna where I lose if I cooperate. I would even argue that if it wasn't aligned, this would certainly be doomed. The books "Reinventing Organizations" (Frédéric Laloux) and "The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education" (Edward Deming) (intro: https://apenwarr.ca/log/20161226) gave me good intuitions that this can work at least at a corporate…
on “The endgames of bad faith communication” ↗A good resource to learn more about scaling flat self-organizing organizations is the book Reinventing Organizations. It's a curious mix of dreamy hippie philosophy interspersed with very practical examples of flat orgs and how they remain flat while still getting things done.
on “No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?” ↗…Theories of developmental stages give us useful models to understand the prerequisites. What cultural, psychological, and physical needs must be meet? I've found a good starting point in this area in Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux [3], which draws heavily on Ken Wilber's integral theory and other research on developmental stages that came before it [4]. [1] http://www.visakanv.com/blog/assholes/ [2] https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-055-horizon-anarchism/…
on “Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)” ↗Another great resource, for those who are interested in this sort of thing, is the book "Reinventing Organizations" by Frédéric Laloux. It's a bit of a guidebook on how to build this sort of organisation.
on “The Leaderless Organization (2012)” ↗I agree with PG on this trend. In "Reinventing Organizations" by Frederic Laloux you'll get more evidence that lack of meanness leads to success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcS04BI2sbk Particularly the example of Buurtzorg, a Dutch healthcare provider, is…
on “Mean People Fail” ↗…abstractly about "human nature" and can just go look at successful non-hierarchical organizations. Frederic Laloux describes the practices of 12 of them in the 2nd and 3rd parts of his wonderful book Reinventing Organizations (http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/). Still some very new ideas, but these organizations have enough interesting properties that we should really explore how to make them work.
on “Are Bosses Necessary? A radical experiment at Zappos” ↗- Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek - Creativity Inc., Ed Catmull - Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux - Joy at Work, Dennis W Bakke - Valve Employee Handbook, Valve Software This list is heavily skewed toward self-organization because I work for a company (Zappos) that is currently transitioning…
on “Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?” ↗You might also be interested in books that profile other companies experimenting with this kind of transparency: "Reinventing Organizations" by Frederic Laloux "An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization" by Kegan and Lahey The latter profiles Bridgewater, a hedge fund in which every meeting is recorded and…
on “Open Salaries: Outcomes” ↗…3.5* #2. The Alchemis - Paulo Coelho - 3.5* #3. Founders at Work - Jessica Livingston - 3* #4. Traction - Gabriel Weinberg - 4.5* #5. How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie -4* #6. Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations... - Frederic Laloux, Ken Wilber - 4* #7. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work - Mason Currey - 3* #8. Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert T. Kiyosak - 3* #9. The Lean Startup:…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux - https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Organizations-Frederic-La... For me it is the most influential book on how I think about "agile" , what that really means, and which factors really…
on “Ask HN: What are the books you wish your colleagues had read?” ↗Anyone who wants a deeper dive into this stuff should read the book Reinventing Organizations, which goes into detail about Morningstar as well as several other "self-management" organizations. Really great read. https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Organizations-Creating-In...
on “First, Let’s Fire All the Managers” ↗…3) The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, Reid Hoffman & Ben Casnocha & Chris Yeh [!] 4) It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy, Michael Abrashoff 5) Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, Frederic Laloux 6) Immature People with Power How to Handle Them, Larry Mullins 7) Games People Play: The Psychology…
on “Ask HN: Where can I find practical, no-fluff management advice?” ↗…from the startup world, I used to investigate those issues quite deeply, as in “how do you run an organization that would be different, better”. One of the most interesting works in that area for me was “Reinventing Organizations” by Laloux. (https://www.reinventingorganizations.com) it kinda studies if this is even possible and what would organizations like that look like. TLDR it is possible and there are quite a few real world…
on “HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know” ↗…feel drawn to do is exactly how a good company is run. - So long as those teams and individuals talk to (& seek advice) from the rest of the company when their work has impacts outside the team. The book Reinventing Organizations by Laloux talks about this a lot, and how it works in some companies today. The reason it doesn't happen more is that upper management doesn't trust their employees and they don't feel in control when…
on “John Carmack: From a DM, just in case anyone else needs to hear this” ↗