Self-organization — Reading list

Self-organization for companies attracted quite some attention over the last years. Holacracy is one example, especially known from Zappos’ adoption of it. But there are quite a few other system existing. Most of those systems have a few principles in common.

One of the hardest obstacles on the way of adopting system based on self-organization is to establish a nurturing work culture and having everyone within the company accepting and living that culture given that most people are mainly used to hierarchical ways of organising work.

I believe that reading is an effective way of exploring new concepts. And self-organization in the context of work is a rather new concept for most. For that reason I started compiling a reading list about this topic. Please keep in mind that there are a lot of books out there, especially due to the rise in popularity. I’m trying to focus on the more established books about self-organization. Also keep in mind that this list is very much work in progress. So whenever you miss an important book, let me know!

Turn the ship around, David Marquet

Nuclear submarines are probably not the most usual environment to experiment with aspects of self-organization. Though David Marquet saw this as his only chance of organizing the more than 100 people on his submarine to be ready in time for a tour of several month. He describes examples of how he empowered the different ranks of sailors to do their work in a much more effective manner than they were used to. He also describes a lot of uncertainty and hesitation he and his team had. This is an important topic since distributing responsibility among your team is not a straightforward process. In the end, several elements that David Marquet introduced on his boat were adopted by the navy in general.

Team of teams, General Stanley McChrystal

This is a rather new book, so I wasn’t sure whether to include it in this list. But due to its relation to the last year’s war in Afghanistan it’s easy to comprehend and full of illustrative examples. General McChrystal describes why the traditionally organized US military with a strong top-down hierarchy wasn’t able to cope with its enemies in Afghanistan. He also describes how he and his team reorganized parts of the military to change it. The activities in Afghanistan and the whole region might be debatable, but the book is about the underlying and more generic principles.

High output management, Andrew Grove

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are an effective method of defining a company’s goals and splitting it down to its teams. One of the companies pioneering this system was Intel during the time of Andrew Grove. He doesn’t mention the term OKR, but he builds its foundation. He describes an assembly line and how you make it more effective with the example of a breakfast factory. He transfers the essence of it to management and describes a lot of very detailed examples for how he acted as a manager. One example is the schedule of one of his days with an elaborate explanation of it.

Holacracy, Brian Robertson

Holacracy is probably one of the more talked about concepts of self-organization for companies. It’s about having a highly adaptive system with roles, clearly defined by its purpose. It’s a constitution for organizations that describe how you should interact for effective and meaningful work. Brian Robertson developed this system and describes the basics of self-organized work in this book. The bigger part is about the mechanics of holacracy, some in remarkable details. It helped me a lot when introducing holacracy at Mimi Hearing Technologies.

Reinventing organizations, Frederic Laloux

This book is less about a specific way of self-organization, but rather describing it in general and why it is relevant. Laloux describes different styles of organizations, ranging from early tribes to armies to churches to factories and modern information-driven companies. Besides self-management he discusses wholeness and purpose which are often regarded as key concepts that are necessary or at least relevant for self-organization.