Six months after the crowd-funding campaign wrapped-up successfully, Anarchists in the Boardroom was published last week and the crowd-sourced book tour has begun! These are my first reflections on this stage of the process. (And you can get your copies here, by the way).
So far, I’ve been lucky enough to have done four events around the country, with over 100 people coming together to talk about how their organisations could be more like people. I’ll be in Oxford and Leicester later this month. Currently there are further events coming together in York, Leeds, Manchester, Brighton… and more in Amsterdam and Berlin.
I’m feeling so honoured by the reception. And these conversations – gatherings of 15-20 people, usually a cafe or bar, feel like the perfect way to getting these ideas percolating.
A couple of things have jumped out at me already.
1. This conversation is getting ready to boil over.
While there is a common perception that our organisation’s are typically so far from being ‘more like people,’ there is a lot of energy out there to discuss what a new and different kind of organisation could look and feel like. A recurrent theme has been that these conversations have happened in pubs for years, but rarely with a sense of positive direction emerging. Now it seems like there is a growing sense, not just of disillusionment, but also of possibility for what we can all do to start changing our organisations for the better. Our networks are strengthening every day; it will be fascinating to see how all our new connections can help us to explore new approaches together.
2. People are actually DOING STUFF with these ideas already!
Since the launch, I’ve already had two messages from friends/ colleagues, who had begun to put elements of more like people thinking into practice. One has kicked off an ‘innovation working group’ (you’ll want to read Chapters 5/6 to understand the full significance of that), and another has ‘de-constructed’ her organisation’s old management structure (I’m still waiting to hear the specifics of what that means). There are currently about 220 copies of the book that have been circulating for up to 11 days. Needless to say, I’m pretty pleased with two stories like this already! In the chaos that I’ve discovered self-publishing can be, morelikepeople.com has been slightly delayed, but expect to have it online in the next week so we can start to bring more of these stories together.
3. ‘Organisations’ don’t want to touch this stuff… but the people in them do!
I’ve been crowd-sourcing this book tour – basically asking people who are keen, to get together a venue and a group, a bed for me to sleep on and a train ticket, and I’ll happily come talk about this stuff. I wanted to set the bar as low as I could, without putting myself further out of pocket for it (writing a book did a pretty thorough job of that already!). But what I’ve found, is that even with an incredibly minimal cost, people who have invited me – even those that work in voluntary organisations that have a remit to put on such events – are choosing to organise these events on their own time and dime. Which is both a massive honour, and a sign of how far our organisations still have to go, if they aren’t even able to host a conversation on some of these themes. I’ve said it before, but this organisational inability to take off the blinders to a lot of the debates that the rest of the world is having, is not going to help them address their own growing irrelevance. (Dudley CVS has been the exception, thanks to the efforts of Lorna Prescott!)
4. The answers are all around us!
For all the frustration and disillusionment that’s been expressed by a number of the folks who’ve taken part in each of these events, there have also been countless positive examples. The community centre manager who encourages his staff to come up with any new idea and get on and do it; the HIV support group who actively hire people with criminal records and who have experienced life’s hardest elements, de-prioritising traditional qualifications; the big national charity where all staff are now getting a half-day a week to pursue their own ideas, whatever they may be…
So in brief, it’s been an amazing start! I’m more sure than I’ve ever been that these conversations are desperately needed, and that all of us who are thinking about these things have ideas and experiences to share more widely, so others can give them a go. morelikepeople.com is not far off, but I’m still keeping track of the stuff people are tagging ‘morelikepeople’ and will be bringing it all together when the new website goes online.
Massive thanks to everyone who’s taken part thus far! I suspect we’re closer to the kinds of change we want to see than it can often feel…
Here’s Lorna’s Storify of the first event we did together in Birmingham, to get a bit of a taste of the kind of conversations we’ve been able to have lately.
Last Thursday I took part in an experiment. The idea was this: What is the greatest social impact that a group of relative strangers on the internet can commit to creating over the next week, with only 1 hour together and $10 each in the pot?
Harvest chard
I have my friend David Pinto to thank for inviting me to take part in his latest brainchild. I was one of about a dozen who attended the 2nd ‘Ha-Ha’ (Happening Hangout), with little idea what to expect, beyond the slight chaos integral to getting something previously unimagined off the ground.
This was a hack version of what the process could be with proper technical development: a live-streamed Google Hangout of the hosts of the event, alongside a Quora question that everyone involved could post one answer to, but edit freely and comment on the answers posted by others, voting for the answers they liked best.
While messy due to most of the participants’ technological teething period at the start of the hour, the process worked. Not in a ‘my mind has been completely blown’ kinda way, but it worked, in that we reached agreement and had a clear sense of what was needed to take the idea forward.
After an hour, a bunch of people who (mostly) didn’t know each other before the process began, had agreed to donate the full sum of money contributed to Harvest Brighton-Hove, a community food project that helps people grow and source food that is local to the area. Someone (Lesley) volunteered to deliver the funds in person, and to use our combined social networks to promote the work Harvest does in Brighton & Hove (thus, one of the reasons for this blog).
During that hour, there was considerable debate about whether donation of money actually qualified as ‘action,’ about the advantages and disadvantages of being an international group, with a (very) limited budget, about what actually constituted social impact…
None of these questions, however, prevented the group finding enough common ground to do something. Which is inspiring, but also definitely left me with further questions.
My inclination, while a cool experiment, was that this would be a far more effective process of enabling self-organising, if the group began from a higher level of agreement; i.e. – not total strangers without an agreement about even a slightly more specific goal.
I often advocate the opposite – less unity, more autonomy – but this process highlights the importance of *a bit* of agreement. It’s certainly a balancing act, but as much as unity can be oppressive, a minimal baseline helps to unleash our creative potential together.
I’d like to see David’s Ha-Has put to use in an office, but open to those beyond the paid staff group, such as supporters/ members/ activists, who broadly believe in the organisation’s aims, but are not as restricted to voice radical ideas, as staff often can be.
I’m also interested in seeing what could happen if the financial element was de-emphasised, encouraging a range of non-economic transactions to take place and forcing a more creative approach out of necessity.
While Occupy camps and countless indigenous communities have demonstrated that consensus can work in far larger groups than many had previously believed, there is more opportunity to build trust and empathy with those you are deciding with, when you have a) a chance to meet in person, and b) something that already provides a broad basis of unity.
The 3rd of 4 initial Ha-Has will be happening on Thursday (September 19th), 8pm BST, should you be interested in chucking in ten bucks and taking part. I definitely think it is an experiment worth pursuing. Whether it grows into something bigger each week, or whether it splinters off into a range of self-organised groups, there is learning to be had there, in terms of what groups of people can achieve together without the top-down coercion of management structures.
‘Anarchists in the Boardroom’ is on it’s way! If you’re in London, you can join us for the launch, 7:00 – 8:30pm on Weds. Sept. 25 at Greenpeace. If you’re not, you can always invite me to come and launch ‘Anarchists in the Boardroom’ wherever you are!* You can also pre-order the book now!
*I’ll probably need some money, as well as the invite to take you up on your invitation… but I can be flexible about it 🙂
Here’s the blurb from the eventbrite page:
more like people co-founder, Liam Barrington-Bush, went to Oaxaca, Mexico in May 2012 to begin weaving together stories from grassroots social movements, online uprisings and forward-thinking businesses, to paint a picture of what it might mean for an organisation to be ‘more like people’. The result is ‘Anarchists in the Boardroom’ and more like people would like to invite you to join us in London on Weds. Sept. 25th for the book’s official launch and a chance to meet dozens of others around London who are keen to explore new ways of organising our work for social change and environmental justice!
The plan:
7:00 – Show-up, have a drink and a snack
7:15 – Words from a few supporters (TBC) about why they have backed the book
7:30 – Liam says a few things about the book, the process and what happens next
7:50 – Sharing ideas for new kinds of organisation amongst the group
8:10 – Collect/buy books, along with more drinks, more snacks and more chatting amongst each other
8:30 – Conversation moves to the New Rose pub on Essex Road (TBC)
The book:
Social change is changing – but are our social change organisations keeping up?
There are lessons emerging all around us, in the new social movements that have swept the globe, and in the organising patterns found on social media.
Could Twitter and Occupy help our NGOs, charities, trade unions and voluntary organisations to both stay relevant in the times ahead and live our values through the ways that we organise?
‘Anarchists in the Boardroom’ is a journey through worker-run factories, Occupy encampments, a spattering of non-violent direct actions and even a few forward-thinking companies, to make the case for helping our organisations ‘to be more like people.’ It asks us to brush away our ‘professional’ assumptions and interact as we do when we don’t have job descriptions or business plans telling us how to change the world. It reminds us of the power each of us has to make change happen, even within the most entrenched of bureaucracies!
The launch will also be a chance for those who supported the succesful crowd-funding campaign to pick-up their copies of the book and avoid paying for shipping.
Anarchists in the Boardroom cover, by Steve Lafler
Here’s the deal:
In less than two weeks, I’ll be launching a crowd-funding page on StartSomeGood.com. This is like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, but specifically for projects with some kind of social benefit.
We need to raise about $7,600 (£4,700 GBP) over the following month. This will cover the 1st 500 copies of the print book, as well as editing, building a website, designing the cover and a few nifty bits of on-and-offline promo materials. (You can see the budget here, if GoogleDoc spreadsheets are your bag).
The main things will be (initially):
A critical mass of keen supporters making immediate pledges when things kick-off, and
Those supporters getting the word out to their personal and work networks right away.
This is why this book needs you!
The campaign will need a number of things from those who are interested enough to support it. A few key ones include:
Early contributors and early sharers: If you have some cash you can throw into the process, great! If you don’t, but want to spread the word to those you think might, greatl! A well-targeted or well-timed Tweet, Facebook link, or email, can be far more valuable than a cash contribution, so don’t let being broke stop you from getting involved.
Bloggers who want to make their own cases for funding the book: I can talk about this stuff all day, but it’s a lot more powerful if you tell the world why you want this book to be published. Drop me a line if there’s anything I can do to help you write a blog to post just after the campaign gets started.
Organisational backing: If you work in a non-profit, voluntary sector, social enterprise or campaigning organisation, do you think you could leverage a bit of cash from a ‘professional development’ or ‘continuing staff education’ budget, to commit to 5 or 10 copies of the book for your office? Or to bring me in for a talk, a workshop, or some consultancy, once the book has been circulating amongst staff? A few organisational contributions and endorsements will go a long way towards making this book happen.
But don’t stop at this list! If there’s anything you can think of to support the crowd-funding process, I’m keen to see where you take it! I hope this campaign can be living proof of some of the ideas in the book, showing what can be done when lots of people have the space to support a cause in the ways they feel inspired to, not relying on a traditional institution make it happen.
Let’s do this together!
Liam (liam @ morelikepeople.org / @hackofalltrades / ‘the guy who moderates the comments below’)
PS – what kinds of rewards would you like to see for different levels of contributions?
PPS – Feel free to ‘Like’ the new Facebook page, or join the email list to stay in the loop!
Question: How long do you think it took Paul and Liam to plan the first ever ‘More Like People Action Week’? Answer: A few hours on the Sunday evening before it started.
Lorna Prescott’s (@dosticen’s) pic fr/ a living room work meeting she had during #MoreLikePeopleWeek
There were over 300 hundred Tweets from over 70 people, expressing their support and sharing their ideas and actions for making their organisations ‘more like people.’ (See some of the Storify highlights further down).
There were several blog comments sharing success stories more widely, as well as links to resource and ideas that people felt were relevant to the ‘more like people’ themes…
Now I won’t pretend that this week has changed the world in any major ways, but it’s definitely done something to demonstrate the potential of some of the principles it is about.
Paul and I, with an ocean and a six-hour time zone spread between us, working entirely via Twitter, a few emails and 2 Skype calls, with nothing to back us but our own enthusiasm and that of the people who got involved, helped the ‘more like people’ ideas find their ways onto the UK national media radar, and into the consciousness of far more people than had previously known about it.
Beyond a few targeted Tweets to people we felt would be specifically interested, there was no top-down communication, not even an email list, to get things rolling. We just put it out there, approached some editors, and shared our own experiences and ideas around.
Sidestep the steps that aren’t working for you!
Has your organisation ever planned an awareness-raising or action-focused day or week around the theme of your work? Did it take more than a few hours to plan it? I’m guessing the answer is ‘yes.’ I’m also guessing that you’re not alone.
One of the big frustrations Paul and I have often had with so many organisations, is their inability to get things done, particularly within a reasonable length of time. The endless processes that inevitably need so many levels of approval make it very hard to organise anything in a timeframe that allows individual passion and energy to still play a part.
And though we might often feel we need to follow these processes, the truth is, there is always unmediated space to make things happen. Just because you could write a proposal, ask for approval, redraft the proposal, secure some budget, and allocate roles, doesn’t mean you always have to!
If this last week was about anything, I hope it was about showing that you don’t need HR or Senior Management (not that either can’t play positive roles!) to make our workplaces better than they are. There are always things we can start to improve, and you never know what kind of ripple effect they might have if we give them the chance. Individual change can encourage other individual changes. Gradually, more people acting differently can shift cultures, systems, organisations… But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – the point is we have more power than we often realise, so why not try exercising it more?
What next?
Obviously we’ve played our hand for a ‘More Like People Action Week’ for the foreseeable future, but these ideas can travel much further than they have since last Monday. So don’t let this random allocation of time stop you from helping your own organisation to be more like people, whenever you feel so inclined!
Maybe you could start your own ‘More Like People Action Week’ at your office? It wouldn’t have to take more than an email on Monday morning with some encouragement for people to share their contributions more widely, on Twitter, or a blog.
Strategy? Let it happen. Budget? No need. Approval? What for? ‘More like people’ should feel infinitely easier than the processes we’ve become so used to in so many of our organisations. I can’t think of a good reason why an employer would be against it, but if they somehow were, I can see even less reason why you’d feel the need to ask for their permission to do it. Think of it as an opportunity to demonstrate some initiative for improving the organisation, at no additional cost to those higher up!
But maybe you just want to practice it yourself, thinking of something you can do a bit differently to make your office a more human place to be? If so, feel free to comment about it on this blog, or Tweet about it using the #MoreLikePeople hashtag on Twitter, so others can be inspired or can try your action out themselves…
August 20-24 is ‘More Like People Action Week’. Your chance to find something you can do to make your organisation a bit ‘more like people’ and share it with the world. Nothing is too small. Change happens when we ‘start anywhere, follow it everywhere!’
Today I got a simple Twitter message with a great idea from my friend and colleague Paul Barasi (@PaulBarasi). It read:
“Mon-Fri is #MoreLikePeople #ActionWeek. Individuals do 1 small thing 2 make their org more human.”
Can you set up a TwitterFall at an event to broaden participation?
…And with that, the first ever ‘More Like People Action Week’ was born!
So whether you’re staff, manager or director, working nationally or locally, in a public, voluntary or private sector organisation, why not start the week by thinking:
“What would my organisation look like if it became More Like People?”
“What can I do now to help make it more human?”
There are a few ideas further down, but basically…
What you do is up to you!
You might scrap a policy, change how you act in a certain context or relationship, involve more people in more decisions, try altering the way you do a particular piece of work… you might just ask more people you work with what they’d like to do, and let everyone give it a shot!
And when you do it, let the world know!
If you Tweet about your action using the #MoreLikePeopleWeek hashtag, anyone else can see what you’ve done and might get inspired to try it themselves. If you’re not on Twitter, feel free to add it as a comment at the bottom of this post, for all to see and learn from…
More Like People – what’s that about?
‘More like people’ is about learning to do things in our organisations, more like we’d do them at the pub, in our living rooms, at the park, around a kitchen table… It’s about:
Dropping the systems, attitudes, behaviours, and structures of the ‘professional’ world, and reconnecting with a more natural way of organising that predates any of our bureaucracies.
Improving working cultures by bringing the values, personalities, strengths and abilities of the people in our organisation to the forefront.
Closing the gap between the mask we wear at work and who we really are, because we’re at our best when we’re being ourselves.
‘More like people’ might apply to your own behaviours, maybe listening more closely to someone you’ve had trouble communicating with, choosing to hold a meeting in the park, or a pub, involving more people with valuable opinions when you make decisions…
‘More like people’ might apply to organisational structures or policies, which could mean getting rid of meeting agendas and letting them flow as people raise what they need to, crowd-sourcing decisions across the office, or via Twitter amongst a wider range of people involved in your work, letting staff make up their own job titles, or write joint job descriptions together as a team, making organisational learning public, so others people and organisations can learn from it…
These are just a few ideas to get you started. The point is, you’ll know better than Paul or I will what ‘more like people’ means in your context… but if you try it and share it, someone else might be able to try it out at their office too!
Have fun! (If it’s not fun, think about what might make it that way…)
Hi there folks! We’re running a workshop next month on ‘e-campaigning’; using social media for social change, and how an in depth understanding of the broader changes (in communication, learning, sharing and management) enabled by online technology, can help your organisation to get more from your online campaigns.
It’s happening from 2:00-4:30 on November 1st, in Central London and is being run on a Pay What You Think Its Worth basis (not as catchy as PWYC, I know…). We only have a limited number of spaces available, so please book-on and help share the details with the managers in your lives who may not yet have taken-up the technologies some of are finding more-and-more critical to our campaigning work.
I was recently invited by Graham Allcott of ThinkProductive, to record a conversation about some of the human institutions ideas I’ve been kicking around. If you get past my moderately frantic body language (does anyone else get this excited about management structures???), I think we managed to pull out some good ideas on where bureaucracy comes from (even in the most well-meaning public and voluntary organisations) and what we can each do in our workplaces to find alternative ways of getting things done.
If you’re interested in finding-out more about the human institutions concepts, we’re running a workshop in London on July 22nd (Pay What You Can/ Pay What You Think It’s Worth) and we’d love to have you along! Click the yellow button below to sign-up:
‘Human institutions’ are groups that have come together in significant numbers for a common social purpose and maintained a collective focus on the human relationships (within and beyond their limits) that have helped them to flourish. Most of the institutions we know – whether in the public, private or voluntary sectors – seem to have buried these relationships under an array of forms, policies, chains-of-command, jargon and other often-counter-productive formalities, claiming such structures are needed to enable growth. Too many have lost track of the ways people – unmitigated by institutions – interact amongst each other, inadvertently pushing away those less-familiar or comfortable with such structures and preventing new ideas from emerging within their ranks.
Some, however, have managed to strike the delicate balance between growth (financial, geographic-reach and otherwise) and the combined value, passion and diversity of the people that make them up.
This blog is an ongoing attempt to capture some of the recurring themes which seem to be at the core of organisations that have been able to maintain their human element, while still expanding their staff, their income or their remit.
Through the contributions of all and any who are concerned with ensuring the institutions affecting our lives are innovative, adaptable and inclusive, this document will expand on the basis of your feedback and get regularly re-posted in its latest incarnations, gradually taking on the ‘wisdom of the crowd’…
Here are the first 5 traits of a human institution I’ve chosen to highlight:
1. Flexibility
A rule is only as useful as the willingness that exists to break it, when needed. Sadly, this sentiment is often lost in organisations. The tendency to standardise everything – often benevolently, in the name of equal opportunities and fairness – creates a system that seems to prevent anyone having any advantages over anyone else, but which ends-up excluding people on the basis of its rigidity and the inevitable diversity of potential users’ circumstances.
Though rules are invariably created for good reasons, they all have their limitations. Human institutions recognise these limitations and ensure their staff are empowered to have significant flexibility to adapt to peoples’ circumstances as needed, even if that sometimes means cutting against standard protocols.
2. Mutual trust-based accountability
Accountability is far too often a one-way process that is tied to existing power-dynamics (between funders and funded groups; managers and staff, etc) which seem to assume the worst of the people told to prove their worth. Micromanagement attempts to prevent any method someone could imagine to cheat a system. As more regulations are imposed, people’s ability to work/deliver objectives is hindered by the time spent justifying how their time is spent. So they find alternative (sometimes less-ethical means) of satisfying those imposing these regulations… and no one wins.
Alternatively, being trusted gives people a strong sense of ownership and responsibility over a situation. As does a power shift that allows those traditionally held to account, to also hold their counterparts to account simultaneously. In strong human relationships (the kind that provide the greatest results, in both personal and professional settings), accountability is both trust-based and mutual. In human institutions this is also the case.
3. Autonomy
Linked to the concept of ‘trust’, is that of autonomy. The assumed practice of hierarchical management structures makes it far more difficult in most organisations for people to pursue creative and new ideas. Though a balance must be struck to achieve organisational objectives, rarely is the space given for staff to work autonomously, towards the organisation’s broader aims, but along a newly-emerging path.
Like with trust, those who feel they have room to determine their direction, often give more than those who have their direction pre-determined by someone with superior rank. Broad organisational objectives give staff more space to work to their strengths, than narrowly-defined outputs and outcomes which too often ignore the involved individuals’ passions and abilities.
4. Experiential diversity
Diversity is important from more than an equal opportunities perspective, and applies to organisations beyond the more-easily measurable differences of race, gender, religion, etc. Having an experientially diverse staff and volunteer team (of individuals who have taken different paths to ending up at your organisation) is crucial to a human institution in two other significant ways:
1) To give newcomers approaching the organisations from the outside, the sense that both people like them and a range of different people are welcome and accepted;
2) To provide a greater range of opinions and internal debate, than a group of people who have had very similar experiences in life tend to, encouraging new ways of working.
As James Surowiecki explains in ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’, even if a minority opinion in a group proves incorrect, “the confrontation with a dissenting view, logically enough, forces the majority to interrogate its own positions more thoroughly.” This has in itself, been found to improve decision making processes in human institutions.
5. Plain communications
The language we use to communicate and promote our work has huge consequences for the people who take it in. Many organisations seem all-too-keen to create new words and phrases and see if they can push them into circulation, without recognising that each additional piece of jargon can serve to push away someone not already ‘in the know’. Human institutions realise that effectively communicating messages and ideas is more about simplicity, than it is about complexity.
If you’re interested in discovering what you can do to create a human institution in your workplace or organisation, register for our new 1/2-day workshop in London, ‘Seeds to Grow a Human Institution’!
We’re really excited to announce our first public workshop, picking apart the ‘human institutions’ concept and how you can apply it to your work within your organisations!
You can read more about the event, register and share the link on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks (and we’d be grateful if you did!) by scrolling down in the EventBrite box below this text.
More Like People is an association of freelance consultants, facilitators and trainers, working primarily in the voluntary, community and campaigning sectors in the the UK and elsewhere.
I’m also interested in seeing what could happen if the financial element was de-emphasised, encouraging a range of non-economic transactions to take place and forcing a more creative approach out of necessity.
