A quest for freedom and ensuring that we aren’t diminishing it in our workplaces
An introduction to the Nordic Management Lab team, Susan Salzbrenner and Katrina Marshall Dyrting, and an invitation to join our community in the pursuit of organisations fit for humans and fit for the future.
Listen to the podcast here, or read the transcript of our conversation below.
We’re in Copenhagen, sitting in a room that used to be the CEO’s office of Tuborg, a Danish Brewery. The herringbone wooden floors, high ornately decorated ceilings and the security vault hidden in the wall paint pictures of the times that have passed in this space. We see this as a perfect place to tell you about our journey into organisations that are fit for humans and fit for the future…
Susan: We are in a place that used to be the headquarters of Tuborg, a Danish Brewery, but now are the headquarters of the place we work; Implement Consulting Group. We are here to figure out how the future of organisations, and the people within, are going to look like. Sitting in the room where around 90% of the decisions were made back in the days seemed like an appropriate place to start.
Katrina: And an appropriate place to talk about why we started this journey in the first place, and what has motivated us to this point where we would like to share this journey and our learnings.
It’s something to do with the belief that we can have more meaningful and fulfilling workplaces, that are unleashing the brilliant minds that are already inside of them.
And having those brilliant minds tackle the really important issues. Not the administrative chores that come around because you need to align on ten different things. What if we used that energy for answering the big questions out there?
Susan: Yes, I think we’ve all had those days where we woke up in the morning and dreaded going to work because it felt like we wouldn’t be doing anything meaningful. The thought of a day full of meetings that didn’t carry any real weight in solving challenges. Nothing planned that would contribute to us moving forward. Instead meetings for political or bureaucratic reasons. That’s why we are heavily invested, and interested, and believe in the future of an organisational world where humans are able to do what they are best at, supported by AI and all the digital tools available. To really build an organisation where you wake up in the morning and you’re excited to go to work.
Katrina: I’m curious to hear from you, Susan, about what happened in your life that led you to care about this topic?
Susan: To be honest, it’s a realisation that I’ve had in hindsight. It’s a journey that I unconsciously chose to take, given my place of birth — which was Eastern Germany under a communist regime. Where freedom of any kind was restricted. Whether we knew it at the time or not, manipulation was omnipresent and there was a lot of administration for the sake of keeping this political apparatus working. If you think of a bureaucracy that you might be working in, take that times one hundred and you can imagine the type of society I was socialized in.
Since the wall came down, and my family was reunited, I’ve always had this very strong interest to figure out what drives human behaviour and motivation and under what conditions humans flourish. I guess, just an internal stake at being free, exploring. When I then ended up working in large organisations after finishing my psychology degree, I didn’t necessarily find what I had hoped, even though it was a capitalist, supposedly free and self-fulfilling, society. We were still being put into these shackles, even though the system may have been put there with good intentions at one point. They are not serving the purpose any longer.
For me, it’s a combination of a personal quest to make sure that we cherish, value and are grateful for the freedom that we have whilst also making sure that we are not diminishing it.
Katrina: Building on that, in terms of the bureaucracy. We completely recognise the history of bureaucracy, and that it has been the best way we had to do things for a very long time. So without taking away from its history, we are looking forward to what could be next.
Susan: It’s a question of evolution — what’s next? And I think there are a lot of interesting discussions going on. We have both been reading a lot about it, been working with companies and are on our personal journeys. We’re at a point where we need to have a more open, inclusive dialogue about it. What is the best fit for the many different people out there?
I know that, Katrina, you’ve ventured into different organisations and had your own experience. What brought you to this table?
Katrina: While you were telling your story, I came to think that I come from a very different background than you. I’m a “third culture kid”; I’m half Norwegian, half English and I’ve lived in 7 countries and grew up in that environment. I’m from the classic ‘millenial’ generation, we’ve been shamed for having been told we’re too good at everything and have inflated egos and so on. I would say one thing that I have experienced through the journey that I’ve had so far is that I’ve had the freedom to explore areas that I’m interested in. Four years ago I joined Implement where I was about to have control over my own time, what kind of projects I’m working on, and where my interest and energy is.
As you said, I did delve out of the organisation for a short period when I felt that my learning journey had stagnated in what I was doing here. I joined an organisation that had a very heavy sense of purpose, where they do climate projects and figure out how to spend EU funding on climate initiatives. And purpose-wise, my heart was soaring for the topic. But then when I got there, I realised how much bureaucracy there was — so much reporting. And reporting where my colleagues were saying, we know no-one is going to read this but we still need to do it. I was kind of gob-smacked.
How can we waste so much potential of the brilliant minds who are in this organisation, also driven by this great purpose?!
I quit that job after 2 months after finding out that wasn’t where I could contribute the most.After a short break, I came back to Implement. Where I’ve had the fortunate experience of being able to delve-deeper into the academic side of post-bureaucratic organisations, driven very much by this personal experience that I had.
I’m very interested and excited to figure out how different companies are doing this and very much realising that no journey is the same. I feel like some people are trying to find the one size that can fit all — the blueprint. We need to recognise how complex this is, and take a different approach. We need to use collective intelligence to fight it rather than a blueprint.
Susan: Talking about collective intelligence is also what brought us to the idea of broadcasting our journey; an expansion of theoretical findings, working with clients on this and delving deeper into what this actually means and how the future could look.
We need to open up the conversation about the future of organizations to include more people, to be richer in our thinking and the perspectives that we bring to this.
Katrina: And there’s so much out there! It’s almost like an infinite pool of information where I could imagine, if you started getting interested in this topic you’d be overwhelmed with all the perspectives out there. So we’d also like to play a role in helping others in figuring out where to start.
Susan: We talked about the word “emergence” that has been triggering us. If you think about emergence: to me, it’s not only emerging of the idea and what to do with it, it’s also the emergence of a community around it. It’s the emergence of different, diverse models and a plethora of options that ultimately need to fit in where you are in your organisation, with your people. The group that you are rallying around something. Going away from the blueprint, the A to B, the “we’ll tell you how to get there” and having trust in the collective intelligence to let something emerge.
So this is the outline for why we’ve decided to start up this channel where the intention is to share curated lists of the most interesting things that we’ve found, to build on the thoughts and concepts that are out there, and to have reflections with people who are within organisations that are currently transforming.
And we would love for you to join us, chip in on the a dialogue and reach out if you would like to participate in the conversation.
If you are curious and want to hear more, leave us a comment with the topic that has been on your mind. Of course, share the content with others who are on this journey towards organisations fit for humans and subscribe to this publication.
