Tackling the Fundamental Problems of Organising at Scale — with Joost Minnaar

Podcast Notes

In this episode we talk to Joost Minnaar, co-founder of the blog Corporate-Rebels.com in 2015. Joost travels the world researching progressive organisations, blogs about the discoveries he makes and advises on workplace issues. Joost is the co-author of the book ‘Corporate Rebels, Make Work More Fun’ (2020), winner of the Thinkers50 Radar Award (2019) and a Doctoral Candidate at the Amsterdam Business Research Institute (VU University, Amsterdam). We also have the pleasure to collaborate with Joost and his colleagues in our work on the Haier Group model (check up our upcoming webinar: https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/adopting-haier-model-webinar/).

In our conversation with Joost, we get quite practical about the three “fundamental problems” of organising at scale, like he frames it, and how organisations tackle them. We loved how this episode helped us nail down some key thoughts into discernable patterns, drawing on Joost’s rich library of experiences from researching so many great organisations.

Here are some important links from the conversation:

Work by Joost and Corporate Rebels

• Corporate Rebels Blog: https://corporate-rebels.com/
• Joost Minnaar on Twitter: https://twitter.com/joost_minnaar
• Joost Minnaar, Corporate Rebels, “Solving Organizational Complexity With Simplicity”: https://corporate-rebels.com/how-fast-can-you-scale/
• Joost Minnaar, Corporate Rebels. “How To Organize A Large Company Without Middle Management”: https://corporate-rebels.com/how-to-organize-a-large-organization-without-middle-management/
• Pim de Morree, Corporate Rebels, “A Radical And Proven Approach To Self-Management” (Ner Group), https://corporate-rebels.com/ner-group

Other mentions and references:

• Geoffrey West, Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies: https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainability-Organisms/dp/1594205582
• Geoffrey West profile https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/geoffrey-west
•  Principle of least action, http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Principle_of_least_action
•  Deborah Frieze, From Scaling Up to Scaling Across: https://medium.com/in-praise-of-scaling-down/from-scaling-up-to-scaling-across-ed5092acd22f

Find out more about the show annd / Walter Mobilio find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music

Recorded on May 4th 2020

Key Insights

1. Joost has identified what he calls the three “fundamental problems” of organising: i. direction — what is the strategy of the organisation? Where is the organisation going?; ii. vertically organising, or task distribution, which translates in academic work into “division of labour”, and; iii. horizontally organising efforts and motivating people through incentives — in academic lingo “integration of effort”.

2. Organisations that look to scale seek the “path of least resistance”, just like organisms and other elements do in nature. For organisations, IT systems and technology are essential if you want to scale without bureaucracy, letting resources flow between the teams seamlessly. Efficient IT systems can potentially do away with restraining forces like middle management, bureaucratic rules and secrecy — all kinds of things that we are used to from traditional organisations.

3. Pioneer organisations are needed to show the way towards more responsible, locally embedded businesses that serve interests beyond that of shareholders. Joost believes that — as a community and as citizens — we should stimulate our governments and institutions to invest in organisations that are good for our community and for the world, and not only created for optimising the wealth of their shareholders. The question we ask ourselves moving forward is: what are the emerging constituents in this space of organising?

? Boundaryless Conversations Podcast is about exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous.