We thrive when we have influence and the opportunity to make a difference. It fuels our creativity, energy, adaptability, and productivity—benefiting ourselves, the organizations we belong to, and society as a whole. So why not replace organizational habits with new, visionary approaches to leadership and structure that support all this—and so much more?

The think tank “Future of Working Life” and DJØF are behind an interesting and thought-provoking new working life survey among employees in public and private Danish organizations. The study paints a clear picture of a workforce that is longing for “something different”—with a strong emphasis on greater well-being, influence, meaning, and freedom.

Take a closer look at some of the numbers:

• 21 percent of those surveyed report that they have felt stressed “often” during the past two weeks. Four percent say they have felt stressed “all the time,” while 28 percent report feeling stressed “sometimes” during the same period.
  
  
• 58 percent of those who have little or no influence over how they carry out their work tasks report feeling stressed “often” or “all the time.”
  
  
• Employees who do not feel that trust is shown in them are twice as likely to feel stressed as those who do experience trust. Fifty percent of the employees who do not experience being trusted report feeling stressed “often” or “all the time.”
  
  
• 42 percent are either “mostly in agreement” (27 percent) or “completely in agreement” (15 percent) that their work processes are overly governed by systems and hierarchies.

The study is important, because there is an urgent need to focus on the enormous significance of influence, meaning, trust, and freedom—for the individual, for organizational capacity to act, for the national economy, and for the elderly in our care homes, the children in our public schools, the patients in our hospitals, and so on. A new analysis from HK and the Economic Council of the Labour Movement shows concretely that work-related stress costs Denmark around 55 billion kroner each year and reduces the effective labor supply by the equivalent of 55,600 full-time employees.

Time for more influence, meaning, and freedom

At the same time, the working life survey confirms what we already know from well-being and motivation research—and have known for a long time. Namely, that as human beings we especially need three things in order to thrive and feel intrinsically motivated (Ryan & Deci). We need to experience that we belong and make a difference for others (relatedness and relationships), that we have self-determination (autonomy), and that we have opportunities to learn and develop (competence).

Fortunately, there are new organizational paths to follow that offer our employees and leaders far more of what they so deeply long for—and what our economy and welfare society truly need. Organizational approaches that flatten leadership structures, foster shared decision-making and autonomy, create greater focus and time for the core task, reduce bureaucracy, and lead to significantly higher levels of well-being.

That does not mean it is easy, because it requires a break with the classic, hierarchical organizational models and leadership styles we have been accustomed to—almost always. A break with what may once have worked, but no longer does.

One place to start is by looking toward some of the frontrunners who are currently in full swing experimenting with new ways of organizing and leading—with extraordinary well-being metrics, sharply reduced sick leave, and zero recruitment challenges in their wake. In my podcast series “Give While You Grow”, and in connection with my keynote “The Future Workplace Is Right Here—and WE Are the Culture” and my new course “Facilitative and Liberating Leadership”, I have spoken with a wide range of these courageous leaders, entrepreneurs, and beacons—people who have been working purposefully and with dedication to create the workplaces of the future.

You can listen to the first seven podcast conversations here, where I speak with:

• Ann Christian Matzen, Managing Director at the competence house JAC, on the 90 percent leadership-free method.
  
  
• Marie Storkholm, Chief Physician and Head of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, on liberating leadership.
  
  
• Henrik Stenmann, founder of IHH Nordic, on the four-day workweek.
  
  
• Ali Cevik, CEO of HR-ON, on values-based leadership.
  
  
• Lars Tvede, investor, entrepreneur, and author, on supertrends and the future of working life.
  
  
• Bjørn Kassøe Andersen, social entrepreneur, on the Buurtzorg model on Danish soil.
  
  
• Lene Tanggaard, Cand. Psych., PhD, Rector and Professor, on creativity, learning, and the education system of the future.

Buurtzorg on Danish soil – inspiration for self-organization

One of the particularly interesting podcast conversations I had was with Bjørn Kassøe Andersen.

Bjørn is a social entrepreneur, an outstanding storyteller, and at the same time a Danish Buurtzorg pioneer. Buurtzorg is a Dutch nonprofit organization that has gained widespread adoption and popularity in recent years in its home country, where it has reformed the home care system based on self-organizing principles with small, self-managing teams. According to Bjørn Kassøe Andersen, there are several reasons for this:

• The model is built on the fundamental premise that the employees closest to the core task are also the most qualified to make the decisions—within clearly defined frameworks. By placing decision-making authority with the professionals, one avoids the bottlenecks that tend to form around the traditional manager, who typically has to make a large number of decisions about matters they are often far less closely connected to in their day-to-day work.
  
  

• Out of the more than 10,000 employees across the entire Buurtzorg organization, fewer than 100 work in administration and leadership—the rest are out with the citizens. Buurtzorg allocates no more than 8 percent to administration and leadership. This structure and prioritization ensure not only greater co-determination for professionals, but also more quality time and more resources in the relationship with citizens. The model places the patient, self-determination, and quality of life at the very center.
  
  

• At Buurtzorg, professionals work in self-managing teams of a maximum of 12 people, each responsible for 40–50 elderly citizens. This ensures continuity and holistic care and is built on trust in the fact that every team member is important. At the same time, each team works from a clearly defined purpose that puts the human being first, fosters engagement, and brings focus to the deeper meaning of the work.

Bjørn was a co-founder and director of Denmark’s first Buurtzorg pilot project in Ikast-Brande Municipality, which generated extensive learning about the model, self-organization, and self-managing teams in practice—on Danish soil. In a short time, they experienced a marked improvement in service quality and employee well-being by granting freedom and responsibility to all employees.

You can listen to my conversation with Bjørn below and let yourself be inspired by the thinking behind the Buurtzorg model.

We need to understand the psychology behind it in order to succeed

In my view, there is infinitely much to gain—on a human, organizational, and socio-economic level—by working with organizational models such as self-organization, self-leadership, and self-managing teams, as well as supportive leadership approaches like liberating and facilitative leadership, with all that entails.

But models, theories, and visions obviously cannot do the work on their own. To succeed with self-organization, self-managing teams, and the introduction of radically new ways of working together and leading, we need a grounded psychological foundation from which to grow.

We must, both individually and collectively, develop an understanding of the psychology that characterizes us as human beings. That may sound abstract—but it doesn’t actually have to be.

The “psychological foundation” I’m referring to includes, among other things, knowledge, insight, and understanding of the unconscious basic assumptions that often govern our behavior. Because if we want to introduce self-organization, self-leadership, and self-managing teams, we will encounter a powerful opponent in ourselves and in one another if unconscious assumptions such as “someone else will come and fix it…” or “it was much better in the past…” are allowed to steer how we act.

That is not to say that we are not allowed to have such thoughts—they are part of being human. But with awareness of them, we can enter into dialogue with ourselves and with one another when they arise. In practice, this means equipping ourselves to engage in well-being–building conversations about what is really at stake when, for example, a team is slipping into “survival mode,” when communication becomes too harsh, when conflicts arise, when we struggle to understand a colleague’s reaction patterns, or when we fall back into habitual thinking that gets in the way of something new.

Culture is shaped by what the majority thinks, feels, and does. In other words, by being inquisitive and curious about the psychology behind being human, we collectively make ourselves—and one another—capable of influencing culture in a positive direction.

Inspiring keynote & new course day

In my keynote “The Future Workplace Is Right Here—and WE Are the Culture”, I take you much deeper into the psychology behind self-organization, liberating leadership, work joy, and the strong, well-being–creating team—and not least into how we create all of this together in a meaningful, lived practice.

Read more about the lecture here.

At the same time, in my new competency-boosting one-day course for leaders, you can gain insight into what facilitative and liberating leadership is—and how you can get started in your organization.

Read more about the course here.