Image credit: Zulma Sofia Patarroyo, www.pataleta.net

In these sessions, we cover the practical aspects of implementing the concepts and frameworks from Self-Organization for Nonprofits: Fundamentals. We recommend watching all three of the Fundamentals sessions before joining us for these ones.

About This Program
This program introduces self-organization implementation basics. It addresses the fact that both people and organizations need to make the transformational shift together, though each with very different focuses and practices. The goal within self-organization is to reach symbiosis, where the people and the organization thrive within a mutually beneficial relationship.

This program covers the basics of implementation that can guide a non-profit through this transformational change. It is grounded in the practical experience of the Whidbey Institute’s journey into self-organization.

All sessions will be recorded and shared with those who register.

The Sessions

Session 1: Thursday, June 24, 9am – 11am Pacific Time – Implementing Structure
Session 2: Thursday, July 1, 9am – 11am Pacific Time – Engaging People
Session 3: Thursday, July 8, 9am – 11am Pacific Time – Integrating the Board

Session 1: Thursday, June 24, 9am – 11am Pacific Time – Implementing Structure

The basic element for organizing work in a holarchic structure is a role. Implementation of self-organization begins with role definition. Roles are defined to create ongoing clarity regarding where in the organization the authority to do which work is anchored. Roles adapt dynamically in service to the self-organized evolution of the organization serving its purpose. This adaptation is driven by feedback on what is needed next. This feedback shows up as tensions (the drivers of evolution). To resolve tensions into meaningful output for the organization, specific decision-making processes are implemented that enhance collective intelligence and co-creation. 

In this session you will learn about how to define roles, and get a first impression of the two main decision making processes that serve tension processing for both operations and for governance.

Session 2: Thursday, July 1, 9am – 11am Pacific Time – Engaging People
Implementing self-organization is not like the change management processes many of us have experienced—often repeatedly. This is transformation on both the structural and the personal level. The required unlearning and new learning often leads to fear and resistance, and this needs to be seen, accepted, and engaged in order to experience what this transformation makes possible. 

In this session, we explore the needed support, personally and structurally, to create the conditions for people to feel safe during the journey. We’ll discuss the need for various pathways and timeframes to support different people through the process of unlearning, new learning, and acceptance.

Session 3: Thursday, July 8, 9am – 11am Pacific Time – Integrating the Board
The role of the Board in a self-organized nonprofit is crucial. It is located in the Enterprise Context of a Symbiotic Enterprise and has two really important functions:

1. It forms the bridge between the inner self-organized contexts and the conventional, non-self-organized environment of the legal entity.
2. It is the guardian of the self-organized contexts.

We can say this without reservation: the Board needs to be on board! Self-organization in a non-profit is not possible without the board committing to the journey of learning and implementation.

In this session we look at the necessary conditions for the Board to be an integrative part of the journey and how the members of the Board, though not located in the self-organized Enterprise Context, are invited to actively participate in the self-organized People Context and Organization Context.

Session structure
In each session you will get both theoretical and practical input. You be invited to small group conversations, followed by ample time for harvesting and Q&As.

What you will learn
In the three sessions you will gain a basic understanding of:

• How to define roles.
• The two main decision making processes that serve tension processing for both operations and for governance.
• Various pathways and timeframes to support different people through the process of unlearning, new learning, and acceptance.
• The role of the Board.
• What it means to go through this shift, spoken from years of practical experience in many different organizations internationally and specifically in the Whidbey Institute.

Why is this important?
For decades, we have witnessed the emergence of alternative ways of organizing work (e.g. W.L. Gore since 1957, Sociocracy since the late 1970s, Ricardo Semler/Semco since 1980, Holacracy since 2007, Teal, and more). There is a deep need and desire in our society to work together in different ways. Companies of all kinds are more and more under pressure to shift their ways of organizing to a more contemporary form. And, in the last decade the principles of self-organization have found expression in different practices that provide some answers to what is needed now.

Making the shift into self-organization is a radical change that can liberate and empower the potential of people and organizations to the fullest. However, transformation is holistic and can be challenging. It requires dedication and continuous learning, as old structures, processes, and behaviors are transformed into new ways of collaborating and working in the world.

What this program is and is not
This program is for you if you are engaged in a non-profit organization and curious about, interested in, or already on the journey into self-organization.
This program is a first introduction and will not give you the tools and methods to actually go through this transformation.

Prerequisites
If you did not attend our first 3-part deep dive, Self-Organization for Nonprofits,  please purchase and watch all three sessions before attending Implementation Basics.

Cost (in US Dollars)
Supporter – $350
Regular Price – $200
Supported – $50

Curious to learn more? Watch our Intro to Self-Organization for Nonprofits Zoom session here!

The Hosting Team
Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller
Always driven by pioneering the new, Christiane has been an entrepreneur for 30 years and an international Business Consultant for more than two decades. Her specialized focus on self-organization began over a decade ago with learning and practicing Holacracy.

Learning from the experience of what it means to make such a fundamental shift, both for organizations and for people, Christiane co-founded two self-organized enterprises, encode.org and Evolution at Work, integrating the real-life learnings and developing more holistic solutions for fully self-organized enterprises.

Driven by her personal purpose (“The unification of love and power”) and inspired by the years of exploring this new world of work and being, she is currently writing her book: “The Story of Love, Power and Purpose”.

Find more about Christiane’s work here: https://christianesplace.com/

Heather Johnson, Co-Executive Director
Heather Johnson has been a member of the Whidbey Institute team since 2010. With a background in business administration and nonprofit management, and specialization in financial modeling and management, her focus is integral organizational development: growing an organization’s systems, structures, practices, mindsets, and culture in alignment with a deep and worthy purpose. She’s a graduate of Pacific Integral’s Generating Transformative Change program, and has held leadership roles with Sustainable Connections in Bellingham where she was a founding staff member, served as Interim Director of both Sustainable Seattle and Excellence Northwest, and as Director of Finance and Accounting Blue Marble Biomaterials.

Marnie Jackson, Co-Executive Director
Marnie Jackson has been a member of the Whidbey Institute team since 2013. Prior to that time, she worked in nonprofit communications with the Humane Society of Skagit Valley and the Timber Framers Guild and as a writer for several magazines and newspapers. She’s also a former teacher with the Mount Baker Academy and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Suffolk University. She is a certified Language of Spaces coach and an enthusiastic member of our Symbiotic Enterprise, helping nurture and shape the evolution of self-organization at the Whidbey Institute. In addition to working with the Whidbey Institute, she volunteers with the Northwest Animal Rights Network, the Social Justice Solidarity Net (that) Works, and other social and environmental justice organizations.