You will find practical guidance on how your team can share leadership, distribute decision-making, stay aligned on priorities, deal with conflict, and create a thriving culture that cares for everyone. You will immediately get a much clearer understanding of your team challenges, and benefit from team practices that have been tested and proven in other workplaces.
Learning Outcomes
Decision Making
Access collective intelligence with efficient methods for inclusive decision-making
Conflict & Feedback
Develop interpersonal skills to be more confident to hold difficult conversations
Mutual Care & Growth
Create a psychologically safe culture where everyone feels cared for
Rhythms & Priorities
Stay aligned on priorities and distribute tasks between team members
Continuous Improvement
Get the habit of consistent & intentional learning in individuals and teams
Power Dynamics
Understand how to navigate the complex status dynamics that emerge in all groups
Course Details
Access the content at any time and follow it at your own pace. Our full course material includes video lessons + case studies + exercises to integrate the lessons + team practices & links to curated resources for your team to go deeper on each topic. You get:
23 video lessons explaining how to respond to the most pressing challenges of decentralised organising.
30 Exercises & practices you can use to integrate the lessons in your organisation.
45 links to curated resources & case studies for you to dive deep into the topics.
Unlimited access so you can review the lessons any time.
Together, we’ve established our own self-managing workplaces, and we’ve shared our knowledge with thousands of people in training workshops in 20+ countries around the world.
Patterns for Self-organising Teams
Your Guides
Nati Lombardo
Born in Argentina, now based in Europe. Her background is in community development, permaculture and creative activism.
She has more than a decade of experience working in self-organising teams. As a facilitator, coach and consultant, she helps groups to cultivate a collaborative culture through behavioral change and peer-to-peer support.
She is a co-founder of The Hum, and member of the Enspiral network.
Richard D. Bartlett
He's enthusiastic about co-ownership, self-governance and building relationships of partnership instead of domination to create collaborative workplaces.
Cofounder of The Hum and the Loomio coop, and Director of the Enspiral Foundation.
He has a unique way of seeing patterns and speaking about complexity in simple words.
Course Content
Introduction (click to expand)
⏯️ Welcome
📄 Who we are and how we work
🛠 Assessment: how decentralised is your team? [Free Assessment]
⏯️ What is a decentralised organisation?
Rhythm & Retrospective
⏯️ Align your priorities with work rhythms
⏯️ Retrospectives: stop, reflect, and learn
🛠 Exercise: Rhythm mapping
🧭 Journaling
🔍 Practices, Case Studies & Resources
Developmental Culture
⏯️ The self in self-management
🛠 Exercise: mindful breathing
⏯️ Personal growth mindset
🧭 Journaling
⏯️ Develop a team growth culture
🛠 Exercise: collaborating across difference
🔍 Practices, Case Studies & Resources
Decision Making
⏯️ Decide how to decide
⏯️ Four decision methods for a decentralised team
⏯️ Make your own decision protocol
🛠 Exercise: Make your own decision protocol
⏯️ Getting unstuck
🔍 Practices, Case Studies & Resources
Trust & Care
⏯️ Psychological safety
⏯️ Practices for a new culture
🧭 Journaling
⏯️ Accounting for care
⏯️ Internal support systems
⏯️ Get unstuck with an external peer
🔍 Practices, Case Studies & Resources
Distributing Tasks & Roles
⏯️ Roles: Who is working on what
🧭 Journaling
⏯️ Holding each other accountable
🛠 Exercise: accountability mapping
⏯️ Ownership is not a feeling
🔍 Practices, Case Studies & Resources
Asynchronous & Remote Work
⏯️ The asynchronous opportunity
⏯️ A shared map of your communications tools
📄 The trinity of digital comms tools
📄 Introducing new tools with care
⏯️ Asynchronous decision-making on Loomio
🔍 Practices, Case Studies & Resources
Money, Leadership & Power Dynamics
⏯️ Including people in money decisions
⏯️ Unpacking money stories
🛠 Exercise: Understanding your money stories
⏯️ Power dynamics at work
🧭 Journaling
🔍 Practices, Case Studies & Resources
Dealing with Conflict & Feedback
⏯️ Dealing with conflict in your team
🧭 Journaling
⏯️ Personal approaches to conflict
🛠 Exercise: Trigger log
⏯️ Giving & receiving feedback
🛠 Exercise: Get clear before giving feedback
🔍 Practices, Case Studies & Resources
Course Conclusion
⏯️ Where to from here?
🧭 Journaling
🛠 Action plan
FAQs
Who are these courses for?
At The Hum we work with an extraordinary mix of purpose-driven people, from many walks of life: from political activism, to business people, government agencies, the community sector and social entrepreneurs.
These courses are ideally suited for people in a team that is already trying to work in a more decentralised way (you might call it collaborative, non-hierarchical, cooperative, flat, horizontal, self-managing, agile, teal, sociocratic, self-organising, networked...).
There also very useful if your team is just getting started on the self-managing journey.
If you’re not sure this is what's right for your team, contact us: contact@thehum.org
I work full-time, can I still effectively take this course?
Yes. This course was designed to be flexible to fit to your schedule. Working through the content won't surpass a couple of hours per week.
Are there any prerequisites?
You do not need to complete any previous training to benefit from this course. All you need is a good understanding of the English language, and an Internet connection.
Do you give scholarships?
Yes, we provide scholarships for low income people working on social impact projects, who wouldn't otherwise have access. If you would like to apply for a scholarship, fill in this form.
If you have any other questions, please get in touch. We’ll love to hear from you :)
Nicola Round
Adfree Cities
“I have come away from the course understanding that deciding to have a flat structure was just the first step for us. There is a lot of work to be done to build the structures and processes that we need to thrive. The Hum has given us the tools and the inspiration to help us on this journey. I feel much more confident about trying new ways of organising.”
Irem Tumer
UNFPA
“The training was the perfect way to equip our team with tools to overcome challenges of organizing in a decentralised and value-driven way. Rich and Nati guided the journey with commitment and positivity at every step and we supported us with their vast experience and knowledge. The atmosphere of safety and trust they created was inspiring and set the tone for our follow-up plans.”
Andreas Czermak
Bertelsmann Investments
“Very practical and up-to-date training for anyone who wants to take organisations to a new and modern level of collaboration. An organization where you can grow together and everyone has the chance to contribute, where you can learn from each other and everyone can develop...”