Polymorphic Organisations with Perry Timms

Jon Barnes: Hello everybody and welcome to the Parler podcast. Today I spoke to our friend at Parler, Perry Timms. Perry is the founder of PTHR and he's been a pioneer in the self-management space for some years, even getting a lifetime achievement award from World Blue for his contribution to the field. He's also been named the most influential thinker in HR and he's a top bloke. In this conversation, I wanted to talk to Perry about a new concept he's working with. Hello Perry, how you doing?
Perry Timms: Good, John, thanks very much. Yes, we're about to kick off a very interesting conversation, I think.
Jon Barnes: Absolutely, absolutely. So for listeners, and I and ⁓ Gabs have been working on our summer gathering recently. So we're in full flow and collaborating together. And we thought it would be a great moment to get Perry on the podcast. Perry, I know you. Can you tell the audience a little bit about your background and what got you to do in whatever it is you're doing today? that of a polymorphic organization. So this is an organization that can change shape. And what I particularly got from our conversation is that Perry is really getting his inspiration from loads of different parts from this world of organizational development and leadership development. His thinking is very much aligned with self-managing teams, although you'll see that he also includes some elements of hierarchy too, which we discussed.
Perry Timms: I sure can, yes. So, house boy from Northampton, that's my sort of background. None of my family went to university, so I didn't. But I joined the civil service when I was 18. One of the best things I did actually, because it taught me how to kind of get through the world's work in a way that's congruent with what you think you're here for. So I didn't know what I was here for, but that helped me discover. And part of that discovery was working on projects, technology projects, kind of found a flair for that. That led me into the sort of training side.
Jon Barnes: We talked about what a polymorphic organization is and how that's, it's ironic to name it almost. How organizations can fluctuate between states, much like water. How organizations exist both as legacy organizations, so the past, and as future organizations and that tension. How organizations also fluctuate between phases of expansion and consolidation and how both require different approaches. The concept of a flywheel, which generates its own energy.
Perry Timms: I suppose when a new system comes in people are nervous so they needed training So I got involved in learning and development in HR 23 and a bit years ago, and I've been in that sort of fraternity ever since But in the early 2000s something really important happened where I discovered this concept of self organizing teams and self managed organizations Ricardo Semmler's book maverick was the kickstart for me I also discovered agile around the same time. I Oh, this is convenient
Jon Barnes: and how to apply some of these concepts. If you're a nerd, you will likely enjoy this. In fact, you'll quickly find out that Perry is a veritable encyclopedia. So I would recommend taking some notes on your phone if that's what you're inclined to do. And you'll likely leave this episode with a long reading list if that's what you choose to do. So with that said, I would like to introduce you to my conversation with Perry Timms. Take care.
Perry Timms: I started to bring them into practice, started to dive into that a lot more, and of course, wow, I really opened a door to a whole new world. And the thing that it was congruent in me that I didn't realise was, I hate being told what to do. If I'm unsure, I'll ask questions, but I people telling me what to do. And it almost felt like autonomy wasn't something I ever had as a word for it, and then it came through. So I thought, that scratches a personal itch of mine. But it developed my interest in systems. So working in HR and organisation design and development, you have to be good at knowing what systems are all about. So that opened the door to systems thinking and everything since then. For the last 13 and a half years, I've been running People and Transformation with HR. We're a small team, but we have one rule, we will be self-managed. And that's me, I've written a few books, got a few things under my belt in terms of peer recognition. People sometimes use words like guru and expert, and I hate those. I just say, look, I'm an enthusiast. That's me.
Jon Barnes: Yeah, I had you down as a geek. we'll do some geeking today. And the thing we have in common is definitely this allergy to authority a friend told me I had once. It sounds like you might be somewhat similar. you know, you just said a bit there, but for listeners, Perry has a ton of experience in self-management in more democratic workspaces and that kind of space. But you've recently...
Perry Timms: Geeky enthusiast, totally! Nice. Nice phrase. Yes.
Jon Barnes: come to this concept of a polymorphic organization. So can you tell us what a polymorphic organization is? That might be an irony because I imagine something polymorphic to some degree can't be described. But tell us what the concept is and tell us what led you to this moment where you felt like you needed it.
Perry Timms: Mmm. Mm. Yeah, it's a word that I am so glad I found because I was looking for something and I'll give you almost the frustration I have with organizations in how they try and reshape themselves. So one of the first principles of polymorphic is that something can shape shift according to need and information that it has that tells it what's best for it. And that's the word restructuring. Organizations convulsively restructure and it's actually become a traumatic and almost easy switch to flick with very little care and diligence. And so I've begun to really hate that concept because what it tends to be is organizations who move things around and don't really address the root cause of systemic problems and so on. They just think they can nip and tuck a bit and move people around. But actually it's a complete trauma wave that runs through the organization. And I thought that's such an opposite to the sophistication needed. to calibrate all the moving parts of an organization and actually still keep the soul and spirit of it intact and actually thriving. So in antidote to that, I started to look around and a LinkedIn post from somebody just sparked this whole thing, right? They talked about the concept of organizations no longer being a singular form. They are a legacy organization and a future one. And I suddenly thought, ⁓ that's it, I've got it. That's why we're so busy. That's why we're so confused. That's why we're so almost like lost in it. So I started to play with that concept and discovered object oriented programming or object oriented design, which in technology terms kind of frames an object as a piece of functionality that will do different things depending on the data it receives. And so one of those seven parameters is polymorphism. It can change. can, it can issue instructions on one part because the data tells it to do that, or it can just absorb and index information on another part, because that's what the information tells it to do. I thought that That's what we need from organizations as a living entity with machine parts and soul and spirit. It needs to get the data that tells it what it should do and it should be able to adapt its shape and form in order to do that. So that's where it comes from. Polymorphism in biology and technology exists and it comes from a Greek word polymany, morphate form. And it's just like, ⁓ this is the answer I've been looking for for organizations who are almost addicted to rigidity. And I wanted them to get really comfortable. with much more fluidity.
Jon Barnes: So you mentioned a restructure. is speaking about the negative side, like what's the kind of prevailing ethos that isn't working? Am I right? You're saying what's wrong with it is that we think of a fixed thing and we think of going from that fixed thing to a new fixed thing. Whereas you're asking us, know, it's the, was it freeze, unfreeze, refreeze? You're saying, can we actually go from being fixed to being
Perry Timms: Thank you. at Lurem.
Jon Barnes: forever malleable on some level. that quote?
Perry Timms: Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it. Yeah. And I think as I started to explore that concept and one of my sort of thoughts was when Kurt Lewin came up with that, that made sense in a more mechanical, instrumental, industrial kind of model of work, because it is about machinery and like, you know, recalibrating it and then going again. But work isn't like that as much anymore. If anything, it's much more fluid anyway. So it's kind of been calling to us for quite some time to go. That doesn't work anymore. And if we take unfreeze as a concept, right, that's a state of water because of the temperature. But water can exist in all sorts of different forms of steam and so on. So we know that that's a property that exists in nature anyway. so, the idea is that you do that more malleable thing that you described, because that's a lovely word for it. What I sense, though, is sometimes people are really comfortable with stability and platforms, even in amongst all of that malleableness. And I sense that in nature. you know, an octopus is a good example, right? It can take on many forms. Were you going to do it? Yeah, yeah, That's such a classic one because it changes shape and color and so on. So, I mean, there's something amazing on it. But what doesn't change in an octopus
Jon Barnes: was gonna give the same one. I was gonna give exactly The is distributed across the whole thing. It's got three hearts, which I always love as a story.
Perry Timms: All of that, yeah, you see. So there are some fundamentals with which that octopus has to exist, like the three hearts being one and the distributed neural network being another. But how it looks to the outside world is completely different depending on its circumstances, right? So I recognise this. And I think this is where I was starting to get a little bit agitated about self-management itself. And I'd been in love with it for a long time. And I thought, am I falling out of love with this concept? Like, that really hit me. That's like, I can't believe I'm doubting.
Jon Barnes: existential.
Perry Timms: ⁓ yeah, so thinking about that, I didn't want to abandon it just because it keeps bouncing off the ridiculous industrial power grabbing stuff that we see around the world. I just thought, no, no, no, it still will have its day, but maybe it needs a different force with it to be able to thrive and to become a normative state, right? So I am still thinking about this as a sort of anti-hierarchical sort of thing, but I actually started to think there might be some times where a little bit of hierarchy, we might as well admit, is not a bad thing. So this malleable stay is almost like determined by the fact that it has at least a little bit of stability in order to be that because purely malleable might make it vaporize, disappear and fall apart right so I didn't want that to happen so I thought what can anchor it safely ⁓ could be a really good thing to enable it to be more fluid as a kind of default I suppose for the rest of it.
Jon Barnes: Okay.
Perry Timms: And if I just give you one quick example, because I can see you itching to come in, because I love the fact that we're going to riff this around. I'll give you an example of a charity, right? So a charity now that may have 20,000 people across the world doing brilliant things, started with one person who had a real sense of agitation and need in the world and said, this is what I want to do. If you forget that founding principle and just go on to be a fundraising machine that does whatever, you've kind of lost the whole point of it. So that, that platform, that honouring, absolutely should power you into the future. You shouldn't deny that sort of stuff. So that's sort of part of my sense really that a polymorphic organisation changes shape, but that doesn't mean to say it's completely and utterly abandoning all forms of stabilising entities to it.
Jon Barnes: Yeah, that's exactly where I wanted to jump in is to say just that it sounds like what you're saying is you're not saying the whole organization, you're not saying every single part of the organization is polymorphic. You're saying the overall organization is polymorphic. And that might mean that at various points, some parts are ice and some parts are steam and you know, and all things, but and the parts that are fixed, they might change over time, but we will always strive to have
Perry Timms: Yep. Exactly. You got it. Exactly. Yeah.
Jon Barnes: the fewest moving parts nonetheless, we try and it's like that requisite structure.
Perry Timms: You got it. That's a really nice way to frame it actually, requisite structures. Good. But I think it's on the premise that an organization in itself and the people within it and the systems that are kind of powering it are able to tune in and listen in order to be able to do that. And I think that's where multiple forms of logic seem to be a bit of an anathema in organizations. They almost want to purify it down to this real low state of entropy and like, this is how we do replicable, stable stuff. I mean, even some of the systems thinkers greats like W. Edwards Deming would admit that absolutely you can nail all your processes and your quality standards and your checks, but you've still got to counter the fact that people are variable. They have different moods and they make mistakes and they kind of get a bit lost in concentration. So he kind of said, as long as your system can adapt to that, that's as perfect as you can be. And I love that sense of. mechanical and organic, actually not fighting each other but respecting each other. That's what I think a polymorphic organisation ultimately will do, respect all of its shapes and forms and logics.
Jon Barnes: For you as a practitioner then, if, you know, there's the water metaphor, you know, if it can be liquid, steam or solid, what's the, what's the organisational version of that? Like, do you see that there are different states and we use, have you got a taxonomy of any kind where you feel like there's different states and all to different degrees? Like, how does that work?
Perry Timms: Mm. Little bit. Yeah, yeah a little bit and I like what you're doing there because there is a sort of a human desire to kind of categorize as much as we can and I think what we, no no no no no but I think that's absolutely important for us in order to comprehend we sometimes have to categorize right and then then we can deal with outliers and and really difficult to define things with much more confidence I think that's a natural logical instinct of us. You know because let's just take one example here like you know can't measure how much you love somebody can you on a scale?
Jon Barnes: story.
Perry Timms: mean, that's just a ridiculous thing. But you can measure how much time you've actually spent looking after their needs. So there's the kind of mechanical and the emotional thing. And we always do it, right? So you don't have a backlog of love, but you do have a backlog of things that help you appreciate that you can spend time just purely loving that person, right? So there's that. Anyway, so yes, there is a kind of taxonomy. So... ⁓ I guess I'll go to a concept in organization design and development and actually a quote from a systems thinker, Donnella Meadows, who said you can deliberately design things to be adaptive. And I don't think we appreciate that logic enough. We feel like we over categorize by trying to lock everything down. And I've used this metaphor before, like a job description ends up becoming like a prison because it literally cages you into the confines of the thing. And it's almost like that's such an anti-human thing to do but sadly we get a bit Stockholm syndrome and we kind of love our capital because we think it's safer than being out in the wild when we've lost a sense of curiosity, discovery, creativity, artistic, whatever. there's something in that. again going back to your question about a kind of taxonomy yeah there's something really important about knowing whether you are in a strengthening legacy kind of frame of mind or whether you are in a more expansive future kind of mind. So I've come up with this term in dynamic org design of organizational oscillation. We oscillate between states of consolidation and expansion. I think when we look at transformation, it's all about kind of growth or efficiency. It's like, no, no, sometimes it's just stabilizing and consolidating. Don't deny that. It's powerful. It's helpful. It's safe. It's secure. But we deny it. So I have this concept to kind of frame some of this of organizational version control. version 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, version 2, 2.1, just like software, it just tells us where we are on the stage. And they might be expansive or they might be consolidating, but actually knowing where you are in that sense, I think is a really helpful way to both align yourself sort of spiritually and intellectually and organisationally with process systems and governance. So that's as near as I've got to almost like a Haynes manual of how you start doing.
Jon Barnes: Mm.
Perry Timms: polymorphic kind of tendencies, yeah.
Jon Barnes: And those, those two phases make total sense. Like if I think when facilitating even a single meeting, we, we know that it's best to diverge, converge, diverge, diverge. So you see it on those small levels. And actually I was saying to you, when we had a quick check-in before this call, I was saying that with Parler, we feel like we've climbed a hill and then I feel like I've just gone and had taken a break and had a picnic on the hill and now I'm ready for the next hill. So that's literally consolidation with my picnic expansion with the next hill.
Perry Timms: Yeah. Totally that and and I do think nature all the time leaves us clues about this stuff and when we do that categorization the codification we have those little eureka moments like I've got the words for it now and and that's what's excited me most about having a polymorphic sense because most people I talk to about it kind of go wow like it's complete and it's not radical at all because all I've done is channel things that are lying around I haven't come up with anything new in this, I don't think at all. I've just given names to things that exist already.
Jon Barnes: And with them, so if we've got these two phases, the, you know, of expansion and consolidation, what does it look like? ⁓ Well, I guess this is me being further categorical, right? And it's, I do acknowledge this is just an illusion of control. I think I like oscillate between ⁓ intellectual purity. where I want to acknowledge that all things are always impermanent and moving. And then some intellectual pragmatism where I'm like, yeah, but I need to do something about this. here's some categories I've created. I'm giving listeners the categories. So if you've got these three phases, do you then have, ⁓ for example, sets of tools or models or practices or processes that are more valuable in some, in either side of the oscillatory cycle?
Perry Timms: Yeah. Yep. Yep. You do. Absolutely do. Right. So let's say for argument's sake, you are in a state of almost permanent chaos and crisis because your market's down and people are leaving and competitors are eating your share. You are then less likely to want to do something bold and adventurous because you're just trying to lock everything down. And actually, what I'm saying is that's the time to just say abandon almost everything. Maybe keep your governance and legal stuff safe, right? But then dismantle the entire organization and say, look, we're going to look at it differently. And I've got this concept of not verticals and divisions, but workers spaces, areas where you go to where work needs to be done. Right. So if your biggest crisis point is we have to research what the competitors are doing better than us because they're killer nurse, then you create a space which does that Intel, Intel on the market, Intel on customers. You literally divert everybody to that and just say, stop doing anything except that, because we need that as an optimized way of knowing what we're going to do next. So it's a little bit of Dave Snowden's Kinevin in there where you actually occupy a space that's very different. So you have to kind of probe and sense to make sense of what's going on and then respond to that. There's also an example I'll give you actually here, which is the wonderful bank in Canada called Tangerine, who at certain points in their cycle of delivery, would have things like their corporate report or a new app was updated. And the CEO there was fantastic. He said, look, when the app's out, just everybody abandon stations and just get on the phones and get on the web chats and talk to customers. And it was a beautiful way of saying, actually, within this structure lives something that's completely the opposite of it, but it absolutely serves the immediate purpose and brings the rest of it all into play and into order. So. So that's the sort of thing I'm sort of sensing is a way for people to do some of this, which is determinant on what's going on. You can, if you want to, completely abandon your structures for a while and just go to where the work is. And then when that then starts to stabilize, you just consolidate back into what does it look like now. So it's that kind of rhythm, I suppose.
Jon Barnes: It reminds me of ⁓ a few things. One is I remember in the like, I don't know, 2010s to 15s or something, the undercurrent lot. now Aaron Dignan, the Reddy, is August and Matt Paltoni. They had responsive org, which, you know, I call, used to call this an adaptive organization because I was, I didn't want to use self-management too much. I feel like with self-management, we can, I, I'm obsessed with two things about it. Autonomy.
Perry Timms: or yet. Exactly. Yeah, me too. Yeah.
Jon Barnes: and adaptiveness. And here you're kind of emphasizing on the adaptive part, even there in the practices when you describe areas of work, it's a bit like having a project marketplace where someone can pop up project and people give their attention that way, right?
Perry Timms: I am. Yeah. Yeah, completely. That's it. That's exactly it. So you write about all that work and I look back on that and I very much got captured by it thinking, hey, this is good. Because I came from it as a self-management kind of purist thinking what's it like. And so I did see it. then, you know, Yammer came out and it looked like we were creating more social orgs and stuff like that. Right. And then all of sudden it didn't. And I'm like, what happened there? And it was the kind of right wing swing and the Trump and Brexit stuff, right. That kind of just jarred all of that. I am absolutely convinced. that the timing of Leloup was a little bit unfortunate because it was two years before all that shit storm, excuse the French, and therefore it distracted people from that potential evolutionary path to retrospective nerds go back to the 1950s and misogynist power crazy right wingers. So you can see where I sit on this. But yeah, so there's definitely something about seeing those past attempts. Now, this is another interesting aspect of polymorphism. It'll always say to you, that just wasn't right at the time. That doesn't mean you can't reuse it.
Jon Barnes: Yeah.
Perry Timms: And this is where I got a lot of inspiration for even thinking about this from a beautiful piece that was written in the Atlantic by Rutger Bregman about economics. At the time, I'm still completely naive on economics. I still think it's like some kind of global form of casino kind of thing, because none of it's real. Anyway, so ⁓ he said, Hayek and Friedman, kind of orchestrators of neoliberal trickle down capitalism, didn't make it up. They just constructed it from economic theories lying around. I'm like, wow, really? So then I started to think about that in polymorphism and guess what? I am using all sorts of things that line around. So a few examples are self-managed stuff. think polymorphism actually should enable self-management to really find its footing in an organization, not just be a niche little thing of lots of weird geeks like us. Because autonomy and adaptability are almost like that's the rules of the game now. That's literally it. So there's that. As I start to think about that whole concept, things like Jim Collins, good to great, almost raging capitalist manifesto book from the 80s and 90s, had some brilliant things in it like performance flywheels. So I've brought them back in and people look at me like, wow, that's a new thing. Where's that come from? It's like it's about 50 years old. It's probably even older than that because it's kind of an engineering concept. But it beautifully illustrates how we've got seduced by stupid KPI. construction and things like balanced scorecard, well intended, but a little bit like theatre of performance. And what we're now seeing when I'm sort of applying polymorphic principles and saying, hey, why don't you set up a flywheel for that? What's that? And I work it through. They're like, so there's all these soft things and the hard things and they all interlink. And if they get stuck, we don't just try and push on. We go to that and say, why is that not working? And we do a sub flywheel for that and then bring it back in the momentum builds. It's like, yeah, it's kind of Peter Senge's learning. Wow, that's lying around as well.
Jon Barnes: Yeah, and it's worth going back to capture these things. Recently, I actually had this really sudden realization that's like so stupid that essentially, I just believed Douglas MacGregor's theory why. That's kind of it. And what was funny is I studied it at uni and thought, that's all right, that's fine. And I think it's from like the 50s or 60s, I can't remember. But I recently realized, ⁓ that's just my whole life.
Perry Timms: Come on. Right. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yep, 1960s, yep.
Jon Barnes: essentially, I just I believe theory wide, that's it. That is so funny to realize, actually, these old things that we probably thought as stuffy when we were in our slightly postmodern phase. you you once you get over your postmodern phase, you realize there's all sorts of things integrate that you might have disagreed with, including hierarchy, which we discussed. So say a bit more. A lot of this seems to me that you're detaching from your dogmas. And you're not rejecting
Perry Timms: Yep. Yeah. ⁓ my. Yeah! ⁓ man. You do. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Jon Barnes: your dogmas as much as your, you know, to use the developmental term, you're transcending and including them. What is the, what is the role of hierarchy in a polymorphic organization?
Perry Timms: Yep, yep, that's my true. Yeah, I've become much more comfortable with a form of hierarchy. I don't even sort of think it's hierarchy, only looks like it when you put it on some kind of positional org chart. But it is still the concept of stewardship, so that's still a really big part of it. So what I am still keen to do is reduce the power vacuum that's created by a pyramidal hierarchical structure that still feels totally wrong to me. I've often said really leaders are at the center of it, they create the centrifugal force rather than the apex kind of look at me and almost pull mechanism. So it will feel different even if it might not look different because I've got this concept of leaders who are in some form of senior position because they have the experience, they founded the company, they've got the vision, whatever it might be right and almost that people will say yeah we actually we need you to do that because you know we want to know what that kind of thing is and whether we get behind it and respect the tactics that you're trying to get into us and so on. So there is that sort of reverent but not, you know, kind of in awe of or fearful of. And it's the concept of them being incubators that I've kind of settled on because they're incubating the future of the organization. They're incubating talent and people in it. They're incubating customer need and demand. They're incubating the financial projections and where they spend the money and where they acquire money and so on. So I think that adds a whole different dynamic to being the power crazy one at the top to be I'm incubating stuff for the system that I have kind of brought into the world or I'm now inheriting or whatever it might be. So there's something about that that I think switches from I have to know all the answers to I need to be an incubator for others brilliance or for the market to tell me what to do or whatever it is. And just that simple switch for me.
Jon Barnes: Mm-hmm
Perry Timms: says I can tolerate that kind of hierarchy. I can see that actually adds more value in a way that perhaps we haven't seen before. So yeah, that's how I'm sort of reframing it. It's not to abandon the sense of being anti-hierarchical. It's anti-power hierarchy and much more an incubating hierarchy.
Jon Barnes: I was gonna say it might be worth us unpicking hierarchies, Brittany, if you want to geek out on that. There's certainly dominant hierarchies when a person has power over another person, which to me, I don't want to be careful, but I'm close to saying I never see that being good. But then there's hierarchies...
Perry Timms: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Barnes: of information, for example, which are more like taxonomies, which is to say that the title of your book matters slightly more than the chapter titles, which matters more than the body text, right? And you see that in organizations where strategic roles might have, they certainly have greater influence because they dictate the whole strategy, but then coordination roles have probably slightly less influence and then roles that execute or implement probably have even less
Perry Timms: Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Jon Barnes: ⁓ influence and so those are just different levels of the taxonomy right or we can have different areas of responsibility but we're responsible for work not for humans not a dominance hierarchy but it's mean in a holacracy it's why it's called a holarchy right those are slightly different things I'm just throwing that at you but how does that fit or not fit within what you're saying?
Perry Timms: Yep. Yep. Thank you. Completely. Yeah. you I like it. I'm going to use your book metaphor because I really like that, right? So you're right, the title means more than the chapter titles. But then when we've read the book, there's a quote in there that matters more than the title. That's how I think work is. We find a thread of something that's more important to us. We shouldn't be in deference to that title because the title is in service, actually, of the text inside it. And that's the sense.
Jon Barnes: Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm. Mm.
Perry Timms: and we've heard about servant leadership and all these other kind of things. Sorry what you say?
Jon Barnes: You seem to keep coming back to servant leadership fundamentally.
Perry Timms: Yeah, exactly we collided on the same concept. But I think it's flawed because I think it creates an ambiguity in a leader to go, how do I be if I need to be intentional and directive when I'm a servant leader? And I think what we've missed out is it is in service of the thing that the organisation exists to do, the mission. That's the thing, right? So, By flipping it to incubating, what you are incubating is, is this in service of the reason we exist? And we forget that. We sometimes say, I'm in service of the people. Well, you are, but actually they're in service of the mission as well. So that's the ultimate. Now, servant leadership, think sometimes hasn't amplified that sense of being in service of the mission enough for me. It feels like you are flipping the pyramid, which feels quite nice, but then there's a different kind of weight. that comes onto that apex then when it goes underground, if you know what mean. So I'm thinking we've got to keep this thing in an elevated, energised, systematic sense and the mission, the whole reason you exist is so important. So I'll give an example of where I brought this into the HR world. When I set up a book about the HR operating model, I deliberately created very few roles because I didn't want them to have to be a like for like transfer. There's one I did insist on and that's a meaning mate. somebody who in the organization channels the meaning of it all. I mean, I'm not talking, you know, completely existential here. I'm saying is that pursuant to the founder's vision, the mission, what our stakeholders need, what the world needs and so on. We haven't got enough of that going on. So if leaders stop tending to the machinery, mean, calling somebody a chief executive officer is a bit odd because an executive, is that all you're there for really for the executive? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, the executive, no.
Jon Barnes: execute.
Perry Timms: you are almost like the manifestation of the reason you exist in the first place. You should hold that, channel that, use that with all that you've got. That's why I call myself Chief Energy Officer, because I think that's why I'm there for the energy. So, yes, so there's definitely something in that which I see almost like an evolution of the servant leader into that whole I'm a manifestation of the mission. And if I'm not, I need to get out of the way.
Jon Barnes: So really coming back to that, ⁓ every role has a purpose, which is a subset of the circle's purpose, which is a subset of the organization's purpose. And ultimately, we're all here in that kind of fractal logic to serve that broad purpose.
Perry Timms: matricle. That's it. Yeah. And the fractal structure is a really nice way to think about it because that's sort of how it is. It's almost like echoes, sound waves. It's almost that kind of thing. Right. So there's a bit of sonar thing going on here, which is where the oscillation thing comes in too, because that's how sound travels and so on. So as well as a book metaphor, we can use a sort of a musical metaphor and say the CEO is a conductor. Yeah, fine. But they're not playing the tuba, are they?
Jon Barnes: Mm. Mm.
Perry Timms: They can't play all the instruments, so they've got to bring it all together to create the symphony. So they're in purpose of the writer of that wonderful piece of musical genius to make it a tribute to it. So that's the lovely frame I think we should have. I suspect that still feels a bit naive to some, but the pursuit of the power dynamic ought to be something where there's a check and balance that goes, not that kind of power. No, no, no, we're not having that. So going back to self-management and democratic principles, if you can vote your boss in, like Ken Theory did at at Devita Healthcare and say, yeah, we want you to lead us. That's an indictment then on the people to be that mission.
Jon Barnes: That reminds me, I had a question for you around this concept of legitimate leadership, which I think comes from anarchism. So an illegitimate leader, my sense is fundamentally somebody who might have, because actually I did want to distinguish with you, you've used the word leader several times. And to me, that's an entirely different concept to boss, although we totally inflate the two as one.
Perry Timms: Yeah. Yes, yeah we do.
Jon Barnes: Yeah, leadership being like fundamentally the ability of somebody to help a group to fulfill its mission. And that can be done in all sorts of ways, whereas a boss has control and power, which I would rather not have personally. So they feel like different things, but a legitimate leader, my sense is, let's imagine you have got, you know, in a hierarchy, you do have some sort of senior role. A legitimate leader is followed and an illegitimate leader has the role, but actually isn't followed.
Perry Timms: orders you around. No. No. massively totally totally does and I think going back to the whole it's been written before if you look at everything Mary Parker Follett wrote in the early 1900s it's telling us what it should be now she knew then that the thing was a fallacy and a folly and she didn't have the years of experience that we've got on it so some people have been able to vision this but the time just hasn't been right
Jon Barnes: And this is where it goes pretty pear-shaped in my view.
Perry Timms: Russell Ackoff in the 1980s and the 90s, same thing. mean again all of these things I'm channeling into polymorphism because what I'm trying to do is create an operating system that allows that wisdom to come into play and allows us to abandon the things that we know are harmful. And there is even obviously the sort of psychological conditions of leaders and we do see lots of people that are a bit psychopathic and narcissistic get to the top because of the game that they're playing. So we can't just have better selection. that's not going to do it. We need a completely fundamental new system where they cannot survive that way. So they make a choice, they either isolate themselves or they learn and play the game. So yeah, a bit different if you've got a psychopathic condition, but you know, we can see.
Jon Barnes: I'm pretty sure I've literally had a psychopathic boss before.
Perry Timms: I think we all have. Yeah. But the system sort of allows that to happen and sort of rewards them for it. So you can almost see why they haven't been able to make any adaptions to that, whether they've got the sort of wiring in the brain to enable them to do that, because, you know, some psychotic conditions need serious medical intervention. But we're not necessarily going down that route. But we're saying the game rewards those who can punish. And that's just got to be the...
Jon Barnes: Mm.
Perry Timms: The thing we rule out with a system. So again, I come back to this phrase I use all the time. Everything's a system and systems are everything. If we keep that in mind, we're likely to play a more intellectual and smart game. And while I think about it, even though you haven't asked me this question, people might say, where do I start with all this polymorphism stuff, right? So I'm to give you little clue about where I'm starting to flick the first domino in this. Recognising that you are running a future and a legacy organisation at the same time is an important realisation that you just go, yep, yep, yep, yep, we recognise that. So you can sort of abandon silly transformation programmes as run alongside and drop it. No, it doesn't work like that. You're moving between two. So that's an important mental model to have. But then the first thing you do is you map your systems. What are the systems? Because people don't know them. They're in them. It's like the fish in water, what water? It's that, right? So that sense of... Again, categorization comes in here. It's really helpful. How do things flow? Where do they get stuck? Who gets involved? What's working and not working and what gets lost and what are we ignoring? It's a brilliant way to just schematically represent your organization and it will be big and complex and multifaceted. But you've got to know where you're starting from in order to go, ooh, look at all those things we don't like anymore. And then start thinking, how can we do them differently? So that's where I say to people to start is you have got to know where you are. You've got to know what's going on. And sadly, at the moment. people don't.
Jon Barnes: What really like stands out to me is you seem to just have this ⁓ craving to include everything on some level. And I'm thinking, you know, ironic that sometimes self management, since it's both where we kind of come from, can become a dogma, which is why I try to use the word self managing or autonomy, than it being a thing because even using it now is itself ruling.
Perry Timms: Yeah. Yep. Same. I know what you mean.
Jon Barnes: possibility it could be anything other or that it could change shape. And in fact, even if you think to where teal comes from, there's people who kind of identifies teal, which is itself ironic. Because teal is supposed to be inclusive of everything, all the other colors, right? And so this just seems to me like you're, you're really moving from having believed in an inner thing against other things to now believing in that thing.
Perry Timms: Yeah.
Jon Barnes: Alongside other things seems to be the shift you've had.
Perry Timms: Beyond it. Yeah, it is. you know, I'm not putting me at the epicenter of anything here. I think I'm just channeling something that's come to me. So there is a bit of that. And learning about adult development theory from Robert Keegan has helped me because he built on some psychology theories in the 30s by Piaget and kind of said, look, this is this is how we identify who we are. And there are three stages that mostly are for adults in the world, because you've got like the imperial mind as young children who are kind of work out who they are and they get petulant teenage years and all that, right? When you get to a point where you kind of like think, yeah, I've kind of got to a point where I kind of know who I am and what I'm about, is the start of a three phase journey. And the first phase is a socialized mind where it's like I'm validated by those around me. And we will see so much of that. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. know, does.
Jon Barnes: It's even worse, it's my sense of who I am is whatever anyone else's sense of who I am. Social media makes it worse, I call it socialised media.
Perry Timms: Yeah, it totally is right. So there's definitely something in that jihari window all that kind of stuff goes into that But then the one after that is where you start talking about the self-author in mind And I think that's where a lot of people that have discovered self-management are in they're like i've got this ideology i'm i'm going for that now I don't need the validation like I used to because I found this thing that i'm more Prevalent leaning towards and i'd say that's still a super healthy state to be in because you've sort of detached from the like you say the social
Jon Barnes: you
Perry Timms: validation side of things into a lot more of a this is what I believe in and I'm pursuing it. But then the self transcending mind at the top end of it, only 2 % of people get their Dalai Lama territory is almost like I just am. Do you know what mean? I don't even need an ideology, I just am. And I'm sort of sensing not that polymorphic organizations will ever be that I am. mean, some might be, right? But I think at least they can be self authorizing, not socialized mind. So even an organizational construct.
Jon Barnes: Mm-hmm.
Perry Timms: we're sort of validated by others in our sector, whatever. It's almost like, yeah, but who are you and where are you headed for? So that self-authoring ideology needs to then translate into the adaptability that that's a story you're writing as you're going through it. And therefore people need to see how they contribute to that. And therefore they need to be a little bit more self-authoring, which then comes back to self-managing because that's kind of what's going on there. So I've also sort of tabulated that in my thoughts. And it kind of ripples through, even though I don't always describe it in the writing I'm doing on this, it's all in my mind. It's like I'm trying to sort of project into an organisation that can be self-authoring much more than it believes it is now.
Jon Barnes: And I think this is maybe, you you said earlier that things are a product of their times. You know, we had modernism and then the, then we reacted against that quite rightly against misogyny and whatever. And you end up with postmodernism, but it goes too far and you have the whole woke thing. And so then, you know, rather than hating on the previous thing, it's to say what, where, you know, what's the value in both of these, kind of not extremes.
Perry Timms: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You do.
Jon Barnes: both of these polarities and you end up with something slightly more integrative that doesn't reject either but does correct for both.
Perry Timms: Yeah and there again are clues lying around you know whether you think about Ken Wilbers, Aqual, All Qualities All and then you've got Gary Hamill's participatory organisations that kind of sits at the heart of a humanocracy thing. That participatory organisation thing is a really important thing for me because you get all the research that says people don't leave a bad organisation they leave a bad boss and all this right I think they're kind of reductive thinking there. I think people leave an organization because they can't influence it enough for what they need it to be. That's how I see that. And sometimes the boss gets in the way, right? So that is part of that equation. I'm not denying it. But if you've got to participate to your organization, you should be able to influence it in pursuant of that mission, however you want. you know, there's something in that. And I think there's this fine line, isn't it, between self-management and almost like, you know, self-indulgence.
Jon Barnes: Mm-hmm.
Perry Timms: I can change this route, I can have an easy ride, social loafing and all that and people do say that, they're like ⁓ that's what it will lead to, it will in some people ⁓ because they're not congruent enough with the mission because if you believe in that mission enough you will not be able to detach from that, you will want to do everything in pursuit of that mission and then if the system allows you to ⁓ you know, kind of do that, great. If the system is the mission doesn't matter, we just want you to be autonomous at any kind of price. It's like, well, good luck with that. That's just going back to more chaos. So that was where I nearly fell out of love with self-management, but it wasn't that self-management was wrong. It's just that the way some people have described it could be or should be or is felt a little bit naive.
Jon Barnes: Mm-hmm. Well, it seems even when you describe that you described an autonomy alignment tension so you're, you're always navigating some contradiction and that's the, that's the thing to be, to be playing with. Right.
Perry Timms: home. Yep. Yeah, I mean, there is something about this question. Well, what am I here for that we kind of think we only have to do existential crisis or career change? We could ask that question every day. We could say what we're here for today and that today will include a list of tasks and all that. And then you say to yourself, but what are they in pursuit of? And think what am I in service of today? And some of that is just useful habitual recognition that it still attaches to the big thing that you're here to do. So. That meaning-making thing, I think, is a perfect antidote to this world that just pulls us apart and tries to make us this cog.
Jon Barnes: I actually, by the way, have the reverse experience. Well, I don't think you're disagreeing with this necessarily, but when teams become self-managing, I see people leave because they can't handle the increase in responsibility, but it's a good thing because those who remain can. And actually we've seen people leave.
Perry Timms: Yeah. ⁓ God,
Jon Barnes: because they're like, no, this is too much hustle. I just wanted to hide or, you know, be a bit lazy, like you were kind of saying. But then they come back because they realize actually, they come back, they're like a gromo when I'm in that situation. And that's kind of interesting.
Perry Timms: Yep. Push it out. Yeah, it is and I genuinely don't blame people for that. I blame the system that has allowed that to become their belief as a norm for them. I think when you ask people deeply, they will then discover the things that really matter to them. And I've sort of built this little model for flourishing and it starts with two forms of value. The first is what value does the organization exist to create? You got to get that one right. Otherwise, why bother with it, right? But then the second form of value is slightly different actually, it's what do I value in life? Not necessarily to create that value, but what do I value in life? Is it team spirit? Is it community service? Is it inventiveness or whatever it might be? And what you value in life should be really strongly congruent with the value you're creating as an organization. And if you can't do that, then that's not a good start.
Jon Barnes: Yes, and meaning really seems like the thing that pulls it together for you. I'm thoughtful of time and I thought maybe it'd be good to speak about ⁓ applicability a bit more. So we've had a wonderful, ⁓ geeky, theoretical roller coaster. Tell us a little bit more about how to... I'm aware of the irony here that I'm asking you to apply a thing that... But tell us a little bit about...
Perry Timms: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. we have. we have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jon Barnes: anything you've got on how that might work or any advice you've got for anyone.
Perry Timms: Yeah. Well, I'm to use the word tension quite a lot now. So there's a warning, but that is a tension I share with you because I love a philosophical, theoretical, ideological kick around. But I almost come to a point where I'm like, what am going to do with that? So I do want to activate. And that actually is the other part of my leadership equation in all of this. You have incubators, but they're no good without activators. You need people who are going to activate things, get it done, because they can also activate up. for something to be incubated to you and then they will need to be then commissioned to activate through the rest of the organisation. So where do you start? So you start with tensions. You start with the things in your organisation. You don't use words like broken or busted or whatever or even out of date or whatever. You just go, where are the tensions? And that starts with your systems map, but it could be a smaller systems map. You could say, well, we're not doing very well when it comes to customer retention. There's a tension there. Okay. What's the system? Who's involved in it? How do you support it? How do you rule? And you might end up bleeding out a bit too. Oh, it's no wonder because we don't incentivize people to really listen to our customers. We've got this timestamp and we want to get rid of them and solve their problem in a certain timeframe. You might have to recalibrate that and think differently. So those are the things where you can start and people go, oh, that's just how you fix problems, isn't it? It's like, well, not if you take an approach that changes the nature of that system. makes it more adaptable, malleable, makes it more participatory, whatever it is, because otherwise you'll be back in this loop a little bit down the line. So this is trying to create something that will live beyond perhaps the actors and the people that are in it at that time. It's an easily inherited system. It's a thing that imbues people to it. Those are tensions that people don't address enough. And I say to people, find your tensions, find one you really want to work on, and start to apply some of that polymorphic thinking. What shape shifting will it need? Does it need detached from legacy instrumentality? Whatever and so that's where you can start to see how you can create little pockets of polymorphism I think actually a lot of organizations already are a bit polymorphic They just don't know it so there could be a bit of an audit which is like well actually our team that do customer ⁓ Care that they adapt every day so like they probably are polymorphic and then you have to say does the rest of our system work for them or against them? They have to work harder and have what I call absorption debt, where the system doesn't work for them, they have to be heroes every day. Because if that's case, change that. So it doesn't mean you've got a completely U-turn where you are. You can spot your tensions, fix them with a bit more polymorphism. You can look at where you already are polymorphic and go, are we getting the best out of that? And what can it teach us about other areas that could be polymorphic? So those are about the most practical ways I've described to start. and then there are tools that help you get going, which literally align.
Jon Barnes: Yeah, because it sounds like there you're describing ⁓ a what do we know phase, like a discovery phase. And what comes after that is this where you get that because the toolbox I've even heard on this cool is big at this point. So you're choosing the right thing.
Perry Timms: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't rule many things out except what I would call, know, further mechanical cranking handle type stuff. you know, people look at flywheels and go, Jesus, isn't that just industrial era mechanics? It's like, not if you do it right, it's not because you put in all the organics as well as crucial elements in creating that momentum, which we don't do enough. KPIs are just like a line and even OKRs are just a load of words. But a flywheel kind of tells it What's actually going on here? What's contributing to this momentum we're trying to create? And actually a lot of it is mindsets and human factors and relationships and trust and inclusion. Well, put them in and if they're hard, work on them because that's the only way you're to make it successful and depart from your current handle cranking, which eventually is going to grind the gears.
Jon Barnes: Can you say more about the flywheel, both as a metaphor and in practice? My sense is that as a metaphor, it's interesting because once enough energy is given, the system generates its own energy. And then in practice, are you talking about processes you put in place or is it a culture shift? What's an example?
Perry Timms: Yes. Yeah, that's it. You got that. That is totally right. A of that. A bit of that. It's like you just pulled both of the right threads. So you look at an area where you have a defined need to perform in a certain way or achieve a certain outcome, whatever it might be. So they can be quite process oriented as an outcome or thing, or they could actually be something about human factors. So, you know, if you wanted to say, let's be more inclusive, you could build a flywheel that would help you do that. because there would be certain elements in it where you'd go, well, let's find out how inclusive we are now. What does our data tell us? What do our people tell us? What do we look like to the world? How representative of the community are we? So you'd do a bit of that at the top of your flywheel to get you going. Then the next bit is like, what's that telling us about where we're deficient, light, misfiring, whatever. So you'd do a bit of analysis. Then you'd have some threads that would say, how do we get people to work on this? And so you can create some infrastructure for it. You can put some budget aside for it. The next part is then how do we make sure they're all kind of connected and they're all working together? So you create some kind of socialized, self-managed infrastructure support system. Then you go, you know, how do we then embed this across? So you literally you create all the steps, but in a rotating flywheel, because as you start to solve some of those problems, you go back up to where you started and say, and now where are we? And so you go through the loop again and you start to create newer versions of what else are the component parts. the influencing elements, the energy, the processes, the systems that make that thing continue. And you only stop it when you've done it, but you're not likely to ever do it, you? You'll just keep iterating and adapting what it is that flywheel is helping you measure performance. And where it gets tough or stuck or there's friction or loss or complete and utter kind of ⁓ frozen ⁓ element to it. you go, let's take that bit, not go any further and let's work on that because that has stopped the flywheel from moving. So yeah, that's how they work. And so I've been mapping out all sorts of things with people and they're kind of going, ⁓ wow, gosh, I forgot that's a factor. Like people don't trust it. It's like, well, you better work on that because if they don't, it's not going to work.
Jon Barnes: Maybe for listeners, can you tell us if anyone's listened to this conversation and gone like, shit, we could do with a bit of this. What's the, what's the, who's the kind of person you can help and what's the kind of problem that you feel you can help with?
Perry Timms: I'm So my sort of sweet spot is within the sort of people culture, OD, HR kind of lens, which is often looking at those human factors within the kind of process and an organisational performance areas. ⁓ But it could be any kind of denomination and level and layer really. So I wouldn't claim to be an expert on flywheels at all, but I just bring everything I've got on systems and understanding human dynamics into the mix. So I'm often there just to sort of help people. Download their own thoughts bring in their own system. I'll add a little bit of spice to it so actually those sort of things are not as onerous as you might think to create and then there's a whole kind of engage people and start to work on how do we make this flywheel come to life or Recalibrate what we're doing already and make this the new representation of our performance measures or Strategy goals and and yeah, and then just get going on it and just make sure that people are attentive to the things that they previously wouldn't do because you've now scoped them into the flywheel.
Jon Barnes: Yeah, iterate from there on. Where can people find you, Perry? Make sure I share your LinkedIn ⁓ link in the show notes. ⁓
Perry Timms: Yeah. Yes. Yes. So that's the obvious one. Yeah. And then all of this polymorphic stuff is now in 26 chronicles on substack. So that's pthr.substack.com. And then, yeah, you can find me at pthr.co.uk as well. But most of the polymorphic stuff I'm literally putting out there to see what sticks, see what resonates and for people to find useful. And I'm now starting to bring it into keynotes and some of the consulting work I'm doing, just gently, just almost like seeing how it goes. I might even put some of those chronicles with some adapted text and some extra bits into an e-book. And so we're looking at that at the minute.
Jon Barnes: I was gonna say is there a book coming?
Perry Timms: It probably is because I've almost written it ⁓ But I just can't stop myself I literally guess like a LinkedIn post came out the other day saying like the org chart is a lie I'm like, yeah, so I dove into it read it. I'm like, ⁓ my god So I took that out put some polymorphic stuff in and I had to sort of share that so again I'm just standing on the shoulders of other giants
Jon Barnes: Your book at this point sounds like it's just loads and loads of people's books stacked up on top of each other. Sounds more like it.
Perry Timms: It is a bit like now that now that's what I call the future part 26. Yeah a compilation
Jon Barnes: Yeah, yeah, nice, Nice. to leave our listeners any advice you would give anybody who's in a process of trying to change their organisation, know, culture, ways of work, in whatever way that might be, anything you want to leave people with before we say bye.
Perry Timms: Yes. Yeah, yeah, there are loads and loads of cliches out there like let's be a learning organization, listening organization, but they're not cliches really. They've got lots of science, lots of stuff behind them, lots of people are doing this in various ways. So if you're caught by a particular thing, i.e. we need to be a bit more like that, I would say just sort of allow that to channel you on a discovery journey of what does that really mean? How do we make our version of that? Because I don't think there's anything more polymorphic than an organization that's listening and can change itself without me saying what it looks like. So you don't have to use my parameters or my guidance. If you're captured by something, you learn about it and you start to think what's our version of that and can bring it into play, I think that's what the mission's calling you to do.
Jon Barnes: Yeah, it actually is interesting because if you do come across something that you're really passionate about, know, any of these concepts, it's likely because it resolves a need you didn't realize you needed,
Perry Timms: Yeah. Yeah, totally that. Yeah. What I would say then is avoid all the kind of pitfalls of current, which is like having tons of transformation programs, work plus AI agendas, all that kind of crap. Just try and cut that noise out and go, what matters here? What are we feeling like? Where can I find that out? What's our version of that?
Jon Barnes: Beautiful. Thanks for that, Perry. So good chatting to you.
Perry Timms: loved it mate, we went everywhere didn't we? Wow.
Jon Barnes: I know. I'll have to send people a whole bibliography at the end of this.
Perry Timms: Yeah, I can imagine. We've mentioned lots of names of people who've influenced our thinking, but yeah, we really enjoyed it, John. Thank you.
Jon Barnes: Beautiful. Thanks a lot mate. Take care.
Perry Timms: And you, bye.