What if a corporatisation approach could actually make academic life better? Looking across the episodes so far this year I see three themes: shifting from “I” to “we” by treating research as a team sport; developing a new kind of leadership focused on enabling others through self-awareness, humility, authenticity, kindness, and clear roles; and adopting new ways of working that reduce bureaucratic hierarchies. These point to new ways of working. Drawing on Masud Husain’s 2025 editorial on corporatization and “bullshit jobs”, and Jayne Price’s discussion of holacracy and Corporate Rebels, I remind us, as if we need reminding, of how our current arbitrary and onerous bureaucratic processes take us away from our core work. I then explore what we could learn from holocratic approaches that move from bureaucracy and control to trust and self organised teams, as captured in Corporate Rebels’ eight trends (purpose over metrics, networks of teams, supportive leadership, adaptation, freedom with accountable trust, distributed decisions, transparency, and talents/mastery). I invite us to experiment with being academic rebels exploring new ways of working with new forms of leadership. There might actually be forms of corporatisation that could be useful for our sector.
00:29 Reflecting on Conversations so Far in 2026
02:08 Theme 1: Mindset shift from I to We
02:55 Theme 2: Critical Role of Leadership
05:09 Theme 3: Needing New Ways of Working
07:19 The Rise of Corporatisation and 'Bullshit Jobs' in the Academic Sector
10:17 Learning from New Approaches in the Corporate Sector?
13:31 Exploring the Arbitrariness and Impact of Bureaucracy and Heirarchies
14:13 Example: Different Approaches to Bureaucracy around Teaching
16:39 Example: Different Approaches to Booking Holidays
17:48 Example: Booking Work Related Travel
20:05 Example: Bureaucracy and Control of Funding Bodies
22:39 Example: Bureaucracy, Micromanagement in Professional Organizations
25:15 Better Ways from Holocracy and Coporate Rebels?
29:33 Requires New Forms of Leadership
34:09 Eight Trends in This New Coporate Way
39:16 What Can You Imagine for Your Situation?
Related Links:
Sarah McLusky on diverse careers, purposeful events and effective communication (CAL135, S8E1)
Jayne Price on making work work better (CAL137, S8E2)
Jen Heemstra on Accidental Leadership (CAL 138, S8E3)
Strengths as Superpowers - Replay (CAL123, S6 E17)
Masud Husain, On the responsibilities of intellectuals and the rise of bullshit jobs in universities, Brain, Volume 148, Issue 3, March 2025, Pages 687–688.
Brian Robertson, Holocracy
Corporate Rebels
Diederick Janse & Marco Bogers, Getting Started With Holacracy: Upgrading Your Team's Productivity, 2020, AbeBooks
