Summary of "How to Implement New Ways of Working in Your Organisation | Interview with Mark Eddleston"

Summary: How to Implement New Ways of Working in Your Organisation

Interview with Mark Eddleston

Key Themes & Frameworks

New Ways of Working (NWoW) Mark Eddleston’s consulting focuses on empowering organizations to experiment with progressive work patterns, including self-management, distributed decision-making, effective meetings, and feedback culture.

Self-Management & Distributed Decision-Making

Wellington Law Center transitioned from a traditional hierarchy to self-management by giving decision-making power to teams.
Introduced the Advice Process: anyone can make decisions after seeking advice from affected stakeholders and experts.
Transparency was radical, including open salary disclosure and collaborative resolution of pay discrepancies.
Meeting structures like Circle Discussions (talking in rounds) ensured equal participation and psychological safety.

Psychological Safety & Meeting Effectiveness

Research from Google, Harvard, and MIT identifies psychological safety and equal talk time as critical for high-performing teams.
Meeting techniques such as check-ins, lean coffee, and structured rounds support this.
Psychological safety fosters open feedback and faster decision-making.

Feedback Culture

Advocates Brain Friendly Feedback (Lean Reninger) framework:
- Check intention before giving feedback.
- Ask permission to give feedback.
- Use data-driven observations and explain impact.
Differentiates types of feedback: appreciative, coaching, evaluative.
Encourages regular, constructive feedback cycles to avoid tension buildup.

Experimentation & Agile Mindset

Mark runs a 5-week online course (“New Ways of Working”) with cohorts of ~12 participants who design and run small, safe-to-fail experiments weekly.
Experiments cover meetings, decision-making, feedback, teamwork, mindset, and power dynamics.
Examples include:
- Mercedes-Benz employee canceling every other meeting to reclaim time.
- Soil Association capping weekly meeting hours to 15 per person.
- Individual reducing their speaking time to improve psychological safety.
Emphasizes learning from both successes and failures to build an experimentation muscle.

Context & Complexity

Organizations and teams are complex adaptive systems—no one-size-fits-all solutions.
What works in one context (e.g., Spotify, Netflix) may not work elsewhere.
Continuous adaptation and local experimentation are necessary.
Traditional management hierarchies can coexist with new ways of working; it’s about progression, not wholesale replacement.

Playbook for New Ways of Working

Mark has curated a publicly accessible Playbook organizing key progressive organizational patterns:
- Effective meetings
- Distributed decision-making
- Feedback culture
- Clear roles
- Conflict resolution processes
- Psychological safety
- Teamwork and mindset
- Experimentation
For each pattern, the Playbook offers:
- Theory and research summaries
- Articles, podcasts, and videos
- Practical tools, templates, and step-by-step instructions (e.g., decision proposal templates, advice process instructions, meeting facilitation guides)
Designed to help individuals and teams start with the pattern most relevant to their pain points and build practical skills through experimentation.

Key Metrics, KPIs & Targets

Engagement: Gallup statistics show that 85% of employees are disengaged globally (worse in the UK), motivating the need for new ways of working.
Course Metrics:
- 13 cohorts completed, ~12 participants each.
- Over 700 experiments conducted by participants.
- Experiments focus on measurable improvements such as meeting time saved, decision speed, feedback frequency, and team psychological safety.
Decision-Making Speed: The advice process and distributed decision-making lead to faster, less blocked decisions compared to traditional top-down models.

Concrete Examples & Case Studies

Wellington Law Center:
- Transitioned to self-management with transparent salaries and distributed decision-making.
- Used advice process and new meeting structures to manage pay equity and operational decisions.
Mercedes-Benz Employee:
- Canceled half of recurring meetings, resulting in more time for impactful work without negative consequences.
Soil Association:
- Introduced a meeting hour cap per week to reduce meeting overload and increase productivity.
Individual Feedback Experiment:
- Participant deliberately spoke less in meetings to foster psychological safety and balance participation.

Actionable Recommendations

Start with small, safe-to-fail experiments focused on specific pain points (e.g., meetings, feedback, decision-making).
Use structured meeting formats (circle discussions, lean coffee) to ensure psychological safety and equal participation.
Implement transparent decision-making processes like the advice process to speed up decisions and reduce managerial bottlenecks.
Cultivate a feedback culture using brain-friendly feedback techniques to improve communication and team dynamics.
Recognize and respect contextual differences; adapt new ways of working to fit the unique organizational and team environment.
Leverage Mark’s Playbook as a curated resource for theory, practice, and tools to support progressive organizational patterns.

Presenters & Sources

Mark Eddleston – New Ways of Working Consultant, creator of an online course and Playbook on progressive organizational practices.
Interview conducted by a CIPD London Organization Development and Design session host (name not specified).

Additional Resources Mentioned

Book: Reinventing Organizations (Frederic Laloux)
Brain Friendly Feedback (Lean Reninger) – TED Talk
Corporate Rebels blog
Meeting facilitation techniques: Circle discussions, Lean Coffee, Liberating Structures
Playbook available at: markm.w/playbook (link to be confirmed in show notes)

Overall, the interview provides a practical, evidence-based approach to implementing new ways of working through experimentation, transparency, psychological safety, and structured processes, all adaptable to organizational context and complexity.