(00:00-00:20) Daria Rudnik
Hi, everyone. Hi, Veika. It's great to see you and to have you here. I'm very excited about our conversation. I was looking forward to talk about self-managed organizations. So I'm happy to present Veika, who is a leadership coach, podcast host, expert in self-managed organizations. So please introduce yourself. Tell us about your journey and what you do.

(00:21-00:41) Veiko Valkiainen
Hi, Daria, and thank you for having me. So much to tell about my journey and my interest in self-managed organizations. But in short, and I guess we will get into some nuances afterwards, I really am interested in understanding what's the future of work and how can organizations and organizational design

(00:41-01:03) Veiko Valkiainen
help and support this future. And one of the ways I've really dug into now very deeply is also having flatter organizations, having less hierarchy, giving more authority to all role holders and empower them. So that's where my main interest lies at the moment.

(01:04-01:32) Daria Rudnik
Great. I mean, I love future work is an amazing topic and we can kind of see different ways it can evolve from flexible work, more flat organizations, more role-based and skill-based organizations versus the kind of structures and hierarchy. When you say flat, like how flat? Is there any benchmark or rule on how best organizations should be structured?

(01:33-02:01) Veiko Valkiainen
Well, there's no like, let's say some success formula, you know, you do these five steps and you will be a greatest organization. Too bad. But yes, you're right. I mean, there's a variety, right? It's like, it's not black and white. So there's a lot of gray area in between. So you can have incremental changes and have less hierarchical organization.

(02:01-02:27) Veiko Valkiainen
meaning that you still retain some layers and some form of authority, managerial authority, but you empower employees and role holders to have more say. So let's say it's called kind of like participatory management. And there are radical, radical versions of it, which distribute authority to all role holders and severe the whole superior subordinate relationship altogether.

(02:27-02:55) Veiko Valkiainen
So there's a lot of different varieties you can find in the world how this has been sold. But there's no one right way. I mean, every organization, most of actually most of the organizations that have applied some sort of form of self-management have found their own way. So it's not like you take it from a shelf product or let's say an agile form of management or lean or

(02:55-03:12) Veiko Valkiainen
however they are called, these different models and ways of leading. So self-management is pretty much like tailor-made for each organization, which is in a way good and at the same time really difficult because you cannot generalize.

(03:13-03:39) Daria Rudnik
Can you tell and explain what self-management is for, let's say, for a general manager in a corporation, Intel, HP, Coca-Cola, so that they understand what is self-management? Ultimately, what I consider as a self-managing organization is still an organization that will equalize the authority level of all role holders.

(03:39-04:08) Veiko Valkiainen
Meaning that you do not have the traditional hierarchy, authority hierarchy. And each role holder will have their own remit with their own responsibilities and accountabilities. And within these areas, these boundaries, they have ultimate authority to decide how are they gonna actually achieve their purpose. So nobody will actually have a say how you will do your work.

(04:09-04:32) Veiko Valkiainen
But obviously, there are then quadrails. Then if you will start to create problems, if you start to create tensions, if conflicts arise, then you need to also address those very efficiently. But if you ask me, what is self-management? In essence, it means distributing authority to each role holder so that

(04:32-04:57) Daria Rudnik
within their own role boundaries, they have a quite large autonomy to decide how do they do their work. Well, it sounds to me that in order to do that, you need to first understand those role boundaries, which is a rare case in a traditional organization when there is a manager and the manager kind of distributes the tasks to their people. Yeah.

(04:58-05:20) Veiko Valkiainen
and get some tasks from their manager. And those roles and borders are kind of vague, right? Yes. So I do some research also in this area, not just consultation or coaching. And my research has one of the outcomes have been exactly what you've alluded to, which is that in order to have...

(05:20-05:49) Veiko Valkiainen
efficient self-management in place, what you need first is to be really clear and transparent around role boundaries. So this is one of the first things you do, even though people with whom you start to define the roles, they say that they actually know what they're doing. You know, we already know where the boundaries are. Why are we doing this? But when you dig deeper and you still go into details,

(05:49-06:00) Veiko Valkiainen
They actually usually do not really know because it's a shifting area for them depending on what they agree with their supervisor and team.

(06:01-06:23) Veiko Valkiainen
But in self-managed organizations, you need to be extremely clear because otherwise you don't know where your jurisdiction starts and ends. So this is quite different from the traditional job description, which is in a way, I mean, you do job descriptions when you recruit and then it lays in some, you know,

(06:23-06:39) Veiko Valkiainen
shelf or somewhere for years and nobody looks at it until there's a change in the job or role. But people still do something meanwhile as well. But in self-managed organizations, you actually define the role like continuously.

(06:40-06:57) Veiko Valkiainen
Whenever there is a new project, whenever there's a new task or something that will change the role a bit, you need to actually document it. And you need to be clear, not only for yourself, but also for your team and organization, where your boundaries of the role go.

(06:57-07:15) Daria Rudnik
Like, I want to ask you, like, really, like, a case. Like, let's say, how does it happen in a practical, in life? So, we know that things, like you said, things constantly change. And what I've been doing today might not be the same as I'll be doing tomorrow or tomorrow.

(07:15-07:43) Daria Rudnik
There is something that just pops up. I don't know. I have, like I used to be a chief people officer and I was leading a recruitment team and we need to do an event like career fair or something like that, which is not their direct responsibility, but there's no one else to do that. So in self-managed organization, how those like kind of pop up tasks or changed responsibilities, how they should be addressed.

(07:44-08:09) Veiko Valkiainen
Yes, I can talk about holacracy, which is a specific model for self-managed organizations where I'm most comfortable and competent in. What happens is when there's a task that is in the gray area, meaning that nobody actually has this written or there's not a consensus on whose role it will belong to.

(08:10-08:38) Veiko Valkiainen
So what happens is if it's a one-time event, it's just a single act, single project, single thing to do that doesn't have a recurrence in the future, then it's easy. I mean, it's just an agreement. Whose competence this falls into and who is able to do it? And this is an agreement. I mean, just someone has to pick it up, right? If it's a recurrent issue or task,

(08:39-09:08) Veiko Valkiainen
then we need to actually also change the role boundaries and agree that, okay, this recurrent action will be a part of this role and role description. So there's a governance process, how to do that, which is quite specific and detailed. So you also ask for objections, for example, if someone is against it and for what reason, and how can we then integrate these objections into the final role description?

(09:08-09:30) Veiko Valkiainen
But in essence, if it's a recurrent action, then we need to somehow also integrate into in someone's role description. But if it's a one time topic, then I mean, it doesn't even have to be discussed in the team meeting. It can be just agreed between people or someone. Even there is an option that someone will just take it up.

(09:30-10:00) Veiko Valkiainen
I mean, it's an individual initiative. If I see that, I don't know, let's make it really simple. Like if I see that there is dirty dishes in the sink, I mean, we don't need to agree who is going to wash them, right? I mean, I'm just going to go and wash them, which is an individual initiative in Holacracy. But if I am going to wash the dishes every day, and this is part of my role, then we need to also, you know, describe this within my role description.

(10:00-10:25) Veiko Valkiainen
You mentioned Holacracy. Well, what is it? Well, Holacracy is just one model of self-managing organizations. It's founded by Brian Robertson, who is an American entrepreneur and initially a software developer who was very interested in finding different alternative forms of organization to the traditional hierarchy.

(10:26-10:43) Veiko Valkiainen
And he started to experiment with different practices within his own firm and came up at the end, I mean, after 10 years of experimenting with whatever we call now Holacracy. And there's a book, I think it was released or published 2015.

(10:43-11:08) Veiko Valkiainen
So almost like 10 years ago, a small book. I mean, it's a short book. I think it's about 100 or 150 pages. That delineates the whole kind of mindset practices, the history, and also the opportunities and practical implications. So whoever is interested, then this is available. Do you know? Yeah, okay. So initially, it's basically...

(11:09-11:27) Veiko Valkiainen
A radical form of distributing authority. And maybe what makes it different from all other forms of self-managing organizations is that it's a constitution-based governance system. So there's a constitution. Like...

(11:28-11:42) Veiko Valkiainen
Like, we have a constitution in our, you know, country. So Holacracy also has a constitution which outlines the basic rules of the game, rules of the game, in a way, that we...

(11:42-12:04) Veiko Valkiainen
are going to play if we adhere to holacracy. And it will allow us to distribute authority and allow us to then process all the operational and governance issues that pop up. So in a nutshell, it's a constitution-based self-managing model of organizations. Are there no managers at all there?

(12:05-12:35) Veiko Valkiainen
There's no managers in traditional sense, even though there are teams which are called circles, circles, like more kind of like a fancy word of a circle. And there are circle leads, you call them, circle leads. These are default roles, but they don't have the same authority as traditional managers. The difference is that, well, basically they cannot intervene in how do you actually perform your role.

(12:35-13:00) Veiko Valkiainen
So there are no authority in your remit. They do have authority over who is gonna be assigned to a role. And they also have authority to withdraw you from a role. But these can be also changed if the team or the circle decides to do so. So it can be a collective decision as well. But in constitution,

(13:01-13:13) Veiko Valkiainen
The circle lead has this authority. Another thing that circle lead has as its role authority is if there are some conflicts of priorities within the circle.

(13:14-13:44) Veiko Valkiainen
So they can actually set priorities as well. Like, for example, if we have like 10 different things we need to do at the same time, then they are the ones who look at the large picture and say, hey, let's take these as our first priorities. And there are other nuances as well. But basically, there are circle leads. But the main task of them is not to intervene in anyone's role performance or role execution.

(13:44-14:11) Veiko Valkiainen
but help them, help the circle to achieve its objective. And the circle lead role takes up about 10%, maybe even less of your overall time working in the organization. So it's a small, small role. So in Holacracy, there can be many roles that you will fulfill. So there can be around, you know, usually it's about

(14:12-14:40) Veiko Valkiainen
three to seven roles that each person can fulfill. So CircleLead is just one of them. Interesting. What are the companies? Do you know companies that use it, that use Holacracy? Yes. If you go to actually Holacracy, I think it's holacracy.org. It's a webpage. There is a list of organizations that have adopted Holacracy and there are hundreds of them all over the world. You can check out

(14:41-15:04) Veiko Valkiainen
You can check out who are in Israel, who are, I don't know, in different countries. There are countries from all over the world. And I think the hub of holacracy, let's say the most populated country that has per capita, let's say, has the most amount of holacracy-powered organizations, I think it's Netherlands.

(15:05-15:25) Veiko Valkiainen
if I'm not mistaken. So Netherlands is most kind of like, I don't know how to say, most kind of receptive to this kind of leadership. Do you know if Zappos still use it? That's a good question. I actually had a call, like private call with...

(15:26-15:46) Veiko Valkiainen
The guy, I think his name was John Bunch, John Bunch, if I'm not mistaken, who helped Tony Sheik, who was the CEO, to implement it in Zappos. So he was the project manager, in a way, project manager of implementing Holacracy. But it was about one and a half years ago.

(15:47-16:06) Veiko Valkiainen
And he said that they still use holacracy, but not solely holacracy because it does not really address all the different leadership topics that need to be addressed. So they have also integrated other different models to complement with holacracy. But

(16:07-16:21) Veiko Valkiainen
If you nowadays look at their webpage, there's nowhere mention of Holacris before there was. Now there's not. And I'm not sure. I mean, they might also have rolled back. I don't know. The recent developments, I have no idea.

(16:21-16:49) Veiko Valkiainen
It looks like they are kind of more, not that, don't have that prominent culture that they used to have and kind of that vocal about their culture. It's been a bit quiet since they were quiet. I think the CEO, the Tony, Tony Schiech, I believe. Schiech or something like that. He was a, I mean, it was his child and his project or his kind of like initiative. And when he passed away, I think,

(16:50-17:15) Veiko Valkiainen
you know, it might lose its energy, its intensity. But I'm not sure. Yeah. All right. So my next question is about decision making. So let's say no one has like hierarchical authority. How decisions are made? How strategic decisions are made? Okay. So there's also like different levels of decisions, right? So if we're talking about role-based decisions...

(17:16-17:36) Veiko Valkiainen
It's basically we can say that each role holder is a CEO of his or her own remit. So basically, if the decision has to be made, how do I within my role achieve a certain objective, then I have a full authority to decide on my own.

(17:37-17:57) Veiko Valkiainen
To the best of my ability and to the best of my knowledge. So it's in a way like autocracy within my role. I'm an autocrat. I'm a dictator within my role. So if you look at the organization, then it's a multitude of different dictators put together, which is very interesting in a way. But...

(17:58-18:23) Veiko Valkiainen
If you're talking about the decisions that will change my role boundaries, as we're talking about governance, right? This is a governance issue. It's not any more operational issue. It's a governance issue. Then I have to, this decision has to be made by circle, within circle. So I cannot change my role myself.

(18:24-18:40) Veiko Valkiainen
Let's say I want to expand the boundary of my role. I cannot do that alone. So this is an area where the decision is made within governance meeting. And as I told, I mean, there's a very specific process to that. And everyone...

(18:41-18:56) Veiko Valkiainen
not even has an opportunity, but has obligation to make an opinion or share their, voice their concerns if there are any. And then we integrate these objections into the final version of the governance decision.

(18:57-19:26) Veiko Valkiainen
Now, if you go even further, let's say now we're going away from a circle, right? It's not about like row boundaries, but it's a strategy or vision or I don't know, like a goal of an organization itself. Then there are different options how these have been handled. One option is that you have a circle. So you basically have a team whose purpose is to mandate a vision.

(19:28-19:46) Veiko Valkiainen
So you have a specific circle only for that to make the process of, let's say, vision creation and goal setting as its priority. So it's like a leadership role that has been assigned to a specific team.

(19:47-20:12) Veiko Valkiainen
Right. Or there can be also an option that if you look at the circle, anchor circle, it's called anchor circle, which is a general company circle. I can see from your eyes. So these circles are also, as you can imagine, like at different levels, because in Holacracy, there is still a hierarchy of purposes.

(20:12-20:36) Veiko Valkiainen
There's no hierarchy of authority, but there's a hierarchy of purposes. Otherwise, there's no coordination and alignment. So circles are in a way like, how you call it, like matryoshka, you know, like they go within it themselves. Like, I don't know what's in English word for that, but they are like super circles and sub-circles within themselves.

(20:37-21:03) Veiko Valkiainen
So each circle has some circles within, and each circle has a kind of parent circle, like an anchor circle. Exactly. And anchor circle is the largest circle that encompasses all other circles. So it's basically, you can imagine it as a kind of like, you know, the most abstract, the organization-wide circle. And you can have there a role that is dedicated to...

(21:04-21:22) Veiko Valkiainen
Vision creation and goal setting. So this is one way how you set the strategy. Obviously, this person is not going to, or these persons are not going to do it just alone, but it's their purpose and their circle's goal or aim.

(21:23-21:49) Veiko Valkiainen
to come up with the process. How do we actually set the goals within the organization? And how do we set the vision? So they obviously have everyone else as well as a part of this process, but there's someone who is responsible for that. If that makes sense now. What I'm curious about is how, like the notion of teams, like how

(21:49-22:16) Daria Rudnik
teams show up. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. So I'm writing a book about self-sufficient teams, which is not exactly self-managed teams, but kind of teams that are more independent. They don't need to go to their leader for every decision-making, for every question, for every problem. They're fully capable of operating on their own, communicating with stakeholders, delivering. And a great team is a team that has a shared purpose.

(22:17-22:21) Daria Rudnik
interdependence, and yes, well, clear roles and boundaries of the team.

(22:22-22:49) Daria Rudnik
So from what I'm hearing in holacracy, there is not so much of this interdependence because everyone has, like, I have my role and I'm a king of my role and I can fully manage my role. But sometimes you need to, you're interdependent. It's not just you're adding up sums of each individual contributions. You need to collaborate and come up with something together. So how does it happen in self-managed, in holacracy? Yeah.

(22:50-23:15) Veiko Valkiainen
Yes, but I don't see any like, how you call it, like you can be both. You can be autonomous role holder and you can be someone collaborating with others at the same time. So I don't see them as mutually exclusive. Maybe I emphasize the part that you are free to decide, but you are free to decide up to a point that you actually help

(23:16-23:46) Veiko Valkiainen
the whole team or the circle to achieve its purpose. So if your interests are not aligned with the interest of a team or circle, obviously there will be conflicts and tensions. And this is something that is addressed in every meeting as well. So basically one central theme in holacracy is tensions. It's called tensions. And tension is something that keeps you from achieving the purpose of the role.

(23:46-24:12) Veiko Valkiainen
So you feel it in your body. You know, all meetings start with a question like, what do you need? What are the tensions that keep you, hold you back from achieving your goal? And then the meeting agenda will be based upon these tensions. And each role holder will tell what is the most important tensions that he or she feels at the moment. And then they start to solve those tensions one by one.

(24:13-24:23) Veiko Valkiainen
So this is the meeting. And if you are within a chain of value creation and you're dependent or interdependent with others,

(24:23-24:44) Veiko Valkiainen
One of the common ways what actually keeps you from achieving your goal is that you don't get an input from other role holders that you need in order to do your work if you are interdependent and collaborating. So this is a tension immediately. So we have to resolve it. So this is part of this process of resolving tensions.

(24:44-25:01) Daria Rudnik
I love it. I mean, you kind of don't wait till it's a conflict situation, but you speak it up right away and you solve it as soon as you feel it. And that's, I mean, that's a great problem. Everyone should have that. Let's discuss what holds you from reaching your goals.

(25:01-25:23) Veiko Valkiainen
And the thing is, you don't need a meeting for that. If you are two persons holding two roles that are interdependent, I mean, I can just go or call you or go and see you in person and discuss whatever I need. And then let's agree on how do we solve this. If you cannot solve it by yourself, you bring it to the meeting.

(25:24-25:44) Veiko Valkiainen
Right? The meeting, you don't go to your manager as in the traditional, but you bring it to the meeting then. And the meeting is the place where you actually solve it together. I mean, usually it is solvable. In some cases, obviously conflict will arise and there is difficulties that are not so easily handled.

(25:44-26:12) Veiko Valkiainen
But anyway, I mean, there's always this option of bringing the tensions to the table. Not even option, but it's a requirement. Otherwise, you cannot do your work. I mean, you have to. Nobody will save you. I mean, one thing in Holacracy is very clear. There is no manager who is going to save you. I mean, if you don't, you know, if you cannot solve your own problems, your own tensions with other team members...

(26:13-26:42) Veiko Valkiainen
then there's no one who will help you. That is both, it creates a certain kind of frankness and directness and straightforwardness. So kind of like transparency, but it also is quite difficult for some people because they have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, you know, raising uncomfortable issues. But this is, I think, something that holacracy is really good at.

(26:42-27:02) Veiko Valkiainen
You know, creating transparency and also creating, I think, like safety in a way that, you know, that all the different topics, even the most uncomfortable ones need to be discussed. Otherwise they will not be solved. I mean, there's no like, there's no other way.

(27:03-27:32) Daria Rudnik
I like it. And I like the way that, I mean, you need to manage your own work. You need to manage your own career. Your manager doesn't have to kind of take you and lead you through all the career steps. Because now leaders are so, managers are so overloaded. They're kind of squeezed between the demands from top and demands from the bottom. People motivate me, engage me, make me feel happy at work. It's your obligation. You're a leader and all the LinkedIn is kind of

(27:32-27:56) Daria Rudnik
filled in with leaders, you need to do this and leaders, you need to do that. And okay, people, we can do that. We can do that ourselves. We can take control of our career and move it forward. And the good thing about having multiple roles is that even if you lose one role or you, you know, finish one role, you don't have to leave the organization.

(27:56-28:22) Veiko Valkiainen
I mean, you're still part of the organization with other roles and you can take up different roles within different teams. I mean, it's not in one team. So I think it's a really nice thing about Holacracy is that you get much larger view of the organization and not just view, but like the sense of what does it mean to work in different departments, different teams. Obviously there is a backlash.

(28:22-28:45) Veiko Valkiainen
you have to be really good at managing yourself and your energy and time because nobody will tell you what to do right now. But if you have like five to seven different roles, you have to somehow manage your time. And this is difficult if you're not used to it. But the good thing is that you're part of a much larger community within the organization.

(28:45-28:54) Daria Rudnik
And that kind of leads to the next question. What are the risks of self-managed organizations? What organizations should never, ever be self-managed?

(28:55-29:19) Veiko Valkiainen
There's no competition that never ever should be self-managing. There are many risks. I mean, it sounds... I'm making a very positive picture of the whole thing, but there are so many obstacles and barriers to actually efficiently adopting self-management. It's very difficult. And in practice, there are...

(29:20-29:47) Veiko Valkiainen
I think there are more failures than successes, I can tell you. And there are so many different reasons how it can fail. One thing is that we are so conditioned, and I think this is the most important reason, is that we have conditioned throughout our lives of being in a hierarchy. So think about, I mean, the relationships within the family starting as a child.

(29:47-29:54) Veiko Valkiainen
There's a hierarchy there. I mean, there's authority difference. Then you go to the kindergarten.

(29:54-30:17) Veiko Valkiainen
There's the teacher. I mean, it's a hierarchy again. Everybody will tell you where you stand and where am I, and it's a difference. Then you go to school, the same thing. You go to university, you go to workplace. It's an endless row of different hierarchies. And when you are already adult,

(30:18-30:38) Veiko Valkiainen
You are so much ingrained with this, this mindset and this way of just being in the world that it's so difficult to actually change this. So I think the most important obstacle is the whole way how the society has been built up and it's possible.

(30:39-31:07) Veiko Valkiainen
change this also as an adult, but it's so difficult. It's so easy to revert back to the hierarchical kind of relationships. And some people actually, they say openly, I have this experience. When we try to change over to holacracy in one organization, and there are people who openly say that this is not for me. I don't want this. You know, I cannot see myself within this environment. And they leave.

(31:08-31:33) Veiko Valkiainen
And you have to be comfortable with that, that some people feel that this is not for them. For whatever reason, even if the psychology says that all people have this innate human need of autonomy, that they really actually want to feel that they are behind the wheel, that they are in charge of their life. There are people who actually say, no, I don't want this. This is not for me.

(31:34-32:03) Veiko Valkiainen
The scale is too much. I mean, just this big. It's scary because suddenly you are alone. I mean, we are talking about CEOs are alone at the top, right? We're saying that they are alone, right? It's lonely at the top. I mean, then every role holder, in essence, existentially are alone in their role because they have the full authority, not just have, but have responsibility.

(32:03-32:33) Veiko Valkiainen
to actually make those decisions. And it's not easy. All right, we started our conversation with the future work. So my final question is, how do you think organizations or maybe people need to change to be ready for the future work? Yes, yes. I think if you look at the trends within the society, I mean, you can see the generational differences also. More and more youngsters think more about the meaning of work.

(32:34-32:42) Veiko Valkiainen
Not just let's have a paycheck and do whatever is needed to get more money or to get sufficient living.

(32:43-33:04) Veiko Valkiainen
But what they want is to leave some kind of legacy behind them or at least contribute to something meaningful. So I think this is one thing that is a future even stronger trend that we have to think about the values that the organization stands for and what is the larger picture that it contributes to.

(33:05-33:27) Veiko Valkiainen
So this is one thing. Another thing definitely is that all these, you know, trends of information overload. I mean, there's data pouring in all the time. So you have to have so much capacity to, you know, drive through the different data points to make decisions.

(33:27-33:44) Veiko Valkiainen
That I think this is an area where we have to look at, like, how do we make it so easy for people to digest all the data that's coming in our way, even within their roles? I mean, like, how do you manage this? This is very difficult.

(33:44-33:57) Veiko Valkiainen
And then not only to be aware of this new information, but actually use it for making decisions efficiently. I think also that all these elements of self-management

(33:59-34:22) Veiko Valkiainen
have to be taken seriously within organizations i think the future is not like a big bang changeover to self-management but certain elements as you told also like self-sufficient teams right i mean it's not about getting rid of managers but it can be at first for example just giving more authority empowering people more

(34:22-34:51) Veiko Valkiainen
within their own roles. And if they don't handle this very well, then the manager will step in. So giving them more and more responsibility and freedom within their roles. And I think this is inevitable because there's no manager who is able to decide on behalf of a role holder. Like maybe if you are a frontline, let's say like the kind of like in a supervisory role within the frontline employees,

(34:52-35:03) Veiko Valkiainen
you are also very competent within whatever they do, then you might be the smartest person within that team. But if you go higher in the management layers,

(35:03-35:27) Veiko Valkiainen
And higher in hierarchy. The higher you go, the less you actually know about the different areas of this particular company. And you have to be trustworthy. Not trustworthy, but you don't have to trust the people to make the decisions. So you have to give them enough authority. Thanks, Vic. I love it. I mean, just step by step, empowering people.

(35:28-35:48) Daria Rudnik
maybe teaching them and coaching them how to make decisions on their own, how to be more autonomous and kind of transferring this power from one person holding everything at the top to kind of people who actually do the job. Amazing. Yeah. I mean, if you think about parenting a child, you know, what do you want? I mean,

(35:48-36:16) Veiko Valkiainen
At the end of the day, what you want is that the child would be independent of you, like that they could actually manage their own life successfully without being really dependent on the parents, right? I mean, this is the ultimate goal. You want to see your children to succeed, right? I think it's the same thing with a team. As a manager, what do you want is you want to grow and develop the team in a way that

(36:16-36:45) Veiko Valkiainen
you all the time diminish the dependency on you. So that at one point you can say that I will go for three months to, I don't know, Mediterranean Sea to enjoy. And I know that everything will be in order and handled well. I don't have to be there. I don't have to like all the time intervene. Isn't it so? Yeah, well, I want them to be my babies all the time. Okay, very good.

(36:46-37:06) Daria Rudnik
But yeah, I'm like, I absolutely understand what you mean. We want them to succeed and be independent and handle issues on their own, make their own mistakes, learn their own thing. Yes. Well, thank you so much, Vika. It's an amazing conversation. I learned so much. How people can learn more about you and from you, how they can reach out to you, what's the best way for them to do that?

(37:07-37:30) Veiko Valkiainen
If you just type in Beiko Valkian, which is a very difficult name, I know, but even copy paste from this podcast or this talk. And there are different web pages, my own web page, my podcast, as you mentioned at the start. I also have LinkedIn and Facebook and other social media. So you will find me under this, my name.

(37:30-37:50) Daria Rudnik
And anyway, there was a link to your LinkedIn post and to your podcast in the comments to this video. So reach out to Baker to learn about self-managed and create amazing teams and organizations that are empowered and make decisions on their own. That's amazing. All right. Thank you, Daria. You as well. Yeah.