Brironni Alex was so good at answering telephone calls and emails from customers at Zappos.com Inc. that the company promoted her to customer-service manager. 
 
 But when the online retailer adopted a management philosophy called Holacracy, she lost her job title and responsibility for performance reviews. Since the end of April, Zappos has zero managers to oversee employees, who are supposed to decide largely for themselves how to get... ||||| Published on Aug 30, 2014 
 
 A talk, followed by Q&A;, by Frederic Laloux about "Reinventing Organizations", a research and book that is turning into an international phenomenon. 
 
 
 
 Increasingly, employees and managers (but also doctors, nurses, teachers, etc.) are disillusioned with the way we run organizations today. We all somehow sense that there simply must be better ways to run our businesses, nonprofits, schools and hospitals. 
 
 
 
 This hopeful talk shares the key insights from groundbreaking research into the emergence, in different parts of the world, of truly powerful and soulful organizations that have made a radical leap beyond today's management thinking. 
 
 
 
 (It starts with the story of how organizations evolved over time. You can skip to minute 28 to hear the story of Buurtzorg, one of the extraordinary pioneering organizations, that revolutionized home care in the Netherlands. At minute 36, the talk goes into self-management. At minute 52 into wholeness at work. And at 1:06 into evolutionary purpose in organizations. Q&A; start at 1:21.) 
 
 
 
 Correction: As I was quoting figures from memory, I got two figures wrong related to Morning Star's market share in tomato paste in the US, and in tomato trucking. In both cases Morning Star's market share is above 30%. As 'The Economist' says in such cases: sorry.
– Earlier this month brought the news that 14% of the Zappos workforce—210 employees—was exiting the company rather than taking part in the manager-free "Holacracy" system being adopted by Zappos. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the initial new landscape; the full shift is expected to take as long as five years. Five stand-out details: The new lingo: Workers can join one of 300 "circles" (ie, work teams) run by a "lead link" (sort of a project manager) where they focus on a specific kind of work (ie, customer service) and might air "tensions" (ie, work problems) or discuss how they're "energizing a role" (that being what one's job is now called). The new lingo, part II: Can you translate yet? The Journal has this jargony line (and an interpretation) from John Bunch, who's heading the shift to Holacracy. "The idea is for each person to selfishly process their own tension. The reaction round is a sacred space." One specific experience: In the title-less world, Brironni Alex, 26, is no longer a customer-service manager, but now has "more time for a workplace diversity committee and to perform on the Zappos dance team," per the Journal. How meetings have changed: At their end, employees can air their thoughts. A 24-year-old employee says she hears things like "I can't wait to eat my leftover pizza for lunch." One specific circle: The Journal highlights one called "Reinventing Yourself," which former managers are encouraged to join as part of their quest to figure out what they should do in the company now that they can't manage. Full Journal article has more great details.