Are you ready to experiment with progressive ways of working?

Would your team benefit from a commitment to learning about and seeding new ways of organising? If so, join my online course 🤗 The first eight cohorts have been full houses, the feedback has been fantastic (NPS score of 90! Over 70 is ‘world class’), and I can’t wait to go again. The feedback scores (out of five) are:

• 4.9 – I would recommend the course to my colleagues.

• 4.5 – I better understand psychological safety & what helps to make a great team.

• 4.5 – I better understand how to give and receive “brain-friendly“ feedback.

• 4.6 – I better understand the alternatives to traditional decision-making.

• 4.7 – I feel more comfortable experimenting with new ways of working in my team.

The next New Ways of Working online course starts on October 19 2022 and the sessions run every Wednesday, 14.25 – 16.35 for five weeks, so wrapping up on November 16.

The course objectives

The course objectives are for you to enjoy your job more and to be an even better member of your team. You’ll learn collaboration and leadership skills, how to hold meetings that don’t feel like a chore, and how to make better decisions by quickly seeking and integrating the wisdom of the group. You’ll learn how to give ‘brain-friendly’ feedback, recognise what’s getting in the way of being a great team, and understand the mindset and power dynamics that help or hinder change.

To do this we’ll borrow from the best sources. These include agile, self-management, organisational psychology, and the most progressive companies on the planet. There’s more detail below in the ‘Course overview’ section.

Who’s been attending?

It’s been incredible to be able to help so many people to experiment with new ways of working in so many diverse organisations, which have so far included: The United Nations, universities, Xero, Accenture, BJSS (tech consultancy), Mencap (UK charity), Shelter (UK charity), Haringey Council in London, Mercedes-Benz, Ofwat (UK government department), The Co-operative Group, The Soil Association, Klarna (fintech company), Jetstack (cloud tech company), Sport Wales, plus a US teaching organisation, an Italian marketing consultancy, a US digital consultancy, a UK AI and machine learning company, a digital studio in Belgium, a UK accountancy firm, and a lovely non-profit organisation in Bristol, my home.

What participants say

– By far one of the most useful, practical, engaging, interesting courses I’ve been on. Hats off to you, super well thought out, from a practical, mental and emotional perspective.

– The experimenting methodology gives me the opportunity to not only “take a course” but actually practising in the “real world”.

– The benefits to the business have been tangible and resulted in me thinking about work in a very different way.

– I loved having another colleague on the course and would totally recommend others try to do the same… I loved the organisation of the course, it all felt incredibly “slick.” … I loved Marks humble approach, he listened to us all intently and was patient with us when we needed more time on certain things.

– The experiments each week really helped me grow my comfort towards experimenting further. They gave me the perspective of how much needs to be a done, and an eye for what might be ‘bite-size’.

– I loved Marks generosity, he clearly spends a lot of time preparing and introduced me to very cool tools that we are now using in the organisation.

– The depth of experience and further research Mark has done to curate bite sized resource for us to cover weekly, in a No. of mediums, was incredibly satisfying to absorb and kept me engaged over the 5 weeks.

– As a facilitator, you do add quite a bit of magic sauce to holding the space, and your curation of materials is unbeatable.

Course overview

The course is led by me, Mark Eddleston. I’m a new ways of working consultant, coach, facilitator and Founder of Reinventing Work. Since 2015 I’ve been practising new ways of working and synthesising the mountain of information that’s out there. The New Ways of Working course is something of a greatest hits. We’ll fast forward to the trusted, tried and tested patterns that are found in some of the world’s most progressive organisations.

On this course, you’ll be practising and learning all the way. You’ll get better at listening, teamwork, and self-organising. There will be plenty of required pre-work ahead of each weekly meet online when we’ll reflect on this content together. Throughout the course, you will have the chance to ask questions and form a community on Slack. You’ll become familiar with Notion, where course content is shared, and with Focusmate which will help you to get through the content. You’ll also experience Mural and Liberating Structures.

Crucially, each week you will design an experiment that will be implemented in your own team.

You’ll form partnerships with classmates who will help you, hold you accountable to your experiment and be depending on you to do the same for them. Throughout, you’ll be experiencing some of the best collaboration tools and practises out there.

What we’ll work on

• Week 1: Challenges – identify what gets in the way of great work in your team.

• Week 2: Teamwork – we’ll uncover the research into what makes a great team.

• Week 3: Mindset & Power – this work requires mindset shifts and clarity around power.

• Week 4: Feedback – we’ll learn how to give and get more feedback.

• Week 5: Decision-making – we explore alternatives to top-down & consensus.

Throughout the course, you will learn progressive meeting structures that you can pop in your pocket, take back to work and use immediately.

What to expect

Expect practical, interactive and participatory. This isn’t easy work and it isn’t an easy workload. Each week the format looks like this:

• Course materials: Before each live session on Wednesday you’ll use Focusmate to work through the course materials (articles, podcasts, talks and tools) shared via Notion. 2-3 hours.

• Live session: We’ll discuss and reflect on what stood out from your pre-work, dive deeper into the topic, and figure out how you’ll apply it at work. 2 hours.

• Experiment: At the end of each session you’ll have designed an experiment to try out at work that week. This takes place in your workday so timing is your call.

• Accountability partnership: Having committed to an experiment you’ll catch up with a course peer to help each other out and hold each other to account. 1 hour.

• Retrospection: Each week you’ll be invited to write a quick reflection. 5-10 mins.

So it’s a weekly commitment of at least 6 hours over five weeks. Some, ideally all, of which will take place during work time.

When

The five-week course begins on Wednesday, 19 October 2022. We meet every Wednesday from 14.25 – 16.35 GMT, wrapping up on 16 November 2022.

*Please note there is also two hours of pre-course work required before our first live session.

Eligibility

This course is for you if you are:

• Dissatisfied with traditional ways of working and know that there’s a better way!

• A member of a team – the course design is not suitable for those who are not in a team (sorry solo consultants).

• Able to attend all five live sessions.

• Prepared to experiment with new ways of working each week in your team each week.

• Choosing to attend – and haven’t been sent by your boss!

• Open-minded – willing to embrace new and uncomfortable ideas.

• Committed and ready for a challenge! This is an intensive course – your hard work and active participation are baked into the course design.

• Absolutely clear that there is no one size fits all approach for this work.

Cost

• £1,000 plus VAT – attending alone.

• £700 plus VAT – attending with one (or more) colleague/s.

Your New Ways of Working journey will be more impactful if you have colleagues along for the ride, so you are advised (and incentivised) to bring one or two along.

Register

To secure your place double-check the eligibility criteria ☝️ then send a note to confirm ([email protected]) and that’s it, you’re enrolled!

Please note that cohorts are limited to 14 places.

About Mark Eddleston

New ways of working consultant, coach, facilitator and founder of Reinventing Work.