Transitioning to self-management

In today’s episode our very own Operations Team talk about being a self-managed team.

Our operations team cover a wide range of responsibilities (such as accounting, compliance, HR, programme accreditation and client management). They are the rhythm and base of Mayvin, which helps us to do our best work with clients.

As Mayvin has grown, our operations team has grown too, and until last summer it grew with a traditional hierarchical structure. Last summer, we found ourselves with senior roles vacant, and so we put it to the team – would you like a new manager? Or would you like to experiment with self-management? 

They choose to become a self-managed team. A year later, 3 out of our 8 strong team, came together to discuss:

• Why they made the decision to become a self-managed team
• What the transition involved
• What foundations were already in place that helped
• What challenges there have been
• How they have recruited into the team
• And what the impact has been, which includes the team feeling more confident, that their voice is louder, that they have autonomy for change and that they find themselves stepping up and horizon scanning to protect this special way of working.

Thanks so much for listening! Keep in touch:

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Transcript

Claire Newell: 0:05

Hello, and a warm welcome to the Mayvin people change podcast. This is the place to find thoughtful and heartfelt conversations about leadership and organization development. Each episode is created with our listeners in mind. So if you have a suggestion for a topic you'd like to hear us talk about, please do get in touch with us. Mayvin are thought leaders in the area of leadership and organization development, and have a wealth of experience in this area, we have a thriving community, and we offer regular free events, you can find out more details for our website Mayvin.co.uk. If you enjoy listening to this podcast, please do leave us a review on your favorite platform to help us grow our audience. Thanks so much for being here. And we hope you enjoy listening. In today's episode, our very own operations team talk about becoming a self managed team. Our operations team cover a wide range of responsibilities, such as accounting, compliance, HR, programme accreditation and client management. They are the rhythm and base of Mayvin, which helps us do our best work with clients. As Maven has grown, our operations team has grown too. And until last summer, it grew with a traditional hierarchical structure. Last summer, we found ourselves with senior roles vacant. And so we put it to the team: Would you like a new manager? Or would you like to experiment with self management? They unanimously chose to become a self managed team. A year later, three out of our eight strong team came together to discuss why they made the decision to become a self managed team. What the transition involved, what foundations were already in place that helped, what challenges there have been, how they've recruited into the team, would they recommend that others work this way, and what the impact has been, which includes the team feeling more confident that their voice is louder, that they have autonomy for change, and that they find themselves stepping up and horizon scanning to protect this very special way of working. Here's a special one, this one, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 2:16

So we're here today to do a podcast on the realities of a self managed team. Because within the Ops team at Mayvin, we have been experimenting with a self managed team for nearly a year now. I think we started this in summer of last year summer of 2023. So to start us off, I would like to just do a quick overview of how the Ops team is structured, a very high level. So the Mayvin Ops team is made up of eight people. There's lots of different roles that spread between the eight of us. And within, within experimenting with this self managed team, there was a moment when we collectively decided that we were going to split up those eight people into two separate parts. So two different ops groups. So we have one side of ops, which we call corporate ops. And that's made up of Coral, Chelsea and Aimee. And then we have the client side of ops, which is made up of myself, Charlotte, we have Olivia, Sue, Abi and Melissa. Is there anything more to the structure that you want to add there? No. Okay, fine. Okay, so, so let's just start off, like, let's have a bit of a chat, and let's just, ya know, go back in our memories of how did the whole self managing team come about? Where did it originate from?

Melissa Luckhurst: 4:01

I mean, firstly, I cannot believe that it's been almost a year. A whole year. And it feels both like yesterday, and like it's always been like this.

Abi Jackson: 4:14

Yeah absolutely.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 4:16

Yeah, I'd agree with that, too. And I suppose that starting off straight away to say how, you know, the self managing team did come about because the pillars were already there, within the ops team. For even this for even the self managing team to be any even an option for us to even be approached by the exco team to say, you know, the option is to have a self managed team, or to have the traditional what we were previously used to, of having head of ops. And we were given that decision. And the reason why we were given those options is because, like you've just said Melissa, it seems like it's been so, so short. But you know, such a such a long time. It's like it's like it was always there really?

Abi Jackson: 5:10

Yeah, it was. I remember it really clearly of Sarah going like these your two options, we can bring someone into manage you or, or you do it yourselves. And I think it was quite unanimous at that point that we all wanted to do it ourselves, didn't we?

Melissa Luckhurst: 5:26

Yeah. Yeah, it did feel like, you know, the thing of the scaffolding being there was so right. And, you know, I do think, would other, not specifically within Mayvin, but, you know, other teams, could they have taken this and run with it as much as this team? Who knows? You know, it might have been that actually, we'd already built those relationships that then made it really easy for us to do this.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 6:03

When you mentioned when you mentioned scaffolding, and even I mentioned the pillars that were there, what was the scaffolding? What what what was that that was already there?

Melissa Luckhurst: 6:13

The relationships, I think, I think and and also that, that pre work, those meetings where we would have those pages where it was like, 'Okay, in this hypothetical situation that might happen, that might not have happened before, but let's think about what if this happened? What do we do?' You know, and having all of that laid out, I think, are the bare bones of how this has worked and how it's been set up.

Abi Jackson: 6:52

But we were also we were incredibly close before that, as a team, with a line manager, and a structure. We weren't, we've always worked really, really well together. So it was quite once, once the structure had gone, it was like, well, obviously, we're going to be able to work well together. Because like, you know, you're right, the relationships were already built. And I would say they got much stronger in that period of ambiguity when nobody really knew what was going on. I think we it knitted it knitted further, and to be quite, quite unbreakable, quite strong bonds, really. And I think that gave us all confidence to be able to go we work so well together, we can, we can do this. So there's structural, the pillars, whatever was, there was, I'll throw in other words in the foundation, and was so was so strong, to be able to build a self managed team from from from the very start.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 7:58

Yeah, I'm also hearing obviously, like, with the relationships and foundations, and all these lovely words that we're using it, there was so much trust there wasn't there, there was trust with with each other, there was a lot of hard work, you know, relonging on each other to, you know, support each other through through those couple of months of, you know, what, what, what's going to happen next. But I also think as well, just how the ops teams are our individual roles, we all work quite independently on our projects. So Melissa, obviously you with the with the Masters, that's solely something that you hold. And then even when it comes to the client coordinators, you know, there's four of us who have the same title as a as a client coordinator. But each one of our client projects, we solely hold that ownership and responsibility of those specific projects. So with a self managed team, I look at it as we're all working really independently. However, when we needed to get together and we needed to make decisions, or we needed support or advice or anything, that was when we have the trust to come together to really have each other's backs.

Abi Jackson: 9:31

Absolutely. And I think that there's a constant process of learning from from each other in that like, oh, has anyone done this? Or, you know, yeah, who's got experience of x y z and, and that's constant. And it's almost daily that someone will put something on the on the ops chat that will be like, well, where's this or what's this and how do people do it like this and what what do people find the most effective way? And everyone's really happy to engage in that, and really take advice from it.

Melissa Luckhurst: 10:08

There's never a time that you think, 'Oh, well, no one's gonna help', or no one, you know that this isn't the place for me to ask this question. Because someone will always come back even if it's'Yeah, I don't know, either. Let's find out', or let's figure it out together. I think that ever since, you know, I joined Mayvin. It's been there. But as, as the ops team was then with, you know, you had someone at the top, and then you know, filter down. I don't know if well, I know that I didn't ever go up to go to people go does anyone know this? Does anyone know that? You know, that wasn't really the way it was. Because it did feel a bit more formal, even then. And now, you know, if I joined now, it would be, it would be amazing, because there's that kind of open, open room. Yeah, I could go in and go 'I'm really not sure about this'. Even Even things that you think are like really banal, like, does anyone know where this document is? You know, it's something as small as that is much more open. I think.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 11:33

I remember when, when we did used to have, we had like a manager within ops and then we had the the head of ops, naturally, any questions that used to come up that I couldn't quite answer? Naturally, I used to, I used to go to them. And on reflection, now it's, it's so much, it's so much smoother because when I do have questions, I will sit and think for a minute 'who's best to ask that?'. Is it going to be the client director? Is it going to be within the ops team? Is it going to be the consultant? I just feel like since we've been in a self managed team, it's it's like opened up so many different avenues and so many more, like so much strengthening into other relationships within Mayvin. And I feel like my questions, or even just, you know, just jumping on a call together to make a decision,,it's just so much more smoother now, because I can just go direct to that person.

Melissa Luckhurst: 12:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the feeling that, I think the confidence to do that, I feel like, on me anyway, I feel like that's different, you know, the confidence to go 'I'm just gonna go and ask one of the directors that question' and I don't know whether having this, this structure with the self managed team, and where we all are so together and close knit, I don't know whether that would arise, you know, I'd be interested to know if, if that sense of being more confident in your place in a company, I wonder if that is specific to this and specific to Mayvin? Or whether it's a natural kind of byproduct of being a self managed team? I wonder if it happens in other other businesses?

Abi Jackson: 13:36

That's really interesting, because Mayvin, as a company, encourages you to speak up, you to have an opinion, you to have your view. So has it, I do feel like it's changed for me the same confidence of approaching anyone has risen quite quite dramatically since we became a self managed team. I think the whole the whole summer, the whole company was exposed to each other a lot more like we were, the directors were exposed to us a lot more, it became a much more fluid conversation. Generally, I think and I think that gave us all more of a platform to be able to go actually I can do that. I know that person and I know how they react to my question or, or what I need. But I think as a general rule, ops' voice has got a lot louder within Mayvin since they became a self managed team because there's no one to filter it through. And you can you have to get up, put your hand up and go, I need help with this. And I think people are really, really happy to help and listen as well.

Melissa Luckhurst: 14:45

Even in the Friday business meetings, when it's kind of thrown on to ops, it's not just looking for a response from one person anymore. The spotlight goes on all of us. Any one of us can say, actually, yeah, I'm having trouble with X, you know, we need this or we need that. And so it can be a lot more, it is much more collaborative than it was, when it would just be spotlight one person, you're speaking for the whole of ops now. And we don't have that anymore, for the better, you know?

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 15:23

So there's a lot of positives that we're talking about, have there been any challenges or any lessons within the experiment? I, I have one that's coming to mind. And this is my own experience of it. But when something has arisen, whether that's, like a decision decision to make, and I have thought, right, I know that, and I can probably make a really quick decision. And I'm not really going to, you know, bother the team with this, because that's going to take their time up. And this is kind of what I decide. Sarah has really, really helped me and kind of coached me into'take that back to the team'. And I think at first, when I was taking things back to the team, because there was eight members of the ops team, we all have our own individual thoughts, opinions, views on that matter. And it it, it still does, it takes quite a long time to reach a unanimous kind of decision, because we want everybody to be okay with with with what we've decided on. And I think that that was one of the main reasons why we kind of decided to split up the ops team. And we obviously have the corporate ops where that they have their weekly meetings to make decisions on on things within their kind of area of ops. And then we have the coordinator side of ops where we have, you know, however many of us are in there as the five people in that call now. So it's a little bit quicker to make those decisions. But we're still including, and we're still overlapping and speaking to each other letting Coral, Chelsea and Aimee know what's actually happening, and if they need, you know, if they have any challenges or anything coming up for them. But I think that that was definitely one of the challenges. And and probably still is, there's a lot of people to go to when you need to make a good decision for the team. And you can't make those decisions for the team. It's just a bit of a long winded way as a self managed team to make sure that everybody's voice is heard. But I think I'm getting a little bit better of 'Who do I need to go to, to speak about that?', and then filtering it down throughout the team, still making sure that everybody has a voice. But not eight people on a one hour call. We're just not talking about you know that one thing that needs a decision, it's a little bit more spread.

Abi Jackson: 18:17

I can't think of an example that where anyone's disagreed with anything. Yet. Am I wrong with that?

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 18:28

No, I agree. I agree. I think there is an element of the we are all, we all have good relationships. But I think we are all very, very nice. There's no, not anything coming to mind that was. But I think we're all very nice. And I think that that we might talk about this a little bit more later on. But I think looking at the self managing team in the future, there's quite possibly something around challenging each other and to really push it a little bit a little bit further, but challenging each other in the nicest possible way still.

Melissa Luckhurst: 19:12

Yeah, I wonder, you know, I know that we've talked about this before, but we're, we are we work well as a team because we all come at work in a quite similar way. You know, we're all hardworking, we're all quite conscientious, we all want to do well and I think maybe that's why actually there hasn't been any any of those, you know, the all the things that we laid out like well, what happens if there's conflict here or conflict there? Well, we haven't had to go down any of that or, or revisit our what does what did that actually say that you know that document we put together about what we're going to do, we haven't had to refer to it. I think you're right about the future of the self managed team, I suppose, as Mayvin carries on getting bigger, you know that there's going to be more people join the ops team. And that's another thing, isn't it, with how do we, how do we get people that will mesh into the team easily and well? I think that's a thing to think about. But just my only thing about, you know, what hasn't gone well? It's not really a what hasn't gone well, but I, I was really the only person I was the little bit of a, I wouldn't say a stick in the mud, but I was the only person that had reservations really about, about becoming a self managed team. And I do think that an awful lot of that was, from my own, my own background, and my own kind of preconceptions of well, this is what a business is, you know, a business has to have a really specific hierarchy and there has to be a head of ops, and then the line manager, and then it filters down. So I have to say, I'm so glad and happy every day, that it's gone the way that it has done. Because, you know, I mean I did think, well, this isn't gonna work. How is this gonna work? It's so different to what was there before? I was so wrong. And I'm so pleased that I was so wrong. Yeah, that's the only thing when I think about well, what hasn't gone well? Nothing. And I'm, I'm glad of that.

Abi Jackson: 21:55

Yeah, I was just listening to Melissa and thinking I just remember those conversations that we used to have and me going, Oh, it''ll be fine!

Melissa Luckhurst: 22:02

And me being but what if it isn't? What if it isn't? How are we going to do all of this? Who am I going to? Do you know what the biggest thing actually, for me? It was my, 'well, who am I going to ask? Where am I going to go to? If I've got a question? Where do I go?' Because it was, like you said Charlotte, it was very much. I've got a question. It's not who might be the best person for this because they've got the experience or because they've got the background or because they're doing the work right now? It was, you've got a question, you go to head of ops. So that was definitely my thing of where do I go? Well, you go to the person that it's most relevant and the person that's actually going to know.

Abi Jackson: 22:48

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 22:50

I feel like we've missed out a little bit. And I suppose I'm just gonna go back to the frameworks that you've, you've talked about, Melissa, when we all sat together in that room, and we drawn up the frameworks about if anything occurred, and that was to minor things such as holiday approvals to where do I go, if I've got a serious, you know, issue that I need to bring up with somebody. So we set up all those frameworks. But But what I feel like we've missed out is when we decided to be a self managed team, do you remember all that work that we had to distribute out evenly within the team and, and that it was so natural to put your hands up for certain things? And as a team, it was kind of like, yeah, you go, that's where your strength is, you look after that piece of work like Abi at the time you were working with the accreditation wasn't you? You'd want been working on it alongside for a while, but then that was something that you took hold of and you rapidly

Abi Jackson: 23:59

Yeah thrown into!

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 24:03

And I think just naturally, we just all picked up these things that we had strengths with. But even looking back now, and even now that work is distributed, you know, throughout the team. And it was it was hard work. There was obviously more work that was put on to all of our plates in different ways. But like because it was so natural, and it was things that we enjoyed and things that we have the option to pick up, ,it felt okay, it felt again, quite smooth. And it could have been disastrous. You know, there was everything from finance, accreditation, but all the other things that it could have been a disaster, and it just wasn't and if anything Mayvin was growing at the same time of us going through this experimental phase, and it worked out the best that it

Abi Jackson: 24:59

I think we were all absolutely determined to make it could. work as well. We were determined because we had to, we had to carry extra clients, we had to, we had so much more day to day work coming into us. But none of us minded, and we realize just like, we just got to get our heads down and get on, get on with this. And I think a lot of that is because we, we have so much respect for Mayvin as a company. We didn't want to let people down. But I think we also had a bit of a 'we've got a point to prove', because we are all a little bit like that. Yeah, we have a common goal. We need to prove that we can do this, and that we can get on with it. And I think we did. Yeah.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 25:50

And for me, it was always, like my purpose really is that, like, I don't want to sound cheesy, but I always do whenever I talk about Mayvin. But Mayvin is the company that I want to work for, for ever. But you know, this, this is this is where I want to be. And I suppose it was that we wanted to make this work, because we really liked the idea of a self managed team. And we knew it was going to work well. But as well, I just want Mayvin to succeed because I want it to be around, it is my purpose to keep Mayvin going so I can continue working here, working with you guys and and with Mayvin.

Melissa Luckhurst: 26:32

I know I think that actually one of the things I know that we've talked about, there was definitely a meeting that we had where it was quite a way in. It wasn't one of the sort out the practicalities meetings, it was more of kind of like a debrief at how is it going? How's it been going? And I remember we ended up being that actually, I think that we need to give ourselves quite a lot of, not just some, but quite a lot of credit here that it's been so smooth. And I think it's about the rest of the company didn't get any ripples of okay, something difficult is happening here. Something you know, it's not working over there in ops. So it wasn't any kind of like ripple effect out. It just worked. And it was working. And it was going smoothly. And I I still think you know, actually, we should all be really proud that there were there wasn't any repercussions for the rest of the company. It wasn't seen that anything different was happening.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 27:45

How about the because we've had three new members to the ops team within the last six to seven months. How did we manage that? What worked well, with that?

Abi Jackson: 28:01

I think what worked really well is that we did the recruitment process. We ran with it. And were able to go, right who's going to interview on these occasions? Who's going to be the one person that's always there, which was you Charlotte, wasn't it? I think it was our choice. Go who's going to fit? Who's going to work well with us? I don't want to say fit in because it's not, but who's going to work well with with us? And that will that was for Olivia anyway, it was less so like that for Aimee, wasn't it?

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 28:28

Yeah, but even with Aimee, I remember having a conversation with the recruitment company, and them asking, you know, what, what kind of person are you looking for? Sounds a bit like a date.

Melissa Luckhurst: 28:45

Yeah, what's your type on paper?

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 28:49

Yeah. But it was, yeah, it was that kind of a conversation. And it was just nice to share my thoughts about a compliance manager coming in. And I suppose that's Mayvin it's all about the relationships and what's going to work well for the team. And so that was for Aimee's recruitment. But yes, for Chelsea and Olivia we done the recruitment process from start to finish.

Melissa Luckhurst: 29:15

Well, I really remember actually, because I wasn't in any of the interviews, but after they'd happened that Abi and I, we'd have to talk about something, and then it would be so how did it go? What would they like? And you know, that was really nice, being able to go and ask, you know, someone within the team, what were those interviews like? You know, how did they go? Did anyone jump out at you? Well, it was very early on, but with Olivia, you were like, Yeah, we found someone that I think is going to be a really good fit. And that was really that was exciting. Being part of the team, but being a bit set back from the recruitment it was really nice

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 29:57

But still part of the conversations that were happening. Yeah.

Melissa Luckhurst: 30:00

Yeah, it was really nice to be able to even feel like I could ask, you know, in another business, would you be able to go and ask one of like HR, or the, you know, the people that are recruiting people, so So what are those people like? You know, I don't know whether it'd be the same, same kind of structure. But that was, that was really, really nice to have that.

Abi Jackson: 30:27

It's like, there was so much collaboration within those those hirings of going okay, so this is, this is who we've seen, this is what we think and go into slightly more detail and go, is anything striking you like that we haven't asked that we should have asked or that kind of thing. Yeah.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 30:47

We even tailored the interview questions. Really, there was quite a few in there that were around about a self managed team. And yeah, I can't remember the questions, specific questions off the top of my mind but we did tailor them, which was really important because a self managed team, it's not the norm is it's not.

Melissa Luckhurst: 31:11

I think that's the thing. So that when, when we had new starters coming in, it was very much about now, we welcome them into this structure. You know, we welcome them into this group, and we make them feel like, you may not have worked like this before, but this is how this team is doing it and can find your feet absolutely, but we're here and this is how we're doing it. Them being told, you know, you can ask anything here, you can ask anything, you know, where's this? How do I do this? Or something like that, we didn't shy away from, from showing people this is how we're doing it.

Abi Jackson: 31:56

Yeah. And it's still a work in progress. Yeah, and we're open to suggestion all the time. If anyone says, Why are you doing it like that? Yeah. And I think the recruitment was timely, because I think it came at an appropriate time for us to have done quite a lot of ground work as just the five of us, wasn't it? Yeah. And so it was, I think it was quite timely when the recruitment happened, because we had, I call it a structure, but it's such a moving structure, that it's, I don't know, I don't know quite what the term would be. But it was everything was in place. enough to be able to go this is how we do it.

Melissa Luckhurst: 32:37

Yeah, this is how we're doing it.

Abi Jackson: 32:38

But it's forever evolving.

Melissa Luckhurst: 32:40

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it shows even the fact that it was when new people came in with new ideas and new voices that things did alter a little bit. And, you know, we did make changes to suit everyone, new voices came in, and they said, actually, yeah, you know, we could do this. So that was another example.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 33:13

Is there anything that we can think of, or anything coming to mind that, you know, we could do we could do more of, or what do we see happening in in the self managed team in the future? I think I mentioned earlier about challenges, challenges of each other. And I probably want to probably explain or describe a little bit more, but I think it's more about taking a few more risks as a team. They don't have to be catastrophic risks. But, you know, I have to remind myself on a daily basis that, you know, we are a self managed team. And we each can bring to ops meetings, business meetings, any kind of, you know, your wildest ideas. Because this, this is the this is us, this is our work. This is our team. And I would just like us to be able to do that a little bit more, because I feel like it's working well at the minute. We all do a really good job. We work hard, we enjoy our work. But what is it that we can what spanner can we throw in the works a bit?

Abi Jackson: 34:35

Yeah, no, I see. Oh, yeah. It's like when you're talking, I'm thinking it is absolutely what it is now is harmonious. It's collaborative. It's like and it will always be collaborative, but there was just a harmonious kind of like, this is how it is and we're all just kind of bobbing along. And actually, it's quite exciting to think that we can drop a bomb and see see what happens.

Melissa Luckhurst: 35:00

Yeah, instead of, you know, I guess it'd be quite easy to keep going with everything working really, really well. And then those things becoming a norm. And you know, us, I suppose, kind of resting on our laurels a little bit, you know, this is all working really well, this is the new structure. And it becomes just as set in stone as the previous structure did. But it doesn't feel like that. I completely agree about the, you know, throwing a spanner in the works or, you know, it does feel like there's, there's huge opportunity, every day that we could, someone could look up a new, a new method of doing something or a new way of working, and throw it to everyone and say, what does everyone think about this? And that's quite exciting, actually, to feel like it's not, it's not just all set in stone, and that we don't have to just abide by these, these structures and rules for lack of a better word.

Abi Jackson: 36:11

Yeah. It's a bit like, there are no rules. But there are rules. Yes, obviously. Yeah. But they're also there aren't rules, and we can push our own rules, and our own guidelines and our own processes. And we should be looking at that as continuous improvement. So we should be doing it all the time. And I think we could do a lot more. But it's remembering remembering to look for those opportunities, isn't it? Because I think we all get quite head down in our day to day. But it's having that in the back of your mind thinking, Okay, this is my day to day, but then having that sort of aha moment of going actually, why why are we doing this like this? What what is, what is this for? And it's not, it's never going to be Lord of the Flies, is it? We do have, we have the autonomy to make our own change. And that is so lovely to feel like you have that trust from the rest of the company, that they would listen to changes that we want to make, and probably almost definitely support us with it.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 37:18

Absolutely, yeah, the support would always be there, we would always be listened to. And it's just, it's so wonderful to work with a group of consultants, who we can take our weirdest and wackiest ideas of what we've kind of come up together and even for them to coach us to an extent to be like, that's great, have you thought about X Y Z? We need to take more of those opportunities and more of those conversations.

Abi Jackson: 37:49

Absolutely.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 37:50

And then maybe it won't even be a risk because we've had the consultant to kind of, you know, sense make with us. And that's how I feel like me and the ops team, you know, us, we like to work, we like to feel safe, quite safe with our work. And I think let's let's just go for it, let's see how we can, kind of, push it that little bit further. But what that is, I don't I don't know, I don't know what that is going to be, but I do want to pay more attention to that.

Melissa Luckhurst: 38:21

It is quite, um, I think as as you were both talking, I was thinking, it's so liberating, that that type of thing is, is welcomed by, you know, the directors and exco that it's, it's welcomed, and it's encouraged by our team to come up with new ideas of working or, or anything, really and, and that's quite a liberating thing, I think. And you're right about trust, feeling like actually, that trust is really fundamental, and, and fundamental as to how this has worked. The trust not only within us, you know, the actual team, but also between us and the directors as well and consultants and marketing and you know, there's there is a huge amount of trust there that does make this possible.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 39:22

Would we encourage other companies or other teams in other companies to try out self managing teams? What What would our like advice be or suggestions what would you say to somebody?

Abi Jackson: 39:38

I would absolutely encourage people to try this. But I would really emphasize the the need for the foundations and the structure and the hours of conversation about how it's going to work. There's going through scenarios that you know, even though a lot of scenarios we were going through haven't happened. And I don't know if they're likely to within our team because of the way we work together. But without those would it work? I'm not sure? Or would it work so successfully with the maintaining a kind of, everyone still getting a real joy out of work, and really enjoying themselves? If anything more, so? I don't know how it would look, if you didn't have that in place.

Melissa Luckhurst: 40:27

I think that it would look quite daunting. It did seem daunting, but it seemed entirely possible. Whereas I wonder with other teams, if this was given as an option, whether it would just seem absolutely no way is this, you know, something that we could do. This looks like Everest right now and there's no way that we could get up there, whereas to us it was like actually this, this seems doable. So I do wonder, what kind of teams would be able to kind of take on the challenge for lack of a better kind of phrase?

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 41:09

Yeah, I agree that the foundations definitely need to be there. And like, obviously, it would be it would be amazing for all different shapes and sizes of companies and different teams to trial out self managing. But I think that we were just so lucky to have a culture that, like Mayvin, that was already there, that springboarded us into the self managing team. And I'm just not not so confident that others would see what a huge benefit is to do all that pre work before getting to a self managed team. Yeah.

Abi Jackson: 41:48

And for everyone to be on board as well, in a not in a like everyone going, oh, yeah, this is a great idea but everyone to be on board with the fact that they can work together really easily and well. And it's the collaboration and the like, we all just get on. And we all knew that, if any if there was any crisis within it, we'd all speak to each other. And I do sometimes think what, what if, like, somebody left or two people left, and we got more people in and they and there was a bit more friction? What would happen to the self managed team, then? And I don't have the answers for that. But it will be interesting to see how we would manage that within the team itself.

Charlotte Smith-Doidge: 42:40

Isn't that like that just says something to me that like as a self managed team, and you Abi being a senior client coordinator, you being aware of potential, you know, future things that may happen. Like for me previously, in a role that wasn't you know, a manager or something, I'm just there to do the day by day things, I'm not thinking about if Janet leaves and what's going to be the case, you know, when when when somebody leaves the team, because I would have just been so much in my to do list. But now, as a self managed team, you're thinking about things like that, you know, ahead of ahead of the curve. Yeah, it's really funny how you're already thinking ahead of like, what potentially could happen. Because as self managing team, self managed team, we want to protect that at all cost don't we? So we're so we're already thinking ahead, of what happens if this happens, what happens it how is that going to affect the team, but I was just comparing it to previous roles where, you know, I was just going in, and I was just doing my job and if somebody had left the team, yeah, obviously, it's sad and there's changes that happen but I wasn't thinking ahead of it to be like, Oh, how can we protect us in that? And what will what the scenarios going to be? Yeah, definitely. And it's, again, as a self managed team, there's just more to think about now, there's just more things. And it's just nice to have all these little side projects going on, because it's playing into, you know, self development, but then also development for the team as well. And the wider Mayvin team.

Abi Jackson: 44:21

Because, it's what's interesting is that our team as self managed team has kind of come along at the same time as them starting to talk about distributed leadership, as well. So it's kind of like everything is kind of just expanding a little bit, there's more dotted lines than there were. And that's, that's quite fun. It's quite fun to see. It's quite fun to watch. It's quite fun to be part of. I think.

Melissa Luckhurst: 44:46

It's exciting, isn't it to have that, you know, come into a business that already was different. And I know we always talk about, you know, the special sauce of Mayvin And yeah, it, you know, Mayvin was already special. But God, it feels exciting now that there are things like that, all these things kind of bubbling under. And yeah, it makes you think, wow. What could this business be? What could it become?

Claire Newell: 45:24

Thank you so much for listening to us today and we hope to see you next time. Take care bye bye