Pernille Hippe Brun: 0:04

Welcome to Work in Progress, a podcast series where I pick the brain of thought leaders within the field of people and culture. My name is Pernille Brom and in these talks we explore the latest trends shaping the future of work and the evolving landscape of modern organizations. In today's episode I'm speaking with Thea Tolstrup-Raming who, on her LinkedIn page, says that she is helping build the world's most people-friendly, meaningful and efficient workplace. Her workplace is Clever, a leading electric mobility service provider and P&C perspective. The company and what Thea does there is especially interesting because the company, with 400 employees, are operating without any managers at all. Hi Fedele, hi Thea. Thank you for inviting me to Clever, where we are sitting right now.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 0:58

It's the headquarter of Clever and Thea. Your title is People and Co-Leadership Partner at Clever and Thea. Your title is People and Co-Leadership Partner at Clever. So in today's episode we are going to talk about both you and your journey into this position and what you find exciting about working in this company, particular company and what your role is and how you self-organize, how you deal with co-leadership. So we're going to talk about maybe, self-management, self-organizing principles, co-leadership and all these terms and definitions you are going to help me define and maybe pinpoint a little bit better than I'm able to in this talk. So I have been looking so much forward to speaking with you and would you care to introduce yourself?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 1:54

Yes, of course, and thank you very much. I'm so excited to be here and to share with you. Yeah well, my name is Thea and, as you introduced, I work at Clever. I've been here for one year almost exactly. I joined 1st of March 2024. As a co-leadership partner, we don't care about titles too much, so I'd rather talk about what I do, and that is developing the co-leading organization and the practices and processes that we introduce here to be able to work together efficiently without any managers.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 2:40

All right, so none managers at all.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 2:44

We do have a CEO you have to have one by law and want to set the direction and to particularly hold the co-leadership flag very high, and that this is the way that we do it.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 2:56

Right. So what brought you to this particular organization?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 3:23

Well, it's been a long journey. I've worked in the HR field for more than 20 years and kind dive into this area of new ways of working during Corona, which was probably bad timing.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 3:38

Maybe not, maybe. That was the time to do it.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 3:41

Something was happening around new ways of working in the whole virtual space at that time, so I think there was an appetite and I spent three years in in that field as a consultant, but primarily focusing on startups and scale-ups, so helping companies build their organizations and their cultures from scratch up, because I really believe that making a transformation from a classical organization to this new way of working is a very, very long journey and there is a faster way at working with organizations from the very beginning.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 4:19

From scratch, where you can actually define from scratch and how that should, which is also what Clever did, beginning from scratch in this way almost from scratch and yes, so I did that and I connected organizations that were exploring new ways of working in a network, and Clever was one of these organizations. So I got in touch with the people team here and at some point they looked for a new colleague and that was in touch with the people team here, and at some point they looked for a new colleague, and that was the right time for me to join.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 4:51

Awesome, awesome. So you landed with good people who already saw you and knew what you were offering and what you could bring to the table. Would you say, in terms of HR or people, of culture or learning and development, what would you say?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 5:05

it is of HR or people, or culture or learning and development, and what would you say it is that you bring to the table Organizational development, development of people, processes yeah, culture.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 5:16

Yes, and that's interesting because you can define yourself in many ways when you work within that sphere of people and culture and HR, of course, ways when you work within that sphere of people and culture and HR, of course. And what I'm so curious to hear more about in this episode is exactly how you carved your own way into this by being curious and open to new ways of working. That's how you said it before, but what was it that made you interested in that, rather than just maybe following the usual path or how we usually look at organizations from a more, maybe, hierarchical perspective and then finding your fit as an HR professional into that?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 5:56

Well, talking about fit, I think to some extent I've been a misfit in HR. I have a background in sociology. I was brought up in a kollektiv like this communal way of collective and attended a socialist school. As a child as a child, yes, and then I actually changed into this kind of elite gymnasium and met different ways of doing it, and so I've always had that sociological curiosity and a slightly different way of looking at things, rather than, I think, a classically trained HR professional.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 6:44

So you looked at it from the systems view, it sounds like which sociologists often do, right, yeah, interesting.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 6:53

The systems view, but also the individual, like the agent. So what does the system do to the agent? How do we try and fit into these organizations that have been built throughout the past 200 years, and what does it do to us as human beings? So that's the other perspective.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 7:12

And what did you find?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 7:27

Well, I often found that people would act in ways that they wouldn't as a private person, uh, at work, uh.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 7:29

So it would drive us to maybe not treat each other always as well as we would outside work. That's a very, very general level, because I've worked with some awesome, amazing people and I've had really great leaders as well. So it was more this I think we have designed ways of working that were fit for a different time rather than where we are now, and I think most of your listeners probably heard about this predict and control versus sense and respond kind of paradigm. So the classical hierarchical organization is much more of a control mechanism where we expect people to just do what is being said and not be as creative as is needed, and yet we educate people to be creative, free minds and think for themselves. The whole school system that we have in Denmark, and in other countries as well, really trained this independence, and then we put people into workplaces where they're being treated more like children, even if they are actually adults. So seeing what that does just made me curious, and I've been lucky enough to be in workplaces where they've also tried to change things.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 8:55

And so the new ways of working is really looking at what does a system do to an individual's capacity to deliver and be innovative and bring their best selves to work, and you found that the hierarchical ways of doing it is maybe not the best fit, because people are more being told what to do, or what is it that you what's?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 9:18

not working there. I think the main thing was that I met a lot of leaders and managers who were frustrated about their team members not taking responsibility, that they brought in these bright people to their team. They had like visions and ambitions and then they kind of like dropped their hands. And then they kind of like dropped their hands and because whenever they took the initiative, there was like a bureaucracy that stopped them or they had to go and ask the next level manager.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 9:54

So that kind of frustration of well, I'm really trying to empower them, but you know, but really what's happening is that it might be that they are empowered, but then they are also not, because there's a limit.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 10:08

Yes, yeah, so we talk a lot about empowerment. I once heard somebody say well, if you talk about empowering people, you have to think that they are powerless to begin with. So you can only empower people who do not have the power. So you build a system where you take away power from people and then you empower them, rather than building a system where everybody has that, where the power is distributed and everybody's an agent. So that kind of stayed with me. I've forgotten where I heard it.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 10:46

But that's also a new way of looking at it, because it also must mean that there then is power in place already. So I've always looked at the word empowerment as someone who has power, giving power to others, but they can also maybe take it back a little bit if they want. So there's this acknowledgement of power in an organization. Right and well, isn't that just a fact that there are power structures in all organizations? Can we get rid of it completely?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 11:25

Power is energy. So you need power to move things forward. But you can distribute it in different ways. So in the classical power hierarchy there is more power at top and then it's you know you empower downwards, but, as you were saying, you can always pull it back and that knowledge that it can always be pulled away from you kind of disempower you. So even if you're empowered, you're not really, and that is at Clever what we have tried to turn around. But I could get back to that.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 11:59

Yeah, so let's get into that. So it was very interesting to hear your whole background, what brought you here and maybe also that untraditional way of entering the workforce as a people and cultures person. So you already have an eye for there must be another way and a curiosity. And then you looked at the systems you were part of and what it did to the agent, as you said. So when you discovered Clever, what is Clever and what did you discover here? What was that vision from the beginning and maybe what attracted you to join this part of an organization?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 12:37

Yeah, so Clever as a classic, the story that I've been told. Of course, I wasn't part of it in the beginning, but Clever was a classic startup scale-up with a lot of initiative and ownership and drive and creativity. That startup culture that a lot of people love. And growth was fast in the early 20s and they reached the point where, well, now we have to scale the organization beyond a hundred, where usually you would introduce middle management. But looking at the culture and saying, wow, we really love this place and how can we keep it this way, this level of ownership and creativity and engagement and really being our true selves at work, that's what we want to. We want to scale that culture as well.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 13:39

So they looked the current leadership team at the design principles on which to then scale the organization and usually you would just have like some nice value words and then still build the classical organizations, but here it was okay. So if we want trust and equity and transparency to really really be the guiding principles, the design principles for the organization, building a hierarchy it's not creating those three things. So they look to completely different ways of designing the organization and what did they find? Well, that was back to what I was saying earlier, with the power hierarchy, how can we create a different foundation and decided to create a purpose hierarchy, saying that the purpose is really what we're here for, so everyone works for Clever's purpose. Then we have some different value streams that provide part of that work towards that purpose and then the teams that we have would contribute to part of the value stream's purpose and the roles in the teams contribute to the purpose of the team. So that's how the hierarchy it ripples down.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 14:59

Yes, exactly you said. Maybe it's not that very different from a traditional hierarchy where you also have a top management that look across the whole organization. But the big difference here is that the purpose doesn't go through managers, no, so it goes via the team.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 15:19

So it needs to be very clear. I could imagine Very clear yeah, yeah, and do you have like a one-liner, or how do people know what the purpose is?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 15:29

Well, the overall purpose, yes, but it's longer for the teams and for the value streams of the business units. It's very much carved out in our strategy.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 15:41

So the purpose one-liners are carved out for. So you have the overall or the overarching purpose, but then you have also purposes that fit into that. Or how do we contribute with our team? Yes, yes, all right, that's a lot of work, isn't it, to create that.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 15:59

Yes, but clarity is important when you don't vest all the power into one manager. The team has to be aligned around what it is that we're working towards. So, yes, we do spend time on that, but that clarity provides a lot of freedom and the freedom creates a lot of responsibility and a lot of motivation and the ownership and exactly the fact that we do not just lose our hands. We're here to work towards purpose together. It's not my individual career that drives me here, it's our common purpose.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 16:36

And so how does that then play out in a day-to-day business like this? So who decides, and how do you then figure out when you need a new colleague who should join the team? And do you have hiring teams? Do you have people who step in and decide if somebody should be let go? How does it work out in a day-to-day practice?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 17:01

Well, all of this is something that has been built along the way, day-to-day practice. Well, all of this is something that has been built along the way, so there wasn't a one-size-fits-all model that we just took and went by. We were inspired by the sociocratic model, so there are some of the core elements from sociocracy that are still here in Clever.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 17:25

And can you explain a little bit maybe?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 17:27

what that is. Yes, so the idea of a connected organization, connected through purpose. And then the idea is that the teams are what can be termed self-managed, but we call it co-leading, because we lead together. We don't just lead ourselves, we have to do that as well, but it's much more about leading together around our common purpose. So the teams have to do all of the leadership together through distribution of leadership responsibility. So, rather than having one manager who has to do all of the management tasks and leadership tasks it's distributed amongst the team members.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 18:11

Okay, and so the co-leadership term or terminology, rather than self-organizing or self-leadership. Why did you choose that term and does it matter?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 18:27

It is quite intentional to talk about co-leadership, or, in Danish, medledelsen, that we lead together. It's more like together leadership than co-leadership, because it's not about the individual, so it's not so much about me being able to decide everything for myself. There's a lot of freedom here, but it's freedom in terms of delivering on our purpose, a common purpose. So the togetherness is the core element here, and that's why we went with that term rather than self.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 19:07

And how does it then differ from self-organizing, for instance, because the team could maybe be self-organized, or yeah yeah Well, the team is self-organized to some extent, but it's using some set structures so that all teams co-lead in the same way. So it's not anarchy where you can just do whatever and go organize for yourself. There are some quite set guidelines as how to do it.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 19:43

And what are those?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 19:45

One of the reasons, I would add, why it is that in that way is to bind us together, because we know that we have the same roles in all of the teams. So we know how to interact and connect. So the teams are not little free-floating islands. At a very practical level, in the teams, again, we're inspired by the sociocratic model where we distribute leadership into three roles plus more. But those three come from there the purpose guardian I do quotes in citation marks because it sounds a bit funny, this guardian thing, but really it's about helping the team stay focused on the purpose, helping the team prioritize, representing the team in the next level of the purpose hierarchy.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 20:43

So that's the purpose guardian. Then you have the facilitator, who helps the team run efficient meetings, efficient and inclusive meetings. Then you have the memory, who helps the team stay organized and note down minutes from the meetings, etc. We have also introduced a number of other organizational roles. We call these organizational roles. So there's a salary role, there's a budget role, there's a recruitment role, there's a well-being role. So all of these classical leadership responsibilities are distributed amongst the team members and they decide themselves who get to do which role.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 21:29

And so what if a team is smaller than that that you can't fit in all the roles into that team, for instance, Our teams are typically between five and 15.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 21:41

We have a few teams that are larger, but then they're in the process of splitting because beyond that it's inefficient. So smaller teams will. One person will have more roles, but then the role is not as demanding because there aren't that many team members. So say, if you have the wellbeing role and you have the facilitator role, there are only four other team members to have the well-being conversations with and you can also facilitate the meetings.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 22:10

And is it then described what the role consists of and how you can play it out? Yeah, do you also have some freedom there to define a little bit yourself how you would like to play it out?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 22:19

Yeah, absolutely so we train some of the roles we train. Some of them we don't. Some of them we don't train yet. So we're still developing the training yeah.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 22:28

Okay, and so who decided those roles?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 22:34

The way that we organized was born with those three first the roles that I mentioned first, and then the others have developed. So our finance team found out that we need a budget role in each team and my colleagues in recruitment found we need a recruitment role in the teams, and actually the well-being role was developed by teams themselves. So at some point one team invented this and another team copied it and now it's something that all teams have and we have just created a training for that role.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 23:08

Yes, Okay, because there was a need and someone saw that need and took it to the table, and then they were allowed to just run with it. Okay, for instance, who to hire or who to fire and how to maybe negotiate in terms of how you should do your jobs and make sure that you serve the purpose.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 23:39

That's a lot of questions in one. We can start with recruitment, because there is a recruiter role and that person will run the recruitment process in the team with the help of my colleagues in recruitment. And, again, they're trained so they know how to screen cvs, how to run first interviews, etc. Etc. Of course they will invite a colleague in who has the right professional knowledge to hire this new colleague, because it might not be somebody who's who's the same in the same role as you are, yeah, so they set a group to do the recruitment okay and then so, so that person also screens all their, all the people who apply and then invite them in and who are in the interview process.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 24:30

In the interview process you have people from the team. You can also invite people from a neighboring team where you think, oh, they have some of the competences that we need to get into our team. Yeah, so you set, you set the recruitment uh, board or panel.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 24:48

And then maybe we can follow the employee life cycle uh, a traditional HR expression or way of putting it. So. So what happens then? How? How do you then negotiate what salary that person should, should?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 25:01

get yeah, um. So we will benchmark uh similar roles and then make sure that people are at a salary level where they don't start by thinking I need more money and it's a fair level compared to the colleagues and that's our salary policy, and is that your recruitment team that then gives advice there? Then there is the salary role in the team, the only person who knows the salary of the rest of the team members, and they can get advice from our salary circle if they need to get some. Yes, exactly.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 25:39

Okay, so that's the only person who knows the salary of everyone, and why did you choose to keep that confidential then?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 25:47

It was a decision made by colleagues. The salary of everyone, and why did you choose to keep that confidential? Then it was a decision made by colleagues. So in our salary circle, it's not us in the people team, it's not our CEO, it's the salary circle with representatives from different teams and they decided it.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 26:02

yes, so it's based on informed decision-making. It sounds like who should make the decision it depends on where is the knowledge gathered.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 26:14

Yes and no. It's based on the purpose hierarchy again. So the mandate follows the task. So as the task drills out in the hierarchy to the role, that's where the mandate lies. So most decisions are taken in roles, because that's where the knowledge is. So how you fulfill your job is yours. You don't have to ask a manager If you have to make. There are no managers exactly, but if there are decisions, you can get a lot of input from your team. If there are decisions that will affect the full team, then the decision is made by the team via our consent decision process. If it affects the whole business unit, then it's taken to that level and again through a consent decision making. So the decision power is never in one person if it is something that affects a lot of us, unless it is a role that is hired in with a particular competence and knowledge, and then that role gets that mandate to decide on.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 27:23

And then they can maybe go out and ask for advice or input.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 27:27

Yes, absolutely, are they?

Pernille Hippe Brun: 27:28

expected to do that.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 27:29

Yes, so we talk about dependencies, so you can have teams that are dependent on your decisions, so you get input from them.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 27:39

This advice process, which is also so the advice process you can look it up and look into the advice process if you want to know more about how to make informed decision making based on that model. And then the person is hired and how do you onboard?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 27:59

We have quite a thorough onboarding. Two full days, the first, when you start with a lot of knowledge. I see some of our new colleagues oh, they're tired at the end of the day, but also, you know, light in their eyes, yeah. So introduction to the company and our purpose and our products and the way we work and the team and the organization and our strategy process and everything.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 28:28

Is that the people team running that, or how do you do the onboarding here?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 28:33

Well, we own the process, but we bring in the experts, so it's only a few things that are actually us sharing, yeah, and then we have a full day introducing to co-leadership. Yes, yes, so understanding what it is how we work, the core processes, the roles, the meeting structures yeah, yeah, because I could imagine that's.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 28:59

I mean, we've only been speaking for like 30 minutes now, but you already told me a lot of things that I would have to digest and think about, and how would that then play out for me if I was part of this team? And so I guess people must be overwhelmed or tired in the beginning when they are introduced to the way of working here.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 29:20

Yes, absolutely. It doesn't come as a shock all through the recruitment process. Of course, they have been introduced to co-leadership, and even in our job ads we talk about it. So when applying to Clever, you shouldn't be in doubt that this is a company that is run in a very different way.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 29:42

And then you start and you start working, and then one of my questions from before, when you said oh, that was a lot of questions was then you know, how do you then decide on how to deliver? Is that because you said something about the facilitator and maybe the memory or role, and is that also distributed there, that it makes it completely clear how you then do your job in the teams completely clear how you then do your job in the teams.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 30:11

So we have the organizational roles, like the facilitators that we nominate for and that we can shift between us, but we're all hired for a professional role, so we all have a job. A role description.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 30:22

A role description yes, with the purpose of the role, the responsibilities, the tasks, the mandates, the dependencies. So it's described there. And then it changes a little bit, like okay, so this project comes in, is it you or is it me? And then the team decides who takes it on. Decides who takes it on If there are two team members who would both be competent and able and have it within their role description to run that project. The team has to decide yes, okay.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 30:56

And so, during the span of a lifetime in this organization, I could imagine that people also run into conflicts every once in a while. What happens then? How do you solve conflicts?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 31:08

Well, the everyday conflicts are brought into the team. So if there is a tension around something, you put it on the agenda. If it's more of a personal thing, everyone is expected to take responsibility and share it with their colleague. If it's too difficult for you, or if you try it and it doesn't work, you can ask your well-being role to help you, and if that still doesn't work, you can call on us and people and we can help.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 31:40

Yeah, does that happen often. Not at a one-to-one conflict level, it's more, if there are like the team struggles, yeah, if the whole team struggles, then they call on us yeah, yes, and and and is it always possible for the team to call on you, or do you also see instances where you, you figure it out because there's a lack of, you know, ownership or responsibility or delivery, or from the team where we?

Pernille Hippe Brun: 32:10

where we yeah others discover it, or they themselves are not able to really acknowledge it and bring it up, or uh, yes, it's not necessarily the people team who see this.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 32:22

We all care about each other's uh, well-being and ability to deliver, uh, because of this connectedness and and interdependence. So if this team doesn't deliver, then we can't deliver. Um, so anyone can voice that and they have to go directly to the team to begin with, uh, yeah, and see if they can solve it there. Um, yeah, but we have. But we have this process that we call the heat map, where all teams, once every sixth week, have to have a talk in the team and decide on what color they are. So if they're green, all is shiny, super great, no problems at all. If they're yellow, there are some bumps on the road, but we're fine, most teams are yellow.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 33:16

We also have Self-aware. Yes, exactly.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 33:19

I mean, there's always a few bumps on the road. If you're red, there are some major bumps on the road. You do have a plan, you think you're able to solve it, but it's flagging to the rest of the organization. Maybe it's not now that you should come and ask us for and we reach out from the people team just to know is there anything we can do If you go black? It's like help, yeah.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 33:49

Oh, so there's a process for that as well. That's fascinating, and people judge that on, I could imagine, both based on feelings and how they are feeling with one another and how things are going in the communications sphere and stuff, but also in terms of delivery and span and yeah, it's, it's a performance Are we able to perform and how's the team functioning?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 34:12

And those two, of course, connected. Yeah, but but it can be just there's too much work and it's it puts too much pressure on the team or the team doesn't have the right competencies. We have a lot of illness, you know, it can be all sorts of things. But I think the difference here between organizations where I've been before, is that you want to flag this, you want to raise your hand and get help, whereas in other organizations you might, you know, you want to look as if everything is fine.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 34:48

Why do you want to raise it? Do you think what's the difference?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 34:51

Because we're together around delivering on our purpose. We're not here for our own shiny careers, so there's no need to hide it if you're not able to deliver.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 35:05

And maybe it might all be perceived as a weakness. Maybe, if you don't, yes, exactly.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 35:11

Yes, yeah, yeah, interesting, yeah, and it's okay to be not perfect. It's okay to be a human being with. You know we have illnesses in our team and you know we need help. It's not like, okay, then you're all just fired. It's so important that we speak up and that we ask for help.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 35:35

And so it also sounds like it might require a very mature person to work at Clever A certain level of matureness or self-awareness. A certain level of matureness or self-awareness.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 35:48

There are some characteristics that we look for in people who will thrive in a co-leading organization, like generosity, like caring for others, like also wanting to perform, to being good at what you do.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 36:02

So, yes, ambition yeah, so is that part of your value codex?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 36:09

Well, it's the characteristics that we look for. So we deliberately yes, we have three interviews. Now we go back to the very beginning of the employee life cycle again, but yes, we have three interviews. First one where we get to know each other and find out, you know, is there an overall fit for the role, and talk a little bit about co-leadership, but mainly around the role. Second one where we dive into often a case but dive more into what the role actually is, talk a little bit more about co-leadership. And then the third one is a culture dialogue where we have a culture circle with people who've been with the organization for a long time and know the culture and they have a very intimate and personal conversation with the coming colleague, talking about these characteristics, not like are you generous, but more like when have situations been in your life that really formed you into who you are? And they share who they are. And it's this, you know, we really want you to come here being who you are and we want you to thrive in Clever.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 37:24

Yeah.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 37:25

It sounds really wonderful it is. It's also, I remember, my culture dialogue. It's. You're really like there, you're really on.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 37:35

Nowhere to hide, yeah yeah, yeah.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 37:38

But also you're really invested. Then You're already connected to your future colleagues. They are not in your team, but it's people whom you had a really nice conversation with and you're like wow, they know me, I know you as well. It's not just about the person, it's about them as well.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 37:58

No, so it's about the sharing part of generosity. So those values really are strong. And what if someone wants to change that? Is that possible? Because sometimes you talk about you know you're fire for culture fit, but others talk about yeah, but you should also hire for culture at people who are slightly different from you, so that the organization doesn't stagnate or, you know, stifles, or that it can grow and become something else, like in an organic way. What would happen here if someone would rebel against the founding values or would want you to do things differently in terms of that?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 38:43

You could always bring forward a suggestion if you feel the tension, if you think well, to fulfill our purpose, this and this or that is needed. But getting back to the culture, add, because I like that perspective. I think you can still add to the culture, even if you have these very, very foundational characteristics of human beings which, honestly, I think most people have. If you get to live them out, where you are generally becoming a better version of yourself by being generous to others, you're rewarded, not through bonuses et cetera, but you're rewarded through your contribution, your belonging, as you were saying, by being generous. Whereas if you're in a system that rewards you on your egocentrism, like giving you individual bonuses for something without having to care about other people's results, then that doesn't bring forward that, even though it's, I would argue, is innate in most human beings, this wanting to help others and be generous.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 40:00

Yes, exactly. So how do you reward what if somebody has done something extraordinary?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 40:09

Then we celebrate in the team, then we say it out loud, we go on our showcase. Every fourth night we have a showcase where we can share with our colleagues what we have introduced or achieved in the team, and everybody applauds and there's always an amazing atmosphere at our showcases and it's so interesting and it's always the team.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 40:38

Yeah, exactly it's. That was what I was about to say. You didn't mention an individual, you mentioned you. You know the team and the team's effort, so that's also what you reward. Right, that it's the team effort, more maybe than individuals doing something extraordinary. Yeah, yeah.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 40:57

I mean we see individuals as well. But it's more about you know, seeing and recognizing each other for who we are. We don't reward for results, so our salary circle decided there's no performance pay, so we reward for your competences. Bring you in at a fair level. If you take on more responsibility and show that you deliver on that, then you can negotiate a salary raise.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 41:26

What does that do to the culture? You think, what about those people who you know are there for the sell, or you know motivated by that, do they? Not belong here.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 41:37

Absolutely, absolutely. We have some star sellers in Clever. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you don't have to connect it to an individual monetary bonus. You still get the kick out of you know closing the deal and you're like, yeah, you know people, they need those bonuses, otherwise they won't do it.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 41:59

And you know that's really intrinsic in in any real great seller that they can get that bonus. So you rebel against that, or you. You found that it wasn't true, or you it is very contrary to the culture.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 42:23

here Again, if we introduce that kind of practice and structure, it would undermine that mindset that is thriving in this culture.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 42:33

Yeah, but you prove the contrary. It sounds like that's amazing. So finishing the employee life cycle. So what happens then? If you decide someone is not a fit or you know you need to let somebody go and they don't by themselves figure that out, what happens then?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 42:53

It's the next step. You would say to that conflict handling that we were talking about before. If you see that somebody is not delivering anymore, is not contributing to the team, then first of course you have to talk to your colleague. If the message doesn't go through, you go to your well-being role. If it still doesn't go through, you introduce the purpose role as well, and if you find out, okay, we're actually on a path here where we need to help our colleague, either come back into a performing standard, because there's something here that needs to change, or help the person, or we have to say goodbye to the person. Then they have to call on us in the people team and we create an action plan, as you would do in a regular organization. But it's those two roles, plus one or two more from the team, that can give input and then have the conversation.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 44:02

And does that ever happen here?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 44:03

Yes, you've had a few of those instances. Yeah, it does happen.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 44:06

Yeah, okay, so you don't compromise with delivery or something like that, just to be nice to one another. For the sake of being nice.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 44:15

Yeah, no, no.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 44:16

Okay, but are people trained to be in this organization this way? So part of your onboarding is that also training people to speak up and be, you know, up front with one another, in terms of if you don't deliver, I can actually tell you. Or how do you make sure that people are fit for that? Because, as we talked about before, the maturity level must also have something to do with it.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 44:43

Well, we do trainings in difficult conversation. We have a feedback mechanism called a learning loop, where three colleagues meet to provide feedback to each other. And, yes, this genuine. You know we want the best together. So when I tell you this, it is not because I'm competing for the next promotion. There's no need for doing that. So I tell you this because I genuinely want us to succeed together, and saying that, of course it's difficult, Of course it doesn't always happen.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 45:23

No, but it's necessary for both of us to thrive and be able to work together. Yes.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 45:29

But it is inherently difficult for people to provide that candid feedback. I mean it is for all the managers and leaders I've worked with in my previous career. It's been the most difficult thing to do.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 45:41

I could imagine how would you say that this position within people and culture, in, in your case, the co-leadership partner role, differs from from being part of a traditional, maybe, people and culture team well, the biggest difference is that we're not perceived as the what do you call it?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 46:09

the management police. Almost you know I've had that label in other organizations that we are colleagues here to help the teams deliver, to help the teams deliver. There aren't any of these classical control mechanisms. We don't sit with the management to decide on who gets the new promotion or decide on who gets fired or who has to change to a new role All of these classical HR leadership decisions. They don't exist here. So that gives us a completely different position to work with that is full of trust.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 47:01

Yes, yeah, I could imagine. Yeah, and you seem to thrive in this role, right? Is there any coming back for you ever?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 47:18

to a more hierarchical structure. But no, I'm here and I love it here and there is so much work to do still on developing this organization, the way that things are done, because we do not have everything figured out yet, not at all. One of the big projects that we have this year is to work with development, because that part of the employee life cycle you know how do we develop professionally and personally, so that is a big focus area when you don't have a manager to have moves with or your appraisal performance interviews.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 47:55

Yes, exactly, yeah. So you don't have any performance life cycles or you know reviews or 360s or anything like that. No, we have this learning loop.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 48:05

That is the only thing, so where three colleagues sit together and then they prepare. On what do I want feedback on and what feedback do I have for the others on what they succeed with and where they could grow in terms of collaboration and in terms of performance? Yeah, so you're spared all their need to really work with sitting there and also helping people fill out surveys and stuff. Yes, yes, yes.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 48:34

So what do you spend most of your time on in your current role?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 48:39

A lot of helping the teams so training and facilitating team sessions. A lot of sparing with some of these organizational roles and developing new processes. Organizational design is a big thing in my role, yeah.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 49:06

And what is there to do within organizational design?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 49:10

So the organization has grown a lot, obviously from. I think in eight years it's grown from 25 people to 400 people. So it's a lot. And how do we stay connected? So, as I was talking about in the beginning, these purpose circles in the business units. That's a new thing that we're introducing now. So designing that and finding out how to implement it and how to run it.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 49:42

When you are a purpose-driven organization, whether you are co-leadership, organized in this way or maybe more hierarchical there is this talk about. When you're purpose-driven, it helps create a bigger sense of belonging to the company because you can connect to what it is you deliver on every day and why you are here, to what it is you deliver on every day and why you're here. So when you call it the purpose circles and you've chosen to also maybe put more effort into connecting with that in the future as well, is that then also influencing the sense of belonging in the company?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 50:22

I think it's going to influence the sense of connectedness more. You know, I know how I fit in, because by now we don't know everybody's names, we don't know everybody's roles In an organization of 125 or something like that. You might, but now we don't anymore. So how are we connected? And this will help that connectedness Absolutely, because in a classical hierarchical organizational chart you're like, okay, I'm there, and then there's this manager and this manager and this manager, and you're here and okay, so we share manager, three levels up, kind of.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 51:03

And that's not possible when you're organized the way you are. No, no.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 51:06

So that will create that clarity around the connectedness in terms of belonging. Uh, there is, of course, a connectedness to a shared purpose, but belonging is very much about the human connection and the fact that you can show up as you know, with who you are, and and be vulnerable and be happy and be ambitious and be under pressure, whatever, and your team catches you. Yes, I think that's what creates the sense of belonging here that.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 51:42

That was a very, very interesting, interesting way of dividing those two terms of connectedness and belonging. Thank you for that. Do you think this is transferable? So what if the organization has not been organized this way from the beginning? What should people do? And do you think there is some inspiration for others here that they can draw on? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 52:08

Tons of inspiration. I think, first and foremost, you have to ask yourself why? Why do you want to do this transformation or make this change? Is it, you know? Just because it's trendy?

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 52:22

or is it because you want to cut costs or is it actually because you're interested in creating a place that's fit for humans and that's more inclusive and more efficient? And your answer will help you define whether or not you should go down this path, or at least it will define whether or not you're going to be successful down this path, or at least it will define whether or not you're going to be to be successful.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 52:48

And and do you do you think hr or people and culture professionals can drive it, or does it need to come from the top, because you mentioned how your ceo of clever casper, he has been a driving force behind this.

Thea Tolstrup Bramming: 52:59

Yeah, if it's a an all company thing, it definitely have to be a link to uh to the top, because they're the ones who have to let go of power. Yeah, um, and as long as they don't, uh, this is not going to work a hundred percent. So, um, but you can still uh introduce some of the things in your team. So, if you're a middle manager, you can decide to distribute some of your leadership roles. If you are a project leader, you can introduce some of the meeting ways of meeting. I didn't even cover that, but look it up in the sociocratic ways of meeting, so that the meetings are run in a very efficient and inclusive way by the facilitator, are run in a very efficient and inclusive way by the facilitator, and anyone can introduce that way of running meetings and experience the magic of inclusion.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 53:55

Thank you so much, thea. It's been a real pleasure speaking with you today.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 54:00

Likewise, thank you for your questions, this very, very interesting way of organizing yourself as an organization and also as a human being, finding yourself in this sphere. Yes, thank you. Thank you, pelleve. You've been listening to the Work in Progress podcast on people and culture. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share on social media. For more resources on people, culture and working in a modern world, please visit GetSessioncom and check out our articles, guides, webinars and more. Thanks for listening.