Last week I attended WorldBlu's Mastery Circle. WorldBlu is a non-profit that promotes democracy in the workplace.  They identify the world's most democratic workplaces and, once a year, they bring these businesses together in an event called the Mastery Circle, where they can help each other to overcome the challenges they face.  I had a very positive experience at this event.

Every year WorldBlu puts together a list of the world's most democratic workplaces. In it are organizations that take the WorldBlu Democratic Workplace Scorecard™ and score in the top level. 

This scorecard is calculated based on a company-wide survey that measures an organization's performance along ten principles that WorldBlu has found to be key to cultivating a highly successful and sustainable democratic workplace.

Nearsoft is proud to be included in the 2009 list, the first time we went through this process. As part of it, we were invited to participate in the annual WorldBlu Mastery Circle.

Mastery Circle

Here are some of the things I learned at this event, in no particular order,

• Of the more than six million new businesses that open every year in the US alone, most run as command-and-control organizations.
• We are one of a still small circle of organizations in the world that wants to get away from the traditional command-and-control style of management
• Company values and culture are key assets for democratic companies. The whole organization, not just the "top," defines the values and, therefore, the culture of the workplace. This makes for sturdier organizations that can thrive in the face of organizational changes.
• Celebrate mistakes! One of the companies that participated in the Mastery Circle has a practice of holding a meeting to literally celebrate and laugh at their mistakes. In the beginning it was difficult for people to expose their mistakes for fear of embarrassment  or punishment but over time everyone joined in and learned together.
• If you are not making mistakes, you are not taking enough risks and you are not learning enough to improve.  Cherish, and celebrate, your mistakes.

About Happiness

If the workplace is where we spend most of our waking hours, then why not be happy at it? On the second day of the seminar, Dr Srikumar Rao gave us a talk about the topic of happiness.

• We live our lives based on our own mental models.  It is important to our happiness to be aware of the fact that these are just models of the world.  Otherwise, they may dominate our lives and make us unhappy.
• We struggle to be happy when we include the if-then clause in our mental models, "I'll be happy if... "
• We label our experiences as good or bad, but you never know how things are going to turn out. For example, Michael Phelps broke his arm before the Olympics.  This is usually a "bad" thing.  In this case, Michael kep training but only with his legs.  According to the experts, this is the key reason he won seven gold medals.  And that is a "good" thing.
• The moment that you think positive, you create a reality that helps you succeed, even when the outcome is not what you were expecting.
• According to Dr Rao, we are born with happiness in our DNA, but as we grow, we learn how to be unhappy.  That, unfortunately, becomes our "default" state. He thinks that we do not need to get anything or be anything to be happy. Marketing messages makes us dependent on getting or being something to be happy.

Relationships

There are relationships that are based on a transaction and others that are based on the process of the interaction itself.  A transactional relationship is temporary and lasts until the transaction is complete.  Process relationships on the other hand can last forever--their "outcome" comes natural.

Summary

Democratic organizations are still in the learning process although some are more mature than others.  One way or the other, businesses will have to move towards more open and democratic ways of operating, if for no other reason, because the upcoming generation will push them into it.  In the near-future, it will become a competitive advantage; beyond that it will be a do-or-die requirement.

Do not wait, start including your whole organization in the process now!

What does democracy at work mean for you?