Authors Red Hat Inc.
License CC-BY-SA-4.0
The Open Organization
Field Guide
The Open Organization
Field Guide
Practical Tips for
Igniting Passion and Performance
With an introduction by Brook Manville
Copyright
Copyright © 2016‒2018 Red Hat, Inc. All written content, as
well as the cover image, licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-
bution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License1.
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Additional reading
From Jim Whitehurst
The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance (Harvard
Business Review Press)
Organize for Innovation: Rethinking How We Work (Opensource.-
com)
From the open organization community
The Open Organization Leaders Manual, Second Edition: A Hand-
book for Building Innovative and Engaged Teams (Opensource.com)
The Open Organization Guide to IT Culture Change: Open Principles
and Practices for a More Innovative IT Department (Opensource.-
com)
The Open Organization Workbook: How to build a culture of innova-
tion in your organization (Opensource.com)
Every week, Opensource.com publishes new stories about the ways
open principles help innovative leaders rethink organizational cul-
ture and design.
Visit opensource.com/open-organization to read more.
Contents
Preface 10
Bryan Behrenshausen
Introduction 12
Brook Manville
Part 1: Stories from the Trenches
The open organization on main street 19
Brian Fielkow
What my conversation with GE taught me about open
organizations 22
Jackie Yeaney
How I learned the difference between a community and
an audience 26
Phil Branon
Measuring the performance of a community manager 30
Jason Hibbets
Everyone changes lightbulbs in an open organization 35
Pete Savage
Have you revised your goals lately? 38
Merry Beekman
Part 2: Engagements
Should open source leaders go native? 45
Brook Manville
When everything's a request for comments 50
Bryan Behrenshausen
What organizations can learn from open culture and
technologies 52
Margaret Dawson
Open organizations don't need to serve Kool-Aid 57
Rikki Endsley
Dear manager: Include me in your decisions 61
Jen Wike Huger
8 tips for creating cultural change in your organization 63
Laura Hilliger
Sometimes you have to put the moose on the table 67
Sam Knuth
Part 3: New Contexts
7 co-op business principles for the open organization 72
Jason Baker
What our families teach us about organizational life 76
Jim Whitehurst
Implications of The Open Organization in education 79
Don Watkins
Afterword 82
Jim Whitehurst
Appendix: The Open Organization Definition
The Open Organization Definition 87
The Open Organization Ambassadors
Learn More
Additional resources 96
Get involved 97
Preface
Bryan Behrenshausen
J im Whitehurst published The Open Organization on June 2, 2015.
He didn't just launch a book. He initiated a conversation.
For six straight months, that conversation has been lively and
enlightening, as readers grappled with Jim's assertion that today's
leaders could apply open source principles to the problems and prac-
tices of management to achieve astounding results.
Of course, associates at Red Hat—the open organization Jim
leads—shared their own experiences in support of Jim's belief (after
all, they're living proof of it). But other voices joined the dialogue,
too. Authors, thinkers, and managers from all over the world chimed
in. They discussed and debated5. They tweeted6. They evangelized7.
A community formed.
Opensource.com has functioned as a proud host to that com-
munity, publishing (every week!) new stories about the ways our
workplaces can become more transparent, more meritocratic, more
responsive, more engaged—in short, more open. Those stories both
affirmed and challenged Jim's ideas. They pushed them in new direc-
tions, gave them broader purchase.
So we've collected some of the very best into this collection,
which celebrates half a year of sharing and learning. It contains
three sections. The first, "Stories from the Trenches," features tales
from managers and other leaders working to open their organiza-
5 https://opensource.com/open-organization/resources/guides
6 https://opensource.com/open-organization/resources/2015-book-club
7 https://opensource.com/open-organization/resources/meet-ambassadors
10
The Open Organization Field Guide
tions. They shared invaluable lessons with us. Part II, "Engage-
ments," features writing that clarifies, extends, and challenges Jim's
message. And the final section, "New Contexts," illustrates ways
open principles can make a difference in organizations that aren't
corporations.
The result is an important extension of Jim's initial contribu-
tion. Embracing the open source spirit, it builds on what he started
and enhances it, turning it into a community effort.
In open organizations, Jim writes, "feedback is a gift." Anyone
who's read his book should consider this volume a gift from a com-
munity passionate about the power of open principles to change the
way we work, manage, and lead.
11
Introduction
Brook Manville
R eading Jim Whitehurst’s The Open Organization, you can hear
the voice of a leader on a mission. Achieving a well-described
personal transformation to become the Red Hat CEO, Whitehurst
chronicles his leadership journey of the last few years, increasingly
believing that the "open organization model" he encountered (and
then further developed with other Red Hatters) has the potential to
become a "new management paradigm." The book further argues
that reframing leadership as "engaging and catalyzing participative
communities both inside and outside" has helped Red Hat better
achieve all-important performance imperatives of speed, agility, and
innovation, and that the open model could be applicable to other or-
ganizations too—enabling them similarly to achieve higher
performance. The essays in this volume, plus the growing contribu-
tions to the "movement building" website Opensource.com, reflect a
high level of enthusiasm and interest among many other practition-
ers for exploring further the practice of "open organization."
Tradition, progress, and key challenges
But like any movement on the rise, this one might benefit from
some cautionary context. Leaf through most management books of
the last thirty years, and you’ll find narratives similar to those now
surrounding the open organization. They tend to assume this gen-
eral form: "The world is now facing an unprecedented magnitude of
change. The situation calls for wise leaders to get ahead of the curve
—by pursuing some new revolution of organization, practice, or
strategy. Let me thus describe a personal, positive experience with
the new approach that I’ve had; and let me amplify it by offering
12
The Open Organization Field Guide
some how-to suggestions for joining this revolution. I can also offer a
few illustrative case examples to help encourage you, dear reader, to
take the plunge too."
Dismissing the open organization as just another version of
this familiar management research story might seem easy. But we
shouldn’t be too quickly cynical. After all, the standard expositions
of "new and better way of working" map to how much of human
progress actually occurs. At the same time, however, we should chal-
lenge any new version of the story with a few hard questions.
Specifically: is open management really something new and game-
changing, or just yesterday’s "revolution," dressed up in different
clothes? Is its "solution" a one-shot idea or something really applica-
ble to a broad variety of business challenges? And will the
recommended approach indeed bring a quantum leap of effective-
ness and performance—enough to justify adoption and (inevitably)
the cost and pain of changing how a (currently non-open) company
does its business?
How new is 'open'?
As for the first question—"Is this really new?"—many open or-
ganization ideas have popped up, here and there, in research and
best practice prescriptions of the last many years. The "Knowledge
Revolution" that Peter Drucker and others first articulated in the
1980s started the march towards flatter, more empowered organiza-
tions, more democratic processes (especially in services firms), and
more inclusive decision-making. The "discovery" of the value of high
performance teams and cross-silo collaboration has matured from
anti-hierarchical innovation in the 1980s and 90s to increasingly
common practice in most best-of-class organizations.
Similarly, the "open book management" Jack Stack initiated
during the same era has built a growing acceptance of greater par-
ticipative transparency in the workplace; self-governing initiatives in
different pioneering organizations like W.L. Gore and others have
demonstrated how meritocracy produces both higher engagement
and better operating results. As Jason Baker’s essay in this volume
also points out, many of the open management principles can actu-
13
The Open Organization Field Guide
ally be found in the charters of 19th century cooperative organiza-
tions. And, as Jim Collins and others have ably demonstrated for
years, the power of employee engagement and passion in distin-
guishing "great" from "merely good" organizations.
All that said, just because certain ideas have been around for a
while doesn’t mean they should be discarded or discounted. White-
hurst generously acknowledges the tradition behind much of the
open organization framework, and makes no claim for "first ever" in-
vention of its various principles. And, of course, open management is
itself a descendant of the open source software movement, on which
companies like Red Hat trade.
Adaptive relevance
What is perhaps new—and so Whitehurst’s book implies—is
the combination of the various principles, and their seeming adap-
tive relevance as a coherent habit of practice and thought in a world
that really now differs from the operating environment of even ten
years ago: more-than-ever competitive, more-than-ever intercon-
nected in networks, and more-than-ever putting a premium on
specialized, collaboration-seeking digital-native talent who expect
greater autonomy and responsibility for their own work and deci-
sions.
Not surprisingly, the life span of traditional organizations and
their leaders’ tenure is shrinking. In the dust and ashes of acceler-
ating creative destruction, new business models are rising almost
weekly, most of which in some form or other point towards—or even
embrace—open management kind of ideas: enterprises that are
"crowd sourced" and build value through open communities (e.g.
Github, Kickstarter, Wikipedia, Top Coder, etc.); platform companies
like Task Rabbit, Uber, and others which operate as markets or com-
munities of networked, meritocratically empowered entrepreneurs
or volunteers; product companies that co-create offerings with cus-
tomers (e.g. network companies like Threadless but also now many
Fortune 500 companies too), drawing on passion and collaboration
across boundaries; ecosystems of collaborating partners (e.g. in edu-
cation, environmentalism) that thrive on inclusive decision-making
14
The Open Organization Field Guide
and self-governing principles. Plenty of companies and other enter-
prises are thriving today without being really "open"—but change is
in the wind, and any new model that seems to offer greater speed,
innovation, and engagement of top talent must be seriously weighed
for its potential as a new "best practice."
Frontiers of application and performance
That said, whether this open management paradigm is really
new, newly assembled, or just newly suited to a new operating envi-
ronment at a certain point becomes merely an academic question.
My own guess would be "some combination of all three." Much
more important, however, are the second and third questions posed
above: Does the approach drive better performance in a wide range
of applications and endeavors across our society and economy?
Here, Whitehurst’s book and the essays of this volume show
promising signs of positive answers, but (appropriately) with less
certainty and detail than a fully developed new management system
would require. The Open Organization references several other or-
ganizations successfully working "open," and several essays
following here (e.g. by Fielkow, Branon, Hilliger, Watkins) illuminate
how some or several of the open principles are changing for the bet-
ter work in enterprises beyond Red Hat. Other essays (e.g. by
Hibbets, Savage, and Wike Huger) offer more granular discussion of
open practice at Red Hat itself. But more disciplined and extended
analysis, both at Red Hat and across more non-software examples
are still necessary.
As a movement, open management is gaining adherents, gen-
erating passion among practitioners, and pointing the way towards
working smarter and more agile in many arenas. But it has not yet
achieved the kind of crisp articulation and replicable recipe that
would scientifically demonstrate the kind of taken-for-granted value
that hierarchically structured business organizations of the last gen-
eration have established. Yes, everybody knows that Alfred
Chandler-style command-and-control is becoming less and less effec-
tive in our new networked world—but the jury is still out whether
15
The Open Organization Field Guide
open management will achieve the durable and unquestioned status
as its widely accepted successor someday.
But neither Jim Whitehurst’s book nor this volume of essays is
yet making that assertion. The open management movement’s col-
lective claim remains suitably modest—essentially: "Here’s
something that really seems to work in various situations we know,
and seems to fit pretty well the new way organizations have to work.
But there’s more to learn." One of the great strengths of this move-
ment—true to its own principles—is a rooted understanding that
progress is evolutionary, that the crowd, not any single or limited set
of gurus, will shape the ethos and practices of the "better way of
working." Better practice will become clearer over time, but with no
pre-determined path or necessary endgame as a goal. Whitehurst
authentically acknowledges that, despite the successes of the ap-
proach developing at Red Hat, he’s also encountered plenty of learn-
by-doing failures, and that for all of his understanding, open man-
agement remains "a work in progress."
And thus this volume. The collective spirit of the essays that
follow is consistently that of explorers and tinkerers in search of
progress, not zealots or absolutists preaching the final sermon. Open
management, as Bryan Behrenshausen’s essay reminds us, stands on
the shoulders of the philosophy that gave rise to the Internet itself:
"everything is a request for comment." The next success horizon for
the open management movement will be developing more case ex-
amples and analysis of performance mechanisms—but also more
detailed synthesis of the next round of questions to be explored by
active and would-be practitioners.
With that agenda and hope in mind, please now read on.
December 2015
16
Part 1: Stories from the Trenches
The open organization on main street
Brian Fielkow
I had the opportunity to speak with Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat CEO
and author of The Open Organization, about his book. Because I
also believe that a healthy culture is at the cornerstone of a success-
ful business, Jim and I share a lot of the same philosophies, and he
helped me see more clearly that the concept of an open organization
is the model that drives employee engagement, growth, and contin-
ued improvement.
Our conversation focused specifically on how the ideas in his
book apply to entrepreneurial and “main street” businesses, which
describes my own business, Jetco Delivery, a freight and logistics
company based in Houston, Texas. Business books too often contain
great ideas, but the ideas can be very difficult for many companies
to integrate. Talking with Jim about his concepts and The Open Or-
ganization was refreshing. Red Hat's business model is the blue
print for the future company, regardless of an organization's size.
Bring your front-lines in
Employee passion and engagement is essentially what leads to
customer satisfaction, and the traditional “top down” business
model, centered around hierarchy and dictating from the top, is out-
of-date. I can admit that the trucking industry (and many other “old
economy” businesses) is often behind when it comes to this kind of
thinking. Many times, employees are siloed—you are either an office
employee or a driver—and the two rarely interact in meetings or
when it comes to making decisions for the company as a whole.
I can attest that open organization concepts helped in trans-
forming our business. Our drivers are our front lines, therefore
19
The Open Organization Field Guide
making them the eyes and ears of our company. So it's essential that
they are part of our decision-making, bring us their ideas, and know
that they are included in what happens at the company. In 2013, we
created a Driver Committee, which consists of drivers elected by
their peers. Of course we had our share of naysayers who believed
that what we were actually creating was a union. Call it what you
want, but it's one of the best decisions we've made. A representative
from our Driver Committee is now present at every management and
operations meeting, and we've essentially torn down the silos. Jim's
concept of an open organization works: No matter the size of the
company or the industry, and from my own experiences, it is essen-
tial to employee-engagement and ownership.
An office filled with millennials
According to Jim, “The majority of millennials do not want to
work for large companies.” In his view, the large company is not the
problem; rather, the problem is hierarchy. I can tell you that the
trucking industry is not necessarily the most attractive industry to
join. Yet, when I look around our office, it is full of millennials, and
they're continuing to walk through our door in search of applica-
tions. Why? Culture. We have built an all-inclusive, leadership-
driven, employee-owned culture, and that's what millennials are af-
ter. Business leaders who want to succeed in hiring the best, young
candidates will adapt their business structure over time to accom-
modate unprecedented demand for meaning, flexibility, and
engagement in their work.
The 20/60/20 rule
Part of my conversation with Jim focused around the fact that
we've both experienced attrition when it comes to implementing fun-
damental change. Attrition must be expected, and it's what allows
you to weed out those who are not on board and in-line with your
values. Jim shared that when he led Delta Air Lines through restruc-
turing, his team was required to sign a "Count Me In" agreement,
which established the behaviors expected or offered a severance
package for those who would not sign. About 20 percent of Jim's
20
The Open Organization Field Guide
team left during the restructuring. I've gone through the same
process and like to refer to it as the 20/60/20 Rule. When you begin
to embark on change, 20 percent of your team is going to be on
board; they see where you're going and they are in support of and
trust you. Sixty percent may not be sure about the change, but they
are open-minded. As leaders, our job is to win these 60 percent over.
The final 20 percent are not on board, and they never will be. For
those 20 percent, your job as a leader is to provide them with a
smooth transition out of the company. We must work for the 80 per-
cent. Those are our employees who support our culture, who
understand the reason for change, and who will work to make the
company the best it can be.
Your culture will dictate who stays and who goes
Jim talked with me about old-line thinking that leadership
must weed out the bottom 10 percent of employees each year. We
agreed that the company's culture will eliminate those particular
employees. I can admit that in the past, there have been times when
I brought in hired guns to fill a particular need at my company. Al -
though the actual need initially may have been fulfilled, these
employees often haven't lasted, particularly when they are not in-
line with our culture. An entrepreneurial company will groom lead-
ership around its culture, not the other way around. Hire for values
and cultural alignment; the technical skills can be taught.
My conversation with Jim reiterated my belief that a healthy
company culture is the foundation of a successful business, and, as
leaders, we must be prepared for change and healthy growth while
creating a team of empowered employees. I am grateful to have
learned from Jim and The Open Organization.
Brian Fielkow is CEO of Jetco Delivery, a public speaker, and author
of Driving to Perfection: Achieving Business Excellence by Creating
a Vibrant Culture.
21
What my conversation with GE taught me
about open organizations
Jackie Yeaney
M ost people are familiar with university foreign exchange pro-
grams, where schools send their star students out into the
world to collect experiences and learn beyond their comfort zones.
Fewer people probably know that big companies have internal "exec-
utive MBA" programs their HR departments develop to help fast-
track top performers. Red Hat, where I worked before joining Ellu-
cian, has its own such programs. I once acted as a subject matter
expert for a corporate executive development program with high
performing General Electric (GE) executives. The day I spent with
these leaders was one of my favorites at Red Hat, and it dawned on
me that this could potentially be a sharing model that Red Hat and
others could use more broadly.
These folks were some of GE's brightest talents, tasked with
the challenge of understanding how to build "digital DNA" into a
hundred year-old company. It was a three-week project GE set up as
a tour of various organizations GE felt had mastered the art of build -
ing this digital DNA and creating a culture tailored to the millennial
generation. The company wanted its emerging leaders to learn ev-
erything they could about the way workplaces are changing in the
digital age.
So as part of their tour, they stopped by the Red Hat office in
Atlanta to learn more about our company's unique culture. When I
first received GE's request, I felt baffled that the company thought it
had something to learn from Red Hat. The fact that a high-profile
company like GE continues to evaluate its corporate culture and is
22
The Open Organization Field Guide
willing to reach beyond its walls really impressed me. It was also re-
freshing that these leaders were so candid about the challenges GE
faces as it evolves from an industrial goods company to something
much more.
As luck would have it, I had a handy resource right at my fin-
gertips—my boss's new book, The Open Organization! Red Hat CEO,
Jim Whitehurst, writes about how open source principles have dra-
matically altered the future of management and organizational
leadership. I gave each of our visitors a copy of Jim's book (as well
as Charlene Li's recent book, The Engaged Leader), and we began a
several-hour discussion, talking openly about the cultures of our two
companies.
Sharing stories of everyday life in our organizations was a
great way to break the ice. The GE folks and I may have worked in
very different places, but we soon discovered we shared similar con-
cerns:
• How do we ensure our companies innovate and respond
quickly enough to our fast-paced market environments?
• How can we stay agile so that decision-making doesn't suffer
as we continue to grow?
• How do we continue to attract and retain up-and-coming
workers who demand more autonomy and purpose at work?
• How do we maintain what we're known for while also being
flexible and adaptable for what is coming?
Our conversation was enlightening for both sides. For exam-
ple, we discussed at length the place and role of metrics in
organizations today. We all agreed that becoming obsessed with the
most minute details of numbers was a constant danger, especially
given the flood of information now available. But our visitors were
clearly shocked when I told them Red Hat doesn't track the kinds of
metrics GE does. Instead, Red Hat leaders expect associates to de-
fine their goals and corresponding metrics, because we trust the
judgment of the people closest to the problems we're trying to solve
collectively. And we feel associates can make these decisions be-
cause we've ensured that they all thoroughly understand the
company's mission, purpose, and strategy. I was being completely
23
The Open Organization Field Guide
honest when I told our visitors that I've never lost a wink of sleep
wondering whether Red Hatters understand and embrace our mis-
sion. That's just something I take for granted in an open
organization like ours.
We also discussed the role feedback plays in our decision-mak-
ing practices. I told GE leaders how lucky I feel to be working
closely with associates who'll tell me when something isn't going
well (or when they don't agree with me!). I have zero fear that peo-
ple on my team are just nodding in agreement, or that issues will
grow so large that they become extremely difficult to fix. When we
have an issue or conflict in Marketing at Red Hat, we tend to set up
quick (30-day), cross-functional "tiger teams" to hit the problem
straight on. In traditional organizations, mandates and solutions
tend to flow from leaders down to their subordinates, whose job is to
carry out those mandates—not question them. Today's workforce is
smarter than I am; I need their insights and creativity to find the
right solutions. And they demand—and deserve—a culture that val-
ues their input, not simply their obedience. Open organizations tend
to attract this kind of talent, I said.
During the visit, I was actually able to demonstrate firsthand
the power of an open organization's collaborative atmosphere. Red
Hat CIO Lee Congdon joined me so we could explain how we part-
nered together as CIO-CMO (an increasingly hot topic these days).
We used our joint effort of re-launching redhat.com as a specific ex-
ample. As anyone who's built something of this size knows,
constructing a website like ours involves multiple stakeholders with
all kinds of talents. A website needs to be technically sound (well
programmed and speedy), but also easy to navigate and beautiful to
look at. It should also embody a company's voice and brand. So
when we set to work overhauling redhat.com, we formed a collabo-
rative working group composed of experts in both web design and
branding. It was another wonderful cross-cultural experience, as de-
signers learned to work according to the principles of agile
development, and developers learned to build resources that reflect
our brand. We were proud to tell our visitors about such a successful
partnership.
24
The Open Organization Field Guide
In the end, our new friends from GE felt like they'd gleaned
some practical tips for continuing to evolve GE's corporate culture.
They especially appreciated the way each of The Open Organiza-
tion's chapters ends with concrete and actionable tips from Jim for
making a workplace more open, collaborative, transparent, and mer-
itocratic—all characteristics they'd like to foster in the GE of the
future. Shortly after we parted, I received a note from one of the at-
tendees, who thanked me for helping the group explore issues they
otherwise "couldn't see by looking in the mirror."
Jackie Yeaney is Chief Marketing Officer at Ellucian.
25
How I learned the difference between a
community and an audience
Phil Branon
I t's not every day that your CEO gives you a telephone ring, so I
definitely remember the day mine phoned me. He'd called to tell
me about a puzzling voicemail he'd just received.
I was a consultant for a tech community website and the team
was rolling out a major site renovation. Our goal was to modernize
the look and functionality of the site and, equally importantly, better
monetize it so it could survive and thrive in the long term.
Apparently, however, not everyone welcomed the changes
we'd made. In fact, that's why the CEO was calling me: an active and
passionate member of the website's community, someone irked by
our alterations, had found his home phone number and called him
directly to protest. And he wanted me to intervene.
For some time, I'd known that working with audiences for digi-
tal websites differed dramatically from working with audiences for
more traditional, print publications. In the late 1990s, I was the pub-
lisher at InfoWorld. And after that, I worked with the TechRepublic
team, where I helped build one of the first community-focused news
sites on the Net. I did the same at IT Business Edge, my next ven-
ture.
Now here I was again, faced once more with what I'd come to
recognize as an incontrovertible truth: When you run a digital publi-
cation, you're not simply serving an audience. You're participating in
a community.
And that makes quite a difference.
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The Open Organization Field Guide
Changing times
In the pre-Internet era, approaching an audience was fairly
straightforward. You'd simply select a segment of the market you
wanted to reach, choose content that's important to that segment,
tailor it for them, and then serve it to them. Publishing veterans
know this as the "controlled circulation" method. It's rather scien-
tific and "top-down." Over the years, we'd gotten pretty good at it.
But digital audiences can be vastly different. The ones I'd
helped build certainly were. Communities gathered around websites
often take responsibility for generating not only the sites' content,
but also their rules, norms, and etiquette. They feel intensely in-
vested in the websites' offerings, cultures, and reputations. And they
react strongly when they feel something—or someone—has threat-
ened these things.
Many years of working with the communities that surround
high-profile online media have taught me several important lessons
about leading them:
• Authenticity is key. Communities of readers can tell when
you're working with their best interests at heart. They can
also tell when you're not. They'll question your motives, and
they'll debate whatever agendas they think you have. So be
yourself, own your decisions, and put the community first. If
you don't, your audience won't just desert you—they'll burn
the building down on the way out.
• Check your ego. Individual personalities can run rampant
in traditional publishing. Pundits reign, and rock star au-
thors command the spotlight. But publishing online to a
community means forgetting the cult of the author. Here,
you're not so much an editor as you are a facilitator, some-
one who works to coordinate the wishes of the group. If you
do this the right way, you'll essentially become invisible—and
that's as it should be.
• Be transparent. When making decisions, involve the web-
site's community. Always. If people feel like they're not
involved in the publication's direction or destiny—or, worse,
27
The Open Organization Field Guide
if they feel like they're being duped in some way—they're not
going to remain part of your site's audience. Turn decision-
making over to your community and allow them to help you
construct the site's rules and norms. Transparency works in
two directions: you must not only listen (really listen) to the
feedback your community gives you, but also be clear and
candid when explaining your decisions and the reasons
you've made them.
Lesson learned
That last point is especially crucial. I wish I'd taken it to heart
when working on that website redesign—because I called that angry
reader back. We talked for quite a while, as a matter of fact. And the
more we chatted, the more something became clear to me: We'd
failed to help our community understand the context for the changes
we wanted to make.
The reality was this: the website needed to be economically vi-
able so it could sustain itself and remain the place its readers knew
and loved (after all, running servers costs money). But we should
have communicated this to our community and asked for their help
developing a solution. We should have drawn key contributors into
our planning process and made changes even more incrementally,
continually checking in with our community along the way. Instead,
we temporarily forgot the difference between serving an audience
and assisting a community, and our readers let us know it.
The call ended well, but I still haven't forgotten about it. It
continues to remind me just how much audiences today are different
from audiences of the past. For one thing, they're certainly not
afraid to tell you what they think—even if you're the CEO.
Forget that, and you'd better be ready to spend some time on
the telephone.
28
The Open Organization Field Guide
Phil Branon is a digital media and data services executive, entrepre-
neur, and advisor. He is actively involved in today's dynamic digital
media and data services industries—as an operational executive, ad-
visor, and angel investor—focusing in particular on the areas of data
services, performance-based marketing, lead generation, and behav-
ioral targeting. Phil is currently vice president of sales for the
technology market at Dun & Bradstreet.
29
Measuring the performance of a community
manager
Jason Hibbets
I n an open organization, measuring performance for particular
roles like community managers may not be straightforward, es-
pecially when comparing those roles to others with more defined
success metrics, goals, and outcomes. In my experience over the
past six years, I've worked closely with my manager to make sure
that we are in sync with my objectives and what I need to do in or-
der to maximize my impact in my role as a community manager.
In "Managing Performance When It's Hard to Measure" from
Harvard Business Review8, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst explains
how to capture difficult-to-measure output and reward influence in
an organization. The key points in the article resonated with me as I
thought about my role with Opensource.com. I know not everyone
has the same experience at Red Hat, but I'd like to take a look at
how the work I do compares to Jim's assessment of how we measure
performance in our organization.
Measuring the unmeasurable
First, Jim talks about measuring unpredictable output:
"What about the kinds of jobs where measuring some-
one's "output" isn't about counting the number of
widgets they produced, but rather it's about how they
managed a team or influenced others or helped people
collaborate better?"
8 https://hbr.org/2015/05/managing-performance-when-its-hard-to-measure
30
The Open Organization Field Guide
In my role as a community manager for Opensource.com, I
don't directly manage people. I play an "influencer" role with both
my internal team and our extended team of community moderators 9
and contributors10. I do not have the managerial power to give some-
one a direct order. However, my leadership style incorporates this
knowledge and I will often suggest tasks and objectives that would
benefit our community. I strive to explain the larger benefit and try
to make the connection to what I'm asking and how it's part of our
larger mission.
For example, we provide social media training to our commu-
nity moderators. We fire up a video conference for an hour, share
some of the best practices and techniques we're using, and teach
our key contributors to maximize their social media impact. Those
able to join have gained crucial experience learning how to use so-
cial media to further the website's mission. I can't demand that all of
our community moderators participate, but I can ensure that those
who do receive tremendous value from the sessions, where we share
knowledge and strategy honed over the past few years of running
Opensource.com's various social media accounts.
How do you measure the impact of a training session like this?
We don't have time to follow each of our moderators streams on vari-
ous social media outlets and track what they do on a daily basis.
Instead, we measure the number of attendees at the training and
continue to monitor the overall social media numbers we already
track (followers, engagement, mentions, incoming traffic). Anyone
who works with social media knows that measuring its impact de-
pends on what you're trying to achieve. Measuring a community
manager's influence with social media is about as unpredictable as
you can get.
The fact of the matter is, community managers do many little
things beyond social media. They have so many interactions with
their community members that can be difficult to track—which is
why finding ways to measure our impact is really important. My
9 https://opensource.com/opensourcecom-team
10 https://opensource.com/should-be/spotlight
31
The Open Organization Field Guide
manager and I both recognize that so many one-on-one interactions
—emails, Tweets, and private messages—go uncaptured in the daily
grind. This is why we focus on bigger objectives like recruiting new
community moderators or bringing new authors into our community.
It's my responsibility to map those smaller interactions to larger
goals.
Staying in the same chapter
In his article, Jim also talks about how to stay in sync with
your manager:
"We've found that it's essential to make sure that asso-
ciates and their managers are on the same page when it
comes to the responsibilities and expectations for the
role."
My manger and I use two mechanisms to accomplish this.
First, we have a one-on-one meeting every week. In this meeting, I
am free to raise questions, concerns, objectives, or bring forward
new ideas. My manager also brings a list of things to check on. More
importantly, we use this time to discuss any objectives that may be
changing or need adjustment—which happens more often than you
may think. Sometimes, it's more like making sure we're in the same
chapter and then navigating to the same page.
The second mechanism is a weekly 30-60-90 meeting with the
entire team. We use this time to check in on medium- and long-term
objectives—things that we normally wouldn't be able to accomplish
because of our daily grind. We set reasonable objectives that we
want to accomplish, such as creating a new resource page (think,
"What is Linux?"11) and set a target date. We use our weekly meet-
ings to check on our progress, share our results, and make
adjustments.
A general example of being “in sync” may be trying to capture
how I spend my time. I will often speak at various open source con-
ferences or attend local meet-ups in the Raleigh-Durham area. My
11 https://opensource.com/resources/what-is-linux
32
The Open Organization Field Guide
manager and I jokingly talk about giving me a GPS tracker—not to
track where I am at each moment, but to try and capture all of
things I do and places I go as a community manager that aren't easy
to keep track of in a "normal way" for, say, performance reviews.
And when it comes time for performance reviews, the 30-60-
90 goals are captured and documented throughout the year. Doing
this makes it easy to go back and look at those medium- and long-
term objectives to help tell the story of the bigger picture around
performance.
Seizing the opportunity
The last thing I'll discuss is something for which I really re-
spect my manager. Jim writes the following final point:
"Managers focus on opportunities, not score-keeping."
This is very true in my role; however, I only recently recog-
nized this was happening after being with my manager for several
years.
After celebrating Opensource.com's fifth anniversary, I had a
chance to reflect on some of our accomplishments and the various
roles I've played over the years. What I realized is that my manager
was always looking for the next opportunity and pushing me, in an
encouraging way, to explore and execute.
A recent example is a project I've been working on for about a
year. We've had many discussions about updating the main naviga-
tion for Opensource.com. The teams felt like the old menu had
outlived the site's original mission to organize content around lim-
ited topic areas (business, education, government, health, law, and
life). Since the launch of Opensource.com, we've expanded into
many other topics such as open hardware, HFOSS, DevOps, and
much more—and it wasn't easy to rip out the menu and drop in some
new code. Change is hard, right?
We've been working on updating the site architecture and nav-
igation for months, thinking about how we match the current
content with future needs. I've had many discussions with my man-
ager about changing this, and I was finally able to make the case
33
The Open Organization Field Guide
about why this was important. I was able to bring this opportunity to
my manager, who let me pursue the changes that needed to be made
and work with my team to make the right decisions.
Jim talks about managers focusing on opportunities—and I
know this is true in my situation. Over the years, I've learned that
associates also need to have the confidence to present opportunities
they see that warrant further exploration to their managers. Don't
be afraid to share your thinking and ideas for constant improvement.
How do you measure the impact of a community
manager?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to measuring the impact
of a community manager. And that's the point Jim is trying to make
when he writes that "a traditional performance review rating could
never capture the kind of influence [someone] has built inside our
organization and the communities we participate in."
There is only one constant: change. If associates are aware of
this and stay in sync with their managers, then performance reviews
shouldn't be a surprise during the annual review process. Why? Be-
cause constant communication is key, and giving people like me
freedom to make front-line decisions is what makes an open organi-
zation thrive. Those one-on-one meetings are a great time to check
in to get direction, clarification, and even confidence.
When setting goals, don't stretch beyond what is achievable.
Our 30-60-90 is flexible enough to capture bigger goals and allows
us to adjust along the way. In making those adjustments, be willing
to open up a discussion on what measurements make sense for per-
formance reviews and team objectives. Flexibility, communication,
and collaboration are essentials for thriving in an open organization.
Jason Hibbets is a senior community evangelist at Red Hat, where
he is a community manager for Opensource.com. He has been with
Red Hat since 2003 and enjoys surfing, running, gardening, and
traveling in his spare time.
34
Everyone changes lightbulbs in an open
organization
Pete Savage
A t a previous organization, I had a good relationship with the
administration staff. I purchased large amounts of goods, and
that staff helped my team with our purchase orders. In turn, we'd
help the staff with other tasks—such as changing burnt-out lighting
tubes in the office. One day, another member of the organization was
visiting when a call for me came in. It was my good friend from the
front desk, asking me to help her change one of those lighting tubes.
"Sure," I said, and I explained to our visitor, who was checking
her emails, that I would be back in a few moments. I returned to the
adjacent office, ladder in hand, and within a few moments we
switched out the tube.
A few weeks later, I was on the phone with our visitor's man-
ager. He started joking about the lighting tube incident, but was also
seriously questioning why I'd bother getting involved. He insisted
that it wasn't my job, that I had more important things to do, that
someone else could have handled it. What he failed to see, of course,
was the relationship I'd built—and the hours of time that relation-
ship saved me when I had purchase order problems that had to be
resolved immediately.
This was just one example of something people in that organi-
zation didn't comprehend. But for the past two years, I've worked at
an open organization—Red Hat—and I'm surrounded by people who
do comprehend that special something.
Associates here do help each other out; we work as a commu-
nity to achieve our goals. We're not isolated as individuals or teams;
35
The Open Organization Field Guide
we come together as a truly organic workforce, focused on achieving
our goals, and we're not afraid to get our hands dirty to help each
other when needs arise. That is the power of collaboration. That is
the power of an open organization.
I strongly recommend reading Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst's
book, The Open Organization, which discusses Jim's transition from
leading a traditional, hierarchical organization (Delta Air Lines) to
an open source software company. As I read the book, a smile kept
creeping across my face. I've read a few books on similar subjects,
but this one is different. I don't know Jim personally, and because I
have no real interaction with him on a daily basis, as I read I kept
thinking, "Gee where does this guy work again? I want to work there
—oh wait, I do!" Cue more grinning.
What was so refreshing for me was the fact that Jim's many
thoughts about Red Hat, its culture, its direction, and its strengths
were in complete alignment with my own. In other companies at
which I've worked, I've always felt a disconnect between the way I
view the company and the way senior management sees it. I always
found this frustrating, but after two years at Red Hat and one trip
through the book, I can honestly say that Red Hat management not
only shares my feelings about the company, but also works to guard
the things that make it special. This is very powerful.
Sharing with others, collaborating, and working together are
what make Red Hat what it is. Our ability to "give back" gives us an
edge that many other companies don't have and never want. Truly,
the best part of my day occurs when I can click a button and share
what I've done with others in my team, my company, and ultimately
(and most importantly) the rest of the world. This is what I tell peo-
ple who ask me "What's the best thing about working at Red Hat?"
The communication, the debates, and the constant drive to ex-
cel at what we do is also refreshing. While I was working at a
previous company (and was much younger—and probably quite
naive), I was in a meeting with the management of the information
technology organization, to whom I voiced an opinion about the way
a particular project was going. The person in charge of the project
wasn't really giving answers, and in my naivety I couldn't under-
36
The Open Organization Field Guide
stand why. So I pressed further. Instead of receiving answers, I re-
ceived a subject only email from my boss. It read: "Stop talking ...
now!"
He later he told me that I'd done no harm, and that all was
well. I apologized profusely for voicing my concerns, but in the back
of my head was a little voice that wanted to know why certain topics
had been off limits. (Even funnier: when I spoke to a good friend who
worked as a manager in Germany, she told me not to worry because,
in her words, I was "just like the little puppy that pees on the carpet
and everyone laughs and thinks it's cute"—gee, thanks!)
Here's what I love about Red Hat: although the debates do of-
ten get heated, though they are passionately fuel-injected, we
actually have them! We actually ask, publicly, "why!" Yes, our discus-
sions can be crazy, and sometimes they go off the rails, but the
community nearly always swiftly steers them back on track, and we
end up in a place where everyone is better off for having them.
One final thought: open organizations like Red Hat understand
how important finding one's "sweet spot" can be. I love the fact that
if associates are not happy in their roles, then Red Hat does its level
best find somewhere for them to be happy. Other organizations can
seem entirely uncompromising, like places where people are treated
as cookie cutter resources. There, if you're a gingerbread baker who
doesn't like baking anymore—well, then, tough cookies (pun in-
tended)!
Being part of an open organization means embracing a certain
ethos. Every day, I see people around me embracing that ethos—an
ethos that's been part of Red Hat since the company's first days. And
it remains something for which I'm truly thankful.
Pete Savage is an open source advocate who has been active in the
open source community for more than 10 years. He now works for
Red Hat as a quality engineer for the CloudForms product.
37
Have you revised your goals lately?
Merry Beekman
P ablo Picasso, one of the greatest and most influential artists of
the 20th century, once said, "Our goals can only be reached
through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and
upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to suc-
cess." It's true: today, having a goal strategy is one of the most
important leadership tools you have for achieving professional suc-
cess.
Recently, in support of Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst's book,
The Open Organization, several blog posts on Opensource.com and a
Harvard Business Review article12 have discussed performance man-
agement. These writings prompted me to think about my own
experience at Red Hat and, more specifically, about how being goal
driven is an essential ingredient to one's professional career as well
as company success.
An 'a-ha' experience
From 2004 to 2005, I was fortunate to be part of a Red Hat
leadership program called Brave New World (BNW). Led by the com-
pany's People team, the program required each participant to chose
a company-wide initiative for a year-long assignment. With guidance
from a coach and an executive sponsor, each project team re-
searched the area, developed recommendations, gained executive
approval, and executed an improvement plan for their respective
programs.
12 https://hbr.org/2015/05/managing-performance-when-its-hard-to-measure
38
The Open Organization Field Guide
I chose to join the performance management team. Although it
didn't seem as glamorous or creative as other projects, it was one
aimed at a very tangible outcome: empowering Red Hatters (asso-
ciates) to achieve goals and align their contributions to the
company's vision. During that year, I had the incredible opportunity
to bond with a bright and passionate team. I learned not only about
the benefits of a world-class performance management system, but
also about valuing teams, championing ideas, and achieving goals.
How I thought about goals changed significantly. It was an "a-ha" ex-
perience.
Even today, these five steps to more specific, inclusive, and ac-
tionable goals remain an essential part of my leadership strategy.
You can use them whether you work in an open organization like Red
Hat, a Fortune 500 company, or the next big startup.
1. Setting goals, walking the walk
I found having a goal strategy in a flexible performance man-
agement system (like the one at Red Hat) is important to thriving in
an open organization's culture of transparency and participation.
First and foremost, you alone are in charge of setting your
goals. You must take steps to understand what the team, the depart-
ment, and the company are trying to achieve, then determine how
your role aligns with those goals. If you are regularly accountable
for setting, executing, communicating, and assessing your goals, you
can be very effective as a leader of a project or team. Do you walk
the walk?
2. Goals are change agents
Goals introduce an accountability factor. Smart goals are those
that act as change agents. You set them for yourself with guidance
and approval from your manager. The role of the people manager,
then, is identifying goals, simplifying them, managing regular dis-
cussions, and keeping everyone accountable when the daily
whirlwind starts to compete with them. Here are three focus areas I
use in setting goals:
39
The Open Organization Field Guide
Business-focused goals
Responsibilities are what you do every day, but a business goal
is one focused on a value add—something aligned with your team,
department, and company's goals. For example, "keeping the web-
site from experiencing unplanned downtime" is a responsibility, but
"creating and executing a multi-level plan for 100 percent web site
resiliency by Sept. 1" is a business goal related to that core responsi-
bility.
Team initiative goals
Team-wide initiative goals focus on improving productivity, in-
troducing innovation, or solving a problem. Once they select an
initiative, team members work together to set goals, develop a plan,
and execute that plan in (typically) a six-month time frame. For ex-
ample, a significant product launch is happening later in the year,
and it affects both your team and the stakeholders you support. In
the past, confusion and misinformation have impacted your team's
productivity and effectiveness. As a people manager, your goal is to
streamline communications so your team receives the most accurate
information and the product launch team receives valuable feed-
back. Once you assign an initiative to a team, that team identifies
needs and goals, creates the action plan, and gains approval prior to
execution.
Professional development goals
This goal is related to applying what you learned while com-
pleting training, attending a conference, or reading books. Don't
stop with being a better subject matter expert. For example, let's say
you want to become Hub Spot inbound marketing certified 13. That's
a partial goal. A more valuable goal is building a marketing cam -
paign based on specific, repeatable best practices that you can share
with your team.
13 http://academy.hubspot.com/certification
40
The Open Organization Field Guide
3. Smart goals adapt to the business
Having a flexible and repeatable goal framework has many
benefits, including recognizing individual achievement, building
highly capable teams, enabling collaboration, and transparency
within an organization. The teams I lead rarely have one goal for
more than two quarters. To be effective, relevant goals have a short
life span and we accomplish, retire, or sometimes cancel them on a
regular basis.
When setting annual goals (even with a six-month review
process), consider how effectively your goals will drive project suc-
cess and professional development on a "30-60-90-day" basis 14. What
would make them more effective? Do some goals need to be up-
dated, retired, or cancelled? In my experience, short-term, simple
goals are more effective for building confidence, learning lessons,
and responding to changes in business.
4. Goals are collaboration tools
How informed are you about your colleagues' and team's
goals? How about the goals of other departments? To be a success-
ful, you must align your goals with other teams in your department—
as well as the long-term company vision. Doing this empowers you to
break down any communication silos and enable your team and de-
partment to have a broader impact. It can also lead to higher job
satisfaction. Start by sharing your goals, learning about others, and
finding places of overlap where you can collaborate for even bigger
success.
5. Next steps
Look at your personal goals and those of your team. Are they
aligned well with your organization's overall direction? Do any goals
need to be updated, retired, or canceled? If you lead a team, what
incremental changes are necessary in the next six months to help
your team be more collaborative, more productive, and accomplish
14 https://opensource.com/open-organization/15/6/measuring-community-
manager-performance
41
The Open Organization Field Guide
their goals? How knowledgeable are you about your colleagues'
goals?
Pablo Picasso was an exceptionally gifted artist and was uni-
versally recognized for his revolutionary accomplishments, not only
because of his very special talent but also in large part because he
was goal driven. Don't underestimate the power of goals. Specific,
inclusive, and actionable ones are your most important vehicles for
leadership success. As a result of your mastery, you will be rewarded
by having your ideas accepted, by seeing your teams accomplish
their goals, and by being valued for your efforts.
Merry Beekman is an information technology and services market-
ing executive with expertise in strategic planning, demand
generation and marketing operations. She has been recognized for
increasing alignment with sales, marketing, and business units to
achieve objectives, and distinguished for building highly skilled and
empowered teams.
42
Part 2: Engagements
Should open source leaders go native?
Brook Manville
A nthropologists who traveled to the jungle to study various
tribes would debate (half jokingly) whether to "go native 15"—
that is, whether to adopt the lifestyle of the people they were trying
to understand, or to keep their distance (and scientific objectivity). It
was a research design choice, but also a fundamental choice about
one's identity as a more-than-interested visitor.
Leaders in the new world of networks and virtual communities
face a similar identity choice. With more leaders taking advantage of
informally connected talent, the "wisdom of crowds," and open
source innovation, how much should they try to "go native"? Should
they operate as members of the networks they want to work with
them? Or should they somehow try to manage them from the out-
side?
Networks, communities, and Joy's Law
At first, it might seem like a false choice. Common wisdom
says networks can't be managed, that they're allergic to leadership
of any kind. But today many leaders clearly take advantage of infor-
mal and open source networks for achieving their strategic goals. In
some cases they take the "native" route and act as "members," using
their personal influence or relationships to mobilize other talented
"colleagues" to pursue a project with them. In other instances, they
stand apart but offer soft and hard incentives to engage a network
or community of volunteers to come on board. In both cases, they
are (in some sense of the word), leading a network. It's a challenge
15 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go_native
45
The Open Organization Field Guide
more and more leaders are taking on, realizing that a decade ago
Bill Joy16 got it right: in the talent-rich but more loosely organized
and hyperconnected world, "most of the smartest people don't actu-
ally work for you." But as a leader you still have to figure out how to
make them part of what you're trying to do.
Red Hat is Exhibit A for Joy's Law. Many of the smartest peo-
ple in the Linux software movement don't work for Red Hat, but the
company depends on networks of volunteers to pursue its strategy of
providing value-added integration products. And that's presumably
why the culture there echoes many of the same freedom-loving, self-
governing, open source values of the movement itself. Both move-
ment and corporation are comprised of networks of people with
knowledge, experience, and critical relationships keyed to the suc-
cess of Linux. They share methods for working and seeing the world
that old-time anthropologists might call positively tribal.
Going native (or not) at Red Hat
So unsurprisingly, the question of whether to "go native" was
an early threshold choice for Jim Whitehurst, as the Red Hat CEO re-
counts in his lively leadership meditation, The Open Organization.
The book is a fascinating case study of leadership in a network-cen-
tric world. From the day Whitehurst started interviewing, he saw
that to get the CEO job (and thrive in it) he would have to become
part of open source culture—a culture radically different from the
one he previously commanded-and-controlled (as COO of Delta Air
Lines). Gone were the privileged parking, corner office, and habitual
employee deference of the gentile airline company. Welcome to net-
works of initiative, anywhere/anytime debates, meritocracy
regardless of position, and strong community-style values.
And Whitehurst embraced them all with the increasing zeal of
a missionary. The book features anecdote after anecdote of the wis-
dom of going native. It praises the ways opinionated Red Hatters
have taught him how a contrarian idea can yield a better result; it
reflects on how a deeply experienced engineer persuaded him to re-
16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Joy
46
The Open Organization Field Guide
verse a major software decision; it ruminates on how designing pro-
grams with mass participant involvement creates more value for all
involved. Jim Whitehurst's glass overfloweth with the people-centric
Kool-Aid17 of network and open source thinking: when those with
knowledge and stake in a major new direction help design it, the
change always goes more smoothly.
The world already contains plenty of management lore about
the benefits of "empowered workplaces18." The more interesting
question is how best to achieve that objective when one is still CEO
with a certain obligation to "control" people who do, well, ultimately
report to you. How, in fact, does a leader of networks keep from
"turning the zoo over to the animals" (to borrow one of Whitehurst's
own phrases)? When and how does one need to stop "going native"
and return to one's identity as The Boss?
Experimenting with role and identity
Here Whitehurst's book is less expansive than one might wish.
But clearly his leadership journey has involved the constant experi-
mentation with role and identity typical of someone who is
sometimes in charge and sometimes only barely so. His stories are
full of paradoxical reference to both hierarchical positions in the
company (head of this or that function; "senior leadership team")
and leadership based on community meritocracy. He sometimes de-
scribes himself as CEO and other times simply "a leader" (singular,
i.e. one of many at Red Hat); still other times he just seems like one
of the crowd.
But The Open Organization does offer valuable insights about
managing the inevitable native and non-native tensions of someone
attempting to foster networks and communities while also leading a
public corporation. Sometimes Whitehurst simply has to step out of
the community role and be CEO for reasons of external accountabil-
ity (e.g., to shareholders or regulators). The "leader," as this CEO
17 https://opensource.com/open-organization/15/7/open-organizations-kool-
aid
18 http://www.managementexchange.com/
47
The Open Organization Field Guide
also writes, must ensure that all the company's great engagement
company gets "scaled up" (e.g., by creating platforms of communica-
tion). That leader, more than any member of the community, must
also ensure that energetic debates about work don't become person-
ally toxic or chaotically spin out of control; he or she must channel
the cultural passion and purpose of the organization in ways that ac-
tually drive company success. CEO, not community native, must set
limits to how much "creative time" associates spend on "what-if"
projects that might not yield real ROI.
This Red Hat leader is most explicit when he discusses the
classically hierarchical concept of "setting direction for the organiza-
tion." Here Whitehurst insists his role is not like Jack Welch at GE
(or most other CEOs, for that matter); rather, he acts as a "catalyst:
an agent that provokes or speeds change or action." Sometimes he's
just one more native helping to foment a productive revolution;
other times he's curating and gently controlling the ever-creative
crowd.
Leadership and boundaries
Whitehurst's identity as a leader (one he humbly concedes re-
mains a "work in progress") is full of tension, and the real source of
this tension is clear: Though this CEO defines the "open organiza-
tion" as one that engages "participative communities both inside and
out," he still references a boundary between internal and external
communities. Even though he embraces open source culture, White-
hurst is actually overseeing one community of networks (Red Hat)
within a broader collection of even more networks (like the Linux
movement, over which he has little control). Both must be engaged—
Red Hat services are dependent on the broader "product" of the
movement—but the CEO's ultimate loyalty must be to the more im-
mediate stakeholders of the corporation: employees, shareholders,
and formal partners of Red Hat. Red Hat (the corporation) ultimately
does require more traditional supervision than the open movement
would ever allow.
48
The Open Organization Field Guide
The high wire act
Judging by the company's performance, Whitehurst must cer-
tainly be managing the native/non-native identity question. As an
outsider looking in, I'd guess he's finding just the right balance be-
tween joining the tribe and making sure it achieves the right kind of
accountable collaboration to grow and thrive.
It's a high-wire leadership act that bears further observation.
In the new open source and hyperconnected world, leaders must
practice managing concentric circles of collective community pro-
duction—and navigating the balance between "freedom" and
"accountability." Joy's Law will become ever more true. The need for
leaders to reinvent their mindsets and behaviors will only become
more critical. Network leaders everywhere should hope for a second
volume of The Open Organization.
Brook Manville is Principal of Brook Manville LLC, a research and
consulting practice in metro Washington DC. Brook serves a variety
of mission-focused organizations on issues of strategy, organization,
and leadership. A former partner of McKinsey & Co, he's the author
of books and articles related to leadership and knowledge-based
strategy. In addition to blogging for Opensource.com, Brook writes
regularly for Forbes.com and HBR.org.
49
When everything's a request for comments
Bryan Behrenshausen
T he Internet's foundational documents are called "requests for
comments" or "RFCs." Published by the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), the organization whose stated goal is "to make
the Internet work better," RFCs define and explain 19 the operational
standards by which our worldwide network of networks functions. In
other words, they specify the rules everyone should follow when
building and implementing new Internet technologies. Engineers
working on the Internet discuss potential RFCs, debate their merits,
then post their decisions online for anyone to read.
People have been publishing RFCs for decades (Steve Crocker
wrote the first one20 in 1969). By maintaining a common set of rules
(technical standards the group typically calls "protocols"), the IETF
ensures that the Internet continues to work the same way for every-
one—and that everyone can participate in its evolution. Even though
the process for ratifying RFCs has changed throughout the past four
decades, the name of these documents never has. Since the early
days of ARPANET, people have been making requests for comments.
I've always liked this convention. Calling the Internet's found-
ing documents "requests for comments" reinforces the idea that the
Internet—this thing that facilitates so many participatory projects
worldwide—is itself an ongoing collaborative effort, something open
to continual re-evaluation and revision. As the IETF notes 21, the
19 http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-index.html
20 http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1.txt
21 http://www.ietf.org/newcomers.html
50
The Open Organization Field Guide
name "expresses something important: the Internet is a constantly
changing technical system, and any document that we write today
may need to be updated tomorrow." The group doesn't dictate "stan-
dards." It doesn't mandate "policies." It just makes "requests for
comments." What could function as a definitive declaration instead
becomes an invitation. And so the conversations continue.
I often think about RFCs when I'm going about my work in an
open organization. Every day, I find myself closing emails and con-
versations with phrases like "let me know what you think" and
"feedback welcome." I often tell people I "want to know what you
think about this," or that I "could use your opinion on something." In
fact, because so much work in open organizations is collaborative, I
find myself doing this more often than not—so often indeed that I've
recently begun to wonder if I'm being redundant.
Like each IETF technical specification, every communication
in an open organization should be an invitation to refine, re-work,
and ultimately improve the project at hand. No one needs to include
the phrase "feedback welcome" on an official RFC; the nature of the
document itself simply implies the solicitation. Regardless of
whether I explicitly ask someone for input, I must certainly expect to
receive it—because in an open organization, every gesture should be
inclusive by default.
It's not always an appealing prospect. As Jim Whitehurst
writes in The Open Organization, working inclusively can slow deci-
sion making, as incorporating multiple perspectives requires
precious time and energy. But being inclusive can actually speed up
implementation, making change management easier. When people
aren't surprised by a decision you've made (after all, they helped you
arrive at that decision), they more willingly help you carry it out.
So I plan to save myself a few keystrokes, recognizing instead
that in open organizations everything is a request for comments. As
always, I welcome your feedback. (Ed: Redundant)
Bryan Behrenshausen has been a writer and editor at Opensource.-
com team since 2011.
51
What organizations can learn from open
culture and technologies
Margaret Dawson
T hey say life imitates art. But, I believe life imitates technology.
Look at distributed systems, decentralized computing, open
source, and lean principles. With these and other technical initia-
tives, we've pushed boundaries and improved our applications, our
networks, our companies, and our lives.
We can develop and deploy new applications in minutes rather
than in weeks or months.
We can communicate with strangers and loved ones around
the globe in milliseconds.
We can create random crowds of investors, who together can
fund a person's dream.
We can secure our data without having to lock down our net-
works.
Today, our lives and our work have all the ingredients to be de-
centralized, distributed, open, and agile.
And yet, while our lives often imitate the very technologies
that enable us to do these amazing things, one aspect has not
changed for most of us: organizational culture.
Most organizations today remain highly centralized and hier-
archical, with minimal flexibility and speed, and with decisions
following a waterfall top-down process.
No wonder most people remain unhappy at work.
52
The Open Organization Field Guide
Open culture, open organization
However, just as many companies and countries attempted
and failed to stop the inevitable flow of information the Internet
brought, so will companies fail if they continue to ignore the possi-
bilities of being an open, agile organization.
This topic of running organizations differently has been on my
mind lately, as several books and articles I've read all started to
come together around these themes. Some of these include:
• The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries
• Lead with Respect, by Michael Ballé and Freddy Ballé
• The Open Organization, by Jim Whitehurst
• An article in Forbes on Thai Lee 22, the founder and CEO of
SHI, the largest female-owned business in America.
All of these stories depict a corporate culture nirvana, one that
is both respectful and intense—a seeming dichotomy. As I was read-
ing Lead with Respect, I kept thinking, "this is great, but does any
company actually function this way?"
My initial response was "no."
I have experienced more than my share of leadership by
yelling, companies struggling with what Jim calls the "elephant in
the room" problem (where everyone tiptoes around the CEO and is
afraid to tell the truth just to try to keep the leader happy). In these,
organizational title is more important than accountability.
However, few companies and leaders appear to truly exemplify
openness, transparency, and respect. In The Open Organization,
Whitehurst refers to several, like Whole Foods, Starbucks, and, of
course, Red Hat, where he is CEO.
While none of these organizations professes to getting it all
right, their stories share common principles.
22 http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2015/05/27/thai-lee-shi-
international/
53
The Open Organization Field Guide
A few key principles
The same is true of the articles and books I mention above.
Each illustrates this new organizational paradigm differently; how-
ever, they discuss several key concepts.
Empowerment
Hire great people and give them ability to make decisions. For
example, in lean organizations, management remains, but a man-
ager's job is helping his/her team figure out solutions to challenges,
and to make decisions in real time. It's not assuming everyone has
the answers or that leadership isn't needed, but it's leading by en-
abling everyone to be the best they can be, and allowing them to
make mistakes along the way. Empowering organizations also pro-
vide opportunities for everyone to share opinions or have a voice and
do new things. Costco, for example, is known as a great place to
work, and one of the few companies where you can "work your way
up" and have a career, even if you start at the lowest level.
Managing by example
The trappings of executive titles, offices, and entourages are
typically the sign of success in today's corporations. But open and
lean organizations turn this trend on its head. One can see execu-
tives in cubicles or simple offices, hierarchy is minimal and not
emphasized, and, oftentimes, major decisions are "socialized," not
dictated. The culture of SHI, for example, dictates no executive
parking, no special executive compensation plan, and everyone feel-
ing "valued." Many companies like to say they have a "flat"
organizational structure. I don't think any organization is "flat"; how-
ever, open organizations don't use title to assume privilege. It
reminds of me of the early lean movement in the Japanese automo-
tive industry, where managers worked alongside the "blue collar"
workers, and shared their successes and challenges. (Speaking of
automotive, I should add here that I was often reminded of Deming
and his quality principles when reading these books.)
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The Open Organization Field Guide
Fast innovation
In the tech space, we think of innovation in terms of new prod-
ucts or features or design; that is, innovation for these companies is
a holistic approach to business. Organizations encourage innovation
across all parts, from the factory floor to human resources to sales—
and everywhere else. The idea is to be creative, push the bound-
aries, and get these innovations out to "market" quickly. Often, this
cultural trait is combined with the authority to take risks.
Incremental improvement
This really goes hand-in-hand with fast innovation. You inno-
vate, knowing it will not be perfect when you "launch," so you create
processes to ensure ongoing improvement. In agile software devel-
opment, this is typically based on data or clear input, so you know
where and what to focus on. There is always the joke about version
1.0 of a new piece of software being rough or buggy, but imagine the
freedom of doing everything with not only the understanding but the
expectation of a few bugs, along with the encouragement to keep
making it better.
Collaboration
Everybody talks about "teamwork," and even the most hierar-
chical organizations refer to groups as "teams." But few teams or
companies are truly collaborative. Collaboration, in this case, does
not mean decision by consensus or joining hands and singing Kum-
baya. That would directly interfere with fast innovation. It's more
about not making decisions or working in a vacuum, bringing others
into the process, sharing ideas, creating teams from different parts
of the business to ensure success or accelerate action, and just
working as teams. In lean organizations, this can be a literal
process, as daily standups or project boards, where ideas are
shared, challenged and prioritized. In other cultures, collaboration is
more just a way of doing business, as at Red Hat, where collabora-
tion is not only encouraged but expected.
I would add a couple others (implied but not stated):
55
The Open Organization Field Guide
"No jerks" rule
While you would assume that a collaborative culture automati-
cally results in people treating each other more nicely, that is not
always the case. This is really about learning to disagree, debate,
and challenge each other with respect. Too often, title or role give
people the "right" to be jerks. What is implied in a lean or open orga-
nization is that everyone at every level deserves respect.
Being "real"
Something about the people in these organizations is different.
Look at Howard Schultz (the CEO or Starbucks) or Richard Branson
(the founder and CEO of Virgin). They are honest, emotional, and im-
perfect. What you see is what you get. This instills a culture of
employees also feeling they can be true to themselves, in whatever
form that is. This concept is more than respecting diversity. A com-
pany can be doing a great job hiring women or minorities and still
not embrace the "realness" I'm describing. You know a company is
real when the CEO or a senior executive treats the janitor the same
way he or she treats the board of directors.
What's incredibly powerful to me is how an organization can
become more open or agile, regardless of what the culture or organi-
zational reality has been. As technology continues to push both
literal and figurative boundaries, we should look to the core at-
tributes these technologies and systems possess—openness,
decentralization, distributed, fast—and move our management and
culture in the same direction.
Margaret Dawson is a frequent author and speaker on cloud com-
puting, big data, open source, women in tech, and the intersection
of business and technology. She is a proven entrepreneur and in-
trapreneur, having led successful programs and teams at several
startups and Fortune 500 companies, including Amazon, Microsoft,
and HP.
56
Open organizations don't need to serve
Kool-Aid
Rikki Endsley
R ed Hatters tend to be enthusiastic about the company and our
projects, so I occasionally run into somewhat-snarky com-
ments about us "drinking the Kool-Aid," as if we're members of a
cult, repeating what we've been told to say. The truth is that any
open organization fosters this kind of enthusiasm. The ideas Jim
Whitehurst shares in The Open Organization aren't new to me—Red
Hat isn't the first "open org" I've worked in—but Jim does a great job
of explaining this business model to anyone who hasn't yet benefited
from it.
When I joined Red Hat in February 2014, I had reservations
about how well I'd like the company. I'd been happily self-employed
as a tech journalist, editor, and community manager for The USENIX
Association since 2011, so I was nervous about making the transition
from being my own boss, working with a small group of people I
know and like, to being a new kid, way down a corporate ladder in a
rapidly growing international tech company.
Prior to becoming self-employed, I'd worked at Linux New Me-
dia for several years. Back then, Linux New Media was a German-
owned tech publishing company, with locations in several countries,
and a small portfolio of print publications and digital products in a
handful of languages. At Linux New Media, I worked with editors
and writers around the world, and most closely with a small team I
helped build up in our newest location, an office in Lawrence, Kan-
sas. Most members of our Kansas team were colleagues—and
friends—I'd had since starting my career in the late '90s, when I
57
The Open Organization Field Guide
worked as an editor on Sys Admin magazine. Although we didn't call
Linux New Media an "open organization" back then, it certainly was.
Working at that company prepared me for the culture at Red Hat.
Passionate people
I'd known about Red Hat my entire career in tech publishing,
and I'd watched it evolve over the years. Because I worked on publi-
cations that covered a variety of Unix, Linux, and open source
technologies and news, I didn't have loyalties to any of the tech com-
panies, but I did have contacts and sources in many of them, which
meant I also got both an outsider's and an insider's perspectives. By
2013, I knew more than a dozen Red Hatters, and I'd had several
long-time friends who worked at the company send me links to open
positions. I didn't apply, and I joked that I had no intentions of giving
up my sweet self-employed gig because I worked for the best boss
ever. But then I started reconsidering (...not the part about me being
my own best boss.)
I noticed a pattern among friends who were recommending
Red Hat positions to me: All of them were highly experienced, ex-
tremely connected, outspoken (and fairly critical), and they had
strong personalities with plenty of other career options. But they
chose Red Hat. They were happy here, and they were inviting me to
join them.
Jim writes, "Every day, the passion of the people who work at
Red Hat bubbles up to the surface. Take, for example, Jon Masters, a
technology architect, who once gave a keynote speech at the indus-
try-wide Red Hat Summit while riding a bike that was powering the
computer server he was using to give his presentation." I burst out
laughing when I read this part. (And I'm pleased to see that Jim ap-
preciated the bicycle presentation and gives it a shout-out in the
book, because Jon put a lot of work and energy into it.)
I've known Jon since 2006, because he wrote a Linux commu-
nity column for one of the magazines on which I worked at Linux
New Media. In fact, I visited him in Boston when I attended a 2012
58
The Open Organization Field Guide
USENIX event23, and he was working on that bicycle-powered ARM
server24 presentation. As Jim says in the book, "It's impossible to be
around people like Masters and not be infected by the passion that
pervades this place."
Jim's right. When I decided to apply for a position at Red Hat
in late 2013, I considered the contacts I already had in the company,
and Jon's enthusiasm for his job and the company was one deciding
factor. Feedback from another long-time contact, Joe Brockmeier,
also played a huge role in my decision to join Red Hat. Our friend-
ship dates back to the beginning of my career, when I was an editor
at Sys Admin and he wrote for us. Whenever I want a brutally honest
opinion, I know I can count on Joe, even if we don't always agree. So
when Joe told me about an open position that sounded like a great fit
for me, I applied. And then came the interviews.
Culture, not Kool-Aid
Like the interviews I'd had at Linux New Media in 2006, and
at Sys Admin magazine in the late 1990s, I spoke with several peo-
ple during the process, and whether I'd fit in with my new team was
part of the discussion. I still remember an interview question Lori
White, Sys Admin's production editor at the time, asked me: "There's
one Cinnamon Fire Jolly Rancher left in the candy bowl. What do you
do?" The correct answer was: "Leave it for Lori, because they are
her favorite." Fortunately, I'm not such a fan of that flavor, so I
passed that part of the interview, which was more about having a
sense of humor than sharing hard candy. (Eighteen years later, we're
still friends, and I still don't take the last Cinnamon Fire Jolly
Rancher.)
I spoke with several people on the Red Hat team I was joining,
and with one technical recruiter who thoroughly explained the com-
pany's open organization culture. I assured him that I thrive in open
organizations, but I was more concerned with long-term career
23 https://www.usenix.org/conference/fcw12
24 http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/02/arm-server-running-on-pedal-
power-demoed-at-red-hat-summit/
59
The Open Organization Field Guide
prospects. Was Red Hat a place in which I could see myself 10 years
from now?
"Red Hat works to enable careers of achievement as well as
careers of advancement. In conventional organizations, though, it's
all about advancement—how far you can climb the corporate ladder
in order to gain the kind of power an influence you crave. But what
often happens is that some of the best people may not want to ad-
vance in that way," Jim explains in the book. He adds, "That notion is
turned on its head in open organizations like Red Hat by promoting
the idea that people can excel and achieve what they are best at and
still build influence, without necessarily having to do a job that they
may not like as much or be as good at doing."
The Red Hat recruiter and I talked about my desire to help
create my future position, among other details, and I received an of-
fer that I eventually accepted. Even then, I wasn't sure I'd like Red
Hat enough to stick around for a year, let alone 10. Because my new
job didn't require me to work in a Red Hat office, I moved to Austin,
Texas, where I'd have other tech companies to fall back on if things
didn't work out. But within a few months, I'd settled in and began
picturing myself at Red Hat in the future. In fact, I wanted to work
more closely with colleagues in the Raleigh office, so I decided to re-
locate from Texas to North Carolina at the beginning of my second
year.
The idea of "drinking the Kool-Aid" seems ironic to me, be-
cause from my perspective, Red Hatters tend to be our own biggest
critics, rather than people who "toe the line." When you work on
projects you're proud of, with people you like and respect, and feel
invested in a company that allows you to control your career, being
enthusiastic is easy. No Kool-Aid required.
Rikki Endsley is a community manager for Opensource.com. In the
past, she worked as the community evangelist on the Open Source
and Standards (OSAS) team at Red Hat; a freelance tech journalist;
community manager for the USENIX Association; associate pub-
lisher of Linux Pro Magazine, ADMIN, and Ubuntu User; and as the
managing editor of Sys Admin magazine and UnixReview.com.
60
Dear manager: Include me in your decisions
Jen Wike Huger
R ed Hat's CEO, Jim Whitehurst, begins the sixth chapter his
book, The Open Organization, with a sentence that perfectly
summarizes a crash course in making inclusive workplace decisions:
"The conventional approach to decision making centers
around equipping the responsible person with the infor-
mation needed to make an informed decision. ... But in
the end ... the responsible executive makes the deci-
sion."
The keyword here being executive.
Throughout the book, Whitehurst focuses on changing our
thinking about executives and top-down management, asking us to
consider how associates of all levels can participate bottom-up deci-
sion making instead. In the book's first five chapters, he tells stories
and presents compelling ancedotes to this effect. Then, in chapter
six, he delivers the one-two punch: He explains how to make it hap-
pen.
What your associates want
• Respect
• A voice
• To be heard
• Participation in the decisions
What you want to do
• Change (yes, you, the manager must change first—then, you
can catalyze change in your associates)
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The Open Organization Field Guide
• Build understanding, trust, and buy-in
• Include your associates
• Listen (and listen more)
• Be open to a wide variety of ideas
How you want to do it
• Read The Open Organization
• Take notes
• Talk to the associates with whom you work; ask them, "What
do you think?"
• Explain your thought process and reasoning for wanting to
make changes or particular decisions
• Acknowledge people's concerns
• Implement methods for input and feedback cycles (it's a con-
tinual process)
• Allow people to try different approaches
Change management and inclusive decision making may be
something you've heard about but have never felt you had the capac-
ity to do in your company. Or maybe this is all brand new and eye-
opening. Either way, Whitehurst points out that decision making pro-
cesses at your organization are pivotal sites for change.
"At Red Hat, we do things differently. We strive for
change management to happen during the decision
making process, not during execution. […] Associates
feel more ownership in the changes needed when they
are involved in making the decision behind them."
You make decisions every day. Your associates make decisions
every day. Today—even within the next few moments—you have a
chance to try something different.
Jen Wike Huger works at Red Hat as the content manager for Open-
source.com. She manages the publication calendar, coordinates the
editing team, guides new and current writers, and speaks for Open-
source.com.
62
8 tips for creating cultural change in your
organization
Laura Hilliger
W hen working to open up organizations or projects, I've
learned that one of the most difficult things to do is to get
people out of their comfort zones. We adults have spent a lifetime
learning and refining our personal processes for productivity, cre-
ativity, and thoughtful exchange. One person's workflow might not
work at all for someone else. We've learned that our workflows are
highly personal, and I believe they are. However, in the case of
"workflow," I see a massive difference between the terms "personal"
and "private."
Let me explain that: Open means anyone can have a voice and
get involved, but in order to truly encourage people to use their
voices, the first thing they have to know is that they're being invited.
We call this "designing for participation." A project or a community
has to set up infrastructures, design workflows, and structure feed-
back to be that invitation all the time.
Producing a cultural shift (which is what "opening up an orga-
nization" really means) is about changing the trajectory and image
of an organization so that it becomes more "open."
Culture is two things:
1. A shared space25 and "the prevailing beliefs, values, and cus-
toms of a group; a group's way of life," and;
25 http://revolutionsperminute.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Making-
Waves-The-Culture-Group.pdf
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The Open Organization Field Guide
2. What people do in that shared space 26, or "a set of practices
that contain, transmit, or express ideas, values, habits, and
behaviors between individuals and groups"; practices define
organizational cultures.
Leaders must model the behavior they want to see in the
world. So, in order to spark organizational change, leaders must
start designing for participation.
Here's some practical steps you might take to design your
team or project for participation.
Utilize existing structures
Email lists, Facebook pages/groups, newsletters, forums, cor-
porate social networks—the people are somewhere, communicating
already. You have to meet people where they are, so make a list and
plan to utilize those structures. Use surveys and conversations to
gather this information from people in your organizations. These
should include questions like:
• How are you working together? What's a typical day look
like for you?
• What tools do you use? What tools does your team use?
• What backchannels are you using?
• Where do you push information? Where do you pull informa-
tion?
• What are your inside jokes? Favorite memes?
• What things are you loving this week?
Questions like these can help you demystify communication
tactics.
Find an ally or three
Showing what open collaboration looks like is essential to cre-
ating cultural change. Remember: people are comfortable with what
they're used to and change is essentially uncomfortable. Showing
what the end goal—openness—looks like will inspire most people to
invite change. However, in order to truly demonstrate open collabo-
26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede%27s_cultural_dimensions_theory
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The Open Organization Field Guide
ration, you need collaborators! From the beginning, you're likely to
find people who are excited to try something new. Artists, creatives,
and makers are usually accustomed to this kind of openness. Work
with them, get them comfortable with being open, and then you'll
have a posse of change agents.
Recognize personal flow
By getting to know your allies and how they prefer to work,
you can set up methods that allow people to plan and publish openly.
Encourage your allies to document, plan, publish—work—in a way
that is suitable to them. Have open conversations to negotiate tools
and processes, and leave the door open for renegotiation. If a tool
isn't working for your team, find another one! You don't have to
force the workflow; you just have to put the structures in place to al-
low work to flow. Test multiple collaboration tools27.
Model, model, model
You can initiate cultural change by modeling behaviors. You
and your posse need to model behaviors to establish trust. You can
only control your own behaviors, so start implementing open prac-
tices: Plan openly (using an open, online task manager and open
meetings), publish openly (using blogs and social media), evangelize
openly (end posts with prompts for involvement), embed creativity
and play (because play allows us to explore the impossible).
Plan in the open
Start meeting weekly with a conference call and an open plan-
ning document. Your agenda might include:
• Standups (what people are working on)
• Feedback
• Report outs (what people worked on last week)
• Demos and celebrations
Putting your plans into the open will help people feel owner-
ship over projects. Think about using a wiki to keep an overview of
27 http://dougbelshaw.com/wiki/Team_Collaboration
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The Open Organization Field Guide
team activity that includes goals, roles, deadlines, and so on. Use a
task manager so that everyone knows what's in process, where there
are challenges, and what is actually happening. You can use docu-
mentation as part of your team process, thereby creating fodder for
individual blog posts. Encouraging people to write public reflections
on why an idea does or does not work; this way, you're designing a
culture that invites feedback.
Publish in the open
To foster engagement and keep people posted, publish, and
share both individually and as a team. Setting a schedule is difficult,
but you should try to publish at least one reflective post per month (I
do one a week). Pre-populate tools like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite dur-
ing meetings. Utilize tools like IFTTT, Zapier, Buffer, etc. There are
easy ways to share ideas around the Web. Use them!
Evangelize in the open
Instead of thinking abstractly about engaging a global commu-
nity of people, be nimble, try things out, have ideas, and model open
behaviors. Play and prototype and share loudly. As people begin to
take notice, you'll have every opportunity to evangelize openly. Don't
forget to highlight the rock stars in your community.
Reach out
Those of us who believe in the open organization are always
willing to give advice and help out. Don't be afraid to reach out!
Laura Hilliger is an artist, educator, writer, and technologist. After
five years at Mozilla, where she advocated for open and helped
spread web literacy, she's now an Open Organization ambassador at
Opensource.com and working to help Greenpeace become an open
organization. She's all over the Web. Use your favorite search en-
gine to learn more about Laura and what she does.
66
Sometimes you have to put the moose on
the table
Sam Knuth
R
back,
ed Hat is known for its open culture. People openly share
their opinions, give each other positive and constructive feed-
and make better decisions through collaboration. Jim
28
Whitehurst has written about how to foster a culture like ours—one
that supports honest (and sometimes difficult) conversations.
So it might be surprising that in a recent meeting of Red Hat
managers, where our CFO Frank Calderoni introduced himself to the
team, one of the questions from the audience was: "How will you
change the passive aggressive habit of many at Red Hat to say 'yes'
in the meeting but 'no' in practice?" The audience offered sympa-
thetic sighs and knowing smiles. But isn't this Red Hat, where we
have open conversations, tell people what we really think directly,
and avoid this kind of "say one thing, but do another" dynamic that
plagues other companies?
Yes. But as different as the Red Hat culture is from that of
other companies, it has one big thing in common with them: it's
made up of people. For most people, it's easier to avoid confronta-
tion than to tackle it head on, even if your organizational culture
values transparency.
Frank's answer was quick and simple: "Call them on it."
After a brief pause, he followed by pointing out that we all
demonstrate this behavior once in a while. No matter how much we
28 https://hbr.org/2015/08/create-a-culture-where-difficult-conversations-
arent-so-hard
67
The Open Organization Field Guide
each think we're different, we all have some of these tendencies. In
addition to calling others on it, you have to call yourself on it as well.
Avoiding factions
Recently, I've been in a situation where, in one-on-one conver-
sations with different people on the same team, I've kept hearing the
word "factions." It makes me cringe. We have factions? Why?
What I'm observing is exactly the kind of behavior that every-
one claims to hate: a group of people meeting together, sort of
agreeing, then breaking out into side conversations afterward saying
things like "what are they thinking?"
I find three things helpful when I sense either my colleagues
or myself are straying into this "let's just agree to get out of this
meeting and then we'll figure out what we really want to do" terri-
tory.
First, remind everyone (including yourself) what the ultimate
goal is. We're not here because we want to prove that our way of do-
ing something is better. We're here (in the case of my team) to
enable customers to learn about, deploy, and use Red Hat products
to solve their business problems. Stepping back from whatever issue
is causing the tension (often just having a different approach or
style) and focusing on the real goal can help clear the air.
Second, as our new CFO Frank says, call them on it. Or, as a
lot of people in Red Hat like to say, "put the moose on the table."
This can be hard, and it is better done in person than over the phone
or video conference. You also need to be careful with your phrasing.
Don't turn it into an accusation, and stick to the facts of the situation
and the impact those facts are having.
Here's an example from a recent interaction on one of my
teams: "We're all doing different things to try and get our heads
around this bigger goal, but I feel like we're not making progress.
Rather than each trying to go our own way, often conflicting with
each other, can we step back and figure out a short term and long
term plan that is workable?"
Until somebody puts this on the table, it's hard to talk about.
Instead of confronting the problem, individuals (or "factions") spend
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The Open Organization Field Guide
time talking about how their way is better and how they wish the
other guys would stop messing things up. That kind of behavior is
wasted energy. It doesn't benefit anyone—and the big losers end up
being our customers.
Finally, in addition to calling people on the bad behaviors,
thank and reward people when they have the courage to bring the
team together and solve problems constructively. Putting the moose
on the table is hard; make sure you publicly acknowledge people
who do it.
All about communication
Ultimately, communication is the most important—and one of
the most easily overlooked—tools we have. If you see something that
is bothering you (or something that is really great), say so. Here's
what I've found works best:
• Begin by stating the facts
• Let those facts tell the story that explains the impact the sit-
uation and behaviors are having
• During meetings, make sure every attendee has a chance to
comment on that story
• If someone disagrees with the way that story's been framed,
ask for clarification
• Leave the meeting with a firm action plan—one that's writ-
ten down
Because everyone needs to be moving in the same direction,
everyone needs to be part of the process of getting there. After all,
do you really think you can get an entire moose on the table all by
yourself?
At Red Hat, Sam Knuth leads the Customer Content Services team,
whose goal is to provide customers with the insights they need to be
successful with open source technologies in the enterprise.
69
Part 3: New Contexts
7 co-op business principles for the open
organization
Jason Baker
W hat makes the concept of an open organization so great is
not its novelty, but rather of the ways it borrows from al-
ready tried-and-true business and organizational practices. In other
words, what makes an open organization an interesting concept (and
one I think could be a model for others) isn't some unique secret.
The notion of an "open organization" is really a compilation of many
ideas—related to openness, collaboration, and sharing—that have
proven successful time and time again, along with a simple commit-
ment to intentionally follow them.
As I read Jim Whitehurst's The Open Organization, I couldn't
help but reflect on my first job out of college. I had taken a position
in a local food co-op, working in the marketing department and pri-
marily managing events for three retail locations. But about three
months in, when a co-worker left to head to graduate school, I began
managing owner services and outreach. I was managing relations
with our owners, who happened to be our employees and customers.
As a big chunk of my job became both answering questions from ex-
isting owners, educating new owners about cooperatives, and
serving as executive secretary to our board of directors, I quickly
tried to learn as much as I could about cooperative business struc-
ture and operations.
When I say cooperative, I don't mean just "an organization
that cooperates." Cooperatives are a type of business with very spe-
cific criteria defining what they are and how they operate; many
countries have their own laws and regulations which lay this out.
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The Open Organization Field Guide
Cooperatives come in all shapes and sizes, from insurance and
banking cooperatives (think: credit unions) operating at a national
scale, to regional farming and rural electrification cooperatives
banding together resources to help people for whom other business
models failed, to small businesses who want to focus on serving the
needs of their employees and customers first and foremost.
The ideas behind cooperatives are hundreds of years old, but
most references to how co-ops define themselves date back to the
Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers 29, an early consumer cooper-
ative dating back to the 1840s in Great Britain. From the Rochdale
Society came seven principles for what cooperatives are and how
they operate—what people refer to as either the "Rochdale Princi-
ples30" or simply the "7 Cooperative Principles."
The decision to organize a project or business as a cooperative
depends on a number of factors, but I think even more "traditional"
organizations can learn many things from them. Does every organi-
zation need to be organized as a cooperative to benefit from some of
the things that make cooperatives successful? Of course not.
Whether an organization is a traditional for-profit corporation, or
even a nonprofit, there are a lot of concepts which can be learned
from co-ops. The more I thought about what an open organization
meant to me, the more I thought back to my time at a local co-op
and how some of the things I saw there were starting to resurface in
the corporate world when businesses saw the advantage of "going
open."
So let's look at those seven cooperative principles and discuss
what they might mean for an open organization:
Open and voluntary membership
This is an important part of most open source project defini-
tions: Anyone can contribute, so long as everyone follows the
community guidelines. Some projects take a slightly stricter ap-
proach, requiring some formal agreement or membership in an
29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Society_of_Equitable_Pioneers
30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles
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The Open Organization Field Guide
organization before they'll accept pull requests, but the lower the
barrier to entry, the more people can participate.
This concept is even more important from a user's perspec-
tive, and it's one of the fundamental parts of what it means to be
free, open source software. Anyone can use make use of the
project's outputs for any purpose they see fit, and, just as impor-
tantly, as the controllers of their own machines' destinies, they
should have the right to choose not to run a piece of software if they
so choose.
Democratic member control
Democratic member control in open organizations speaks to
the importance of meritocracy—that the best ideas come about when
everybody can fully participate and judge suggestions on their own
merits (rather than simply looking at the relative rank of the contrib-
utor). This doesn't mean some sort of structural management
hierarchy doesn't exist within the organization; it just means that ev-
eryone has an equal right to participation and to be heard.
Members' economic participation
The concept of economic participation is the element most
unique to cooperatives, but many organizations (regardless of their
type) may benefit from making sure that all participants have some
"skin in the game." Whether this takes the form of incentive-based
pay or a shared pool of rewards to be distributed from the organiza-
tion's profits, economic participation is another way to build loyalty
and trust.
Autonomy and independence
Simply put, an organization can best control its own work
when it gets to make decisions about the outcomes of the projects
on which it works. People can make decisions at the most local levels
possible, whether in the form of developers' deciding how to design
a particular section of a project's architecture or a staff's choosing
the tools that best enable them to do their own jobs. These princi-
ples also speak to the importance of open source projects
74
The Open Organization Field Guide
maintaining control of their own destinies; if a strong faction feels
they aren't being heard, they have the full right and ability to fork
the code.
Education, training, and information
As much as we might like to believe that openness itself
breeds the free flow of information, education is still an important
part of any open organization. It ensures that newcomers are able to
get up to speed and become full participants as quickly as possible,
and it helps create a flow of information which allows other organi-
zations to see the benefits that come from openness.
Cooperation
Open organizations have much to learn from one another, re-
gardless of the sector in which they operate. In the open source
world, we frequently see developers from competing companies
working side-by-side to build a superior project from which everyone
can benefit.
Concern for community
Finally, any organization must recognize that it's not the total-
ity of the world in which it operates, and that it must give back, in a
meaningful way, to the community around it. Whether this contribu-
tion is code, employee time, or making environmentally and socially
conscious decisions about how to operate, giving back builds trust.
***
Cooperatives and open organizations have much to learn from
each other. You need not be one to be the other, but plenty of their
characteristics naturally overlap, and those interested in building
successful participatory organizations would do well to study both.
Jason Baker is a data analyst, marketer, technical editor, and occa-
sional coder who has worked on staff at Opensource.com since
2013.
75
What our families teach us about
organizational life
Jim Whitehurst
I n October I appeared on the 100th episode 31 of The Dave and
Gunnar Show32, an independent podcast about open source and
open government issues hosted by two members of Red Hat's public
sector team. We spoke at length about The Open Organization (one
of my all-time favorite topics!), and the interview gave me a chance
to address an important question.
That question actually came from Paul Smith, Red Hat's VP of
Public Sector (you might recognize him as the guy who recently pho-
tobombed me33 at a book signing), who asked:
How can you apply the open organization principles to
your family life?
This wasn't the first time someone had posed this question to
me. In fact, I'd been mulling it over for quite some time. The truth is,
people who succeed in leading open organizations embrace open
principles in multiple aspects of their lives—not just in the work-
place.
Emotions matter
When we're with our families, we recognize that emotions
matter—and we express them. We laugh. We cry. We have impas-
31 https://dgshow.org/2015/10/100-a-president-and-ceo-we-like/
32 https://dgshow.org/
33 https://twitter.com/pjsmithii/status/614207083785883648
76
The Open Organization Field Guide
sioned debates. We're frank with one another, because we recognize
that our deep relationships will outlast any single interaction (even a
turbulent one). And we recognize that the people in our lives aren't
entirely rational; they're motivated by more than their left-brain im-
pulses. But we tend to check our emotional selves at the door when
we enter the workplace.
Why?
Emotions are a sign that we're deeply invested in what we're
doing. Good leaders know how to read and gauge them (as I say in
The Open Organization, outstanding emotional intelligence is pivotal
today). Emotions are indicators of employee passion, something
open organizations must harness if they're going to be successful to-
day. Family life forces us to confront, embrace, and channel
emotions. Life in an organization should do the same.
Engagement in the home
Trust me: I'm speaking from experience when I say that par-
ticipating in a family requires cultivating engagement. Families tend
to work best when everyone has sufficient context for understanding
the group's goals (not to mention the resources the group has for
achieving those goals).
In fact, family goal setting should be a collaborative effort. I'm
not sure too many families sit down at the beginning of a new year
and have frank discussions about their goals for the coming months.
But more should. After all, families tend to recognize the importance
of having everyone on the same page, working in the same direction.
Questions like "What charities will we support this year?" or "Where
will we vacation this summer?" are too often questions that individu-
als try to answer themselves when they should be bringing these to
the group for a more robust discussion.
Inclusive family decisions
When goal setting becomes collaborative, it immediately be-
comes inclusive: Family members suddenly have a stake in family
decisions, and they feel tied to the outcomes of those decisions. They
embrace the group's objectives, and they work to help achieve them.
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The Open Organization Field Guide
Imagine the difference. You might come to a decision privately,
then communicate that finalized decision to your family in the hope
that they'll accept it, understand it, and help enact it. But have you
ever taken this approach with your kids? It doesn't end well (actu-
ally, it typically ends with confusion and hurt feelings). But you
might also consider involving family members in decisions from the
start, gathering feedback and adjusting your expectations accord-
ingly. In the end, family members will not only better understand the
implications of big decisions, they'll also feel more invested in the
process of carrying them out. My experience at Red Hat has taught
me this, because the company works with so many passionate open
source communities, and issuing orders to a group is simply not as
effective as drawing that group into a dialogue.
So in response to Paul, I'd say: You might be asking the wrong
question.
The real question is not about how principles of open organi-
zations can apply to life with a family. It's about what our family
relationships can teach us about creating more open, inclusive, par-
ticipatory, and humane workplaces.
Jim Whitehurst is President and CEO of Red Hat, the world's leading
provider of open source enterprise IT products and services, and au-
thor of The Open Organization.
78
Implications of The Open Organization in
education
Don Watkins
W hile I read Opensource.com article "Goodbye Henry Ford,
hello open organization34," a line describing traditional orga-
nizational structures as "rigid and slow to adapt" with "silos and lack
of communication" caught my eye. Those words could well describe
the PK-12 education sector, where I spent many years.
You see, public education is run by benevolent bureaucrats,
most of whom never set foot in a classroom. Policy is passed from
federal and state legislatures to local boards of education and even-
tually to schools through administrative teams who oversee teachers
and students. All communication in the system is top-down—there is
no effective communication that goes in the opposite direction.
There was a time when such a system might have made sense
(in the industrial age). Today we live in a post-industrial society, and
in a marketplace where communication and collaboration are essen-
tial to survival. Therefore, education needs a new model for
management. I think the ideas Jim Whitehurst outlines in The Open
Organization could have implications in education.
Early on in the book, Jim tells a story:
I issued what I thought was an order to create a re-
search report. A few days later, I asked the people
assigned to the task how things were going. "Oh, we de-
34 https://opensource.com/open-organization/15/8/goodbye-henry-ford-hello-
open-organization
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The Open Organization Field Guide
cided it was a bad idea, so we scrapped it," they told me
in good cheer."
I cannot imagine that sort of a scenario playing out nicely in
an educational organization. The PK-12 education system mirrors
the Henry Ford model of top-down management. Most of what I ob-
served over the course of my career was stratification with
administration at the top, teachers in the middle, and non-teaching
staff at the bottom. All policy originated at the top and trickled to
the bottom.
The open organization that Jim writes about fosters coopera-
tion and collaboration. This is frequently spoken of in education
circles, and many speak of cooperative learning, but that only in-
volves teachers and students. Since the purpose of education is to
prepare students to be productive in our society, it makes sense that
we ought to be preparing them for the future which will include
much more open organizational structures.
As an educator, I believe that the sharing and open culture of
Red Hat marks a welcome paradigm change that invites replication
in the education sector because it points forward. Education is es-
sentially about leading others and instilling values and practices that
benefit the learner and—we hope—society over the long run.
In the recent past, students came to school and were told that
working hard, getting good grades, and college admission led to em-
ployment. Now most students and their parents know that this
formula no longer works. However, the educational bureaucracy
continues to put students through the Henry Ford model, which pro-
duces easily counted widgets but results in dysfunction and
dystopia.
The current emphasis on raising standards in education
misses the point. We should raise standards, but more importantly
we need to change the paradigm and fundamentally change how stu-
dents are educated. We need schools where creativity is celebrated
and the principles outlined in The Open Organization do provide
ideas and principles which could be applied to education from pre-
kindergarten to college.
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The Open Organization Field Guide
Imagine schools where passion and engagement drive the
learning and assessment equation. Typically, students who excel are
rewarded while those who don't do well are discouraged to say the
least. Part of the Red Hat culture is "fail fast," which is a recipe for
real learning because it celebrates failure, the true key to success.
It's okay to fail in an open organization, and people are en-
couraged to own their failures and be accountable for them. That's
an invitation to integrity and character education. Real learning in-
volves cognitive dissonance. Tinkering and making are meta-
cognitive skills that celebrate this type of learning. We learn to walk,
to ride a bicycle, to program a computer by trial and error.
Don Watkins is a community moderator at Opensource.com. He is an
educator, social entrepreneur, and open source advocate who holds
an M.A. in Educational Psychology and an MSED in Educational
Leadership.
81
Afterword
Jim Whitehurst
W hen I was pitching The Open Organization, publishers al-
ways asked me the same question: "Is this a book about
management or leadership?"
And my answer was always the same: "The Open Organization
is a book about management." After all, it's about the ways Red Hat,
the open organization I lead, uses a networked organizational model
(one we adopt from the open source world) to make decisions and
coordinate, and those are management issues.
But as the book took shape, its eventual publisher, Harvard
Business Review Press, insisted otherwise. "So much of this book is
about leadership," people at the press told me. "It talks about are
things you're asking leaders to recognize and do to motivate asso-
ciates."
So I took a step back and really thought about what they were
suggesting. And that prompted me to reflect on the nature of the
question at the heart of the matter: "Is this book about management
or about leadership?"
It's the "or" that struck me—the assumption that management
and leadership are in fact two isolated, separate domains. I strug-
gled to understand how their division had become so deeply
entrenched, because it seemed to me that open organizations in par-
ticular don't embrace this distinction.
The key to the conundrum, I realized, is emotion. As I argue in
The Open Organization, classic management theories try to pretend
that emotions don't exit in organizational contexts. It's one of the as-
sumptions they make in order to justify their models of the way the
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The Open Organization Field Guide
world works. In order to better understand management as the "sci-
ence" of distributing decision rights, developing control functions,
budgeting, capital planning, and other detached, disinterested activ-
ities like these, management theories "abstract away" humanity.
They presume people are entirely rational and that hierarchies al-
ways function the way they're supposed to. (Incidentally, they do this
because they owe much of their thinking to work in classical eco-
nomics, which performs the same simplifying maneuver: assume
people are rational, that they have perfect information, and that
markets are in equilibrium—and only then can you "make the math
work"!)
We're beginning to learn that these assumptions are seriously
misguided. New research in behavioral economics is constantly
teaching us how patently false they are. They may have been neces-
sary at a certain point in time—for example, when management
dealt mostly with uneducated workers performing relatively rote
tasks, when work environments were essentially static, and when in-
formation was scarce rather than abundant—but they no longer
apply. Our age requires a new management paradigm, one that taps
the passion and intelligence of a workforce motivated by something
other than a paycheck.
I believe the open organization is that model. But a manage-
ment model based on something other than the assumption that all
people are like Star Trek's Spock is practically unheard of today.
Talking about ways to tap and mobilize people's emotions, how to
get people to act in ways that transcend themselves, and how to un -
derstand what motivates them to arrive at the decisions they do—all
that is the province of "leadership" studies, not "management."
We've always known these practices exist. We've just cleaved them
from management "science" and relegated them to their own terri-
tory: the "hard" science of management over here, and the "soft"
skills of leadership over there. And there they've stayed for decades.
But when you think about management and leadership, you
immediately realize that they're both essentially attempting to un-
derstand the same thing: How can we get people to work together,
in a coordinated fashion? They shouldn't be separate. Truthfully,
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The Open Organization Field Guide
they aren't separate. They only seem separate because we've
thought about them this way for years.
So is the book about management or leadership? I'd argue it's
about both management and leadership: two arts of coordinating
people's efforts, finally reunited.
Six months of conversations with managers, leaders, and read-
ers in the Open Organization community have taught me this
important lesson. And those conversations almost inevitably raise
the following question: What's next? How can we begin putting open
organizational practices in place? Where will open thinking eventu-
ally lead us?
The truth is that I don't know. But I do know this: We can look
to open source communities to show us the way.
Open source communities demonstrate participatory organiza-
tional principles in their purest form. Red Hat has been incredibly
lucky to work with so many of these communities—which are essen-
tially fertile and fascinating petri dishes of experimentation with
cutting-edge management and leadership ideas. We learn from them
every day.
And we'll continue looking to them for guidance on our jour-
ney, because they represent our greatest hope for making
workplaces more inclusive, more meritocratic, and more humane.
These communities are constantly innovating by questioning tradi-
tion, and that's precisely what any organization must do if it wants
to remain viable today. I've begun questioning the "traditional" dis-
tinction between management and leadership—but this entire
volume is evidence that people everywhere are overturning deeply-
held beliefs in search of fresh insights and new directions.
Six months of community conversation have proven that.
84
Appendix:
The Open Organization Definition
The Open Organization Field Guide
The Open Organization Definition
The Open Organization Ambassadors
Preamble
Openness is becoming increasingly central to the ways groups
and teams of all sizes are working together to achieve shared goals.
And today, the most forward-thinking organizations—whatever their
missions—are embracing openness as a necessary orientation to-
ward success. They've seen that openness can lead to:
• Greater agility, as members are more capable of working
toward goals in unison and with shared vision;
• Faster innovation, as ideas from both inside and outside
the organization receive more equitable consideration and
rapid experimentation, and;
• Increased engagement, as members clearly see connec-
tions between their particular activities and an
organization's overarching values, mission, and spirit.
But openness is fluid. Openness is multifaceted. Openness is
contested.
While every organization is different—and therefore every ex-
ample of an open organization is unique—we believe these five
characteristics serve as the basic conditions for openness in most
contexts:
• Transparency
• Inclusivity
• Adaptability
• Collaboration
• Community
Characteristics of an open organization
Open organizations take many shapes. Their sizes, composi-
tions, and missions vary. But the following five characteristics are
the hallmarks of any open organization.
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The Open Organization Field Guide
In practice, every open organization likely exemplifies each
one of these characteristics differently, and to a greater or lesser ex-
tent. Moreover, some organizations that don't consider themselves
open organizations might nevertheless embrace a few of them. But
truly open organizations embody them all—and they connect them in
powerful and productive ways.
That fact makes explaining any one of the characteristics diffi-
cult without reference to the others.
Transparency
In open organizations, transparency reigns. As much as possi-
ble (and advisable) under applicable laws, open organizations work
to make their data and other materials easily accessible to both in-
ternal and external participants; they are open for any member to
review them when necessary (see also inclusivity). Decisions are
transparent to the extent that everyone affected by them under-
stands the processes and arguments that led to them; they are open
to assessment (see also collaboration). Work is transparent to the ex-
tent that anyone can monitor and assess a project's progress
throughout its development; it is open to observation and potential
revision if necessary (see also adaptability). In open organizations,
transparency looks like:
• Everyone working on a project or initiative has access to all
pertinent materials by default.
• People willingly disclose their work, invite participation on
projects before those projects are complete and/or "final,"
and respond positively to request for additional details.
• People affected by decisions can access and review the pro-
cesses and arguments that lead to those decisions, and they
can comment on and respond to them.
• Leaders encourage others to tell stories about both their fail-
ures and their successes without fear of repercussion;
associates are forthcoming about both.
• People value both success and failures for the lessons they
provide.
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The Open Organization Field Guide
• Goals are public and explicit, and people working on projects
clearly indicate roles and responsibilities to enhance ac-
countability.
Inclusivity
Open organizations are inclusive. They not only welcome di-
verse points of view but also implement specific mechanisms for
inviting multiple perspectives into dialog wherever and whenever
possible. Interested parties and newcomers can begin assisting the
organization without seeking express permission from each of its
stakeholders (see also collaboration). Rules and protocols for partici-
pation are clear (see also transparency) and operate according to
vetted and common standards. In open organizations, inclusivity
looks like:
• Technical channels and social norms for encouraging diverse
points of view are well-established and obvious.
• Protocols and procedures for participation are clear, widely
available, and acknowledged, allowing for constructive inclu-
sion of diverse perspectives.
• The organization features multiple channels and/or methods
for receiving feedback in order to accommodate people's
preferences.
• Leaders regularly assess and respond to feedback they re-
ceive, and cultivate a culture that encourages frequent
dialog regarding this feedback.
• Leaders are conscious of voices not present in dialog and ac-
tively seek to include or incorporate them.
• People feel a duty to voice opinions on issues relevant to
their work or about which they are passionate.
• People work transparently and share materials via common
standards and/or agreed-upon platforms that do not prevent
others from accessing or modifying them.
Adaptability
Open organizations are flexible and resilient organizations. Or-
ganizational policies and technical apparatuses ensure that both
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The Open Organization Field Guide
positive and negative feedback loops have a genuine and material
effect on organizational operation; participants can control and po-
tentially alter the conditions under which they work. They report
frequently and thoroughly on the outcomes of their endeavors (see
also transparency) and suggest adjustments to collective action
based on assessments of these outcomes. In this way, open organiza-
tions are fundamentally oriented toward continuous engagement
and learning.
In open organizations, adaptability looks like:
• Feedback mechanisms are accessible both to members of the
organization and to outside members, who can offer sugges-
tions.
• Feedback mechanisms allow and encourage peers to assist
one another without managerial oversight, if necessary.
• Leaders work to ensure that feedback loops genuinely and
materially impact the ways people in the organization oper-
ate.
• Processes for collective problem solving, collaborative deci-
sion making, and continuous learning are in place, and the
organization rewards both personal and team learning to re-
inforce a growth mindset.
• People tend to understand the context for the changes
they're making or experiencing.
• People are not afraid to make mistakes, yet projects and
teams are comfortable adapting their pre-existing work to
project-specific contexts in order to avoid repeated failures.
Collaboration
Work in an open organization involves multiple parties by de-
fault. Participants believe that joint work produces better (more
effective, more sustainable) outcomes, and specifically seek to in-
volve others in their efforts (see also inclusivity). Products of work in
open organizations afford additional enhancement and revision, even
by those not affiliated with the organization (see also adaptability).
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The Open Organization Field Guide
• People tend to believe that working together produces better
results.
• People tend to begin work collaboratively, rather than "add
collaboration" after they've each completed individual com-
ponents of work.
• People tend to engage partners outside their immediate
teams when undertaking new projects.
• Work produced collaboratively is easily available internally
for others to build upon.
• Work produced collaboratively is available externally for cre-
ators outside the organization to use in potentially
unforeseen ways.
• People can discover, provide feedback on, and join work in
progress easily—and are welcomed to do so.
Community
Open organizations are communal. Shared values and purpose
guide participation in open organizations, and these values—more so
than arbitrary geographical locations or hierarchical positions—help
determine the organization's boundaries and conditions of participa-
tion. Core values are clear, but also subject to continual revision and
critique, and are instrumental in defining conditions for an organiza-
tion's success or failure (see also adaptability). In open
organizations, community looks like:
• Shared values and principles that inform decision-making
and assessment processes are clear and obvious to mem-
bers.
• People feel equipped and empowered to make meaningful
contributions to collaborative work.
• Leaders mentor others and demonstrate strong accountabil-
ity to the group by modeling shared values and principles.
• People have a common language and work together to en-
sure that ideas do not get "lost in translation," and they are
comfortable sharing their knowledge and stories to further
the group's work.
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The Open Organization Field Guide
Version 2.0
April 2017
github.com/open-organization-ambassadors/open-org-definition
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The Open Organization Field Guide
Additional resources
Book series
Continue reading about the future of work, management, and
leadership in the Open Organization book series. Get started at
opensource.com/open-organization/resources/book-series.
Mailing list
Our community of writers, practitioners, and ambassadors
regularly exchange resources and discuss the themes of this book.
Chime in at www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/openorg-list.
Discussion guides
Want to start your own Open Organization book club? Down-
load free discussion guides for help getting started. Just visit
opensource.com/open-organization/resources/.
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The Open Organization Field Guide
Get involved
Share this book
We've licensed this book with a Creative Commons license, so
you're free to share a copy with anyone who might benefit from
learning more about the ways open source values are changing orga-
nizations today. See the copyright statement for more detail.
Tell your story
Every week, Opensource.com publishes stories about the ways
open principles are changing the way we work, manage, and lead.
You can read them at opensource.com/open-organization. Do you
have a story to tell? Please consider submitting it to us at open-
source.com/story.
Join the community
Are you passionate about using open source ideas to enhance
organizational life? You might be eligible for the Open Organization
Ambassadors program (read more at opensource.com/resources/
open-organization-ambassadors-program). Share your knowledge
and your experience—and join us at github.com/open-organization-
ambassadors.
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