Mayden - The Company Made without Managers

In this episode of Make It Thrive: The Company Culture Podcast, I chat with Philippa Kindon and Ruth Waterfield from the health tech company Mayden.

We discuss Mayden’s journey to becoming a self-managed organisation and the insights shared in their co-authored book Made Without Managers. The conversation explores the practical realities, emotional experiences, and ongoing evolution of working without traditional hierarchies.

Rather than following self-management as a trend, the team at Mayden emphasises how their approach is rooted in trust, transparency, and purpose.

They candidly share both the benefits and the challenges, aiming to inspire other organisations to explore more people-centric ways of working.

Key Points Covered:

🟡 Why Self-Management: Inspired by the founder's ethos and agile methodology, Mayden evolved into a self-managed company over the past decade.

🔵 Book Overview: Made Without Managers is a multi-voice account capturing real stories, challenges, and learnings from across the organisation—not just from leadership.

🟠 Public Reactions: Reactions to their working model range from enthusiastic curiosity to outright scepticism.

🟡 Unlearning & Adaptation: Employees must unlearn traditional hierarchical behaviours. Ruth and Philippa share personal stories of adjusting to openness, self-responsibility, and shared accountability.

🔵 Challenges Acknowledged: The approach isn't without difficulties—growing pains, decision-making, and alignment are ongoing tensions.

Team Mayden

The Book

https://amzn.to/4lQnfu0

Where you can find them;

https://mayden.co.uk/working-at-mayden/

OTHER LINKS 🔗

https://libertymind.co.uk/

Sign-up to my monthly Culture Fix email newsletter 💌

https://libertymind.co.uk/email-newsl...

WHO AM I? 🤓

Hi! - If you're new here, I'm Lizzie, a culture coach based in the UK. I help teams, start-ups and businesses create great places to work through alternative ways of working. Through my videos, my podcast and my blog I share practical ideas about how we can make work better. And share my experience as a founder, business owner and personal-development junkie