Ep. 104 Angela Williamson on the inner and outer development work at self-managing care organisation Chorus

Speaker A: Leadermorphosis, the podcast exploring the emerging world of self organizing teams and progressive organizations. Hello and thank you for listening to the Leadermorphosis podcast. I'm Lisa Gill and my guest this episode is Angela Williamson from Chorus. Chorus is a full purpose organization in Western Australia with over 1,000 employees and volunteers. We're working alongside around 12,000 people who are aging, living with disability or on a mental health recovery journey. They were formed in 2017 from the merger of three Western Australian care providers and in 2021 they launched what they called their Fresh Approach or Auris 2.0 where they radically decentralized the organization into a network of 20 small, locally connected, self sufficient teams. So no traditional hierarchy, no management layers, just teams of people embedded in the neighbourhoods doing the work of community based care. If you're familiar with Birzhorg or you've listened to my episodes with some of the nurses there or the founder, Joster Block, Chorus is very inspired by the Birzorg model, so some aspects will sound familiar. My guest today, Angela, is what the outside world would probably recognize as a chief people officer and that's listed on her LinkedIn profile. But internally she's known as a strateg coach. Her background is in community development, leadership development and also with the eco village movement, unschooling sociocracy. She's had a really interesting career and so when she joined chorus in 2022 she was able to bring many of these threads to this new organization at a time when things were, as you'll hear, a little chaotic. So in this conversation we talk about the messy reality of, of radical decentralization and evolving new structures to replace the old ones. We talk about reimagining accountability and how Chorus navigates the pressures of the outside world such as audits.

Speaker B: How do you manage an audit as

Speaker A: a self managed organization? We talk about the inner and outer work of this kind of shift and why Khorus invests so heavily in things like adult development, leadership maturity, coaching and the practice of being able to put

Speaker B: down the mask at work.

Speaker A: In fact, uh, of the hundreds of self managing organizations I've encountered, I think Chorus is the most deliberately developmental organization I've come across, which is really cool. And we also talk about the shadow sides of working in care and in the self organizing system. Blurred boundaries, emotional exhaustion and what Angela beautifully describes as the way resilience is a social structure, not an individual achievement. Angela has this combination of being deeply experienced and articulate and at the same time so humble, so honest about her own learning edges and very willing to talk about the wobbly, ugly human moments. There's also a lot of love and joy in this conversation, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here is me talking to Angela Williamson from Chorus.

Speaker B: Hi Angela. Welcome to the lead Amorphousist podcast. So happy that you're here.

Speaker C: Thank you. Uh, it's a delight to be here. I think I shared with you when we spoke before that. Um, we at Chorus are real fans of the podcast. We talk about every episode and we get into great conversations about it. So, um, it's really delightful to be in this conversation with this community around the world. So, yeah, thank you for the invitation.

Speaker B: Yeah, my pleasure. Yeah. When we first spoke, you were like quoting different episodes back to me. I was like, oh, wow, okay, that's really nice. So, um, could you start by sharing with the listeners, um, a bit about Chorus. What is chorus as an organization and what was the starting point of this journey towards exploring self management?

Speaker C: So, um, so one of our kind of favorite expressions in Chorus is that chorus is porous. So when we talk about ourselves, we do talk about ourselves as a community that does stretch beyond the organizational walls. Um, but if I tell you about the organization itself, it's about 1,000 people right now. We're about 1,000 people who are both, um, paid team members and volunteers. We have a really large volunteer community. We support people to live in the community who are either aging or living with a disability or on, uh, mental health recovery. Journ and work with about 12,000 people across metropolitan WA M and metropolitan country

Speaker B: WA and it's in Australians.

Speaker C: That's right, Western Australia. Thank you. Um, and Aquiros was born. It was kind of born in um, 2017 and launched in 2018 from three organizations that actually jointly had been in, um, Western Australia and Perth for, I think the oldest one was about 70 years old. So they came together because, um, the boards of those three organizations were really committed to doing something very different in the world of community based care. They saw the world was changing. They saw that there were some challenges on the horizon for small organizations like them. Um, and they came together with a real commitment to thinking through what do we want the future of community based care to look like. Um, and they knew small organizations, they really were going to be quite unsuspecting, sustainable, so created Chorus. Chorus Then, um, came into existence, um, with that very deep commitment. And you know, so one of the things that for me is always a real strength of this organization is even that the success even of that very Original merger, because mergers aren't always successful. And bringing three organizations together, which had really different cultures and values. And, um, you know, it says a lot about the, you know, the DNA and the baseline commitments of this kind of, this kind of a system and what it was up to that. That original measure was so successful. So that was like 2017, 2018, and, um, there was a new board established and a new CEO was appointed. And at that time there was a fairly traditional kind of hierarchy. And then 2020, 2021, the real thinking began about, if we want to do something very different in communities, who do we need to be as a member of that community and as a citizen. As a community citizen. Um, and that was really when the idea emerged to completely redesign the organization and move from what was a very traditional, hierarchical, centrally orientated, all the control and management at the center and a team of seven or 800 support workers out in the community to 20 local, very small, connected teams who then provided services in a very distinct neighborhood across all the different kinds of care models. And at the time it was known as coerc 2.0. So there was coerc 1 and then there was coerc 2.0. Uh, and that decentralization, really from 2021, we're now 2026. So the last five years has been really embedding that model, making sure that that model, um, is sustainable and effective in local communities and really thinking about, well, what's next in terms of how that gets expanded. So, yeah, that's kind of where it grew from. I think that kind of says enough about that for now. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: It was kind of an ambitious, um, goal from the start of merging those three organizations and then kind of continuing to follow that, um, kind of North Star to its, like, extreme. Like, if we're really serious about this, then we could make the organization look completely different if we really walked the talk.

Speaker C: I think the other thing is this very deep commitment that suggests that if we have, you want to think about the work that we do. So we're in people's homes. The people who work in codis, including me, every single person at CODIS delivers services to customers or we have relationships with people in the community who are sometimes CODIS customers, we're in people's homes. And this ambition and aspiration to think about, well, what does it look like to support communities to thrive and have thriving lives? What would it, what would it take for us to be really confident that every time a support worker walked into somebody's house, they felt empowered and had personal agency and they felt confident to connect and, you know, really partner that, uh, person to make decisions about what was going to be, you know, what works for them. And you know, it's impossible to do that unless, unless they feel enabled and empowered and have personal agency. And you know, this is a workforce that's traditionally underpaid and have a lot of time and investment in their growth and development and their personal leadership. So I think the decentralization of power and control at Chorus is very much a function of going, if we want to be in the community as community members and we want to support people in the community, have great lives. The people who do that work have to have great lives. So that was the baseline of really thinking through what kind of organizational structure would fulfill on that. Really? Yeah. And that was way before I arrived. So it was really bold. It was a really bold move. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And I like that approach because I think it can, a kind of trap can be to sort of try and helicopter in some kind of structure or copy paste some other organization's way of doing things. And of course you can be inspired by organizations, but I think I'm just seeing more and more that coming back to these fundamental assumptions about people, about the work that we're doing that kind of create the invisible rules of the game and just starting to question some of those assumptions and then build an organization around that based on this group of people that we have is much more powerful than trying to sort of install something.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: And I think I hear that a lot, even as we listen to everybody you've heard on the podcast. Not that we've listened to everybody, but when we listen to the people who share on the podcast, I think this really deep theme about is you do need to work it out with your community. You do need to work it out based on what the work is you're doing and what your context is. And so we're still working it out. We're definitely still working it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Oh, there's lots of fun things we'll dive into in a bit more detail. Um, so let's talk about when you join the organization then. So what is the organization like when you join? What kinds of things are you then starting to look at in your role?

Speaker C: Um, uh, so I may say a little, maybe if I can take a minute, just say a little about my own kind of career journey as well. So I'm late in my career now. I'm kind of towards the twilight of my career, shall we say. And I started my career in community development. So, you know, spent the first kind of 15 years of my own career working in communities, empowering, trying to support communities to do things that they were interested in doing. And then I, um, moved in and out of, um, leading organizational development and leadership development mostly in large organizations as well as working in consultancy. And then on the side, like I had this whole other side side gig career, not really a gig, but, you know, work that I did, which. So I was involved very early in the global eco village movement and I was involved in the global kind of democratic education movement. I unschooled my kid and I created an organization for unschoolers and in three different places where I lived. And so, um, you know, I trained in sociocracy very early on. Before it was. Before it was a thing, you know, when it was really. Before it was cool. Yeah, like a long time ago before it was cool. But you know, really before, uh. So I'm thrilled that some of these ways of thinking are very much more contemporary and very much more open and public now. Because I always felt like I had my job and then I had this other thing that I did, but I couldn't really do this other thing in the world that I called my career or my work. So, um, you know, by the time I came to chorus, I was really looking for some of them where it was, well, where do you. Is there a place that I can integrate these? Because I know that this works. Like, uh, you know, I had built and evolved and participated in really successful eco villages and um, you know, run this democratic organization really successfully in my spare time, not in my day job. And I'm like, this works. This really does work. But, you know, then I would go to work and have to deal with, but why can't we do this here? You know. And I think in many ways I did do it just, you know, in terms of you just do what you can do to share power and, you know, evolve agency. But, um, so then I saw this really interesting jobad for, you know, this is who we are and here's what we're up to. And I was kind of. This looks intriguing. So I joined chorus kind of mid-2022. And when I arrived, one of the things that was very obvious was that there had been this very bold, ambitious move to radically decentralize everything, take all of the hierarchy out, take all of the structures out. So nobody reported to anybody. But it was a bit wild because there hadn't been any new structures built to replace that. So um, we couldn't at that point. For example, I don't think anybody in the organization at that point would have been confident about if we'd had an audit, would we have passed it or how are we doing in terms of business performance or who's actually making decisions. So there was a bit of either nobody was making them or everybody was making them, or when it got too hard, it just went to Dan as the CEO because that was just by default. If nobody else would make one, that would be where it would go. I think the skill set that I brought was both a little bit of all of the organizational leadership development work that I had done meant that there was a space that I could bring to the organization in terms of capability building. But actually all of the things that I had learned and practiced in my not job around how do you do circle based or flat governance and how do you build the system's capacity to challenge and propose and counterchallenge and how do you build those practices and routines and rituals where people who typically haven't felt like they had a voice can have a voice and not and you know, deal with the power dynamics and the uh, uh, because, because they don't disappear because you take a structure out, you know, they just, they're still there. And I think that's probably mostly what I've played the last, you know, the last few, three years. But, and it has been, it's definitely been an evolution. So we've created some structures. We've. And they didn't work. And then we went, oh, well, they didn't work. We're going to have to create some new ones. But there's, I would say that there's nothing that's been created. Some have been created and have sustained. Some have been created and they've either been retired, we call it, we're going to retire that now, or they've dissolved. But every single time you build capacity, you build the system's capacity to operate in that way, decide things in that way, take accountability in a different way, deal with, um, experimentation and failure, you know. And I think both in terms of my technical skill set and I think just the demeanor about going, oh, that's cool, we'll just figure that out. And you know, like. And also I think the other thing that um, not just me, but I think the other thing we're getting much better at is dealing with how do we keep standing in here in the face of auditors challenging it or you know, funders going, how is this working? Or you know, all of the other relationships outside of the internal ones that uh, they need to be reassured, they need to be confident that we've got public money and we're taking care of people's health and well being. And there needs to be a level of reassurance and structure that goes, no, we've got this, it's good, nobody's getting hurt and we're not being reckless. And so yeah, that's not quite sure quite how I answered that question, but that's kind of what's present around the. Just like really being conscientious about. I think particularly in this kind of industry. There is a leadership group in Kouros that we call the stewarding group. And we take stewarding really seriously. We are stewarding public money and public confidence and nobody's ever really been reckless about that. But the structures to demonstrate that that stewardship was being appropriately governed and demonstrated probably just was really missing in the first couple of years, I would say, of when that new model got put into place.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, yeah. I think what's really interesting when I've been reading about Chorus and when you and I had our kind of pre chat, I think Chorus is a really um, strong example of uh, you know. Yes. As you said, you've been on this journey of kind of testing out and experimenting and evolving different structures to create clarity, uh, to create accountability. And I think what's quite unique about you is that you're also very development focused. So there's a big focus on the inner uh, development and supporting people in this shift because it's a big paradigm shift from how most people are used to working in organizations. Could you share something about that kind of inner and outer uh, work lens if you like, and how that looks at chorus and some of the things you've been developing?

Speaker C: Yeah. So what's immediately comes to mind is some days it looks like people crying a lot. Like it really does. And you know, there. So there's something around. Let me have a think. Where will I start with this? We do spend a lot of time doing inside out work and outside in work. So. No. And it's very explicit and we're more and more explicit in our language about this is a me thing or no, that's a you thing or no, actually this is an us thing and we're gonna have to get it out on the table and deal with it. And you know, daily in our language, like there are days that I kind of, you know, I do come home and think, oh my God, uh, it's such A joy to have these conversations every day. You know, I think one of the things I love most about working with Koras is that I never. And I think it's not me. I think this is pretty common and we get a lot of feedback from people about this. You never have to pretend to be anything other than yourself. And I think that's a real feature of really good developmental organizations is you do. There's more and more and more space where you can put down the mask and put down the who you have to pretend to be and just be more and more yourself. But that also means dealing with all of the things dealing with yourself that is there. And so again it's quite explicit. The stewardship group, which is about 13 or 14 people, uh, who exercise system leadership. We did uh, six day intensive piece of learning and leadership maturity and adult development. We have all been measured in terms of our developmental stage. We do shared coaching work and individual coaching work, um, routinely. Like we have an external coach who works with us who's um. And I think the other thing that is a little interesting about chorus and not that common is we do have a number of people in that group who are at really late stages developmentally. So for people who are maybe less familiar with that model, if you think about Laloux model, who I know you've talked about that green stage, that kind of integral stage rather than the. Or the sorry, teal stage rather than the more ah, redefining stage. We actually have four people in our organization who are late stage strategist, alchemist, leaders. And that makes the biggest difference because you've just got a lot of people who can hold the, you know, the emotional charge and uh, all of the polarities and work really effectively together. They don't all have the same job. Some, you know, they're not all in the. They don't all have the same job title or they don't have the same kind of level of accountability or. But they're people who have said, I'll take organization wide accountability for this organization and I'll bring all of that capacity to help us work together, to keep leaning into the edges of discomfort and the emotional weight and mental weight that we're holding together to fulfill in this future that nobody has any idea how to turn out. Like literally nobody has any idea how to turn out. So again, we invest time in it, we invest energy, we invest personally in it. We just, you know, we invest. There's no. It's really hard to be invisible. It's really hard to um, You Know, I had some head coaching last week and you know, one of the things kind of maybe jumping ahead a little, one of the things that I'm working on right now is because of my history, I'm not very good with authority. I'm really anti authoritarian. Like it's my default state is to be anti authoritarian. So everything something looks like it's authoritarian, I get a bit stroppy, I get a bit like, no, we can't do this. And I can. And I'm really like confronting both my, my own shadow and going, but I just throw my weight around, you know what I mean? Like, because I'm not going to be responsible for that. I actually do have this personal power in the system. So it gets to be a little yucky and a little ugly. So dealing with that, uh, in my own coaching, but then also helping the system mirrored that. So when I'm being like that, uh, I have to make sure I've got people around me here going, hang on, Angela. Like, you know, that thing you just did was not okay. Could you just go and have a think about where that came from? Because that sounded way. I've got a really good colleague who's really good at going, that sounded like six year old Angela. Not the grown up one who. We need to come back to work today. That extends out in the local community. All the local hearts have been engaged in doing development work. We don't measure them, they do self assessments, but they're explicitly using the language. We're helping and developing people through a really, you know, quite extensive leadership development journey. Labs and coaching. And we have coaches internally who do this work, who are available at the end of the phone when people have to go, I don't know how to deal with this thing. And um, you know, I don't, I don't know how big a deal it is. I know that I don't think we could have done what we've done without it. You know, I don't think we could, we could keep, um, being. Because we're really countercultural in our sector. Financially, it's really challenging to work in this sector with the kind of compliance and business environment that we're in and this space that gets created and the kind of shared willingness to hold each other up and hold each other and value and honor the things, the gifts of each of our stages and all of the capacity we bring, as well as own the shadow and own the stuff that we're not so good at. I think feels like that's really, um, integral to Building like a sense of community and a sense of security, but not naive security. Like I don't think anybody imagines that we don't live in the real world and you know, bad things could happen. But there's, uh, you know, we have, we have a monthly leadership meeting where about 50, 50 or 60 people show up. And you know, we have guests come regularly who just go, this is just extraordinary walking into this room and seeing the level of connection and honesty and straightness and courage and willingness to look stupid and be bold and. Yeah, ah, I think it's one of our biggest strengths actually as an organization that kind of the uh. Okay, let's take a deep breath and think about what there is to go and deal with today. Um, and it goes back to what I said earlier. So I feel like I'm kind of raving a little bit, but it goes back to what I said earlier about this is 5 or 600, just regular, mostly 50 year old women who are in people's homes going, let's talk about how you have your life work in an environment where there's increasing levels of loneliness and disconnection and this huge commercialization of care and market. Just ugliness, I think, ugliness in that environment. And to stay human and to stay despite all of that, we're going to, we are going to keep being like testing ourselves against this core sense of is this who we want to be as human beings in the world and is this who we want to be as citizens in this community? And I think that development work just kind of helps us keep true to that every day. Just helps us not ever look away from how hard it is and not ever look away from making really difficult decisions, but at the same time holding each other to account and to our strengths. Like reminding each other how brilliant we are when that's necessary and reminding each other about how ridiculously awful we can be when that's necessary. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: I really like what you say about um, that it's, that it, it kind of grew out of necessity really. Like that you needed to have this culture of development and authenticity and community in order to do the work. Because there's all these different levels of complexity you've got. I mean one thing you talked to me last week about, many of the people who now are the, I think the, you call them hearts in the locals, right? These decentralized teams before that.

Speaker C: Hat. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Oh, hats, sorry, Wear a hat.

Speaker C: No, no, that's my favorite.

Speaker B: I see. It's like literally wearing a hat, um, so they would have um, previously more like a sort of supervisor type role and then kind of effectively went to running a PNL and being like a business owner basically, which is quite a shift. And then you have the complexity of um, the day to day, all of these unknown challenges that pop up and the complexities of people's lives and things that are going on and then the kind of meta level of all of the pressures that you're feeling from the Australian government and different policies that are introduced or budget cuts or all that kind of stuff or things like pandemics, all of these things going on. Um, so it strikes me that it also builds quite a lot of resilience and kind of creates this sort of net that holds you all together so that no1M person ever has to sort of suffer that alone.

Speaker C: Yeah, I can't remember whose work it is. Um, I did a program last year called Dancing with Mountains which is extraordinary. It's a program that Beyo Akomalafe ran. I don't know if anybody knows his work, but it is beautiful. It's kind of beautiful evolution that kind of talks about there's nothing to do with systems. You just want to be in them and honor them and nurture them and support them along. But one of the really interesting conversations um, that emerged from that was the sense of nobody really can take care of themselves. That's a Western independent kind of notion that you should take care of yourself and that you have to practice self care. So I think we do much more live in this notion that no, no, our job is to take care of other people. And if we take care of other people, somebody will take care of us and it'll all be okay. So even that in itself, um, and that resilience is a social structure, it's not an individual. I mean there's a sense of my own sense of self and strength and worthiness and capacity to kind up tomorrow and do the work. But I think we have at Coruscant have a strong kind of sense of shared culturally and in structures go. No, no, our job is mostly to focus on other people. Somebody else is going to be focused on us. And that means that the system. Yeah. So build resilience and I think a different kind of way than we often talk about in, I think in the west generally or in more individualized cultures. Because Australia is definitely more individual. I'm Scottish. I think it's a much more collective kind of sense of culture. Whereas in Australia my sense is it's much more an individualized culture where there is, there's more of that. My job's to, you know, pick myself up by my bootstraps and make my life work rather than. No, my job's to make sure I've got people around me who can and ah, together we'll take care of each other and it will be good. And I think if you think about that both again, for us in smaller groups, in the organization and who we are in the community with, you know, there's no separation for us between who we are and the work we do. I think that's something that's really important and that, you know, the sense of we're in people's homes and part of the thing that we do in people's homes is help them figure out how to get connected to a care system in their neighborhood. And that also means am I getting connected to care systems in my neighborhood? Like, do I know my neighbor? So we'll talk to team members as much about who do you know in your street that's going to come and take care of you if something goes wrong? As much as who at work is taking care of you if you need support, are you with me? There's, it gets quite blurry and then there's a real, you know, there's a real shadow of that. So, you know, I think I shared with you before. I, um, deliver a service every week to a customer. I've seen her for three and a half years, every Friday morning and about three weeks ago for the first time, I was sick on Friday morning and I couldn't go. I had um, happened so seldom, but I was like, I can't. How do I deal with the fact that she's going to try and go and get the wet washing at the washing machine unless somebody comes and she's gonna, you know, that, that sense of real, you know, it's like she's my, you know, my mum or my, you know, somebody in my family and it's not that. So I think there is this real developmental challenge about how, how do you maintain that kind of professional relationship as well, because they're not your family and your team members are not your family. I think I shared with you last time you talked there was. We had a, but, um, a situation recently in one of our leadership meetings. We were talking a little bit about accountability. We might come onto it a wee bit. But, um, there was still this sense in the room we were exploring what would have us become more accountable. And there was this emerge, this conversation emerged about we still need to do more work, to make it safe for people to speak up. And we just really spent time diving into that. What's underneath it. There's legitimately no reason for anybody to be scared of chorus. Like, nobody gets. It's not like nobody gets sacked, but you have to be really bad. Like, really, really awful. And what got uncovered was, um, there was a sense of exhaustion about dealing with each other's emotional stuff. It's kind of. Cause in a culture like this, where we are sharing a lot, and it is very human this. This boundary between. But I just need you to not bring that. Like, I need you not to be talking to me about your kid's drug problem or the fact that, you know, you're financially under stress or, um, you know, the. Yeah, you know, whatever it might be, because it's that again, I think that's sometimes the shadow side of. If everything's allowed and everything's supported and this work system becomes a primary support system, then there's some real risks in there as well. So can't quite recall how I got there, so maybe you can bring me back. So what was the question?

Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, we were talking about, like, development and how that. How, uh, crucial that is. But I really resonate with the shadow sides that you share. And I was thinking also when you were talking about, you know, when you. When you had to take a day off sick, and I think a shadow side of organizations where there's a strong emphasis on caring and empathy and people who are very committed, very responsible. The shadow side of that is that we can be overly responsible and take on, you know, everyone's stuff.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and I remember when I was talking to some of the nurses in the kind of famous, uh, Dutch, uh, home care organization of 10,000 people. No bosses. Their biggest struggle is burnout. That they are so committed and caring and dedicated. These nurses were telling me what we use our coach for very often is this person is on the edge of burnout. We want to support her. We don't know how to, uh, empower her to, you know, slow down or take some time off or, you know. So it's. It's interesting that even when we don't have this boss, we have this, like, inner boss. Like the tyranny of the inner boss.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Learning how to be caring and responsible and also boundaried, I think, is quite a learning edge for a lot of us in this movement.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I think. I mean, I don't know that that's necessarily. Um. It would be interesting to Experiment or get some sense of whether or not that is more about being in the care world or if that gets exacerbated in these more kind of self organizing systems rather than in more structured hierarchical systems. Because I've worked in healthcare for quite a long time as well and in hospitals and I see it there too, like, I don't know that it's, even when it's not.

Speaker B: But I think what's interesting is that I assumed if you took away the sort of, you know, uh, top down boss or the top down structures we would be, I naively assumed, oh, we would be much better than like self regulating. You know, we could together make sure that we weren't overworking. But I think we've internalized a lot of that.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: So whatever sector you're working in, even, even when you take away the hierarchical structures, there is some shadow work about what's my inner uh, tyrant that's sort of, that cracks the whip inside me and how can I, you know, become aware of that and ask other people to support me in that.

Speaker C: Mhm. And I think there is again, this may be a little more contentious and it may change over time, but I do think there's also, I think there is a gender lens on there and you know, again, worked in different kinds of organizations that are very male and Burnett there does show up a little differently, I think in terms of that black, the investment in work and accountability. But I also think certainly, and I think certainly my observation would also be that because the organizational, if you like, professional care doesn't exist outside, uh, of a broader structure that does, doesn't. Mostly my experience is people aren't taking care of their neighbors, that we're not checking on each other. So there's something around you trying to do that uh, inside a container that isn't, that isn't big enough. Like the outside container isn't supporting it either in terms of, oh, it's okay, I can't put that down because I know there are five other people who can step in. It's like, no, if I put it down, it just literally doesn't happen because there is no, you know, there's no far in these big care systems to, you know, and human works, wobbly work, it's loose work. You, you know, you, you need, you need good buffers and edges around. I just, I don't know that I could cope with showing up for somebody who, who's really struggling today. And if I'm struggling today and there's very little, I don't Know else has to say that there's no fart in that system.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: No buffer.

Speaker C: There's no buffer. So. And again, I think with organizations like us and, you know, and Birdstock, we've, you know, we definitely know them well and really aspire to be like them in many ways. We've got. We didn't. We weren't quite as clever as they were in terms of getting the funding model aligned. Um, but I think this piece, this work around. How do you navigate those spaces that enough connection to be human and enough distance to stay, um, appropriately separate. Um, and I have no answer to that other than you keep learning and trying and failing and, well, failed today in this. And that got, you know, that got too close or not enough connection here. Not enough attention to those relationships. But I mean, I think. I think the key thing is. I mean, the key thing. One of the many things, is just being willing to directly talk about every day. You know, I think there are fewer and fewer conversations across Chorus where people will talk about a thing like. And not deal with, uh, well, how is the relationship that we have influenced in that thing? Does that kind of make sense? It's just like in the room all the time. We just don't not talk about the thing that's actually making the difference, which is the level of. So what's happening in our relationship that's making this go this way. So that feels, um, not like an answer, but like an avenue or a way to attend to, you know, either I'm feeling over obliged or I'm feeling undervalued, or I'm feeling, uh, not used enough or like, is that available to be transparent and, you know. Yes, because if you can't name it, you can't talk about it.

Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. It sounds like a kind of a reflective muscle and a relational muscle that constantly talking about and reflecting on, okay, you know, what's happening there, what's in the relationship? And that's. Yeah, I mean, that's. There is no answer. There is no destination. It's just a daily practice, really.

Speaker C: M. And I think the other practice we're thinking about, practice that we have gotten better at over the last, um, couple of years, is bringing clean eyes in. So, um, you know, I think we've been working, um, with a couple of organizations who are doing some research, and we've been. We have friends. We have people who are called Friends of Chorus. We have other organizations who we partner with, and we'll often invite them into leadership conversations or design conversations or service development conversations. And Their job is to talk about what they see in our dynamic. That's really helpful to kind of go, let's bring somebody in to help us look at ourselves. Because it's hard to look at yourself.

Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah, that sounds interesting. I want to come back to, um, this theme of accountability, um, that you mentioned because I think this is a really juicy topic and I think when I talk to people, um, who don't know that there is another way of organizing and I say that there are organizations working in health and care, um, that are working in a decentralized way, people are very shocked. But how does that work? How can you be safe? How can you, uh, be compliant if you don't have a boss? So I think it's an interesting one. Like how do you create a culture of accountability, replacing those structures with more decentralized and distributed leadership? So I'm curious, how have you been navigating that at Chorus?

Speaker C: Yeah, um, again, mostly by evolving it. I sometimes do like to share a story. We had, um, an auditor come about two years ago. We had an auditor come, um, who said, I feel more confident about the quality of care that this organization is providing than many others and you're not compliant. And I'm like, that's really interesting because it doesn't look. They just couldn't figure out how to tick the boxes to say we would actually be accountable the way that it's supposed to look. Whereas they knew by talking to customers and team members that actually we were. So we have gotten better at that. We're now more and more able to articulate where accountability lives, uh, how it gets exercised, who accounts for what. So I think some of the big shifts that have happened is one of them has been around. Accountability isn't. It lives in a psychological relationship. So it's both the inner work and the outer work. So there is outer structures where accountability lives. So we could now share a bunch of documents that go, this is the group of people who said they will be accountable for this group of outcomes or this area of quality that's matured over time. They are peer groups and they are exercising. For example, we have an internal audit function that is a peer function. One local will go and audit another local. And again, that's really interesting process in terms of, you know, the peer audit. I need to be confident enough to tell you as my colleague that this is not how this should look. And at the same time I need to not become, um, you know, just a jerk about that and go, you know, this is not how it should look and that we're in this shared learning experience together and practice experience together and that gets swapped around. So we do audits every two months. Um, different locals audit different locals on different things. So we're building that real kind of sense of it's okay for other people to come and look, it's okay for people to come and check. Check in is okay. You just don't need to be someone more serious to do the check. M. It's like you just don't like. And that is very default it's kind of notion that the only person who should be observing or making some kind of analysis or observation or report about my performance, she'd somehow rather be more senior than I am. So it's taken a little while to build that trust and okayness and practice and took some conflict navigation and all of those things. Um, again those structures. Then we have the locals work together in what are called hubs, the hats in that hub. Um, so the hats kind of share accountability for the performance of the local. That's how that works. It's not everybody in the local and there's usually three or four hats and they'll meet every two week with their colleagues and other locals and they'll share. We share all the data. So everybody can see everybody's P and L, everybody can see everybody's compliance reports, everybody can see everybody's customer feedback. All the data is public. So that helps people to be accountable. To go, here's what there is for me to account for rather than be held accountable for. Does that. That's, um, a really important shift and psychologically I think that's a really important shift because it's. So then on an annual basis as we build, well, what is the budget going to look like for this local this year and what do you want to deliver this year and what are you going to work on this year? That it's that practice of um, in those hubs making agreements and then talking about, well, how are we going to, how are you going to monitor whether or not you keep those agreements and what new data do you need and what practices are we going to build and the coaches support them. Our coaches and mentors who work really closely in the hubs to support the leads and the hearts do that together. I would say that we're getting like, we've matured a lot in making promises. Like we're way better at going, yeah, yes, I, I will be accountable for that. Or no, I'm just not going to be. I can't Legitimately can't promise to deliver that result. That would just be being, saying something to look good. So no, um, getting much better at proposing things, saying, you know, I recommend that we do this. We've got a structure for how people propose decisions to be made to the different, there are different leadership forums where different kinds of decisions go. We're about to start practicing um, monitoring agreements with. Oh, I can't remember what they're called. You had a guest a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker B: Confirmation practices.

Speaker C: Confirmation practices. We're about to start that.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we're about to. So one of my colleagues is building the kind of structure for what would that look like? And you know, and each of the hubs and each of the locals building that muscle because that's been missing there. So even though we've gotten really, really good at making promises and sharing accountability and looking at all the data together, this ability to go, but what do I do with it now if somebody's not delivering what they said or you know, how do we lean in and say no, that, you know, that's, that's legitimate, you just need to make a new agreement because that, you know, for some reason that thing didn't get done or no, that actually isn't okay. That's something has to happen for you to get back on track there. Because that's actually not okay. Because I think in this system, I think what happens particularly with money because we're always weird about money because everybody can see everybody else's P L. You know, if one local is performing really well financially and another one isn't, everybody knows that that local subsidizing this one. Does that make sense? Because it's not like there's, at the end of the day it's a single bucket of money that, that we use to, you know, we generate revenue, we pay people. So the, there is psychological pressure if you like, that's peer pressure to kind of go, I have to attend to the things that I need to attend to. And if we get a um, non compliant report from an odd hour, it's not just one local, it's everybody like it's. The whole system isn't compliant if it's not. It's not compliant in one place, it's not compliant everywhere. So again it's both the internal work of being willing to go. I'm going to say what I think I can do. I'm going to again beginning to really practice that. I'm going to come and account for what I said I was going to do, and whether I did it, rather than somebody's holding me to account for that, and that's the next muscle to build. And then occasionally, again, what hasn't disappeared is occasionally there are just really bad things that happen. And on those occasions, you know, the people in the system will often go, angela, I think you need to come and deal with this. Like, that's, um, that's beyond our capacity or our scope, or, you know, there's been a serious incident, or someone's really breached the code of conduct in a way that really isn't acceptable. And it's not that the locals couldn't handle that, but they just sometimes when you go, no, that needs a bit more power in the system to kind of go, like, I need somebody else to kind of go, am I sacking this person today? Bluntly, like, that's, you know, nobody's got the authority to sack anybody, basically, other than, um, two of us in the organization. So at the point that it gets to be that significant, we will bring in a level of. Which feels a little bit hierarchical power, but it's much more like, who are the appropriate people to bring a big enough picture and body of thinking to all of the associated risks in this situation to make the call. So, yeah, the book, uh, I would say even a couple of years ago in accountability, my very first week at Chorus, I went to a leadership meeting, one of these big leadership meetings, and there was a real pull from the community to have, like, a rule book. So it's evolved to a playbook. So we now have a playbook. And it's getting more and more mature. So there are guidelines. It's not like everybody's doing whatever they want, but there was this pool for this, like, write a playbook. We want a playbook, we want a guidebook. And this big meeting, I went, so, who should write it? And it. It was such an interesting conversation to go, who should write the rule book? And I was sharing earlier. My kid went to school in the UK for a couple years to a school called Summer, um, Hill. So I was a member of that community for a little while. And that's got one of the biggest rule books I've ever seen in my life that was built by this community. It's huge, but it's alive and it's dynamic, and it keeps getting evolved and iterated, and it gets. And the community holds each other to account for working to the rule book that they aligned on. So I think one of the things that's been really important in Chorus is that the people who wrote the rule book weren't somebody in head office somewhere. It was. Every single play was aligned on by the community. Every single one of them. Took a long time. Still takes time to get that done because something new happens in the external environment and then you have to go through the. This whole alignment process about. I think it's one of the funny things about distributed systems. Like I would when I'm talking to the locals, they'll often say, can we just have a consistent way that we have to do this? And then we'll propose something and they'll go, no, no, no, no. We want it consistent, but we want it to do it the way that we do it. No, no, if you can have it consistent. So I think that's one of the biggest challenges of working in these kinds of systems is no differently, but to actually get authentic alignment. Um, you know, and that's just 20 of them and we've just added four more this year. And, you know, that's growing. And at some point, at some point you kind of go, how do you. How do you scale that with that? You know, how do you scale that to go? Well, these, I think, is what Brits hope do remarkably well. This. Because I think they do have tight guidelines. It's like, no, this is how you do this kind of care. And that's not negotiable. It's kind of. So we're not quite as mature as that yet that we've got to the point where we've kind of gone, this is. This is what this has to look like. And there's no, there's no wriggle room in there. So, um. Yeah, yeah, we've got a way to go in terms of that. Both once you. How. How do you build it and then once you've built it, how do you one build structures that govern it? So, you know, whether or not people are in or out or, you know, it has been, and that's both. The. Can keep coming back to both the inner and out, the structures that make that true. But also the, the psychological space and safety and the relationships that people will hold each other as peers and colleagues to stay, you know, just, just stay on track with that rather than pretend, you know, covered it up or. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's a fascinating space, this M. For me, the heart of it is what am I willing to be. What am I willing to be counted on for? Like, that's how we have the. What can I count on you for you? Hm.

Speaker B: Get to say, yeah, yeah,

Speaker A: I think

Speaker B: it's such a ripe area. And like, I really. I really think we collectively in the world could benefit from reframing how we relate to accountability because it's so tied to punishment and consequences. And it's very often a, uh, weird temporal thing. Accountability is usually thought of when something went wrong. And then, whereas I love what you were talking about proactively, there was, um, a great podcast conversation I heard with a disability justice activist called Mia Mingus, and she was saying we need to shift from holding people accountable, which is sort of a violent image, isn't it, holding someone to proactively supporting people to take accountability themselves.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And as you said, I think there's a combination of making the implicit explicit, creating clear agreements, um, being clear when I'm promising something. In Tuff, we have this practice that my colleague Carla suggested of distinguishing between, yes, it's my intention to do that, and I promise to do that. That it's helpful for people to know how to relate to me. Is it a promise or is it an intention? And trying to upfront be much clearer about communicating that. And then also then having agreements or building that muscle of when there is

Speaker A: a breach, how do you deal with that?

Speaker B: In a way, um, that is compassionate,

Speaker A: but it's also sort of tough.

Speaker B: Like, how can it be both? Because we're so. We tend to be scared of. We can only be one or the other. It's possible to be both. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think a couple of other things kind of emerged when you were saying that one is around. And this is more like, in that when you bring the developmental lens as well, start with the assumption that that human being is being accountable for everything that they can be accountable for right now. And if what they can be accountable for right now is less than what is necessary to get their job done, then absolutely there's a conversation to be had. And is that temporary or is that permanent? Actually, there is a reality that goes, this person actually doesn't have the capacity to hold accountability for this body of work or this complexity of work. And let's be honest and kind and responsible about dealing with that. And there was another thing that was in my head and it just flew straight back out again. Um, nope, it's gone.

Speaker B: Sorry.

Speaker C: But that felt important because I think that is how we work much more about. Because you have to assume positive intent. It's not like I've got the capacity to be accountable for more, and I'm just being difficult. That's the other thing I was going to say. And uh, because any organizational outcome often depends. Like, there's an interrelationship of accountability. It's like, I'll promise to deliver this thing, but that is actually, you know, and I don't mean just in project interdependences. I mean, it really does mean that if you do that thing, then I can do this thing. And if you don't get that bit, if you like, either sequentially or, um. Because I need you to partner me in doing the pieces that are not mine to do and navigating that I think is equally is critical. And, you know, like, can I. Can I check in and go, how is that going? You said you'd get it done on Thursday. Um, can I still rely on that or, like, and not have that feel like a checking in conversation or a. Yeah, you know, and particularly when you've just got these informal power dynamics. Like, I have to constantly, because I lead in lots of places. But I'm a member of different squads as a member, a participant, and, you know, I have to be really consciously considerate about when I say to a squad colleague, I'm putting my squad member hat on and I'm just checking in whether or not where you're at with this. No, I'm putting my, you know, the hat that I've got when I'm called a strategic coach and I've got a little bit more power in the system. So, um, work again, I think, for all of us who've got power working every single day to attend to it so that it doesn't get in the way.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: In ways that are irresponsible. And then owning it when you need to own it and be responsible for it in that dynamic.

Speaker B: M. Yeah. I also think, listening to you, I think about, um, how common it is that when someone is not being accountable, we make all kinds of assumptions and interpretations about that and we tend to respond in a kind of parental way. If you're a nice parent, maybe you assume, oh, maybe it was too difficult for them, so maybe I'll take some things away or I'll help them with this. Or if you're a bit more of a tough parent, then maybe you think, okay, they need to be performance managed or they need to blah, blah, blah. And it might not not be either. It's like, ask, this is what I'm noticing. What's happening? Tell me what's going on. And then seeing what is it that's missing? Is it lack of clarity? Maybe they don't have clarity on something. Or is it capacity? Is it particular circumstance that's going on, something that is useful for the system to know about rather than sort of swooping in and m. Yeah, but is

Speaker C: it literally that you didn't put it in your calendar? Yeah, because I think that is. There's a, you know, one. Again, another thing I think we're getting a little better at as an organization is going, you know, not only when I make a promise, but can I. Am I being account. Am I being. Don't. Accountable is the right word. But am I structuring how I'm going to keep that promise by actually scheduling this work somewhere or, you know, and I think that is a distinction between an intention and, uh. And I promise, it's like, well, if, you know, you know, one of the things I try and be account, like, I try and role model is go. You can see what I'm being accountable for by looking in my diary. And my diary is public, like my, you know, you should go look. And I. And again, doing that as a role model and going like, I really trying to encourage everybody to go, just leave. Just, you know, people know what you're up to when you're. There's nothing you don't need. Just leave your diary open. And then, um, you know, one of, you know, I think this. This also this thing around a request includes a request, uh, for a conversation. So stick some. Like, it took me about a year for people to stop emailing me or messaging me to say, could I put something in your diary? I'm like, the space if, you know, a request for a meeting is a request. It's fine. You don't have to ask three times to make sure it's okay to do that. So even these little things are so little, but they're so like, I don't know, they take time and energy and keep power imbalances in place.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It takes more than just permission. People have to really take some time to unlearn these little moments of seeking approval or deference. I want to ask you, Angela, what has your personal journey in this been as a human being? I mean, it sounds like you have been a kind of lifelong student of lots of different, um, development practices and so on. But during your time at chorus, what has been challenging for you? What has been a real learning or growth moment for you?

Speaker C: Well, interestingly given, this is very, uh, flat and organic kind of structure. My edge certainly in the last little while has been about. There are actually times where this system wants me to exercise authority and it trusts me to exercise authority. And I think that, interestingly enough, that's where it gets quite wobbly. Like, I can. There's something that's remarkably moving to know that, like, these nine, 900 people trust me to make this decision. And I don't kind of sometimes know how to just. Just sit with that. Whereas. And it's not because I've got a job title like. Like, actually, they trust you with this and hold, hold. And I don't even know how to talk about that in a way that makes sense anymore other than, you know. And I think we. I think. I think that's a common experience in chorus, but some people are just more comfortable or familiar with it than others. But because I've veered away from that very much in my own work, in my own community, it's like, okay, um, that's taking something like, oh, and it's sometimes ugly and clunky. And so that's my age right now. The other thing for me has been. And this isn't just for me, but I think this is. It is for me and it is for everybody, I think. I think because everybody delivers care work, regardless of what your job title is. I have the deepest respect for people who do this work every day. You know, it's like, it's not. It's the deepest respect. We should be paying these people a fortune. Like, it's kind of Jesus. Like, the emotional labor and the actual genuine care and the willingness every day to show up and deal with the complexity of people's lives, as well as make sure the toilet's clean. And it's the. And I don't even know in terms of the journey, what I've learned from that other than, like, there's a humility that's present and the sense of this is really honorable work. Um, I don't know. That's about my Lena. It's my appreciation and my sense of this is really honorable work, and we should be finding bigger and better ways to honor it, because it is extraordinary that the difference. As the need for this work expands, um, I want to more and more be an advocate for how do we find more and more ways for this to be honored. And the other thing. This is more like a. A. This is a joy. Like, it's a joy for me that I could talk about how much I love my colleagues. And that love is a word that is a very normal word to use every day when I go to work. Like, you know, it's just like this. That's extraordinary. And then, you know, and I think what I've noticed for myself is because I also work in different kinds. You, uh, know, because of both my role and because of my life, I'm in other organizations and in other contexts quite a lot that I feel more and more confident to just show up in other places and be that way and not be embarrassed or apologetic about it, which is kind of cool. It's like there's something around. Let's just infect the system with talking about love and joy and being kind and being honest and raw and truthful and dealing with. When it doesn't go well. That, uh, skill. And, uh, how do I clean this up? And not just at an individual level, but at a, uh, system level. Because the, the. Some of the things that I do or that. Because I've got such a big influence in this system and we work so hard to make sure everybody's aligned and it's collective, but occasionally you just screw up and it's like, oops. And then, um, you know, the willingness to be on a stage and share with the community. Sorry, that was not how I intended that to go. Or, you know, be publicly accountable. Actually. That. That is definitely a. I'm definitely getting better at doing that. Being willing to be very, very publicly, transparently accountable and trust that my, uh, own intentions are honorable. And even if, I don't know, trust that that was the best I could do today. Even like everybody, that's the best I could. That, like that that happened. You know, give. Give myself the benefit of the doubt as well. In terms of, you did what you could, that was best you could do, it went badly. Now you go do the work of cleaning it up and repairing it and restoring what there is to be restored. And, um, I think that's an ongoing piece of development work, really. Yeah. And again, particularly in our circumstances, like I literally do, and I think we all do go. If we do something really, really bad, it does actually have bad consequences. Like, it's not like you lose the money. Like it could go bad. Yeah, yeah. The stakes are high. Yeah. But the gifts are extraordinary. Like, you know, I think there is also something about. So this will be the last thing to say. Um, it's really easy to get scared by the risk. It's really easy to get scared and go, oh, but, you know that this, this sense of this community going, no, no, we'll be okay. We can trust this. We can. We can stand here together. We're. We're not gonna. Not reckless and we're not going to let people get hurt, but we can Keep pushing the edges of what good practice looks like and what good accountability looks like and what shared leadership looks like with that. Yeah,

Speaker B: I could talk to you for hours. But um, yeah, so if I attempt to give you a kind of wrapping up question, then, uh, what would you say to listeners of this podcast then? Who are people like you and your colleagues who have been listening and people who are exploring some of these principles and practices in their own organization or would like to. What would you say to them?

Speaker C: I mean, there's probably a couple of things I think one is, I think really three things. One is you could practice the practices regardless of what your structure is, is so, you know, the practice of sharing power, you could practice anywhere with anybody. Practice it at home, practice it with your nib, practice it in your community organ. Like just start to practice it and you know, because I think this noticing, where have I got power? What have I not? How do I give it away? How do I take it when I need to take it when it's mine? So I think that is so core to how organizational systems work and is the talk about power and let's talk about where it is and how it's moving and how it's traveling. Um, and there's lots of places that you could learn different ways of doing that. So I think that would be a, that would be. Just start, just start there. I think the adult development lens is a really important lens I think for us individually and collectively. So again, it doesn't matter what structures you work in or what kind of organization you work in. I'd uh, suggest anybody who wants to think about maturing an organization to different kinds of leadership, decision making, collaborative structures, needs to have at least an understanding of capacity as a, uh, developmental phenomena and how to navigate at both my own capacity, why different places in the system may be aligning or synergetic with me or where there might be dissonance and seeing how that lens contributes to that thinking. I think the other thing is just go play in some different spaces. If it's really hard in your organization where you do your day job, just go find somewhere else to play for a while. So you know, I think things like I'm a really, I'm a big, I'm an active member of the worm data community and you know, just go, go find a tribe who's interested in, you know, keep listening to the podcast, you know, find the tribes in your neighborhood who are doing this kind of work and make connections and you know, there is something around if you're waiting for permission. I mean, that sounds really crass, but if you're waiting for permission, it's never come in, you know, it's just never coming. You just gotta. And um, maybe the last thing for me is this is not about just how organizations work. This for me is about how society is structured and how we do operate together as good citizens and take shared accountability for how our communities work. So there's also something for me about if you're not making the difference you want to make in that environment, literally go and contribute it somewhere else. Because there will be somewhere in your neighborhood or in your community or in your professional network who want you and who are hungry for you to come and contribute there. And that's a good kind of, um, training ground really for learning how you might begin to then influence in more formal structures and move them along.

Speaker A: So I hope you enjoyed that episode with Angela. If you want to learn more about Chorus, I've put a link in the show notes to an article by a friend of the Pod Yost from Corporate Rebels. Um, they've written a couple of articles actually about Chorus and they describe some of the organizational design elements. So if you want to dig in more, you can have a read of those. And I wanted to share a few related lineomorphosis episodes that you might want to check out after this or in the future. Kind of cue them up in your saved episodes list. So one is with the nurses from Bourzorg or with Joster Block, the founder. We had a great conversation not long after the pandemic about humanizing versus protocolizing. At the end of the conversation we mentioned Chavi, Chavi Acosta, who is a big advocate for love in organizations and replacing fear with love Love. So he's also a key person in

Speaker B: the new ways of working movement in Spain.

Speaker A: So I recommend listening to that episode. We mentioned confirmation practices in this episode. Um, so there's a, an episode with Helen Sanderson and Andy Brogan where we talk about confirmation practices, which is um, a really interesting tool to replace traditional performance management. At least that's one of the uses for confirmation practices. So if you're wondering how to create structures and practices that create kind of peer to peer accountability, that is a really good episode. And we don't mention this one directly, but I had a conversation with Bernadette Wesley some time ago and we talked in detail about deliberately, uh, developmental organizations. She's really knowledgeable about that. She shared a lot of individual and collective practices for development that fit uh, really nicely in self managing organizations, so that's a good one to listen to. And then finally, I mentioned in this conversation Mia Mingus, the disability justice activist who has some really cool stuff to say about accountability and how we can rethink accountability. So I initially heard some gold nuggets from her on the Nothing Never Happens podcast, so I've shared a link to that. She's also written a number of blogs about this topic about accountability, and I really recommend checking some of those out, so I'll share those as well. So thank you as always for listening. If you have a moment, um, please do a few things like subscribe if you haven't already. Share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it. Rate or review or comment. All of these things help the podcast be more visible to others. Uh, you may not know that we have a YouTube channel as well if you want to watch video versions of these episodes. Uh, so you can subscribe to our YouTube channel. And yeah, I hope you'll tune into another episode soon. Thank you for listening and have a great week.