Listen or Watch
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgNKkM7GShk
Summary
In this conversation, Jardena London—an Agile practitioner and author—discusses the concept of creating “soulful” organizations. Drawing on her background in software development, Jardena noticed that the real challenges weren’t purely technical; instead, they stemmed from how people and teams work together.
She highlights three core conditions for soulfulness in any organization:
- Dignity – Ensuring people are treated with respect, rather than being forced to earn basic self-worth through work.
- Creativity – Making space for genuine problem-solving and innovation, as opposed to purely transactional or process-driven work that drains energy.
- Human Connection – Fostering collaboration and openness instead of merely relying on rigid handoffs and “automated” communication.
Jardena contrasts these elements with environments that “crush the soul,” where strict processes, ego-driven leadership, or lack of trust discourage creativity and honest dialogue. She believes leaders have a key role in setting conditions: by becoming more self-aware, staying curious (especially in high-stakes situations), and listening actively, they can reduce friction and remove obstacles for their teams.
From an organization design perspective, Jardena advocates looking at formal structures, processes, and policies—like budgeting or performance reviews—and asking how they might be unintentionally stifling dignity, creativity, or connection. Then, leaders should revisit the original purpose of these processes and rebuild them in ways that restore or enhance soulfulness.
Ultimately, Jardena’s message is that while efficiency and outcomes matter, they are achieved more sustainably when leaders and teams operate with humanity at the forefront—creating organizations where people’s energy and creativity can flourish.
Show Notes
Rosetta Agile - https://www.rosettaagile.com/
Organization Design Forum - https://organizationdesignforum.org/
Transcript
[00:00:00] Damian Bramanis: Welcome. We are back at the Festival of Organization Design 2024. And with us today is Jardena from Rosetta Agile.
So, welcome Jardena.
[00:00:09] Jardena London: Thank you. Happy to be here.
[00:00:10] Damian Bramanis: And we have Amy and I'm Damian. I'm really excited for this talk. The word that got me excited is "soulful". But before we get to "soulful", tell us a little bit about yourself. Let's hear what brought you here, Jardena?
[00:00:22] Jardena London: Oh, let's see, what brought me here. I do a lot of work with Agile transformations. And I found that community didn't know a whole lot about org design. So, I literally Googled org design and found this group five or six years ago. And it's such a wonderful group. And I learned a ton about— I'm still learning a ton about org design, but the more I got involved, the more I got involved.
[00:00:44] Amy Springer: I'm intrigued. One thing I've found with all of the conversations we're having, is that people don't know org design is a thing. As a title. But you knew that the Agile community wasn't familiar with it. What were you seeing? What were you witnessing that you're like, "I know there's a concept that should exist." and you managed to find it, but what would that look like?
[00:01:04] Jardena London: In the Agile community, there's always been a lot of talk about creating cross-functional teams. So, getting people out of being functional and into being more cross-functional. And that's lovely. But you can't just go do that.
There's other implications and repercussions of that, that the Agile community just didn't know. Every time I would ask, they would just all say "Spotify". And I'm like, "Okay, that's not— there's got to be more to this than— you can't just walk into a giant organization of hundreds of thousands of people, say "Spotify", and then poof, it's done.
How do you actually get from here to Spotify or whatever? But the Agile community would just say like, "Who cares? You don't have to change the org chart, just move people around." But that's not really how I found it to work in real life.
[00:01:44] Damian Bramanis: Where do you see the overlap between organization design and Agile organizations?
[00:01:49] Jardena London: I think it's the underpinning. When I think about organizational design, if you don't have that design in place— I think of it like you're driving a car with the alignment that's off.
You have to keep overcorrecting. So, if you have a good underpinning, it holds you, so that you can move forward.
[00:02:04] Amy Springer: And all of the pieces get worn down, much faster than they should be.
[00:02:07] Jardena London: That's exactly right. And then you might get a flat tire or you might have to be towed because you were not really driving on a stable car.
[00:02:14] Damian Bramanis: Let's rewind right into the early days. What brought you to your career where you are today?
[00:02:20] Jardena London: Oh, we're backing up my origin story. I studied computer science and math.
[00:02:24] Damian Bramanis: Okay.
[00:02:25] Amy Springer: Whoa, snap!
[00:02:27] Damian Bramanis: Yeah, amazing.
[00:02:27] Jardena London: So did you?
[00:02:28] Damian Bramanis: Yes.
[00:02:28] Jardena London: Oh, excellent. So, I started my career as a programmer. I was even going to be an actuary, but I decided to be a programmer. And I did. I ran a software company for a long time, 12 years. And I just kept feeling like the problems were not in the code. I got into a lot of the software development methods. Early like, pre-Agile. And then I got into Agile, and I was like, "Okay, this is way better than what we were doing."
I was really flummoxed by— you college— we call it college, university— with all these smart people in computer science. And then, you go into the workplace and the IT department is the dregs of society. And they can get nothing done, nothing delivered, everything's broken.
And I'm like, where's— what— how did this happen with a whole lot of smart people aggregated to fail every day. And so, that was a problem I wanted to solve. Is why is software so bad? It's better now. It was so bad. So, I was just way more interested in how we develop software than developing the software.
And then, I just went from there to like, how do we organize all departments, because it's really fascinating.
[00:03:29] Damian Bramanis: Do you think that software departments and engineers— it's the same things that tick in a software organization to other organizations? Or do you think there's some sort of uniqueness to software development?
[00:03:41] Jardena London: Oh, there's uniqueness, sure. And there's also the historical evolution of software. It's different. The communication part is the same. Like, bad communication, bad collaboration, that's common across. And then, of course, the soulfulness piece.
[00:03:57] Damian Bramanis: Which is a word you don't often hear with software.
[00:04:02] Jardena London: Well, that's because a lot of times the life is sucked out of a software department. But, when you bring soul into it, you can have some really lively products.
[00:04:13] Damian Bramanis: What does that mean to you, to bring soul into a software team?
[00:04:16] Jardena London: Software team or any team, right?
[00:04:18] Damian Bramanis: Yeah.
[00:04:18] Jardena London: When I talk about soul— I did intentionally choose this word. I think the easy way to describe what soulfulness is, is to think about what it isn't.
So what is it like to be in a soul crushing environment? And everyone's had an experience, or most people have had an experience of being in a soul crushing environment. So what is it in IT? I worked with an IT department once where I tried to do some collaborative— we tried to do Agile, right?
There's a lot of human interaction in Agile. Some of the programmers were like, "Wait a minute, this is like manual communication. And I said, What does that mean?" I don't know. Manual communication. And he said, "You want us to talk to each other. And I was like, "Yeah, I do." A lot of times, we think we can automate and transact the heck out of it and not have to have human interaction.
[00:05:02] Damian Bramanis: Yeah. And that's really where the value often lies.
[00:05:06] Jardena London: Right? Well, the thing is, we can architect a process as best as we can, and try and have no gaps, no cracks, no gaps, no overlaps.
[00:05:15] Damian Bramanis: Exactly.
[00:05:15] Jardena London: Right. But you can't. Because there's always a crack, a gap, and an overlap. And we accommodate for those by having human interaction.
That's the safety net. So, you take that away, you have no safety net.
[00:05:27] Amy Springer: I'd love to hear more about your soulful concept. And then we can dig more into how you ended up there. Tell us about it.
[00:05:34] Jardena London: I'll cut to the chase for a second. I end up in all places, because I see a gap. And I'm like, "Wow, this is so missing and it's affecting the business outcome." So, that's how I end up anywhere I end up. But how I see soulfulness is, I look at the things that are crushing people's souls and the impact on the business. So, I talked in my session about, there's three conditions for soul in an organization dignity, creativity, and human connection.
And without those things, Dan Pink can talk all he wants about autonomy, mastery, and purpose. And those things are a higher level. You, sort of, have to evolve to that, like the Maslow hierarchy. But if we don't have dignity, we're not getting purpose. Often, I see organizations designed in a way that robs people of their dignity.
We have people hustle for their dignity, for their self worth, as a reward system. And that's soul crushing.
[00:06:24] Damian Bramanis: Yeah. We, sometimes, think of it as your personal energy. What are the things at work that give you energy and make you excited and want to be there? And you can finish the day, full of excitement in life.
And what are the vampires that suck away your energy? And even just spending an hour on that piece of work feels like it's a whole day. It drains so much from you.
[00:06:42] Jardena London: Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't mean that we have to be "Woo" and have people just do whatever they want. I joke about like, it doesn't mean you have to burn incense, although you can.
But what it means is that, the basic human needs are met. So, the creativity piece, you can get energy when we are in a creative state. We build energy versus being in a transactional state, which sucks energy.
[00:07:04] Damian Bramanis: So, imagine I'm a leader. I don't know a whole lot about org design, but I'm there day to day, looking after things at the office.
And, I think my team's going okay. There's a bit of problems here and there, but on the whole, we seem to be going okay. What are the things that you think I should be looking into? And what were the steps that I should be taking, to see is my organization soulful? And what can I do to investigate and diagnose that?
[00:07:26] Jardena London: There's some capabilities as a leader. Leaders are responsible for creating conditions for soulfulness, which I just described. Not so much, directing work, but making sure that we have the conditions in place for work to get done. So, that's the shift I talk to leaders a lot about, is stop focusing on the work and the status, but more about the conditions. Like, what's blocking people? What's frustrating people? And removing those obstacles. I think a leader's job is to create and open up new possibilities. And so, if we're not doing that as a leader and we're focused more downward on the work, it's a bit soul crushing.
So, that's a leader's job. But then, I always say, be all the soulful you want, but don't forget that we're running a business. So you're still creating direction.
[00:08:06] Damian Bramanis: Yeah. What are the warning signs I should be looking for, to indicate that things might not be going in the right direction?
[00:08:12] Jardena London: So, this is about listening to your team. Because the team is the one that will be giving you that information. So, self awareness is always that first step. If you're not self aware or you can't see how you're showing up, and you're stuck in— like a lot of folks— all of us are stuck in ego, then it's hard to see what's going on.
So, opening up that self awareness. You can even ask for feedback or just attuning yourself to pay attention to how the energy shifts when you walk into the room. That is that first step. So, one of the things I talk about is, being aware of how you're— or whether or not you're polluting.
So, when a leader walks in and pollutes the air, because of their ego or whatever it is— their agenda. That can lead to the soul crushing piece.
[00:08:54] Damian Bramanis: I think of that and I think of a leader walking into the room, and everyone, sort of, shies away. That's somewhere I just don't want to work. And I imagine many people would feel a similar way.
[00:09:04] Jardena London: When I think about leaders, though, and even coaching leaders or working with leaders, it's about uncovering their soulful leadership. Because everyone has a soulful— everyone has a soul, right? So, a lot of times, when a leader walks in and makes everyone tense, it's because they have armor.
They've got baggage. They've had world experience. Their soul has been crushed and they're passing it on. So, it's about unpacking and unpeeling some of that.
[00:09:30] Damian Bramanis: Yeah, absolutely. And let's think of it from the other point of view. What should I be looking for in an organization that's thriving?
If I'm a leader and I walk into the room, how do I know that things are on the right track for me? Also for everyone, for all of us.
[00:09:45] Jardena London: How do you know that they're on the right track when you walk into a room? Well, people are open and sharing. That's the biggest key.
[00:09:50] Damian Bramanis: Yeah. With each other, do you mean? Or with you?
[00:09:52] Jardena London: Well, ah, perfect question. With each other. A lot of times, I'll go into a team and when I observe a leadership team working at its hub and spoke to the leader, that tells me that, that's not soulful. They're impressing and trying to pander to the leader.
The other thing is that, they're not sharing obstacles. Or, I say, what's slowing you down. Because if you say obstacle, everyone gets nervous and they won't share anything. But it's like, what's slowing you down? And if everyone says, everything's fine, we have it under control, nothing's under control like that. So, they're not really open to sharing. There's some fear, maybe, in the organization.
[00:10:24] Damian Bramanis: Yeah, that's really good.
[00:10:26] Amy Springer: I'd love to know more about your own journey again and how you got to coming together with this framework. Are there any stories that you experienced, yourself, that made you sit down and ask these questions?
[00:10:38] Jardena London: Listen, it was all the times that my soul was crushed and it felt crappy. And then, when I observe other people's souls being crushed and I see that it affects the business. It affects the business results. And then, I was also not a very self aware leader. So, I told a story in the session, I'll share with you.
I was the leader who walked into, not just a meeting, but into— the joke was, that when you hear the elevator ding and the click, click, click of the high heels on the marble, like turn down the music and act serious because Jardena is here. And, that's not great, because I'm affecting their productivity.
And it's because I want to be taken seriously and I want to make sure that we're getting stuff done. They were getting stuff done with the music on. I didn't happen to like music. But, that's my ego polluting the entire office.
[00:11:30] Damian Bramanis: As a leader, your influence is more than you might expect sometimes. It's just the the fact that you have that title, you can cause a reaction. Positive or negative.
[00:11:38] Jardena London: I had another one where I went on vacation, and I asked the team like, "Hey, work on this while I'm gone." They were peers. "Work on this one when I'm gone, and then we can finish it up when I get back".
I got back from vacation, they hadn't done a thing. And I asked why— peers, of course. I asked why and they said, "Well, we know you're going to change it all. So we didn't bother."
[00:11:56] Damian Bramanis: Ooh, ouch.
[00:11:57] Jardena London: Right. That's again, my ego and my desire to be a know-it-all, affecting the productivity of everybody else and the soulfulness.
[00:12:06] Amy Springer: What I'm still hearing, though, is that you did create a space that you were able to hear that feedback. So, I think that's still amazing. You were hearing that feedback. It obviously didn't feel good at the time.
[00:12:15] Jardena London: So the magical antidote for all soul crushing things, is curiosity. And I'm a curious person.
So, even if it hurts my feelings, I'm still curious. But I think, that's what leaders really need to lean into is, getting curious.
[00:12:32] Damian Bramanis: Yeah. And maybe you don't have all the answers, but the answers are there so you should go out and look for them.
[00:12:37] Jardena London: Absolutely. And ask the question.
[00:12:39] Damian Bramanis: Yeah. I love that, getting the right mindset.
[00:12:41] Amy Springer: One question I do love to ask our guests is, if we could sit here and the three of us, together, can click our fingers and it gives a skill to every leader on this earth, Is it curiosity or is it something else?
[00:12:54] Jardena London: It's curiosity. It is being open and being curious. Listening is part of that, but that's goes hand in hand with curiosity. And of course, self awareness is the key. But to get to self awareness, like that core skill, that capability is curiosity.
[00:13:10] Amy Springer: And if someone here, someone listening is like, "I'd love to be more curious." Can you give them examples of what that might look like?
[00:13:17] Jardena London: Yeah, so funny. I said curiosity for so many years, and my best friend actually just very recently asked me, like, "What do you mean by that?" Because she said, "I'm curious about like, what kind of flower is this?" But, that's not the kind of curiosity I mean. And I didn't realize there was a distinction. But this is in high stakes.
So, in high stakes, when you feel your emotions elevating— being curious in that state. Why is my emotion elevating? Why is this bothering me? What's happening here, when I feel like things are getting tense. That's the curiosity that you have to lean into. Not just like, "I'm curious about what kind of flower this is", which is also wonderful.
[00:13:57] Damian Bramanis: It's interesting the way you talk about bringing about change in an organization, is that the leader should be curious externally, but also should be questioning themselves and that their influences are major on the organization around them.
[00:14:12] Jardena London: One of the things I say a lot is, great leaders are not driven by emotion, but informed by it.
Your emotion is data, so it's not, ignore it. Which we've taught people for many years. Like, ignore it, suppress your emotions. You don't have to suppress it, you just have to be informed by it, instead of having it run your life. And then, I would say like about the external curiosity, too. We've all worked with people that are difficult, or resistors, or the unpopped kernels as we've talked about. That's another place to get really curious. Why are you so difficult?
You don't ask it that way. But like, what's behind this? They care. They have a concern. You should hear it instead of just trying to shut it down.
[00:14:52] Damian Bramanis: Yeah. I can't remember exactly the words that you said, but it's interesting that many people when they think about org design, they think of the org as something external to them that they're modeling and figuring out how it works. And sometimes, you almost forget that you're a part of that as well, that you're part of that network of interactions, and emotions, and people, and experiences. And it's very hard often to reflect on yourself and see yourself as part of that organization that's being designed.
[00:15:19] Jardena London: Yeah, you're in the system. To that point, we've talked a lot about the development part, as a leader, as a participant, as a team. But then, with org design, how do we actually design a soulful organization? We can talk about being curious and all those things, but how do we build that?
How do we operationalize that into the DNA? And that is where I think the magic really is. Building policy, governance, structure, that helps support— like that car alignment— a soulful organization.
[00:15:47] Damian Bramanis: What are the things that people should do to be developing a soulful organization?
[00:15:52] Jardena London: So again, I'm going to flip it on you. Looking at how some of the processes and policies may be soul crushing, and unraveling some of that, and getting back to the original purpose of those.
So, I have a three step process.
What's making it soul crushing? Is the first step.
What was the original soulful purpose of it, that, maybe, got lost?
And then, what would it take to bring soul back into that process?
So, I think of like budget planning, performance management. Like, these are soul crushing processes. They don't have to be. So, how can we tweak that, and how can we build in some soulfulness into the policy, into the role description.
[00:16:26] Damian Bramanis: Is it as simple as, I walk up to Mary and say, "Mary, is this work soul crushing for you? And why?" Is it that simple? Or, is there something deeper that we should be thinking of?
[00:16:36] Jardena London: It could be that simple. I love that question. You don't even have to say— I tell people like, "Hey, use bridging language because you might not want to walk up to someone and say that, and they might be a little surprised".
"Is there friction? Is it frustrating? Where do you feel like, if we remove the friction, it would be more fulfilling?" Like, we can ask questions like that. But, it's not even just an individual, right? Sometimes, it's across multiple handoffs. I think of prioritization. Being able to do focused work is so soul filling, whereas when you can't focus, it's soul crushing.
So, do we have systems as our governance policy? How does it manage capacity? That would be soulful. To be building better capacity management into your governance process, which nobody does.
[00:17:17] Damian Bramanis: Well, Jardena, I love what we've talked about today. One of the things that really drives me is, we know that people find so much meaning in the work that they do. And living in a soul crushing way just can, kind of, really destroy someone emotionally.
So, connecting people to purpose is really such an important thing to do.
[00:17:31] Amy Springer: Such a great framework. I think everybody resonates with that concept, especially in the workplace.
[00:17:36] Damian Bramanis: So, thank you so much.
[00:17:38] Amy Springer: Thank you for joining us, not only at the podcast, but also at the Festival of Org Design. And we hope to speak to you again soon. Thank you.
[00:17:45] Jardena London: Great. Thank you so much.
[00:17:47] Damian Bramanis: And if anyone does want to follow up on things they've heard today, what's the best place to find out more?
[00:17:52] Jardena London: Yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn. I have some websites: Rosettaagile.com, JardenaLondon.com. I do have a book, I didn't mention that, cultivating Transformations, available at all fine booksellers.
[00:18:05] Amy Springer: Amazing.
[00:18:05] Jardena London: Yes. And I have tons of blogs and articles that you will find on my website.
[00:18:10] Amy Springer: So, it sounds like anyone who wants to move beyond Damo's, walk up to a person at work and ask, "Is this soul crushing?" They have a book. They can dig in for some more specifics.
[00:18:20] Jardena London: So much resources. I have tons of resources out there. So, yes, go check them out.
[00:18:24] Amy Springer: Thank you so much.
[00:18:25] Damian Bramanis: Thank you.
[00:18:26] Jardena London: Thank you.
