Navigating our Team Structure

Exploring the structure that shapes our daily work

A map of the oikos International Team

In our organization chart, you see differently sized & coloured circles that can serve us as a map as to how the oikos International Team works and relates.

What are circles?

Whereas roles are formed out of a set of tasks that go together, circles encompass sets of roles that belong to each other. By owning a role in a circle, a person becomes a member of the circle. In this sense, a circle is kind of like a team.

Example for a circle with sub-circles

Sometimes, circles can be part of a wider circle as they hold important information for each other and gain value from communicating frequently. Sub-circles frequently meet in their wider circle, based on jointly agreed rhythms & purposes. People can own roles within several (seemingly unrelated) circles.

What do the different colours mean?

We use several colours in our diagram to indicate different kinds of roles within these circles:

⚫blue circles are the space where people find roles they associate with their everyday work. Sub-circles frequently meet in the wider circle, based on jointly agreed rythms & purposes.

⚫teal circles convene around roles that mark core-responsibilities which affect all parts of the organization. Every/most blue circles find themselves represented in the teal circle to ensure information flow & share responsibility. Everyone in oikos International has at least one role in a teal circle. What happens in the teal circles is of high importance for the work in the blue circles, they give direction and enable collective action. Here a short insight into nature & roles of our current set of teal circles:

Board

Board membership can be seen as an elected role. Being a student-driven and student-led organization, the oikos board holds an important role in stewarding and role-modeling the values and ambitions of oikos. The main role of the elected board is to listen attentively - to what is going on in the community, in the world around us and in the team itself, and from there, to act and respond in their granular roles and functions in other circles. The board is elected every year and hosts 7 student volunteers and two co-presidents (elected & paid employees). Read more about the board, how it is elected and who might be a board member in the board field guide.

Seeing board membership as a role rather than a position enables the board to live up to the role of stewarding the organization, besides other more hands-on roles in blue circles.

Roles:

• board membership

• ... (see airtable!)

Fundraising

Fundraising is a core responsibility for all of us and we see that we need to work together across circles. Therefore, all sub-circles from initiative & admin send at least 1 representative to the fundraising meetups.

Roles:

• Fundraising Action

• Finance/Admin Overview

• Fundraising support

• Meeting participation & facillitation

Partnerships

All of our sub-circles host a particular set of partnerships, and therefore the role of partnership is what brings us together into a teal circle from time to time. It is a core-responsibility to tend partnerships.

Roles:

• Partnership hosts

• Partner support (see airtable)

Teaming

We are all part of one team. Ensuring that we grow together, and tend our wellbeing or listening into strategic directions is a core-responsibility of all of us and it is too often that we forget about it. Each and every team member holds a role in the teaming circle, from participant to host.

Roles:

• Team participation

• Team hosting

• collective strategizing

⚫The purple circle represents the oikos International team as a whole. It hosts all of us and holds us together. It indicates that the whole is different to the sum of its parts, and can be referred to as the layer that keeps us safe & home, even if we might be in a process of changing roles & circles.

🔗touchpoints between circles indicate that there is a vivid relationship & interaction. These might take the form of joint meetings, ongoing exchange, or representation from one circle in the other. All relationships should be clarified over time, and it should be clear that no map can show all relationships that are necessary to make oikos thrive :)

This simple orga chart is pulled out of context in order to simplify & clarify our work as a team. Don't forget, there's a whole community & world around us :)

How & when do we change the team structure?

The team structure as displayed in the diagram above is a map that should help us & others to understand how we work together as a team, and what we are working on. It is important to keep it as close to reality as possible - and therefore update it when we sense a need for it.

Updates can take place whenever needed, and can be proposed by any team member. In general, one can say that as a member of a circle, you have full right to propose changes & updates. Make sure to address any doubts, ideas, questions with your closest team colleagues (or the people responsible for OD topics) and bring your proposal to the whole oI team. Besides this, we will have a look at the structure at least once a year all together. Changes need the consent from the oI team ( see decision making user guide)

How does the team structure influence my everyday work?

At first glance, direct influences might not be visible. At the same time, as mentioned above: The chart can help us to reality check & realign processes to our values as it fosters a sense of collective awareness. Does our current way of working, communicating, deciding, meeting still make sense? What are our needs and how effective does the current way meet them? The org chart is a concept to display an overall structure. It provides a basis for reviewing details like meeting procedures, roles, decision making etc. Have another look at the iceberg of system change. After values & structure follow processes & events :)

What's the theory behind?

Welcome to the realm of self-organizing! There is a lot to learn, and surely one concrete place to start with is Frederic Laloux’ work (book short ,book long, videos, podcast). We loved it because…

It made me appreciate the reasons behind why we do things the way we do. It helped me understand how things that simply feel "right" when we do them (like checking in before starting a meeting) fit into a broader theoretical framework.

It derived the conceptual map through observations from real-life examples

It's simple, clear and sounds so familiar for me in my work at oikos

Further resources for your self-study:

• SDO (selforganizing developmental Organizations) workbook

• S3 - Sociocracy Network

• Holacracy page

• Sophie’s head for more

In general: oikos is a great place to learn about this & we would like to make some space to learn together. Therefore, we will host a monthly SOL : a self-organizing learning session and share our resources with you.

FAQ

Who is a part of the oikos International Team?

All employees and official volunteers (incl. board members). We are all part of one team - and that doesn’t mean that we all have to meet all the time. The circles can provide guidance when it comes to who should be invited to a meeting, and who isn’t relevant in a given context. Just like a model abstracts reality, our organizational structure reduces the complexity and beauty of how we collaborate into a two-dimensional drawing of colored circles. We have to appreciate these limitations!

How will everyone fit into the structure?

The team structure as displayed in the diagram above is a conceptual display that should help us & others to understand how we work together as a team, and what we are working on. It is important to keep it as close to reality as possible. At the same time: this structure is only a map & cannot display exactly how we are working in reality. Together with roles, field guides and other ways of communicating & documenting within the sub-circles, we can showcase an approximation of what's actually happening.

With the new structure, we are actually just trying to represent how we work in reality, and how it changed as we move closer to our values. Doing so helps us at the same time reevaluating whether our structures & processes still make sense. It can provide guidance in making process updates & let go of old ballast. Working with roles & circles, and in particular the purple -whole team circle’ helps us to generate a team identity that goes beyond positions and is more informed by our strength & a sense of belonging to the same family, even if we do different things & are not all involved in taking all decisions.

And remember: If you don't feel like you belong in our structure, then maybe it is not yet finished! We invite you to propose changes that make you feel represented!

HELP & SUPPORT

For any questions, you can reach us via discord or email. Anna & Sophie