DITCHING HIERARCHY AND BUILDING A THRIVING CULTURE IN BUURZORG with Jos De Blok

Audio production by James Ede, Be Heard

Meet Jos De Blok, the founder and CEO of Buurtzorg.

Buurtzorg Nederland was founded in 2006 by Jos and a small team of professional nurses who were dissatisfied with the delivery of health care by traditional home care organizations in the Netherlands. Together, they decided to create a new model of patient-centered care focused on facilitating and maintaining independence and autonomy for the individual for as long as possible.

What started as a team of 4 nurses in 2006 grew to 14,000+ in 2019, with teams in the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, and now the United States.

Jos received the 2014 RSA Albert Medal for his work as founder of Buurtzorg.

His approach to managing and growing his organization has attracted a lot of attention and was featured in numerous publications, including one of my favorite business books of all time, Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux.

Episode Highlights

In this interview, Jos and I discuss:

• How Buurtzorg grew from a team of 4 to 14,000+ with a simple and flat structure, no departmentalization, minimal back-office functions, and minimal employee monitoring and controlling functions
• Buurtzorg’s experience with independent, autonomous, self-managing teams with no team leaders and under no line-managerial direction or control
• Scaling company culture through a collection of loosely connected teams, unified by a common purpose
• The role technology played in Buurtzorg’s success
• The critical importance of creating a positive social impact for businesses today
• The key success factors and key obstacles that Jos experienced while building the company

Listen to the interview in the player below or on iTunes. If you like what you hear, please leave a review, and it may be featured on a future episode.

Audio production by James Ede, Be Heard

More About Jos De Blok

Jos is a nurse by education and considered a change agent in the Netherlands when it comes to the organization of community-based home care. Before he established Buurtzorg, he had several senior management positions in home care organizations, including Director Innovations for a medical services company.

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Buurtzorg Nederland
• Buurtzorg International

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux

Organizational Innovation by Integrating Simplification: Learning from Buurtzorg Nederland (Management for Professionals) by Sharda S. Nandram

Logica van het gevoel: filosofie van de stabiliteitslagen in de cultuur als nesteling der emoties : essay by Arnold Cornelius