Why 2026 Might Be a Turning Point For Radically Decentralized Organizations

Christmas in Wellington

I recently spent a few days in New Zealand with Rob England and Dr. Cherry Vu from Teal Unicorn, at their beautiful Paraparauma home.

We went on long walks. Had good coffee. And shared long dinners.

All filled with conversations about their fascinating transformation work in Vietnam. Work they’ve been doing since 2018.

By now, they’ve worked with more than 20 organizations across very different sectors.

And the results are impressive.

All of the organizations they work with not only report dramatically improved quality of working life, but also sharply improved business performance:

• revenues doubling (or more),
• sales growth accelerating significantly,
• and waste reduced by over 60%.

They achieve this often within 18 months, and sometimes much faster.

But what struck me most wasn’t just how much interest there is in Vietnam for new ways of organizing work, but who that interest is coming from.

Not only from small startups, hip tech darlings, and other fringe innovators experimenting at the edges of what’s possible.

But increasingly from large and traditional organizations.

Including (as they casually told me over a bowl of phở) clients like Garco10, a clothing company with 11.000 people, and a Vietnamese bank with over 20,000 employees.

That’s the kind of signal I can’t ignore.

​The pattern & a question

This signal fits a pattern I’ve been observing more and more over the past months: the profile of organizations not only exploring but actually implementing radically decentralized ways of working is expanding.

Which brings me to a question I’ve been sitting with for some time now:

"Are radically decentralized organizations finally starting to cross the chasm?"

I'm not asking myself whether they should. Or whether they could. (My answer to both is: yes.)

I'm asking whether radically decentralized organizations are, right now, moving from inspiring exceptions to a viable mainstream option?

How new things actually spread

If you zoom out on history, major shifts in how we organize work don’t spread evenly or logically.

They follow a pattern.

First come the visionaries. The pioneers with an almost irrational belief in a better way of working.

They show up when the “technology” isn’t ready yet. I'm not talking about the IT tools they use, but the social technologies their organizations run on:

• autonomous teams,
• self-set pay systems,
• shared governance,
• distributed decision-making,
• etc.

The visionairs often start working with radically decentralized structures that are still very much a work in progress, with many core processes unfinished.

The IT tools they pioneer are often home-brewed rather than off-the-shelf (simply because they don't yet exist).

And perhaps the clearest sign of their idealism: the proof that this way of working will succeed is still uncertain.

Working this way is expensive. Not financially at first, but personally. It costs time, energy, reputation, and often career safety.

You need stubborn optimism to keep going.

Diffusion of Innovation

Everett Rogers described this pattern in his bestseller Diffusion of Innovation.

He argues that new ideas move from innovators to early adopters, then (if the idea survives) to the early majority, late majority, and finally laggards.

And here’s the crucial part: where pioneers are in love with novelty, the majority is not.

The majority is in love with things that work.

They don’t care how elegant a new management philosophy is. Whether it is radically decentralized, or not. They care about what makes their work faster, better, and less frustrating.

And it has to work in their specific context.

Crossing the Chasm

Geoffrey Moore sharpened this insight in his bestseller Crossing the Chasm.

He argues that between early adopters and the early majority lies a dangerous gap where many promising ideas die.

Visionaries tolerate bugs, duct-tape solutions, and unfinished edges. Pioneers accept this messiness as the price of progress.

The early majority does not.

They want reliability and predictability.

And they absolutely do not want to debug someone else’s operating model.​

Radically decentralized organizations

For many years, radically decentralized organizations have lived firmly on the left side of that chasm.

Think about well-known examples like Semco, Buurtzorg, Haier, Morning Star, and NER Group.

They are inspirational, for sure.

And undeniably influential.

But they are still often treated as fascinating outliers. The cases you use to provoke a room, not to reassure a board.

Until recently.​

Something has shifted

Lately, something feels different.

Not because the ideas are new. They aren’t.

But because who is engaging with them has changed.

It increasingly feels like it’s no longer just pioneers and visionaries willing to absorb pain.

More and more, it are also large, regulated organizations. Like Cargo10 and the large Vietnamese bank Teal Unicorn is working with.

The organizations actually implementing more progressive ways of working are becoming more diverse.​

Rebel Cell network

Take the development of our Rebel Cell as another signal I can't ignore.

Across the network, local ecosystems are forming all around the world: in Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Belgium, our Global Rebel Cell, and beyond.

Within these local ecosystems, companies are learning from each other in real time.

Teams are visiting each other’s factories, offices, and customer sites. Not to discuss theory, but the learn directly from other practitioners by borrowing their practices.

This is what early maturity looks like to me.

Not one or two heroic case studies.

But a growing number of organizations engaging with progressive ways of working, all with very different profiles and backgrounds.

Including those once seen as slow laggards: large, global, traditional corporations.

And notably, they’re no longer approaching radical decentralization as an experiment, but as a strategic necessity. They seem less idealistic, and more pragmatic.

Let's look at three examples from the Rebel Cell network.

1. Bayer

Bayer, part of our German Rebel Cell, is a century-oldglobal organization.

It is publicly committing to radically decentralize large parts of the company through its Dynamic Shared Ownership (DSO) transformation.

This isn’t a side project.

It’s a fundamental rethink of how value is created, who owns decisions, how teams form, and how accountability works.

Bayer is not a startup playing with structure.

It’s a publicly listed company with around 100.000 employees effectively saying:

“Our old operating system no longer fits the world we’re in.”

2. Omron

Then there’s Japanese multinational Omron acquiring Luscii, a member of our Dutch Rebel Cell.

Luscii’s holacratic way of working would be labeled a “culture risk” by many corporates.

But Omron, with around 28.000 employees, isn’t just tolerating it.

They’re acquired the holacratic company, are learning from it, and are treating its way of working as a strategic asset.

The message is subtle but profound:

“We don’t just want your product. We want the way you work, because that’s what makes you effective.”

3. VGL Group

Then there’s VGL Group, an Indian multinational with around 5.000 employees and part of our Global Rebel Cell.

They’re transforming toward a radically decentralized organization inspired by Haier’s RenDanHeYi model.

And they are not just talking about it. They are serious.

They’re not admiring Haier from afar.

They’re visiting, learning, and translating RenDanHeYi principles into their own context.

These examples are classic early-majority patterns.

These companies learn from proven pioneers. They move from inspiration to implementation. And they adapt those ideas to their own local constraints.

To me, these examples aren’t accidents.

They may be early signals that we’re entering the early-majority phase.

And if Moore’s framework holds, 2026 should bring more of these large-scale commitments.​

Where we go from here

At Corporate Rebels, we’ve spent over a decade studying, documenting, and increasingly supporting this shift.

What I’m witnessing now feels like a transition from:

"Look at these inspiring cases."

to

"This might actually become the new normal."

The bridge isn’t fully crossed yet. But we may be further along than most people think.

Nothing is guaranteed. I’m not naïve.

But the possibility is now real. And that alone is extraordinary.

And the most exciting part?

We get to help build what comes next.

A more human world of work.

Not someday.

Increasingly… now.

Let’s see where 2026 takes us.

​

P.S.

If you want to help build a more human world of work with us, consider joining the upcoming Winter cohort of our Masterclass in Progressive Organizational Design.