Your organization is running the wrong operating system
Leaders know something is wrong. Decisions are slow. Teams wait for direction. Good people leave. You've tried fixing it with new structures, culture initiatives, and leadership training, but it didn't work.
You might be quick to conclude that it's a people problem. We disagree. It's a design problem. And until you can name exactly what's broken and what to replace it with, nothing changes.
We've spent over a decade finding the world's most pioneering organizations, studying them, and building relationships with the people who built them.
This program gives you direct access to all of it.
The numbers
Here's what happens when organizations replace the traditional managerial hierarchy with something better. These results come from NER Group companies that applied the exact approach taught in this program:
- Revenues +80%
- Profit +210%
- Productivity +40%
- Accidents -86%
- Absenteeism -32%
But most importantly (and this is what the numbers don't capture) people are engaged. They're intrinsically motivated. They're growing in ways they never could have imagined. They're doing work that matters, making decisions that count, and showing up as the full version of themselves rather than a managed version.
The triangle of learning
Over six weeks you learn from three sources at once, and it's the combination that makes this stand out.
You learn from the pioneers who actually built these organizations: unfiltered, direct answers, live. You learn from a world-leading expert who has spent a decade inside 200+ of them and can give you the framework of which model fits, and why it works. And you learn from a cohort of curious peers showing up with the same questions, where you test your thinking and build a network that outlasts the program.
The pioneers show you it's real, the expert shows you why, and the cohort helps you make it yours.
The pioneers - the practice
Every week a pioneer joins the cohort live for two hours. You can ask anything you like.
These are unfiltered and raw conversations with the people who actually built what you're trying to build. They share the hard decisions, the moments of doubt, the things that surprised them.
Buurtzorg. Viisi. Haier. NER Group. Krisos.
"The opportunity to ask questions directly to the protagonists of the case companies is invaluable."
— Ricard Vilá, Chief Digital Officer LatamPass
Your peers - the application
Up to 40 leaders per cohort. Founders. Transformation leads. People and culture pioneers. From around the world.
Some come ready to transform everything. Some come as the one person in their organization who can see what's broken and needs the language and the community to start moving. Both find what they're looking for.
And the network doesn't end when the six weeks do.
"It has been a long time since I've left something feeling energized and excited and like I may have found a new tribe of disruptors."
— Henderson, Director, Elemental Health and Care
"A uniquely rich professional community with far reaching connections."
— Csajtai, Fractional Business & Strategy Designer, Duna Dog Centre Foundation
The expert - the pattern
Meet Joost Minnaar. Joost has visited more flat organizations than almost anyone alive.
He studied nanotechnology, spent years in a Spanish laboratory (for a German multinational), and got deeply frustrated...not with the work, but with how the work was organized.
In 2016 he left his job, started Corporate Rebels with his childhood friend Pim, and spent the next decade going inside the organizations most people only read about. Harvard Business School now teaches his case studies. He co-founded a fund that transforms real companies. He won a Thinkers50 Award, the Oscars of management thinking.
He also teaches this program personally. Every week. Live.
For six weeks, that knowledge is yours to learn from.
The insight that
changes everything
After a decade of research Joost discovered something that most transformation efforts miss entirely: there are three fundamentally different models of self-management. They look similar from the outside. But they're built on completely different worldviews, different relationships, different ideas of what's fair.
Mix them up (even accidentally) and you'll run into chaos. Not because self-management doesn't work. But because you were running two operating systems at once.
This program gives you the map. You'll learn to identify which model fits your organization, why it works, and what your path forward looks like.
No other program teaches this. Because no one else has done the research, and the real life experience.
How the Masterclass works
Each week combines four elements that build on each other:
On-demand content: this is to work through at your own pace before the live sessions. Written lessons, videos, case studies, and reflection prompts.
A live pioneer Q&A: two hours with the leaders of that week's case study organization. Ask them anything. Nothing is off limits.
A live reflection session with Joost: expect teaching, comparative analysis, and direct application to your own organization. This is where the framework comes alive.
A weekly assignment: building your personal transformation roadmap. By week six you have a complete plan, not just notes.
Up to 40 leaders per cohort. Founders, transformation leads, people and culture leaders from around the world.
The cohort is small enough that everyone knows each other by week two. The peer learning that happens in breakout sessions, in the chat, in the community long after the program ends. For many alumni it's the thing they value most years later.
"A cohort that's so curious really helps a lot when it comes to discovering new things."
— Katrin Pazurek, Agile Coach
The program
Week 1: The Operating System
What are the alternatives to hierarchy? Introduction to the three models of self-management (Community, Equality, and Market) and the framework you'll use for the rest of the program:
- Purpose and principles
- Building blocks
- Roles and responsibilities
- Information sharing
- Reward distribution
By the end of this week, you'll have a clear lens for comparing any organizational model.
Week 2: Building Blocks
How to structure a network of autonomous teams. Case study: Buurtzorg
15,000 employees, zero managers, 40% lower costs than traditional healthcare. A healthcare organization built entirely on the principle that nurses know best. Live Q&A with Buurtzorg's leadership.
"Don't let anyone tell you this isn't possible."
Thijs de Blok, CEO of Buurtzorg International
Week 3: Roles & Responsibilities
How self-managing organizations distribute work without managers. Case study: Viisi
Viisi is the first financial services company in the world to implement 100% self-organization. Customer satisfaction score of 9.8 out of 10. In financial services. Live Q&A with Viisi's co-founder.
"Entrepreneurs don't want to be micromanaged. So why would we do this to our employees?"
Tom van der Lubbe, co-founder, Viisi
Week 4: Information & Coordination
How decentralized organizations stay aligned at scale. Case study: Haier
80,000 employees, 4,000 self-managing micro-enterprises, unlimited earning potential for anyone willing to perform. The most radical organizational experiment running at scale anywhere in the world. Live Q&A with Haier's experts.
"Be problem lovers, not problem solvers. Fall in love with the problem first."
Antonio Boadas, VP Global Communications, GE Appliances (a Haier company)
Week 5: Transformation
The two hardest parts of any transformation brought together...how to reward people fairly without hierarchy, and how to actually make the shift. The exact methodology used across 50+ transformations and by Krisos in its own portfolio companies. Case study: NER Group and Krisos. Live Q&A with Xavier Costa, who has led transformations across Spain and Catalonia for over a decade.
"We are here to bring love to the companies and to the world."
Xavier Costa, transformation lead, Krisos
Week 6: AI & Self-Management
Two paths for AI.
Control: use it to monitor, measure, and replace.
Or liberation: use it to eliminate the work nobody wants to do and free people for what matters.
Self-management is the operating system AI has been missing. The organizations that have spent years making roles explicit and authority clear are the ones best positioned to use AI ethically and powerfully. Live session with Joost Schouten, co-founder of Nestr, who is building organizations where AI agents hold roles alongside humans.
"AI is not a technological problem. It highlights an organizational problem."
Joost Schouten, co-founder, Nestr
The Certificate
Complete all six weeks and earn your Progressive Organizational Design Certificate. Created by international bestselling authors Joost Minnaar and Pim de Morree.
Backed by 10+ years of research and 200+ pioneering organizations visited, it's proof you've got the tools and the guts to rebuild work the right way.
Agenda Spring Cohort
Want to secure your spot in the Spring 2027 cohort? Email us at [email protected] or enroll now at the bottom of this page.
| Tuesday | March 02, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CET |
| Thursday | March 04, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CET |
| Tuesday | March 09, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CET |
| Thursday | March 11, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CET |
| Tuesday | March 16, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CET |
| Thursday | March 18, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CET |
| Tuesday | March 23, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CET |
| Thursday | March 25, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CET |
| Tuesday | March 30, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CEST |
| Thursday | April 01, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CEST |
| Tuesday | April 06, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CEST |
| Thursday | April 08, 2027 | 15:00-17:00 CEST |
Transformation stops being one person's project.
The most powerful outcomes happen when a leadership team goes through the Masterclass together, and returns with a shared framework, a shared language, and a plan they built over six weeks.
Three to five leaders
A group from the same company joins one public cohort together.
The entire team
A dedicated version of the program, run for your leadership team alone.
Not sure yet
We'd love to talk about what this could look like for you.
Is this for you?
This program is for you if you're a founder, transformation lead, or people and culture leader who knows something needs to change and is ready to understand exactly what, and why.
It's not for you if you're looking for incremental improvement, better management techniques, or a certificate to add to your LinkedIn.
Some people come to this program ready to transform their entire organization. Others come as the one person in their company who can see what's broken and needs the language, the framework, and the community to start moving. Both are welcome. The Trojan horse is a legitimate strategy.
If you're ready, there's no better place to start.
Cohort size is limited to 40. Sells out every cohort.
Joost Minnaar and Pim de Morree, co-founders.
They went looking for a better way to work.
In 2016 Joost Minnaar and Pim de Morree left their corporate jobs to find the organizations doing work differently, and understand exactly what makes them work.
Ten years and 200+ organizations later, their case studies are taught at Harvard Business School and INSEAD, their book is an international bestseller, and a Thinkers50 Radar Award puts them among the most influential management thinkers alive.
They also run Krisos, the fund that buys traditional companies and transforms them into self-managing organizations. Not theory. Real money, real P&Ls, and now expanding the buy/transform activity under Corporate Rebels with teams in Germany and the United States.
Pioneering organizations visited
People reached every month
Languages their books are published in
Continents covered by the research
Questions 
Answers
Common goals of Masterclass attendees:
- Gaining in-depth understanding of new ways of working and self-managing organizations
- Getting unrivaled access to detailed and practical case studies of pioneering organizations
- Being able to transform their organization from a traditional management approach to a progressive one
- Learning proven strategies for organizational change
- Connecting with fellow changemakers
Around 50% of our 580+ alumni are founders, CEOs, transformation leaders, people leaders, or similar for small and medium-sized organizations. They use the Masterclass to make practical changes in the way their company operates.
Roughly 20% are transformation leaders, agile coaches, and new ways of working experts of large organizations, and another ~20% are coaches, consultants, and advisors seeking to use the Masterclass to help their clients transform. The remaining 10% are mostly employees seeking to personally develop themselves.
Most attendees are between 35 - 60 years old. They come from a diverse range of industries, including manufacturing, engineering, finance, technology, marketing, healthcare, education, construction, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, hospitality, entertainment, energy, and manufacturing.
Yes. New for 2026, we've added a dedicated week on AI and self-management. We explore why role-based, self-organizing structures are uniquely suited to integrating AI, with practical examples from pioneering organizations and a live Q&A with Joost Schouten of Nestr. Our view is clear: AI shouldn't put traditional management on steroids, it should free humans for the work that actually matters.
The Masterclass consists of 2 online live sessions per week, each lasting 2 hours. Along with these sessions, the text, video, and assignments can be completed at your convenience, taking approximately 6 hours. Thus, the total weekly time commitment for the Masterclass is approximately 10 hours.
When purchasing the Masterclass, you'll have a lifetime access to the material, the platform, the community, and monthly live events.
Yes, we do. In addition to our 'open' Masterclass sessions, we also offer the option of running it in-house. Many organizations prefer this option as it allows their people to learn together and apply the lessons learned as a team. If you're interested in having us conduct an in-house Masterclass for your organization, please contact us at [email protected] for more information.
Great news! Many of our students have been able to secure reimbursement from their company. Most companies offer a budget for Learning and Development or education that can cover the cost.
To make it easy for you to do the same, we've prepared a template that you can use to convince your manager or HR department. It lays out the benefits of the Academy and how it can be used to increase productivity and performance. Check out the template here.
Reach out to us at [email protected] for any help or guidance.
Yes, we back non-profits in their transformation journey. That’s why in every Masterclass, we offer one scholarship for someone working at a charity or non-profit.
The scholarship winner gets a heavily discounted rate: €1500 (excl. VAT).
If you are an employee of a non-profit organization and would like to apply for the scholarship, please email us at [email protected] and tell us how this course will help you drive real impact in your organization.
We run the Masterclass several times per year. Check out the upcoming cohorts (including dates and times) under the 'upcoming cohorts' tab
Yes, we record the live Q&A sessions so you won't have to miss a thing.
Yes. Masterclass attendees get a lifetime access to all current and upcoming on-demand courses (worth €948).
Yes. There are various ways to connect with members in our community. Through monthly online events, direct messages, and our social media-like platform. These interactions allow you to exchange ideas, share experiences, and even collaborate on projects.
From 02 Mar to 08 Apr 2027Every Tuesday and Thursday15:00-17:00 CET