Will businesses looking for success in the future need to ditch their bosses? Essex Business School is asking whether we need bosses, supervisors or even job titles as it launches what is believed to be the first executive course of its kind in the UK in June.

Overhauling traditional management models is becoming more and more common particularly as social media allows entrepreneurs to forge their own international business networks with likeminded people.

The new Essex Business School course ‘Reinventing the Organisation’ from Sunday 16 June to Tuesday 18 June will look at the challenges and opportunities facing this revolutionary approach and the sessions will be particularly targeted at business leaders looking to innovate alongside entrepreneurs with limited resources.

Guest speakers from successful businesses and Essex Business School’s Dr Manuela Nocker will discuss how radical ways of thinking, collaborating and networking are now vital to motivating staff and connecting with customers. They will explain how ‘self-managed’ organisations can be more intuitive, adaptable, collaborative and simply more human.

Dr Nocker said: “Collaboration is central to how we co-create innovative processes. It is not just doing; it is also a way of being together in context. It is less about 'managing people' and more about creating viable conditions for sharing."

The course will look at how unconventional approaches to organising can yield surprising advantages making companies more resilient, responsive and innovative.

Guest speaker Doug Kirkpatrick was part of the Morning Star Company which has been at the forefront of encouraging people to manage themselves. Doug will be speaking about how Morning Star started as a self-managed organisation going on to become the world’s largest tomato processor and winning the Harvard Business Review Innovation Award in 2012.

Co-leader of the course is Ken Everett, chairman of an international executive training company, who developed his own ‘networked organisation’ which is now represented in thirty different countries through his professional network. His idea of a networked organisation is so successful, he has started the online N2N Hub to promote and support other networked organisations.

Ken said: “I discovered my network had the potential for resilience, innovation, and shared leadership; qualities more traditional organisations lust after.”

Essex Business School is part of the University of Essex and the course will be hosted by Wivenhoe House, the luxury four-star country house hotel located on the Colchester Campus.

For more information, please see: www.essex.ac.uk/ebs/business/pdt

Note for journalists

If you would like more information about the course or to speak to Dr Manuela Nocker please call 01206 874377 or email: comms@essex.ac.uk.