E31: Building High-Performing Teams Through Self-Managed Systems with Amanda Pike
🎧 Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts:
Discover how Amanda Pike, an environmental engineer turned COO, uses the science of natural systems to create workplaces where people truly thrive and learn why giving your team just the right amount of structure could be the secret to unlocking their creativity and motivation. Don’t miss this episode if you want to rethink how teams grow, lead, and stay engaged!
Amanda Pike is the Chief Operating Officer at thinkPARALLAX, where she draws on over 15 years of experience aligning people, purpose, and sustainability to build thriving workplaces. With a background in environmental engineering, Amanda brings a unique systems-thinking approach to organizational strategy and operations treating companies as living systems that need balance, resilience, and connection. She is passionate about distributed leadership, scalable practices, and empowering teams to create people-positive, sustainable environments, all while fostering professional growth and personal wellbeing.
Below are the key takeaways from this episode:
Organizations as Living Systems: Amanda applies her environmental engineering background to organizational strategy, seeing workplaces as interconnected systems needing balance and resilience.
Preventative vs. Reactive Approaches: Amanda stresses the importance of proactive strategies: anticipating and solving problems before they escalate, both in sustainability and organizational practices.
Empowering Distributed Leadership: She champions self-managed teams and distributed decision-making, which boost engagement and growth, especially in smaller organizations with limited vertical mobility.
Finding the Right Balance: Success comes from blending structure with flexibility by providing clear roles and guardrails while encouraging autonomy and exploration.
Creating New Paths for Growth: By fostering entrepreneurship and rotating leadership roles, Amanda shows that organizations can offer meaningful development opportunities beyond traditional hierarchies.
Todays guest, Amanda Pike, can be found online at:
Website: https://www.thinkparallax.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pikeamanda/
Your host, Dr. Bobbi Wegner, can be found online at:
Groops: https://www.joingroops.com/
Harvard Extension School Faculty Spotlight: https://youtu.be/zwLai-lu-pk?si=GpKNhtxVvTrS3-pu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbiwegner/