The non-compete clause, which initially felt like a burden, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It forced me to pause and reconsider my path instead of falling back into familiar patterns.

This is how we've always done things around here?

As I kept in touch with my former colleagues and community members, I witnessed an alarming transformation within the organization. The culture shifted rapidly, embracing traditional corporate structures - bilateral meetings, bonus schemes, management hierarchies. The team tried to cling to our original identity, but their only defense was a weak "This is how we've always done things." Ironically, that's the same argument used by conservative organizations resistant to change.

Time to cut the cord It was truly disheartening to see how quickly the soul departed from the organization we had built. My attempts to inject some of the old spirit through casual conversations or brief visits were met with resistance. Eventually, I received a letter from the new management asking me to stay away, claiming my presence caused "unrest." Of course it did - it reminded them of the drive and passion they once had. It was time to cut ties completely, as painful as that was.

Why wasn't our culture more sticky? This experience led me to reflect deeply on how an organization we had carefully cultivated for 15 years, full of passion and a unique culture, could so rapidly devolve into a standard corporate entity. Why was the culture not based on true values and turned most of our unique traits to be 'just habits'.Was the traditional management school right all along? Is efficiency truly superior to effectiveness and engagement? Or had I made a critical error somewhere along the line?

Pragmatism or idealism? Upon introspection, I realized that we had built our culture organically through ideas and experiments, keeping what worked best. The most human-centric approaches often yielded the best results, especially with our talented team. We had countless practices - from the Campus Council to the morning tweet, annual gatherings, and a no-staff policy. However, I now see that while the original team had launched many of these ideas, we never fully documented or articulated why they worked. It just felt right.

Creating explicit knowhow In essence, we had created an organization rich in tacit knowledge, values, and norms that were never made explicit. This left the team with no choice but to either resist completely or succumb to well-documented traditional management tools when faced with change.

Learn by doing + understand by sharing

This realization has sparked a new mission: to document and share all the learnings from 15 years of FreedomLab in an Open Learning Landscape. I see it as democratizing tools that can truly make a difference for individuals, organizations, and society at large.

Without even realizing it, a new journey and mission have been born from this experience. It's time to transform our tacit knowledge into explicit wisdom that can benefit others and perhaps prevent similar cultural erosions in the future.