Story:
Real care

Buurtzorg Nederland is a Dutch homecare organization. It is started five years ago by a former manager of a homecare organization who wasn't happy about the way homecare in the Netherlands had become organised: in a Taylorian way with managers prescribing the nurses how to do their job, with 'stopwatchcare' in the sense that a nurse can only take 2 minutes to do a certain task.
So he started his own organization, Buurtzorg, where the nurses work in teams of a maximum of 12 in the neighbourhood. They do everything themselves: find a small office, finding customers, making schedules. There are no managers. At the headoffice there are only about 30 people, who take care of contracts with the insurance companies etc.. There are coaches, but they only help the teams when the team asks for it.
The organization expanded to about 4000 employees today. They all apply spontanously, because they want to work this way, that is: the way they learned how to do their job. They can now do the things they want to do: giving care, instead of filling out forms etc.
More information you can find on the website www.nieuworganiseren.nu, where there is an English version of the story of Buurtzorg.
The story is also a case in my book, De laatste manager (The last manager - sorry, not (yet) translated).