13 ms·

No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge

187 points by jon-wood 10y ago

richardboegli 10y ago
So they basically copied Valve? But removed the CEO part.
- benbristow 10y ago
  http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...
jasode 10y ago
This BBC article is terrible and manipulates the reader via the omission of critical facts. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you first read the company's recruitment webpage[1] and specifically their following sentence: - "It also means that there is no guaranteed salary. The only thing we guarantee is that you will have to pay a flat fee every month plus one-tenth of what you bill." After making a mental note of that, go read the BBC piece. You'll notice how empty that article actually is. For example, the following sentence becomes meaningless: - "Ultimately, the firm hopes that its way of working could inspire other companies to emulate the "Crisp DNA"." What "DNA" of Crisp exactly? The DNA of having employees pay the company to work instead of the other way around?!? Of course, the BBC article wants you to think "DNA" as in "no CEO" instead of "workers paying a rent". There's nothing wrong with that model (as another commenter mentioned doctors paying into a "group practice" for shared expenses such as an office and billing staff.) However, leaving that fee structure out is incompetent journalism. If workers are the ones paying the company, it's easier for them to agree not to have a CEO manage them. [1] Google's English translation of: https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp
- selectodude 10y ago
  May as well go to cosmetology school for a year instead of getting a CS degree if you're going to work in asinine conditions like that. If I want to eat what I kill, I'd rather go make millions (or starve) on Wall Street. At least there's a base salary instead of a base rent.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    That's crazy you and I posted the same example at about the same time. Although, I have kinder thoughts about that market it seems. ;)
  - PatentTroll 10y ago
    On the flip side, in a consultancy you as the developer get paid, what 1/2 to 1/3of your hourly rate? That 1/2 or 2/3 goes to cover expenses, and then the rest is profit for the owner.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  "There's nothing wrong with that model (as another commenter mentioned doctors paying into a "group practice" for shared expenses such as an office and billing staff.)" Another common one I've seen is hair stylists. They often rent their booth from the shop in exchange for equipment, pay processing, foot traffic especially, and so on. They get some cut of the base pricing plus tip money. Idea is they'll come out profitable on a regular basis despite paying to be there. Just another business expense really. " If workers are the ones paying the company, it's easier for them to agree not to have a CEO manage them." Testing the comparison again, this is also true for hair stylists. They're the ones who have to pay to be there and maximize their revenue. They'd rather be left alone to use whatever methods they can to keep customers happy, regular, and with high tips. Likewise for a consultancy where people renting space in the company would want to be flexible to maximize number of clients and revenue by targeting methods to each one's or each group's preferences. Both for hair stylists and IT consultants this take experimentation that might not happen in organizations with top-down management, esp micro-management.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    But hairdressers are an outlier and have hideous medieval working conditions
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      If a hairdresser has "hideous medieval working conditions" than a underwater welder, oil rig worker, or a line cook must be in the seventh circle of hell.
      - walshemj 10y ago
        two of those are highly paid and none of them pay the employer to work
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      Not the ones Ive met. You seriously should vote with your walley by getting a haircut at a place that treats their stylists better. :P
- adzicg 10y ago
  > The DNA of having employees pay the company to work instead of the other way around?!? Of course, the BBC article wants you to think "DNA" as in "no CEO" instead of "workers paying a rent". This is missing the point (full disclosure: I know several people working at Crisp and co-organise workshops with them in Sweden). I remember hearing Henrik Kniberg talk about this at Oredev a while ago, and we ended up restructuring our consultancy firm quite close to their model in 2013. The idea is that you don't work for the company, the company works for you. It's applicable to consultancies, where everyone effectively goes and earns money on their own, but some shared overhead (such as accountants, paperwork, getting master-services agreements with banks and insurance certificates so you can do business) can be effectively shared by everyone under the same umbrella. our model is not a 10% haircut, but that all shared costs are divided according to the proportion of revenue quarterly. the company also doesn't have a boss or anyone in charge (legally, in the UK, we have designated partners who are allowed to sign documents, but everyone has that right, so everyone is a boss and nobody is the Boss). Our company is also not allowed by the statute to have any assets or own any IP, that all belongs to individuals. This is to avoid any conflict of interest and people starting to 'work for the company' in the future. This model obviously wouldn't apply to companies trying to accumulate wealth/IP/assets and looking to create an exit by selling the company. But it works amazingly well if you want a lifestyle consulting business where everyone does their stuff. Edit: typos
  - jasode 10y ago
    >This is missing the point You are missing the point of my comment. I wasn't disparaging Crisp nor passing negative judgement about their business model. (I compared it favorably to doctors contributing to a shared practice.) My critique is of the terrible writing in the BBC article which warps the situation to spin it into a story about "no CEO". In other words, Katie Hope wrote the BBC story such that the reader is manipulated into thinking this: - cause: "no CEO" --> effect: "better business" When the real cause&effect is this: - cause: "workers pay the company a rental fee" --> effect: "workers conclude they don't need a CEO boss" The more salient point is that the "workers pay fees to the shared company" and a downstream side effect is the "no CEO". Why do we not read about freelance hairstylists and doctors in group practices having "no CEO"?!? Because it's a non-story that would waste readers' time. The cause & effect is obvious there. >The idea is that you don't work for the company, the company works for you. It's applicable to consultancies, where everyone effectively goes and earns money on their own, Yes, I agree. Katie's journalism omitted this critical detail. Therefore, her subsequent paragraphs with contrasting quotes from Drew Houston (Dropbox) and Meg Whitman (Hewlett-Packard) are idiotic comparisons. Dropbox/HP are not consultancies where workers pay a royalty fee to work there.
- andai 10y ago
  In a typical company, earning a fixed monthly salary, you will end up paying the company the majority of the money you make for them, and the more value you produce the company, the less you earn by comparison (since in most companies your contribution is not immediately reflected in the salary and can be hard to measure). Flat fee + 10% of earnings seems very, very generous to me by comparison. But I do agree that was a very important detail left out of the article!
- wagonman 10y ago
  i have met some of these guys, my understanding is it is more like a group of consultants who pool together.
kmfrk 10y ago
As implemented by Twitter.
gaius 10y ago
Someone is always in charge. They've just decided not to write down the org chart on paper, is all.
- thomasahle 10y ago
  I'm not sure it's that simple. Even if some people have more influence than others, it is still different from having one person, who can efficiently do whatever they please.
- a_imho 10y ago
  flat organization == informal hierarchies, yet to see a counterexample
  - ep103 10y ago
    ActUp used to give managerial lessons for leftist organizations. Of the materials I saw, one of the things they used to teach was that a truly flat organization results in informal hierarchies developing, by the people most capable and/or passionate (because they're motivated by the issue primarily). But then these people are most likely to burn out, because without formal recognition of the power they need to achieve that role or the formal hierarchy in place around them, they end up taking too much on themselves to cover the holes. But they were talking to leftist organizations. Often these people had communist / socialist / anarchist ideologies, so you can't just tell them: "Implement a hierarchy". And even when they weren't leftist, they were often all volunteer organizations, so you had the same problem anyway. So their solution, was that when you set up a new organization, you start with it flat. You identify who takes on what roles, and define those roles formally. As you define those roles formally, you define what people have to do to get into that position, clearly and openly. And that's it. You're still flat, because the positions appear to be emergent. You have a hierarchy, but no one feels like they're stuck under the rule of a shit boss, because everyone in those positions are meritocratically elected, there's now a culture of free movement between positions and definition of positions, and what you have to do to move from one position to another is transparent, instead of opaque as a way for people above to keep their position of authority.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
f_allwein 10y ago
Yes, similar things have been tried before. See e.g. Ricardo Semler's Maverick! book (1993). Sounds interesting and seems to have worked well for them (judging from the book). https://signalvnoise.com/posts/945-excerpts-from-ricardo-semlers-book-maverick-the-success-behind-the-worlds-most-unusual-workplace https://signalvnoise.com/posts/945-excerpts-from-ricardo-sem...
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  It's an interesting book, I'd really like to know how accurate it is, what people on the ground thought.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  They went from $1 million or so to over $100 million during a time of hyperinflation and otherwise terrible economy. There's the objective evidence the methods produce results. Now just need to start tweaking the model in various ways applied to other companies to see which variables had what effects. I've seen companies get very far just minimizing management/executives, treating employees respectfully, letting them make most improvements, and giving above-average compensation.
didgeoridoo 10y ago
I get the impression that service companies like Crisp can get away with this kind of org structure in a way that product companies cannot. If you are simply executing on consulting contracts, you can afford to act more like a collection of freelancers who share a space. When doctors do this, it's called a "group practice".
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  > you can afford to act more like a collection of freelancers who share a space In fact, that seems closer to the actual situation than the article implied. From http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html : > None of the 30+ consultants are actually employed by Crisp (although we do have a few employed office staff).
  - walshemj 10y ago
    so they are self employed and not workers or employees - well until the tax man gets involved
ptaipale 10y ago
I wonder what happens when the first trouble comes with an accusation of harassment, discrimination or some such thing. How will you defend the company, who will speak for it, and who takes the personal hit that eventually comes?
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago
  >How will you defend the company, who will speak for it The communications department, perhaps. >who takes the personal hit that eventually comes? The person responsible, as it should be.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    That's a little bit too easy answer. Who is the person responsible? If we have a company without a chain of command, will the board them have a meeting and nominate a fall guy? Everything doesn't always work out with perfect harmony.
- krzyk 10y ago
  When did any CEO take personal hit for the company? It usually is quite the opposite, company takes the hit for CEO. And a funny quote, from 1911s The Devils' Dicitonary: Corporation - noun: an ingenious device for attaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    Many times. There's one fairly high-profile case going on where I live just now. Devil's Dictionary is funny but things don't completely work that way.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Is this just a workers cooperative, or is there a distinction I'm not seeing?
- jasode 10y ago
  It's not a workers cooperative (shared ownership). The consultants seem more analogous to hair stylists renting booth space at a hair salon. Based on Google's English translation of the Swedish recruitment page[1], it says: - "It also means that there is no guaranteed salary. The only thing we guarantee is that you will have to pay a flat fee every month plus one-tenth of what you bill." That fee structure makes the BBC article superficial and misleading. Yes, if every worker is not paid a regular paycheck, it doesn't seem like a breakthrough innovation in business organization theory to not have a CEO boss them around. They make the headline about "no CEO" but omit any relevant details such as how workers are compensated. [1] https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp
- valuearb 10y ago
  Yes, it's a "consultants" cooperative.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    I doubt that Crisp would be considered a coop by the Rochdale principals Voluntary and open membership. Democratic member control. Member economic participation. Autonomy and independence. Education, training, and information. Cooperation among cooperatives. Concern for community.
erikstarck 10y ago
Crisp is quite transparent in how they work and it's documented here if you want to clone it yourself: http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html
retrac98 10y ago
I don't believe this works well, especially in larger organisations. Groups of people naturally form a hierarchy, whether it's officially recognised or not. It's human nature.
- mempko 10y ago
  Bullshit. It's trained into people. Starts from your first day of school.
whack 10y ago
It's worth keeping in mind that this is a company of 40 people. Half the size of most primitive hunter-gatherer tribes which had no formal organization whatsoever. At sizes that small, everyone knows each other, everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and people can make decisions through consensus after a round of informal discussions. The problems only start once the "tribe" grows beyond 150. That's when the number of people involved is too great for the human brain to process the entire social network. Hence why formal organisations and hierarchy are now needed. It's great that startups and small companies are innovating with different organizational styles. Many of the structures found in big corporations are overkill for small organisations where everyone knows each other. Just don't expect any success stories from these startup experiments to scale up to bigger companies though.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  "That's when the number of people involved is too great for the human brain to process the entire social network. Hence why formal organisations and hierarchy are now needed." Or innovate on a divisional or matrix-style organization where it's a series of independent units or teams of teams. Not too different from how we make complex programs integrate well. Decomposing them properly with complexity in the right spots lets the integration or supervisory part be small and simple. Could be something to apply to real-world organizations there.
  - monodeldiablo 10y ago
    Gore & Associates (makes of GoreTex) operate like this. Whole groups of worker-owned co-ops in Northern Italy (Emilia-Romagna) also operate more or less this way, in a loosely-coupled network. The trend in modern employment toward more individual empowerment, less hierarchy, and greater profit share points toward a co-op future for a large band of white collar jobs. Or it would, if they weren't so heavily discriminated against in the US tax code.
    - walshemj 10y ago
      Acess to capital is the real killer
unit91 10y ago
https://youtu.be/V_d55RrPfP4 https://youtu.be/V_d55RrPfP4 Couldn't resist.
cft 10y ago
Another idea: during the Soviet perestroika just before economic collapse, the "CEO elections by employees" became quite popular in the Soviet firms.
myf01d 10y ago
Sweden, when Tumblr turns into a country
- dang 10y ago
  We've asked you repeatedly to stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. We ban accounts that use HN this way, so please stop.
  - myf01d 10y ago
    It's my right to write whatever I want and it's also your right to ban me
    - dang 10y ago
      It isn't your right to post whatever you want to this site, and I don't want to ban you. I'd much prefer to convince you to use HN as intended. There's a constant downward pressure on the quality of this site—that's how things go on the internet—so we all have to make the effort of posting civilly and substantively, or else HN will get worse and we'll lose the things that make it worth visiting.
dleslie 10y ago
Fascinating what a culture that doesn't value personal prestige can produce.
adamio 10y ago
"Borg? Sounds Swedish"
valuearb 10y ago
I know this article is misleading, it's basically a consulting organization where they decided instead of having a partnership structure (where the old guys get to take a piece of the young guys billings) they are a meritocracy where everyone gets to eat what they kill. So not having admin/CEO overhead is fine, esp. when they can all agree on the value of marketing/PR and other shared cost programs. But it's an interesting concept. I've managed up to 45 people at a time and believe giving people more authority and responsibility over their area not only better motivates them, but can lead to fantastic results. I would be really interested in how Zappos did it, since they seem to be a larger more traditionally organized business and had some turbulence implementing it.
leog7 10y ago
So incase of fraud everyone goes to jail right ?
rasjani 10y ago
Company's salary and organization model is very similar some Finnish consultant companies. Vincit Helsinki at least.
mwilliamson 10y ago
To me, the most interesting example of a similar organisation (that I see rarely mentioned) is AES (an energy supplier) under Dennis Bakke, as described in Joy at Work [1]. As he puts it, every decision made at the top was a lost chance to delegate responsibility. He advocates the advice process: any person can make any decision, provided that they first get advice from anybody with expertise, and anybody who will be affected. Note that consensus is not required: one of the desired results is that, freed from the need to persuade others, you can focus solely on listening and understanding other points of view. You're hopefully better informed to make a decision, and others feel listened to (rather than feeling like their points aren't being heard as you're trying to persuade them). Not only did AES have tens of thousands of employees, many of them joined by way of acquisitions of existing plants, rather than being hired by AES with their ethos in mind. That's not to say that everybody was a good fit (some people chose to leave given the choice), but that many stayed and eventually appreciated the change in management structure challenges the idea that self-management is only appropriate for a small proportion of people. [1] http://www.dennisbakke.com/joy-at-work http://www.dennisbakke.com/joy-at-work
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
Cynical hot take: great, now everyone might have veto power over doing things, rather than just my chain of command.
alistoriv 10y ago
This article, as many others have pointed out, is pretty misleading. If you want to read about a company that functions mostly as a traditional business with no CEO, look into the Mondragon Corporation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
tn13 10y ago
Sounds like US immigration policy.
james_niro 10y ago
I would like to speak with someone in charge around here?
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  We don't have a lord. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer of the week....~
tdkl 10y ago
You know that ship that has no captain ? Yeah me neither.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
id122015 10y ago
By what date will we conclude "No PRESIDENT" ?
feiss 10y ago
igalia.com works in a similar fashion. No boss, some democratic global meetings per year. Their motto: 'same salary, same responsibility'.
nunez 10y ago
they aren't alone. many boutique shops operate like this. decisions at the top are made by consensus. everyone is their own boss. salary decisions sre made by local managers and HR. if there is a ceo, then s/he is mostly a figurehead. it makes sense for consultancies to operate this way because they don't really sell "a product" as we come to think of it. They sell services in specific areas, and growth of that business is largely contingent on the type of work they take up, how much of it they're willing to do and keeping the structure of the firm in an optimal state to satisfy those demands.
leeny 10y ago
I expect that this method works better in a consultancy (which is what the company in this article is) than in a startup that builds product. In a consultancy, the customer can be the de facto CEO. They tell you what they need and when they need it, and while actually figuring out what to build and how isn't necessarily easy, at least there's some direction. That and each project is, out of necessity, scoped from day one. In a startup where you're making something, especially BEFORE you make something and during the dark times when you don't know if the thing you're making is something anyone wants, having a single source of vision and direction is critical.

187 points by jon-wood 10y ago

richardboegli 10y ago

So they basically copied Valve? But removed the CEO part.

benbristow 10y ago
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...

jasode 10y ago

This BBC article is terrible and manipulates the reader via the omission of critical facts. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you first read the company's recruitment webpage[1] and specifically their following sentence: - "It also means that there is no guaranteed salary. The only thing we guarantee is that you will have to pay a flat fee every month plus one-tenth of what you bill." After making a mental note of that, go read the BBC piece. You'll notice how empty that article actually is. For example, the following sentence becomes meaningless: - "Ultimately, the firm hopes that its way of working could inspire other companies to emulate the "Crisp DNA"." What "DNA" of Crisp exactly? The DNA of having employees pay the company to work instead of the other way around?!? Of course, the BBC article wants you to think "DNA" as in "no CEO" instead of "workers paying a rent". There's nothing wrong with that model (as another commenter mentioned doctors paying into a "group practice" for shared expenses such as an office and billing staff.) However, leaving that fee structure out is incompetent journalism. If workers are the ones paying the company, it's easier for them to agree not to have a CEO manage them. [1] Google's English translation of: https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp

selectodude 10y ago
May as well go to cosmetology school for a year instead of getting a CS degree if you're going to work in asinine conditions like that. If I want to eat what I kill, I'd rather go make millions (or starve) on Wall Street. At least there's a base salary instead of a base rent.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  That's crazy you and I posted the same example at about the same time. Although, I have kinder thoughts about that market it seems. ;)
- PatentTroll 10y ago
  On the flip side, in a consultancy you as the developer get paid, what 1/2 to 1/3of your hourly rate? That 1/2 or 2/3 goes to cover expenses, and then the rest is profit for the owner.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
"There's nothing wrong with that model (as another commenter mentioned doctors paying into a "group practice" for shared expenses such as an office and billing staff.)" Another common one I've seen is hair stylists. They often rent their booth from the shop in exchange for equipment, pay processing, foot traffic especially, and so on. They get some cut of the base pricing plus tip money. Idea is they'll come out profitable on a regular basis despite paying to be there. Just another business expense really. " If workers are the ones paying the company, it's easier for them to agree not to have a CEO manage them." Testing the comparison again, this is also true for hair stylists. They're the ones who have to pay to be there and maximize their revenue. They'd rather be left alone to use whatever methods they can to keep customers happy, regular, and with high tips. Likewise for a consultancy where people renting space in the company would want to be flexible to maximize number of clients and revenue by targeting methods to each one's or each group's preferences. Both for hair stylists and IT consultants this take experimentation that might not happen in organizations with top-down management, esp micro-management.
- walshemj 10y ago
  But hairdressers are an outlier and have hideous medieval working conditions
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    If a hairdresser has "hideous medieval working conditions" than a underwater welder, oil rig worker, or a line cook must be in the seventh circle of hell.
    - walshemj 10y ago
      two of those are highly paid and none of them pay the employer to work
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Not the ones Ive met. You seriously should vote with your walley by getting a haircut at a place that treats their stylists better. :P
adzicg 10y ago
> The DNA of having employees pay the company to work instead of the other way around?!? Of course, the BBC article wants you to think "DNA" as in "no CEO" instead of "workers paying a rent". This is missing the point (full disclosure: I know several people working at Crisp and co-organise workshops with them in Sweden). I remember hearing Henrik Kniberg talk about this at Oredev a while ago, and we ended up restructuring our consultancy firm quite close to their model in 2013. The idea is that you don't work for the company, the company works for you. It's applicable to consultancies, where everyone effectively goes and earns money on their own, but some shared overhead (such as accountants, paperwork, getting master-services agreements with banks and insurance certificates so you can do business) can be effectively shared by everyone under the same umbrella. our model is not a 10% haircut, but that all shared costs are divided according to the proportion of revenue quarterly. the company also doesn't have a boss or anyone in charge (legally, in the UK, we have designated partners who are allowed to sign documents, but everyone has that right, so everyone is a boss and nobody is the Boss). Our company is also not allowed by the statute to have any assets or own any IP, that all belongs to individuals. This is to avoid any conflict of interest and people starting to 'work for the company' in the future. This model obviously wouldn't apply to companies trying to accumulate wealth/IP/assets and looking to create an exit by selling the company. But it works amazingly well if you want a lifestyle consulting business where everyone does their stuff. Edit: typos
- jasode 10y ago
  >This is missing the point You are missing the point of my comment. I wasn't disparaging Crisp nor passing negative judgement about their business model. (I compared it favorably to doctors contributing to a shared practice.) My critique is of the terrible writing in the BBC article which warps the situation to spin it into a story about "no CEO". In other words, Katie Hope wrote the BBC story such that the reader is manipulated into thinking this: - cause: "no CEO" --> effect: "better business" When the real cause&effect is this: - cause: "workers pay the company a rental fee" --> effect: "workers conclude they don't need a CEO boss" The more salient point is that the "workers pay fees to the shared company" and a downstream side effect is the "no CEO". Why do we not read about freelance hairstylists and doctors in group practices having "no CEO"?!? Because it's a non-story that would waste readers' time. The cause & effect is obvious there. >The idea is that you don't work for the company, the company works for you. It's applicable to consultancies, where everyone effectively goes and earns money on their own, Yes, I agree. Katie's journalism omitted this critical detail. Therefore, her subsequent paragraphs with contrasting quotes from Drew Houston (Dropbox) and Meg Whitman (Hewlett-Packard) are idiotic comparisons. Dropbox/HP are not consultancies where workers pay a royalty fee to work there.
andai 10y ago
In a typical company, earning a fixed monthly salary, you will end up paying the company the majority of the money you make for them, and the more value you produce the company, the less you earn by comparison (since in most companies your contribution is not immediately reflected in the salary and can be hard to measure). Flat fee + 10% of earnings seems very, very generous to me by comparison. But I do agree that was a very important detail left out of the article!
wagonman 10y ago
i have met some of these guys, my understanding is it is more like a group of consultants who pool together.

kmfrk 10y ago

As implemented by Twitter.

gaius 10y ago

Someone is always in charge. They've just decided not to write down the org chart on paper, is all.

thomasahle 10y ago
I'm not sure it's that simple. Even if some people have more influence than others, it is still different from having one person, who can efficiently do whatever they please.
a_imho 10y ago
flat organization == informal hierarchies, yet to see a counterexample
- ep103 10y ago
  ActUp used to give managerial lessons for leftist organizations. Of the materials I saw, one of the things they used to teach was that a truly flat organization results in informal hierarchies developing, by the people most capable and/or passionate (because they're motivated by the issue primarily). But then these people are most likely to burn out, because without formal recognition of the power they need to achieve that role or the formal hierarchy in place around them, they end up taking too much on themselves to cover the holes. But they were talking to leftist organizations. Often these people had communist / socialist / anarchist ideologies, so you can't just tell them: "Implement a hierarchy". And even when they weren't leftist, they were often all volunteer organizations, so you had the same problem anyway. So their solution, was that when you set up a new organization, you start with it flat. You identify who takes on what roles, and define those roles formally. As you define those roles formally, you define what people have to do to get into that position, clearly and openly. And that's it. You're still flat, because the positions appear to be emergent. You have a hierarchy, but no one feels like they're stuck under the rule of a shit boss, because everyone in those positions are meritocratically elected, there's now a culture of free movement between positions and definition of positions, and what you have to do to move from one position to another is transparent, instead of opaque as a way for people above to keep their position of authority.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

f_allwein 10y ago

Yes, similar things have been tried before. See e.g. Ricardo Semler's Maverick! book (1993). Sounds interesting and seems to have worked well for them (judging from the book). https://signalvnoise.com/posts/945-excerpts-from-ricardo-semlers-book-maverick-the-success-behind-the-worlds-most-unusual-workplace https://signalvnoise.com/posts/945-excerpts-from-ricardo-sem...

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
It's an interesting book, I'd really like to know how accurate it is, what people on the ground thought.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
They went from $1 million or so to over $100 million during a time of hyperinflation and otherwise terrible economy. There's the objective evidence the methods produce results. Now just need to start tweaking the model in various ways applied to other companies to see which variables had what effects. I've seen companies get very far just minimizing management/executives, treating employees respectfully, letting them make most improvements, and giving above-average compensation.

didgeoridoo 10y ago

I get the impression that service companies like Crisp can get away with this kind of org structure in a way that product companies cannot. If you are simply executing on consulting contracts, you can afford to act more like a collection of freelancers who share a space. When doctors do this, it's called a "group practice".

Nullabillity 10y ago
> you can afford to act more like a collection of freelancers who share a space In fact, that seems closer to the actual situation than the article implied. From http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html : > None of the 30+ consultants are actually employed by Crisp (although we do have a few employed office staff).
- walshemj 10y ago
  so they are self employed and not workers or employees - well until the tax man gets involved

ptaipale 10y ago

I wonder what happens when the first trouble comes with an accusation of harassment, discrimination or some such thing. How will you defend the company, who will speak for it, and who takes the personal hit that eventually comes?

wu-ikkyu 10y ago
>How will you defend the company, who will speak for it The communications department, perhaps. >who takes the personal hit that eventually comes? The person responsible, as it should be.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  That's a little bit too easy answer. Who is the person responsible? If we have a company without a chain of command, will the board them have a meeting and nominate a fall guy? Everything doesn't always work out with perfect harmony.
krzyk 10y ago
When did any CEO take personal hit for the company? It usually is quite the opposite, company takes the hit for CEO. And a funny quote, from 1911s The Devils' Dicitonary: Corporation - noun: an ingenious device for attaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Many times. There's one fairly high-profile case going on where I live just now. Devil's Dictionary is funny but things don't completely work that way.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

Is this just a workers cooperative, or is there a distinction I'm not seeing?

jasode 10y ago
It's not a workers cooperative (shared ownership). The consultants seem more analogous to hair stylists renting booth space at a hair salon. Based on Google's English translation of the Swedish recruitment page[1], it says: - "It also means that there is no guaranteed salary. The only thing we guarantee is that you will have to pay a flat fee every month plus one-tenth of what you bill." That fee structure makes the BBC article superficial and misleading. Yes, if every worker is not paid a regular paycheck, it doesn't seem like a breakthrough innovation in business organization theory to not have a CEO boss them around. They make the headline about "no CEO" but omit any relevant details such as how workers are compensated. [1] https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp
valuearb 10y ago
Yes, it's a "consultants" cooperative.
- walshemj 10y ago
  I doubt that Crisp would be considered a coop by the Rochdale principals Voluntary and open membership. Democratic member control. Member economic participation. Autonomy and independence. Education, training, and information. Cooperation among cooperatives. Concern for community.

erikstarck 10y ago

Crisp is quite transparent in how they work and it's documented here if you want to clone it yourself: http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html

retrac98 10y ago

I don't believe this works well, especially in larger organisations. Groups of people naturally form a hierarchy, whether it's officially recognised or not. It's human nature.

mempko 10y ago
Bullshit. It's trained into people. Starts from your first day of school.

whack 10y ago

It's worth keeping in mind that this is a company of 40 people. Half the size of most primitive hunter-gatherer tribes which had no formal organization whatsoever. At sizes that small, everyone knows each other, everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and people can make decisions through consensus after a round of informal discussions. The problems only start once the "tribe" grows beyond 150. That's when the number of people involved is too great for the human brain to process the entire social network. Hence why formal organisations and hierarchy are now needed. It's great that startups and small companies are innovating with different organizational styles. Many of the structures found in big corporations are overkill for small organisations where everyone knows each other. Just don't expect any success stories from these startup experiments to scale up to bigger companies though.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
"That's when the number of people involved is too great for the human brain to process the entire social network. Hence why formal organisations and hierarchy are now needed." Or innovate on a divisional or matrix-style organization where it's a series of independent units or teams of teams. Not too different from how we make complex programs integrate well. Decomposing them properly with complexity in the right spots lets the integration or supervisory part be small and simple. Could be something to apply to real-world organizations there.
- monodeldiablo 10y ago
  Gore & Associates (makes of GoreTex) operate like this. Whole groups of worker-owned co-ops in Northern Italy (Emilia-Romagna) also operate more or less this way, in a loosely-coupled network. The trend in modern employment toward more individual empowerment, less hierarchy, and greater profit share points toward a co-op future for a large band of white collar jobs. Or it would, if they weren't so heavily discriminated against in the US tax code.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    Acess to capital is the real killer

unit91 10y ago

https://youtu.be/V_d55RrPfP4 https://youtu.be/V_d55RrPfP4 Couldn't resist.

cft 10y ago

Another idea: during the Soviet perestroika just before economic collapse, the "CEO elections by employees" became quite popular in the Soviet firms.

myf01d 10y ago

Sweden, when Tumblr turns into a country

dang 10y ago
We've asked you repeatedly to stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. We ban accounts that use HN this way, so please stop.
- myf01d 10y ago
  It's my right to write whatever I want and it's also your right to ban me
  - dang 10y ago
    It isn't your right to post whatever you want to this site, and I don't want to ban you. I'd much prefer to convince you to use HN as intended. There's a constant downward pressure on the quality of this site—that's how things go on the internet—so we all have to make the effort of posting civilly and substantively, or else HN will get worse and we'll lose the things that make it worth visiting.

dleslie 10y ago

Fascinating what a culture that doesn't value personal prestige can produce.

adamio 10y ago

"Borg? Sounds Swedish"

valuearb 10y ago

I know this article is misleading, it's basically a consulting organization where they decided instead of having a partnership structure (where the old guys get to take a piece of the young guys billings) they are a meritocracy where everyone gets to eat what they kill. So not having admin/CEO overhead is fine, esp. when they can all agree on the value of marketing/PR and other shared cost programs. But it's an interesting concept. I've managed up to 45 people at a time and believe giving people more authority and responsibility over their area not only better motivates them, but can lead to fantastic results. I would be really interested in how Zappos did it, since they seem to be a larger more traditionally organized business and had some turbulence implementing it.

leog7 10y ago

So incase of fraud everyone goes to jail right ?

rasjani 10y ago

Company's salary and organization model is very similar some Finnish consultant companies. Vincit Helsinki at least.

mwilliamson 10y ago

To me, the most interesting example of a similar organisation (that I see rarely mentioned) is AES (an energy supplier) under Dennis Bakke, as described in Joy at Work [1]. As he puts it, every decision made at the top was a lost chance to delegate responsibility. He advocates the advice process: any person can make any decision, provided that they first get advice from anybody with expertise, and anybody who will be affected. Note that consensus is not required: one of the desired results is that, freed from the need to persuade others, you can focus solely on listening and understanding other points of view. You're hopefully better informed to make a decision, and others feel listened to (rather than feeling like their points aren't being heard as you're trying to persuade them). Not only did AES have tens of thousands of employees, many of them joined by way of acquisitions of existing plants, rather than being hired by AES with their ethos in mind. That's not to say that everybody was a good fit (some people chose to leave given the choice), but that many stayed and eventually appreciated the change in management structure challenges the idea that self-management is only appropriate for a small proportion of people. [1] http://www.dennisbakke.com/joy-at-work http://www.dennisbakke.com/joy-at-work

ThrustVectoring 10y ago

Cynical hot take: great, now everyone might have veto power over doing things, rather than just my chain of command.

alistoriv 10y ago

This article, as many others have pointed out, is pretty misleading. If you want to read about a company that functions mostly as a traditional business with no CEO, look into the Mondragon Corporation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

tn13 10y ago

Sounds like US immigration policy.

james_niro 10y ago

I would like to speak with someone in charge around here?

logfromblammo 10y ago
We don't have a lord. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer of the week....~

tdkl 10y ago

You know that ship that has no captain ? Yeah me neither.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

id122015 10y ago

By what date will we conclude "No PRESIDENT" ?

feiss 10y ago

igalia.com works in a similar fashion. No boss, some democratic global meetings per year. Their motto: 'same salary, same responsibility'.

nunez 10y ago

they aren't alone. many boutique shops operate like this. decisions at the top are made by consensus. everyone is their own boss. salary decisions sre made by local managers and HR. if there is a ceo, then s/he is mostly a figurehead. it makes sense for consultancies to operate this way because they don't really sell "a product" as we come to think of it. They sell services in specific areas, and growth of that business is largely contingent on the type of work they take up, how much of it they're willing to do and keeping the structure of the firm in an optimal state to satisfy those demands.

leeny 10y ago

I expect that this method works better in a consultancy (which is what the company in this article is) than in a startup that builds product. In a consultancy, the customer can be the de facto CEO. They tell you what they need and when they need it, and while actually figuring out what to build and how isn't necessarily easy, at least there's some direction. That and each project is, out of necessity, scoped from day one. In a startup where you're making something, especially BEFORE you make something and during the dark times when you don't know if the thing you're making is something anyone wants, having a single source of vision and direction is critical.