Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company • Hacker News Board

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#21

Post by michaelchisari » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:28 PM UTC

mhp wrote: post #19

michaelchisari wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a different industry, but take a look at Semco SA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler Their industrial democracy approach has scaled quite well, with 3000 employees.

Definitely a great example... but I find it disappointing that it is pretty much the ONLY example of this kind of company at that kind of scale that is brought up when topics like this are discussed. If it worked for Semler, why hasn't anyone repeated it?

Well, there's also worker-run democratic cooperative corporations like Mondragon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

I think the biggest reason most companies don't recreate Semco's example is that nobody wants to think of themselves as expendable, especially people who can decide whether they're expendable or not, as the top management positions of a company are in a position to do so.

By saying "yes, our employees can make these decisions without us, we just have to give them the structure and support to do so", people at the top are admitting that they're not as important as our society tells them they are.

In Semco's case, Ricardo Semler was happy to admit that, because he felt the stress of running the business was killing him, and he welcomed the idea. A lot of people in his position would take anti-anxiety medication and something for acid reflux, and keep going, convinced that their position holding the reins is indispensable.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#22

Post by nikcub » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:29 PM UTC

"Besides being small, 37signals has always been a flat organization."

..

"We've experimented with promoting a few people to manager-level roles."

So they are flat, with no chief anything, but they have 'manager-level roles'? Am I missing something or is there a contradiction in his description?

Edit: Got it, 'experimented' meaning that they tried, didn't work, and they went back to flat. Thanks for the responses.

Besides that I find that even with no job titles or formal roles, people within a company tend to self-organize and take on de facto roles. The only difference is that it isn't formalized, and people who end up managing aren't being paid manager salaries or getting manager options.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#23

Post by michaelchisari » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:30 PM UTC

pmjordan wrote: post #18

generalk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry, I know it's fun to bash on managers but they exist for a purpose The point is that it's possible to run a company where managers don't have a purpose and aren't necessary.

At Google's scale? Successfully? I find that rather unlikely. If you have any examples of this, please do share. Otherwise, all I can imagine is reducing the depth of the tree, and in some cases not to make it a strict tree, but a somewhat interconnected graph. (that said, throwing people into distinct "manager" and "engineer" bins is disingenuous anyway, a manager managing engineers had better have some kind of engi…

The Mondragon worker cooperative federation has 85,000 employees. If you look at how it's structured, it's not hard to imagine how Google could operate similarly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#24

Post by jasonfried » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:31 PM UTC

rishi wrote: post #16

"And because we don't have a marketing department, we don't have a chief marketing officer." 37 signals is amazing at marketing. Their blogs. Their books. Video Lectures. Mission statements. Guest posts.

To clarify, we think everything we do is marketing.

From how the error messages are written, to customer service, to copywriting in our emails, to the cancellation process, to clarity of message, to how every single thing in each product works, it's all marketing. Marketing is everyone's responsibility. It's the sum total of everything we do.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#25

Post by tofumatt » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:32 PM UTC

abuzzooz wrote: post #15

Jason seems to imply that managers are useless when he says "We do not have room for people who don't do the actual work". I think this is very naive of him, and a little selfish. He's enjoying the title of "President" which, to me, is a purely managerial position. I doubt if he considers himself useless, but he's happy to label other managers useless. I might be wrong, but it seems that he's either too selfish to se…

Jason is a designer by trade, and is routinely involved with the design of 37signals' products. In the same vein, DHH is a partner in the company, but still writes code (as I understand it).

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#26

Post by brown9-2 » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:33 PM UTC

abuzzooz wrote: post #15

Jason seems to imply that managers are useless when he says "We do not have room for people who don't do the actual work". I think this is very naive of him, and a little selfish. He's enjoying the title of "President" which, to me, is a purely managerial position. I doubt if he considers himself useless, but he's happy to label other managers useless. I might be wrong, but it seems that he's either too selfish to se…

He's enjoying the title of "President" which, to me, is a purely managerial position.

I doubt that what he does in that position is purely managerial. I think you may have a hard time seeing why they value what they do if you impose your own viewpoints on them.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#27

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:36 PM UTC

mhp wrote: post #19

michaelchisari wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a different industry, but take a look at Semco SA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler Their industrial democracy approach has scaled quite well, with 3000 employees.

Definitely a great example... but I find it disappointing that it is pretty much the ONLY example of this kind of company at that kind of scale that is brought up when topics like this are discussed. If it worked for Semler, why hasn't anyone repeated it?

Try this one: http://www.gore.com/en_xx/aboutus/culture/index.html

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#28

Post by geoffw8 » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:36 PM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #22

"Besides being small, 37signals has always been a flat organization." .. "We've experimented with promoting a few people to manager-level roles." So they are flat, with no chief anything, but they have 'manager-level roles'? Am I missing something or is there a contradiction in his description? Edit: Got it, 'experimented' meaning that they tried, didn't work, and they went back to flat. Thanks for the responses. Bes…

Key word: Experimented?

Past tense, too.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#29

Post by jasonfried » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:37 PM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #22

"Besides being small, 37signals has always been a flat organization." .. "We've experimented with promoting a few people to manager-level roles." So they are flat, with no chief anything, but they have 'manager-level roles'? Am I missing something or is there a contradiction in his description? Edit: Got it, 'experimented' meaning that they tried, didn't work, and they went back to flat. Thanks for the responses. Bes…

We've experimented. That's how we've become more confident in our decision to be as flat as possible. We believe it continues to be the right direction for us.

Re: manager's options... We don't offer options so that's not an issue.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#30

Post by dugmartin » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 3:38 PM UTC

dude_abides wrote: post #5

tom_b wrote: post #2

Love the idea of rotating "managerial" or "lead" person in a small group. I'm on a small team within a larger organization that we support (in dev and tool usage). A challenge for us is that people in the larger org are used to having a manager to route their requests to. I may give a rotational approach a whirl. But right now, one of my primary roles is as s&!t umbrella and I don't want to overly burden my real prod…

So what he is essentially saying is, they're an anarcho-syndicalist commune, taking it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, and all the decision of that officer must be approved at a bi-weekly meeting by a two-thirds majority.

There is some lovely muck over here.