Businesses have a history of command and control organisational design.
Those senior direct those junior on how to complete their tasks – review and improve.
This is a story of how radical –
- empowerment of employees,
- full transparency,
- fairness,
- democratic principles and shared responsibility transformed a business and built a cult following among consultants on how to improve failing businesses.
Koldo Saratoga joined the Spanish luxury coach manufacturer Irizar as CEO in 1991 when the company was bankrupt – 14 years later, revenue grew from €24 million to €310 million.
How did Koldo transform the business into a high-performing business in eight steps?
#1 Self-Managing Teams
Eliminate hierarchy and top-down management or decision-making.
- Redesign the organisation into a network of teams organised around products, services, regions, clients, or processes – the teams own the output.
- The teams must be self-managing – no executives tell them what to do.
- Every six months, every team elects a team leader who represents the team in cross-team meetings that align plans & objectives across the company.
- A team representative or leader is typically only allowed to serve for a maximum of two years to avoid any “boss-like” behaviour.
#2 Shared Purpose & Values
- The purpose is the overarching, joint project across the network of self-managing teams.
#3 Yearly Plan of Ideas & Objectives
- Each year the entire company works on and agrees on a strategic plan for the year.
- The objectives are reviewed three times a year with the entire staff – all teams are accountable to all staff.
#4 Radical Transparency
- Radical trust building and responsibility.
- The company financials, salary levels, team commitments and results are fully transparent and accessible to everyone in the organisation.
#5 Fair Salaries, Ownership & No Privileges
- The first action – is to lower the gap in salary levels. The highest earning 10% can earn no more than 2-3 times the salary of the lowest 10%.
- Lower salaries are increased to adhere to the rule.
- Then, employees are also provided with a financial stake in the outcome, meaning that 30% of additional profits are spread among all workers.
- Lastly, all privileges, such as closed offices, bonuses, paid overtime, and special access to information, are eliminated.
#6 Control Turns Into Decentralised Trust
- There is no company-wide time clocking.
- No individual performance reviews.
- Each team is responsible for its own team members, culture, and work objectives.
- The company becomes a network of small, semi-independent communities.
#7 Integrative Decision-Making Process
How are important decisions made and conflicts of interest resolved? Through a democratic, six-step process coordinated by the team leader
- Proposal: A team member who wants to discuss a specific challenge, idea, or topic submits a proposal to the team.
- Questions: team members have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions.
- Reactions: Team members can then, one by one, share their reactions to the proposal.
- Amend & Clarify: The initiator may respond to comments by others and use these to improve the proposal.
- Objections: Now, every team member can share any objections regarding the proposal.
- Integration: In case of objections, the facilitator discusses between team members to make adjustments to the proposal that resolve any objections. Proposals are only adopted when all team members approve the proposal.
#8 Fully Inclusive
- Team members are asked to share their comments and ideas in meetings and decision-making.
- No one speaks over them.
- And at any time, any person can submit a new proposal to a team with all proposals having to be discussed.
It is time to ACCELERATE communities of PASSIONATE NEW BUYERS by fuelling and facilitating their insatiable hunger for authentic content and conversations – so your business captures enormous attention and engagement – influence and sell more.
Now the most valuable asset in the world today is attention.
The FASTEST growing businesses have one thing in common they get more attention on multiple social media platforms – every day.
- They get more attention first.
- Next More engagement
- Influence and Sell More.
Our business reflects the human truth: we are a social and human-first digital agency built on strategic narrative and pitch across platforms.
We accelerate powerful buyer insights gained through micro-content that ultimately influences actual business results.
Your ideal buyer truth is our lifeblood – we are loyal to it, defend it and accelerate it.
There is no longer a single, generic message served to a mass audience – now drive buyer attention and revenue growth by speaking specifically and differently based on who they are, by listening and understanding more.
If you have read this far, thank you for your attention.
It means a lot. I hope this helped you even a little bit in better making sense of this topic. If so, please, share it with a friend who might also benefit from it.
Thanks for reading,
David
