“Self-managed companies” or “teal organizations” are a hot topic in many circles. Especially the books “ Reinventing Organisations” and “ Holacracy” are among the bestsellers in that area.

We at Liip try to be somehow self-managed since quite some time, it comes quite naturally with being agile. Teams (between 5 and 20 people) can decide a lot by themselves already. But of course, there's still a management on top, which decides about company wide things and also not so company wide things. We now started an active discussion within the company (for example with a session at the last LiipConf) about how it could work, without such a central, top-down management. We haven't figured out the details yet, but we're very eager to try.

But we're also very interested to get to know people who are already doing that or also want to try it. So, please get in contact with me, if you'd like to meet.

To get an idea, what I personally mean with “self-managed company”, here are some questions. If you can answer them with yes, you're pretty self-managed (in my opinion)

  • Does your company not have a top-down management?
  • Do you have no hierarchy and fixed roles, especially not through job titles?
  • Can people in your company decide on their own without approval from someone “higher up”? Also for investments?
  • Are there no fixed budgets defined from above/centrally?
  • Do people decide about hiring and firing?
  • Do people even decide about their salary?
  • Are you more than “just the founders”? (not sooo important, but maybe for a future growth of your company)
  • Do you have a process to solve conflicts, so that not the one with the bigger voice always wins?
  • Can anyone take responsibility where they want? Define their own roles?
  • Don't you always try to find a consensus while not trying to please everyone?
  • Do you trust everyone in your company that they take the right decision at that current time?

One important thing in all this is, that “decide on their own” doesn't mean, they can just do whatever they want or what feels right. There are many different ways to approach this, but the most important part in all of them is, that you have to get advice from the others before deciding something.

I'm really looking forward to the discussions