With agile going mainstream more and more entrepreneurs, are looking for new ways to organize their company.
When a company goes agile, it has an impact on the company culture.
Some of the smart managers I coach, ask me:
- what’s next?
- where can I look for examples of companies that don’t work the traditional way?
This is a list of books & documents about companies that are working in a less traditional way.
- Open Minds (St Luke)
- One from Many (Visa)
- Maverick (Semco)
- Valve employee handbook
- Scaling @ Spotify
- Netflix Culture & Responsibility
- Delivering Happiness (Zappos)
And because I’m in a good mood, instead of 7, here is 8the one, with examples of multiple companies wikinomics.
Although not a book (yet), the most amazing company I know is /UT7. Read the /UT7 story at Infoq
Another blogpost about how Buffer works as a Distributed company
If you are not in a mood for reading, you might want to watch this video about how open source projects survive poisonous people
Update:
Scott Berkun also wrote an interesting book about the year he worked at WordPress
The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work
Update 2:
In the year 2014 I decided, I would like to join companies with creative (aka non standard structures or ways of working) and help them for a week or so. (If they work distributed maybe even longer). If you think your companies is one of these, please let me know.
Update 3:
- Frederick Laloux wrote an interesting book with Reïnventing Organisations
- David Marquez: Turn the Ship around
- Frank Van Massenhove: De collega’s werken van thuis
- Jeff Cumps: Sociocracy 3.0
Yves lots of people don’t have the time to read these books. True, will you give me links to articles about these and other companies in the comments?
19 comments on “7 books with stories about innovative company structures”
you can also have a look at [Freedom Inc](//www.amazon.com/dp/0307409384/)
and [Favi’s books (in french)](//www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?contributorId=692871)
I just found a new one that looks interesting: Remote (Office not required) //37signals.com/remote
First, Let’s Fire All the Managers
by Gary Hamel //hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers Story about Morning Star. Can send you the pdf (contact me via email).
“4 tactics to change from directive leadership to a self-correcting organisation” by Joris Luijke, Head of Global HR/Talent team at Atlassian (31.10.2012, //www.managementexchange.com/story/%22traditional-management%22-%22trust-management%22 )
Hey Yves,
You shoul add github as well: their motto is: “optimize for happiness”: automate or remove all the boring work & friction…
//tom.preston-werner.com/2010/10/18/optimize-for-happiness.html
More detail here:
//zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works/
Hi Yves,
Jimdo (Hamburg/Germany) certainly is an example for a very different company culture. You might read through their founder’s blog a bit here //www.3founders.com/deutsch/archiv-2012/ (german), watch a video about their FeelGood-Manager here //vimeo.com/53967812 (german), or a video about their analog+digital Kanban wall here //vimeo.com/43397424 (english). Or just come around next time you’re in Hamburg… 😉
not everything is perfect about these structures:
you might want to read //www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-07/09/valve-management-jeri-ellsworth
Also look at Rally’s Agile Business book at //www.rallydev.com/agile-business-book
I just wrote a blog post that gives a bit more background on the book. //mckilby.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/successful-agile-transformations-come-in-3s/
one company I left out of this list is CRISP.
//blog.crisp.se/2010/05/08/henrikkniberg/1273272420000
They have a ton of blog post of how they organise themselves. one of “recent” decisions they have taken, is to remove the CEO role.
//blog.crisp.se/2014/03/27/peterantman/crisp-consensus-model-2-1
//dna.crisp.se/ is another example of a non traditional org design. This one is consulting house
thank you Alexey, the crisp example is indeed something that belongs here.
Did you know there is a book about a non-traditional way of organizing back-offices at ING? Lean operational management combined with small autonomous teams, and flexibility in stead of queueing to cope with fluctuation. Here is the link:
//books.google.nl/books/about/Super7_Operations.html?id=MLFEAgAAQBAJ
I’m the autor.
Menno van Dijk.
Hi Menno,
NO I did not know.
Thanks for telling me, I will for sure buy it. On this link it says there is no digital version.
Do you know if it exist or they will ever make it?
yves
there is certainly a digtal version, available at the publisher’s website:
//bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000684417/Super7-Operations.aspx
Or via Amazon’s Kindle:
//www.amazon.com/Super7-Operations-Next-Financial-Services-ebook/dp/B00H7XGQII
thx
another Dutch example
//www.gezond24.nl/tv-uitzending/g24_2677/Revolutionaire-Buurtzorg-verovert-de-wereld
next to the book of ricardo, you can also start by watching this video.
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4vzhweOefs
Hi Yves,
you should definitely check out the Buffer culture : their values are inspiring //open.buffer.com/buffer-values/ but the blog in general is worth following