Disrupt the company structure — a Free Agile Agent Manifesto!
“Why are there managers?“
One day about 3–4 years ago, that thought popped into my head. Some of my then colleagues and myself were talking about company structures, since we work with many types of clients, large and small — and that question fell out of my mouth. I had been playing with the idea some times before, but not as clearly. It sparked something in me and I haven’t been able to put it away since then.
[After I wrote this post the first time 2 years ago, but didn’t publish, I have since discovered that these types of organisations already exist — and are indeed very well functioning. See Laloux’s ‘Reinventing organizations’ for cases]
As a creative agency professional in the digital industry, I have seen how we have long since favoured an agile mindset. Except when it comes to organisational structures, then the companies prefer to keep to the good old hierarchies with large groups of people doing management by proxy, who spend more time working on politics and company structures (willing or unwilling) and not on the core business.
What is the point with that? And what happened to agile, small, cross functional, self-organising teams on a company level? Do we really think that any disruptive work comes out of silo thinking like that?
Lately the trend of the free creative agent (freelancers, one-person-businesses, tiny startups, contract workers) which is going against the classic company structure — is potentially placing dynamite under this old industrial Way Of Working….
So going back to that situation with my colleagues and me —we just laughed it off then and there, since the sheer idea of it seemed so ludicrous, but there is something in it I can’t let go of. Why NOT simply be without the classic hierarchies in company structures — even in the business I am in as a design consultant? Imagine all these wonderfully talented free agents, who can form the teams around projects they want. Why do we need managers doing that? Can’t we organise ourselves in such a way that the need for hierarchy/middle managers is covered in other more agile — democratic — ways? Of course it means that we will need to step up our game and be proactive, but the rewards are tempting … It is something which starts off as a freelance way of thinking with a structure around it, but imagine it working in a classic company structure.
So I have thought about it some more and put together this (thought piece?) for the creative digital business — and for others:
“Free Agile Agent Manifesto
Calling out to all free spirits! We are free to form, free to hire agile agents, who work together because we want to, not because there is a company who tells us to. We manage ourselves, we self-group around projects and commit to them! These are the principles:
# 1:
No “Management” layers.
Management layers are an old remnant from the industrial age, we should take away right now, since it no longer fits the way we work. No status hunters or political players! Champagne for all or no-one. All for one, one for all.
You are a free agent, whose primary responsibility is for yourself, meaning that you are expected to pro-actively fix things with the help from the Free Agile Agent group.
We will sit in the same physical space and there will be a common platform to contact the group, which we commit to as part of the Free Agile Agent group similar to a subscription.
#2: Commit to your team and your project!
Commitment per project in whatever role you want, but if you drop out without agreement from your team or otherwise fail to fulfil your commitments, people can decide not to work with again!
Your payment is agreed on up front and transparent to all. It could be internally managed as a sort of ‘currency’ you can distribute as you please.
You can buy internal services from others such as coaching, training, buying yourself out of projects etc. Everybody needs to chip in on the cross functional boards & the business hunting = no ‘business class people’.
We organise ourselves per project, and we can choose or turn down projects no questions asked. The team can choose to set themselves up as they please.
#3:
Democratic cross-functional boards
For cross-functional processes, where it is a help to have some common grounds and support, such as product quality, user testing, agile training, prototyping, etc, there should be a board of people /advisors who are volunteers, because they are passionate about the subject, not because it is a way to power!
They will be elected for a limited time similar to a representative democracy.
You can use the boards, but it is a choice, not a must.
The boards collect learnings and methods — but have no mandate in the projects, they are mainly a resource. Only the team has mandate.
Operational functions such as accounting, HR help, lawyers and so on are hired in externally. “
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That is (so far) the end of the Manifesto. I hope to stir some discussions or spark some interest with this. Please leave comments or contact me directly :) No matter what this train has already started rolling and I for one, want to see where it will go!
