The Honest Founder: Michael Varley on leadership, the importance of anarchy and bottom-up cultures

Last week we sat down with Michael, the founder and CEO of ACELR8, to reflect on our growth, how we try to preserve the positive aspect of the bottom-up culture and what anarchy has to do with challenging the outdated ideas around the recruiting industry.

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Leadership style is not linear. When an organisation grows, leaders grow with it. Could you tell us more about your leadership style and how it fits with building a bottom-up organisation?

When I look back at it, I think it’s about the way “we”, not “I”, built ACELR8.

The founding members shaped how we operate so that it’s an integral part of our working DNA to this day.

ACELR8 is a bootstrapped company, and this is a result of leading with having resourcefulness in mind. Building such a culture was unintentional, but listening to our customers and team made me realise that ACELR8 has a bank of knowledge and information. Failures evolved into learnings, and until this day coming back to being resourceful helps me gain a deeper perspective into what we’re building and how we’re building the company.

ACELR8 is growing so fast, and we’re introducing more structures — how do you continue building bottom-up culture?

Honestly, I was a bit of anti-manager culture, and I thought that managers could be redundant. But while growing the team, I see the value that a good manager can bring and in the end, it’s about picking the right people who are often not so willing to be managers and do not see it as their only career goal. These managers instead care about mentoring other people and want to help them achieve their growth goals. I’d call it the “Reluctant” manager; they just have to do it. I am not into people who want to be managers just for the title and power. We as a leadership team need to be building such cultures together.

How is resourcefulness related to the bottom-up culture?

I think the key to bottom-up culture is to listen and act on people’s ideas. Of course, you cannot work on all of the ideas immediately, even though there’s excitement. The most important thing is to always listen.

Resourcefulness is a powerful value for me personally, and both resourcefulness and bottom-up culture go hand in hand; you have to achieve the best outcomes with what you have.

Company cultures evolve and changes over time. What’s the most significant difference that you noticed at ACELR8?

That is a good question. Three years ago, we’d host quarterly All Hands where the team would sit in the circle, share ideas, discuss learnings and give each other feedback. It would last for 3–4 hours. This was a practice that brought us closer together but is not a scalable activity.

Therefore, the most significant change and challenge are to balance the needs of our team. Define what needs to be bottom-up and what needs to be decided quickly top-down. For example, in the past, we ran company-wide projects based on conversations — no standardised action plan was needed. Now, before we make decisions that affect everyone, we run surveys to ‘measure the temperature’ plus have candid conversations. This method allows for a frictionless change backed by quality conversations coupled with data.

How do you see remote/hybrid would impact people’s culture?

The pandemic threw a real challenge that we can look at as an opportunity. In the past, people were tied to the factory lines, then to offices, and now some industries are transitioning to hybrid or fully remote work setups. It is such a big opportunity to attract diverse talent, level up company cultures and prove that there are ways of building strong communities across borders through digital means. A shift to hybrid/remote work mode is an opportunity, and the companies that will fail to adopt it will likely stay behind.

To give trust and freedom makes a logical and a business sense.

Since we work with a lot of forwards thinking companies, it would be silly to not make this shift. It is important that everyone in the company learns how such more mode makes them feel and what impact it has on work-life balance. We have to keep experimenting to get hybrid/remote right. Let’s be honest; we’re changing habits. We have to unlearn and learn what the ‘normal’ is.

What do you look for when you hire?

I believe that anyone can become successful in the recruitment industry. Whether I am hiring for Talent Partners or marketing, sales, finance or HR, I will always use my intuition. I’m aware that this can lead to bias, but as a whole, we will always remain curious and work with people from all walks of life.

From my background as a recruiter for companies of various sizes, I have observed and compartmentalised a lot. However, I strongly believe in two main drivers for growth: trajectory and energy.

A trajectory is all about progression and growth, both professionally and personally. It could mean a promotion but also mean self-reflection.

I also take context into all of my hiring decisions. For example, one candidate could come from a working-class family yet have been the first to attend a mid-level university. In contrast, another candidate could be very privileged and the fourth in their family to attend Cambridge. The most important thing for me is to look at the context of the journey. The context of the journey has a grave impact on the trajectory, and that is what matters to me when hiring.

In terms of energy, the passionate candidates that genuinely care about what they do are the ones that I really get excited about. In addition, they question the industry, always looking at it from different perspectives.

This hunger for growth is what will fuel ACELR8 and the recruitment industry as a whole.

ACELR8 is on an upwards trajectory, and the stakes are getting higher, but it’s essential to acknowledge that everyone can make mistakes, learn from them and change their context.

I’m learning every day — leading ACELR8 is the most expensive university I will ever attend if you calculate mistakes I made along the way.

But I’m excited to see what the future holds, and I’m very grateful for this opportunity and the journey ahead of us.

Why should someone join ACELR8?

It is an opportunity to accelerate your learning curve and launch your career. One year with ACELR8 equals two years of working as an in-house recruiter. What is more, we’re realistic, and we know that not everyone will be here for the next ten years, but everyone who is with us deserves to grow.

Recruiting is a service that lacks innovation because the majority still sees it as headhunting, poor Linkedin messaging, CV scrapping and trying to fill the position at any cost.

We’re the first company to offer embedded recruiting in Berlin. That’s why we’re responsible for leading a movement and challenging the recruiting industry.

What do you want to achieve with building ACELR8?

My goal is to build the Talent Firm of the future, and we sometimes say “no one loves their recruitment agency” and that’s a shame! We want to change that for all stakeholders; candidates, clients and recruiters. First, we have to rebrand the recruiting industry and set a new standard in hiring. Then ACELR8 will become a one-stop-shop or a recruiting ecosystem that helps our customers and even competitors hire talent better.

Internally I want to create a learning culture that grows beyond me. One that ensures we stay ahead of the market trends to define wants next in recruiting space. This inspiration stems from creative companies, such as Pixar; Pixar makes great movies, fosters creative culture, and defines high standards while being 34 years old. When growing startups, we tend to think short term and don’t question if what we’re building is sustainable long term. Learning is a vast aspect of long-term thinking because it fosters trust and creates change.

What makes you excited about work?

I still get dopamine when we start working with a new client. Beyond that, I get excited when I have impactful conversations with the team and see how learning from each other helps achieve our goals. It is easy to be dragged into daily challenges, but to zoom out, hear and plan the future gets me excited about the future of ACELR8.

I met a CEO/Founder another day, and he told me that I can get way too much in the daily business and advised me to zoom out and see the bigger picture. He is impressed by what we achieved and is excited about the future of ACELR8. This conversation made me very proud and gave me a fresh breath of air.

My significant learning is that I need someone else to believe in our vision.

What is your vision for ACELR8?

I want to build a company where we guide people to challenge and believe in themselves — building a company that creates harmony through anarchy. We should never be defeatists and realise it’s our turn to innovate the future of work.

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Think that recruiting is broken? Then help us fix it. Join Michael in his quest to build a future-proof recruiting infrastructure. Check our careers page and apply for one of the open positions.