| We're trying to change the dynamic in my employer. There is still company-wide centralized planning, and our parent company still sets overall goals and expectations for profitability, but we're something of an experiment in self-organization where individual departments and teams have responsibility for setting and spending budget, setting policy, and selecting the work that needs to be done. It's as democratic as we can get without an employee board or becoming a Mondragon. New and innovative initiatives are more often started from the mid- to low-levels of the company (three or four new lines of business have been started this way), and for the past year or so those initiatives are encouraged to become startups. The baby businesses are essentially put in an incubator where they have an initial budget and cash provided by the company but are encouraged to be individually profitable, report on their finances, are given coaching and regular meetings with startup business advisors, etc. And if they provide services back to the company, they're supposed to bill teams for those services. (The company still provides salary and benefits to the employees who start businesses within the company; there's some accounting magic to adjust which department budget actually pays for these.) Examples of internal businesses started include: * delivery of cafe drinks and food (with a delivery charge paid for by the receiving employee) * conference room ownership and maintenance: these can now be permanently rented by teams, and the business that "owns" them is responsible for decorating, cleaning, providing technology services, etc. * balloons, party supplies, swag, and desk toys, purchased either by the employee or their team And businesses started with a focus outside the company include: * providing detailed retail sales and product category data to suppliers and manufacturers * tools to identify and encourage employee networks (who knows who, what skills does each employee have, who may provide an introduction to another employee) * tools for polling and identifying employee sentiment * self-organization consulting, training, mentoring, and software * company tours (at $10 per visitor) |