AUTONOMY
AUTONOMY
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THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE WATER
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IT’S SPREADING: THERE’S A NEW WAY OF WORKING
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$181B$10B
$4B
$1B
$3.5B$18B
$20B$8B
$.5B$369B
$4B
$38B
AND IF YOU HAVEN’T REALIZED IT, THE CHANGE IS DRIVING VALUE. THIS SLIDE CONTAINS $657B
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5PPURPOSE
PROCESS
PEOPLE
PLATFORM
PRODUCT
VISIONARYover
Commercial
LEANover
Large
OPENover
Closed
LEARNINGover
Sustaining
EMERGENTover
Controlled
FRAMEWORK
5
THIS IS THE RESPONSIVE OPERATING SYSTEM
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CONNECTING ACTIONS TO "THE GOOD”
Me doing work that serves individual/group purpose
SELF-GOVERNANCE
Me deciding what I do with my time
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GROW, SERVE &
LEVERAGE NETWORKS
7
(Collaboratively) (…with platforms)
(…for shared benefit) (…of shared interest & purpose )
WHY ORGANIZE?
Without autonomy, there is no network.
autonomyautonomyautonomy
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EDGE RE-ORG
WHAT WE DO AT UNDERCURRENT
Organizing on-purpose at the edges of the organization (not just top-down) ensures that we’re not designing disengaging structures into our organization.
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NEW TRACKS
WHAT WE DO AT UNDERCURRENT
A larger base salary band for Senior Strategists allows specialists and makers to stay engaged longer, as they don’t have to jump into “management” to keep growing their extrinsic reward.
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OKR-DRIVEN RAISES
WHAT WE DO AT UNDERCURRENT
More frequent, results-oriented base salary raises take into account constant growth, and eliminate the “house advantage” over workers.
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HIGH EQUALITY » TRUST
WHAT WE DO AT UNDERCURRENT
More salary equality in our system means we’re able to keep talent density very high, especially where it really counts: facing the customer.
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UCU
WHAT WE DO AT UNDERCURRENT
Trimesterly offsite meetings bring group alignment and allow open discussion of core issues. Fixing problems doesn’t have to be a shameful leadership challenge, especially in a high-equality environment.
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LAUNCHPAD
WHAT WE DO AT UNDERCURRENT
Instead of trying as hard as we can to keep people at UC – even if that would be better for the business – we try to help our team members do the best possible thing for them, even if that’s with another company. ETSY
ARNOLD
COLLECTIVEI
BLACKROCK
WONDERSAUCE
PIVOTAL LABS
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WHAT WE SEE OUT THERE
COMMAND & CONTROL
Strong manager-employee decision systems are good for certain situations and tasks, particularly those with high-consequence and high-likelihood risks. But they have unfortunate side-effects, including placing decisions far from the action.
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HIGH RULE DENSITY
WHAT WE SEE OUT THERE
In large, highly structured organizations, we see an almost one-to-one relationship between behaviors and rules. This makes sense in situations where employees are disengaged and performing poorly, but stands in the way of self-healing systems.
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STRONG DAMPING
WHAT WE SEE OUT THERE
Tradition is a powerful cultural tool that we replace with “Values” in modern organizations. And while values and traditions can be used to enable flexibility at the edges, when they’re too engrained and too comprehensive, they prevent creativity. (And we frequently encounter aspirational values, i.e. “Customer Focused” that are far from true behavior.)
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TIGHT DEPENDENCIES
WHAT WE SEE OUT THERE
This “feature” of traditional organizations is particularly hard to avoid when it comes to physical things, but is a massive problem in an increasingly digital world. Without open systems that enable interoperability, true agility is hard to achieve.
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WEAK NETWORKS
WHAT WE SEE OUT THERE
Weak, absent, and/or connections between nodes result in a weak rudder when things go poorly.
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ROS TRAIT 2: DECENTRALIZATION
8 We leverage intrinsic motivators over extrinsic rewards (RO) Engagement focus
9 We trust our teams, giving them autonomy over their output Outcome-based budgeting
10 We prefer to foster autonomy even at the cost of productivity 20% time
11 We push for dissent over consent over consensus (FOW) New funding models
ROS TRAIT 3: SIMPLE RULES 13 We demand uniformity of approach, not output (GDS) Open guidelines
14 We favor a visionary mission even over structured plans Shorter projects
ROS TRAIT 4: INFORMATION PROCESSING
23 We ruthlessly restrict team size Team size policies
27 We encourage interoperability over interdependence API mandate
28 We structure for cooperation over collaboration (FOW) Structured, explicit domains
31 We lean on transparency and trust over privacy and control Open books
ROS TRAIT 5: ADAPTIVITY 38 We prioritize makers over managers Scale edges
44 We trust our makers to choose the right tools for the job No tool policies, only data policies
WHAT WE RECOMMEND
AUTONOMY