I grabbed this book over the 2024 holiday season as it was on sale and recommended by the DevOps practitioners over at ITRevolution.
A Radical Enterprise looks at a new way of building organizations, actually a few way, where the power and decisions are decentralized.
I am pretty open to trying new things and experimenting, but I was very skeptical this would work in many places as I started this book and remain so after finishing it. I kept thinking this felt like a feel-good, kumbaya approach to running an organization. Giving responsibility, devolving it from management to individual teams and having them collaborate together and with other teams.
While I am skeptical, there are some large organizations doing this, and the description says 8% of corporations do this, which I find hard to believe. In any case, a few of them are:
- Haier – USD$38b in revenue
- Morning Star – processing about 40% of the world’s tomato products
- Buurtzorg: – over €427 million revenue
- Nearsoft – $80mm consultancy
- W. L. Gore & Associates – makers of Gore-Tex products, over US$3b in revenue
Those are some impressive organizations. Maybe 8% isn’t wrong, but it feels high. I’ve worked in a few organizations, and all of them have a more central control organization. Even at Redgate, where I think we give a lot of autonomy to teams, I wouldn’t think we’re in the category of a radical organization.
There are some principles to this idea, and some imperatives. The imperatives are:
- Team autonomy – giving control to small groups in terms of how they practice and schedule work as well as allocate themselves.
- Managerial devolution – trying to allow individuals or teams to manage themselves
- Deficiency Gratification – gratifying our higher level needs. Not things we need, but we want and desire. I’m not sure I completely understand this.
- Candid vulnerability – being open and transparent. Even for someone like me that is fairly open, this is asking a lot.
Ultimately, I’ve worked with too many people who aren’t motivated, who don’t try and drive forward, who don’t want to make decisions, or who don’t want accountability. I think many of the people I’ve worked with wouldn’t thrive in this type of org and would get booted. Maybe that’s OK, and maybe this is only suited to some types of people.
It’s an interesting idea, and I found myself fascinated and rooting for success, but always thinking this wouldn’t work in most places I’ve worked. Maybe all the places I’ve worked.
Give it a try if you want a different way of thinking about work, and if it’s for you, maybe look for a job at one of these organizations.
