Hidden Mojo

Robert Paterson has a fascinating interview with a couple of guys from silverorange. silverorange is a team of web developers based out of Prince Edward Island in Canada. The guys there seem to have taken a very democratic, egalitarian approach to building their company.

In their own words, when 7 guys founded the company in 1999, their organizational goal was

to foster an organization that supports our “Whole Lives”. To create and maintain a platform that enables each of us to do the things that we want to be able to do. To set in motion an organization that would be self-sustaining and that we can rely on to support all of us for a long long time.

This approach to company building–not creating a company where money was an end in itself, but one by-product of success–is a characteristic of many democratic, happy workplaces.

Responding to whether they have a business plan:

most business plans are also based on a fantasy that you can predict the future in detail. Most also set tight goals when the environment is shifting that is also very risky. You can get trapped doing the wrong thing very hard when the environment has changed.

This experiential approach is something my co-author Eric believes to be a characteristic of democratic workplaces. They favor experience and experimentation over projections and analysis. I’m sure he’ll write more on this in a future post, but it’s interesting to note at silverorange.

They argue productively:

We openly challenge each other all the time. I don’t mean that we fight but that we speak out minds about what each of us are doing. Peer review happens everyday and in all settings. To fit here you have to be able to be comfortable with giving and in receiving opinion about what is going on for real and what you are doing for real.

This approach leads to great decisions, especially when participants don’t take things personally (silverorange has group meals to provide “safe” times to discuss difficult issues.)

Leadership comes from different people depending on context, which is characteristic of democratic organizations and starfish organizations.

We have a hierarchy here but it is not based on a managerial position but on competency. For instance Dave is our genius in System admin, Dan is the President but this is not a strong area for him but it is for Nathan. So Nathan and Dave have the key relationship in this field and the rest of us trust that they will do the right thing.

And on top of it all, everybody is paid the same!

I highly recommend reading the interview, as it provides some great insight into how silverorange has built a democratic and successful company.