Good organisation vs. what we usually see
Good
Usual
Why?
- Business and technology are separated
- No accountability, no vision
- Work is driven by tasks and projects, not problems and outcomes
- Focus on process and control
- An inefficient structure
Cultural principles
- Extreme ownershipTaking responsibility at every level.
- Radical candorNo bullshit.
- Reduce wasteContinuously improve processes, tools and structure.
- Flexible structureTemporary, self-organising teams around problems.
- People over processes
- Product and growth mindset
How leaders lead
- Vision over controlFocus on vision, coaching and mentoring rather than operations and strict control.
- Company firstManagers belong to the management team as much as to their own team. Long-term impact comes from solving company-level problems.
- Disagree and commitVoice your concerns, then honour the group’s decision. Buy decisions first, then sell them to your team.
- Build strategy with the teamWorking on vision and strategy together does wonders for understanding and engagement.
- Problems, not solutionsDefine work through problems to solve, and let teams self-organise around them.
- Objectives that drive improvementSet goals that push efficiency through continuous improvement and innovation.
- Dashboards, not reportsAutomate reporting and focus on deviations from the norm.
- Meet for growthCut recurring control meetings — reporting, steering. Meet for retros, brainstorming, knowledge sharing, problem solving and emergencies.
- SimplifyDelegate, automate, document.
- Let people make mistakesIt’s a learning opportunity — and sometimes it turns out you were the one who was wrong.
- Leave the comfort zoneTake responsibility and drive change when it’s needed, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Think big, act local
A vision is a decision-making tool, not a poster. For every decision, at every level and in every function, ask:
- Where do we want to go?
- Where are we now?
- What is the next step — and does it take us closer to the vision?
- Do we need to adjust the vision?
Keep it light, communicate it constantly, and reference it in decisions and pitches so it stays alive.
Ways of working
- Move communication and process automation from email and phone calls to chat.
- Move from file-based desktop tools to cloud-based productivity tools.
- Default to 25- or 50-minute meetings.
- No agenda and expected outcome? Cancel the meeting.
- Bring people back to the office more often, and set clear expectations for new hires.
People
Structure
- Succession planning: identify, support, train
- A career guide: clear roles, aligned titles, a defined promotion process
- Salary levels: same role and level, same pay, with annual market correction
- Onboarding for every role and office
Growth
- Hire for the company, not the team — values-based, consistent, with engineers involved
- Employer branding: meetups, blogs, talks, tech leaders visible in PR
- Feedback and retro culture
- Coaching and systematic training for leaders at every level
Efficiency through one platform
- Build products, not one-off solutions.
- One platform for engineering, product and marketing; one design system across channels.
- Configuration instead of customisation — single source, single production version.
- The same processes and touchpoints for every customer, the same tools across the company.
Architecture that lets teams move
- Sunset services and technologies to keep technical debt down.
- Choose technologies that scale, are widely used and growing — it makes hiring easier.
- Adopt existing technology before building your own.
- Wrap system services (logging, database access) into shared libraries.
- Every service must be independently deployable.
- Every service must keep working when its dependencies go down.
Further reading
- unfix — flexible organisation design, with a Pipedrive case study (English)
- Isejuhtiv organisatsioon (Estonian)
- Algorütm podcast (Estonian)
Related: Tribes & Missions