
No CEO: A Swedish company where nobody is in charge - jon-wood
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38928528
======
whack
It's worth keeping in mind that this is a company of 40 people. Half the size
of most primitive hunter-gatherer tribes which had no formal organization
whatsoever. At sizes that small, everyone knows each other, everyone knows
what everyone else is doing, and people can make decisions through consensus
after a round of informal discussions.

The problems only start once the "tribe" grows beyond 150. That's when the
number of people involved is too great for the human brain to process the
entire social network. Hence why formal organisations and hierarchy are now
needed.

It's great that startups and small companies are innovating with different
organizational styles. Many of the structures found in big corporations are
overkill for small organisations where everyone knows each other. Just don't
expect any success stories from these startup experiments to scale up to
bigger companies though.

~~~
RubenSandwich
Agreed. I've noticed that organizations that often times claim to be
'leaderless', just have other implicit ways of exerting power and influence.
Truly leaderless is difficult, and requires humility from all it's members.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yep. It only works as long as everyone knows each other. I've been arguing
this point for years with my anarchist friends (both left and right
varieties), who seem unwilling to grapple with basic concepts like scale and
externalities.

I don't think straight hierarchies are the only possible organizational
structure but it does seem like more people want to be told what to do than to
think for themselves. .

~~~
dpc59
My experience working with anarchist friends is that something as simple as
leadership creates a certain hierarchy. Obviously if there's nothing formal
everyone is pretty cool, but in the organisation of a society and a longer
time frame I can see how it can lead to our historical material conditions.

~~~
anigbrowl
If you're interested, I've been toying with the idea of an organizational
structure that's loosely but explicitly modeled on the human body. My basic
idea is that since bodies are complex interdependent structures that mostly
Just Work, social structures that explicitly recapitulate human anatomy should
be inherently more robust.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Would this open the social structure to all sorts of disease states in a
similar way to the human body?

Then you would need teams within the social structure who's role it is to seek
out pathogenic agents / sub-structures and terminate them. An immune system,
if you will. Analogy could be a police force to deal with auto-immune issues,
and a military to deal with foreign invaders.

Well, in a way, our social / structural systems already _do_ mimic bacterial
colonies: reproduce by consuming all available resources until the host system
dies or the infection is cleared.

------
didgeoridoo
I get the impression that service companies like Crisp can get away with this
kind of org structure in a way that product companies cannot. If you are
simply executing on consulting contracts, you can afford to act more like a
collection of freelancers who share a space. When doctors do this, it's called
a "group practice".

~~~
Nullabillity
> you can afford to act more like a collection of freelancers who share a
> space

In fact, that seems closer to the actual situation than the article implied.
From
[http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html](http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html) :

> None of the 30+ consultants are actually employed by Crisp (although we do
> have a few employed office staff).

~~~
walshemj
so they are self employed and not workers or employees - well until the tax
man gets involved

------
jasode
This BBC article is terrible and manipulates the reader via the omission of
critical facts. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you _first read_ the
company's recruitment webpage[1] and specifically their following sentence:

 _- "It also means that there is no guaranteed salary. The only thing we
guarantee is that you will have to pay a flat fee every month plus one-tenth
of what you bill."_

After making a mental note of that, go read the BBC piece. You'll notice how
empty that article actually is. For example, the following sentence becomes
meaningless:

\- _" Ultimately, the firm hopes that its way of working could inspire other
companies to emulate the "Crisp DNA"."_

What "DNA" of Crisp exactly? The DNA of having employees _pay the company_ to
work instead of the other way around?!? Of course, the BBC article wants you
to think "DNA" as in "no CEO" instead of "workers paying a rent".

There's nothing wrong with that model (as another commenter mentioned doctors
paying into a "group practice" for shared expenses such as an office and
billing staff.)

However, leaving that fee structure out is incompetent journalism. If workers
are the ones paying the company, it's easier for them to agree not to have a
CEO manage them.

[1] Google's English translation of: [https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-
crisp](https://www.crisp.se/om-crisp/jobba-pa-crisp)

~~~
adzicg
> The DNA of having employees pay the company to work instead of the other way
> around?!? Of course, the BBC article wants you to think "DNA" as in "no CEO"
> instead of "workers paying a rent".

This is missing the point (full disclosure: I know several people working at
Crisp and co-organise workshops with them in Sweden).

I remember hearing Henrik Kniberg talk about this at Oredev a while ago, and
we ended up restructuring our consultancy firm quite close to their model in
2013. The idea is that you don't work for the company, the company works for
you. It's applicable to consultancies, where everyone effectively goes and
earns money on their own, but some shared overhead (such as accountants,
paperwork, getting master-services agreements with banks and insurance
certificates so you can do business) can be effectively shared by everyone
under the same umbrella.

our model is not a 10% haircut, but that all shared costs are divided
according to the proportion of revenue quarterly. the company also doesn't
have a boss or anyone in charge (legally, in the UK, we have designated
partners who are allowed to sign documents, but everyone has that right, so
everyone is a boss and nobody is the Boss).

Our company is also not allowed by the statute to have any assets or own any
IP, that all belongs to individuals. This is to avoid any conflict of interest
and people starting to 'work for the company' in the future.

This model obviously wouldn't apply to companies trying to accumulate
wealth/IP/assets and looking to create an exit by selling the company. But it
works amazingly well if you want a lifestyle consulting business where
everyone does their stuff.

Edit: typos

~~~
PatentTroll
This is how law firms work. In that sense, this is more like a partnership
than a corporation.

~~~
alkonaut
So law firms, barber shops and software consultants can have a no CEO
organization. Full news at 11.

------
gaius
Someone is always in charge. They've just decided not to write down the org
chart on paper, is all.

~~~
neolefty
They've written it down -- it's the board for big things and "shared among
other employees" for others. It actually sounds pretty practical to me. As
people become more responsible and self-regulating, there's less need for a
single person to be in charge in a hierarchical sense.

> The staff decided that many of the chief executive's responsibilities
> overlapped with those of the board, while other roles could be shared among
> other employees.

~~~
notahacker
They've written it down in more detail than "shared responsibilities" too.
It's a pool of self-employed freelancers handling projects in their own way
paying fees/commission to a holding company with dedicated admin/sales
responsibilities and major decisions made by a board or by vote. Paid projects
people don't want to handle themselves go to the first person to indicate
interest unless the interested parties agree otherwise. It sounds more like a
non-profit, elected-board, closed-shop Uber than "shared responsibility".

Needless to say, this model is not going to work quite so well with every type
of creative process and personnel.

------
f_allwein
Yes, similar things have been tried before. See e.g. Ricardo Semler's
Maverick! book (1993). Sounds interesting and seems to have worked well for
them (judging from the book). [https://signalvnoise.com/posts/945-excerpts-
from-ricardo-sem...](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/945-excerpts-from-ricardo-
semlers-book-maverick-the-success-behind-the-worlds-most-unusual-workplace)

~~~
nickpsecurity
They went from $1 million or so to over $100 million during a time of
hyperinflation and otherwise terrible economy. There's the objective evidence
the methods produce results. Now just need to start tweaking the model in
various ways applied to other companies to see which variables had what
effects. I've seen companies get very far just minimizing
management/executives, treating employees respectfully, letting them make most
improvements, and giving above-average compensation.

------
valuearb
I know this article is misleading, it's basically a consulting organization
where they decided instead of having a partnership structure (where the old
guys get to take a piece of the young guys billings) they are a meritocracy
where everyone gets to eat what they kill. So not having admin/CEO overhead is
fine, esp. when they can all agree on the value of marketing/PR and other
shared cost programs.

But it's an interesting concept. I've managed up to 45 people at a time and
believe giving people more authority and responsibility over their area not
only better motivates them, but can lead to fantastic results. I would be
really interested in how Zappos did it, since they seem to be a larger more
traditionally organized business and had some turbulence implementing it.

------
erikstarck
Crisp is quite transparent in how they work and it's documented here if you
want to clone it yourself:
[http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html](http://dna.crisp.se/docs/index.html)

------
ptaipale
I wonder what happens when the first trouble comes with an accusation of
harassment, discrimination or some such thing. How will you defend the
company, who will speak for it, and who takes the personal hit that eventually
comes?

~~~
krzyk
When did any CEO take personal hit for the company? It usually is quite the
opposite, company takes the hit for CEO.

And a funny quote, from 1911s The Devils' Dicitonary:

    
    
        Corporation - noun: an ingenious device for attaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

~~~
ptaipale
Many times. There's one fairly high-profile case going on where I live just
now.

Devil's Dictionary is funny but things don't completely work that way.

------
pbhjpbhj
Is this just a workers cooperative, or is there a distinction I'm not seeing?

~~~
valuearb
Yes, it's a "consultants" cooperative.

~~~
walshemj
I doubt that Crisp would be considered a coop by the Rochdale principals

Voluntary and open membership.

Democratic member control.

Member economic participation.

Autonomy and independence.

Education, training, and information.

Cooperation among cooperatives.

Concern for community.

------
mwilliamson
To me, the most interesting example of a similar organisation (that I see
rarely mentioned) is AES (an energy supplier) under Dennis Bakke, as described
in Joy at Work [1]. As he puts it, every decision made at the top was a lost
chance to delegate responsibility. He advocates the advice process: any person
can make any decision, provided that they first get advice from anybody with
expertise, and anybody who will be affected. Note that consensus is not
required: one of the desired results is that, freed from the need to persuade
others, you can focus solely on listening and understanding other points of
view. You're hopefully better informed to make a decision, and others feel
listened to (rather than feeling like their points aren't being heard as
you're trying to persuade them).

Not only did AES have tens of thousands of employees, many of them joined by
way of acquisitions of existing plants, rather than being hired by AES with
their ethos in mind. That's not to say that everybody was a good fit (some
people chose to leave given the choice), but that many stayed and eventually
appreciated the change in management structure challenges the idea that self-
management is only appropriate for a small proportion of people.

[1] [http://www.dennisbakke.com/joy-at-work](http://www.dennisbakke.com/joy-
at-work)

------
retrac98
I don't believe this works well, especially in larger organisations. Groups of
people naturally form a hierarchy, whether it's officially recognised or not.
It's human nature.

~~~
mempko
Bullshit. It's trained into people. Starts from your first day of school.

------
leeny
I expect that this method works better in a consultancy (which is what the
company in this article is) than in a startup that builds product. In a
consultancy, the customer can be the de facto CEO. They tell you what they
need and when they need it, and while actually figuring out what to build and
how isn't necessarily easy, at least there's some direction. That and each
project is, out of necessity, scoped from day one.

In a startup where you're making something, especially BEFORE you make
something and during the dark times when you don't know if the thing you're
making is something anyone wants, having a single source of vision and
direction is critical.

------
kmfrk
As implemented by Twitter.

------
alistoriv
This article, as many others have pointed out, is pretty misleading. If you
want to read about a company that functions mostly as a traditional business
with no CEO, look into the Mondragon Corporation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation)

------
ThrustVectoring
Cynical hot take: great, now everyone might have veto power over doing things,
rather than just my chain of command.

------
nunez
they aren't alone. many boutique shops operate like this. decisions at the top
are made by consensus. everyone is their own boss. salary decisions sre made
by local managers and HR. if there is a ceo, then s/he is mostly a figurehead.

it makes sense for consultancies to operate this way because they don't really
sell "a product" as we come to think of it. They sell services in specific
areas, and growth of that business is largely contingent on the type of work
they take up, how much of it they're willing to do and keeping the structure
of the firm in an optimal state to satisfy those demands.

------
cft
Another idea: during the Soviet perestroika just before economic collapse, the
"CEO elections by employees" became quite popular in the Soviet firms.

------
leog7
So incase of fraud everyone goes to jail right ?

------
rasjani
Company's salary and organization model is very similar some Finnish
consultant companies. Vincit Helsinki at least.

------
james_niro
I would like to speak with someone in charge around here?

~~~
logfromblammo
We don't have a lord. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in
turns to act as a sort of executive officer of the week....~

------
feiss
igalia.com works in a similar fashion. No boss, some democratic global
meetings per year. Their motto: 'same salary, same responsibility'.

------
richardboegli
So they basically copied Valve? But removed the CEO part.

~~~
benbristow
[http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...](http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf)

------
tdkl
You know that ship that has no captain ?

Yeah me neither.

------
tn13
Sounds like US immigration policy.

------
unit91
[https://youtu.be/V_d55RrPfP4](https://youtu.be/V_d55RrPfP4)

Couldn't resist.

------
adamio
"Borg? Sounds Swedish"

------
dleslie
Fascinating what a culture that doesn't value personal prestige can produce.

------
id122015
By what date will we conclude "No PRESIDENT" ?

------
myf01d
Sweden, when Tumblr turns into a country

~~~
dang
We've asked you repeatedly to stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. We
ban accounts that use HN this way, so please stop.

~~~
myf01d
It's my right to write whatever I want and it's also your right to ban me

~~~
dang
It isn't your right to post whatever you want to this site, and I don't want
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There's a constant downward pressure on the quality of this site—that's how
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