During our ‘turquoise’ tour which took place on November 6-11 and 13-18, 2017, we visited Silicon Valley’s top companies: Google, Morning Star, Amazon, Patagonia, Zappos, Oracle, Invitae. We also visited Brian Robertson’s lecture on holacracy. The tour participants obtained priceless experience and many new ideas. They got inspiration from what they’ve seen and are ready to implement new knowledge in their companies.
There, we learned some new things:
1. Key business principles:
2. Company strategy:
3. Principles of teamwork organization:
4. HR, recruiting, training:
5. Total control over employees:
6. Limitations and risks singled out by the tour participants:
It’s a unique company owning 40% of US tomato paste market, which exports products overseas. The company does not use punishments: if something happens, it gets repaired, and no one will be looking for someone to blame. Every company department hires its own employees, and every employee buys everything needed on their own. In 27 years of the company’s existence, only 2 people were fired; the rest left the company willingly.
Company trivia:
The organization’s main principles:
1. The whole management system is described in the “Mutual Understanding Agreement” which is updated annually:
2. Strategy:
3. Structure:
4. Regular management:
The factory processes 30 tons of tomatoes in about 4 minutes.
General conclusions:
Despite personal problems and inability to visit us in person, HolacracyOne’s Brian Robertson had a great online session with our group and offered a ready-made product for implementing holacracy in vertically managed companies.
3 interesting facts:
Amazon has merged or bought such turquoise organizations as Zappos and Whole Foods.
1. The company’s main principles:
2. HR, recruiting, adaptation and development:
3. Motivation:
Everyone in the company works very hard. Employees work 12-hour days six days a week. Managers work every day, for 14-16 hours.
Alex Furman does wonders in building the ideal team management structure: it impresses everyone. This great man has not only created an organization – he has created a company where every employee feels safety and trust.
The company managed to design a DNA analysis product in a very conservative and difficult environment. In just 4 years, they owned the market. The most important principle here is team management.
It has been 8 years since this company was a new startup, and it managed to find its niche on the market. Invitae can not only diagnose a disease based on DNA tests – it also can predict the possibility of the patient’s relatives getting the same disease and offer treatment (including preventative). Due to the company’s many technological breakthroughs and innovations, its product is much better than the competitors can offer: the diagnosis is several times faster, better and cheaper.
Invitae takes corporate culture very seriously. It refused to build a hierarchy: if one person has power and resources, people are forced to work for this person’s goals, not the company’s. Company goals and personal goals are always different in hierarchies. So, employees start trying to get as much power as they can, and no teamwork is possible under such circumstances.
The company has a unique tool to evaluate the organization’s network and the employees’ work. To evaluate the network, corporate messaging and e-mailing are analyzed with the help of an AI. The analysis looks like a map where it is quite easy to see how important and influential every employee is. Based on this map, it’s easy to see how one person impacts the company’s results, and whether they are a key figure. For instance, a university graduate became so influential in a year that she got several promotions, unlike other people who didn’t participate as much in business despite their experience and qualifications.
1. Main business principles:
2. Business strategy:
3. Retail trends:
4. HR, recruiting, motivation, training:
Currently, the company employs 1,600 people. New employees usually have a month of probation. Everyone starts at the call centre, no matter what position they are hired to fill: during holidays everyone works at the call centre, even Tony Hsieh himself. Designing new products among controlled chaos is very interesting to watch.
We saw a very interesting innovation here: on the cafeteria tables, there are profiles of mentors with photos, information and contacts. Any employee can meet them and talk to them. Any employee can become a mentor. The mentorship program is 30 days long. The company’s main idea is to make its employees happy. There are special happiness criteria here: inclusion, innovation and productivity.
This company is practically the birthplace of holacracy, which helped the company’s fast growth. Eventually, Zappos became a threat to Amazon. Amazon bought this unusual company, but on one condition: not to change the management system, but keep the holacracy style. The company owner works here as CEO. Amazon is keeping its promise not to micromanage, and Zappos continues to grow.
ВAll US companies do volunteer work. We visited Zappos on a day when they gave out free shoes and lunches to poor people.
The information is based on materials supplemented by tour participants: Sergei Bekhterev, Andrei Stanchenko, Andrei Slivakov, Aleksei Kapterev, Yuliia Parkhomenko, Boris Diakonov, Irina Dzhogola, Ekaterina Zuieva, Madina Khapsirokova and others.
The tour participants have learned top companies’ secrets firsthand.
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On our tour of Germany, we visited the most famous food exhibition, the Green Week, as well as numerous retail chains and enterprises operating in various interesting industries. We have a lot to learn. We must take the best and use it. Thank you, FastForward, for your careful approach to creating this tour.
We visited several retail stores in Germany, as well as manufacturing facilities. What we liked the most about the stores we visited was the high quality standards of German retail. Retailers know how to sell high-quality goods at affordable prices, and this is probably the main secret of Germany's retail success. As for production, we were inspired by some of the small family businesses we saw.