A lot of people ask us how is it possible that it works for us that way and we can make arrangements. Therefore, we have decided to write for you the principles of our trunksthat we build on and inspire you to try a similar approach, for example in your company.
Never work alone!
Whatever we do, whether it's a simple social media post or a complicated offer for a customer, we always work at least in pairs or best of all in triad. Likewise, when we are in a workshop or doing an agile transformation, we are never alone, but always at least in two. Thus, there can be no situation where the person himself begins to suffer from operational blindness and we can consult each other and always find the best solution. As a result, the client benefits from this and we constantly learn and advance each other. Above all, you need to constantly repeat to yourself “more heads, more knows”, so why not take advantage of it every day.
Quarterly Retrospectives
We regularly stop every quarter of the year and leave for 4 days all together somewhere to a cottage in the mountains. We also take our wives and children with us, who are really looking forward to it. We also take this as a thank you to our families and especially to the wonderful women who take care of the warmth of the family hearth when we are not at home or attending to our customers. As a rule, we ride Thursday-Sunday, when the main retrospective day for us is Friday. First, we evaluate the past period through Key moments, then we look at the financial side of our business and then discuss various strategic or operational topics that will move us forward a notional step forward. The evening is followed by a ritual of gratitude by a blazing fire, and for the last time we did exercises on Discarding our fears. After work and in our free time, we do various activities such as trips to the neighborhood, play board games, strengthen our body by saunas, barbecue or just share what is new with whom in the last quarter of a year. If you do not already make such an excursion once in a while, we highly recommend. And don't forget to take families too, because it really wouldn't be possible without them 🙂
It's even possible without a boss!
You're probably wondering who's in charge of all this. Do not look for any boss or hierarchy with us, we are all equal. Although we have an agreement that, in the event of disagreement, Roman has two votes, which will prevent a “tie”, but we have never had to apply this so far and we hope that it will not be needed in the future either. Each of us brings to the discussion points of view that we discuss together and although they may be different, we are always able to agree on common values thanks to common values.
Decision-making by consensus
Does that sound too simple to you? You're right, not always finding a match is completely straightforward. If we need to decide something, usually someone on our team starts by taking a dig at others on Google Chat. He introduces the topic and asks the opinion of others. Those can give a thumbs up, thumbs down or a question mark that means they need more information for a decision. If the information can be delivered via chat, then we will supplement it, when it is more efficient to do an ad-hoc teleconference, we move the debate there. In the case of more important decisions, we park the topic at the quarterly retrospective, where we see each other in person, and what we will talk about, face-to-face things are solved best anyway. If a situation arises that we are not sure, then we do a bounded pilot or experiment (in a triad) that tells us whether it is a step in the right direction or not.
Mandate is not given, mandate is taken
If you want to do something or try something, don't ask permission, but just do it if it makes sense to you. It is a thousand times better to ask for forgiveness than to stand held in place, waiting for a call to action from someone else among us. If any of us have an idea or desire to jump into a new project or opportunity, they usually just inform others, a kind of quick validation will take place between us and usually get some tips and advice from the others to the start. Ideal if you manage to excite others enough to create a couple, action group or triad and on to the point. As mentioned above, we stick to the motto “never work alone”.
Circle system
The days when RainFellows had just 4 founders who couldn't imagine it would ever be any different is long gone. It all started with a discussion on BusinessConwhen other business owners asked why we weren't scaling the company. And so gradually a system of circles arose, reminiscent of layers of onions, where a tighter and tighter weave hides under each peel. In the beginning, a person works with us as a contractor, and if we mutually like cooperation, he gradually becomes an employee of RainFellows, that is, part of the inner circle. An important condition is that we have the same values and understand each other also as people. At the moment when everyone in the inner circle feels that it is as if it belongs to us forever, with the consent of all existing owners, he is entered as a co-owner in the register and officially becomes a co-owner of the company. The last level is a rentier, which is someone who is already retiring from a consultant's pension, but we probably won't address that for a long time, given how it fills us all.
Equal share of profit and loss
Just as Tomáš Baťa introduced profit and loss share in his workshops, so do we at RainFellows. All the money that we earn as partners, we put into one common pile and divide equally among ourselves. We don't look at how many people actually bring to the table, but we believe that each of us is doing the best job we can at any given moment. The work is not always visible — someone does workshops with the customer, others build a brand, for example by writing articles on the website, the impact of which will only be felt later. If there is a situation where we get into negative numbers, again we carry that business risk together equally, no matter who or how we got into that situation. “One for all, all for one”, as in the case of the Three Musketeers.
Caution in conclusion
We cannot guarantee that the above approaches will work in the context of your company, so please take them only as inspiration and insight under the hood of how we operate. If you are wondering where to start or what to take the first step, the most important condition for us is to create safe environment.
If you are interested in any area in more detail, do not hesitate to write to us, we will be happy to share more with you.