Shereef Bishay wonders why three quarters of people feel under-engaged at work, and compares this with the passion of the Open Source Software community.
With several others he investigated what the principles of an ‘Open Enterprise’ would be , and suggests:
- No formal (fixed) organisation structure: everyone has the same job title, “Human Being”
Instead there is an intelligent, dynamic hierarchy where people move ‘up’ and ‘down’ depending on the situation. (Geese flying in V-formation are said to change leaders every so often, so that the leaders can rest.)
The best example is WL Gore, makers of gore-tex, where the only job title is ‘Associate’. Leaders are voted-in by other associates.
Semco in Brazil also has this structure. - Transparency is the second principle.
Salaries, financial results are shared with all employees/associates. All meetings are
The result is that people feel ownership of these items, so they work together to optimise them for the company. - True meritocracy of ideas: every idea is judged on the merit of the idea itself, not who it came from.
Anybody can suggest an idea, and there is
He says he doesn’t have all the answers — nobody does yet — but the process of creating new structures and better ways of working together, has already started.