40 CEOs in 1 company — how does it work?

A company where everyone is a boss? Sounds like a place of chaos, stagnation and ultimate defeat. But it does not have to be that way at all. In fact a well organised team, mutual trust and a sense of responsibility, as well as confidence in success, have made SoftwareMill operate as a teal organization from 2013. It introduced flat management structure, full transparency — both decision making and financial. Oh, and everybody became a CEO overnight!

Each and every person who joins our software house works according to their skill set and interests. Everyone has the right to vote on company matters and from the very beginning can access every bit of company information: from sales, through hiring process, marketing, administration to finances. All this to be able to quickly and flexibly react and make decisions when a problem or tension occurs.

Becoming one of the CEOs means having a real influence over the company’s operations and development. But! It requires taking responsibility. Only this way our organization can work dynamically, bring profit and accomplish the mission of being the best workplace. And all of that while providing services that offer a true business value.

• How does being a CEO change the game?
• How does it look like from the perspective of software developers and non-IT people co-managing the company?
• How similar are the qualities of a CEO and a good project team?
• How to take a company global?

We asked these and a few more questions to our four software developers and to one of the SoftwareMill founders — Jan. Paweł, Tomek, Bartek and Mikołaj joined SoftwareMill at different time and apart from working on their everyday projects, they actively participate in managing the company.

This interview was originally published in Polish on no fluff {jobs} blog.

What is it like to be a CEO and how does it affect your daily routine?

I code and my day mostly looks like a typical programmer’s day. However, being a CEO, I also have to take care of other things on a daily basis. These include: hiring new employees (new CEOs ;)), talking with clients and deciding on how to change company for the better.

Being a CEO in a flat organisation is above all a greater awareness of what is happening in the company. It means both: more stress in difficult moments and more joy when everything goes right.

The day of a programmer-CEO is not much different from the day of a typical programmer. We primarily work for the client so we deal with daily stand-ups, a lot of coding and discussions about the project.

One of the main CEO responsibilities is to participate in the working groups. Working groups are there to come up with solutions for the challenges we face as a company. If you feel you would add value to the discussion you can join the group. We meet (remotely of course :)) once or twice a week to discuss and work out a proposal. Later we vote on it and if it is met with majority’s approval, we implement it.

My typical day is not very different from the programmer’s day. There are some minor differences though: more or less important Slack discussions and always important working groups meetings. These are designed to author, and later put to vote, new solutions for the company.

If you’ve ever felt helpless in an organization, then surely being a CEO will be a nice change for you. It’s accompanied by a great sense of empowerment, from smaller things such as choosing your work equipment, through negotiating the terms of contract with the client, to the establishment of the company’s strategy and financial management policy.

Being a CEO helps me look at my daily responsibilities from a wider perspective. I analyze how the actions I have taken affect not only my performance, but also the condition of the entire company in the long run. In addition, I’m allowed to make my own decisions, leading to more agility in the context of the company and its environment. Above all, the most important is the sense of responsibility for the company and the impact of the individual — it’s up to me, to a large extend, whether and how the company will develop.

What qualities should a good CEO have?

The key qualities are a sense of responsibility and self initiative. A good CEO should be goal oriented and active, should be able to detect and solve problems, instead of waiting for someone to report them.

A very important CEO quality is the ability to look at things not from the perspective of the programmer, but more broadly — from the perspective of the whole company. This outlook is even more useful when in a project. The client does not care if we write a lot of code, he wants a specific business problem solved. The assessment of our work depends on how well are we able to understand client’s business needs. This translates directly into client’s satisfaction level and, in the long-term, the success of the entire project and the company’s well-being.

Additionally, a good CEO knows how to discuss things in a constructive and helpful way in order to implement good ideas and reach a consensus. It’s a common knowledge, that two Poles can express three different opinions. It’s important to know how to lead a discussion in order to make a decision faster and move on to its implementation.

And finally, a CEO must be able to prioritize things and learn how to say “no”. High assertiveness is a very valuable skill. There are a lot of things going on in a company and if I would join every workgroup and take part in each and every discussion, I would simply have no time to work on the project.

At SoftwareMill one of the most valuable CEO’s attributes is creativity. Surrounded by 40 creative people, it is impossible not to solve business problems we are facing. The second must-have is excellence in time management that helps us juggle CEO responsibilities with a day-to-day work for the company.

A good CEO should have a sense of responsibility, an ability to think one step ahead and be self-disciplined. And most importantly, an ability to “lead from the front” — even, or maybe especially, lead oneself.

A good CEO thinks strategically and is able to quickly make decisions, is independent and engaged and can manage and delegate tasks.

What skills do you value in a project team in the IT industry?

Understanding the client’s business value and task-first outlook. A good project team is self-organised. You can present such a team to a client and be sure that they will work out the scope of the project. A good team will understand the client needs and their language. They will be able to present solutions, ideas and obstacles in simple way and will ask for feedback and additional details if necessary.

Communication inside the team is equally important. Its members must share tasks and agree on what and how they want to implement.

Apart from sufficiently good technical skills, interpersonal and communication skills are no less important. So what if we write an awesome code, if it turns out that we missed client’s goals. So what if we put our hands to work if our communication failed and we’re just repeating what someone else has already done.

Being independent is an important quality and it prevents asking for help with trivial problems. But we must remember that being humble in everyday work is equally important. After all, no-one is omniscient. If we struggle with a task for too long it is better to admit we don’t know something and ask someone for help.

Working directly with clients, a good CEO should be both independent and a team player. Our employees must cooperate well, because no one will make difficult decisions for them. As independent specialists, we answer to the client and help to choose the best solutions that we later materialised in their product.

Such as for the CEO plus relevant technical skills.

The ability to collect requirements, good communication skills, data analysis, planning, the ability to share knowledge and experience with other team members, readiness for learning, teamwork, good work management. We look for such qualities in our people. Not only in IT projects.

How do you rate the level of Polish IT specialists in the international arena?

I can only agree with various surveys and rankings putting Polish specialists at the forefront of IT. We work great both when we are part of a foreign team and when the whole task is entrusted to us. Customers never feel disappointed.

Outstanding specialists, mainly because of their exceptional passion.

What is the most important business advice you would give a company wanting to succeed at a global scale?

I think the most important principle that we implement at SoftwareMill, and which I can recommend to other companies, is building a strong internal team. Thanks to a very small number of people leaving the team, we are able to base our work on trust and we do not have to constantly double check each other. It pays off in business relations both in Poland and abroad.

The most important principle of running a global business is to do what you know best with commitment and passion (it may sound like a truism, but it does work).

Is being a programmer helpful in a business reality or is it rather an obstacle in understanding certain processes?

Being a programmer certainly helps you understand how IT systems work and what can you implement in a given system to solve client’s problems. However, does it make it easier to understand the client and the organisational process? It’s hard to say. I think that personal characteristics of an individual facilitate or hamper communication and it is difficult to look for the cause of it in the profession one has. In my opinion, IT people are often able to look at the reality in an analytical way, which helps them better understand phenomena and processes that surround us.

Not everything that impacts the success or failure of the company can be translated into “hard data” because the business environment is quite complex. Sometimes strictly analytical approach in certain situations will not work.

Surely an employee’s perspective allows us to better understand what we, as a company, should provide our people with in order to keep them satisfied and focused on their work. This way we avoid finding out that someone might be looking for another job opportunity where they would be appreciated more.

You’re constantly learning the business reality. In my opinion being a programmer can sometimes blur overall business perspective because you tend to focus on the implementation of a given project. On the other hand our programmers can bring in a fresh technical approach to business from its technical side and often introduce innovative business solutions that business people could not be able to come up with.

It rather does not make things more difficult. Contrary to stereotypes, skilled programmers tend to have highly developed “soft” skills both in the context of working with a client and in a team.

What does the teal organization mean and how does it work in practice?

I can’t speak on behalf of other companies, but in our organisation it means full transparency (including finances), the ability to implement business changes and joint decision-making process.

The teal organisation means that each one of us has the power to impact the company and we share the responsibility for it. Our board of directors doesn’t set the course for the company. We all do. Ordinary employees can propose an idea and then implement it, to jointly shape the company’s future.

We make decisions together. This feels great when everything is going well and we are discussing company integration trips, raise in salary rates (to increase market competitiveness) or the way to pay out dividends. But, according to the saying “with great power comes great responsibility”, sometimes we have to discuss less pleasant issues: whether to end an unprofitable project or to thank someone for their work and terminate their contract.

How does it work in practice? We have more impact, we know more things, so sometimes there is more stress when something did not go our way. But it is surely very self-rewarding when we see that our decisions and efforts bring the desired effect.

It is a difficult but important question. For me, a teal organization equals, above all, trust. Nothing we have ever implemented could work if not for the tremendous work of the whole team. Here the business stands on the shoulders of every individual. If tomorrow everyone decides that they stop dealing with company issues, we can immediately close the business down. Luckily our experience shows something completely opposite. By giving everyone an equal voice and power, we have an engaged and satisfied team. Interestingly, our employees do not shine solely in areas where they are skilled and confident! They try their strength in new areas that later become their thing.

Teal organization is in my opinion the transfer of all or a part of managerial competencies to people at lower levels of hierarchy, which leads to smaller number of just managerial positions. Additionally, it is important to create an organizational culture where decisions and changes are triggered from the bottom up and do not require (or only to a limited extent) supervisors acceptance.

In practice, teal versus hierarchical organization means much greater adaptability to changes, stability of employment and highly engaged employees.

How do you like such an organizational model?

Would you find yourself working in a company like this?

Let us know by commenting below!

And don’t forget to check out SoftwareMill’s latest job opportunities ;)