"Do no harm", or How not to become a corporation

Hi, habrovchane! My name is Mikhail Zavileysky, I am the CEO of the wonderful company DataArt. We have been engaged in IT outsourcing for many years now, and all these years we have been doing our utmost to stay in the same spirit as the same group of professionals who gathered to earn their favorite business, from which it all began. And now let us have more than a thousand, we are desperately trying not to turn into a “corporation”.

Approximately 10 years ago several employees from a rival company joined us. The company is very good, at that time much more mature and successful than we are. To my natural question about the reasons, it was said that the competing company, while still small, “began to acquire the disadvantages too big too quickly”. The idea is firmly entrenched in the head, and for ten years now we have been trying to grow, but to acquire weaknesses as slowly as possible.
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Where do companies get extra routines, useless functions and managers, aimless reports and rituals? This is mainly due to three reasons:

1. Excessive systematization.
2. Inertia and stereotyped.
3. Management errors.

Excessive systematization - when instead of creating order there is a struggle against chaos. If we do a description of the processes, it is comprehensive. If the quality is lame, you cannot do without a quality system. If a company spends more than it earns, first of all it is necessary to clearly allocate all costs to profit centers. In general, all these are good ideas, only very laborious. And there is a high probability that it will not work out very well.
The universe is chaotic and entropy is growing. Life itself is rowing against the current, and the authorities, as the dominant form of life, begin to believe that the current can be reversed. But - will not work.

Processes are variable, adapt to changes in the environment and to each other. And the descriptions are not, they become obsolete or require strength for constant adjustments. And these are costs, an increase in the price of changes. And we are either stiff or looking for someone who is willing to pay this price. Before formalizing something, you need to make sure that there is someone who is willing to pay more. Well, and periodically check that he is still here;).

The quality system will set standards and track their compliance, while setting successful standards is a difficult task that requires creativity and wisdom. But creativity and wisdom in our world are scarce substances, but those who want to control their colleagues are a dime a dozen. So it turns out that the whip is guaranteed, and the gingerbread must also be able to earn.

When allocating costs, you can find a lot of interesting things, but not the truth. Commercial organizations are made up of people who turn added value into benefits for themselves. In a healthy organization, interests are balanced, and balance exists in people's feelings. Achieving a sustainable feeling can be done by various means, and it’s not at all necessary to produce multi-page spreadsheets and force managers to spend hours and tens of hours on accounting exercises.

Therefore, we have been living for many years without a quality system, described processes and a cost-sharing system. We describe something only when it bothers to tell the same thing many times. And the approach to quality and cost is more expert: constant monitoring allows you to identify problems and intervene only about the occurrence of problems. When everything goes well, we just try not to interfere.

It helps with the problem of inertia. The greater the costs, the more reverent our attitude to organizational assets. If less strain, it is easier to part with the acquired. But still not easy. We declare the principle that allows any colleague to clarify the meaning of certain duties and tasks, and without a satisfactory answer, we recommend simply refraining from execution. But it works so-so - everyone is very accustomed to it, that the instructions and requests of the management are valuable. I don’t really try to find out and cancel unnecessary routines and with the management, it’s a pity to destroy something, I want to keep it, at least “just in case”. While regular crises help to make big tidy and process upgrades, but the whole world is looking for ways of crisis-free development, and we seem to need to look for effective ways to collect organizational garbage.

Even more dangerous than inertia is stereotyped, when practices from one company or business model are transferred to another mindlessly. For example, in mature companies and sustainable industries, there is a tradition of budget planning, when money that is still not received is shared between payroll centers in advance. It works well - at the expense of experienced financiers, stocks or leverage, statistics. But for a creative company, where the situation is changing rapidly, and the lion's share of costs is in labor costs, financial planning is difficult to separate from project and people management. If you try to dance on budgets, and not on people and relationships, it turns out inefficiently and crookedly: unloaded people are expensive, and unhappy budgets for business trips and consumables are subject to control, which hits the busiest and most useful colleagues.

We found a way out to carefully, almost in real time, count money, analyze financial position and manage cash flows, but at the same time budget decisions are made “by place”. Approved 95+% of budget requests, of which 90% - in less than a day, while no disaster occurs. If something goes wrong, it is enough to ask everyone, and the situation is corrected. If the company helps almost always, it is sometimes morally easy to help the company even in the delicate work of tightening the belts.

Finally, people make mistakes and do stupid things. Everything. I am generally the best in this business. Therefore, I care about the environment that will reduce the likelihood of errors and / or minimize their consequences. It is desirable, without prejudice to motivation. The best recipes here too simple.

The higher the boss, the greater the cost of the error. Because we do not have the "most important bosses." Everything is divided into areas of responsibility, which are always covered collectively and dynamically. Decisions are made collectively and publicly. Yes, there is no single point of decision making and “real responsibility”. But everything works, and I doubt the existence of the “real responsibility”, except for criminal, in today's economic reality.

The higher the load, the more glitches. Therefore, do not overload and overload colleagues. Yes, the price is excessive administrative staff, low salaries, as a result. But many people like it, and significant turnover is not observed. But the brain that sleeps or goes on vacation thinks much better and less buggy.

Finally, the worst. We "do not see" the mistakes of each other and allow us to throw unsuccessful organizational undertakings halfway and "imperceptibly." Yes, with the lessons learned, it turns out really bad. Such are the "eastern" traditions. But there is no need to protect errors and to justify the money lost by new spending. And for the development of enough exchange of best practices. It is better to brag and praise each other more. We still need to learn.