Webgoal's management style

Horizontal management. Distributed management. Management without managers. Management without hierarchies. Forbidden management!

Dynamic leadership. Teamwork. Autonomy. Collaboration. Self-organization. Transparency.

For 10 years I’ve watched the market search for a definition and for traits that capture Webgoal’s management style.

First, I heard it was impossible. Then they said it only worked in tech companies. They claimed this management style would only suit small companies. Finally, they kept repeating that it didn’t scale.

Meanwhile, we worked in the belief that we were part of an organization that fulfills a purpose and strives for goals that none of us, alone, would be able to reach.

Every day, we looked for a better way to deliver value and serve our clients. We built, physically and emotionally, a workplace meant to foster everyone’s personal and professional development. We watched a culture emerge that valued learning and camaraderie among people.

We cared about how people felt, even though we didn’t always have the maturity and the right perception of the world to act before some discontent arose. We were also deceived by some people and their attitudes, but we discovered how important and necessary it is to create situations of conflict so that all of us could grow.

Meanwhile, we were growing in number of people and in the size of the business. We were learning how to develop software to make companies better and people happier. We were earning admiration and awards for our innovative way of working. We were sharing our management case at events and business schools.

We were on our way to finding our own way of doing management. Without copying, and without following a standard or a model.

After all, every company is unique and made up of different people: a company’s management style is like a fingerprint.

Today, I see that our management style is a trend around the world. Hundreds of consultants and experts (who have never experienced this way of working) explaining why companies should change. Thousands of companies wanting to copy the “innovative management models” used at startups and other renowned companies.

I see a lot of people wanting to give a name to this way of doing management. All sorts of processes laying out how you should work with autonomy. Management software being built to automate and keep under control organizations that need to break free from the power game of traditional management.

Meanwhile, here we are at Webgoal, still distilling our management style, understanding that “no company can be greater or better than the spiritual and intellectual horizon of the people who make it up”.