Dusseldorf At the media company “Neue Narrative” a lot works quite differently than at “classic” companies. The publishing house around co-founder Lena Marbacher is organized as a so-called holocracy and is steward-owned. This means that the 22 employees do not work in a classic pyramid structure with chains of command from top to bottom, but in roles arranged in circles.
However, this does not mean that there are no hierarchies. In the Handelsblatt podcast “Rethink Work”, Marbacher explains this with the following example: “When we are in a group with friends and it is about whether we would rather go to eat pizza or to the currywurst stand, there is something like that too like a naturally occurring leadership. Someone just makes a suggestion and other people go along with it or make a better suggestion. That’s the kind of leadership we have, and we always assume that we’re letting the person with the most competence lead. So if we had a pizza maker on our team, maybe he should decide which pizzeria is the best.”
In turn, steward-ownership means that the company belongs to the employees – albeit not in a financial sense. Marbacher is currently working to ensure that this type of company is also legally recognised.
The salary is decided collectively
“Without complete or very, very generous transparency, self-organization cannot function,” says Marbacher. Accordingly, with “New Narrative” every employee can propose their own salary, which is then decided collectively. There are regular feedback rounds, personnel decisions are openly discussed.
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At Marbacher, this led to her resigning from her management role at some point – and also waiving her salary. “It felt totally crappy at first, because of course I have less money in my account, and that means something for my life and my existence,” she says. Nevertheless, she is convinced that self-organization is the best form for a company.
She also sees this in the companies that “Neue Narrative” regularly advises and who are increasingly interested in this type of company. In the new episode of “Rethink Work”, Marbacher explains why Marbacher sometimes sends herself angry voice messages and to what extent she wanted strong leadership in the company during the corona pandemic.
More: You can hear the previous episode of Handelsblatt Rethink Work here