Cultural Brilliance: The DNA of Organizational Excellence
With Host Claudette Rowley – Transformation Talk Radio – Every 2nd & 4th Friday 10 AM (PT)/1 PM (ET)
“How to Create a Freedom-Centric Organization”
With Special Guest Matt Perez
I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Perez on my show Cultural Brilliance Radio Matt has been building hardware and software products for over 30 years. He has helped raise close to $50M in VC investments as a co-founder of three start ups. Matt co-founded Nearsoft, Inc, a successful software development company that helps its clients grow their software development teams with engineers in Mexico. Nearsoft brings together dedicated teams of developers, manual testers, and UX/UI specialists to work directly with clients as members of their core product development team.
Below is an article written by the Conscious Business Radio team about the show.
Cultural Brilliance helps you experience groundbreaking ways to transform your company’s culture. Host Claudette Rowley invites some of the foremost experts on organizational culture to help understand how to make a brilliant culture the rule rather than the exception.
Claudette had the opportunity to speak with Matt Perez. Matt has been building hardware and software products for over 30 years. He has helped raise close to $ 50 million in venture capital investment as the co-founder of three startups. Matt co-founded Nearsoft, a successful software development company, based in Mexico, that help its clients grow their software development.. Nearsoft brings together dedicated teams of developers, manual testers and specialists to work directly with clients as members of their core product development team. After working in hierarchical fear-based organizations for many years, Matt got a chance to experiment with workplace freedom and self-management at Nearsoft. The experiment is going well and Nearsoft is very successful thanks to its strong culture. Matt believes that fixed pre-imposed hierarchies are things of the past, and the future belongs to people working together in dynamic, adaptive, self-managed organizations.Matt’s goal is to make that future happen sooner rather than later.
Today’s discussion starts with Matt explaining what it means to run a business that is freedom-centric. Hierarchies get in the way of business, and can feel degrading to adults in the workplace. They can hurt the pride of men and women who are highly skilled because they still feel like they have to answer to a manager about every little detail. He says that in their case, when they say freedom-centric, it has to do with letting people run the company and letting people be adults. Hierarchy is not a natural thing, so they happen when they happen. People lead and follow at different times depending on the needs of the company,, that’s natural. What was normal to us-a hierarchy from the top- is not natural to us, so Matt wants to flip things around.
Matt goes on to talk about how he and the cofounders created this non-hierarchy in their business. He would get employees coming up to him with fear, asking about changes in their position, or in their work that seemed trivial to him. This was a sign of a hierarchy that was hindering the business. Matt explains that to fix this, he allowed the business to be completely transparent to his employees. He made it possible for them to see their budgets, cash inflow, and expenses. This made it possible for his employees to know what position the business was in when they prepared for these kinds of conversations. This freedom-centric business structure treats people as adults and allows them s to maintain pride when doing the work they love.
To listen to the full show, click here
For more information on Jocelyn Davis and her work, visit her website at www.jocelynrdavis.com
Click here for Claudette Rowley’s website, Cultural Brilliance
(Archived episodes available at www.culturalbrilliance.com and www.transformationtalkradio.com)
