At Northern.tech, we have a culture unlike most other companies. We rely heavily on autonomy and common sense.
Currently we have an internal slide deck called "Governance - How we do things - Company handbook” which consists of 72 pages explaining the purpose of our company and how we operate. Our goal is to keep this short. Any time we had to add a new bullet to this deck, it meant we had been unable to apply common sense. Having to add a new “rule” is a negative, and luckily we don’t append much.
Culture is much like DNA, the determinator for who does what and when. Similarly, in Northern.tech we encourage every employee to be the change they want to see. Unlike DNA, dissecting a culture to understand how it all fits together is impossible. Only through experience comes the understanding of our culture. Also, when you do get it, it is only a snapshot of it there and then. Culture changes like other living and breathing creatures. There is only one now, and being there is what matters, not to comprehend it all.
If you are considering joining us, the best way to get an understanding of Northern.tech, is to read the books mentioned in this blog post. At Northern.tech we reimburse books (regardless of the type of book), and on page 2 in our Company Handbook we encourage new employees to read these books. Doing so will give them the best possible starting point and be instilled with the essence of Northern.tech.
Book #1:
Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose
by Raj Sisodia, et.al.
This is an amazing book. It proves how long-term thinking combined with a multi-stake approach is a winning formula for creating awesome companies that despite its contrarian traditional management theories surpass most other companies in shareholder value creation. The most fantastic part is that I read it in March 2024, and it describes our company so well. Northern.tech is a FoE company, and never have I read a book that reflected our culture so well.
Book #2:
No Rules Rules
by Hastings and Meyer
This is a book about the famous culture at Netflix. Hastings views his employees as top athletes. He hires the best and fosters a culture of competitiveness. Like other top athletes there is a big focus on doing whatever is needed to make the employees successful. Like my dislike for adding new entries into our company handbook, Netflix also greatly relies on common sense and autonomy, bulwarking bureaucracy to build up.
Book #3:
Principles
by Ray Dalio
Who would have thought that a pure capitalistic company would serve as an inspiration for Northern.tech? Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, possesses an extremely analytical mind. He has extended this into the company through various means, which has turned the company into one where merits wins. To the furthest extent possible, Dalio seeks the objective truth and this truth lies somewhere in the data, not titles or the size of one's salary slip. At Northern.tech we don’t use titles, have no managers, and we seek hard to create a meritocracy.
Book #4:
Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success
by Freiberg
Herb Kelleher, the CEO and co-founder of Southwest Airlines, merges life and business. Kelleher proved it possible to create one of the most successful airline companies in the world, sustain leadership for years to come, and have a lot of fun while doing it. His novelty and first-principle thinking often go against what you will read in management books. His unique leadership style and sense for doing what is right, combined with long-term thinking has led to a fantastic company that everyone who flies Southwest can attest to. At Northern.tech we view business and life as one and the same, and we share so much with Kelleher’s views on what matters most.
Book #5:
The Open Organization
by Jim Whitehurst
Jim used to be the CEO of Redhat, the world’s first really commercially successful open source company. This book describes Jim’s journey from his first meeting with the founding team over at Redhat, where his corporate background and reference points (Jim used to work at Boston Consulting Group and Delta Airlines) for how to run a business experienced some Richter 10 scale shockwaves. The book is full of examples of how Jim built Redhat into its success, following principles and values dear to us at Northern.tech.
Book #6:
Reinventing Organizations
by Frederic Laloux
This is a theoretical book. It explains different management styles, ranging from the old scientific management schools of the famous Frederick Taylor to Henri Fayol, to what the future of self-organizing organization structures might look like. Laloux assigns different colors to each practice with Teal being the final end state describing a world of self-realizations of both employees and organizations. Champions of DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) will find many smart considerations applied to the Teal world. Northern.tech is more Teal than any of the other colors, yet some utopian concepts in this theory will probably never see the light of day at Northern.tech.
Book #7:
The Culture Map
by Erin Meyer
Despite being from Norway, our company never has had a majority of Norwegians. From day one, Northern.tech has been a multicultural company, currently with employees from more than 20 different countries. Insights into different nations and their cultures help to succeed in such environments. Erin Meyer’s book illustrates typical traits of various cultures and nations. She nicely illustrates the sometimes stark differences in communication, evaluating, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, scheduling, and persuading. This book is a fun and easy read that both confirms your stereotypical characteristics and offers surprising new insights, that will be very helpful in operating in a multicultural environment.
Conclusions
As an outsider, if you want to understand the Northern.tech culture and understand how to succeed, the best approach would be to read these books. If you have to prioritize, the best would be to read the books in the order presented.
