Mondora is presented as an example in the Italian edition of the book “Reinventing Organizations“, which is being presented today at Rinascimenti sociali in Turin. It has all the characteristics of what, in technical terms, is defined as a Teal organization: absence of internal hierarchy, division of work by team, participatory decision-making processes and self-organization of individuals. “It means – explains Francesco Mondora, founder and co-CEO of the software company with the same name – that it’s a company of adults who work like adults, who make decisions independently from multiple points of view: executive, financial, operational. The journey began when we realized that the company is not just a mechanism that produces results but also something that lives in itself. So we thought that first of all we had to cultivate internal growth. We focused on people, assuming that they should be able to organize themselves however they wanted. And things came naturally, through self-assessment and self-examination of who we are and the world we wanted to live in. We built what we wanted our company to be”.
Learning about organizational change
“At a certain point I began to take pride in being considered a Martian – Francesco continues – I realized that this was who I was and not part of a stream of thought. Clearly, however, it can become frustrating at times. For this you need courage and willpower. In order to work according to self-organization, you have to be willing to first of all do an unlearning process, to unlearn what has been instilled in your head over the years. In fact, people come from different backgrounds, they may have a traditional idea of the process of career growth and may think that there must be well-trodden tracks on which they should run. Instead, this way of doing business forces you to break free from stereotypes and induces you to learn by changing every day”.
Promote the growth of people in the organization
To hear him speak, Francesco Mondora seems more like a Buddhist monk than an entrepreneur. If you invite him to talk about difficulties and moments of crisis, in addition to the concrete operational response, he is able to provide a deeper interpretation. “When a person enters the organization – he explains – we try to understand together, in a very transparent way, what the person’s temperament, expectations and talents are. And then we work to favor the development and growth of that person. We don’t have a culture of fear. If you’re wrong you’re simply pointing out a flaw in our ecosystem. So you’re allowing the organization to grow. That’s why people often rotate within teams. The more individuals have a general vision and can recognize technology and organizational complexity, the better it is for everyone”.
A different world already exists
“It’s a long journey that is still in progress – Francesco concludes – It’s like a marathon. Every kilometer you feel how your feet, legs, knees and head are. And this process of inner listening, while running, you have to keep doing constantly. But each of us is lucky to have our own recipe within us. Books and other people should be inspirational for when you lose a little bit of light or are down because things aren’t going the way you thought they would. But in the end you have to move and act as only we know and feel that we should. After all, it is enough to realize that there is already a different world out there. It’s not necessary to hypothesize it. There are already resilient companies working for the better, to build a positive impact both internally and externally”.
