Hello there,

We have an incredibly unique way of doing things that could make this one of your greatest professional experiences, but can take some getting used to. This FAQ of our unique concepts was put together by people who’ve been where you are now, and who want to make your first few months here as easy to understand as possible.

Q: What is a flat management structure?

Hierarchy is great for maintaining predictability and repeatability. It simplifies planning and makes it easier to control a large group of people from the top down, which is why military and older established organisations rely on it so heavily. But when you’re an events and promotions company that’s trying to go out of its way to recruit the most intelligent, innovative, talented people on Earth, telling them to sit at a desk and do what they’re told obliterates 99% of their value. We want innovators, and that means maintaining an environment where they’ll flourish. That’s why our management structure is flat. It’s our shorthand way of saying that we don’t have any line-management style set up, and nobody “reports to” anybody else. We do have a founder/president, but even they are not your manager, more a consultant to your growth process. From Account Management onwards this company is yours to steer – toward opportunities and away from risks. You have the power to green-light hiring, campaign decisions and real change. A flat structure removes every organizational barrier between your student mentality and the information which feeds it. Most companies will put customers and clients first, few will tell you that “employees come first,” fewer still mean it. Here, that statement has weight. There’s no red tape stopping you from figuring out for yourself what you need to learn, and then getting the information. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, that sounds like a lot of responsibility,” you’re right. And that’s why hiring is the single most important thing you will ever do here. As soon as a few weeks in if things are going well you will make decisions on hiring for your team. Any time you interview a candidate, you need to ask yourself not only if they’re talented or hard working but also if they’re capable of literally running this company, because if they do it right they will be.

Q: How does self-promotion work?

We have huge clients and the budget to support exponential growth, but we lack the leadership group that will allow us to do so. Therefore we developed a more criteria based process, which is often different to our trainees previous experiences where promotions were based on length of service, they were waiting for someone to leave, or a new vacancy to open up. We have the vacancies and need managers, but we have to protect the quality of our training and ensure our leaders are excited and ready to run campaigns.

With this in mind we have criteria for each promotion which has to be met, and we offer coaching towards these criteria via one-on-one training combining theory and practical application. This is supplemented by an online learning platform and networking tool that opens up our international management team to be mentors in a trainees development. Self promotion simply means that we will not push more than a trainees ambition or work ethic allow, and so you need to ensure that when you meet each criteria that you come forward and express excitement to move to the next stage in your development.

Would you give a team to someone who has never stated that they are excited to manage? A campaign to someone who seems happier being managed? We need to grow, but can only move as fast as our team’s hunger to grow.

Q: What do you mean by Advancement vs. Growth?

Because we don’t have a traditional hierarchical structure, it can be confusing to figure out how we fit into your career plans. “Before this, I was doing x. I had planned to be y in five years. How am I supposed to keep moving forward here?” We provide an opportunity for extremely efficient and, in many cases, very accelerated, career growth. In particular, it provides an opportunity to broaden one’s skill set well outside of the narrow constraints that careers can have at most other companies. Yes there are stages of development here, but it is more a personal growth than title led advancement. And the “growth ladder” is tailored to you. It operates exactly as fast as you can manage to grow. You’re in charge of your track, and you can elicit help with it anytime from those around you. FYI, we usually don’t do any formalized powerpoint, classroom style, employee “development”, because for senior people it’s mostly not effective. We believe that high-performance people are generally self-improving. Most people who fit well here will be better positioned within a year than they could have been if they’d spent their time pretty much anywhere else.

Q: How come someone told me X. And they’ve been here a long time?

We have a non-seniority policy so the correct response to this is to keep thinking about whether or not your colleagues are right. Are they in the situation and achieving the results you aspire towards. Broaden the conversation. Hold on to your goals if you’re convinced they’re correct. Check your assumptions. Pull more people in. Listen. Don’t believe that anyone holds authority over your development. They don’t; but some undoubtedly have valuable experience to draw from, information that you don’t have, or insight that’s new. When considering the outcome, don’t believe that anyone but you is the majority “stakeholder” in your career. You’re it and you need to make sure the information and guidance you receive is the best for your development.

Q: What if I screw up? 

Nobody has ever been fired for making a mistake. It wouldn’t make sense for us to operate that way. Providing the freedom to fail is an important trait of the company – we couldn’t expect so much of individuals if we also penalised people for errors. Even expensive mistakes are genuinely looked at as opportunities to learn. We can always repair the mistake or make up for it. Screwing up is a great way to find out that your assumptions were wrong or that your system was a little bit off. As long as you update your system and move forward with a better outlook, you’re doing it right. Look for ways to test your beliefs. Never be afraid to try. There are still some bad ways to fail. Repeating the same mistake over and over is one. Not listening to more qualified or experienced peers before or after a failure is another. Never ignore the evidence; particularly when it says you’re wrong.

Q: How do we choose the right people to hire? 

With our goal of 1000+ people in Europe, hiring and training is everything right now. Nothing else comes close. When you’re new, it’s super valuable to start being involved in the interview process. Ride shotgun with people who are doing it well. In some ways, our interview process is similar to those of other companies, but we have our own take on the process that requires practice to learn. We won’t go into all the nuts and bolts in this book – that’s for Account Management. Why is hiring so important? With our Clients’ need to grow, and our ambitious growth plan, adding individuals to the organization can influence our success far more than it does at other companies – either in a positive or negative direction. Since there’s no organizational compartmentalization of people here, one of the most valuable things you can do as a new employee is tell us who else you think we should hire. Assuming that you agree with us that this is a great place to work, then tell us about who the great people are, so we can bring them here.

An exhaustive how-to on hiring would be a handbook of its own. Probably one worth writing. It’d be tough for us to capture because we feel like we’re constantly learning really important things about how we hire people. In the meantime, here are some questions we always ask ourselves when evaluating candidates: 

• Would I want this person to be my leader? 
• Would I learn a significant amount from him or her?
• What if this person went to work for our competition?

We’re constantly looking for stronger people. When unchecked, people have a tendency to hire others who are lower-powered than themselves. The questions listed above are designed to help ensure that we don’t start hiring people who are useful but not as powerful as we are. We should hire people more capable than ourselves, not less. The other reason companies start to hire “downhill” is a political one. At most organizations, it’s beneficial to have an army of people doing your bidding. Here, though, it’s not. You’d damage the company and saddle yourself with a broken organization.

Q: If all this stuff has worked well for us, why doesn’t every company work this way? 

Well, it’s really hard. Mainly because, from day one, it requires a commitment to hiring in a way that’s very different from the way most companies hire. It also requires the discipline to make the people and design of the company more important than any one short-term business goal. And it requires a great deal of freedom from outside pressure — being self-funded was key. And having a founder who was confident enough to build this kind of place is rare, indeed. Another reason that it’s hard to run a company this way is that it requires vigilance. Maintaining our core values requires the full commitment of everyone – especially those who’ve been here the longest. For “senior” people at most companies, accumulating more power and/or money over time happens by adopting a more hierarchical culture. That is not the case here.

Q: What Is Zone 4 Not Good At? 

The design of the company has some downsides. We usually think they’re worth the cost, but it’s worth noting that there are a number of things we wish we were better at: 

• Perfectly executed, copy and paste training: We allow freedom for learning and expression, and all training is done 1-on-1. This can mean small details slipping through the cracks if the student is passive. We accept this to grow strong leaders, not followers.  
• Making predictions years out: In the events and promotions sector, particularly with business to consumer products the landscape is constantly changing.
• We miss out on hiring talented people who prefer to work within a more traditional office environment or hierarchical corporate structure: Again, this comes with the territory and isn’t something we should change, but it’s worth recognizing as a self-imposed limitation.

Q: What Happens When All This Stuff Doesn’t Work? 

Sometimes, the philosophy and methods outlined in this FAQ don’t match perfectly with how things are going day to day. But we’re confident that even when problems persist for a while, we root them out. As you see it, are there areas of the company in which the ideals in this book are realized more fully than others? What should we do about that? Are those differences a good thing? What would you change? Be an agent of change and tell us what you are seeing day to day.

Q: Where Will You Take Us? 

We have to believe we will be a different company a few years from now because you are going to change it for the better. We can’t wait to see where you take us. The experiences that you and your team decide to create for customers will define us. Whether it’s a new client, product, a way to save customers money, a new kind of tool that lets us be more efficient, or (more likely) something nobody’s thought of yet—we can’t wait to see what kind of future you choose to build here.