SWC co-founder Alexey Sukhodoev explains what qualities a manager should have and why toxic productivity has no place in a turquoise organisation.
Alexey, what qualities are necessary for a manager to work successfully in a team?
Of course, the main quality a manager should possess – is communication skills. Some people mistakenly think that people are born communicative. It's not true. Even I am an introvert by nature, but I have built up over a thousand contacts over the course of my work. Working with people clearly requires developed communication skils and personal development. Here we are primarily talking about an eco-friendly attitude towards ourselves and others. The ability to listen, not just speak out. Joint decision making, not a tug-of-war. But here you need to know the middle ground, too. When you get to know someone, especially if it is plans for friendship or love, you always count on a long-term relationship. The same is with the team — it is not a situational relationship. It is the perpetual engine of the company, its backbone and foundation. The ability to work with employees is expressed in a joint purposeful eco-friendly achievement of a common result.
Another skill we can talk about is the ability not only to defuse conflicts, but also to find their cause in the early stages of origination. If conflict situations are not prevented, organisations can become toxically productive. With it, the person does a good job, but they are so caught up with their ego that they don't hear their colleagues or team. In this case, it is very important for the manager to guide the employee, show him how he looks from the outside and ask him to change his point of view, otherwise no one will want to work with him.
And, of course, the manager should be able to manage: assign roles in the team, allocate tasks. This is how the SWC came to have an organisational structure. We have all heads of departments or offices with clearly defined areas of responsibility. A team efficiency will increase when everything is so distributed that every direction is covered to achieve results. Participants are then involved as much as possible. The ideal team — is one that does not need much management. It needs to be supported, guided. The team leader plays the role of a strategist who leads the team to the overall result.
What qualities should a good employee have?
The first quality — is involvement. To some extent, it is created by the manager when he or she highlights people's successes and talks about their effectiveness.
The second quality — responsibility for the result, not only one's own but also the overall result. If one person's objectives are not met, then, in the chain order, the whole team's work will come crashing down.
I would also like to mention performance, when a person knows how to listen to his manager. Every employee in our organisation can grow if he or she shows competence and makes a meaningful contribution to the overall work. And, of course, respect for colleagues, not just upper management. Moving in the same direction is very important.
Is the manager a team member or not?
A well-coordinated team can work autonomously. This is a perfect picture of the world. If we are talking about a real situation after all, the manager should take over the role that is weaker, or find a replacement person quickly. But it is certainly not his responsibility.
It is the responsibility of the manager — to create direction, coordinate, find resources and accompany the team day by day to achieve results. A competent manager does not communicate with the team 24/7. This, on the contrary, is a bad indicator, which indicates that the manager has no objectives. This means that he is bogged down in micromanagement and as a member of the overall team he is ineffective because he is not doing his job.
The task of the manager is to fully customise the process. That is, in the logic of the modern world, a manager creates an algorithm to make things work. And the manager should constantly adjust this algorithm. Learn about critical situations in a particular department and come to solve them on time. A competent leader — is a trabshooter. He can find a solution to any current situation. An illiterate manager will run away from the problem and everything will end up turning into a quagmire.
How to solve problems with your work processes?
This is where knowing people's psychology and understanding emotional intelligence helps me. I can read people's behavioural motivations. I even picked out a phrase for myself: «If it seems to you that something is wrong with a person, it doesn't seem to you». I try to stick to that phrase.
We often give a lot of chances to people. Even in our company, it has happened that we have given some colleagues a lot of chances and they have failed the trust, and they have left their positions. Now I am talking about both the middle-rank managers and top management. We have a very loyal management system, but when people start behaving completely unsustainably (leaving loudly, poaching to other projects, spreading incorrect information and misleading investors), there are no more questions about conversations. Unfortunately, some former colleagues thought that thanks to their old merits they would once again be let off the hook and forgiven, but this was not the case. You should always take responsibility for your actions and not dwell on past successes.
What should an employee do to get fired from a turquoise organisation?
1. Failure to fulfil the obligations undertaken. Each employee has job responsibilities, performance indicators and metrics. If he does not fulfil them, it means he is not a professional. Systematic tardiness, postponements, disrespectful behaviour can also be grounds for dismissal.
We have had this happen to former Board Representatives recently, by the way. They simply did not come to the weekly coordination, which is attended by all the managers. It's a sign of disrespect for the colleagues. This is where it all starts. But we gave chances up to a certain point because we saw everyone as a resource. Usually people who allow themselves to show disrespect to their colleagues, alas, think outside the structure and the team.
2. Severe unsustainability can also be grounds for dismissal. That's why we have launched a Performance Review procedure in our company, which helps to identify problematic points in communication between employees. All managers go through this procedure, myself and Eugeny included. It was not introduced to fire people, but to get feedback and work on our own development based on the information received.
3. And, of course, intentional harm to the company. If something like this is discovered, warnings are issued and sanctions are imposed if it happens again. Unfortunately, this example also applies to former Board Representatives.
There is no room for impulsive decisions — no one shootы from the hip: SWC has a system of internal investigations to prevent false accusations. We have a prototype ethics department. This is handled by the Public Relations Department, the Building Department. Only after the facts, screenshots, videos and other evidence have been collected is a decision made to dismiss the employee.
It is not a fact for us to say that something was said by the majority. It could also be misinformation. We cannot allow that to happen. However, our task is to ensure that justice prevails in a conflict situation. Otherwise, what kind of a healthy team can we talk about?
4. Exceeding official authority. Imagine that because of one or two people there was a situation where a strategically important country could not deliver result because there was a conflict involving administrative bodies. In other words, there was a real syndicate war. And it was the responsibility of the managerial staff from our company, among others.
Were people dismissed afterwards? Not even after that. Only after a final investigation did we decide to remove people from their positions. Dismissal will follow after exceeding the authority of any employee, regardless of position. No one has the right to act on behalf of the company for their own personal gain.
What kind of manager are you?
I consider myself a strongman leader, although some people consider me a soft manager. But I sincerely try to strike a happy medium. For me, the Sky World Community — is the world's only community of private investors and entrepreneurs who support innovative start-ups that will enable up to 70 billion or more people to live comfortably on the globe. And all this without risking depletion of natural resources or damaging the planet's ecology.
I am not prepared to trade this for any other job, although I have been offered jobs in other high-paying positions. The leader should not be seduced by short-term benefits and should not sell his ideals. There is a certain authoritarianism in this too, which is why I consider myself to be a tougher leader.
What is the governance model in SWC? Top-down or turquoise company model?
To be honest, we're not a turquoise company yet, but we're aiming for it.
After all, a turquoise company — is an organisation with a coherent team, a ready-made organisational structure, a development vector, and no behind-the-scenes or back-door games. It's a perfect turquoise company, now we're in a transition phase. A model of mixed authoritarian governance with elements of turquoise organisation. But I have faith that we will travel this path.