E138 | Improving Productivity By Creating A Network Of One Person Businesses with Andrew Holm & Julian Wilson

If you’re the owner of your business and you’re keen to improve productivity, or you want your business to run 200X better when you’re not there, why not get your employees to step up, not step back, from the challenge of running the business as efficiently as you do. 

Don’t miss Andrew Holm and Julian Wilson of Matt Black Systems on this week’s episode. Some of the challenges that they’ve solved are probably some of the challenges that your business is facing today. 

Andrew and Julian turned their business around by whittling the organisation down from 30 people to five over two years and dissolving the former hierarchical business model and creating a network of one person businesses. 

The result? Two employees now produce the same turnover each year as 30 people used to do. 

They spent £250m trying to improve productivity by implementing lean and then agile processes, but every time the consultants left, the business reverted back to how it operated before the change.

So they decided to change some stupid rules, triggering an awakening in their employees, encouraging their employees to think for themselves:

“On a roundabout, every car has a controlling mind in it. In a traffic light, there's only one controlling mind.”

This episode is slightly longer than normal, but it’s worth it. Julian and Andrew explain, in detail, precisely the experiments they undertook to create their current business model. This is an absolutely fantastic conversation. 

On today’s podcast:

• Lean and agile are outcomes, not processes
• Natural human behaviour at work
• The invisible manager
• Traffic lights vs roundabouts
• Creating a central market

Links:

• Book - 500%: How Two Pioneers Transformed Productivity
• www.fractalwork.com