How to truly create a flat agency
The Pop Up Agency’s guide to having a rotating CEO and Project Manager.
When we started The Pop Up Agency back in 2012, we made sure to create a culture and working conditions that suited our needs. One of the first things we decided, was that we didn’t want to have defined roles and titles. The main reason was that we didn’t want to get too comfortable and stuck in roles which we knew from experience happens in most agencies. As soon as you are defined to have a certain function that function is all you have and everything you are. That’s been a no go for us, instead, we wanted to challenge ourselves and push each and every member to try new things — and more importantly, learn new things.
Honestly, we also get bored very easily (a syndrome for our generation), and this is a way for us to always keep it fresh and keep evolving as individuals. In order to be a nimble agency, we truly believe that the team has to be multidisciplinary and not depend on individuals.
“We aim to create an ambitious and dynamic environment, where all members feel comfortable collaborating and being multidisciplinary in a non-hierarchical organization.”
Maximilian
In an interview for Swedish newspaper, Resumé.
Our 48 hour process has become our signature and is the core of our company’s success, why we strive to also work in 48 hour iterations doing our everyday work. There’s a reason why we created this process, and we work really well in fast paced iterations — both individually and as a team. Working this way, let’s us stay focused and energetic and we don’t want to limit that feeling to when we are doing client briefs. Why would we would we only want to motivate ourselves working for a big client and not when we do accounting? Doesn’t really make sense when you think about it. So we changed that — both through working ourselves in the process we created for our clients but also through rotating roles.
“I like that you swap everybody around and people have to be good at everything. Because its very easy fall in too “this is the bit that I’m good at so I’m gone to this bit now”. Where as you force yourself to be good at everything.”
Karl Dunn
SVP and Global Creative Director of Levi’s
Rotating Roles
Besides realising that we had to use the success formula we had created for our clients on ourselves — the 48 hour process — we also quickly realised that the challenge of forming a successful agency of our size, is that each person has to wear multiple hats, and be able to wear them well.
At the same time, although loving being a flat agency, we learned that sometimes, leadership is a good thing. A few months ago, during one of our team development sessions, we all agreed that we were in need of structure due to a huge work load. We decided to for the first time in our company’s history to create two new rolls, a CEO and a Project Manager. Sounding like a traditional agency, huh? We thought so too, but refusing to go against our beliefs, we were determined to find a solution that would maintain our flat hierarchy. Our solution: rotating roles. No one would stay CEO or PM for more than a short period of time. Boom.
This is how we make the magic happen
As the CEO, you sit on the position for two months and the role is defined as the one has the overview, creates new business, looks out for the well-being of the group, inspires and finally the one that makes tough call when needed. With the last part I mean that as a flat agency, sometimes you’ll get stuck in a discussion and don’t know how to get further — here the current CEO will have the power to make a call on behalf of the group.
As the Project Manager, you’ll sit for two weeks. This role is a bit more straight forward than the CEO. Here we’ve defined it as the one that helps the company with structure and daily goals. Managing the company’s resources and making sure to help everybody reach their goals for the day, the week and the month.
Basically these two new roles is a way to help us structure our short term goals with a PM and long term goals with a CEO.
Conclusion
It’s taken a minute to get used to it but its exciting and definitely here to stay. I mentioned why we started off with no roles at The Pop Up Agency — that it was about creating a work environment where we felt comfortable collaborating and being multidisciplinary in a non-hierarchical organization. But as time has passed and our workload grown, we’ve felt the need to find a way to manage everything. And that’s the birth of the rotating CEO and Project Manager. It’s been exciting and challenging going from no roles to having roles but definitely needed. Everyone is not a born CEO or PM but the great value is that everybody gets an understanding and a total overview company — and that’s a priceless asset.
Moving forward, we will continue constantly re-evaluating how we work and embrace change in order to ride a tight ship. If you are interested in learning more about how we work with rotating roles, feel free to reach out.
Until next time,
Abraham @abrahamasefaw
