You’re reading Signal vs. Noise, a publication about the web by 37signals since 1999.

It also helps that you guys hire the right employees. If you hire people who are unethical, people who don’t really care for their work then the system won’t work. It’s a good thing that 37signals is very picky during the hiring process and won’t settle for mediocrity.

As long as the employee has the intrinsic aptitude to lead or manage, then it can work, however in my 25 years of owning a business, I’ve realised that many workers are quite happy, and quite productive just being a drone.

Forcing such people into a leadership situation just makes them uncomfortable and in one case nearly led to an anxiety attack.

Nothing wrong with the concept though, and many of our employees have gone on to start businesses of their own. I like to think that the experience they had in my company gave them the confidence to do so.

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Very good idea. However there is nothing new in it. In my country, once a year there is a “teacher’s day”. During this day all students exchange with their teacher in their roles – students will teach and give marks, but teachers will learn, listen and receive marks. It is very exciting to see and manage situation from other side of the fence.

I think the idea of rotating managerial positions is great, but isn’t there a chance that team direction will become unclear as a result of these changes?

Personally I don’t believe that good software teams need managers at all, and I explain why in my blog post here:

http://themodernprogrammer.com/post/managers-chopping-blocks-and-i-dont-agree-with-that-in-the-workplace/

As David O and Devan point out, the competence and aptitude to manage oneself are critical for this structure to work without stressing out folks more than necessary. In my own business relationships I take ownership and responsibility because that is what I want. In the case of one relationship, I have more freedom than I could ever ask for. There is no management, no “approval,” nothing of the sort … it works great! But it’s not for everyone.

That said, I think competence and aptitude are learned, and that many work environments do nothing to foster personal growth in these areas.

For those who are interested: a lot of these ideas come from Ricardo Semler’s “Maverick”—it was shared on SvN many years go.

Eugen, what country do you live in? I love that idea! This is part of the public school system there?

Very interesting… Anything that helps with perspective is a good thing, in my opinion.

It’s improve and upgrade culture of employees in a company. Both managers and employees upgrade culture of company.