Building a Company without Job Titles: The Opportunities and Pitfalls.
Siân Jones
When we launched Neu21 in 2020, following the merger of two consulting companies, we struggled to hit on the right job title for individuals.
The previous companies had two different ways of describing roles. One had a Managing Director, General Manager, Consultants and Senior Consultants, and the other had a Managing Director, Heads of ‘business areas’, location leads and coaches. Over the first 6 months we tried a few variations, but inevitably someone’s nose was always out of joint. Well, by nose we really mean ego.
And that’s when it hit us- should we be designing our org structure to satisfy egos, or to enable our people to thrive?
We wanted our org structure to enable creativity and autonomy, but we were observing how titles were constraining growth. We wondered, are titles preventing people from feeling equal to others? Are they setting up a traditional, horizontal pathway to career development based on money and perceived authority? Are they causing default, ego-centric thinking to pervade?
These questions and their answers led us in one direction, to try deleting titles all together…
And that’s what we did. Apart from the Directors, who we were advised for legal reasons had to be titled, everyone in the organisation regardless of previous title, age, experience or salary was listed as a Consultant with functional specialisms such as Innovation, Employee Experience and Organisational Design.
In principle it was simple enough to do. A few changes to LinkedIn profiles, email signatures and the website, and it was done. Simple.
If only.
You see, from the moment we step into Kindergarten we’re fed the belief that we must rise in the ranks. It begins with being given door monitor duties, then school captains, high distinctions at Uni and so forth and doesn’t stop when we enter the workforce. We’re fed a healthy diet of ‘do this’ and ‘get that.’ We’re extrinsically motivated to get rewards and one of the most significant is the spelling out of our expertise and seniority through job titles. Oh how thrilled I was when I had “Manager” in my title for the first time! It told the world, I’d made it. I was leading people now.
So, deleting titles didn’t automatically delete default thinking. It took a lot of open conversations and vulnerability for members of the team (including myself) to let go of the belief that our titles were linked to our identity. Speaking for myself, I felt I’d worked hard to earn my title, and when we stripped it away I initially felt bereft, like someone was saying I didn’t deserve it and that all I’d done before was forgotten. Overtime however I came to realise that my greatness does not come from a title, but from who I’m being and how I show up. Over the past 18 months, I’d say I’ve grown more as a leader without a fancy title, than I ever did when I had one.
As others at Neu21 let go of their default thinking I noticed something else - more collaboration in the business, more listening to younger voices and more openness to learning. Removing titles had prompted us to revise our belief systems and in doing so, how we worked and related to one another. There was distinctly less telling, more curiosity and more listening.
With the team now onboard, the biggest challenge became and remains the public. While we could change our org’s belief systems, could we change that of our client’s and the wider public?
One of my peers phoned me after looking at my LinkedIn profile to say she thought I was ‘playing too small.’ Others have challenged whether we have the right gender balance in leadership (It’s a 60:40 split in favour of women) but without it explicitly shared, it’s difficult to know. Requests for tenders typically want to understand the balance between senior and junior executives, which is more difficult to illustrate in a flat structure when everyone bears the same title.
We might have done the hard work to shift our belief systems, but the rest of the world doesn’t share it. Although we want to hold onto our beliefs, we also acknowledge that for others their beliefs remain true. There’s no right and wrong – they are just different.
We continue to experiment with the best way to depict who we are and how we’re different, without creating a polarity that prevents us from delivering great work. It isn’t easy. For instance, to combat the perceived lack of gender equity in the business, we’ve recently removed the Director titles from our website, and every member of our leadership team is now called a Partner and a Consultant. However, by introducing the Partner label to our external facing audience, are we succumbing to a hierarchical system? We don’t believe these 7 people to be our best consultants, but will the world assume this to be the case?
It is difficult to work on the edge like this. However, despite the challenges of trying to lead and simultaneously fit in just enough to be commercial, there are definitely more pros to removing titles than there are cons.
PROS
Egos are left at the door
Greater collaboration
Better equity
Increased creativity
Horizontal growth (developmental) is given more weighting than vertical (career) growth.
Intrinsic motivation is heightened
Salaries are increased based on work, not tenure
CONS
You can lose talented people who have different belief systems
Clients don’t always ‘get’ us
We can slip into default thinking to try and ‘fit’ in
It is impossible to please everyone
As an organisation this ongoing experiment has taught us how important something seemingly quite small can be. As an individual I’ve learned a lot about my ego and how letting it go benefits myself, my colleagues and the organisational system at large.
We may not have it fully resolved, but the journey to this point has been extremely valuable.
How easy would it be for you to give up your job title?
