Rethinking the enterprise

Changing companies with new daily practices

Changing companies requires new daily practices and collaboration, not just formal restructuring

25 September 2025

4' min read

A company is not a complicated machine, where every cog has a precise function and, if you control it, you can predict the outcome. Rather, it is a complex system, made up of people, information and tools that interact in ways that are not always linear. It is more like a city: if the infrastructure is well designed, the company grows and innovates; if it is rigid, it blocks the potential of people. This is not about yet another corporate reorganisation, but about rethinking the fundamentals: first and foremost, the circulation of information and the ability to make decisions. If the data does not reach those who need it, those who have to decide do not have the authority to do so, and mistakes do not become opportunities for evolution, the company becomes paralysed like a city where the roads do not connect the neighbourhoods. This is the heart of the conversation I had with Alberto Gangemi, organisational designer and author of the book Organisations Open. This article stems from that discussion, full of examples and reflections on how changing companies means creating new working conditions, not simply redistributing power by changing the names of boxes.

Two ways to change

Change can be achieved by two paths. The first is revolutionary: abandoning the traditional hierarchy altogether and adopting models such as holocracy or sociocracy, which deserve a separate discussion. It is the closest perspective to the one I recounted in my previous article, in which I talked about the organigram as an organisational anxiolytic, that is, questioning the structure itself. It is a fascinating but risky path, which few companies have the courage to take.

The second way is more pragmatic, or if you like incremental, and is certainly the most feasible: starting from concrete practices and behaviours, without questioning the formal structure, introducing new practices that transform the way one works. But let us be clear: incremental does not mean superficial. These practices, while not overturning the hierarchy, have a radical impact.

The radical everyday practices that make a difference

For example, sharing objectives, results and even salaries that are accessible to all; organising check-in and check-out meetings, led by a facilitator who is not the head of the participants, so that even the youngest can speak without fear; creating an internal marketplace of projects, where anyone can apply based on skills and interests; using OKRs to clearly link individual contributions to strategic objectives. Or organise real 'internal TEDs', where people share experiences and skills, which are much more stimulating than traditional training courses imposed by external consultants. It is a formula that I have always promoted in the companies I have worked in, with excellent results in terms of participation and motivation.

All these are daily practices that, step by step, really change life in the company. A bit like the paths in the forest described by Karl Popper, to which Gangemi himself often refers: they start with a first step, but by dint of being walked they become shared paths.

Why it is so difficult to change

If it works, why do so few companies do it? The first reason is cultural. As Gangemi reminds us, we are used to thinking of the company as a hierarchy, from the top down, as religions, armies and bureaucracies have done for centuries. Business schools still teach models born over a century ago, so even young entrepreneurs with fresh capital end up building companies that are 'old inside'. It is an asymmetry: on the one hand cutting-edge products and technologies, on the other organisational models from the last century. Then there is a competitive reason. Some regulated or protected sectors can afford vertical models without immediate consequences. But those who compete on innovation and knowledge have no chance: without involving people, you lose ground. Organisational charts are not the maps that companies need to recognise and value talent. Organisational maps generated by analysing real interactions instead reveal the substance of companies, where anyone, and not just those at the top, can generate impact on the entire organisation.

Patience, the right knots and a long time

The problem is that the results do not arrive in a quarter. Many projects fail because top management does not turn experimentation into daily practice. What works as leverage can become a boomerang if it is not consistent: transparency on salaries, for example, risks generating conflict if it is not accompanied by clear and agreed remuneration policies. And not all employees are willing to change: there will always be the 'resistant', but that is not a problem. In a company of 10,000 people, 300 right nodes are enough to trigger change and infect others.

For this a visionary top management is not enough: we need a patient top management, willing to protect the shoots of the new even in the face of resistance and contradictions. Italian history proves this: Adriano Olivetti invested in libraries and experimental spaces inside factories, convinced that only by taking the necessary time could one really think big. It is still a valid lesson: like a city, a company is only successful when it becomes a place worth living and working in.

*Corporate Executive.