"For the longest time people believed it was impossible to break the 4 minute mile. In 1954, Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile. But what I find super interesting is that, in less than a year other people broke the 4 minute mile. It wasn’t that nutrition was better that year. It was that people believed it was possible. We purposely choose collision, co-learning, and connectedness because we wanted something that could be replicated.”
- Tony Hsieh
Based in Buenos Aries, 10Pines builds custom software solutions using agile methodologies 100% company transparency, algorithmic profit-sharing designed by employees, and democratic decision making.10Pines is a radically transparent organization. It has an open-book management approach that provides every employee with complete access to all company information including financials and salaries. This transparent approach has generated trust, accountability, and shared understanding about how the business functions. They also have a profit sharing for fairness where 50% of the company’s profits are distributed among employees in an algorithm that employees co-created. The algorithm considers the diverse contributions and roles within the company year-over-year as determined by the employees. In a similar vein, 10Pines practices decision-making-by-consent so that every voice is heard in all company decisions.A private equity group based out of the Netherlands that buys 75% of corporate shares from targeted companies with a minimum of 80% of employees committing to transform management from a top-down structure to self-managed teams.
Founded in 1931 as part of Sears, Roebuck and Co., the Allstate Corporation protects people from life’s uncertainties with a wide array of protection for autos, homes, electronic devices, and identity theft. With the technological tools that we have today, the shift to adopt advanced principles of new work design will undoubtedly come from IT departments. Recently, Allstate delayered and reorganized an entire 6,500 member IT department into small “digital product teams” of 8-12 people. Allstate accomplished this by moving those employees into agile, self-managed teams. These teams are moving further toward holocracy than just employee empowerment.
Across the organization, IT team ‘certifications’ – a vehicle designed to elevate team culture, mature operational practices, and drive consistency in IT practices – are used to define and measure success. Certifications are not enforced via a traditional leadership hierarchy approach; they are peer-led reviews to help teams elevate their maturity in working the technology operating model. They are led by practitioner experts who are passionate about building great software and are strong proponents of the team culture, taking pride in elevating the maturity of every digital product team around lean, agile, customer-centric execution, and delivery. Anyone can request certification at any time. Throughout the continuous process, teams are promoted to the next certification tier – while evolving their professional growth as individuals – as they mature their practice. As a result, people get recognized, improve their digital products, and elevate their careers. Traditional practices around performance feedback are being transformed into a continuous, peer-driven, hands-on coaching and development culture.
Konsileo is a UK-based commercial insurance broker that designed their firm around their highly professional brokers and the trusted relationships they forge with clients.
(For context, In the UK, commercial insurance brokers advise on the appropriate insurance programs for businesses, negotiate with insurers on premiums, support through a claims process, and advise on risk management measures that will reduce the cost of insurance and boost businesses’ resilience. This differs from the tied-agent model common in many other countries).
From the onset, Konsileo recognized that their business’ real value sits with their professional brokers and promised to have the ‘happiest, best rewarded, and most professional’ brokers in the industry. They delivered on this promise by intentionally designing their business with progressive employment practices that eliminated middle management roles and by developing their own platform to enhance the self-management of virtual teams. Konsileo’s flat structure encourages peer-to-peer collaboration as well as broker-to-broker coaching and support in an industry otherwise known for its internally competitive environment. Their innovative practice is the empowerment of employees to manage their own teams and foster collaboration instead of competition across teams. Konsileo is also completely transparent in their remuneration, driving a high commercial performance and market-beating organic growth.
Mayo Clinic is the largest integrated, nonprofit medical group practice in the world, with an unwavering drive to create better medical care through innovation in clinical practice, education, and research. Mayo Clinic consists of over 82,000 employees, operating with campuses in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida, a network of regional clinics and hospitals, and international locations. Mayo Clinic’s Department of Nursing, which has more than 24,000 employees, is successfully engaging, inspiring, and enabling nursing staff to serve as transformative leaders in healthcare excellence.
At a hands-on event focused on innovation and collaboration, the Department of Nursing brought together more than 100 team members from across all locations (including nurses, social workers, health unit coordinators and other roles) to collaborate and develop new ways to deliver and optimize care benefitting both patients and staff. Department of Nursing innovators were provided the time, space, tools, and platforms to interact with and leverage technology to ideate new possibilities. When transformative solutions are implemented in the Department of Nursing, nursing staff are involved from development through iterative improvements until a solution is ready to scale.
In 2024, Mayo’s Department of Nursing implemented the first generative AI patient-facing solution at scale to 14,000 clinical staff. To support staff as inventors, the Department of Nursing also implemented a program for innovative projects, available to all clinical and non-clinical staff within the department, which has since generated three patentable ideas. These examples highlight how the Department of Nursing not only sets the vision—but provides the infrastructure and resources—to develop and implement staff-generated solutions that will transform healthcare.
Menlo Innovations LLC is a custom software development and consulting business, based in Ann Arbor, MI. The Menlo Way® was developed to deliver on a powerful brand promise: Joy.
A Menlo best practice is their extreme interviewing process. It emphasizes collaboration over competition from the very first interaction potential employees have with the company. Instead of traditional interviews, Menlo brings together 30-40 candidates and pairs them up with each other. Each pairing lasts 20 minutes and then switches three times. The goal of each candidate is to help their partner succeed in the interview process, even though they are competing for the same position. In other words: make their partner look good. Helping others succeed is one of Menlo's core values. The Menlo team members take notes about the interactions between the candidates and don’t ask questions. Instead, they focus on observing the candidates’ behaviors, communication skills, and how they handle the collaborative challenges. The entire process makes sure candidates have a good understanding of the expectations for what it means to join the Menlo team and enhance its culture. Those whose behaviors demonstrate the greatest understanding are invited for a second interview.
Wellstar Health System is one of the largest and most integrated healthcare systems in Georgia. With over 33,000 employees, Wellstar is innovating and elevating its team members by developing an “agile float pool” for employees growing their skills through their CareerCare program that has broken down hierarchy, increased career growth and efficacy, helped to fill critical business needs, and increased wages for team members.
Traditionally, healthcare is delivered by singular subject-matter experts that may or may not be in demand at any given moment of 24-hour care. Wellstar addressed the volatility in matching workplace skills with workplace demands by upskilling team members in multiple domains of patient care through Wellstar’s CareerCare. This unique technology-led solution allows workers to be dispatched within multiple disciplines or “roles” within the Wellstar healthcare system. Workers who were isolated in singular jobs with no lateral or upward role mobility now perform as multifaceted, agile, on-demand team members. This model not only increases opportunities for professional growth, but it also reduces operating expenses for Wellstar.
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Represents a bold leap forward, not just an optimization. It challenges convention, reinvents what’s possible, and creates something meaningfully new in how people work, connect, or lead.
Demonstrates a model, approach, or system that others can realistically adopt, adapt, and scale—whether across teams, organizations, or industries—without losing its core essence or impact.
Demonstrates clear, measurable impact that goes beyond feel-good culture to drive tangible improvements in how people work, connect, and perform—ideally with evidence of 10x shifts in outcomes related to engagement, innovation, performance, or well-being
Evokes an emotional, intellectual, or philosophical response that stops you in your tracks—because the work challenges norms, surprises with humanity, or inspires bold new thinking about what’s possible at work.
Apply TodayJoin our applicant pool! Gain visibility, be celebrated, attract good people, inspire and empower others. Together we endeavor to transform the world of work and inspire others based on what we’re learning.
Are you pushing the status quo? Adapting to change in ways others haven’t?
Are you running the proverbial 4-minute mile in a ways that other can learn from, improve upon, and replicate?
Tony was a proponent of learning by doing. Have you implemented new solutions instead of theorizing about them? Is there evidence of proven outcomes?
Are your innovative practices delivering Wow to your team, industry, and others?
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