The Most Frightening Company On Earth.

That’s what Harvard Business Review calls it.

St. Luke’s is probably the only company in the creative industry (advertising) that seriously takes creativity seriously.

Experiment at Work: Explosions and Experiences at the Most Frightening Company on Earth
by Andy Law

This book looks at some of the philosophies and policies behind St. Luke’s. I’ll list down some of them:

- Everyone is a co-owner. This mean that a portion of the company shares are distributed equally among everyone each year, with additional shares reflecting the number of years the co-owner puts in. This encourages teamwork, and everyone benefits from the effort put in.

- Fear, greed, and ego are outlawed, and the lack of co-operation is a firing offence. This, of course, encourages teamwork as well.

- Poor performance isn’t necessarily seen as a bad thing - people have their good times as well as bad, and the strong teamwork helps people get back on track.

- Co-owners are indeed really the most valuable asset. Of course every other company claims the same. But if a co-owner has a personal commitment which clashes with a professional one, the personal commitment is allowed to take precedence. Whoa. And of course, there are no fixed hours, and co-owners can work anywhere (at home, etc.).

- Sabbaticals (1-3 months) are given every few years, recognising the value of learning and resting and satisfying one’s curiosity.

- Sharing everything, and total transparency. There are no offices nor personal desk spaces and co-owners are discouraged from staying in one place for too long. All meetings are open and all information is available to co-owners, including salary details. This point is probably hardest to swallow, but it’s because they felt “it represented the most human form of a networked environment”.

- Only clients have fixed space, so the office is organised around the clients. Meetings happen everywhere, with people popping in and out of rooms to meet other team members or clients to cross-pollinate ideas, or at the lunch area, the reception floor, or in the garden.

- The office is an art canvas, with the colours and theme changed monthly. So the office may sometimes look like a hospital ward, a Catholic church, a beach, or look like a mass murder has just taken place. (I was pretty proud of my graffiti-covered walls of my old office until now.)

- The Make Yourself More Interesting Fund pays for courses that co-owners attend to make themselves more interesting. Like parachuting, anthropology, Indian head massaging, and horse-whispering.

This company challenges even some assumptions that I’ve had, but at the end of the day, I realise that what they do makes a lot of sense. Agreeing that it makes sense is one thing, actually implementing it is another - you’ll need a lot courage and gumption, and loads of support from people who are equally crazy.

A great book to blow away some barriers in your mind, even though I find some parts a little too airy-fairy (when they explain their metaphysical assumptions and beliefs). Not for the narrow-minded.

Addendum

I forgot to add an important point. One of the reasons why St. Luke’s is so frightening is that they don’t have any plan. As in 10-year or 5-year 2-year plan. No, they don’t believe in planning, because most plans don’t come to fruition anyway. Instead, they rely on serendipity. They survive on serendipitous events, which bring them business. Frightening to most, exhilarating to some.