Teams
How we organise the company and why we have made the decisions we have.
Last updated
How we organise the company and why we have made the decisions we have.
Last updated
The way we structure the company has been carefully considered and comes from decades of experimentation with different organisational methodologies.
Creating a high performance culture that people love to work in and that we look back with pride as having being an incredible learning experience.
Minimising waste and being as lean as possible. Waste comes in many forms, but in our company waste is identified as doing work which has little value (for example writing reports which never get read is waste, designing product which never gets built is waste).
Not allowing bottlenecks and breaking them when they form. Articulated so well in , The Theorem of Constraints explains that any interconnected process operates at the speed of the slowest part. We work hard to identify such bottlenecks in the organisation. Usually they are people who, although often well meaning, slow the flow of work. We are allergic to such bottlenecks.
Prioritising autonomy and accountability over management and reporting. In the great book , Daniel Pink explains the importance of autonomy as a human motivator for people who are motivated by internal drivers, such as autonomy, mastery, and purpose. We seek out these people.
Having the people who are closest to the work make the decisions about the work - empowering the people at the coal face to make the right decisions without needing permission.
Being remote-first and building our company around three core remote-first principals:
No one central time zone; the world is our oyster.
Favouring synchronous communication thus reducing meetings.
Meeting in person whenever we feel the need.
Focusing on results and not managing time.
Collectively, we’ve experienced many different organisational structures—Traditional Hierarchical (command and control), Cross-Functional (Spotify Tribes & Squads), Holocracy (democratic management), and various hybrids of these approaches.
At Mindset AI, we haven’t adopted any of these models verbatim. Instead, we’ve built our OWN system, taking the best elements from each.
At its core, our structure is hierarchical, but not in the traditional command-and-control sense. Instead, it operates as a cascading set of teams, each with a Team Leader, where authority and responsibility are distributed across the organisation.
We believe this approach is: Scalable – It grows with us without adding unnecessary complexity. Light-touch – It provides structure without excessive bureaucracy. Empowering – Teams have autonomy while staying aligned with our mission.
Mindset AI is made up of Teams, not departments nor functions. We’ve chosen this structure deliberately to avoid silos, which are a common issue in hierarchical organisations.
Each team has:
Team Leader – Responsible for the success of the team.
Members – Work closely with the leader but do not "report to" them. Instead, they collaborate to help the team succeed.
Contributors – Not direct team members but work closely with a team (e.g., attending meetings, have aligned OKRs, etc). However, their success remains the responsibility of their primary team leader.
People can belong to multiple teams in different roles. While someone can lead more than one team, we try to avoid this or see it as a temporary measure as believe one leader should focus on leading just one team.
This structure is designed to be: Simple and lean – No unnecessary complexity. Infinitely scalable – Grows with the company without breaking. Cross-functional by design – Since individuals can be in multiple teams, collaboration happens naturally.
We’ve taken inspiration from Holocracy (where the team concept is known as Circles) but stripped it down to its essence—keeping what works and avoiding unnecessary overhead.
Terminology
Words matter, so we choose them carefully.
While we operate within a hierarchical structure, our language reflects our commitment to supportive (servant) leadership, rather than traditional command-and-control models.
"is responsible for"
"is the leader of" "manages", "is the boss of", "is in charge of"
"is a member/contributor of (team)"
"reports to", "works for", "is managed by"
"team"
"department"
These distinctions reinforce that leadership at Mindset AI is about responsibility and collaboration, not hierarchy for hierarchy’s sake.
Summary
Mindset AI is made up of many teams, each with a leader and a clear mandate.
Everyone is a member of only one team.
People can also contribute to many other teams.
Simple, really!