The Story of FAVI: The Company that Believes that Man is Good

Imagine a company that hasn‘t raised selling prices in a couple of decades and still makes a profit. And also does not fail to meet delivery deadlines, although it has no bosses, and the departments that deal with human resources, procurement and planning, too. Employees of such an organization are not late, comply with production standards and solve problems on the spot. You should agree that this sounds utopian. However, such a company does exist. A small French company FAVI, which produces rotors and forks for gearboxes, for many years already adheres to the principles of turquoise management: values are above profits, and instead of a rigid hierarchical structure autonomy and self-organization are used. Former FAVI CEO Jean-François Zobrist tells how he managed to change the structure of the organization, what it is like to be a ‘round‘ company in a ‘square‘ world, and how a management system based on trust works.