We are fascinated by the way the world works. Every day new ideas emerge for how we can build organisations that are more efficient, more effective and even more fun.

Innovative entrepreneurs find pioneering ways to structure their companies. Occupational psychologists help us hack our minds to get more done. Experts confound decades of conventional wisdom to suggest that this brave new world we live in calls for a radical rethink in the way we do our best work.

Such radical thinking is often overwhelming, particularly because those who table the ideas are often vested in their success. We tend to hear more about why they work than when they don’t, and the conversation can lack balance.

At Charlie, we believe it’s always a good time to reimagine the way we work. Sometimes that means rebuilding from the ground up. Sometimes it means more subtle tweaks to what already works well. There are big changes, and there are small ones. We’re on our own journey to find out what works for us and plan to share our findings as we learn with #CultureLab.

Every few weeks we will pick a “cultural initiative” to test at Charlie. We’ll start with small ideas (see our first attempt here) and hope that, over time and as we grow and adapt, we can tackle some bigger questions. Flexible working? The four day work week? Holacracy?!

We’ll document how we feel along the way - collecting feedback from the team throughout - and at the end, we’ll decide whether to adopt it, adapt it or ditch it. We’re not trying to make stuff work. Our aim is a fair trial within our context to better our understanding of who we are and how we flex. An important outcome for us is that we consistently challenge ourselves, and that efforts to work smarter constantly permeate our organisation.

Every company is different. We don’t expect what works for us to work for you, and we wouldn’t dissuade you from the stuff that doesn’t stick with us. But we do hope that by documenting our experiences we can offer an impartial outlook that might serve to help you build a better place to work.

To better work,

Team Charlie x