How to run a self-organized company

When Knowledge21 was born in February 2013, we were just four long-term Agile practitioners engaging in the common purpose of bringing True Agility to the four corners of the country. I remember as if it were yesterday the meeting we had in the food hall of the Shopping Leblon mall in Rio de Janeiro. We were trying to find a name. Something to do with knowledge workers of the 21st century. The name Knowledge21 was born right there, between mouthfuls. Since then, we’ve collected so many amazing stories, lifelong friends and new dreams, soaring higher and higher.

Right from the start, we tried to make Knowledge21 an example of an amazing place to work, where Agility isn’t just an abstract concept, but something we breathe the whole time, part of our DNA. There’s no point promoting something you don’t practice yourself. To us, Agility isn’t just a product or series of PowerPoint slides filled with sales pitches.

Get to know the Knowledge21 team

We feel pride, concealed in a smile in the corner of the mouth, whenever the founders say they’re not anyone’s bosses. We just arrived first to open up the path. Knowledge21 isn’t a company like others: people are truly empowered to follow what they believe in, something reflected wherever you turn, from the way teams hire and review themselves, to how we exchange knowledge and manage our day-to-day work. Our True Agile DNA pushes us to new heights the whole time, constantly renewing our energy.

Throughout our trajectory, we’ve embraced the marvelous opportunity to broaden our horizons and travel the world. Today, as well as Brazil, we’re in the USA, Europe and the rest of Latin America, spreading our True Agile DNA wherever we go. We help transform many companies and to date have trained 17,000 people in 21 countries. We’re deeply proud to take Brazilian quality and creativity to other places and are more than happy to do so. From teaching Product Owners in Silicon Valley to transforming global organizations, it all brings us such joy and the desire to do more, so much more.

Making a difference, improving the lives of people and organizations is a wide-ranging, rich and challenging mission. Our way of showing that this is possible starts in-house. Believe me, companies do exist where people really are important, listened to, empowered, looked after and followed with great care. We’re like that. And nothing makes us prouder than this fact.

This desire to show the world that organizations can be more human, creative and efficient has brought us close to some wonderful people who without blinking have embarked on this same dream, bringing their experience, values, principles, and ideas. So I’d like to introduce you to our incredible and ever-expanding K21 Team (it’s really a family)!

Authors

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Please notice that we do not keep any personal information though.