August 2019 – Podivín

This is what Petr Pouchlý (Jezevec), a member of the Red Button network, says about the book.

An incredibly engaging and at times almost unbelievable story of the transformation of a manufacturing, top-down managed company into one of today’s freest organizations, rightfully nicknamed by others as “the most unusual workplace in the world.” Here, employees decide for themselves on matters that most organizations today have piles of directives or other regulations for, along with a management apparatus to administer them. Many people say that after reading Podivín, they could never look at the world of organizations and company management the same way again. Podivín, with its story of transforming an existing company, complements Štěstí doručeno – a tale of a free company born from scratch. It also complements Svoboda v práci, which tells the story of nearly twenty companies that use freedom as a way of organizing and managing.

“His company became a kind of guide for organizations that want to do things differently and want employees to be true collaborators, not just people who come in to clock in their hours and then go home,” says Petr Pouchlý. “The new way of working he created earned the company the title of the most unusual workplace in the world.” According to Jezevec, it is therefore a “cult work of the modern way of managing organizations.”

Who is Petr Pouchlý?

Petr Pouchlý is a creative, gamification evangelist, and human interaction designer. He blends experience from the world of multinational corporations (where he worked for 12 years) with practice from the nonprofit sector (where he worked much longer) and private entrepreneurship in the free company Court of Moravia. He takes the best from all these worlds to build communities, lead teams, and design playfully. Most often, he serves as an ambassador for a design studio focused on large organizations. ☠ He has taken on the fight against sloppiness and laziness, cheap paperback truths, and poor work with people often called human resources.