Net Protections strives to achieve members' self-actualization and social development
by supporting the growth of entrepreneurship and innovation with the teal organization that realizes members' self-control, fair-distribution, and collaboration.
Based on its new values, the company took this opportunity to completely change the system. The main purpose of the new Natura system was to achieve high performance, individual development, and well-being. It essentially shifted from competition to collaboration, enhancing psychological safety and mutual support in the process.
There were a few interesting changes that came as a result.
The members at Net Protections work autonomously and are self-managed; this reflects some of the criteria for its recruiting, such as:
“Think from the origin”
“Self-motivated”
“Passionate for self-development”
“Willing to take responsibilities”
“Collaborative”
“Integrity”
Around 2013, when it re-designed its mission and values, the company also shifted the focus of the full-time members mainly to “planning” and “management.” Other roles such as “operations” were shifted to partner companies or part-time employees. This shift corresponded with the new re-designed values; it was meaningful for the member’s self-development and engagement to shift their work to roles that required broader contribution.
It was also reasonable for the business — BNPL companies become profitable not from individual performance but rather from the whole system working smoothly. To achieve this, members need to understand various aspects of the business, such as engineering and customer support. One of the systems to support this involves assigning new graduates to the development team during their first year.
The organization's basic structure is a matrix — by business and function. In 2018, Net Protections replaced the manager position with “catalysts.” This was precisely in line with its history of organizational transformation.
Catalyst is a fluid role selected in each team (typically around ten members) that is responsible for supporting development within the team. In contrast to the typical manager role, the catalyst is not the person who takes responsibility for the results — the team is. (Although this style of “distributed responsibility” works well, Net Protections is still a public company, so it maintains official roles and department heads for its governance.)
Since 2012, Net Protections has pioneered the ”Working Group” program. Before its restructuring, the opportunities within the company for dynamic delegation from top management were quite limited, creating fewer opportunities. Working Groups were a solution, as the program prescribes members to devote 20% of their working hours to participate in special projects they are interested in aside from their main work.
The Working Groups cover various topics, such as recruiting, training, new business planning, and research for overseas branches. And while the guidelines require 20% of a member’s time, some devote even more, which is fully allowed since all members are self-managing.
The system of the Working Group has taken an essential part in cultivating the autonomous working culture at Net Protections, as members can join voluntarily for whatever they wish to work on.
One of the systems that has come out from a Working-group is the virtual family, a system called Fami-Tsuku, which has helped to cultivate relationships within the company.
When a new graduate joins the company, a virtual “family” with 5 or 6 members are formed to be a mentor. Basically there are very little instructions for the families (just some rules concerning financial compensation for dinners or coffee). They are there to create good relations between the autonomous members.
Often the family gathers once in a couple of months to go for a drink, and share anything from work issues to personal stories. Since years have passed since they started the virtual families, the new joined member succeeds the warm support to the next family.
One of the initial problems that stemmed from Net Protectin’s new system was the amount of unbalance regarding work experience. In 2016, roughly 50% of the members were still within their first three years with the company, while half of the leaders were newly assigned and had less than one year of experience. In short, the organization was very young. That caused frustration in the members who thought the evaluation didn’t seem fair and transparent enough. The system also relied heavily on a very small number of experienced leaders.
This was addressed by changing the main purpose of evaluations from raises in compensation to support of individual development. The basic salary is now determined by 360-degree feedback of competencies, and individual performance is related to bonuses. The monthly 1-on-1, known as Development Support Meetings, is formatted to receive feedback from anyone in the upper tier of job grades.
Additionally, salary bands are now fully disclosed, and within the band, the salary will rise at a fixed rate every half year — and climb up when the band changes.
Overall, compensation is not solely based on individual performance but rather on working as a team and demonstrating competency, leading to success and profitability.
Even though the company had already undergone a major shift in the culture, flattening the structure and changing the way it evaluates was another big change. And it worked.
So, what led this to be successful? One could argue there were three factors.
The first is transparency. Net Protections developed both the system and the culture to keep the company radically transparent. All information in the organization is accessible to anyone by default. This helps foster ownership in the members.
The second is the common experience of the organizational transformation — changing the culture from a hierarchical top-down model to one that is flat and self-organized. This change has taken years, but the overall experience became the underlying support to transform managers into the new role of catalysts.
The third is the development of the leadership team. Throughout the transformation process, the leaders learned to trust team members, be aware of any ego-driven or fear-driven behaviors, and allow the members to manage themselves.
(Source：CORPORATE REBELS)
We also strives to "Create New Standards" for our organization. It is always important to be a flat and essential organization to achieve the "New Standard."
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Net Protections has been running the next-generation leader support program for college students since 2010 and for middle and high school students from 2019.
The program is operated every year to nurture young leaders for the next-generation.
It is one of the ways to symbolize the culture of Net Protections.
OFFICIAL ACCOUNT
