Onward Management in action

What will be an ideal response?

boundaryless communication at soundcloud

SoundCloud, the music- and audio-sharing platform, has grown rapidly since its founding in 2008. When the company consisted of only a few dozen employees, it was easy for everyone to keep informed and connected. But although SoundCloud has managed to retain its flat organization and minimal hierarchy as it's grown, it did experience some communications challenges as the number of employees rose to about 300 people and operations expanded from Berlin headquarters to additional offices in London, San Francisco, and New York.

To address those challenges, the format of SoundCloud's regular companywide and team meetings has been honed over time to better serve the now larger employee community. The company's new intranet also helps keep employees in touch, as do Skype and Slack, the commercial messaging platforms. And SoundCloud has one more innovative tool for bringing people together and encouraging the free flow of information—a program it calls Cameos.

Cameos lets any SoundCloud employee request the opportunity to sit in on any other team's meeting or offsite event. For instance, David Noël, the company's director of internal communications, once attended an offsite meeting of engineering managers that was called to discuss the results of a workplace happiness survey. The only requirement for those using Cameos is that they must share at least one interesting fact about their own team, and in turn take one new idea back from the meeting to share with their team.

Even senior management's quarterly offsite meetings have been opened to Cameo appearances. Three employees, chosen at random from a pool of nominees, spent half a day each at a recent top-level meeting held offsite over a day and a half. Noël found that these employees' experiences, which they wrote about on the company blog, created a sense of transparency that helped everyone better understand management's plans for the future and their potential impact. The three employees themselves felt valued and rewarded by being asked to attend, and Cameo participants lined up quickly for the next leadership meeting.121

In what other ways besides Cameos do you think SoundCloud could encourage internal communications that move in all directions?

David Noël calls effective internal communications the "glue" that holds a thriving workplace together. What does this analogy mean? Do you agree or disagree with this idea?