• Agile Leadership

Why you shouldn’t copy the ‘Spotify model’

The one Spotify model does not exist

Suppose your company grows from 10 to 2,000 team members. In 7 years. So you’re growing at a snail’s pace. As you grow, you have yet to figure out how your market actually works. You literally still have to invent your revenue model while maintaining your start-up culture that you are so proud of. What do customers want? What are they willing to pay for? What is the business actually like and where is it going? At the same time, competition from the likes of Google and Apple is hot on your heels. You know 1 thing for sure. You need to learn even faster than your competition. You need to take steps to stay ahead. You want to innovate faster so that you conquer the market before they do.

In addition, there is growing interest from other companies about how your organization is put together. There is broad interest in your structure, culture and how you manage things. You are being used as an example as a successful Agile organization and people start copying your structure without question. You are suddenly not only a company that is inventing itself, but you have also become a model. The Spotify model, that is. Quite an honor, of course. But you also can’t make it clear enough to other companies, “Don’t copy our model! We are not a model but a culture. We are inventing ourselves over and over again. And above all, do it yourself”.

The message from Spotify is crystal clear. What works for Spotify may not work for you at all. Your context may be very different from Spotify’s. Definitely be inspired, know yourself as an organization, set ambitious goals, and so above all, invent yourself.

Why doesn’t their way work for you?

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you building a music player?
• Are you operating globally in a hyper-competitive market?
• Are you in the music industry?
• Are you growing super fast?
• Do you have a start-up mentality?
• have you yet to invent your business model?
• Do you work in a culture where making mistakes is allowed?

Probably not. And then the “Spotify model” doesn’t apply to you.

How then?

Build your own model. Of course, you can be inspired by Spotify and by other scale models of Agile, such as SAFe and LeSS. But don’t make those models an end in themselves, but a means to achieve your goals. Above all, make sure you work on culture first. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Then, with experimentation, make sure you keep figuring out how to organize yourself. Here are some steps to get to your model and how Spotify shapes the steps. For inspiration:

• Determine what you want to fix and achieve with an organizational model. For Spotify: innovate faster than the competition so you can capture the market.
• Define principles on which you want to build your organization. Don’t just do this with the boardroom, but involve team members from across the organization. Create your own manifesto. Like at Spotify:
  • Continuous improvement: At Spotify, part of my work is to look for ways to continuously improve, both personally, and in the wider organization.
  • Iterative development: Spotify believes in short learning cycles, so that we can validate our assumptions as quickly as possible.
  • Simplicity: Scaling what we do is key to Spotify’s success. Simplicity should be your guidance during scaling. This is as true for our technical solutions, as for our methods of working and organizing the organization.
  • Trust: At Spotify we trust our people and teams to make informed decisions about the way they work and what they work on.
  • Servant leadership: At Spotify managers are focused on coaching, mentorship, and solving impediments rather than telling people what to do.
• Also appreciate the good aspects of how you are organized now. Don’t throw away everything you have accomplished so far.
• Explore different models and devise experiments with each other to figure out the best way to organize. This is a journey, with a starting point but no end station. Learn. Learn. Learn. Learn.

Copying a model is not the solution. Getting inspired and continuously discovering for yourself what suits you best is.

Do you want to be inspired about different scaled Agile models so you can start working on a model that suits you, with the best practices of others? Then sign up for the Masterclass Scaling Agile and discover what possibilities there are and how you can apply them in your organization.