The question seems completely wrong. Obviously, because they can’t. An intern could not possibly let go of a CEO.

But what if they could? Would they? And if not, why?

Right now, you may be thinking, “But Pawel, what do you mean by imagining an intern could fire a CEO? It’s a completely abstract problem.”

It is not. In fact, at Lunar it is possible.

Radical Autonomy

I wrote about our radical way of distributing autonomy many times before. In short, anyone can make any decision (in a structured way). So why don’t people abuse that power?

Why don’t I need to worry that an intern would launch a letting go process for me?

And yes, they totally can.

While this decision is somewhat more complicated than the vast majority of others, anyone has the authority to start this process. Including people who joined us yesterday.

The Dynamic of the Organizational Culture

Whenever we join a new group, we tend to be more withdrawn than whatever is our norm. That’s one of the basic social dynamics.

First, we observe and learn. Subconsciously (or consciously), we look for patterns to understand the group’s norms. What’s acceptable? What’s not acceptable? What’s rewarded? What’s punished?

We orient ourselves in a new environment.

That’s precisely what happens in an organization when a new person joins. Even when rules as written say something, we observe whether it’s really so. After all, if rules contradict the norms, it’s the latter which prevails.

No one will fire the big guns before they learn to navigate a new environment well.

Peer Pressure as Safety Mechanism

OK, but the same intern will still not fire a CEO 6 months later when they already learned the norms. Why?

In a system based on distributed autonomy (again, anyone can make any decision; that’s the ultimate distribution), we have very different power dynamics.

We don’t have a person in power entitled to make the call, that entitlement being the ultimate get out of jail free card. After all, there’s no one else to make that decision.

In this case, anyone can act. But then, such a decision will be judged, challenged, commented on. If it’s controversial, let alone outrageous, people will be very vocal when opposing it.

Through that, we introduced peer pressure as a safety mechanism that basically prevents the most extravagant decisions from being made.

Reputation as Currency

What follows is that whoever volunteers to make any decision makes a bet. A bet of their reputation. If the decision goes well, the bet is won.

The more obvious the decision, the smaller the bet.

After all, if everyone thinks something is a good idea, it’s unlikely that they’ll complain, even if it goes sideways.

It’s a different beast altogether when the call is controversial. If I go against a big group, I better end up right, or my reputation as a decision-maker gets slashed.

Before anyone’s ready to make such a bet, they must accumulate some of that reputation. Which means they will have been around long enough that we no longer talk about an intern firing a CEO.

In fact, when someone is around that long, and they still want to fire me, well, they probably have some damn good arguments.

By the way, if you’re interested, the most radical proposal coming from a fresh hire we’ve ever discussed was changing the salary system. Admittedly, a serious call, yet it didn’t even reach a stage where it was an actual proposed decision. The person gave up way sooner after receiving peer feedback.