94. Inside Lightheart Entertainment: 4-Year Retrospective Building A Holacratic Organization With Kalle Kaivola

In this latest episode, we welcome Kalle Kaivola, co-founder of Lightheart Entertainment, known for their hit game Mr. Auto Fire (over 16 million downloads). Together, we discuss the company culture and the challenges of building a holacratic culture, inspired by the Teal organization described in the book "Reinventing Organisations" by Frederic Laloux.

Holacracy is a system of self-management where leadership roles are not subject to a traditional hierarchy of command. Instead of having a static job description, individuals in a holacracy assume multiple roles, each associated with a purpose, domain, and accountabilities. It distributes authority and decision-making through a holarchy of self-organizing teams rather than being vested in a management hierarchy.

While it looks great on paper, how does that work in practice? This approach impacts all the layers of what makes a company culture and strategy:

• Who joins the company?


• Who makes the decisions and on what?


• How decisions are being made (not by the CEO or leaders).


• Which games are greenlighted?

Four years since its founding, the team has been growing with this core holacratic culture and delivering proven success with Mr. Autofire. Maybe there are aspects that you can take away from a holacratic culture for your own company. How ready are you to let go of control?

🎥 Watch it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/O4NOnciptDg

💌 Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play for further news: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog⁠⁠

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com