Stage 2
Deciding What Sort of Organisation
Your Company Should Be

At Aletheian, we run a three step process to help you transform your company to make it as effective as possible.  The three steps can be thought of as Finding out where you are; working out where you want to go; and then taking that journey.

The next stage in the Aletheian process is to work out what sort of organisation would perform best in achieving what your company is trying to achieve. 

If you haven’t taken our quiz to work out what sort of organisation your company is, we recommend that you do that here [link].

There are, of course, an infinite number of possible companies with different characters.  Your company is unique, and is different to any other company out there.  But your company is likely to fall within one of four broad categories of company.   We call them archetypes.  Click on the buttons below to see a brief description of each archetype.

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So, how do these archetypes connect with what you are trying to achieve – your corporate strategy.  Let’s take a few examples.

We all know what budget airlines are like.  We book for a very low fare, but in return we know that customer service willl be minimal and we may have to pay for any extra requirements.  They operate on tiny margins and have to be alert to every cost.  A budget airline is most likely to succeed if it follows the Merchant archetype. 

At the same time, this is a highly competitive industry – so it might be useful for a budget airline to have some Warrior characteristics as well to help it to beat rivals. 

By contrast, a full cost, full service airline that tries to attract Business and First Class travellers wants to attract customers via its high end service.  The approach and ethos of a Servant approach might produce the best results for that airline.

Let us look at some examples in another industry – kitchen companies.  A company that sells a high volume of mass produced kitchen units with a relatively low margin would be best with a Merchant approach.  However, because this is a major purchase and everyone wants to feel like they get their own unique kitchen, many have showrooms and software that allows people to customise their kitchens.  These showrooms are most effective if staffed by helpful assistants with a Servant ethos – although that Servant ethos always needs to be secondary to the Merchant approach in order for the company to make money.

By contrast, a high end kitchen fitter that produces and fits hand made, custom built kitchen units would be most successful adopting a Craftsman approach.  Customers are not very cost sensitive and demand the highest quality product.  Margins can therefore be high – so long as the product is right.  The company’s ability to survive and thrive is entirely dependent on its product, and this is rightfully where its focus will be – the heart of the Craftsman approach.  

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Merchant

A Merchant company is not intrinsically wedded to a particular product or customer base, but it is always looking for a way to deliver its value proposition and to make a profit.   

Ikea is a good example of a Merchant company.  You may not think of them that way as they are quite focused on customers, but making a consistent profit is central to everything they do.  Think of what it is like to walk into an Ikea store.  Central to the experience is the way that they provide you with as many opportunities as they can to buy things – things that you never knew you needed.  They will sell you anything they can make a profit out of, from furniture to plants to tools to electricals to food. 

You might think that a Merchant company would be quite cold and calculating to deal with, but Ikea shows that this is not necessarily the case.  Making a profit does not mean ripping people off or not caring about customers.  Ikea offer value for money – that is central to their value proposition.   Because they are very straightforward about what they offer (and what they don’t) they come across as warm and honest.   That is the power of being authentic with customers – a hallmark of the Aletheian approach.

Ikea has some core staples but it also regularly changes its offering.  This illustrates the flexibility of a Merchant company – they are always on the lookout for new opportunities to deliver on their value proposition and to make a profit. 

Servant

The raison d’être of a servant-oriented organisation is to provide service and value for customers (and people who aren’t yet customers).   The organisation believes that if you provide value and service then you will automatically make profits.

Many companies seek to provide good customer service, but you know that you are dealing with a true Servant company when they provide service to an exacting standard, not to a particular budget.  If it is a luxury brand you feel pampered by their attention.  Even if yours is a low value transaction you still feel that the attention you get is over and above what the scale of the purchase merits – as if the company sincerely values your relationship for its own sake and not just for the value of the purchase you are making.

A service oriented airlines such as Singapore Airlines is a good example of a Servant company.  It defines itself by the quality of service provided to all passengers.  They invest heavily in staff training and the customer experience without looking for an immediate return.  They are confident that superior service will pay off in the long run.  This is reflected in its consistent receipt of industry service awards.

Craftsman

A company that takes the approach of a Craftsmen is dedicated to providing a superb product.  The organisation believes that if you build and sell the best possible product (which could be a physical product, or an App, or an innovative service) then you will automatically make profits.

When you come across a company with a Craftsman character, you will encounter people who are passionate about their service or product and who want you to get the most out of every feature.  They will want their product to be a pleasure to use, and to be useful.  Their passion for their product is almost palpable. 

Apple in the early days under Steve Jobs was an extreme example of a Craftsman company.  Jobs empowered his engineers and developers and shared their passion to get every single little detail right, so that his products worked well and were a pleasure to use.  He obsessed over the feel of the keyboard as much as over making the software intuitive.  His team’s pride in creating their products was symbolised by the fact that inside every early Mac computer (where the average consumer would never see it) was the signature of every engineer who had worked on that model. 

Dyson is another example of a Craftsman company.  After he found that the suction from his vacuum cleaner was disappointing, James Dyson immediately made a prototype of a new type of vacuum using cardboard, drawing inspiration from the sawdust extraction fan he had seen at a local sawmill.   He spent the next 10 years obsessively trying to get the product right, making over 5,000 prototypes before he felt that his vacuum cyclotronic cleaner was ready to be put in the hands of consumers.  

Warrior

A company with a Warrior spirit is entirely mission focused.   That mission might be to beat the competition and become number one in its sector, or it might be to achieve some other commercial or social goal.  The organisation believes that success is defined in terms of that goal and that other measures (such as profitability) are just side effects.

Intel is a good example of a Warrior company.   It is entirely focused on its mission to create the very best processors, and to retain its position by beating the competition through every new generation of computers.  Their mission is never complete, because there is always the next product to develop.

It can be quite thrilling to deal with a Warrior company.  People don’t deal with top law firms or investment banks such as Goldman Sachs because it gives them a warm feeling.   They do so because of their relentless professionalism, their dedication to excellence and their strong desire to win.  It makes you feel like your company is one of the very best and deserves the best.  It can also feel exciting to be around such a full on, high calibre organisation if you are not used to it, even if you also feel like a bit player in your own transaction. 

A word of caution.  Many companies have missions of one sort or another, but that does not make them all Warrior companies.  For the true Warrior company the mission is all consuming – it is not simply a way to achieve some further objective.

Aletheian Advisors

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