Whenever my co-founder Pat and I discuss Modus, we describe our company as a platform for success. We feel, as Modus Create hit its ninth birthday on March 1, 2020, that this new model has been proven successful.
Whenever we talk about our vision for Modus to the wider team, we get many questions. Usually, these concern the “why”, “how”, and eventually “where” of Modus. The answers to all of these questions revolve around people: our team and our clients.
Why:
We founded Modus Create because we realized that our goal was to disrupt the consulting industry. Our vision was to create an environment where our employees will be challenged, one that encourages continuous learning, and one where all may benefit from our employee’s experiences. This unique environment pushes every consultant we work with to be challenged, leading to substantial personal and professional growth.
How:
When we founded Modus, we wanted a model that did not depend on top-down (command and control) organization structure. We believed these structures created information disparities between different levels of contributors in the org model. That disparity is not in alignment with our vision of Modus.
Instead, we sought to construct a company based on what we experienced when working on distributed software development teams. These teams were functionally organized, providing transparency for team members to understand the value of their work, empowered to make decisions to drive outcomes, and given the autonomy to execute on their decisions. This model has proven to limit information gaps, increase employee engagement, and ultimately improve productivity.
Where:
This attribute of our company is the most fun to describe. We’re based out of Reston, Virginia because Pat and I are local to the area. However, we founded Modus as a global-first company. Some of our founding team members do reside in the US, but some others do not. Nine years in, we recognize that the ability to work remote is one of the steel threads that helps us attract and retain the best talent globally.
Whenever we bring this up, some listeners will respond to say that remote work has many challenges, both organizationally and culturally. We’re able to overcome and manage many of those challenges because our organizing principles and core values align extremely well. We have the tools and processes to measure success via outcomes, not by “counting butts in seats.”
Validation for this model can be gleaned from accolades such as being listed in the Inc. 5000 for five consecutive years and being recognized as one of DC’s fastest growing tech companies by Washington Business journal for two consecutive years. However, the best validation of our model comes from our own team members. We are grateful that many of our distributed team members took the time to meet with us and share a bit of their experience with the world. We compiled those clips into an awesome YouTube video:
As we begin our tenth year, we look ahead at the digital landscape and look forward to growing our platform so that we can continue to make the world better one line of code at a time.
