The story is similar for everyone: First, we fall in love with the idea, study about it, and start moving to put the idea into practice. We begin the project with enthusiasm, however, challenges along the way provoke questions.

We doubt ourselves, the project, and why we started that process in the first place. We may feel an urge to give up, resulting, in many cases, in abandoning the project or a feeling of dissatisfaction with what was achieved.

However, with continuous effort, progress emerges that renews motivation. Achieving the goal brings fulfillment and reflections on the journey. Embracing each phase is important as they are essential parts of the process of creating something exceptional.

All of the above process is natural!

It's crucial to recognize that each step described above is part of a natural journey when we transform ideas into reality. The emotional oscillation, which goes from initial enthusiasm to possible frustrations, is a common and expected response during project development.

However, it doesn't always have to be like this! *Calm Companies* are institutions that seek to understand and tame the uncertainty of creating something new through the creation of healthy profit margins and the use of well-established principles and systems.

Get to know Calm Companies.

A calm company aims to provide exceptional service to customers while improving the lives of the people who work there.

By default, a calm company is profitable. These profits give the company resilience: there's no last-minute rush to pay the payroll or desperation to make a last-minute sale to keep the business running. The company has enough financial margin to weather economic storms.

Moreover, calm companies are fun to work for. The work is generally interesting and enjoyable. The team has been carefully selected and there's a good vibe in meetings.

Calm companies provide meaningful work, healthy interactions, and flexibility for people's lives. If your child is sick at home, you can set work aside to take care of them. If the day is beautiful, you can go for a run and start activities a little later.

Attributes of a Calm Company:

1. Profitable: Calm Companies have a strong financial engine, with good margins. This foundation enables everything else.
2. External and internal purpose: Calm Companies have a strong sense of purpose: "Why are we building this company?" Usually, there's an internal purpose: "improve the lives of people who work here," and an external purpose: "create products that simplify our customers' lives."
3. Freedom and Flexibility: As entrepreneurs, it's natural for us to build businesses to give us more freedom. A Calm Company gives team members the flexibility to live well, pursue hobbies, exercise, take breaks, travel, and connect with family and friends.
4. Fun: Calm Companies produce more opportunities for fun. "What if we organized this event?" "What if we had a team retreat in the mountains?" "What if we put an easter egg on our website that plays a silly song?" "What if we made some funny stickers?". These situations may seem silly from a performance standpoint but they generate bonds and connections that strengthen the company as a whole.
5. Conscious: In a Calm Company, decisions and commitments are made consciously. We ask: will this decision make our lives worse? More stress? Is it aligned with our values? Will this commitment add too much weight to our culture?
6. Sustainable Growth: Calm Companies want to grow, but at a sustainable pace. Growth should serve a higher purpose. Ambition is good, but not at the cost of well-being.
7. Calm Work Environment: Stress and chaos are replaced by clear work goals, boundaries, and communication.
8. Prioritization of Asynchronous Work: Most of the time, a specific individual is not needed, but rather a file, a decision, or information. These can be documented and made available to everyone. Meetings and work interruptions should be avoided and used as a last resort.
9. Use Appropriate Systems: There are dozens of tools like Trello, Asana, Notion, Click Up, Basecamp, and many others that facilitate team management and reduce communication noise. A Calm Company should know the advantages and disadvantages of each tool to understand which is most appropriate for their current situation.

In summary...

As Jason Fried, founder of 37 Signals, highlighted: Chaos shouldn't be the natural state at work. Anxiety isn't a prerequisite for progress. Spending the day in meetings isn't required for success. These are distortions of work - side effects of broken models and the worst practices of following the herd.

• Calm is synonymous with profitability.

‍• Calm means protecting each individual's time and attention.

‍• Calm implies setting reasonable expectations.

‍• Calm is maintaining the workweek at around 40 hours.

‍• Calm is ensuring sufficient free time.

‍• Calm is valuing lean structures.

‍• Calm translates into a clearly outlined future.

‍• Calm opts for meetings only as a last resort.

‍• Calm is expressed through contextual communication.

‍• Calm prioritizes asynchronous actions before demanding real-time interactions.

‍• Calm promotes greater independence and less interdependence.

‍• Calm sustains enduring practices that last long-term.

Systems that help us maintain calm.

At Olympus, we believe that true innovation arises from the perfect combination of solid principles and effective systems. We need sustainable systems that follow coherent principles.

Principles are sets of beliefs that we use as a basis for our decisions.Systems are tools that automate and implement these principles in a way that generates results.

Over the past few years, we have selected a set of validated systems and principles that allow us to maintain the attributes of calm companies while constantly improving our products and creating/validating new ones.

Our approach combines 3 validated systems that apply principles grounded in the attributes we saw above. They are:

1. A system for ideation and idea selection: Small Bets
2. A system for knowledge organization: P.A.R.A
3. A system for project execution management: Shape Up

Shape Up allows us to have short and well-defined work cycles, ensuring focus and productivity. The P.A.R.A. method serves to organize information and tasks efficiently, keeping our projects and areas of responsibility clearly outlined.

Additionally, we adopt the philosophy of Small Bets, which allows us to make small bets on various ideas instead of concentrating all resources on a single project. This strategy minimizes risks and maximizes opportunities for success.

In the upcoming posts, we will explore each of these 3 systems in detail, demonstrating how we use them in practice to go from ideation and selection of which idea to execute to planning, development, and product launch. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the next posts!

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