Who we are and what we value at Management 3.0
At Management 3.0 we have a strong purpose:
Redefining leadership to create happier people and successful organizations.
We break this down and define we want to “Become the predominant mindset & leadership practice in organizations around the world” by “Co-creating and sharing the knowledge, skills, and tools to enrich Agile Leadership through our global facilitators and community.”
We strive to fulfill this purpose by various activities and products. Our biggest pillar is our workshops: Through our global network of licensed facilitators we bring the Management 3.0 mindset and practices to a worldwide audience: Online or in-person, public or inhouse workshops, starting with a Foundation Workshop or our specialized Agility in HR workshop, deepening the learning with our Agile Leadership Workshops.
To make change sustainable is very important for us, creating happier people and successful organizations is a long term effort. That’s why we foster networking, exchange and growth through our Forward events as well as our membership community. To make it even more sustainable we plan to intensify our efforts in offering inhouse training programs and transformation projects to large companies and groups.
How is Management 3.0 as a company structured?
Management 3.0 BV works as a self-organized company within a more extensive network. While the extended team of Regional Representatives builds the bridge to local facilitators and awareness activities, the core team works on a global scale. We live what we preach, with all management responsibilities distributed within the team. Our CEO (the Chief Engagement Officer) is a regular team member who has the task of representing the company to the owners and in legal and administrative matters.
The ownership of the company is distributed in two groups. Around 23% of the ownership certificates are held by 170 co-owners under the umbrella of the Stichting Administratie Kantoor Happy Melly One with Jurgen Appelo as director of the foundation.
The majority of shares are held by Wemanity, a consulting group for agile transformations predominately working in France, Benelux, and Morroco. 2022 Wemanity was bought by Reply. The group specializes in consulting, system integration, and digital services.
While working autonomously, Management 3.0 is included in reporting structures and works on shared business opportunities with Wemanity and Reply.
Our ecosystem doesn’t stop there, though!
We build our work on many fantastic stakeholders who help us spread our mission of redefining leadership worldwide. Our almost 500 facilitators help managers and teams to be happier and more successful by conducting interactive workshops and using our tools in their daily work practice. Together, they trained more than 100,000 attendees, making an impact on thousands of organizations and lives. More than 350 Community Members learn and practice together on our interactive platform and live events to become better and future-proof leaders. In our online and in-person Forward events, attendees from all continents connect and learn about the newest trends in agile leadership and how to implement modern management tools in an organization.
On average, our webshop buyers place around 1,400 orders in our shop per year by thus bringing our games and merchandise to even more organizations and people. The message about modern leadership practices is spread even further with all our followers, readers, and podcast listeners for whom we produce thought-provoking content on a daily basis.
The ownership of the company is distributed in two groups. Around 23% of the ownership certificates are held by 170 co-owners under the umbrella of the Stichting Administratie Kantoor Happy Melly One with Jurgen Appelo as director of the foundation.
The majority of shares are held by Wemanity, a consulting group for agile transformations predominately working in France, Benelux, and Morroco. 2022 Wemanity was bought by Reply. The group specializes in consulting, system integration, and digital services.
While working autonomously, Management 3.0 is included in reporting structures and works on shared business opportunities with Wemanity and Reply.
Our ecosystem doesn’t stop there, though!
We build our work on many fantastic stakeholders who help us spread our mission of redefining leadership worldwide. Our almost 500 facilitators help managers and teams to be happier and more successful by conducting interactive workshops and using our tools in their daily work practice. Together, they trained more than 100,000 attendees, making an impact on thousands of organizations and lives. More than 350 Community Members learn and practice together on our interactive platform and live events to become better and future-proof leaders. In our online and in-person Forward events, attendees from all continents connect and learn about the newest trends in agile leadership and how to implement modern management tools in an organization.
On average, our webshop buyers place around 1,400 orders in our shop per year by thus bringing our games and merchandise to even more organizations and people. The message about modern leadership practices is spread even further with all our followers, readers, and podcast listeners for whom we produce thought-provoking content on a daily basis.
Who is behind Management 3.0?
Our core team consists of nine freelancers from all over the world. While this is our ultimate favorite we also have other projects, are entrepreneurs or freelancing for others, too.
Our values are what drives how we work and the decisions we make individually and as a team. We identified that Fun, Collaboration, and Trust are the backbone of who we are as a team and a constant reminder of what’s important to us when interacting with each other and stakeholders where these show up as Playfulness, Co-creation, and Transparency. Learn more about our team
Jurgen Appelo has left the team in 2017 to focus on other projects. He is not involved in the daily business, yet he is still the founder, the representative of the co-owners as well as content creator of some of our modules.
Also transparency is one of our strongest standards. As a team and as a company, we like to be as open and honest as we can with each other, our shareholders, community members and everyone who believes in what Management 3.0 has to offer.
As a result we believe in financial transparency publishing our revenue, webshop income and development of facilitators. Our salaries are out in the open as well. Each month, every member chooses what commitment level they feel they can do based on how many days a week they can commit to. Our commitment levels scale from 20 percent (commitment level = 1) up to 100 percent (commitment level = 5) and so everyone chooses the level that fits their situation.
Salaries are calculated using a simple formula: (country-dependent base salary) x (commitment level). We also do not distinguish the role you play, you don’t have to fit into a box. In fact, we create our own titles based on how we see ourselves.
In addition to salaries, we use Merit Money in order to share and show our appreciation for our colleagues’ work. Each month we get 100 points to distribute among team members, via Bonus.ly. When the company makes a profit, points are converted to money, which is paid out during the year. Whenever we make profit in a quarter, we roll the dice and if it lands on six we get lucky.
Our values are what drives how we work and the decisions we make individually and as a team. We identified that Fun, Collaboration, and Trust are the backbone of who we are as a team and a constant reminder of what’s important to us when interacting with each other and stakeholders where these show up as Playfulness, Co-creation, and Transparency. Learn more about our team
Jurgen Appelo has left the team in 2017 to focus on other projects. He is not involved in the daily business, yet he is still the founder, the representative of the co-owners as well as content creator of some of our modules.
Also transparency is one of our strongest standards. As a team and as a company, we like to be as open and honest as we can with each other, our shareholders, community members and everyone who believes in what Management 3.0 has to offer.
As a result we believe in financial transparency publishing our revenue, webshop income and development of facilitators. Our salaries are out in the open as well. Each month, every member chooses what commitment level they feel they can do based on how many days a week they can commit to. Our commitment levels scale from 20 percent (commitment level = 1) up to 100 percent (commitment level = 5) and so everyone chooses the level that fits their situation.
Salaries are calculated using a simple formula: (country-dependent base salary) x (commitment level). We also do not distinguish the role you play, you don’t have to fit into a box. In fact, we create our own titles based on how we see ourselves.
In addition to salaries, we use Merit Money in order to share and show our appreciation for our colleagues’ work. Each month we get 100 points to distribute among team members, via Bonus.ly. When the company makes a profit, points are converted to money, which is paid out during the year. Whenever we make profit in a quarter, we roll the dice and if it lands on six we get lucky.
How does Management 3.0 earn money?
Our facilitators pay a yearly license depending on their country, this is making around 30% of our overall revenue including additional licenses for our Agility in HR facilitators. The country-dependance is very important for us, to make it fair for the people, and affordable. Besides this yearly fee to be licensed facilitator and to have access to our courseware, material and network, we ask for a fee per conducted workshop. This is also country-dependent and it is based on the workshop hours. We call this event fee and it makes around half of our revenue. You see: Workshops are our main business. Fees from issuing our Certificate of Practice are 1% of our overall revenue. You can find our fees here.
Apart from that we have our webshop through which we sell our beautiful games and merch. This is making around 9%. Our membership community 6%.
Apart from that we have our webshop through which we sell our beautiful games and merch. This is making around 9%. Our membership community 6%.
How does Management 3.0 spend money?
When it comes to spending money our biggest costs are the team costs. This makes 40% of our overall operations. In months with a high workload we have bigger costs, in summer months with vacation time it’s less. Overall we can say it’s making about 40%.
More than a quarter we spent on royalties. What is this? For every workshop our facilitators hold they pay event fees. Out of these event fees we keep 50% for our operations and 50% get reserved for royalties. These are paid to the content creators and translators depending on which modules were used in the respective workshops. Content creators of the Management 3.0 courseware are Jurgen Appelo, Ralph van Roosmalen, a company called Astrakhan, Christof Braun and Sam Mednick. As we offer our courseware not only in English but also in Portuguese, Spanish, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Hungarian, also the courseware translators get their share. Every quarter we look up how often a module has been used. If it was used in English, the module creator receives the 50% of the event fee, if it was used in another language, for example Spanish, of these 50% the module creator receives 75% and the translator the other 25%.
15% of our expenses are used on tools such as Workshop Butler, or our CRM, Zapier, and such.
12% are used for operational expenses such as our team retreats (we don’t have an office but meet twice a year), Regional Representatives, Stripe and Paypal fees (ya, they are quite high indeed), our accounting, business travel, costs for our Forward conference, marketing and so much more.
And finally 6% we are spending on the webshop. We earn with the webshop, but we also spend a lot: For the printing, the handling, the shipping.
More than a quarter we spent on royalties. What is this? For every workshop our facilitators hold they pay event fees. Out of these event fees we keep 50% for our operations and 50% get reserved for royalties. These are paid to the content creators and translators depending on which modules were used in the respective workshops. Content creators of the Management 3.0 courseware are Jurgen Appelo, Ralph van Roosmalen, a company called Astrakhan, Christof Braun and Sam Mednick. As we offer our courseware not only in English but also in Portuguese, Spanish, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Hungarian, also the courseware translators get their share. Every quarter we look up how often a module has been used. If it was used in English, the module creator receives the 50% of the event fee, if it was used in another language, for example Spanish, of these 50% the module creator receives 75% and the translator the other 25%.
15% of our expenses are used on tools such as Workshop Butler, or our CRM, Zapier, and such.
12% are used for operational expenses such as our team retreats (we don’t have an office but meet twice a year), Regional Representatives, Stripe and Paypal fees (ya, they are quite high indeed), our accounting, business travel, costs for our Forward conference, marketing and so much more.
And finally 6% we are spending on the webshop. We earn with the webshop, but we also spend a lot: For the printing, the handling, the shipping.
The history of Management 3.0
In 2010 Jurgen Appelo published the book, Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders. He then wrote another book, Workout, published in 2014, introducing games, tools and practices to engage people, improve work and to delight clients. This was followed by offering these insights and tools as workshops and by another book, Managing for Happiness, published in 2016.
To put the company’s tools and philosophies into action, Jurgen established a fully remote, self-organized team. This team was and continues to be dedicated to enhancing people’s workplace happiness. Initially named Happy Melly, the company served as an overarching entity for various organizations dedicated to fostering workplace happiness. Among these entities was Happy Melly Express, which facilitated endeavors like the publication of the Workout book. You can find entertaining videos from that time period here and here. Notably, Management 3.0 was also part of this “umbrella.”
It was an experimental company right from the start. And people were able to buy shares in it. The co-owners.
During the Happy Melly days, the origins of what is now known as the “Happiness at Work Podcast” can be traced back. The first episode, which featured an interview with Jurgen Appelo discussing the concept of happiness, debuted in July 2016.
In 2017 Jurgen decided to step back from Happy Melly and Management 3.0 to have time for new projects. The team had grown and was able to handle the operations and business themselves. Ralph van Roosmalen took over as a CEO. In an organization without hierarchies this was more of a representative role.
End of 2018 Happy Melly went on vacation. In 2019 it was mutually agreed she would not return to the place she was before. Jurgen sold the majority of his shares to a company called Wemanity, the company was renamed Management 3.0 BV. Jurgen took Happy Melly with him to gather his projects under this umbrella. In the same year we introduced our Supporter program, a Management 3.0 Community.
In March 2020, in response to the pandemic, we released our full online workshop, the Fundamentals Online Workshop. In July 2020 the first Forward event was held: Forward Webinars. In November 2020 we hosted the first Forward Virtual conference. In the same year we also released our ICAgile-accredited Agility in HR workshop.
A lot has transpired since that time. Ralph van Roosmalen departed from the team, leading to Katharina William assuming the role of CEO. Wemanity underwent an acquisition by Reply. The Supporter program was discontinued in favor of a more thorough approach; a Community Builder was recruited, resulting in the establishment of the Management 3.0 Membership Community.
The Forward conference successfully took place both in-person and virtually in December 2022, adopting a hybrid format in Berlin and online. This marked a significant milestone. And the Forward concept is continuously evolving to serve the needs of the organization better.
The introduction of new follow-up workshops, specifically the Agile Leadership Workshops, also added to the repertoire.
In the current landscape of August 2023, the introduction of the Facilitator Growth Path is a notable highlight. This initiative charts a course for nearly 500 facilitators globally. Additionally, a strategic shift at Management 3.0 involves actively engaging major corporations in internal training programs and transformation endeavors. This collective effort aims to redefine leadership, fostering greater happiness among individuals and promoting the success of organizations.
To put the company’s tools and philosophies into action, Jurgen established a fully remote, self-organized team. This team was and continues to be dedicated to enhancing people’s workplace happiness. Initially named Happy Melly, the company served as an overarching entity for various organizations dedicated to fostering workplace happiness. Among these entities was Happy Melly Express, which facilitated endeavors like the publication of the Workout book. You can find entertaining videos from that time period here and here. Notably, Management 3.0 was also part of this “umbrella.”
It was an experimental company right from the start. And people were able to buy shares in it. The co-owners.
During the Happy Melly days, the origins of what is now known as the “Happiness at Work Podcast” can be traced back. The first episode, which featured an interview with Jurgen Appelo discussing the concept of happiness, debuted in July 2016.
In 2017 Jurgen decided to step back from Happy Melly and Management 3.0 to have time for new projects. The team had grown and was able to handle the operations and business themselves. Ralph van Roosmalen took over as a CEO. In an organization without hierarchies this was more of a representative role.
End of 2018 Happy Melly went on vacation. In 2019 it was mutually agreed she would not return to the place she was before. Jurgen sold the majority of his shares to a company called Wemanity, the company was renamed Management 3.0 BV. Jurgen took Happy Melly with him to gather his projects under this umbrella. In the same year we introduced our Supporter program, a Management 3.0 Community.
In March 2020, in response to the pandemic, we released our full online workshop, the Fundamentals Online Workshop. In July 2020 the first Forward event was held: Forward Webinars. In November 2020 we hosted the first Forward Virtual conference. In the same year we also released our ICAgile-accredited Agility in HR workshop.
A lot has transpired since that time. Ralph van Roosmalen departed from the team, leading to Katharina William assuming the role of CEO. Wemanity underwent an acquisition by Reply. The Supporter program was discontinued in favor of a more thorough approach; a Community Builder was recruited, resulting in the establishment of the Management 3.0 Membership Community.
The Forward conference successfully took place both in-person and virtually in December 2022, adopting a hybrid format in Berlin and online. This marked a significant milestone. And the Forward concept is continuously evolving to serve the needs of the organization better.
The introduction of new follow-up workshops, specifically the Agile Leadership Workshops, also added to the repertoire.
In the current landscape of August 2023, the introduction of the Facilitator Growth Path is a notable highlight. This initiative charts a course for nearly 500 facilitators globally. Additionally, a strategic shift at Management 3.0 involves actively engaging major corporations in internal training programs and transformation endeavors. This collective effort aims to redefine leadership, fostering greater happiness among individuals and promoting the success of organizations.
