One of the companies on the WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces 2007 is Continuum, a Boston-based innovation and design consultancy. This past spring they were featured in an article entitled, “Democratic Principles Making Business More Transparent,” which appeared in the Christian Science Monitor.

Last Thursday and Friday, November 1-2, we had our first WorldBlu Council meeting at Continuum. The WorldBlu Council is a peer-to-peer learning platform for C-level executives of democratic companies on the WorldBlu List. It’s an opportunity for democratic leaders to come together and share best practices, talk through challenges, and learn from one another. Continuum agreed to host the first of three WorldBlu Councils meetings that will be held over the next nine months. The other two Council meetings will be held at Linden Lab in San Francisco and Sedgebrook in Chicago, also WorldBlu List awardees.

Among the participants and speakers at the first WorldBlu Council meetings were George Gendron(pictured at right), former editor-in-chief of Inc. magazine for 20 years and the founder and director of the Clark University Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company magazine and co-author of the best-selling book Mavericks at Work; and Mark Dowd, Co-founder of Creation Step, (an organization that provides seed funding to develop democratic workplaces) and the co-founder of BrainPark (a social networking platform). All three gentlemen are also members of the WorldBlu Global Advisory Group.

Bill Taylor (pictured at left) spoke with the group on Friday morning about his new book tentatively titled, “Hidden Genius: Why the most powerful ideas come from the most unexpected places and how to identify these ideas within others and yourself.” He said that we now live in an “age of participation” and asked, “ How do you as a leader develop the architecture of participation [within your company]?” He talked about several different organizations that are doing this, among them Rite-Solutions, another WorldBlu List awardee. Bill highlighted Rite-Solutions because of the internal predictions market software they developed that allows people to share, evaluate, vote, and eventually capitalize on great ideas. Bill was with us for more than an hour and left us energized and feeling like democratic workplaces are not just for the avant garde but also for those who really understand the future of work. (Thanks Bill!)

One of the highlights of the WorldBlu Council meeting was that we got a chance to tour Continuum. We couldn’t take pictures of everything (due to the proprietary nature of their work) but I did manage to get the ok to share these shots with you.

Some of the fun highlights from the tour:

They have a fantastic dinning room space with two giant tables that used to be bowling alleys. They have wheels on the tables and can move them anywhere.

They have fun magnets with all 140 employee’s pictures and names hanging on the door of the dinning room. Since they are growing so fast, they’re constantly looking for simple ways to keep everyone in the loop about the newest members of the team, and this is one way to do it. They also have a wall of CD covers, with everyone’s picture and a fun write-up about each person is also displayed right as you walk in the front door.

The entire feeling of Continuum was relaxed, fun, and focused. As I walked around and met about a dozen of the employees working there, you could see that people really had a great time working there. They had a light in their eye and they were all very polite and kind and aware of what was going on in the company that day. It was clear that the employees at Continuum are passionate about their work and proud of the collaborative way in which they get it done.

Some of the things that help make Continuum democratic in their daily operations include:

• Truly open communication–both physically and mentally. Their team, from the COO to the newest employee, sit in an open studio format which they’ve found creates an environment that stimulates conversation and collaboration (and squashes stifling hierarchy) through its physical structure.

• Monthly staff meetings that are an “open town forum” format where individual work is shared, concerns are addressed openly and without judgement, and full disclosure of the financial status of the company is shared.

• On-going self-improvement and development of each employee through various training and a thorough, open and involved review process.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to interview Kory Kolligan, COO of Continuum and the lead architecture of its transition from an undemocratic to a democratic workplace eight years ago. Kory (pictured at left) told me, “Organizational democracy eradicates the ‘us-them’ mentality. It prevents people from getting a sinking feeling—there’s no room to be inappropriate in a democratic workplace.” Kory also emphasized the impact organizational democracy has on overall service when he told me, “Being democratic has made us better advisors to our clients.”

It was fantastic to spend two days in such a vibrant democratic workplace. Thank you Continuum for hosting us!

Learn more about Continuum here.