Change doesn’t come from the top down. It ripples outward.

Freeing people means freeing organizations

Ripple Organization is an organizational model that moves beyond traditional hierarchical systems, turning an organization into an open platform for entrepreneurship. This network-based system is built on distributed authority, enabling people and teams to operate as autonomous micro-enterprises with explicit roles and purposes, shared rituals, and decisions made where the information resides, while maintaining strong alignment around a common purpose.

Ripple Organization means building an antifragile organization capable of responding to the continuous changes in the socio-economic landscape.

From a new way of organizing to Ripple Organization

Ripple Organization is the way Var Group works today. It stems from the integration and reinterpretation of the principles of Haier’s Platform Organization, the Open Organization, and Holacracy, adapted to the company’s context and evolution.
Today, Var Group’s organization is built around peer-level circles, with defined purposes, responsibilities, and roles, and is guided by four principles: zero distance from the customer, distributed autonomy and accountability, openness to the outside world, and shared leadership. This way of working brings Var Group closer to the market, speeds up decision-making, and enables new entrepreneurial initiatives to grow within the company.

Why do we lead today’s organizations with yesterday’s thinking?
Today, technology, markets, customers, and people’s needs are changing at a pace that no rigid structure can sustain.

People

For centuries, we built organizations to control, order, and predict. In doing so, we created boundaries: silos, waiting times, and distance. Only 21% of workers worldwide feel engaged in their work (Gallup, 2024).

Hierarchy emerged when information was scarce. Today, information flows everywhere, yet decisions still follow the pyramid. The energy is there, but too often it remains trapped.

But something has changed. People are asking for more meaning, autonomy, and the ability to make an impact. They want work to feel as meaningful as other aspects of their lives and to be able to express their full potential.

Market

Hierarchy was designed to control, not to listen. Every layer between the people who meet customers and the people who make decisions costs time, degrades information, and dilutes accountability.

The paradox is that those closest to the market have the least room to act. In Ripple Organization, authority moves to where value is created: teams and micro-enterprises that know the customer are also empowered to respond.

The center no longer filters decisions; it enables them. Greater speed, greater efficiency, and greater closeness to market needs.

The six dimensions of Ripple Organization

Ripple Organization means building an organization that works as a network. That is why its six dimensions are not steps to be completed one after another: they only work when brought together.

The six dimensions of Ripple Organization

  • Transparency
  • Clarity
  • Decisions
  • Rituals
  • Strategy
  • Explicit financial constraints
  • Show more
The six dimensions define the conditions that enable the organization to work in this way. But to become part of everyday practice, they need two threads running through them all: the language the organization uses to interpret and name what happens, and the digital system that supports connection and evolution.

Language

Giving organizational language a name is essential. Words do not simply describe an organization: they define what we can see, discuss, and transform.
Digital system

A infrastructure that supports the work as it actually happens without constraining it, enabling information, decisions, and accountability to flow. Technology makes the organization legible, connected, and able to evolve without recreating informal hierarchies.

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This award was established through a collaboration between the Business Ecosystem Alliance, the Haier Model Institute, and Gary Hamel’s MLab, one of the most influential thinkers in management and innovation. Var Group was the first large Italian company to receive the award in its inaugural edition, recognizing its successful implementation of the RenDanHeYi organizational model (created by Haier Chairman Emeritus Zhang Ruimin). Its fundamental goal is to eliminate the distance between employees, business operations, and end customers—hence “Zero Distance".

This is the second recognition Haier has given Var Group as an established, large, and historically successful company that has risen to the challenge of radically changing its culture, internal behaviors, and organizational systems. The award recognizes organizations’ commitment to moving away from traditional hierarchical and bureaucratic models towards decentralized structures made up of autonomous, collaborative micro-enterprises.

Var Group is among the Top 100 Teal companies worldwide. It was selected for this group from a broad dataset that included 316 organizations analyzed for the report. This recognition identifies Var Group as one of the most representative and influential organizations in the global Teal landscape, distinguished by its adoption of leading-edge work practices built on three fundamental pillars: self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose.

Francesca Moriani has been named one of the world’s 50 most inspiring leaders. The leaders are selected by people who study, communicate, and help shape contemporary management thinking: Thinkers50 Ranked Thinkers and recipients of the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards. Leaders are recognized for the impact they have through their organizations, their contribution to the world of work and society, their purpose, and their commitment to helping others grow professionally.

Do you want to learn more about Var Group’s organizational model?

Read *Riscrivere il potere. Sei dimensioni per trasformare le organizzazioni gerarchiche* by Francesca Moriani and Francesco Frugiuele.