LRN Reviews

Pros

Inspiring Principled Performance and helping companies with environmental management

Cons

Some policies and organization unclear

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management could make decisions faster.

Pros

LRN is a company that is trying to something of real value in the world:

• To help people and businesses around the world do the right thing by inspiring principled performance.
• To prove the value of values by living its own values and while being commercially successful at the same time.

LRN has a clear mission and very high ambitions. It is therefore challenging to be part of and will be extremely rewarding if it succeeds.

LRN has clear values, mission, vision, business principles and strategy that are not just stated then forgotten about, like many other businesses. They are constantly referenced, debated and fundamental to the business.

LRN is a developing business that has shuns normal business structures such hierarchies, functions and authority by title or role. It allows people to demonstrate their natural leadership, to step up and take responsibility. Opportunities to develop and learn are always available as the business itself is developing and growing.

LRN has a lot of thoughtful, intelligent and professional people with varied and impressive careers. Who believe in the mission and purpose of LRN and therefore provide real support and encouragement to their colleagues.

Cons

Despite the Pros stated above, LRN is not an easy place to work. Its core purpose is about values and behaviour and it sets a very high bar on these. Therefore your personal values and behaviour will be examined constantly by yourself and occasionally by your colleagues. It is not just what you do but how you do it that matters and that is not always easy.

LRN is also developing its solutions to help other business change their culture and imbed values and behaviour in their organisation. At the same time it is also developing its own culture towards self-governance. As these are both unique and difficult things to do it does not have all the answers. Process, procedure and the established way of doing things are not always in place and some can find that uncertainty and the lack established structure difficult.

As it is not an easy place to work LRN has had a high turnover and that adds to the difficulty for those who choose to commit to the vision and mission. It’s mission and high ambition does generate strong reactions from some, such as scepticism and cynicism. So you sometimes need a thick skin, be independent of mind and not be easily swayed by the opinion of others.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep investing in the strategic solutions so that we can really start to have impact we want with partners.

Ensure that our core values (Humility, Trust, Passion and Truth) and the Leadership Framework are the constant the guides and references for:
1. how things are done, and
2. how colleagues at all levels are recognised and rewarded.

By having real impact with partners and the intended culture we will have all achieved something we can all be very proud of.

Pros

The passionate and intelligent team
The high caliber of clients and partners
Opportunity to work on cutting edge problems

Cons

Preach flatness but there is still the feeling of top down decision making
Can sometimes feel like the culture is pushed on to you
Room for improvement on offering competitive salaries in the advisory services component of the business

Advice to Senior Management

It is sometimes difficult to get a quick and straight forward answer or decision
Employees have noted that compensation is an area for improvement

Pros

Professional Colleagues combine to collaborate on Innovative thinking with genuine benefits to be gained by the customer base when implemented correctly. Ultimately it is a unique "selling" challenge and certainly not the "run of the mill" proposition.

Cons

If there is a main downside it is the continuing difficulties in getting the delivery correct. Only when the trust has been earned through professional, timely delivery can discussions really begin to elevate to the heights to which LRN aspires to be.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep communicating with the field as there is a definite improvement from before however please also take into account some of the day to day challenges, whether technical or operational, that if unresolved will serve to undermine much of what LRN seeks to achieve in terms of significant partnerships.

Pros

LRN is a transparent company. We have full respect and freedom in LRN as compared to other company.

Cons

In LRN there is slow management decision and less salary increment.

Advice to Senior Management

Should have better management process.

Pros

Great Management. Very VERY smart people working at LRN. Good Vibe. Great changes coming including vacation and the idea of being a "flat" company.

Cons

Communication. People still being in a different mindset. Some leaders still feel they are managers but we dont have managers. Sometimes its hard to take time off due to the workload.

Advice to Senior Management

You are doing a great job! There are some negative people but they always will be. Please treat the people that are there as good as possible. Be open to ideas. Remember that we are all equal. Without a team we would be nothing.

Pros

I have never worked for an organization more inspiring than LRN. This is a great opportunity to go to work with some of the world's best companies to help them be more principled in their behavior, treat their employees better, and implement sustainable business practices. Hearing about the successes of partners who have implemented our ethics, compliance and culture solutions and delivered real benefits and change is energizing and really generates a source of pride and contribution.

LRN colleagues are really smart, credible, enaging, and committed to the mission and purpose of LRN. Many of us form friendships outside of work, and there is a great sense of 'we're in this together' type thinking. In general, people are fun and quite diverse. Probably one of the best aspects of being here.

The HOW philosophy, the book, and all of the other thought leadership that we are able to develop is incredibly powerful and unique. It is great to work for a company with a strong point of view and to see it accepted by high profile organizations like Fortune, BusinessWeek, WEF, and others.

Trying to be an "exemplar" culture is not easy. Sometimes people perceive that we can get too caught up in being overly philosophical with our culture, and it detracts from the core business and create confusion. However, it is also a great challenge to do things noone else has been able to, and if you like solving those kinds of problems then this is a strong element of the work here.

Cons

It is pretty hard to work here day to day. With all of the great thinking, solutions, partners, and people, there are incredibly high expectations of everyone, and an incredibly high workload. There is always a large amount of stress in the organization, a lot of which is sometimes self-inflicted.

We seem to have a hard time prioritizing projects and work. There are a ton of great ideas, and new ones coming every day, and we somehow try to go do them all. Our ability to do as much work as we would like is hampered by the inability to get additional resources fast enough to support the growth of the business and all the new things we want to do.

If you are not a strong willed person who is comfortable challenging your own personality and participating in internal culture and behavior projects, then this is probably not the right work environment. You may receive more negative feedback than positive reinforcement and rewards.

Advice to Senior Management

Make the difficult decisions to prioritize work efforts, and help get faster and more focused progress on items most critical to the strategy. Focus more time on the business fundamentals. Find a way to fix the recruiting challenges and make it easier to bring more people on board. Gain better understanding of the actual amounts of work required to deliver the ideas and vision you have.

Make more of an effort to recognize and reward the contributions of employees. There is a lot more room for celebration of acheivments by individuals and teams. People are one of the biggest assets and we need to not only attract new ones, but work harder to retain the best ones we have. Think about investments in all aspects of the business, including people in addition to office spaces, tools, and products.

Keep doing all the great work on solutions and thought leadership and with partners. This is inspiring and really will make a difference in the world. We do feel good about the end results of the work we are doing.

Company would be a tremendous place to work if we could just figure out how to reduce the stress and daily issues of just trying to get our work done and realize we need to treat employees better.

Pros

People are friendly and work hard. Your colleagues are always there to help you out and work together. If you are not a team player then don't bother working here. It is a must have at t his job.

Cons

sometimes it take a while to get hired on if you are a contractor. If you are a good, hard working person you sometimes have to wait.

Pros

LRN is at it's core an aspirational company. People are drawn to the mission of helping people around the world do the right thing. When we live these values and do what we say we can do, it is a beautiful place to be. Our partners recognize it, coworkers will praise one another for it and we know that we make a difference.

The firm hires individuals who are passionate, interesting, far from cookie cutter and smart. I also meet people who are dedicated to making a difference and are humble about their credentials.

I find myself constantly challenged with situations that are ambigous, that require immediate attention (and handling with care) and requiring smarts/heart/and conviction to solve. On my best of days here, I find myself rising to the challenge. On my toughest days, I feel frustrated. But I always remember two things: there is someone at LRN who can fix this and I can always come back tomorrow for another round of battle.

Cons

Because we are an aspirational company, changes sometimes get made quickly. These decisions can be challenging for colleagues to absorb without context of why we are making these changes and what we hope to accomplish. Sometimes a simple conversation can go a long way.

We sometimes communicate with the wrong medium. Email is a popular medium of communication here and sometimes we forget that walking over to someone's cube can easily solve what 5 emails can't.

We deal with philosophy, ethics and complex ideas. Sometimes HOW you say something is just as important as WHAT you say. Whereas in most companies this may not be an issue, at LRN understanding your audience and how to communicate with them can make the difference between having your point be heard or not.

Advice to Senior Management

People that work at LRN are passionate, driven and eager to see this company become what it aspires to be. We need to continue to build on our environment to allow all colleagues to feel safe in saying what they need to (even when HOW they say it is not perfect).

I think the market place is starting to notice that we made changes and strides from where we were last year. I would love to see us stay on course by continuing to speak our truth, focus on removing barriers to our success and spending our time on creating strategies/processes and opportunities for us to grow. There is a lot of creativity and passion waiting to unleash some great ideas here.

You have started making the right changes (e.g. performance review process was great, unlimited vacation and sharing more information). Please continue to do so. Trust will build with more of your actions.

Pros

1) LRN hires extremely competent individuals and as a result, I am able to learn a great deal from my colleagues
2) LRN colleagues are passionate about our mission and openly discuss issues even when the topics are challenging
3) LRN is supportive of personal growth. I am allowed to stretch myself and take risks with confidence that I will be supported.

Cons

LRN has very little hierarchy. For those with a more traditional mindset, this can be challenging as many people associate their "value" with a title. People who are inspired by the collective mission and goals of the organization they work with - rather than personal titles or status markers - are the types of employees who excel and thrive at LRN.

Advice to Senior Management

Transitioning to a flat organization has taken some time and has not always been easy. I encourage our leadership to stay the course with these efforts as we are seeing many indicators of the success of that transition.