IN A DISCREET STUDIO on gentrifying Front Street West in downtown Toronto, a group gathers to eat lunch amid an assortment of brown bags and compostable takeout containers. In the group are a professional musician, a competitive ski racer, an art historian, a brand strategist, a Physics major, an MBA, several geographers, and interior and communication designers. Regardless of background, all share the same title: Innovation Designer.

Welcome to The Moment’s studio headquarters, where purpose — not any one individual — is the boss. And in this case, that purpose is ‘to design a thriving future for us all’. Project teams of employees (dubbed ‘Momenteers’) organize work themselves, from start to finish, with no managerial oversight. Days are punctuated by structured routines (status reports and stand-up project check-ins) and social rituals that include story sharing (first Monday of the month); empathic agile scrums (‘HR-focused Thriving Team circles’); and strategy and new business thought experiments (‘MoDays’).

When The Moment faced possible layoffs in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, its survival plan wasn’t devised by its co-founders. A team was formed with pre-assigned roles, and a solution was delivered: All employees would take a temporary pay cut so that no one had to be laid off. “We put the team first because