P4Q: A Company in Rhythm with Itself
In the Basque hills of northern Spain, P4Q has quietly grown into a global player in electronic systems design and manufacturing. With nearly 300 employees distributed across Spain, the United States, and China, it operates in sectorswhere precision is non-negotiable: solar energy, rail infrastructure, medical technology, and industrial automation. Yet what makes P4Q notable is not only what it builds, but how it builds it. The company has developed a deeply intentional way of working that mirrors many of the foundational ideas of RenDanHeYi.
This blog post is part of 80+ case studies of progressive organizations we created for the ZeroDX awards 2025. These organizations embody the principles of RenDanHeYi in their work structures:
Zero Distance to customer: Decision what to build is based on insights from the marketplace
Autonomy: Small teams with full decision-making autonomy enable speed in execution
Shared Rewards: Everyone in the micro-enterprise participates in its financial success.
The shift began in 2018, when P4Q found itself at an inflection point. Growth had brought success, but also complexity. Communication was starting to fragment. Decisions slowed. Teams were increasingly isolated from each other, and from the customer. Instead of responding with more hierarchy, P4Q chose a different path. It opened the decision to its people. In an all-company vote, 83 percent supported a new organizational modelrooted in self-management.
What followed was a transformation. It was not framed as such internally, but it is visible in the architecture of how P4Q now works. For those studying RenDanHeYi, the resemblance is striking.
Rather than being structured by traditional departments, P4Q is organized around what it calls client chains. These are three value-oriented streams focused on solar tracking, electronic manufacturing services (EMS), and medical devices. These chains form the backbone of the company. Each contains multiple decentralized teams that operate with a high degree of autonomy and are responsible for specific functions or customer relationships. The teams are small, close to the action, and structured to stay that way.
This chain-based design naturally brings P4Q closer to what RenDanHeYi defines as zero distance. The ability for teams to sense, respond to, and co-create value directly with users is embedded in how they work. The client chain isnot a metaphor. It is an operational reality that connects purpose to output without unnecessary intermediaries.
Coordination across and within these chains is handled by a series of clearly defined part-time roles. Each team designates a facilitator to guide meetings, a pilot representative to interface with chain-level performance forums, a commitment planner to coordinate delivery timelines, and a team developer to nurture team culture and capability. These roles are not managerial. They exist to ensure clarity, communication, and coherence across the system.
This kind of embedded, peer-based alignment resembles what RDHY practitioners refer to as platform building. It isnot central control that holds the organization together, but a structure that enables teams to act as self-contained units while remaining connected to the whole.
Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of P4Q’s model is its rhythm. The entire company operates on a steady cadence of alignment. It begins each year with a General Assembly, amulti-day event where all employees come together to reflect, align, and define the Plan of Ideas and Objectives (PIO). This shared strategic framework is then translated into operational planning across time scales. It includes monthly pilot meetings, weekly commitment planning sessions, and daily team stand-ups.
At the monthly level, teams within each client chain come together to review performance data, surface improvement ideas, and make collective decisions using consent-based processes. In parallel, the Project Development Team, a cross-chain cultural group composed of team developers, focuses on longer-term questions of training, value alignment, and organizational growth. These functions are not add-ons. They are woven into the company’s pulse.
The weekly commitment planning meetings function as the heartbeat of the organization. Teams from each chain assess what was achieved, what was learned, and what must be delivered in the week ahead. These gatherings ensure that action remains coordinated without requiring centralized oversight.
The daily rhythm is simple but powerful. Short, focused stand-ups enable quick alignment, real-time problem-solving, and peer-to-peer accountability. This multilayered operating cadence creates both freedom and focus. It enables what Zhang Ruimin described as self-control and self-evolution at the node level.
None of this depends on exceptional individual leadership. The system is designed to make responsibility ordinary. Teams do not wait to be told what to do. They commit to each other, adjust through dialogue, and rely on structurerather than personality to stay aligned. Financials, customer needs, and internal challenges are shared and addressed openly.
P4Q offers a compelling example of how key principles of the RenDanHeYi model can emerge organically from within an organization. Decision-making authority rests with the teams that are closest to customers and operational realities, reflecting a clear move toward decentralization. Each team works with an awareness of delivery timelines and performance indicators, fostering a P&L-oriented mindset even in the absence of formal micro-enterprise status.Through its client chain structure and weekly commitment planning rhythm, the company maintains consistent proximity to user needs, sustaining zero distance as a practical norm. The internal roles and coordination forumsfunction not as layers of control but as support platforms that allow teams to align without bureaucracy. And underlying it all is a cultural investment in trust, rhythm, and shared ownership that enables self-management not as an ideal, but as a daily practice.
What makes P4Q particularly inspiring is not just the maturity of its system, but the tone of its culture. Employees speak less about freedom, and more about coherence. They talk about doing what we’ve committed to, together.There is no mythology around transformation. Instead, there is a steady discipline of listening, adjusting, and learning.
P4Q has not set out to be a model company. But in many ways, it has become one. It shows what is possible whentrust becomes operational, when rhythm replaces hierarchy, and when people are given space not just to work, but to steer.
