New Work Hacks: 50 Inspirations for Modern and Innovative Work 3658330082, 9783658330088

Citation preview

Anna Schnell Nils Schnell

New Work Hacks 50 Inspirations for Modern and Innovative Work

New Work Hacks

Anna Schnell • Nils Schnell

New Work Hacks 50 Inspirations for Modern and Innovative Work

Anna Schnell MOWOMIND GbR Hamburg, Germany

Nils Schnell MOWOMIND GbR Hamburg, Germany

ISBN 978-3-658-33008-8 ISBN 978-3-658-33009-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33009-5

(eBook)

This book is a translation of the original German edition „New Work Hacks“ by Nils Schnell and Anna Schnell, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH in 2019. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors. # Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Preface

We are sitting for a short break on the Philippine island Palawan at the beautiful Napcan Beach and for the first time on our #modernworktour we have the peace and silence and time to let our impressions sink in and process them. At this point, we have already visited 14 countries and gained insights into innovative companies in the Balkans and the STAN countries, among others, and met inspiring people in Mongolia and China. We will work in total with over 120 companies in 34 countries during our initiative. Inspired by their ideas, stories and ways of working, we once again ask ourselves how we can best support and spread modern and innovative work beyond our own daily work. Again and again we find that our experiences around formats, methods and challenges are perceived as stimulating and also inspire the people on our journey and invite them to break new ground themselves and challenge the status quo in their companies. Inspired by this, we talk about the various possibilities that we ourselves use in our work at MOWOMIND or have observed in others, and are pleased to discover that an impressive list has already been compiled here. Looking through it, we see that there are different hacks and tricks that can stimulate the way of thinking in New Work in different ways or can be integrated into the work through concrete formats. We enjoy them ourselves, and we decide to write down the 50 most important impulses from over the last 10+ years. What begins on a white sandy beach is put on paper or Google Drive in the Mecca of digital nomads and backpackers in Bali and continued all the way to our home in Hamburg. We hope that with this book we can also pass on the spirit and élan of our journey and make New Work more accessible worldwide. This book is intended for all those who want to make more sense in their everyday work and focus more on people and their interactions. The New Work Hacks are for those who want to enable more learning in their working environment and share knowledge. We would like to show you as a reader what small impulses and big changes are possible to actively shape the future of work in the here and now. To become part of the change yourself and to be a role model for others at work and to be able to show what is possible when you try out new things and leave your routines with passion, joy and courage. If you would like more information about the New Work Hacks, scan the QR Code that redirects you to our website.

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We are looking forward to hearing from you afterwards and are happy about feedback or discussions about and in the spirit of New Work. Feel free to write us at info@mowomind. com, join our ‘Modern Work Family’ on LinkedIn and invite us to your company. But first of all, we wish you good suggestions, inspiring impulses and much fun reading! Hamburg, Germany

Anna Schnell Nils Schnell

About the Authors

Anna Schnell Managing Director MOWOMIND - enabling purpose-driven work Expert for Change and New Work Certif. Coach, facilitator and trainer Author of factual and scientific contributions Several years of experience in international learning contexts and business Nils Schnell Managing Director MOWOMIND - enabling purpose-driven work Expert for New Work and Leadership Certif. Coach and facilitator Several years of experience in international business contexts Constructivist and founder of meaning

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About the Authors

Anna Schnell and Nils Schnell with MOWOMIND support companies in international contexts and are the founder of the international Modern Work Award. With their work experience in 40 countries inclusive of their #modernworktour to 34 countries, they are experts in modern ways of working and the future of work.

Contents

Introduction or the “Why” of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Why . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Objective and Content of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Book Is Structured as Follows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Whom the Book Is Not Suitable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 1 3 4

What Exactly Is New Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Work Based on Frithjof Bergmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Work in the Current Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “New Work in a Miniskirt”: What New Work Just Isn’t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tabletop Soccer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Free Fruits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yoga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Remote Working . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No More Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Change Work-Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 5 6 11 11 12 12 12 12 13 13

Focus and Added Value of the New Work Hacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How the New Work Hacks Are Structured . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Structure of the New Work Hacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How to Read the New Work Hacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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All 50 New Work Hacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All-Hands Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ask Me Anything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Community of Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Company Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Core Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cross-Functional Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contents

Decision-Making Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Delegation Poker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disruption Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Estimation Poker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feedback Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flexible Working Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fuck Up Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Golden Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hackathon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In-House Trainings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Iterative Working with PDCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Job Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Job Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kanban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Knowledge-Sharing Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leadership Roundtable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lifestyle Perks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mood Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Meeting Room Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Meeting Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mission Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Facilitation Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Offside Teamwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Onboarding and Offboarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Open Coffee Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pairing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pool Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Postmortem Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prime Directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Professional Internships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Retrospectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Role Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shared Pain Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shift to Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spice Girls Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Start-Stop-Continue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Status Quo Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Team Bootstrapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Visual Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35 39 42 45 48 51 54 56 59 61 64 66 69 72 75 78 80 83 86 88 90 92 95 98 101 104 106 108 111 114 116 118 122 124 127 130 132 135 137 140 143

Contents

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Week of Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Desired Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Next Steps: Further Impulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Can a Company Modernize Itself? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Modern Work/New Work Maturity Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Should Be Considered When Implementing New Work Hacks? . . . . . . . . . What Are Possible Challenges When Implementing New Work Hacks? . . . . . . . Further Questions for Your Own Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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151 151 152 154 156 157

Outro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Life in the “True North” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Every Initiative Counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

159 159 160 161

Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Introduction or the “Why” of the Book

The Why So why now this book about New Work Hacks? What added value can they bring you? With this book, we want to contribute to a better working world, to show that small changes and experiments can bring great potential in a company to life. We want to give concrete suggestions for actual applications and not glorify the hyped working world around football tables, free fruit and an open space workplaces. We want to share our experience, because we think it makes sense to get directly applicable impulses in addition to the exciting discussion about New Work and the demonstration of modern work. We want you to get a good overview and quick insight into New Work and have prepared 50 New Work Hacks for you as handy as we can.

Objective and Content of the Book In this book, we will show you concrete tips and tricks that are practical and easy to implement. Many books now deal with New Work and the challenges of modern work in general. The consequences of digitalization and technology for us humans and our society are often the focus of attention. All these books are justified and contribute to a better understanding of New Work. But you can feel these changes yourself every day, see them in your team and your company or how they influence you. What we have not seen so far is a book that shows successful New Work tips for direct application, for concrete impulses and changes for your own further development: Clearly arranged, with tips for implementation and ideas for dealing with possible challenges. Concise, practical examples should also show you how a New Work Hack can actually be implemented and integrated.

# Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 A. Schnell, N. Schnell, New Work Hacks, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33009-5_1

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Introduction or the “Why” of the Book

The aim is that every manager, every team and every individual can use our hacks and try them out in the company and implement them if necessary. Previous knowledge of new work and methods/formats is certainly helpful, but certainly not mandatory. The desire for meaningful change, the attentive perception of unused potential and the impulse to want to improve something are already incentive enough for successful further development, common and new ways in the working world—and the ideal starting point for reading this book. The aim is to provide concrete suggestions and impulses that add value and noticeably improve work and communication within the team and the company. It is important for us to emphasize that New Work is not only relevant to or adds value for Tech/IT companies and start-ups. Wherever people work together, communicate with each other and make themselves understood, there is potential for further development, for growing together and the support of our New Work Hacks. In addition to the familiar industries and typical environments, modern and innovative work can for example also be done in a joinery, a law firm or in the food sector. For instance, we have introduced retrospectives at a Hamburg day-care centre that make the already stressful everyday life of kindergarten teachers easier and allow them to focus more on the children they care for. Or our impulses for an agile law firm management could help Kanban Boards to organize the case work of lawyers in Germany more clearly. The decisive factor is the approach, i.e. how we organize our joint work. It is becoming increasingly important to strengthen communication and interaction. Tools as well as formats and methods simplify these sometimes confusing processes and are improved by hacks. Of course, our New Work Hacks are not a panacea, but rather a selection like at a modern market stall: Everything can be read and viewed, what is considered helpful can be tried out and should be reflected upon. Every person, every team, every company is different—accordingly there is no ideal shopping list for New Work Hacks that always works. Every New Work Hack can be a helpful support for your own concern, if it fits the situation, the context and the people involved. For this reason, today we no longer talk about best practices, but about good practices. Good application experience and successful implementations of a certain learning format, for example, cannot always be fruitful in another company. The reasons for this are diverse and not always comprehensible—every company is different, every company culture is as well. When experimenting with and implementing New Work Hacks, we recommend that you always explain the underlying reason to the people, in order to explain and make comprehensible the sense and potential added value of the initial extra effort. Ultimately, new ways of working together can only be successfully pursued and sustainably integrated into the company together. The New Work Hacks provide impulses on three levels, each with its own goal and added value. The New Work Hacks in this book can

The Book Is Structured as Follows

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1. inspire and stimulate, 2. be implemented and tested, 3. improve and further develop existing structures and procedures. The use of New Work Hacks should therefore not be pursued exclusively, but there are certainly equivalent alternatives that contribute to change. In Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, we advised a young start-up and presented some hacks to the management team. After a stimulating discussion, the leadership team did not implement a specific hack, but based on our suggestions they reflected on their own approaches, communication channels and delegation skills. In this way, changes were initiated that would not have happened without the impulses from the hacks. The management team had noticed that despite growth, they were still clinging too tightly to many tasks and that it was urgently recommended to regain more strategic focus and at the same time give more responsibility to the employees. In summary, we can state that a successful impulse is more important than the dull or pointless implementation of a New Work Hack that does not fit the company. Anything that stimulates and improves cooperation and questions previous structures holds the potential for further development. On which level this happens should be tried and tested. It is a matter of gathering experience and orienting one’s own way of thinking towards New Work. The New Work Hacks, which vary in terms of effort and scope, offer an ideal and flexible basis for this and provide significant support for cooperation and successful further development.

The Book Is Structured as Follows • New Work—A short, concise chapter on the origins and starting point of New Work, the influence of Frithjof Bergmann and the embodied practice of New Work in the present day. • Reading the New Work Hacks—An insight into the focus and structure of the New Work Hacks. Practical questions will support the added value of reading the New Work Hacks. • 50 New Work Hacks—Here the 50 New Work Hacks are listed and explained in alphabetical order. • Next Steps—Impulses on how the New Work Hacks can be used to be successfully integrated in your own company. Requirements, possible procedures and tips are shown here. • Outro—The courageous look into a New Work world, in which modern work takes place according to the lived values and cornerstones of New Work and significantly shapes work and society.

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Introduction or the “Why” of the Book

• The appendix contains an overview of the 50 New Work Hacks and their systematization, which shows how complex and demanding individual New Work Hacks are and who can use them. If you would like more information about the New Work Hacks, scan the QR Code that redirects you to our website.

For Whom the Book Is Not Suitable The New Work Hacks should actively contribute to further development and change. The book is therefore not particularly suitable for all those who are fundamentally opposed to change. For those who prefer to work in a context where nothing changes for as long as possible and who therefore prefer to keep their heads high, this book is not recommended. If you as a reader prefer to be sedated because everything else seems rude to you, if you feel that your position and title are not sufficiently appreciated, and if you as a manager want to continue to decide everything on your own in the future, this book could well rob you of your precious time. Is it important to you to control your employees, to plan them only as a resource and to develop them only as far as you need them? Then please put this book aside now! Otherwise it could happen that you will be stimulated after all and that meaningful work after reading the book will no longer seem out of the question for you. In this case, reading the book is at your own risk.

What Exactly Is New Work?

New Work Based on Frithjof Bergmann New Work was established in the late 1970s in Flint, Michigan, USA, at that time the largest production site of General Motors (GM). Frithjof Bergmann was confronted with the problem in the automobile city that more and more jobs were being lost due to automation and that mass layoffs were to occur. He noticed that the work does not disappear completely, but is merely shortened, which led him to a counter-proposal at GM that was very revolutionary at the time: Everyone keeps their job, but only works 6 months a year (Hornung 2018). According to Bergmann, the other half of the year should be used to find out what the workers “really, really want” and how they can earn money with it. According to Bergmann, a “horizontal cut” should therefore be made instead of pushing half of the city’s inhabitants into unemployment. Together with like-minded people Bergmann founded the first New Work-Centre (Bergmann 2017, p. 13). In his conversations with the assembly line workers at GM in Flint, he repeatedly encountered the phenomenon that they could hardly develop passion and happiness in their existence and through their work. The people seemed to him to be able to bear their work until the weekend or until retirement, just as one can bear a cold. He still calls this “poverty of desire” and thus summarizes the absence of passion in one’s own existence and the deficit of understanding the meaning of one’s own activity (t3n Magazin 2019). Bergmann concluded that work can, on the one hand, give people life or fill them with life and, on the other hand, take life or make them ill and weaken them, which he calls the “polarity of work” (Bergmann 2017, p. 14). These two perspectives reinforced his idea that work needs to be fundamentally changed and rethought: the New Work approach was born as an attempt to support people in a competent, professional and empathetic way in what they really, really want and to empower them in their existence.

# Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 A. Schnell, N. Schnell, New Work Hacks, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33009-5_2

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What Exactly Is New Work?

The emphasis on wanting by doubling “really, really” is intended to make it clear that this is not a one-time consideration, but rather a matter of going into an examination of one’s own desire over and over again and questioning it. Because what you really, really want, Bergmann claims, is not a glass Cinderella shoe that you find once and that fits forever. He sees New Work as a concept in which people are much more likely to ask themselves questions they would otherwise not ask, which characterizes the philosophical character of New Work (Bergmann n.d.). To regard work as a strengthening or fulfilling part of life and to actively shape it, Bergmann takes up the aspect of community. He assumes that New Work will prevail in the context of a New Economy, in which the focus is on the local and social production of goods such as food, clothing, housing etc. in limited space using the latest technologies. The somewhat unwieldy term “high-tech self-providing” or “new farming” means that people deal with their work in a meaningful, inventive, smart and imaginative way, bringing them joy of life rather than taking it away (Bergmann 2017, p. 21). And finally, New Work is also a practical approach, in that it takes a concrete look at how new products are created and how money can be earned. In doing so, we want to take advantage of the opportunities that digitalization and technology provide us with. According to Bergmann, the third aspect of New Work, the development of a new culture, is made possible with new products and articles (Bergmann 2017, p. 38) (see Table 1). According to Frithjof Bergmann, New Work is therefore a far-reaching and holistic approach that focuses on resource-oriented and meaningful living and working in a digital and technologized environment, which creates new products and thus enables people to make a living.

New Work in the Current Context Today we are in a similar situation as Frithjof Bergmann was almost 40 years ago: The concept of gainful employment as we know it today is increasingly questioned, as work is being shortened and changed by globalization, digitalization and technologization (Bergmann and Friedman 2007, p. 16). While machines back then replaced mainly physical human abilities such as strength and speed, knowledge work is now being taken over, such as answering my questions in an automated customer service using chatbots. Parts of the recruiting process can already be supported by artificial intelligence (AI), and the tendency is rising sharply. In Almaty, Kazakhstan, we met the founder of a start-up company that specializes in bots that focus on the recruitment process in the company. Such developments increase the importance of New Work, as the changes in our society will be more profound than we can imagine so far. "

New Work is first and foremost an attitude and a way of thinking—it is therefore all about the “mindset”.

New Work in the Current Context

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Table 1 Triad of new economy—new work—new culture (in reference to Bergmann 2017, p. 24) Concept Outcome

Question Example

New economy Decentralized, collaborative, state-of-theart production of goods What strengthens us? Green/sustainable fashion in small production facilities in Europe

New Work Meaningful life and work

New culture New products and earning opportunities

What do we really, really want? Quality clothing without child labour and environmental pollution

What helps us and how much is it worth to us? Trousers made of bamboo fibres, jacket made of rhubarb fibres

In times in which computers are taking over knowledge work in ever greater proportions—similar to industrialization—the search for the meaning of our work—what we really want—is essential. This can and should be seen in New Work as an opportunity for each individual. However, this understanding of work goes far beyond flexible working hours and remote working. Among other things, it is about keeping one’s own thinking, i.e. one’s own mindset, flexible and regularly questioning routines. Interesting visible and audible examples of a Mindset Shift are the way of communication and displaying status. Language is subject to constant change in New Work contexts and is connoted with buzzwords and specific wording. Terms are used that best fit and work in the respective context. This often results in a mix, for example of German and English, the so-called Denglish. The phenomenon can be found in all other languages as well. This is fine for the people involved, because in this way they can communicate better and faster with each other: If there is a word in English that describes the exact facts of the case (e.g. mindset, funnel, biases), why bother searching for paraphrases in your own native language? It is freely decided how language can best be used. This makes it more flexible and it changes faster. Denglish is thus an expression of a pragmatic approach and is quite legitimate. In a sense, boundaries and barriers to decency, tradition or vanity are being dismantled. Vanity, on the other hand, is not welcomed in New Work contexts, as it shows that one is not acting in the best interests of the community, but that status, role and position are perceived as more important. Status is seen here as a substitution of meaningless work. If I see no sense in my work, then at least power and status. In New Work contexts, the desire for status turns into the desire for freedom and flexibility, which manifests itself in constant improvement, learning, discussion and reflection. When we recognize and become aware that many areas will be undergoing change in the coming decades, this can help us to focus our attention on the meaning of fulfilling work, whether or not it is within our current area of competence. In addition to politically imperative actions and New Work concepts, in the best case, each individual can consider which work appears to him or her to be satisfactory and meaningful. As a result of progress, not only are many professions threatened with extinction, but new opportunities are constantly developing. Recognizing them, dealing with them, developing an interest in

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What Exactly Is New Work?

technology and meeting them with the courage to try them out will probably be the biggest challenges. The first signs of such a debate can be seen, for example, in the great movement of “sustainable”, “eco-friendly” and others. The work is based on a meaningful demand and has inspired people to create and develop new job opportunities. "

New Work demands meaning and clarity of identity when working—it is therefore “purpose driven”.

What Bergmann called “really really wanting” in order to reduce the poverty of desire, is today reflected on the one hand in the self-confident—in the sense of attentive and well thought-out—appearance of the young New Work companies. And on the other hand in the clarity of the orientation in the respective company. In lived New Work contexts, founders usually know exactly why they do what they do and can thus also develop a strong corporate identity. Coupled with the sense of responsibility to make a contribution to society, the sense or purpose can be emphasized in New Work and in this way also motivate the people in the company to work on it. For example, a young founder in Mongolia developed the first natural skin care brand L’hamore in her hometown of Ulaanbaatar (UB), which is considered one of the cities with the highest levels of air pollution in the world. She recognized that people in UB suffer from skin problems caused by environmental pollution and that Mongolia offers natural resources to protect against them. She employs mainly women in the production, who still produce the natural soaps and creams by hand. "

New Work puts people at the centre of the work—in other words, it is “people focused”.

Never before have modern companies had a stronger focus on putting people and their work at the heart of their business. Many companies now describe themselves as “people focused”, for example, by creating extra new features that are only concerned with improving and developing collaboration and interaction. In-house coaches, agile coaches, purpose enablers, happiness managers and more can dedicate themselves fully to people in their work. This trend has by no means arrived everywhere and has so far sometimes been a luxury that earning tech companies and start-ups afford. But even in large companies something is happening: Some companies now have agile coaches, even if often only for development teams. Human Resources (HR) employees are increasingly being trained in coaching and facilitation skills, because they no longer just organize the induction of new employees when they start working and the monthly accountings. The upgrading of personnel work is becoming a central issue in New Work, which some companies still have to face. As “Chief of Joy Officer”, Max, who lives in Hamburg, focuses his work on supporting the company’s employees in their work in such a way that they can work with motivation.

New Work in the Current Context "

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New Work accompanies people in the further development of their competencies—in other words, it is “skill driven”.

People are accompanied in their work in a new way—they are given both the time and the framework to improve their interpersonal, social skills. Here too, more emphasis is placed on people wanting to recognize, learn to assess and further develop their skills. Learning and continuous improvement becomes an incentive within the company and among the employees. One company in Düsseldorf, for example, has even identified “Fanatic Learning” as one of its core values, enabling employees to consciously pursue continuous further development. Of course, it must be emphasized that in some contexts learning is not only voluntary and is expected and demanded by companies. In the sense of New Work, the balance between enabling and personal decision of the employees should be aimed at here. Otherwise, learning is quickly no longer a “sense decision” but a “forced necessity”. "

New Work demands transparent communication as far as possible—in other words, it is “as transparent as possible”.

New Work creates more transparent communication and puts the focus on cooperation. This does not mean that all sensitive data and information is shared, which would be neither sensible nor particularly wise. Nevertheless, founders and managing directors in New Work companies try to talk as openly as possible about requirements, possibilities and opportunities—and due to flat hierarchies across several levels. Up to now, goals and market changes have often been discussed behind closed doors in upper management and only shared with the workforce after they had been set or when the consequences could no longer be kept secret. For example, the managing directors of a Hamburg-based IT company answered questions from their entire workforce immediately after receiving funding worth millions. Upcoming changes, new requirements, but above all the fears of the employees could be addressed and discussed directly. "

New Work is oriented towards the values and purpose in work—in other words, it is “value driven”.

In New Work, processes and programs serve as support, become framework-giving factors and are therefore aligned with the purpose of the work—but are never the goal. It is not a question of adopting a currently trendy way of working in order to stay in vogue, but rather of testing whether it actually supports the work in a meaningful way. For example, a chat program will be introduced to allow employees to work more flexibly and not to discriminate against team members who, for example, work in a home office or in a different time zone.

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What Exactly Is New Work?

New Work means always learning and sharing your knowledge—is therefore it is “fostering learning and sharing”.

Being able to develop both horizontally and vertically within the company opens up completely new opportunities for employees to actually design and develop meaningful work. Silo thinking (¼ We keep our knowledge for us and do not share it with other departments in the company) is greatly reduced in New Work and the sharing idea (¼ We share our knowledge with others, as they can certainly benefit from it) is focused. This is based on the conviction that if we learn from each other and share our knowledge, everyone will ultimately be able to work better and achieve more together—even beyond company boundaries. The Google study Oxygen shows us particularly well how important it is not only to expand one’s knowledge but also to pass it on. It becomes clear that success also depends very much on how much internal knowledge is shared and passed on. Sharing knowledge, enabling others to learn and promoting growth always means giving up power. For people who no longer have their knowledge for themselves it they are no longer irreplaceable. In New Work contexts, this is referred to as the “bus factor”: What happens if person X gets hit by a bus the next morning? If this results in a problem for the company, the knowledge has obviously not been shared sufficiently. And if one thinks the “learning and sharing” idea even further, completely new opportunities and challenges arise for people with a very special or specific competence—namely to further educate and teach others. It is about consolidating one’s own knowledge by learning to share it. New strategic tasks can only be accepted because other people are able to take over parts of their own work. Cross-functional teams (¼ teams with people of different expertise) are another good example of how knowledge and expertise is handled in New Work contexts. The knowledge of the different departments is used together and shared in the daily work. In this way, new opportunities for cooperation are created, far beyond the boundaries of our own expertise. CrossMentoring NRW, a German initiative between successful companies, shows an interesting approach in which high-potential employees are accompanied by experienced mentors from another company. The programme focuses for instance primarily on women in the professions of mechanical engineering, engineering, natural sciences and technology. "

New Work is meaningful work—i.e. always “purpose-driven work”.

In summary, New Work can be described as meaningful work in the current context. The focus is on carrying out work that is personally satisfying for the individual, where people can develop further and which can be flexibly designed to suit the individual’s needs. In this way, a balance can be achieved between the two poles of seeing the demands made on oneself as an incentive for constant improvement, but without being exposed to the pressure of having to give up one’s own freedom for success, personal recognition or

Tabletop Soccer

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integration. The basis of New Work is therefore to reconcile individual needs, wishes and the freedom to search for meaning with the requirements and challenges of the working world in the best possible way. Certain methods, formats, processes and other forms of support and facilitation of New Work have become very important. They have become an integral part of New Work and are increasingly being called upon to support modern ways of working. More and more companies use agile methods and frameworks, innovative methods and creative approaches to develop the potential of the working people. This is where the New Work hacks come in, which focus on interaction and interconnectedness. They support work processes, communication and collaboration and can take these to a new level. The focus is always on the human being and the improvement of the common, meaningful work.

“New Work in a Miniskirt”: What New Work Just Isn’t Often one reads and hears from companies that they now work in the sense of New Work and are agile companies. However, if you take a closer look, it turns out that they have set up individual, detached measures that have neither impact nor live the culture of New Work. Frithjof Bergmann describes this phenomenon as “New Work in a miniskirt” and means that companies brighten up work a little more to make it more appealing (Hornung 2018). However, if one engages more deeply with the topic of New Work, it is rather a matter of stimulating a fundamentally different way of thinking in small steps and making work more humane. It is about people interacting with each other again in a meaningful way in their work and continuously seeking meaning in their activity. Of course, this may be fun and attractive, but it should also go beyond that and requires a real engagement with the work and the people at work (Bergmann n.d.). Below are a few classics that do not turn a company into a New Work company overnight, especially if they are carried out as an individual action without the “why” behind it, while the rest remains unchanged.

Tabletop Soccer Probably the most used example! Setting up a tabletop soccer somewhere is unlikely to change much in terms of New Work. What is needed is a living culture of interconnectedness, in which a foosball table can also become the starting point for teambuilding, exciting discussions and further impulses. Here, the foosball table or even a coffee area becomes a focal point in the company, where people exchange ideas and interact actively. This is the only way to trigger a search for the real desire and the confrontation with it.

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What Exactly Is New Work?

Free Fruits Placing organic fruits somewhere does not make a company a New Work company. The approach can be noble, but the fruits alone do not change anything at first. Only when the corporate culture puts the health of the employees at the centre of attention, the fruit is connected to New Work and its lived culture. Here, too, the aim is to show that the working person is valued and supported in his or her needs.

Yoga One yoga class per week may make the participants more flexible, but it does not make the company any more flexible. This too is and can be a laudable beginning—but nothing more. As soon as offers to balance work become an embodied part of a corporate culture in which the balance of the employees is holistically supported and thus receives a “meaning”, one can probably speak of New Work. Here, too, the aim should rather be to create an awareness of balance and encourage employees to develop new ideas.

Remote Working Just because employees work from somewhere, it doesn’t mean that the company is now living New Work. It can become a partial aspect if the freedom to work from any location goes hand in hand with a focus on good communication, learning from each other and successful exchange. If people are to be at the centre of the work, then it is a matter of creating the best possible conditions for work and communication between people.

No More Guidance New Work does not mean that there is suddenly no more leadership—so that everyone can work in chaos to be creative. It is rather a matter of “enabling” the people around you, i.e. empowering them and enabling them to do their work as well as possible. This is the task of managers as well as colleagues. To leave someone helplessly on their own, even though they need support, is the complete opposite of living New Work values. Flat hierarchies can be a start, but they must also be aligned with what the people affected need to do their work in a meaningful way.

References

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Change Work-Title Just because nobody carries the title “manager” any more, nothing has changed at first. Only when the change of title is accompanied by a change in the nature of leadership and roles can there be a move towards New Work. However, it is precisely this cultural change in the company that needs time, great knowledge and good role models. If everyone keeps managing instead of leading, it won’t work. In summary, we can state that New Work is not the exemplary identification and initiation of individual, detached measures. It is also not only the beautification of work and the establishment of a fun society (Bergmann and Friedland 2007, p. 15). Actions should be initiated because they help people in their work to find out what they really really want; and work should be meaningful because people feel passion in their work. New Work calls for cooperation in work by promoting humanization and community interaction. Only the holistic approach to change, which takes place on a cultural level in the company and is supported by various measures suitable for the company, makes New Work become alive as a movement in the company, as we are now living in a time that has all the capacities to rethink and redesign work.

References Bergmann F (2017) Neue Arbeit, Neue Kultur. Arbor, Freiburg i.Br Bergmann F (n.d.) New Work, New Culture. Die kürzest mögliche Zusammenfassung der Neuen Arbeit. New Work Global. http://newwork.global/. Zugegriffen: 13. Mai 2019 Bergmann F, Friedland S (2007) Neue Arbeit kompakt: Vision einer selbstbestimmten Gesellschaft. Arbor, Freiburg i.Br Hornung S (2018) Interview zu New Work Frithjof Bergmann: “Ich ärgere mich sehr, sehr tüchtig”. Haufe Personalmagazin. https://www.haufe.de/personal/hr-management/frithjof-bergmann-uebtkritik-an-akteuller-NewWork-debatte_80_467516.html. Zugegriffen: 13. Mai 2019 t3n Magazin (07.03.2019). Porträt. New Work-Urvater Frithjof Bergmann: Der alte Mann und das Mehr. t3n Magazin: 55. https://t3n.de/magazin/NewWork-urvater-frithjof-bergmann-alte-mannmehr-247621/. Zugegriffen: 13. Mai 2019

Focus and Added Value of the New Work Hacks

How the New Work Hacks Are Structured The New Work Hacks serve the people, not the system: Through simple hacks and tricks, learning should be encouraged and knowledge and exchange about experiences made possible. It is all about the people who work and communicate with each other on a daily basis, who want to share their knowledge and actively shape their working environment to the better. The New Work Hacks are about constantly improving cooperations and not to dismiss human work in times of automation, but on the contrary to promote and appreciate it. All New Work Hacks have the same structure. A clear and easily accessible systematization should help you as a reader to better find out which hack can be integrated and tried out in your own company. The Hacks are differentiated by target group, effort and degree of difficulty.

# Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 A. Schnell, N. Schnell, New Work Hacks, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33009-5_3

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Focus and Added Value of the New Work Hacks

Structure of the New Work Hacks All 50 New Work Hacks follow the same structure and are intended to provide a quick orientation.

Title • The title names the respective New Work Hack. It may happen that you know the same or similar hack under a different name.

Abstract • The New Work Hack in one sentence, in a nutshell to the point.

Why Important • The benefits and sense of the New Work Hack are presented in a condensed form.

Description • The general description of each New Work Hack. Here, we show the background and the underlying understanding of the hack.

Tips for Implementation • The tips for implementation are intended to help you discuss and think about important steps or issues directly.

Example • In a concrete example, we show how the New Work Hack can be integrated in practical exercise or implementation.

How to Read the New Work Hacks

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Possible Challenges • Tips are given here to give you an edge in knowledge, to avoid certain mistakes if necessary and to be able to better reflect on difficulties.

How to Read the New Work Hacks There are different questions with which the 50 New Work Hacks in the next chapter can be read. Depending on the wishes of the reader, such as inspiration, tips for implementation or improvements in the company, a specific point of view can be taken. Your own questions can help you to find out which New Work Hacks bring the most added value or are most urgently needed. The following questions can provide inspiration for your own questions and the associated reading: • What added value can which New Work Hack bring for me, my work, my team and my company? • How can the hacks help to support meaningful work in our environment? • What do we lack in the company to be able to use our potential even better? • What do we need in concrete terms in order to make our cooperation even more fulfilling and successful? • What can help us to become more flexible and to react more appropriately to the demands on the company? • How do we pass on knowledge, and are we already doing enough to ensure that the company’s employees learn from and with each other? • How do we prevent important employees from leaving the company? • What can help us to master the upheaval taking place in the company even better? • How can we pass on the experience of our long-standing employees even better? One last tip before the New Work Hacks begin: Ideas that come to mind when reading, impulses that arise and examples that come to mind can be important indicators of possible fields of application and options for action and can also enable new applications. Writing down and thus capturing impulses before the thought is forgotten is highly recommended. Whether in a book, on an enclosed sheet of paper or directly digital in the cloud: The own thoughts that arise while reading are the starting point for concrete changes, suggestions and actions in one’s own environment. By capturing these thoughts, the chance to understand, share and use flashes of thoughts and impulses even after several days is increased.

All 50 New Work Hacks

All-Hands Meetings

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In the All-Hands Meeting, all employees are present and important content is shared.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In All-Hands Meetings, news, important decisions and the presentation of important topics can be communicated to all employees. Above all, an All-Hands Meeting creates transparency, increases the sense of community and strengthens trust in management. In addition, direct enquiries can be made and open questions can be clarified.

Description An All-Hands Meeting is usually well prepared and structured as it is the most expensive in-house meeting. Time is precious and should be used accordingly. Therefore, it is always a decision of the management whether the added value of transparency, confidence building and the strengthening of the sense of community is worth the extra costs. As a # Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 A. Schnell, N. Schnell, New Work Hacks, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33009-5_4

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All 50 New Work Hacks

rule, All-Hands Meetings are structured in such a way that there is an introduction, individual topic blocks, news and notes. Depending on the distribution of tasks, the content is decided by the management. In New Work contexts, All-Hands Meetings often have proper names that fit the company. For example, the All-Hands Meeting at the German IT company Jimdo is called “Team Soldering” (German name is “Teamverløtung”). Depending on the size of the company, it makes sense to check the structure and content for relevance so that only topics relevant to the entire company are addressed. In some cases, it makes sense to set up a livestream for employees who work from home or are otherwise on the road. At the same time, the All-Hands Meeting can be archived as a video so that employees who were on vacation or sick can view the content afterwards. Basically, the point of the meeting is to experience presence together and use it productively.

Tips for Implementation In order to enable the employees to have a meeting with the greatest possible added value, it is important to be aware of the objectives and general conditions in advance. These should also be made transparent to the employees so that the expectations match the objectives of the meeting. To ensure a smooth process, it is advisable to have a facilitator lead through the meeting and thus make the framework and process smooth and professional. To check the relevance in the preparation of the individual topics, it can be asked what added value and key information should be taken away by the company’s employees after the presentation. Example

A company that has grown from 50 to 150 employees in the past few years faces exciting new challenges. The management is constantly being told that new decisions and important information are not sufficiently reported. At the same time, exciting projects and achievements have so far only been shared in the common chat, where a lot of content is quickly lost. Contrary to their original opinion, the two managing directors decide to test an All-Hands Meeting and check its impact. Together with their organization developer Arne, they discuss which topics should be included in principle and which further options are available for the All-Hands Meeting. The decision on the basic structure and implementation is as following: • Arne, not the managing directors, leads through the meeting. It would cost them too much time and Arne is an excellent facilitator. • Arne opens the meeting and briefly presents the agenda of the day. • First, news are shared by the managing directors and other key roles, • followed by the numbers and statistics of the week and the progress of projects presented in brief, • then outlined the challenge for the upcoming weeks.

Ask Me Anything

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• At each meeting, one exciting project under development is to be presented by the team involved. • Finally, there are smaller news and if necessary short information from individual employees (¼ announcements, call for participation and more). The All-Hands Meeting should last no longer than 40 min and take place every 2 weeks. After each meeting, digital feedback is to be obtained directly and after 2 months, the added value and potential continuation of the All-Hands Meeting will be reflected upon and a decision made on its future. ◄

Possible Challenges Poor presentations that are too long and not interesting for the majority can greatly reduce the quality of the meeting and minimize the added value. It is important to counteract this by checking the content beforehand and, if necessary, practising and improving the presentation in short speaker coachings. To counter the challenge of too much organizational effort, it is recommended to release a presentation template that is accessible to all speakers. Speakers then insert their own content into this template. At the same time, it serves the speakers to critically review and condense their own content. It may make sense to limit the length of individual presentations, as experts tend to present their topics in too much detail. The challenge, however, is to get to the heart of the topic in a concise and visually appealing manner.

Ask Me Anything

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In Ask Me Anything (AMA), employees can address their most important questions to founders and managers.

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All 50 New Work Hacks

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In the AMA format, employees’ questions can be addressed and answered transparently for everyone in the company. In this way, missing information can be subsequently submitted, trust can be strengthened and transparency increased. In addition, the founding team or the management receive a mood picture of the most important questions of the employees.

Description The AMA format goes back to the adaptation of the Internet forum Reddit, based on a book by Marty Klein from the 1990s. Nowadays, companies can carry out the AMA as an internal company format in two ways. In one variant, relevant questions are collected centrally for a specific manager (usually CEO, Founder, GM or similar) and are then asked and moderated in an open meeting by an experienced facilitator of the manager. Questions can be collected in advance, asked spontaneously during the meeting or consist of a mix of both. The questions either refer to a specific field (e.g. regarding the new corporate strategy) or can be general. It is a good idea to record the meeting in order to make the content available to absent employees. In addition, the video can be used as a basis for reflection to further develop the manager according to the format, e.g. to be able to give more concrete answers at the next AMA. In the other variant of the AMA format, which is carried out e.g. at IT companies such as Shopify, the focus is on answering the questions that employees consider most important. For an AMA appointment, a digital program is activated in which employees can anonymously post their questions and rank the collected questions up or down. In this way, the questions that are relevant for the majority in the company are crystallized. At the end of the voting period, the questions are asked by a facilitator to the management in descending order of importance from 1 to x and, if necessary, if the answer is evasive, a critical review is carried out so that the question is actually answered. As many questions as possible are answered in the time available. By starting with the highest ranked question, it is ensured that the most relevant questions are addressed in any case. AMA is usually carried out with the management, but can also be applied to individual parts of the company.

Tips for Implementation A good explanation of the format is needed so that employees know exactly how the preparations and the actual AMA are going to proceed. High transparency and a person responsible for the process as a contact point for open questions are recommended. This should be an experienced facilitator. If questions have already been collected beforehand, it is advisable to prepare for this. In the variant with the up and down ranking of the questions, a corrective may be needed if discriminatory, obscene or simply inappropriate

Ask Me Anything

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questions are introduced and are diligently ranked up. Unpleasant and difficult questions, on the other hand, should definitely remain and be seen as a challenge and the means of creating transparency. It may be relevant to record the most important results and, if applicable, new decisions in writing and to make them transparent if new decisions are made or announced by questions during the AMA. In this way, they are not lost and can be actively promoted afterwards. Example

A fast-growing and successful start-up company, after growing to 200 employees within 3 years and gaining over five million customers, has raised venture capital of 15 million dollars. After the initial joy of the employees, discord and tension also arise, as no one knows how things will now continue and what will change. The two founders, Britt and Lisa, realize that there is uncertainty among the employees. They decide to do an AMA. With this, Britt and Lisa want to make sure that they do not prepare topics in a lecture that are irrelevant for the employees. Instead, they want to receive exactly those questions that can provide clarity and transparency. Together with a facilitator from the company, they prepare the invitation to the event, have developers develop a simple and functioning program, and pass on the information on the format and the invitation to the question. After 1 week, 55 questions have been received and clear favourites have emerged in the ranking of employees. In the AMA itself, the questions are answered piece by piece. For some answers, the facilitator critically follows up if he feels that the question has not been answered sufficiently. Britt and Lisa try to answer all questions as best they can. At the end of the format, the most important 20 questions have been answered. The subsequent feedback from the employees on the format is very positive and the two founders decide to offer the format regularly and to prevent uncertainties from becoming so significant in the future. ◄

Possible Challenges It is rare that all questions are answered, so there can always be resentment that certain questions have not been answered. You can counteract this by voting for the questions, as the relevance and order are determined by the employees themselves. Inexperienced facilitators might fail to ask follow up questions and in order to get more out of the answers. This requires a certain sovereignty to ask critical questions of one’s own superiors in front of the assembled staff. It makes sense to use a person as a facilitator who is recognized in the company, can provide for a variety of perspectives and is basically impartial. In this way, employees and interviewees are satisfied with the choice of the facilitator. The willingness of the interviewees to answer even unpleasant questions and not to avoid difficult topics is challenging and requires strength. If this is successful, it can develop into great trust, recognition and respect. However, if the answers are reticent, seem

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All 50 New Work Hacks

dishonest and not very transparent, the opposite can also happen. Respondents should be aware of this before answering.

Chat

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Chat programs are ideal for transparent and successful collaboration in real time and asynchronously times.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Communication today generally works very fast. E-mails can no longer keep up with this speed. They lack transparency, the integration of additional programs and the overview. A Chat accelerates teamwork and basically increases team performance because it takes place in real time while still providing delayed access.

Description Chat programs for work contexts work similar to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat and other Chat services. However, their capabilities go far beyond simple messenger services where you can write and send photos and emojis. Various applications and links to third-party programs make it possible to work multidimensionally with a Chat program. Advantages compared to conventional possibilities like e-mails are that Chat programs are interactive, replies to and ratings of messages are possible without any problems and leave the outdated one-way communication behind. The integration of attachments and joint editing allows virtual teams to interact in real time and without significant frictional loss. Digital communication is almost synchronous and thus enables a simplified, flexible and location-independent work design. This enables Cross-Functional Teams across multiple locations to work together in real time, traceably and collaboratively.

Chat

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Tips for Implementation Due to the now common use of messenger applications on the smartphone, the hurdle for Chat programs has tended to drop significantly. The decisive factor for the working context is that the way in which they are used and the possible added value during introduction are made transparent. Particularly in companies where e-mails are still commonplace, there is a need for a sense of purpose in switching over joint communication to Chat. This should be made clear during the introduction and explained with the help of examples. In addition, small tutorials can help (self-created or practical for the corresponding Chat program as links to YouTube or similar). Especially when it comes to extended functions, making work easier and streamlining processes can often be attractive side effects for employees. Depending on the “digital maturity” of the company, it may be appropriate to provide guidelines for communication in the Chat. It is important, however, that employees do not feel observed and controlled by the transparency of the Chat, but rather that they themselves determine how they can best interact with each other and that they are made aware that tips are only intended to provide inspiration. Example

A team in the marketing department at the main location in London is being expanded for a new project with two designers from the Birmingham location. Due to private reasons, two team members are working part-time and 2 days a week in their home office. Since the separation of location, space and time makes teamwork difficult, a Chat program enables the team to communicate with each other in real time, present their latest results and have direct discussions. Thus, Gina, who works part-time, is always tagged with the contents that are important to her and that still need her feedback at a later date, everything is clearly traceable in a Chat history. In concrete terms, Gina can follow up exactly what has been discussed with what result even 2 days later, and if she makes a note with her name (¼ tagging), she can answer a concrete task or question independently of the rest of the Chat history over the past 2 days. ◄

Possible Challenges It can happen that employees want to continue to communicate by e-mail, as they prefer this closed form of communication and are reluctant to share their content in (team) Chats. However, a Chat makes teams faster and more successful. However, large Chat groups, in which too many different topics are shared, can become an obstacle, which not only slows down the work, but also acts as a demotivating factor. Focused Chat groups are important for performance and motivation. If there is a need for large Chat groups (such as the Chat for the entire company), it makes sense to distribute rules, facilitators or sometimes

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different usage rights so that key people in the company Chat can share the important information for everyone.

Community of Practice

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Communities of Practice are learning formats in the company organized by employees themselves.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact A Community of Practice (COP) enables employees to try out new knowledge in practice, discuss and reflect with others. In this way, knowledge can be shared with each other to increase overall expertise on specific topics within the company. Companies benefit from COPs through the exchange of knowledge and experience without additional financial outlay both promotes learning and increases networking among employees.

Description A COP is a hands-on learning format in which expertise is exchanged in self-organized meetings on specific topics and learning content is tried out in practice. As a result, employees are intrinsically motivated, they join in their own interest and when they have the time. COPs have proven to be extremely helpful, especially in developer circles, as knowledge in this area changes rapidly and it is important to stay up to date. COPs can be focused on technical skills (specific programming languages, design, marketing, coaching, leadership), but also on general areas of interest (moderating groups, drawing, learning to program, jogging at lunchtime). Whether the COP is moderated or has an agenda depends on the objectives and orientation and is decided by the participants themselves. There are COPs where most of the time topics get discussed, and others where a lot is tried out and direct feedback is given. The basic aim of the COP is to enable added value for the participants in terms of content and experience. COPs are particularly useful in New Work contexts in which many teams are cross-functionally structured. In this way, employees from different teams with the same expertise can exchange views on their

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topics and discuss similar topics and problems. Depending on the objectives of the COP, this can also lead to a joint identification and the definition of corporate standards. A COP needs between 1 and 2½ h, depending on the orientation. As a rule, COPs take place every 2–4 weeks and their frequency should be adapted to the situation according to need and urgency. There are individual COPs that are held as a closed group, although most are open to all interested parties.

Tips for Implementation When the COP is introduced, the objectives and possible arrangements should be clearly defined and possible contact persons appointed to provide support. In this way, it can be ensured that the COP can bring real added value. It is advisable to discuss in the first joint session what the specific focus of the COP should be and which topics are not covered in the sessions. Example

After an IT company in Tirana, Albania, had repeatedly complained about chaotic meetings, interested employees were given the opportunity to take part in facilitation training. Employees learn the basics about group structure and processes, supporting methods to better structure meetings and the role of the facilitator. During the training, the participants try out different methods and find that some methods are challenging for them. Hanna says in the feedback at the end: “How nice it would be to be able to try out the methods further in order to gain more confidence and expand our repertoire”. Till, programmer and recent lead of a development team, has the following idea: “Let’s do it the same way we do it with our backend COP. We’ll meet every 2 weeks, discuss everything related to our topic and sometimes test certain approaches together! The group is taken with this suggestion, and together they decide to form a facilitation COP. “We should think carefully about how to structure our sessions so that we can make the best use of our time. My suggestion is that one person in turn always brings a new method to try out”, Till interjects. After 2 weeks, the COP meets for the first time, discusses how they want to organize their meetings, and also tries out one of Hanna’s methods directly. Trying it out is still a bit bumpy, but the subsequent feedback helps the Hanna a lot. They decide to allow more time for trying out next time and only discuss other topics afterwards. This is to ensure that something new is tried out each time. Hanna agrees to take over the organization and to remind the person who brings a method next time to try it again, 2 days before. In the course of the next COP sessions, the group actually manages to regularly try out new methods. At the same time, there is an increased need to talk about difficulties that have arisen and that the individual participants have experienced in different situations when moderating in the company. Over time, the COP becomes a place where participants can exchange ideas, reflect with

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each other, learn and try out new methods. After some time, the group decides to increase the time frame from 1½–2 h. ◄

Possible Challenges If the objective is unclear, it will be difficult to deal with the issues constructively in terms of content. In this case, it makes sense to define a clear objective for the COP. If there is no one who feels responsible for the organization, the collection of topics and the possible preparations, a COP can quickly sink into chaos and become unattractive for participants. It is recommended here to either appoint a fixed person or to divide the responsibility alternately.

Company Essentials

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Company Essentials is the content that all employees of the company should know.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact The Company Essentials help employees to make better decisions, to critically question their own actions and to align their own work with the company in the best possible way. In the company, the most important content for successful work is made transparent and clearly pointed out.

Description Company Essentials can be understood as the fundamental essences of cooperation and orientation of work. This includes, for example, essential fundamentals for the business model such as “Customer Acquisition Cost”, “Funnel” or “Customer Lifetime Value” and, if applicable, the Mission Statement and vision of the company. The company or

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management can create Company Essentials in collaboration with key roles and make them available to the company. This can ensure that employees perform their work based on these fundamentals and thus make the best possible contribution to the success of the company. With Company Essentials, it is important not to generate a catalogue of topics over countless pages, but to focus on the cornerstones that are most important for the success of the company and its culture. In new-work-driven companies, Company Essentials are often found in visual form on the walls of meeting rooms, corridors and staircases. The visualized Essentials (see Hack “Visual Essentials”) help employees to internalize and integrate them into their own decision-making and work processes and create a common basic understanding. At the same time, they are used in team meetings as a basis for developing strategic orientations. An indication that the Company Essentials are actually actively involved in the work and thus become embodied essentials is that employees can name them and explain in more detail what added value they have for their own work. The active involvement of the Company Essentials in the work of the employees can be positively supported by giving impulses and discussing them together at regular intervals.

Tips for Implementation The basis for the introduction of Company Essentials is that they have been crystallized and defined within the company. It is advisable to critically question what exactly the Company Essentials are and what added value they actually bring to the employees as a basis for their work. Suitable questions are: “What makes this topic/knowledge a Company Essentials instead of other possible alternatives?” or “Can the company survive without this knowledge?” When Company Essentials are introduced, roundtable discussions and other formats should be set up directly to clarify questions and increase understanding. Company Essentials can change over time, for example if the direction of the company changes or a new business model is introduced. In the various departments and teams, it is useful to discuss together how the Company Essentials can be integrated into their own work as a basis. Example

Tom is the lead of online marketing for a company with 430 employees in Sydney, Australia. As a professional, he naturally juggles with terms such as B2B and B2C and the corresponding marketing measures around customer acquisition costs and many more. In meetings with other departments in the company, Tom often experiences, that they don’t really know about the company’s business model, but simply do their part of the job as best as they can. Again and again he sees that decisions are made based on lack of knowledge that do not correspond to the business model and are contrary to the company’s goals. Tom goes to the founders of the company, Tim and Dennis, and tells them about his observation. They are amazed by Tom’s observations, because they have

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taken it for granted that everyone in the company is informed about their B2C business model and its implications. Together, the three consider how to make this knowledge and its importance transparent and what other issues are not sufficiently known. They come up with a total of four topics, which they want to critically examine once again in consultation with the relevant experts in the respective areas. Tim and Dennis take it upon themselves to prepare these fundamentally important topics as the content essences of the company and to make them aware within the company. Tom proposes to call these “Company Essentials”. After critical examination of the four topics, their preparation and subsequent presentation for the whole company, the four topics are additionally presented on impressively beautiful posters and these are hung up in the company. In fact Tom notices a small change in the course of the next months in the joint discussions. Colleagues and employees can define their objectives even more concretely in terms of the company’s direction and start to build their argumentation based on the visualized Company Essentials. His impression is that there is more focus overall and a deeper understanding of important basics of working together is developed. Tim and Dennis have decided to introduce the Company Essentials in person on a regular basis during the Onboarding of new employees. They want to show the importance and at the same time make sure that all employees in the company are informed about the Essentials right from the start. ◄

Possible Challenges It can be challenging to commit to the most important content for the Company Essentials, as different topics are important in different parts of the company. Here, the question can be asked as to what critical company knowledge is needed to successfully implement one’s own business model. If Company Essentials are only defined and not made transparent, the added value and practical benefits may be largely absent. Here, it is strongly recommended to define the “why” (see Hack’s “Golden Circle”) of the individual Essentials and to explain them in a way that is also understandable for people from outside the expert field.

Core Values

Core Values "

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Core Values are values that shape the core of interaction within the company and are actively embraced in how we work.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Core Values of a company provide guidance in difficult situations both for dealing with each other and for communication to the outside world. Core Values help to set priorities, select fitting new employees and develop internal processes. They thus become an important factor for a living corporate culture.

Description In the meantime, some companies have developed and defined Core Values for themselves and have anchored them as an integral part of the company. Especially innovative and modern companies even include the Core Values as an integral part of their own website. In this way, they convey to the outside world what they stand for as a company. Core Values are fundamental values that determine the way we work together and serve as a northern star to make it easier to navigate through the daily work routine. Typical Core Values are “respect for others”, “taking responsibility”, “constantly developing”, “acting sensibly” and “being customer-focused”. Core Values are the consolidation and focusing of the most important values for the company. The first step is to define Core Values. This is often done by discussing the company’s fundamental Core Values together with experienced and long-standing employees (and in the best case also with new employees) and then jointly condensing and defining them. It is important that the Core Values are specific, concrete and coherent and consistent with each other. Only this way can they be authentic and credible for the employees and the daily work routine. As a tobacco company, for example, the Core Value “Promoting Health” would probably be neither credible nor feasible. In the second step, the Core Values are communicated and presented so that employees can check to what extent the career paths match their individual, embodied values and their impression of the company. In this step, it may be necessary to carry out a second iteration after the feedback has been obtained and to adjust the Core Values in the wording (and sometimes in the content). The third step is to provide the Core Values to the company. All employees should become aware of the Core Values, they should orient their actions accordingly and thus make the values a living corporate culture. Especially in modern and innovative companies, Core Values are consciously used as a corrective to their own actions and are also used in the context of feedback. For example, the assessment of an employee during the probationary period, but also in annual employee appraisals, is carried out taking into account the Core Values.

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Tips for Implementation For the implementation of Core Values, it is important that these are not presented to the employees as artificially developed and have nothing to do with the actual corporate culture. It is crucial that employees can identify with the Core Values and integrate them into their working methods as a fixed component over time. The visualization of Core Values is just as essential as the living by example of Core Values by senior managers. In order to make the Core Values in the company more tangible, it is advisable for managers and teams to look together at the extent to which their own working methods are congruent with the values and whether any changes in the way they act are necessary. In this way, they can keep an eye on how the values are already actively lived in their own work. Example

A modern and innovative tech company in Germany has “Fanatic Learning” as one of its Core Values. In regular employee meetings, the employee Jens asks again and again if he can get access to a certain learning platform where a monthly fee is due. Since the team is very busy at the moment and it is not foreseeable when the workload will decrease again, manager Anke is sceptical about the request. She argues that the actual work is more important at the moment and must be in focus. Anke asks whether Jens feels the same way about this focus and its importance. After some of these meetings, Jens is frustrated because he does not see himself supported by the company in his further development. While walking through the company he sees the visualized Core Values on the wall and has an idea: During the next meeting with his manager, he argues as follows: He says that based on the Core Value, he can justify “Fanatic Learning” to use a small part of his working time for further education on this platform. By including the Core Value in his argumentation, his wish gets more weight and makes it more difficult for the manager Anke to argue against it, because she would have to argue against the Core Values of the company. In this way, Jens manages with the help of the Core Values to successfully stand up for a project that is important to him and at the same time to represent the basic principles of the company. ◄

Possible Challenges It can happen that the proposed Core Values are dismissed as a wishful thinking of the management. It is important to obtain feedback on whether or not the values correspond to the current corporate culture. It can be difficult if the Core Values are not authentically conveyed or used as a means of pressure and without any meaningful justification. Core Values should not be seen as the utopia of a few managers. This can be counteracted by actually working out and deriving the Core Values together.

Cross-Functional Teams

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Cross-Functional Teams

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Cross-Functional Teams are work teams which, due to the different competencies of their members, have all the resources needed to achieve a project goal.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In Cross-Functional Teams, the team members are characterized by different competencies and possibly strong specializations. As a result, different disciplines work on a common goal, resulting in focused goal orientation and faster work processes. All necessary competencies are already available in the team and do not need to be organized in a complex way. Through interdisciplinarity, the members learn from each other and can better assess for future projects which competencies are needed to achieve the goal. This promotes active knowledge work and knowledge transfer within the company.

Description Cross-Functional Teams have become so important because specialization in certain subject areas has increased and projects are now designed in such a way that not every individual can know or contribute everything to the achievement of objectives. Ideally, a cross-functional team should have all the important core competencies to be able to work as autonomously as possible and to avoid (temporary) dependencies on other teams as much as possible. There should be a wide range of knowledge, distributed among the individual team members, in order to work towards the joint achievement of objectives in a focused manner. In project work, this facilitates and accelerates work processes, as tasks and responsibilities are clearly distributed and can therefore be made more transparent. In Cross-Functional Teams, cooperative and direct learning is promoted, since the distribution of tasks, transfer of responsibilities and agreements contribute significantly to the achievement of the project goal and thus to the success of the team. The decisive advantage of Cross-Functional Teams, however, is that organization of the right people and barriers created by function, task area and personal goals are eliminated.

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Tips for Implementation In order for a cross-functional team to work, it is important that it does not consist of generalists, but of generalising specialists. The individual, sometimes with highly specialized functions should be geared towards a common goal. Defining this goal and knowing the individual competencies of the team members is a basic prerequisite for successful cross-functional work. The team members must know what the individual functions in the team are, what can be achieved and what exactly the project goal is. It is therefore advisable to clearly define the framework conditions and make them transparent. For this purpose, bootstrapping (see Hack “Team Bootstrapping”) makes sense at the beginning of the project, as it creates trust, transparency and division of labour, which facilitates the work among each other in the later work process. It is also easier if feedback is regularly given in Cross-Functional Teams (see Hack “Feedback Culture”) and the joint work follows guidelines previously agreed upon in the team (see Hack’s “Prime Directive” and “Meeting Rules”). Example

Some time ago, a rather traditional company in Almaty, Kazakhstan, released its own app with a lot of effort. The customers welcome the app, but are not enthusiastic about its use (¼ usability). The managing directors Ilan and Abai see an urgent need for action and are considering how to get started. In order to avoid having people working on the further development of the app in different areas and separately from each other, they decide after intensive consultation to set up an independent and new team that combines all the important core competencies within the team. They take a closer look at what knowledge is needed and then put together a team: Three developers, one designer and a UX’ler (¼ User Experience Expert) form the team. Ilan and Abai determine how helpful an exchange can be, and ask the team whether all the important competencies are present. The team argues that the customer’s point of view has not yet been taken into account. Thereupon, it is jointly decided to integrate a customer supporter into the team. With this, the team is complete and can be made ready for action (see Hack “Team Bootstrapping”). ◄

Possible Challenges To bundle work processes and competences in a team and on a project or topic requires to have a good overview of the tasks and to know the course of the project. This is not easy and, depending on the project, not always obvious. Here, it is important that those responsible for the project react flexibly to the requirements and know the competencies in the company.

Decision-Making Knowledge

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Fig. 1 Working in and with Cross-Functional Teams

It can have a strong impact on team members if they feel that they have to give up tasks, power and responsibility. Making clear agreements for the project can reduce uncertainty and fear. In Cross-Functional Teams, it is important that the overall competences in the team are used effectively to achieve the objectives and that the team realizes that this composition can make the work easier and faster (see Fig. 1).

Decision-Making Knowledge

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Decision-Making Knowledge is meta-knowledge about decision-making processes and how to make better decisions.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Knowledge of decision-making processes can improve and accelerate working methods. Teams can make satisfactory decisions that reduce errors in the company. Well thought-out decisions are a success factor for better products and working methods. Thus, the orientation of the company down to the team level is equally professionalized and qualitatively increased.

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Description Every day, we make more than 20,000 decisions that determine our private and professional lives. Knowing what decisions actually are and how to make them in the best possible way can be especially helpful in everyday work. Decision-Making Knowledge helps to ensure that decisions are not made exclusively on an ad hoc basis, but are recognized as a process that can be institutionalized within the company. This helps to learn how to make well thought-out decisions, which in stressful situations, for example, enables employees to make better decisions and be more prepared. Decision-Making Knowledge can be roughly divided into six process steps that enable decisions to be made in a more thoughtful and holistic manner: 1. Definition and nature of decisions: Here it is important to recognize whether and to what extent a decision is involved. A decision is usually a choice between at least two options for action with the intention of achieving the set goal. 2. Definition and framing of the objective: When making a decision, the intended objective is the main focus, so it should be as clear as possible. Based on this, a decision can then be made. It is therefore important to work out what exactly the goal is, what the success of the goal means, what the future looks like with the achievement of the goal and what the possible stumbling blocks in the goal-setting process are. Decisions can be defined in the same way as goals, for example according to SMART criteria (¼ S-pecific, Measurable, A-ttractive, R-ealistic, T-ime-bound). 3. Roles and functions in the decision: A decision can be made more thoughtfully if the roles and functions in it are known or conscious. Here it can be worked out together who in the process is competent, responsible, consulting/informing, entitled to vote or affected by the decision. This contributes to the fact that the decisive persons are involved in the decision-making process and that there is no need to obtain agreements or information afterwards, which results in a better and above all more binding decision in teams, projects and higher-level functions. 4. Development of possibilities and alternatives: A decision is the choice of one of at least two options for action, which is why all alternatives and options should be discussed in a decision-making process, if possible. On this basis, it is better possible to achieve the goals defined above or to avoid stumbling blocks. By identifying the different roles involved in the decision, it is possible to clarify different perspectives and thus decision paths. This enables the team to learn more about and to better understand the consequences of a decision. 5. Assessment and condensation of the possibilities: The different possibilities and options for a particular decision must be assessed and weighed up here in relation to the objectives and framework conditions (such as Mission Statement, corporate goals, etc.). The aim is to work out which options for action will best or the fastest achievement of the goal. In order to get real freedom of choice, there are more than two options.

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6. Make a decision: The final step is to make the actual decision which is to be made. Here, too, it can be helpful to know which decision-making principles (majority vs. minority, consensus vs. experts, approval, etc.) are available in the company, project or team, which in turn are often linked to the company values. Decisions are influenced by our ratio as well as by our intuition. In stressful situations or when making important decisions, it is necessary for teams to have developed a routine which is balancing between rational and intuitive decision-making in order to work well together. Therefore, in addition to basic knowledge about decisions, an institutionalized process towards a good decision is valuable for the company.

Tips for Implementation A workshop or training on the topic of decisions can help to obtain basic knowledge about it and apply it in the company. It is also possible to bring together decision-makers in the company and exchange knowledge and experience. This promotes trust in the company and creates internal learning processes. Tandems often help here, supporting each other in difficult decisions or acting as sparring partners. At the same time, internal discussions should be held within the company about the way decisions are made in the various divisions of the company. Decisions can be stimulated, processed and empowered by various methods. Here it makes sense to have as broad a repertoire of methods as possible and to know the directions of the different methods and to be able to offer them to the team. Institutionalizing a clear decision-making process in the company helps teams to gain more routine in dealing with decisions. This creates motivation and trust among each other and promotes joint learning and knowledge exchange about it. Aligning the decision-making process with the corporate values (see Hack “Core Values”) and anchoring it in the corporate culture increases the importance of decisions and promotes conscientiousness in the execution of tasks. Example

Over time, Su and her team have become accustomed to making decisions quickly. Since their team life is hectic and they always have a lot to do, they want to have as much time as possible for the operative business. In projects with other teams, they are now known for being pragmatic when it comes to making decisions, which can sometimes cause dissatisfaction among their team members. Su always thinks with such accusations: “Just because the others cannot make quick decisions, I don’t have to be slower in my decisions!” This changes in the joint Retrospective with her lead Nico. It turns out that he is dissatisfied with the prioritization of tasks. Nico challenges his team by asking for the reasons in their prioritization. Su and her team come to a standstill because they can’t think of any other reasons for their decisions apart from

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“pragmatism”: “We simply wanted to make a quick decision and we always did it in good conscience”, Su and the other team members agree with her. Nico succeeds in acknowledging that the team does not make unnecessary organizational efforts and that quick decisions are basically a good thing. At the same time, however, he points out that the team has made wrong decisions in the past due to pragmatism, which has cost the team time as well as energy and the company money. This could have been avoided, says Niko, if the team had given more thought to its decisions. That is why Nico suggests that the team should take a fundamental look at decision-making, and sets up a workshop within the team for this purpose. The team groans and is not particularly satisfied with the decision of its lead. Shortly afterwards, the team members get together for the workshop “DecisionMaking Process”. The mood is depressed because the majority of the team considers the workshop a waste of time. They are welcomed by Lara as workshop leader and informed about the benefits of the workshop. To explain the fundamental nature of decisions, Lara points out interesting decisions from the company and the team members learn, for example, that the idea for their team was born from a decisionmaking process of the founders. By following this approach, they put aside their prejudices a little. When Lara asks intensively about the team-specific decision-making process, the team succeeds in adding further aspects. Lara takes up these arguments by letting the team make a concrete decision. The process is observed and together with the team it is looked at what can be improved in order to develop a “healthy and mature pragmatism” in the team. The team shows that it does not want to slow down, but wants to make better decisions in the future. Lara emphasizes in detail that the decisionmaking will probably be slower in the beginning, but that by means of routine, the decisions can be made faster and above all then in retrospect will not cost any more time, which has not been taken into account so far. The team identifies the following criteria for its decision-making process: 1. “Bob knows” rule: Being able to explain the meaning of the decision easily and comprehensibly to others. “If ‘little Bob’ understands it, you have clearly defined your goal”, says Lara and gets laughter for it. 2. “First the stomach, then the head”: In the team it is noticed that some decisions were made much more from the gut and less based on the available information. This has often led to disagreements with others, which is why the “first gut decision” should be checked for information content. This is quick and even fun. 3. “Who and what else but in time”: So far, not all possibilities have been exhausted and taken, which is why the team has not reliably made the best decisions. The team can imagine to involve more people or ideas here. Additionally the team would like to determine for each decision how long it can take to gather other ideas without losing its drive.

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Nico, who is also present, smiles to himself. Apparently the workshop is worthwhile and the team manages to work out concrete criteria for future decision-making. Although the basic tenor remains towards the quick and pragmatic decision, the team members realize that there are certainly tips and tricks that they have learned in the workshop and have determined for their team. In the coming weeks, the topic will be taken up and reflected on in Retrospectives. ◄

Possible Challenges Decisions are not ad hoc situations and should be seen, recognized and integrated into the corporate structure as a process. A decision-making process takes time to turn implementation into routine and should be accompanied by a trained facilitator, especially at the beginning. Decision-making depends not only on the conditions but also on the team dynamics and should be able to be flexibly adapted. Here the lead should have a good overview of the team and be able to offer different methods for decision-making.

Delegation Poker

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Delegation Poker is a way of clarifying and sharing responsibilities.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In New Work contexts, the handing over of responsibility and empowerment towards employees are of central importance. In this way, employees can work in a more selfdetermined manner, contribute their expertise more effectively and make decisions as independently as possible. The greatest impact is that employees feel more connected with their work and managers can focus on their primary management task and the strategic direction of the company.

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Description The Delegation Level and the corresponding Delegation Poker was created by Jürgen Appello in his Management 3.0 approach. At its core, it is about negotiating responsibility between manager and employee (or manager and manager). There are seven different Delegation Levels, ranging from “Announce” to “Delegate”, divided into intermediate levels. The seven delegation levels are structured as follows from the perspective of the manager: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Announce (I decide alone and announce the decision) Sell (I decide alone and try to convince others) Questioning (I decide alone, but will ask for opinions before) Agree (we decide together by consensus) Consultation (I give recommendations, the others decide) Enquire (the others decide alone, but I will inquire about the decision) Delegate (the others decide alone without having to communicate about it)

In Delegation Poker, the respective delegation level for the various projects and decisions is determined together. This is due to the exchange and discussion on an eyeto-eye level. In practice, Delegation Poker works by collecting and visualizing the corresponding tasks and topics in the first step. Afterwards, each point gets discussed and the manager and the employees decide for themselves at which level they see the responsibility. Then both sides simultaneously show their playing card or number of the level of delegation that is considered appropriate and the suggestions and impressions are discussed together. Here it can happen that the opinions are far apart and have to be clarified and weighed against each other. Or the proposals are very close to each other, so that the degree of responsibility can be decided directly without discussion. In the best case, both sides come to a decision together, so that the manager does not have to exercise the potential power of decision. Delegation Poker is a good indicator of the maturity of the manager, the respective employee (or team) and the joint communication. The more trust, expertise and good judgement there is, the better Delegation Poker can lead to transparency and quicker decisions, compared to normal discussions about responsibility and scope for decision-making.

Tips for Implementation It is important for the introduction of Delegation Poker that the different delegation levels are well understood and applied with precision. It is a good idea to have a facilitator or coach to guide you at the beginning of the Delegation Poker Process. It is extremely important to visualize a lot and to define clear and distinct areas of responsibility in order to be able to make good decisions in everyday work. For example, a matrix can be used to

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visualize the decision areas on one axis and the seven delegation levels on the other axis, and the decided results can be entered in between. This provides a good overview of the decision areas and results. Before the Delegation Poker, the manager should be aware of his own management style and arrange the meeting responsibly and in the best sense for both sides. Using purchased, printed or homemade cards for Delegation Poker is helpful and brings a popular gamification to the process. Example

A team gets Tom as a new manager, who is also new to the company. Directly in the first joint meeting, it becomes clear that opinions differ on the distribution of tasks and responsibilities. Before a conflict arises, Tom decides to postpone the topic and to clarify his own area of responsibility. Tom goes to his own supervisor Ute and asks her how he can best proceed in order to act according to the corporate culture. Ute advises him to go to the in-house facilitators and coaches and talk to them about the possibility of Delegation Poker. Tom informs himself there, is directly taken with it and offers the team to hold a Delegation Poker together about the tasks and areas of responsibility. The team agrees and everyone prepares for the meeting. In the Delegation Poker Meeting itself, it becomes clear that certain areas of responsibility can be decided on much more easily than previously assumed. All are very close to each other in the assessment regarding how they rank the decisions. With the help of the coach, the team and Tom they managed to talk through each topic in a focused manner, clarify responsibilities and decide how much freedom the team will have. It also becomes clear that certain topics cannot yet be decided because Tom does not currently have the strategic overview to form an informed opinion on them. It is agreed to discuss the remaining topics in a follow-up meeting. This way Tom manages to gain the team’s trust, even though he himself does not yet know enough about all the topics. He shows that he wants to find good solutions together with the team and that he himself needs enough information to be able to contribute professionally. ◄

Possible Challenges It can be challenging when Delegation Poker is played with the entire team. In this case, it is recommended to call in a facilitator or coach for the meeting. If it is difficult for the manager to delegate responsibility, the concept of Delegation Poker works poorly without a neutral person, as it is about bringing the team and the manager closer together. To achieve this, both sides must be prepared to move towards the other position (see Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2 Delegation Poker (Based on Management 3.0)

Design Studio

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With the Design Studio method, problems are solved and ideas generated in an iterative and creative way.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Fast solutions based on shared knowledge save money and time. With the Design Studio, we focus on the ideas of our employees, which promotes their motivation and creativity and strengthens the team spirit. The Design Studio method does not follow the idea of a single person, but rather the essence of the best ideas and thoughts of all participants.

Description Design Studio is an agile method that originally comes from product development and is now an integral part of many modern work processes. The method focuses on iterative work, direct feedback and immediate condensation of good approaches. It begins with the so-called Design Challenge, in which a specific problem is discussed and an objective is named.

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• In the first step, the participants usually sketch basic shapes such as circles, rectangles, etc. during a simple “warming up” task, in order to overcome any inhibitions before the creative process and to get used to the procedure. • In the second step, the work on content begins: The participants each sketch out possible solutions to the problem, which are then presented and feedbacked by the others (¼ criticism phase). This is about constructive feedback, for example, what will not work in the proposed solution or what new problems might arise with the sketched solution. • In the third step, there is another iteration in which the participants develop their proposed solution by incorporating both the feedback and good approaches of the others in the further development of the proposed solution. The results are then presented again and feedback is given. This process can either be repeated in a further iteration or the next step can be taken. • In the fourth step, the best solution proposals and ideas are condensed and brought together in small teams. The developed ideas are presented again and going through another feedback loop. Now another iteration can be performed if necessary. • In the fifth and final step, it is decided which idea or proposed solution will be implemented. With the Design Studio method, new solution proposals can often be selected and implemented after only three iterations. Depending on the difficulties of the Design Challenge, the time frame and the quality of the content of the intermediate results, further iterations can be added for consolidation and condensation. The goal of the process is always to keep the number of iterations as small as necessary. A great advantage of this method is that all participants bring in their different expertise and combine it with each other through creative iteration. In addition to excellent results, the method often brings fun and promotes teamwork. Design Studio can be successfully applied not only in the product and IT area, but basically in all areas where problem solvers are to be found and new ideas are to be developed quickly. For example, advertising slogans in marketing, Mission Statements of teams or even the company trip can be developed quickly in this way.

Tips for Implementation A clear formulation of objectives and problems at the beginning of the session is fundamental for the success of Design Studio. When introducing a new method, it is recommended not only to explain the method, but also to make the process visually visible in the room. For participants who are neither used to creative work on a daily basis nor to drawing, it makes sense to extend the warm-up phase with simple and motivating tasks. In this way, inhibitions are taken away and creativity is discovered and awakened. The involvement of a facilitator is recommended, as all participants can then focus on the content of the process and it can take place in a constructive and goal-oriented manner.

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Beate’s front-end team was given the task of placing a discount campaign of the company in a highly visible position on the homepage. “Everyone must be able to see it immediately” was the wish of the marketing department. After a few attempts, the team realized that they could not integrate the discount campaign well and that they did not really understand the background and benefits of the campaign. The team discusses with Beate how they could best solve this problem. Beate has already experience in other companies as a participant in the Method Design Studio and is convinced that it can help here as well. Since she does not feel obliged to make a contribution in terms of content, she decides to moderate the Method Design Studio herself. Together with her team, she outlines the Design Challenge and considers which other people need to be involved in order to successfully solve the problem. They decide to invite another designer, the contact person from marketing and an expert from User Experience (¼ UX). In the meeting, Beate first presents the method in detail, explains the problem and lets the participants “warm up”. “Today we think with the pencil”, she says motivatingly and ends the warming-up. Beate then carries out the roughly defined steps of the method one by one. With the existing knowledge in the room and good new impulses, the group manages within three iterations to create two good ways of integrating the discount action. After Beate has asked the participants how they want to decide on these two options, the majority of them are in favour of letting the front-end team decide for themselves. This team quickly comes to an agreement, as both solutions are good. With a well thought-out approach, the team can easily enter the discount campaign on the homepage in the following days. Design Studio ensured that good solutions could be found and integrated quickly and on time. ◄

Possible Challenges It can be challenging to get employees without their own creative impulses to participate in the method. However, experience shows that actually all participants, once they try it honestly, not only have fun but can also make a valuable contribution. It is not a matter of artistic talent, but of simplified thinking that is put down on paper. In most cases, participants from different disciplines and professions (see Hack “ Cross-Functional Teams”) can find the best possible solution together, since the problem is illuminated from different sides in the process (see Fig. 3).

Disruption Option

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Fig. 3 Working with design studio

Disruption Option

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The Disruption Option is the institutionalized way to introduce and present disruptive ideas.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact If a company does not take the opportunity to disrupt itself from within, sooner or later this will probably happen from outside instead. Employees should be given the opportunity to address their own ideas, regardless of their role and superiors. This is of fundamental importance in today’s working world for the development of employees’ potential and for the survival of the company. Having a permanent contact point in large companies, for example, does not mean that brilliant ideas are lost in hierarchies and drawers, but rather that they are addressed, tested and valued.

Description The basic idea is simple: In the company, the possibility must be given for radical ideas to be heard and not lost out of caution or vanity. Innovative and smaller companies are generally well placed to do this: A high level of trust, little hierarchy and short distances

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allow everyone to talk to each other. Ideas can be quickly pitched to the top. In mediumsized and large companies, the situation tends to be different: a lot of hierarchy and bureaucracy prevent short paths, and keeping information paths is a hindrance. Those who are not particularly courageous or who have no direct contact with decision-makers have a long way to go with their radical idea. Disruption Option as a contact point helps to be open, interested and supportive of new and perhaps unrealistic or utopian ideas. Particularly in large companies, the chance is small that a wacky, utopian idea of an employee will be passed on and supported by stressed managers who think only about the status quo. In this way, disruptive ideas are repeatedly nipped in the bud and employees are demotivated. A Disruption Option, on the other hand, holds on to the idea and can become a focal point for creative, impractical ideas. Together, these can be tested, weighed and, if necessary, constructed. Beyond this concrete added value, the Disruption Option stands for much more: the company shows that it not only wants to develop continuously, but also does everything possible to secure the future of the company. Thus, the possibility is given that the orientation of the company may change radically if this is an actual option and it makes sense to do this yourself before others disrupt your business. At the same time, the Disruption Option helps disruptors and critically thinking free spirits in one’s own company to be better perceived and recognized. They are given a voice and the opportunity to contribute their ideas without having to leave the company and their current role. A good example of the corporate Disruption Option is Netflix. Starting as a DVD rental company, the idea was taken up internally and pushed to disrupt their own business model from within. Today Netflix is the most successful streaming provider in the world. The formerly undisputed market leader Blockbuster did not change its own strategy and became insolvent.

Tips for Implementation The aim and purpose of the Disruption Option is to create opportunities and openness within the company to generate and address radically new ideas. In small companies, this should be made transparent and, if necessary, recorded as a visual statement. In large companies, a contact point established for this purpose can be implemented. Disruptions tend to be seen by many employees as a danger rather than an opportunity. It is therefore a good idea to explain their added value and potential opportunity and to reduce inhibitions before considering a Disruption Option. It is essential that the relevant contact persons are not only convinced of the Disruption Option themselves, but also have the know-how to differentiate between disruptive ideas and arbitrary “wish you had” ideas. For example, a contact point should not have to achieve fixed profit figures, but should be relieved of them and, in close correspondence with the management, focus on the potential gold mines and lifebuoys of ideas brought in by employees. In today’s world of Big Data, data experts (¼ data analysts) should definitely be integrated into the Disruption Option team.

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Example

A large, internationally active company experiences again and again how motivated, creative and critically questioning employees leave the company. An analysis of the HR department shows that some of the former employees have meanwhile built up successful start-ups of their own. It is also found that two of these new start-ups have become indirect competitors and are on the market with a more attractive product at a lower price. When asked by the HR department in the areas where the employees had last worked, it turns out that the former employees seem to have left the company frustrated because their ideas for improvement had not been taken seriously. Recognising that if their ideas had been taken seriously and their potential had been assessed, the HR department, in consultation with their manager, goes directly to the top management. Here they present their analysis and findings and emphasize that they need to take action. The management is convinced by the analysis and goes into work sessions with the HR department 3 weeks later. The result is that in the future, more than ever, the company will not be able to afford to ignore innovative and creative ideas. In the internally conducted research on the two specific cases, it becomes clear that the respective managers were a main reason for the lack of further processing of the new ideas. To ensure that this no longer happens, it is decided that there must be a central contact point. Here ideas, however absurd they may be, can be presented. In the following weeks, the project is refined, two suitable contact persons are found and the “contact point for unicorns” is made known in the company. In the weeks that follow, several ideas are actually submitted to the contact point, one of which is successfully implemented with a project team after review and assessment of potential. ◄

Possible Challenges It can be a challenge for employees in large companies to dare to go directly to a single point of contact. Institutionalising a Disruption Option can be difficult, as the direct added value and benefits cannot be measured directly. It is rather a matter of developing potential opportunities that can ensure the survival of the company in the future. Thus, Disruption Option becomes an investment in the future that must be supported and backed by the management. It can become difficult if the people responsible are not sufficiently trained and have no experience with innovation, as they may not have the potential to identify disruptive ideas. This should be counteracted by further training and knowledge acquisition to increase awareness and expertise in recognizing and promoting new ideas.

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Estimation Poker

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Estimation Poker is a consensus-based and gamified method for estimating workloads in teams and projects.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Estimation Poker (also known as Planning Poker) allows you to better and more accurately estimate the time required if used correctly and regularly. This allows projects and tasks to be better planned and the various efforts to be more accurately assessed. Estimation Poker involves everyone in the process, increases the learning process in teams and focuses on continuous improvement. This creates greater satisfaction among stakeholders and the realistic formulation of goals throughout the company.

Description Next to knowledge, time is probably the highest value in today’s working world, which is why good, fast and realistic time recording and estimation are becoming increasingly important. Estimation Poker (also called Planning Poker) is a playful method in which the different team members determine their scope, assess themselves and others and get to know each other better in their respective working methods. The focus of the method is to constantly improve the process in the team or project and is therefore an agile approach. Estimation Poker is particularly useful in New Work contexts when new projects and tasks are introduced for which no experience or data is available yet and when different specialist knowledge from several areas needs to be brought together. Estimation Poker is a great way to combine different ways of working and make them visible to both team members and the project. As the name suggests, this involves “playing poker” in a card game to determine the various efforts of topics and tasks in the project, with a certain procedure and in compliance with certain rules: 1. Preparation: Here each team member (min. three players) receives a set of Planning Poker cards. By looking at all the project tasks, the simplest task is considered a

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comparible task, one that is easy to estimate. All players must agree with this. The goal of this preparation is to increase or compare the common understanding of effort using a concrete example. 2. Implementation: Then the first task is discussed and presented. All players have the opportunity to ask comprehension questions until all information about this task is clarified and understandable for the players. After that, each player estimates the effort of this task for themself. At the same time, all players reveal their card with the chosen effort. If the players show the same effort, the team can move on to the next task, because the team agrees on the effort estimation. If this is not the case, the players with the highest and lowest values must justify their choice. In this conversation, which should not last longer than 2–3 min, the actual learning process takes place. Afterwards, the players estimate again until everyone has agreed on a value. 3. Conclusion: In the end, the players got to know and discussed all tasks identified in the project, discussed the effort estimates, agreed on an effort value and recorded it in writing. This allows a jointly defined effort value to be determined in relation to the simplest task. This must then be determined in terms of time or according to a criterion determined by the team. In Estimation or Planning Poker, for example, basic planning tasks are worked out, discussed in a team and, over time, assessed more and more precisely (see Hack “Iterative Working with PDCA”).

Tips for Implementation Inexperienced teams or teams in the early stages of Estimation Poker should be guided by a facilitating person. Usually, this is a SCRUM Master, Product Owner or Team Lead, who in the best case already have experience with the method. But the method can also be used in all other departments and teams and facilitated by someone outside of the team. Since Estimation Poker is based on three criteria, these should be reviewed regularly to ensure the added value of the approach. The following questions can help: “Has it been possible to determine the (relative) estimated value”, “What is the actual gain in knowledge” and “What do we know about the feasibility of the task and alternatives”. Each team is allowed to make adjustments in Estimation Poker based on their dynamics and preferences and should clearly regulate these adjustments. For example, it is up to the team to decide how they want to relate the simplest task and what exactly their estimation criteria are (e.g. time in hours, days, shifts or people). Example

The team responsible for internal company events is considered the problem child in the company. The team has far too much work, there is too much fluctuation and the team members are dissatisfied. Before the last big event of the year, the team even works late

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into the night and on weekends. When the lead is terminated at the end of the year, Michael is to take over as Head of Events and is given the task of getting the team back on track. Since he comes from within the company and changes his position internally, he knows the stories about the event team and has experienced for himself how difficult it is to agree deadlines with them, which are then are not met. In order to create more structure and clarity in the team, he goes directly into bootstrapping with the team members in his new role in the first week of February. There they work out together which main areas the event team will be working on and which tasks will be fulfilled. Michael is amazed at how clearly the team can name and subdivide the individual task areas here. His assumption that the team needs more structure is therefore not confirmed. Since he noticed that above all deadlines are not kept or are especially stressful for the team, Michael wants to find out how the respective workload is estimated via Estimation Poker. He arranges the Estimation Poker as small Event and harvests thereby immediately acknowledgment, why all are curiously about it. None of the team members has so far played poker regarding this efforts and all sit down at the table with sunglasses or peaked cap. They agree on hours as a measure of the time spent. The team begins to determine the easiest or shortest task from the points collected. After some discussions, the team can finally agree and Michael thinks “Bingo!”—obviously he has hit the nerve here and is on the right track. He distributes the sets of cards and then starts with the first task, which he pushes onto the table like a croupier. The team giggles and the bad mood of the discussion is a bit gone. Even though poker is a lot of fun, the team members are amazed to discover how different their assessments are. It’s not unusual for them to need two or three rounds of poker before they come to an agreement. Once Emma exclaims heatedly whether Paul even knows how long she waits for feedback from all sorts of people on the flyer and that although the creation itself does not take much time, the arrangements for it take all the more. The realization after the poker is that the time for arrangements and feedback from the team is not included in the deadline planning and therefore there is no realistic amount of time reserved for it. The team realizes that they have to plan time differently, but they also have to communicate deadlines for feedback. In addition, Michael is assigned to work out where feedback is really needed and where the event team can decide independently. ◄

Possible Challenges Even in Estimation Poker, scepticism and possible prejudices should be discussed first, as the method only works if it is accepted by the team members. Therefore, it is necessary to explain the procedure and the advantages in a comprehensible way. It also makes sense to accompany the Planning Poker in the initial phase. An estimation can only be realistic if the specific expertise is available in the team. It must therefore be ensured before the application that the “right” people are involved and

Feedback Culture

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Fig. 4 Estimation Poker (Based on Planning PokerⓇ, Mountain Goat Software)

know their tasks. In Estimation Poker, a respectful and fair “game atmosphere” must be created to allow all players to make an honest assessment (see Fig. 4). It is also beneficial if the team understands that it is less about playing poker than about discussing the tasks and determining the respective ways of working. Estimation Poker thrives on the learning process of the team.

Feedback Culture

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Feedback Culture means that in the company, giving and receiving feedback is regarded as an essential competence to develop oneself and the company.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Feedback enables the company and its employees to develop and continuously improve. Giving feedback encourages employees to always critically question and improve their own work, their own team and the company. This creates a constructive cooperation. Receiving personal and professional feedback motivates people to work on themselves, to develop further and to discover their blind spots during the process.

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Description In New Work contexts, a basic premise in working is to continuously improve and develop oneself and one’s company. This is possible if employees are used to giving each other feedback and this approach is anchored in both the corporate culture and the structures of the company. However, it is especially important that all employees know what feedback means in the company and how it can be constructively integrated into the company values (see Hack “Prime Directive”). Until feedback has developed as a basic competence, it needs to be regularly practiced, tried out and learned in different contexts and towards different roles/functions in the company. Constructive feedback thus creates communication at eye level, promotes the willingness of individuals and teams to learn and contribute to the growth of the company. It is not about pointing out the weaknesses and mistakes of others in order to take advantage of them, but rather to challenge, encourage and learn from each other. Feedback should be recognized as an essential part of the company. Usually, feedback is given once or twice a year in appraisal interviews, which is not the original idea of feedback. Rather, these are evaluation interviews that are conducted top-down. In contrast, feedback involves receiving and giving feedback with the aim of appreciation, improvement and development. Thus, although individual methods such as 360-degree feedback represent modes of action for feedback, they are only one important element of several for a Feedback Culture in the company. Regular, timely feedback that stimulates further development is an important element of a Feedback Culture that is lived, too.

Tips for Implementation In order to introduce feedback as a culture in the company as an integral part, it is first of all important that all employees understand what feedback actually is, how it is given and accepted and how it can benefit the cooperation. A basis for this can be created in feedback training courses, which all employees should receive. It is recommended that feedback is anchored as a fixed element in the company’s training program. In principle, the company must also work out when, where and how feedback can be given. For this, it is important that certain feedback meetings (see Hack “Retrospectives”) are held at different levels and integrated into the daily work routine. Only in this way can employees regularly apply, practice and constructively live out feedback in the company. Lead and employees should also be given the opportunity in regular and pre-arranged feedback meetings to reflect on the joint work on a trusting basis, to identify new learning goals and to formulate improvement wishes. There is also the possibility of creating a framework through organized tandem or mentoring work in which employees can give each other feedback and want to listen to each other. Here employees can decide and work out for themselves how they want to give and take feedback.

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Feedback can also be visualized as part of the Meeting Rules (see Hack “Meeting Rules”). Depending on the team, the manners of dealing with feedback have to be adapted and defined. Furthermore, the management should regularly show that it is interested in feedback and that it can give it back constructively. In this way, meetings can be organized in which the entire company can participate and questions and suggestions from the workforce can be taken up (see Hack “AMA”). Example

Jonas from the Dev-Ops team in a company based in Sweden is regularly late for the morning daily. He apologizes for this, but does not change his behaviour. After a while, his colleagues begin to reproach him and become increasingly rude in tone. Nevertheless, nothing changes. Jonas’ team colleague Arne takes part in the newly introduced feedback training courses at the company: there he learns about the various facets of constructive feedback and the framework conditions necessary for it. He also learns how important timing can be in conveying feedback. When the daily starts the next morning and Jonas is once again not on time, he suggests to the others to simply greet the unpunctual person today in a friendly manner, to pick up the content and to have the discussion about being late at a later time. Jonas is greeted in a friendly manner, informed about the already discussed contents and the daily is simply continued. Arne suggests to get together once in the afternoon and talk about the team and the satisfaction with each other. In this meeting, the team members manage to address why being late bothers them so much, and Jonas then explains why he is always late. In this conversation, it turns out that it makes sense to move the daily schedule back by half an hour. Since the feedback and the conversation were not conducted in the situation itself, but rather at different times, it was possible to talk constructively and purposefully. The fact that the team was able to proceed in this way was based on the newly acquired knowledge from the feedback training. The team was also able to address and clarify other points at the same time. Since all team members found the meeting helpful, they decided to hold such meetings regularly in the future to address dissatisfaction and change requests more quickly. ◄

Possible Challenges Awareness of feedback as a corporate culture and opportunity for improvement is not accessible to everyone or is considered to be already integrated in the company. Statements such as “We’re already doing that”, “There are performance reviews” or “We already tell each other what we think” are an indication of this. However, feedback that is constructive and aimed at improvement means that it should be adopted as a way of thinking at work. Here, it is not a question of receiving an assessment from a superior once a year, but of

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actively thinking about how improvements can be introduced, employees promoted and how we can learn together when mistakes are made. This means that employees can also give feedback to their leads and managers or observations can be shared among team members. Feedback refers not only to the way we deal with each other, but also to the structures and framework conditions.

Flexible Working Models

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Flexible Working Models enable the organization of work in line with the needs of the employees and the company.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Offering Flexible Working Models and developing them together with employees helps companies to promote attractiveness, loyalty to the company and trust on both sides. It enables a better work–life balance and employee satisfaction. By focusing on the needs of employees, they can plan their working hours more freely and self-determinedly, thus working more effectively and with greater concentration. This can lead to fewer absent hours, sick days and more motivation of the employees.

Description In order to increase the attractiveness of the company and attract young talent, it is becoming increasingly important to offer Flexible Working Models. Companies in New Work contexts are now well positioned in this respect and offer some of the working models presented here, while traditional companies find it more difficult to be flexible. The way we work today and the demands we place on work have changed. Nowadays, it is no longer exclusively necessary to be on site to do the job. The salary factor is also no longer the deciding factor and is constantly being supplemented by the opportunity for personal development and a satisfactory work–life balance. As knowledge workers, employees want to be challenged and encouraged, which is what they expect from their employer both at the workplace and beyond. Therefore, companies are increasingly called upon to develop

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adapted working models that serve their employees as well as the company. The focus here is primarily on the flexible design of work place, time and function. At these levels, the most diverse variants can be agreed upon and developed further together with the employees. These are predominantly trust-based models that are adapted to the needs and are individualized: Knowledge work also requires knowledge about different work models. In addition to classic part-time or flexitime models, models such as the following are becoming interesting: home office, co-working spaces, remote work, functioning time (summer/winter work), Job Sharing (job splitting and Pairing), 4-day week, free/unlimited leave, (mini)sabbaticals or interim employment.

Tips for Implementation In order to be able to work out Flexible Working Models, it is important that the company asks about the needs of the employees and that they can name them. This requires openness and reliability. In some cases, it makes sense for the HR/People/Talent/Organization department to sit down with the labour law department and work out basic framework conditions. This facilitates the development of flexible models that also meet the requirements of the labour market. It also creates transparency about what the company can achieve and to what extent models can be adapted to the needs of the employees. Many companies are now starting to introduce internal working models that are appropriate for the industry. The AXA insurance company in Germany has already produced a whole range of different models that focus on working hours and location, but also take into account the age of their employees. In any case, the interest of the company and the honesty of the employees are required to successfully implement such working models. Trust and sufficient transparency are an important foundation for this. The needs can be determined via surveys (see Hack “Mood Check”, “Feedback Culture”) and provide information about the satisfaction with and the loyalty of the employees to the company. Example

Hanna started as an intern in the IT company in Berlin and then worked as a freelancer during her studies. After graduating, she changed to a full-time job as a designer. A year ago she even became a lead and now has more responsibility. In her team, the cooperation is going well, because both the team vision and the Mission Statement are clear to the team members. However, Hanna notices that she is more tense due to her new roles and is therefore more often interrupted in her normal work. This bothers her because she can no longer work as effectively as she is used to. Even the desk-sharing model and the various workspaces in the company do not change much—she continues to be regularly distracted from her work. By chance, Hanna discovers, when she spends half a day at home waiting for a craftsman to arrive, that her team does not constantly distract her, ask for her opinion or need advice when she is not on site. In this way, she manages to do her

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work much more concentrated and effectively. In her one-on-one with her mentor, she reports on this discovery and the mentor advises her to arrange home office with her team and company. Uncertain whether this is possible, as this model has so far only been used by parents in the company, she asks the management. Her argumentation that she would have such a day for concentrated work and that her team would work more independently is convincing and from then on she works from home on Thursday. After a year, she even switches to a 4-day week to intensify her training as a yoga teacher. ◄

Possible Challenges In addition to the legal framework conditions, which the legal department must also explore and define, the challenge is to bring together the existing corporate culture and the individuality of the employees in models. This requires agreements and work on both sides, which is why a working group or team that regularly focuses on the adaptation and new development of work models is the ideal solution here. Reliability and transparency of the employees become very important in the trust-based models and require personal responsibility. Clear agreements enable employees to determine whether they can successfully complete their tasks and meet deadlines.

Fuck Up Events

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Fuck Up Events are moderated events, where failure and mistakes in your own business are reported.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Fuck Up Events help to promote the error culture and learn how to deal with errors. Failures and mistakes are openly discussed in order to learn from them and to work out solutions. Through Fuck Up Events, those in charge take responsibility for their mistakes, reflect on their failures and demonstrate learnings. In this way, they can learn from each other in order to be better prepared in the future and to avoid such mistakes.

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Description Fuck up Nights are now a well-known concept that allows people all over the world to talk about mistakes and failures. It started with an idea of five friends from Mexico City: They organized evenings where stories of professional failure were staged as one event. The concept has already been implemented in 304 cities and 80 countries. A company can take up this concept as an internal event in its basic idea and make it useful for itself. In moderated and organized events, which take place regularly within the company (or even beyond), two to four “fuck up stories” are reported, the consequences are presented and insights are derived. The employees are given the opportunity to ask the speaker questions. The focus of a fuck up event in the company is on the presentation of the consequences and insights derived from it. The event follows a pre-defined sequence of events and can vary in terms of methodology. In an internal Fuck up Event, the failure culture in the company should be taken up and made comprehensible. At the same time, the event is intended to encourage people to act more courageously and to develop themselves further in order to move out of their own comfort zone.

Tips for Implementation In order to make Fuck Up Events useful in the company, it is important that they are planned and carried out by experienced facilitators. In the regular and institutionalized format, the background of the event should be explained to the participants and the benefits behind it should be made clear. For internal Fuck Up Events, it makes sense to define a superordinate topic and select the “fuck ups” accordingly. In this way, it can be shown more systematically what consequences this mistake had for the company, how it was dealt with and what was learned from it. By means of the events, an embraced failing culture can be implemented in the company by disclosing the “fuck ups”. The company shows that mistakes are not concealed and are dealt with constructively, which increases the trust of the employees. The “Fuck up owners” should be supported in their preparation for the event. In this way, they can deal with their own mistakes, name concrete findings and point out solutions that help the company as well as employees to avoid the same mistakes. It makes sense to bring the fuck up event into a clear and defined process and to focus on learnings and insights in order to justify the constructive added value of such an event. Similarly, the holders of key positions in a company should regularly attend these events to demonstrate their own commitment and how mistakes are dealt with in the company. Example

Kathrin has only been working for the company for a few months, has not yet completed her probationary period and fears subliminally that she will make a big mistake. Therefore, she works more than average, is sometimes dogged towards her colleagues and gets very angry with herself and her team when the smallest mistakes are made. Her

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mentor notices this behaviour and in a conversation she talks to Kathrin about it. Kathrin confesses that she left her previous company because she could no longer bear the way she dealt with employees who had made mistakes. But here, she didn’t really know how to deal with them, and all her colleagues seemed so carefree. The mentor then tells her that a sincere error culture has been lived in the company for a few years now and invites Kathrin to the next “Fuck up Meetup”. She pulls a face and says that she doesn’t like this kind of event, since failure is still celebrated as a feat. Her mentor giggles and asks her to attend the event with her anyway. A few weeks later, Kathrin receives an invitation in which the objectives and the overall theme are explained. The next “Fuck up Meetup” is to deal specifically with marketing strategies for a product that is very similar to hers. But this is quite special, Kathrin thinks and her curiosity is aroused. The Fuck up event will be held in the company’s meeting rooms and participation is only possible for employees, as company-specific strategies are to be presented. The event begins in a relaxed but formal atmosphere late Thursday afternoon. In the introduction, a facilitator presents the process flow and the “fuck ups”. In the “fuck up stories”, both the mistakes and the consequences are reported. The facilitator succeeds in constructively channelling the audience’s questions, which makes further perspectives clear and, through the experiences of the participants, new approaches to solving the problem become apparent. These insights are collected in a topic memory. Olaf, Head of Communication, also sits in the audience and takes notes. At the end of the events, the findings and solutions are hung up in the room like at a vernissage and everyone has the opportunity to get into conversation with their colleagues and “fuck up owners” over a glass of champagne, wine or beer. Kathrin listens to many conversations and can answer some questions for herself, which help her to question her handling of mistakes and to gain more self-confidence. At the end, her mentor smiles at her and asks her if the event was as terrible as she thought it would be. The focus was more clearly on learning skills than Kathrin had assumed. The mentor explains to her that the format was deliberately always structured in this or a similar way. Other formats had caused more resentment in the company and had not been constructive. Kathrin plans to visit internal fuck-up events on a regular basis. ◄

Possible Challenges Fuck Up Events increasingly see themselves as being criticized, unreflecting their own failure to celebrate their own failures and mistakes. Internal Fuck Up Events should therefore counteract such prejudices by organizing, hosting and moderating the event. A clear sequence of events, a specific topic and a trained facilitator are essential to enable a constructive discussion of mistakes. The facilitator should be able to ask critical questions about the presentations without stigmatising the person reporting. Both the facilitator and the “fuck up owner” should be able to confidently answer questions from the audience.

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This means that they should be given time and support to deal with their own failure. They also need information about the different consequences that the “fuck up” had in the company. It is important to focus on the solutions and findings from the “fuck up” and these should also be recorded in the event so that employees can access them. Here, different methods that are aligned with the company and the needs of the employees help.

Golden Circle

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The Golden Circle illustrates the importance of seeing and being able to formulate the meaning in the work. Therefore, the WHY should always be started with.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Knowing why you do something or why you work for it helps to better understand your own behaviour, your own needs and desires and the motivation of others. This helps to make decisions more consciously and quickly and to make them comprehensible for others.

Description The Golden Circle was developed by Simon Sinek. He asked himself what makes certain leaders and companies so successful and how they differ from their competitors. He noticed that successful leaders differ mainly in how they think, behave and communicate. For them, the WHY is the main focus and influences their entire behaviour (¼ purpose-driven work). In his analysis, he found that these leaders were able to explain exactly why they behave or act the way they do. This not only made them very clear in their objectives, but also enabled them to make their motives understandable to their employees. From this insight, Sinek developed the “golden circle”, in which he describes the behaviour of successful leaders and companies in three circles: the WHY, the HOW, and the WHAT. The essential statement is that meaning is the golden core of the circle and only from this is action derived. It shows that all decisions, behaviours and actions in the

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company always start with the question of WHY ! “always start with the WHY!”. In this way, employees can be picked up on the content and understand the vision. Identification with the WHY can thus take place much more easily, quickly and sustainably at all levels. This approach creates security and trust in the company and makes employees more motivated to work. In the Golden Circle, it is crucial to know WHY you do something: The core includes the WHY, which describes intuition, motivation, beliefs and inspiration. Often these are descriptions that arise from the innermost conviction. These cannot always be explained consistently and are therefore not easy to formulate. The second and third circle in the Golden Circle represents the HOW and the WHAT: In the HOW, the way of implementation and the processes behind it are meant, while the WHAT contains the ratio, the actual doing and the possible results. Thus, basic purpose-driven work can be considered and can be named and used for oneself and one’s own company.

Tips for Implementation The Golden Circle alone already offers a good system for examining decisions, behaviour or strategies in the company with regard to the three aspects WHY, HOW and WHAT. Simon Sinek presents here a simple and easily comprehensible structure. Not all aspects need to be passed on to the employees, but the illustration helps to better understand one’s own behaviour and the motives behind it. Often it also helps to consciously develop and visualize the three rings in a coaching session. The Golden Circle is very focused on purpose-driven work and creates more awareness for one’s own intuition. The guiding principle “always start with the WHY” as a concept can offer support to make necessary changes in the company comprehensible and explain them. In this way, own considerations and decisions based on the Golden Circle can be built and communicated. It makes sense to involve the Golden Circle in goal-setting workshops in order to make congruent and comprehensible decisions that will better engage the employees in the company and simultaneously increase the quality of the results. Example

In a medium-sized company in Stuttgart, which has to completely realign itself in order to remain marketable, the mood among the workforce is correspondingly bad. The employees fear for their jobs and are very sceptical about the announced changes. The management is making every effort to explain to the workforce what is on the agenda and what is expected of them in the coming months. Meetings are being held for the entire workforce and information is also being sent by e-mail to the entire company. The top management believes that they have thus well presented the change and prepared the employees for the change. In the coaching, Philipp, one of the managers, notes that he is unsure whether he has actually picked up his employees and wonders why they do not understand how important a reorientation of the company is. He is annoyed that

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everyone is so “cross-putting”. When asked by his coach Ed, he explains what was communicated to the staff and how. Ed then shows him the Golden Circle, explains it and asks Philipp to assign the information to the three rings. Here Philipp quickly realizes that only the HOW and WHAT circles are filled out. He argues that it is clear WHY they are doing this and that he does not have to explain it in detail. When Ed asks him WHY he is doing this, Philipp realizes again that he himself cannot answer this question to the point—because it is necessary, he says. Together with Ed, he then works on the WHY for the change process of his company and takes the questions to the other managing directors. Together they work hard to formulate the WHY, thereby refining their approach and making it easier to understand why the information they have received so far has not generated the desired motivation and willingness to change in their employees. From now on, Philipp works more consciously with the Golden Circle in order to place the WHY and thus the purpose of his work in the centre of attention. ◄

Possible Challenges Since the Golden Circle is a working tool that questions the meaning of one’s own work, it is not only easy to work on: It is about the innermost convictions and one’s own intuition, which are not immediately accessible to everyone. This tool requires the competence to question oneself and reflect one’s behaviour. Therefore, the Golden Circle is a good instrument to work on yourself. If necessary, support can also be obtained for the initial development. Further methods like the “Five Whys” help to get closer to the “golden core” and to understand it. The Golden Circle requires that meaning and motivation be recognized as a framework for one’s own behaviour and can be formulated.

Hackathon

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A Hackathon is a collaborative event where ideas are conceived, developed and presented in the shortest possible time.

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Why Important: Benefits and Impact Hackathons enable companies to find solutions to previously unsolved problems in the shortest possible time or to generate completely new ideas and thereby better connect the employees in the company. Often, inspiration from participants outside the company is desired during a Hackathon and the Hackathon is also used for successful recruiting. Functioning prototypes are created within a few days.

Description A Hackathon (¼ hack and marathon) always has a concrete goal. This ranges from the solution of a specific problem to basic development possibilities or disruptive solutions to a product or service. Both hardware and software ideas can be worked on. Hackathons have a defined time frame. Most of them last between 1 day and 1 week. During this time, the participants focus 100% on developing their ideas. Mostly, something new is developed together in cross-functional, mixed teams. A company can decide whether the Hackathon is an internal event or whether people from outside the company can participate (e.g. via the website www.hackathon.com). More and more companies are using the potential of an open Hackathon as a recruiting process: talented people can show their expertise within a very short time and inspire or convince the company of themselves. Thus, the Hackathon is not only interesting for companies, but also for people who present and introduce themselves to a company through the Hackathon. The course of a Hackathon is not fixed. At the beginning of a Hackathon, basic information about Hackathons and the specific occasion of the Hackathon itself is usually given, the course of the event, the contact persons and the general rules are presented. Teams are formed, which normally work together for the duration of the Hackathon. In some cases, there are also so-called jumpers who go from team to team as needed and support with their expertise. At the end of the Hackathon, the results are presented in a demo presentation. In some cases, prize money is awarded. After the end of the Hackathon, it will be seen which projects will be continued, integrated as a fixed component or otherwise further processed. Probably the best known integration of a result from a Hackathon is the “like” button on Facebook.

Tips for Implementation When a Hackathon is held in the company for the first time, it is important to explain the event and its objectives as well as possible in advance. The Hackathon lives from the active participation of the participants. It is a good idea to set up the possibility to register before the start. Sufficient material for manual sketching (¼ visualizing idea) is just as important as a good and above all quickly functioning IT infrastructure. It is worthwhile to provide

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rooms for the event, which have a large open area as well as smaller areas and work tables, so that working in small teams as well as bringing all participants together can be done without problems. An already existing event space in the company can probably be best used. Before the event, the company should think about how the results of the Hackathon will be handled after the event. It is recommended to place a supplement with results and further impulses in the company, so that the possible impact is shown and employees are motivated for the next Hackathon. Participation in the Hackathon should be on a voluntary basis, although it may be useful to have certain people present for specific topics. Example

Six months ago, a large company in Nigeria, which has adapted to the digital change, launched an app for its own customers that is limited to basic user options in the first version. After it was found out that there is fundamental interest in the app, the management decided to expand the app as soon as possible. When discussing how this can be achieved most quickly, it is decided to hold a Hackathon. Everything is prepared, communicated within the company and a Hackathon of 5 days is carried out. Despite a relatively low participation rate, a total of seven functioning prototypes are created at the end of the 5 days and many new insights are gained into the app’s future development possibilities. In such a short time, suggestions are created that would otherwise have taken weeks. After the presentation of the prototypes as well as the evaluation and assessment of a group of experts, six of the seven prototypes are tested by users (¼ user tests). In the tests, it turns out that four of the six new functions are evaluated as useful and desired. Based on the positive feedback, the new functions will be integrated into the app as soon as possible and the next Hackathon is already planned. ◄

Possible Challenges It can be challenging for employees to take time for the entire period of the Hackathon. Here, the support and encouragement of the respective managers are crucial for the participation of motivated employees. It can lead to demotivation if results from the Hackathons are seldom or never integrated into further work. If the results are always not good enough, it is important to critically check whether the general conditions and objectives have been explained clearly enough. It is also worthwhile to obtain feedback from the participants on the framework conditions and to use it for the further development of the format. Hackathons with participants coming from outside the company can cause difficulties if sensitive data such as lines of code or other trade secrets are involved. It is strongly recommended to be aware of the extent to which information is released to the outside world and the guidelines for internal employees and to communicate these clearly.

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This will ensure that internal participants in the Hackathon know the general conditions and can focus on the actual work of their project.

In-House Trainings

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In-house Training are training sessions offered by employees to share their expertise and thus contribute to knowledge networking and dissemination.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact The potential of internal knowledge is usually much greater than the knowledge already used and shared within the company. We live in a knowledge based society, expert knowledge is more important than ever before. Enabling employees within the company to pass on and share their knowledge with others and thus increase the knowledge of the company as a whole is one of the most important tasks of modern corporate management. Experts can thus be empowered to pass on their own knowledge.

Description Various aspects make In-house Training so valuable. On the one hand, an In-house Training is an opportunity for experienced employees to develop horizontally and become a knowledge shaper within the company. In doing so, they learn to share their own knowledge with others and are given the opportunity to structure and develop their knowledge further. On the other hand, there is the option of providing employees in the company with the knowledge they already have and letting them learn with and from each other—with the synergy effect that employees not only acquire new knowledge themselves, but through their practical examples in the company directly work on solutions together and create possible approaches and solutions together. This creates the added value that employees from different areas of the company share their knowledge, network their experiences with each other and gain new insights into problems and challenges of other company areas. At the same time, interdisciplinary networking within the company is encouraged, which is usually constructive for future challenges. For all this to succeed, it is

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important that employees receive professional support in the conceptualization and development of the training. This ensures that training courses are structured in the best possible way, are then jointly reflected upon, the feedback of the participants constantly contributes to improvement. One goal should be to develop training offers and offer them transparently, so that employees have the opportunity to participate and access them.

Tips for Implementation It is important that the relevant managers support this activity so that employees can devote part of their working time to it. In order for experts in specific areas of knowledge to share their knowledge, it is necessary both to determine what knowledge is available in the company and to find out which knowledge can be relevant to a wider range of employees and should be disseminated. There will be experts who can easily share their knowledge in a constructive way and who are talented or already experienced. However, some employees may be reluctant to speak to groups and share their knowledge or may simply not be able to do so at all. A good support by experienced trainers, coaches or the HR department is highly recommended. Joint reflection with a training expert and the development of the experts with their trainings have to be taken into account when setting up an internal training offer and ensure both the quality of the training offered and the horizontal development of the employees. Networking training experts with each other and offering joint learning units to improve training skills are recommended. Example

After it has become apparent in various situations in the company that employees do not understand enough about the possibilities of the new chat program and consequently still fall back on cumbersome and outdated procedures, the person responsible for the chat, Martin, who is also the expert in this area, is asked whether he can give short training sessions. Together with the in-house trainer Tine, who normally trains soft skill topics, Martin develops the procedure and structure of the training. First he asks some of the employees how they currently use the chat. In this way, he gets an overview of the status quo and, together with Tine, he can collect topics and important information and convert them into a methodical-didactic concept. Tine serves as a facilitator and, as an expert for training concepts, only provides the framework, not the content. After the first test run, the participants’ feedback is reflected upon and it is considered how both the training and the trainer competence can be further developed in the future. This is done in short iterations, so that improvements can be made not only after one year and ten training sessions, but right from the start. This not only enables Martin to develop further, but also brings direct benefits to the other participants through a better concept and execution. ◄

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Possible Challenges If technical experts do not receive good guidance, it can quickly happen that they are overtaxed and this can lead to poor training, which in turn leads to demotivation and negative feedback. Not to leave business experts alone, but to accompany them in their development, requires commitment and time. If there is no central person or team who feels responsible for advancing the issue of In-house Training and sharing of internal knowledge, the efforts will probably soon fizzle out. Responsibility and freedom and the support of the company’s management are essential for success.

Iterative Working with PDCA

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The PDCA cycle stands for Plan, Do, Check and Act and is a model that implements changes in iterative steps.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact The PDCA cycle initiates short processes and keeps them as simple as possible. This allows projects to be better planned and executed. The idea of continuous improvement strengthens the team’s ability to reflect and implement in projects. PDCA enables fast learning, testing and feedback.

Description The acronym PDCA stands for Plan, Do, Check and Act (sometimes also called “adjust”). The model has evolved from Agile Management and promotes working in iterative steps. The PDCA principle (also called Deming Circle) goes back to William E. Deming and his work in quality management. His basic assumption is that working methods and processes are simplified with PDCA and continuously improved in a recurring cycle (¼ incremental improvement). This means that long, complicated project plans that are difficult to adapt to

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changes can be avoided. In New Work contexts, many work processes, especially in IT teams, are implemented on the basis of PDCA. PDCA consists of the following four steps, which can be presented in a circle: (1) plan, (2) implement, (3) test and (4) act: • In the first step “Plan”, the initial situation of the project or concern is analysed in order to identify potential for improvement and to develop measures for improvement. • In the second step “Do”, the measures are implemented for the first time and frequently adjusted in the further course of the project. • In the third step “Check”, it is checked whether the developed measures are suitable for achieving the project objective and evaluated for their potential for improvement. • If this is the case, in the fourth step “Act”, the improvement (or the slightly adjusted (adjust) procedure) is carried out and introduced as a measure. Ideally, this improvement is defined as a standard and the application is continuously monitored. • If, however, in the third step, the measure is assessed as unsuitable, the cycle starts all over again until an effective measure has been developed. The focus is always on driving forward an improvement and applying it in the process in order to find solutions more quickly and make them workable.

Tips for Implementation Since the PDCA cycle is kept very simple, it can be applied and displayed in almost any project. For teams, it is helpful if the four steps are explained and visualized, so that especially in the introduction phase of PDCA, it can be referred to again and again. This facilitates the familiarization and internalization of the model. It can also be helpful to work with the team members to develop overarching questions for the individual steps of the PDCA cycle. In this way, they will deal with the process more intensively and their understanding of the individual steps will be deepened. The individual steps should also be visualized and recorded. To institutionalize PDCA more easily, regular meetings should be held to review the model. Here SCRUM meetings or Retrospectives are a good idea (see Hack “Retrospectives”). Example

Jan works in a napkin production company in Amsterdam as a senior engineer and supervises three teams there. Recently, he has been under increasing pressure because his supervisor has set him two new objectives due to the change in the company’s strategy: To produce 15% more napkins per year and to work according to the zerodefect principle. Jan is convinced that he and his teams are already doing a very good job, and is uncertain where exactly he can make improvements in the process. Over an after-work beer with his friend Thomas, who works in the IT industry, he tells us about

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his problem. Thomas listens carefully and asks above all what exactly the objectives are and how they have been pursued so far. Jan gets into the narration, presents the situation quite concretely and praises his teams for their good work. After a while, Thomas suggests that Jan can use PDCA to look for improvements together with his teams, because common knowledge and experiences seem productive to him. Jan asks irritatedly what PDCA is and how he could do this with his teams. Thomas explains to him how he works in his company afterwards. Jan is inspired and can imagine such a procedure in his teams. He starts to read more about PDCA the same evening and the following week he calls all his teamleads together for a meeting. There he tells them about the new goals and that they have to look together how they can fulfil these goals. The teamleads appear dismayed and are worried, because according to the project plan, they are exactly on course. Jan reports that he would like to work on the two new objectives in small steps and very specifically and that he needs the support of the teams for this. When he explains PDCA, he quickly finds approval and the leads easily find access to it, which is why they get involved. Still in this meeting, they go into the first step “plan” and analyse the situation with regard to the two objectives. Based on the entire knowledge of the team leaders, they discover that they have the largest amount of waste when printing the napkins and therefore produce the most errors. Bruno says that this is certainly due to the stencils and agrees to gather more information on this by the next day. The next day it is clear that the stencils are OK and that the cause of the problem is not the stencils. Jan asks his teamleads to check with the individual teams and to meet with him again in 2 days. At the next meeting, the teamleads collect the results of their questioning and together with Jan they realize that it is not the templates themselves, but how they are inserted into the new machine. Sven reports that there is a trick that he has also told his team and that before inserting the stencil, it is now cleaned once with a duster and bent upwards. He immediately fetches a stencil and shows the process to the others. From this, they derive in the second step “Do” measures, which can contribute to the improvement at this point: (1) All teams are informed about this trick by their lead. (2) All teams will be provided with the material for cleaning the stencil. (3) Sven should have the work step written down in the quality management department. Over the next 4 weeks, the teamleads will sit down with Jan twice a week and check the measures based on the number of rejects, i.e. carry out the third step “Check”. After 1 month, a significant reduction in rejects can already be seen, but this is not yet within the targeted range, which is why further measures are decided upon: (1) the cleaning material is changed daily and (2) the teams receive a mini-training on how to bend the template. In the last step “Act”, an instructional video will be recorded to show how to clean and bend the stencil. All teams receive this video, new team members show their team lead how to bend the stencil during the first 2 weeks and receive direct feedback. Jan attends an agile leadership training, whereupon he enables his teamleads to work according to PDCA and extends this to all his teams, so that soon everybody is working

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according to it and contributes significantly to the implementation of the new company strategy. Thomas is invited by Jan to a sumptuous meal as a thank you. ◄

Possible Challenges PDCA corresponds in large parts to the agile mindset and needs time to be internalized (see Fig. 5). During the introduction and in the subsequent meetings, one should always invest in the knowledge of the possibility and necessity of continuous improvement. In many companies, this is a real mindset shift. It is therefore a good idea to prepare data on improved structures, processes and performance and mirror it to the teams so that the improvement process becomes visible to them. Product improvements can be represented by customer opinions or evaluations, which can contribute to the motivation of the team.

Job Rotation

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Job Rotation means changing jobs. Here, an employee changes internally, in a planned and recurring system, between two or more workplaces and functions.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact The regular change of workplaces and tasks brings advantages on the employee as well as on the company side. Employees find the work more varied and interesting. Job Rotation reduces monotony and inattention while working. The new challenges increase motivation and encourage employees to deal with their own work. Knowledge transfer can be operated and implemented in a more complex manner within the company. Specific expertise is better distributed and passed on to colleagues, which increases knowledge in the company. By working in different work areas and performing different tasks, competencies grow in breadth and can be used in later management functions.

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Fig. 5 Iterative work with Plan—Do—Check—Act (PDCA)

Description With job rotation, an employee switches between two or more work areas and functions internally, in a planned and recurring system. This is a work model that was already explained in the 1950s by Eric L. Trist and Ken Bamforth. Since it is rarely used in many countries, it is still a relatively unknown form of work organization. In New Work contexts, however, Job Rotation is becoming increasingly popular, as it enables employees to pursue a wide range of professional interests. Job Rotation can be set up in various ways: as horizontal, vertical and radial job rotation. With horizontal job rotation, the employee changes jobs. This allows him/her to view different areas of the company and learn about the value creation process from different perspectives. Classic horizontal job rotations are trainee or apprenticeship programs. Vertical Job Rotation is about extending tasks. In this process, tasks and functions that differ from the employee’s original tasks are transferred in defined fields. Vertical Job Rotation is often used when taking over management tasks in preparation. In radial job rotation, contrasting work areas and tasks are deliberately taken on in order to get to know and understand different problems and difficulties. For example, it is possible to switch from a strategic to an operational activity. The goal of Job Rotation is always to develop the potential of employees and to integrate their knowledge into the company. At music4friends, for example, trainees are assigned the management for 1 month. With this format, it is possible to focus on Job Enlargement (¼ enhancement in the previous requirement level) and Job Enrichment (¼ advancement beyond the previous requirement level). Frequent and regular changes of work areas and functions can generally promote the further development and networking of employees. Rotating makes it possible to broaden knowledge and develop competencies, but also to develop new perspectives and points of view.

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Tips for Implementation To successfully implement Job Rotation in a company, the management should support the format. To this end, the management level can also open up certain areas for job rotation. Since Job Rotation involves a high level of organizational effort, it is helpful if the HR/People/Talent/Organization department develops suitable measures and make the framework conditions transparent. Employees and relevant areas should be involved in the development (see Hack “Cross-Functional Teams”). By means of a basic survey (see Hack “Mood Check”), needs and feedback on Job Rotation can be obtained and thus constantly adapted and improved. Suitable people with communication and organizational skills should be offered Job Rotation if they are interested in expanding their knowledge on a broad basis within the company. Example

Max has been working in the marketing department of a Lebanese company for several years and loves his job. He sees himself as a marketing expert who can skilfully support his company with interesting advertising. He is interested in many things, is not afraid to take on new tasks and stands out above all because of his commitment, which is why his lead Rola suggests him for a job rotation. Max is enthusiastic about the idea from the very beginning, as he sees the opportunity to prove himself faster in the company, which corresponds to his own goals. Together with other interested colleagues, Max is invited by the management to an information event. There he learns from the boss himself that the HR/People/Talent/Organization department has developed a phased model for job rotation, which provides for an iterative development of employees. In the first stage, Max switches between e-mail marketing, social media marketing and print in a 3-week rotation. After half a year of settling in, Max moves on to the second stage. Now he works 6 weeks each in marketing and customer support. While he enthusiastically tried out the different areas in the first stage, he noticed that the customer support department needed to become much more familiar with the technical side of things. He realizes that he cannot answer customer questions and asks for product training. His supporter colleagues soon call him Donald Duck, because he encourages his colleagues to come up with new solutions by naively asking questions. However, the new insights give him a better overview and enable him to work even better and more specifically in marketing, which is something that inspires him. A short time later, he also takes over Rolas first strategic tasks in marketing (level 3). Both agree that in a year’s time, they will be able to see how Max likes the Job Rotation and whether he can then slowly be familiarized with management tasks. Despite the high workload and the familiarization with new areas of responsibility and with new colleagues, Max considers the Job Rotation to be a professional and personal enrichment. ◄

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Possible Challenges Not every employee wants to change his or her workplace and functions constantly and is stressed by the need to familiarize himself or herself with a new field of work and to find his or her way into unfamiliar team structures. Here it is important to clearly formulate the requirements for Job Rotation and make them understandable to the employee. If necessary, employees may need to be retrained so that productivity does not suffer. Job Rotation requires a high degree of organization, but also communication, as employees have to work together at different levels and in different roles. The team as well as the employee should consciously declare their willingness to do so and voluntarily agree to a job rotation. In addition, a high degree of willingness to change and adapt is necessary, as the employee must coordinate with different teams, colleagues and work areas. Regular and institutionalized exchanges of knowledge and experience (see Hack “Knowledge-Sharing Formats”) help to develop teams despite rotation and promote teamwork.

Job Sharing

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Job Sharing is a flexible working model in which at least two people share a full-time position in the company.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Job Sharing is an attractive working model that is becoming increasingly popular, especially among young workers. However, it can also combine older and younger employees, thus sharing knowledge and reducing the workload. Such offers create stronger employee loyalty and make the company more attractive for each generation of employees. In Job Sharing, a position is filled by two people who both contribute their ideas, creativity and with commitment. This can lead to greater diversity in terms of the position, combine complementary strengths in one function, generate double input and problemsolving approaches per full-time position. The dual-control-principle reduces errors and thus reduces problems in the company.

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Description Job Sharing is a flexible work model (see Hack “Flexible Working Models”) whereby two forms of Job Sharing are distinguished: Job splitting and job Pairing. • In job splitting, two people (¼ tandem work) usually work on a full-time position that they share within the company. There are also job splits where more than two people share the workplace, but this is not yet very common. In this type of split, the job splitting partners have the same or very similar task areas, but work on different days and independently of each other. All tasks that arise at this job are collected and organized together in the job splitting. The splitting partners are also responsible for the distribution of working time or days. • Job Pairing, on the other hand, involves working together as a couple on a full-time basis, which requires more intensive and closer cooperation. In this working model, the Pairing partners bear joint responsibility for projects and tasks that arise in this position. Since a functioning teamwork with regular arrangements and joint decision-making is fundamental, the Pairing partners are more dependent on each other in their work. Therefore, this working model places greater emphasis on the different strengths of the tandem and functions of the individual tasks. Job Sharing—similar to the home office—is taking on an increasingly central role in work models and requires the willingness to work together intensively. This promotes important skills such as organizational and communication skills as well as time management.

Tips for Implementation The HR/People/Talent/Organization department is responsible for creating the legal framework for the job-sharing model. In order to find suitable and responsible persons, clear job advertisements and a high level of transparency in expectations are required. Guidelines and examples of job-sharing models make it easier for managers to create such opportunities for their employees. They also build trust so that employees can imagine working in this way. Furthermore, placement platforms can help in finding tandems. Successful examples can be found at the Hamburg-based company Beiersdorf, where tandems are placed via an internal job-sharing platform. At the beginning, it can be helpful to support the tandem in the division of tasks and arrangements. A regular schedule and organized routines can help to get involved in this new and flexible working model and become fit for work. Here regular Retrospectives (see Hack “Retrospectives”) can be carried out together in order to develop together in an institutionalized way.

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Bärbel works in the Berlin office team with her job-sharing partner Finn on a full-time basis. They not only share the job here, but have also identified and divided various functions as an office team. They prefer to work together and see themselves as a Pairing partner. In their previous jobs, they have found out which subtasks they enjoy more in their job and which they prefer. While Finn takes care of the communication with the marketing department, Bärbel increasingly organizes the affairs of the management. Both are equally responsible for the general organization in the office. Tasks such as accounting, salary agreements and correspondence are the responsibility of both. They organize their work through weekly meetings (¼ weeklies), where they estimate the amount of work and set priorities. They use their daily “Power Office Coffee” (POC) for urgent task distribution besides their usual work. As a mother of three, Bärbel feels less stress, because with Finn, she has someone at her side who supports her and relieves her of unpleasant tasks (e.g. communication with marketing). Through Job Sharing, Finn has the opportunity to hand over some of the organizational tasks and learns from Bärbel more about the corporate culture and the local manners. ◄

Possible Challenges The biggest challenge in Job Sharing is probably finding the “right” tandem partner (¼ matching). Here it is important that the tasks are described in detail and comprehensibly. In addition, tandems need a certain competence for reflection in order to know what they can and want to achieve in an intensive cooperation. Also here it helps to work out the basics of the cooperation (see Hack “Prime Directive”) as well as to develop an honest Feedback Culture (see Hack “Feedback Culture”). However, it is also particularly important to reduce prejudices and concerns about this work model, which prevent employees from getting involved in Job Sharing. It makes sense to provide additional offers that improve the work–life balance: For example, it is important to provide opportunities for further training, social commitment or the development of personal interests. Furthermore, the job-sharing partners should have a high level of communication skills in order to work well together in this work model. Bootstrapping (see Hack “Bootstrapping”) or communication training courses that regulate and improve the basic cooperation can be offered here.

Kanban

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Kanban

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Kanban can be understood as a project management tool that continuously improves the process in iterative steps.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Kanban fundamentally leads to more transparency and alignment in teams. It includes an easily accessible procedure that shows the working methods and the progress in the team, but also the possible problems. It contributes to continuous improvements within the team. Thus, Kanban leads to a clear division of tasks, creates a higher added value in the team and makes it fit for the purpose of the company (¼ fit for purpose). Since Kanban is carried out in small iterations, the inhibition threshold to try out the tool is lowered.

Description Kanban is becoming increasingly popular in working with teams and in change management. This is mainly due to the fact that Kanban is very easy to understand, transparent in its execution and motivating by showing the progress. In addition, it can be used in many different ways, since both start-ups and corporations can work with Kanban. Basically, Kanban is about showing the current workflow, the “Work in Progress”, (WIP) and the existing difficulties or bottlenecks. Digital boards can also be used—this depends on how the team wants to work and what is more consistent for the team members. In many African companies we got the feedback, that the digital tool makes processes even faster. On the boards, at least in the triad “To Do, Doing, Done”, the work is organized and regulated in columns. Each card stands for a task and moves in the columns from left to right on the board. In the upstream backlog (¼ unsorted theme memory), the tasks are collected, broken down and formulated into individual tickets. The visualization makes it possible for the team members to get an overview of the status and the work steps and tasks at any time to increase transparency, flexibility and motivation. It is much easier for the team to see how much time is being invested in specific tasks, who is working on the tasks, but also how much is actually due or has already been worked on. Over time, this can lead teams to assess themselves better and better and thus work more productively, more

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contentedly and more effectively. This approach corresponds to the basic idea of Kanban, which was coined by Taiichi Ohno at the Japanese Toyota Motor Corporation, where the tool was primarily used to distribute capacities more effectively.

Tips for Implementation Even if Kanban is a tool for evolutionary change and therefore easier to implement, it should be introduced in small steps in the sense of the method. It should therefore only be started in a team or in a project. The team members should have a basic curiosity and willingness to change, which includes a transparent and open cooperation. It can help if one team member and the lead take ownership of Kanban first. In the best case, the team or the owner has been trained in the Kanban method. But most of all, the team members should take some time to test such a method for themselves and make their experiences with it. In case of scepticism in the team, the easiest way is to suggest the Kanban Board and its use as an experiment, which will be reflected and tested for success after a defined period of time. In this way, potential hurdles are removed in advance and more willingness to accept Kanban is created. It is also important that the team members know their tasks and can subdivide them. Regular meetings (e.g. “dailies”) and agreed-upon meetings (e.g. Retrospectives meetings) help to discuss the respective tasks, point out the work processes and articulate problems. Here, a pre-defined working method (see Hack “Prime Directive”) can help to maintain the work flow. Example

For a new project and for the first time, an interdisciplinary team is established in a classic, medium-sized company in Zagreb, Croatia. All team members originally come from different teams, have different leads and other main responsibilities. Although the individual team members are highly motivated, they are also sceptical about this form of teamwork because they fear an enormous additional workload. Nevertheless, they are all willing to give the project a chance. Therefore, they start their work full of expectation, but are disillusioned after only a few weeks and see their fears confirmed: Chaos has broken out, no one knows exactly what the other is working on, when the respective subtasks will be finished and whether the overall project can even be completed within the planned time. After an unpleasant team meeting with everyone, the management decides to take Agile Coach Markus on board to provide structural support for the project team in its challenge. In an intensive and for all participants exhausting team meeting, in which the previous project is reflected again, Markus suggests to organize the tasks in the project with Kanban. The team members groan at the suggestion: “Now I should write cards as well?” After a short introduction, Markus can make clear that by dividing Kanban into “To Do”, “Doing” and “Done” many difficulties from the team can be taken up and structured. Moreover, there is no need to learn and maintain a

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complicated system, but rather to simply write cards. The team agrees on the simplest form of Kanban and decides to collect all tasks in a backlog and organize the “WIP” with “To Do”, “Doing” and “Done”. So the respective tasks are broken down into individual task/tickets, noted on cards and collected on the board in the backlog. Already here it becomes apparent that the many tasks cannot be completed within the defined schedule and that further support must be obtained from time to time. Another realization is that tasks can be divided among certain people in the team, whereupon the responsible persons are also noted on the tickets. A further discussion arises with the “Done” card, as there are different opinions as to when a task can be completed and moved to “Done”. With Markus’ support, criteria for this are derived (Definition of Done). After 3 days at the “Wailing Wall” (as the team initially calls the Kanban Board), it becomes clear that the team members need a more focused agreement and they reluctantly agree to a Daily. To “wail”, they meet daily at 9.30 am, but gradually they begin to see the point of it. In the second week, the Kanban Board becomes the “card wall” and the Daily becomes the “bricklayer’s meeting place”. Through the “To Do”, the team sets the priorities in the project better and faster, through the “Doing”, the team members see the “WIP”, and through the fact that cards disappear in the backlog and are collected in the “Done”, the progress in the project becomes visible for everyone (also for other teams). A regular Retrospective (see Hack “Retrospectives”) helps the team members to exchange information about their work, the progress of their work and the results at defined intervals and to improve their joint work process over the time of the project. ◄

Possible Challenges Kanban is a change that affects the entire team and influences the previous work culture. Benefits, advantages and opportunities should be regularly highlighted and discussed in Retrospectives. Each team should be given the opportunity to make team-specific adjustments and to flexibly align the Kanban boards to its work. However, this requires continuous discussion and willingness on the part of the team members. In this way, you will recognize and experience that Kanban is more than just a management method and that it influences the entire value creation in the team. It is not easy for everyone to make their own work transparent to all team members and to disclose how much is actually achieved. Team building, trust and a respectful way of working are the basic prerequisites for experiencing and living out the advantages of Kanban. This requires higher-level competencies that include management and leadership and go beyond technical expertise. In order to use Kanban profitably, it must be possible to divide the work into small steps or tasks. The team must check and decide for which tasks this is the case (see Fig. 6).

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Fig. 6 Kanban

Time management and “correct” assessment must be learned and can initially lead to frustration. Collected experience can positively influence the result in Kanban and allow better estimations in the future.

Knowledge-Sharing Formats

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Knowledge-Sharing Formats are organized event forms for the active exchange of knowledge among employees.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In addition to the factor time, knowledge is the most valuable asset in today’s working world. Organizing knowledge, making it accessible and usable for employees is increasingly becoming part of a well thought-out and future-oriented corporate culture. Different Knowledge-Sharing Formats enable employees to learn regularly in their own company that goes beyond their own expertise, motivates them and are fun, too.

Description The challenges in today’s working world make a significant contribution to the fact that the opportunity to expand knowledge within the company is becoming more significant and is

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expected of employees. Organizing knowledge exchange and networking in modern event forms such as barcamps, demodays, Week of Learning, COPs or meetups increases the attractiveness of the company and binds the employees and their skills to the company. Knowledge-Sharing Formats focus not only on the professional expertise and training of employees (see Hack “In-house Trainings”), but as part of the corporate culture, they also have the task of connecting the people in the company with each other and allowing them to learn in a routine way. The various formats differ from one another in terms of duration, focus, size, topics and dynamics and are geared to the needs of the employees. The emphasis is on sharing and teaching knowledge, and the company learns to grow internally and to use its own potential. Hierarchy reduction and eye-to-eye learning are promoted, as all functions and roles throughout the company come together to form a learning area, learn with each other and thus bring employees closer together. Learning in Knowledge-Sharing Formats is interest-dependent and resource-oriented.

Tips for Implementation In order to establish knowledge-sharing formats in the company, it is essential that the management level actively supports and advocates it. On the one hand, this can be achieved by managers themselves participating in different formats or by developing and implementing their own offerings. On the other hand, it is important that they create the framework that enables their employees to participate in or prepare for various knowledge exchanges. Employees should generally be encouraged to actively take advantage of offers and, if necessary, offer them themselves, without evaluating them as a further stress factor, but as an enrichment and investment in themselves, their colleagues and the company. The HR/People/Talent/Organization department or a group of experienced trainers can also support the conception and design of knowledge-sharing formats. The professional support helps employees to implement their ideas faster and better and also to develop pleasure in knowledge sharing. A clear and easily accessible compilation of the Knowledge-Sharing Formats offered, which in the best case also provides additional information and a quick, uncomplicated registration, simplifies implementation. Example

May is the lead in human resources for an Australian Internet start-up and is dissatisfied with her time management. She wants to bring more structure into her private and professional life, especially through morning routines. In the company’s internal knowledge-sharing catalogue, she finds a “Morning Work MeetUp” that takes place daily for 2 weeks. In it, developer Maikel, who has worked independently for years, reports on the opportunities and challenges of a structured start to the day. He shares his experiences with Morning Work and offers the group to work out their first morning routines for themselves and to share them with others during the 1-h meeting. There May learns more about routines and finds that she is not alone with her dissatisfaction.

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After the 2 weeks, she already has a better routine for her morning work and a network of like-minded people who support each other in the challenge. A while later she starts to offer regular “Morning Routine Workshops” in cooperation with Maikel. Both consider how much time they can spend on it and decide to invest one and a half hours a week each, thus contributing to the joint growth of the company. ◄

Possible Challenges If employees are not given a suitable framework for further knowledge acquisition or networking, they will not be motivated to participate in knowledge sharing—let alone organize one themselves—alongside or in addition to their normal workload. Here, managers or the management in general should promote a flexible approach so that employees can learn to assess for themselves how much time and commitment they can invest. Hacks such as Estimation Poker or regularly challenging the status quo are helpful in this respect and can be applied by managers. Google, for example, provides its employees with a percentage of their normal working hours for learning and training, which can be used individually according to need and orientation. Basically, people can react with inhibitions when they come together with other people from different company hierarchies to learn. A variety of different formats, including large and small groups, can be used to respond to this (see Fig. 7). In addition, the focus of interest or topic must be placed at the centre. A professional team of trainers should accompany the Knowledge-Sharing Formats, offer support to the organizers in case of questions or problems and enable joint reflection.

Leadership Roundtable

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Fig. 7 Overview of knowledgesharing formats

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In times of constant change and new requirements, it is immensely important to exchange information about individual challenges, to receive tips and to generate new opportunities for action. A Leadership Roundtable can be an important format in which managers can work on their concerns at eye level and deal with similar challenges. They are given a protected space in which they can exchange their individual approaches and experiences. The advantage of a Leadership Roundtable is that an executive does not necessarily discuss these issues with his or her own manager at the next higher level, but with various managers from the company who are not directly dependent on him or her. In this process, new perspectives with similar backgrounds are constructively exchanged and used to enrich the own question. Furthermore, a Leadership Roundtable enables confidence building beyond the own department.

Description At a Leadership Roundtable, sometimes also called a fireside chat, roundtable, guild, peer coaching or similar, managers meet at relatively regular intervals in a fixed room or a quiet meeting place in the company to discuss their topics together. Here it is important that there is no fixed agenda, but that topics can be discussed as needed. As a result, there is no obligation to attend, but rather managers participate in this format according to their needs and interests. Constructive Leadership Roundtables often have a fixed core of managers who regularly participate and have developed a common culture of communication and action. Under certain circumstances, it may be useful to assign responsibility to specific individuals to ensure a certain overview, ownership and constructive approach. This could

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be an experienced manager or a manager with facilitation and coaching skills, for example. Important topics of the Leadership Roundtable can be • • • • •

own leadership behaviour, dealing with conflicts and challenges, changes in your own department or team, conflicts with team members, the own manager or other areas of the company, further, personal concerns that can find their place in this round. It is important that the “Las Vegas Rule” is adhered too, which means that “Everything discussed in the Leadership Roundtable stays in the Leadership Roundtable” and is not carried outside. Unless it is explicitly stated that this can happen (e.g. because of important information and insights to be shared). Otherwise, it is important to conduct Leadership Roundtables at a level of trust and respect. In this way, leaders are more willing to talk about challenging issues and vulnerabilities without fear of consequences. On the contrary, the format should help them to gain strength and new ideas for themselves and their own work in the company.

Tips for Implementation Especially at the beginning, it is important to provide enough information about the format, to create the framework and to organize the first meetings in such a way that it can subsequently become a self-organized format. Furthermore, it is recommended to have an open discussion about whether a person from the HR/People/Talent/Organization area should and may attend or whether the managers want to work in a closed circle. Both have advantages: In a closed circle without HR/People/Talent and Organization, the group can actually act in a closed and coherent manner. The presence of the HR/People/Talent/ Organization department enables professional tips on how to deal with changes, challenges and conflicts to be given, which enrich the discussions in terms of content. It is important to find out and discuss what is useful and what is not. If necessary, it may be advisable to agree on a Leadership Roundtable Code of Conduct together and to bring it, for example, written on a flipchart and hang it on the wall. At the beginning of the Leadership Roundtable, a collection of topics should be created in order to get an overview of how many topics can be dealt with in the respective meeting and to practice active time management. Basic Facilitation Skills are advantageous for this purpose and should be expected of managers. Example

A company in southern Germany has set itself the goal of modernising and becoming more flexible in its work structures and management. Many managers are initially overburdened with this, as they do not know how they should behave and what leadership should look like now. A Leadership Roundtable will be convened by

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Wolfgang, who has heard of the format in another company. Together they discuss which behaviours are possible in the new situation. The leaders share their opinions and experiences. In the process, they repeatedly discover that they have similar difficulties and questions: They lack the information they need to really implement their new leadership style professionally and authentically. The result of the first rounds of the Leadership Roundtable is to ask the top management to explain the new leadership behaviour and style more clearly, to provide examples and to enter into an open dialogue with middle management so that successful leadership can be better achieved in the future. Only through the joint open exchange in this format did the managers become aware that not only they as individuals, but as a collective need concrete guiding principles for the new leadership style. Together with General Manager Frank, it was decided that from now on he or another person from the management circle would be present at every second meeting and could respond directly to questions. In addition, he agrees to have workshops and training sessions organized so that there is more clarity with regard to the new leadership style and thus concrete possibilities for action of the new leadership style can be identified and tested. ◄

Possible Challenges It can happen that managers do not dare to speak openly and honestly about their personal issues. Here it is a good idea to enter into a conversation about trust, a secure framework and the potential of this format. In the absence of ownership, it is likely that this format will fall asleep again after a while. It is also advisable to set up automated reminders and calendar entries so that managers have as little extra work as possible to do. If, as mentioned above, a person from the HR/People/Talent/Organization area is present, it can happen that managers tend to use the format to make demands and wishes. In such a case, it is crucial that the person in question knows about his or her role and function in the format and can communicate this transparently. This clarifies their role and they can add value as a constructive member (see Fig. 8).

Lifestyle Perks

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Fig. 8 Leadership roundtable

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Lifestyle Perks are offers from a company that go beyond the normal standard and make the workplace more attractive.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In order to be able to offer an attractive place of work as a company, it is important to orient it towards productive work, employee satisfaction and further offers. In this way it can be supported that employees network better with each other, more enthusiasm for the company is created and the overall satisfaction is increased, which in turn leads to better work performance and the recommendation of the company as an employer by the employees (¼ word of mouth).

Description Lifestyle Perks are often offers and opportunities that are seen as superfluous in traditional companies, such as free fruit, showers, day-care, bicycle rental and snacks, as well as sports activities co-financed by the company. Lifestyle Perks can be both free and partially financed offers. In New Work contexts, companies are often already very well positioned in this area and thus attract young employees. Grey offices and self-paying instant coffee from vending machines are more of a deterrent than they are inviting and are little compensated for by extraordinarily high salaries. After all, “context is king”—a workplace should also reflect the attitude to life of its employees and be geared to their needs, for example through napping rooms or an open sports area. Well-used Lifestyle Perks give the company a modern and cosmopolitan touch and thus fit in well with the lifestyle of young and well-qualified employees. In addition, Lifestyle Perks such as free monthly public transport tickets and free bicycles help to conserve natural resources and thus fit in well with the mindset of employees in New Work contexts. It is important to note the concrete practical benefits of Lifestyle Perks, which do not cost the company a lot of money, but

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provide great added value for employees. The organic crate with fresh free fruit is a good example of this. Employees can eat a healthy diet in between meals without having to bring fruit from home, spend money or go shopping during working hours. Offers such as circuit training or dancing after work can be seen as a conscious investment in health management and at the same time increase the attractiveness as an employer. As a company, it is therefore a good idea to consciously consider how the workplace can be made more attractive for employees and to what extent the company can differentiate itself from other companies. It is important that the Lifestyle Perks fit the respective company and represent a real and useful addition.

Tips for Implementation If a company decides to introduce Lifestyle Perks, it is a good idea to ask employees what would make their everyday work better. This ensures that the new extras also meet the needs and wishes of the employees and do not gather dust in the corner or are not used. When new Lifestyle Perks are introduced, they should be announced on a company communication channel and recorded in an overview that can be found by employees. This ensures that all employees are aware of the new opportunities and can use them. In principle, it is advisable to test new Lifestyle Perks as an experiment and then obtain feedback as to whether the new offer really adds value for the employees. Only then should it become an integral part of the company. Example

A start-up grows and moves to a trendy district. Basically everything improves—larger office space, an open café area, everything is bright and appealingly designed. The only thing that some employees don’t like is the now much longer travel time to work. Employees like Alex, who previously took 10 min home from work and then went to yoga, can no longer maintain this routine. She will be too late and the hunger and late eating will derail the desired course of the evening from the very beginning. Alex is dissatisfied and thinks about what she can do about it. She asks for a week in the open café area whether others would also be interested in doing yoga after work in the beautiful new event area. She finds eight interested people and decides to ask the founders Joan and Ben if it would be possible to use the event area for this purpose. They both immediately like the idea and want to support the initiative. Alex is to take care of finding a suitable person as a yoga teacher and is to be responsible for the organization and arrangements. Joan and Ben also promise that 50% of the costs for the yoga sessions will be covered by the company if the demand is constant and large enough. In this way, Alex not only manages to resume her desired routine, but at the same time manages to create a new attractive offer for other employees in the company, for which she even pays less than before thanks to the financial support. After the

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6-week test phase, the yoga sessions become an integral part of the company’s Lifestyle Perks. ◄

Possible Challenges The biggest challenge is to find the right balance between attractiveness and additional costs of the appropriate Lifestyle Perks. It can become difficult when employees start to take the various additional offers for granted after a while. As soon as Lifestyle Perks are terminated or changed, employees start complaining. This can be partly counteracted by making Lifestyle Perks transparent as an extra and as an investment of the company. For start-ups and hip IT companies, it makes sense not to burden themselves too much with Lifestyle Perks at the beginning, which have to be taken back later.

Mood Check

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Mood Check is a (regular) mood survey among employees, which is used for further development and improvement in the company.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact A regular Mood Check can create added value for further development in the company and for its change processes. The Mood Check functions as a mood barometer in that the feedback recorded shows which changes that have already been implemented have been well accepted and which future actions can improve the corporate climate. A Mood Check makes it easier to advance further developments in a targeted manner and in line with the needs of the employees. The mood in the company is made visible and can become the basis for change.

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Description A Mood Check is a mood survey of the employees of a company. Here, employees can express their opinion as regards content as well as inform about their mood and satisfaction. As a rule, this is done anonymously, but can also be addressed by name if desired by the feedback providers. In New Work contexts, the Mood Check is increasingly used for regular feedback (see Hack “Feedback Culture”) and is carried out easily and without a great deal of work through digital services (Officevibe is best known, alternatives are e.g. Peakon or Motivosity and others). Both scaling questions (“How satisfied are you currently on a scale of 1 to 10?”) and open questions (“What would you change in the company for a better working environment?”) and other options can be used. Often the responsibility for the Mood Check, its query including evaluation and passing on the results lies either with the HR/People/Talent/Organization department or the Culture department of the company. The Mood Check can refer to the individual, team or company level. Thus, both area-specific questions and company-wide topics can be queried simultaneously. Based on the results, it makes sense to talk about the results and implications in further formats (see Hack “Leadership Roundtable”). This ensures that the survey does not become an end in itself, but can bring real added value. In times of data-based approaches, polling the mood and opinion of employees is a way of making the best possible cultural and change decisions beyond one’s own gut feeling and validating them directly via feedback.

Tips for Implementation When implementing a Mood Check, it should be considered in advance in which cycle, with which purpose and in which way it will be carried out. It is important to ensure that all important information concerning the survey (anonymity, use of the results, possible access to the results, contact persons and regularity of the survey) is explained and made transparent. Especially at the beginning of the implementation, it is important to actively and promptly make the results and the resulting actions visible, so that employees can see the added value of the Mood Check. Example

After a bad business year, the Canadian entrepreneur Ben shared the information within the company that productivity and implementation speed must increase, the company will be partially restructured and ideas of the employees will gladly be integrated into the process. As a result, uncertainty about the future of the company arises among the employees, although they appreciate the transparency and honesty of the management. In order to be able to assess the mood of the employees as well as possible in the course of the change and to offer the employees the best possible missing information and new perspectives, a regular Mood Check is initiated. Every 2 weeks, the employees receive the survey and provide information about their mood, their assessment of the initiated

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changes and their own ideas for successful change. It becomes clear that concrete examples of successful change from the management had not been sufficiently formulated for Ben to be able to improve on what he could do after receiving recurring feedback. At the same time, individual ideas from employees in which Ben and his team see potential are implemented and the employees, if they have mentioned their name, are involved in the implementation. In this way, ideas for change also emerge from the heart of the company and at the same time create new areas of responsibility for committed employees. After 4 months of the regular Mood Check, the mood has already improved, as transparency has increased and concrete projects have been implemented that would not have been executed without the ideas of the employees. Employees feel that they are better taken on board in terms of content and as an active part of the change. ◄

Possible Challenges If many employees do not trust the anonymity of the survey, they will not participate honestly and constructively in the survey, but rather give socially desirable answers. If results and the further processing of the results are not made transparent, employees quickly lose their motivation to participate in the Mood Check. This makes it all the more important that further work with the results is presented transparently within the company and that the employees are actively involved in this process. This not only creates more trust, but also a new form of collaborative work across hierarchical levels.

Meeting Room Diversity

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Meeting Room Diversity means setting up different meeting rooms for different work processes and needs of employees.

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Why Important: Benefits and Impact In knowledge work, different work contexts promote work processes in their own way and thus make team meetings more productive. It is therefore important that a suitable room can be chosen depending on the work focus and approach. This increases the focus, satisfaction and performance of the employees.

Description The times when there were only sterile meeting rooms are over, at least in New Work contexts. A wide variety of meeting rooms with different designs allows employees to find a meeting room that suits them and their work needs. Based on the assumption that different types of meetings can be supported by different settings, the diversity of meeting rooms becomes an interesting passive support factor (¼ indirect enabling). The point here is that meeting rooms should be set up in a sensible and coherent way and not just look fancy. An underlying benefit and sense of purpose (¼ purpose-driven work) should be recognizable for the work. For example, in comfortable rooms quieter and more confidential conversations can be conducted better, in creative rooms new ideas and different ways of thinking can be stimulated or in a Pairing room (see Hack “Pairing”) work can be done together in a focused way. The decisive factor is that the meeting room supports and promotes work on content. For example, not all rooms need a large television or beamer, as many work processes and meetings do not include a presentation and such devices would tend to distract or disturb, and valuable space in the room is also lost. More detailed approaches can for example be found in the book “Deep Work” by C. Newport. He focuses highly on which work process needs a certain room.

Tips for Implementation When redesigning meeting rooms, it is a good idea to ask employees about their ideas for ideal meeting rooms. In this way, you can learn more about what could positively support work processes and meetings. It is advisable to set up a mix of small and large meeting rooms so that the meeting quality of both one-on-ones and larger groups is increased. In principle, the appearance should be adapted to the function (¼ form follows function) and not vice versa. For this purpose, possible work processes, required materials and the different divisions of the room must be clarified. Example

Niko and Michael have set out to go through the documentaries of the last three major projects and find out, based on data, how the projects have gone. Niko is happy to finally try out the new “creative meeting room”, as a meeting in the team room would disturb

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the other employees. The two of them start punctually at 10 a.m. and deal first with the new furnishings of the room. The seats are comfortable, the Lego bricks are easy to build and the various pens and papers are perfect for building little colourful paper planes. When after 30 min they admonish themselves and start with the actual work, they still find it difficult to concentrate. They digress again and again, talk about new possible project ideas and end their meeting animatedly, but without having pursued the original goal. They have to admit to themselves that they love the room, but have chosen the wrong room for the occasion. They decide to come back for the next brainstorming session and continue their current work task the next day in a simply furnished Pairing station. The second meeting is much more focused. They distract themselves little and use the room, which is set up for two people and focused work. Even though they find the creative space more beautiful, they note that the simply designed room of the Pairing station is more suitable for this work. ◄

Possible Challenges It can be challenging to select different meeting rooms to suit the content and purpose of the work. Often, decisions are made according to personal preference, but the focus should be much more on the actual function of the room. This can be supported by providing employees with a small overview in front of the room (and online), showing the potential benefits of the room for certain work processes. It can be difficult to set up meeting rooms coherently in themselves if the necessary budget for this is not released. However, in the spirit of New Work, the focus should be on attractive and productivity-enhancing work contexts. It can also be challenging to professionally redesign or furnish meeting rooms. It is recommended to get at least supportive advice, if not to set up the rooms together with experts and to integrate the ideas of the employees.

Meeting Rules

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Meeting Rules are basic rules for constructive cooperation in meetings that are approved by all participants.

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Why Important: Benefits and Impact Basic Meeting Rules can be used to create a basic structure for meetings, making them more effective, faster and more constructive. Employees can refer to them, and this promotes structured meetings at eye level. This approach generally leads to greater satisfaction and productivity in the company and is a guideline for dealing with difficult situations or conflicts.

Description Discussions, meetings and agreements represent a large part of our work today. We increasingly have to deal with different tasks and different people, which poses special challenges for communication. It is all the more unpleasant when meetings and discussions are unproductive, unnecessarily lengthy or not constructive—this robs all participants of nerves and time. Modern companies often use the Meeting Rules, also known as Golden Rules. These are basic rules or a basic structure for meetings. These are concrete, meeting related procedures that are derived from a basic understanding of how to deal with each other within the company (see Hack “Prime Directive”) and are part of the corporate culture. They often consist of four to five formulated rules, which are displayed in the meeting rooms and to which everyone can refer. This should make it clear to everyone at meetings how the company deals with each other. In the event of unfair behaviour, accusations or in difficult situations, participants can, for example, be more easily alerted to misconduct in discussions or return to a constructive structure if clear and visualized rules are visible in the room.

Tips for Implementation In order to implement Meetings or Golden Rules in the company, a Prime Directive is a good way to create a basis for mutual interaction. It can also help to determine authentic Meeting Rules for meetings that are appropriate to the corporate culture. Furthermore, these rules should be easily accessible to every team and should also be supported by Visual Reminders in meeting rooms. Depending on the team and the way they deal with each other, it is the task of everyone in the meetings to clarify the rules and thus train how to deal with each other. In order to be able to actually live by these rules and thus enable constructive cooperation, teams should discuss and clarify what exactly these rules mean for them. Depending on the team, the Golden Rules can be expanded, more strongly formulated and adapted.

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Selahattin joins the Q&A team of a company in Istanbul as a new team member. He generally behaves in a calm and reserved manner. In meetings he finds it difficult to make himself heard and to formulate his thoughts to the end without being interrupted or relieved by other team members. After a few weeks in the team he is frustrated and realizes that he cannot make a constructive contribution and is therefore less recognized in the team. At lunch with his colleague Merve from another team, he reports on his frustration. Surprised, she asks him why he does not refer to the Meeting Rules and points to a flipchart hanging in a meeting room. He confesses that he has completely forgotten the Meeting Rules and takes a closer look at them. At the next meeting, Selahattin refers to it when he is interrupted again, and refers to the fact that every team member is allowed to finish speaking. He points out to his team members that he regularly sees this rule neglected. The team is a little annoyed, but agrees in principle. In a subsequent discussion, the Meeting Rules are reviewed again. As a result, the team records the agreement that they will allow each other to hear each other out, but also that topics should be explained in a more focused and concise manner—if necessary, the team can ask if anything is unclear. In this way, the team does not lose the dynamic of which it is proud, but each team member is now given sufficient attention. ◄

Possible Challenges In all companies, these meeting or Golden Rules are often recorded somewhere in a paper that new employees are given at the start of their work. However, it is of little help if these agreements are not lived and remembered. In the team, the rules should be regularly examined and questioned whether they still fit in with the cooperation and are also lived in the team. The Meeting Rules apply to everyone in the company and are not just a code of conduct for employees. The lead also has to let the employees speak out in meetings, not yell at everyone or bring information to the point. The Meeting Rules only make sense if they are not one-way rules, but rather structure and simplify the cooperation of all, and serve as a guide for good and constructive meetings.

Mission Statement

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A Mission Statement is the definition and presentation of the procedure in the company to achieve a goal or vision.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact If the company has a Mission Statement, it can structure the organization more clearly and differentiated and plan action steps. This creates a goal-oriented alignment and provides orientation for the employees. They can use Mission Statements to assess and organize their own scope of action in the company and thus make better and faster decisions.

Description The Mission Statement, also called the mission, is (usually) derived from the overarching vision and is therefore closely linked to it. If the vision can be regarded as a kind of North Star, the Mission Statement is best compared to a route planner or a map. However, it does not only describe the way to the destination, but also shows how the route should be taken. Thus, the Mission Statement is oriented towards the entire company and is applied or implemented at both the macro and micro level. This makes it possible to create more differentiated scope for action for individual teams, departments, but also roles and functions within the company. As a result, they can differentiate themselves from one another in terms of content, which in turn leads to faster decision-making processes. Likewise, a Mission Statement serves as a reflection surface, since the procedure and working methods can be continuously questioned and, in the best case, improved, whereby the company as well as the individual employees learn and grow. But it is also an orientation aid and security for employees, for example with regard to ethical orientation. In most cases, the Mission Statement is visualized and accessible to employees, which in turn structures the work more clearly in terms of content and, for example, simplifies the scope and clarification of responsibilities. The vision of the automobile manufacturer Henry Ford “I will build a motor car for the great multitude” was derived into a Mission Statement that was just as accessible, logical and focused on the big goal, revealing and differentiating between individual sub-steps: “Our purpose is to construct and market an automobile specially designed for everyday wear and tear—business, professional, and family use; an automobile which will attain to a sufficient speed to satisfy the average person (. . .); a machine which will be admired by man, woman, and child alike for its compactness, its simplicity, its safety, its all-around convenience, and—last but not least—its exceedingly reasonable price (. . .)” (Ford and Watts 2009). Meanwhile, Mission Statements are shorter and simpler, but still convey the approach in the company.

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Tips for Implementation If the Mission Statement is derived from the vision, i.e. the internalized and visualized idea of the future, it makes sense to remain here in the same world of images and to derive the concrete procedure from it. Here, too, in addition to developing the vision for the preparation of a Mission Statement, it is helpful to get support from a trained facilitator, who structures and accompanies the process, as well as from various employees from different areas of the company. At Trivago, a large IT company in Germany, for example, the agile coaches and other facilitators provide support in finding the Mission Statement. A company-wide discussion of a Mission Statement can promote the internalization of the vision and thus the trust, commitment and motivation of the employees. They actively participate in the realization of a corporate strategy and can identify more strongly with it. Sufficient time should be available for such a process to be carried out, visualized (see Hack “Visual Essentials”) and made understandable for everyone. In order for teams to develop a routine in this form of work, it is also useful to develop individual Mission Statements for teams or roles. These can be questioned, adapted and changed at regular intervals. A Mission Statement should lead to more clarity in action and accelerate and simplify decision-making and prioritization. Example

Let’s stay with the example further in the automotive world—let’s look at Tesla’s mission. The founder of the company, Elon Musk, sometimes formulated it as follows: “Our goal when we created Tesla a decade ago was the same as it is today: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible” (Vance and Musk 2015). Derived from the overarching vision, he shows in the Mission Statement how and with what focus he wants to achieve his goal. This is therefore a definition of the route. It is interesting that the Mission 2016 has been changed or adapted by one word. The word “transport” has been replaced by “energy” in order to give the company more room for manoeuvre, which is the founder’s reaction to the changed direction of the company. ◄

Possible Challenges In order to be able to develop a goal-oriented Mission Statement, the underlying vision of the company or the founders must be understood. This requires an examination of the corporate values, their origins and objectives, which is not primarily part of everyday work. The Mission Statement should not be too long and unclearly formulated in order to guarantee the ability to act. Structuring the functions and tasks here, not losing sight of the “Bigger Picture” and constantly aligning the procedure to changing parameters can be assigned to the area of responsibility of individual teams, which can use their specialist

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expertise to identify obstacles, shortcuts and construction sites on the route. The leads should give their teams the opportunity to do this regularly in meetings (see Hack “Retrospectives”). Although this way, individual procedures, plans and functions are repeatedly questioned, which can be exhausting and sometimes even disturbing for the employees, it ultimately leads to continuous improvement and learning for the company.

Facilitation Skills

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Through facilitation, a team or group is accompanied by a trained groupfacilitator during the joint work and learning process.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Facilitation supports and accompanies work and learning processes in groups, thus increasing work capacity, achieving better group results and making faster decisions. The groupfacilitator provides suitable methods for the respective work process so that the team members can concentrate on the content. Facilitation helps to ensure that meetings are more structured, conflicts are resolved more constructively, agreements are made more clearly and decisions are adhered to with greater commitment.

Description By means of facilitation, a group is made fit for work and constructively accompanied by a group-facilitator in its working process. Basically, facilitation involves collecting topics in a group, making them accessible for processing by clustering, prioritizing or structuring and developing agreements, results or decisions from them. This accompaniment is suitable for everything from small team meetings to company-wide large group events. Group-facilitation is used when a topic is to be thought about in a structured way, processed and made usable. Such a procedure requires a superior qualification and competence of the facilitator, i.e. he should know work processes and understand group structures and dynamics. He has a broad repertoire of methods at his disposal to support and accompany teams and working groups in their respective processes. A group-facilitator has the

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competence to facilitate conflicts and decision-making processes (see Hack “DecisionMaking Knowledge”) as well as to enable in-depth topic development and structured planning projects. His or her expertise enables the group-facilitator to methodically accompany the process and to let the group work on their topics. In this context, the expert is often referred to as the expert for the process and not for the content, although in practice this cannot always be separated. The group-facilitator asks questions and sometimes questions the content, he supports communication and makes sure that all participants can be involved in the process. The group-facilitator is also responsible for securing the results. In other words, he or she methodically ensures that results and content are visualized and recorded in a comprehensible manner. In new-work contexts, internal group-facilitators who already work in the company as agile coaches, facilitators or SCRUM masters are often assigned to these tasks. Sometimes, however, it is useful to bring external groupfacilitators into the company who bring new perspectives and to get to know new ways of working. Both the internal and external facilitator have their advantages and disadvantages, which is why the context, the topic and the type of event are important when deciding on an internal or external facilitator. Many start-ups and modern companies know about the added value of group-facilitation, which is why meetings and events are always facilitated. They also see the potential of internal group-facilitators who know the company, the content, the teams and difficulties. For this reason, some companies already train and coach group-facilitators internally.

Tips for Implementation If the goal of facilitation is structured meetings and faster decisions, then facilitation skills should be trained throughout the company. Training as an in-house facilitator, who also contributes to the corporate culture, is recommended here. In this way, your own employees will gain a competence that goes beyond their professional expertise, which is essential for satisfaction and employee loyalty. It is not the task of facilitators to write meaningless cards, but to promote constructive interaction among employees and to facilitate structured meetings. The provision of material for visualization as well as technical equipment is fundamental for this, in order to implement a facilitation goaland result-oriented in the company. It also offers an expansion of social skills, since group-facilitators should always learn in a training or education session how a group behaves, how it can develop and learn together. This helps to ensure that this knowledge can also be used and applied beyond the work context, which leads to the development of a basic, social understanding of learning and cooperation, which in turn influences the corporate culture and promotes cooperation within the company.

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Example

Alex has moved his job and residence from Hamburg to Singapore for private reasons. Full of motivation and energy he starts his new job and meets an already existing team. He likes his work, his tasks are varied and his colleagues are very nice. He would be satisfied if there were not the exhausting and lengthy weeklies (weekly meetings) of sometimes 2 h in his team. The inefficiency or lack of planning in the meetings annoys him, which is why he takes the initiative in the next meeting: He shares his perception with his team (see Hack “Feedback Culture”) and gets their agreement to structure and facilitate the meeting the next week. “We already tried the card writing, it didn’t work for us. But maybe you have other ideas, because our weeklies are a waste of time”, agrees his colleague Felicia. Two days before the meeting, Alex goes around and asks his colleagues which three topics they think need to be discussed at the meeting. There he gets an amazingly consistent picture of the topics. The morning before the meeting, he writes an e-mail to everyone in the team, reminds them of the meeting, suggests limiting it to 45 min and lists the topics he has received from the survey. When his colleagues arrive in the meeting room, Alex is already on site and digs around in a felt bag, from which he pulls out markers and post-its. He has also organized a flipchart. Felicia comes in with coffee: “So that we can get through this with the cards”, he winks at him. The atmosphere is good and the colleagues are curious to know what will follow. Alex explains that he received training as an internal facilitator at the company in Hamburg and has made the experience that meetings with group-facilitators work better. He explains group-facilitation in broad outlines and also deals humorously with Felicias assertions, which makes it clear that facilitation is more about structure than cards. He gets the agreement from his team members to introduce three things for today’s meeting: (1) Today he acts as a group-facilitator, (2) Three fixed topics are developed which have to be decided today, (3) He limits the meeting to 45 min. “We’ll never make it, there’s so much to talk through”, he hears as a reaction, but the team agrees nevertheless and wants to try it. Alex presents the results of his topic survey to his colleagues, and within 4 min the team has agreed on the three most important topics and ranked them. The other topics end up in the “Parking Lot” and are hung up in the room. Each topic is thus limited to about 5–10 min. This time boxing (¼ time-defined frame) has an amazing effect, because Alex’ team members are encouraged to finish in the given time frame. Two minutes before the time limit expires, Alex’s alarm clock rings and from this point on, all previous content is summarized. Felicia voluntarily notes down the most important points on cards and hangs them up on the flipchart. During the agreed time period, all three topics are briefly discussed and agreements on the individual cards are made. “Not all aspects of the issues could be clarified”, Su remarks, but she finally has the impression that the meeting was not a complete waste of time, that the team worked on something visibly and saved more than an hour. The other team members agree with her and praise the facilitation of Alex. At the request of his team, he agrees to facilitate the meetings for the next 4 weeks, and the team agrees to jointly develop a basic

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structure for the Weeklies during this period, which everyone in the team can moderate. Felicia approaches Alex after 3 weeks and furtively tells him that she would like to learn more about “effective card writing”. Both go into a conversation with the HR/People/ Talent and Organization department with the idea that Felicia should receive in-house facilitator training. ◄

Possible Challenges A fundamental challenge is first of all to make the added value of group-facilitation visible and to reduce prejudices. Since this method primarily promotes soft factors, these are not immediately apparent and cannot be represented in figures. Here, the support of the founder/management or, in the case of large companies, the HR/people/talent and organization department is crucial. If they recognize the added value, invest in their employees and in successful meetings and promote constructive interaction at eye level, groupfacilitation can be successfully used at almost all levels in the company. Facilitation should be seen as a simple card writing, because the main purpose of facilitation is to show a structure in the course of work that helps to develop various topics. It is not easy to be as neutral and constructive as possible as an internal facilitator— especially when you are part of the team or group. In order to understand and internalize group-facilitation, a good basic training in basic skills is necessary. It makes sense to invest time and professional training here. The group-facilitator can be trained in his or her basic understanding and can consciously decide when to moderate a group situation himself or herself or when to seek support. If several group-facilitators are trained in a company, they can, if necessary, take over the facilitation in teams in which they are not thematically involved. Facilitation is based on a basic democratic understanding and therefore cannot be used for all topics. It is therefore important to decide when facilitation can actually promote the group’s ability to work and learn. For example, it is not an instrument for mobbing or discrimination issues, which would rather be dealt with through mediation. These decisions also require a solid basic training of the group-facilitator.

Offside Teamwork

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Offside Teamwork enables teams to work together in a different context, focused and free from the daily routine of the company, to achieve top performance.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact As important as the short distances in everyday work and constant availability within the company are, they also distract from one’s own work. At Offsides, teams have the opportunity to work very focused on one or more specific topics. At the same time, they take the time to develop new thoughts, come up with different ideas and be inspired by a different working environment for one or more days.

Description Offside Teamwork (also called “sprint”, “offside” or “retreat”) is a planned change of context in a workable location outside the company. The goal is to escape the normal daily routine of the company for a defined period of time, to break with daily routines and to suspend dependencies such as participation in certain meetings. There are two basic initial positions for offsite teamwork: first, working on a concrete and previously well-planned topic (¼ process of a workload). This is about working as much as possible on the selected topic in a specified time frame and vice versa leaving other topics for it. On the other hand, Offside Teamwork can be used to jointly generate new ideas that cannot be defined and determined beforehand. In this case, the aim is to use the selected work location as a source of inspiration away from the daily work routine and to create something new without distraction. In this case, the agenda can be kept more open (e.g. develop new product ideas, create team strategies, find sources of disruption in the company). Offside Teamwork can take place at the same location where the company is located, which has the advantage that employees can be at home with their families in the evening. Offside Teamwork can also take place at a more distant location and thus automatically contribute to team building and getting to know the team members better. It is a good idea to weigh up the various aspects during the planning phase and to include them in the decision. In general, it is worth arranging to set aside the company chat, its e-mail program and other distracting factors such as the smartphone during working hours to increase the intensity and focus of the topics to be worked on.

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Tips for Implementation It is important to announce the absence transparently and openly to the appropriate interfaces during planning, so that the Offside Teamwork can function without major and regular minor disruptions. It often makes sense to plan in advance which working materials, such as pens, flipchart, sticky notes and the like are to be taken along, as well as to take care of the catering for an Offside Teamwork at another location if necessary. The main goal is to be as free as possible from normal obligations during the time of the Offside Teamwork. In order for managers to support this concept, it makes sense to present and discuss the results and ideas at a joint meeting after the Offside Teamwork. It is important to find the balance between the focus in Offside Teamwork itself and the transparency and openness afterwards. A good rhythm regarding the regularity of the Offside Teamwork is strongly dependent on the team and the tasks. There are teams that can easily carry out an Offside Teamwork once a month for focused work, and others that can take this space once a quarter at most. The time factor can be used as an additional variable to enable Offside Teamwork on a regular basis. For example, it can already bring added value to carry out a one-day Offside Teamwork once a month if there is a risk of failing to legitimize and organize a longer Offside Teamwork. Depending on the orientation, it may be useful to bring along a group-facilitator so that the team can concentrate on the content of the work or receive support and guidance in the process. Example

An HR/People/Talent/Organization team from New Work has grown from two to five people after the tech start-up has grown significantly over the past 2 years. With the workload that now arises on a daily basis, the team does not manage to focus on itself as a team and on adapting its own tasks and areas of responsibility. It follows the work without being able to shape it proactively. The team members decide to carry out Offside Teamwork in order to escape from being tied into the work processes and the daily routine. They define the most important points for Offside Teamwork and distribute the responsibility for preparing each rough agenda item for better work during Offside Teamwork. During the 3 days, the team actually manages to work out new procedures, to define and delimit its own scope (i.e. the scope of tasks and responsibilities) more clearly and to bring Offside Teamwork to a successful conclusion with concrete suggestions for their manager. In the normal course of work, the team would simply have continued working and would not have been able to create the freedom to fundamentally reposition itself and redefine the tasks. ◄

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Possible Challenges As always, the cost issue can be a challenge. Here it is important that the management basically supports and promotes Offside Teamwork (for managers as well as for teams). In order to ensure that the results achieved are not lost in everyday work, it is advisable to determine already in Offside Teamwork how the results can be integrated into everyday work and which changes should be actively implemented. This increases the probability that the results and decisions are not lost in the everyday work. With regard to productivity and workload, the manager must have confidence in the team so that the team feels free and empowered to make decisions on its own. Nevertheless, it is important to ensure that Offside Teamwork is used productively and constructively and that it adds value.

Onboarding and Offboarding

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Onboarding or Offboarding refers to the professional integration into a company as well as support when leaving the company.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Professional Onboarding has a direct impact on the productivity of new employees. Employees are provided with all necessary information (both company-wide information and team as well as role-specific requirements) to be able to work productively as quickly as possible. The costs of delayed or forgotten Onboarding are immense, as is the potential loss of motivation of new employees. Good Onboarding therefore creates quick commitment, which is directly expressed in productivity. The impact of good Offboarding is that employees are bid farewell in a benevolent and professional manner, focusing on a positive separation and obtaining feedback.

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Description Good Onboarding and Offboarding is more than just hiring and firing employees. Employees are placed at the centre of the process as people and are not treated as a mere resource. In addition to providing all the necessary information and working materials, this also involves the personal welcoming or saying goodbye at eye level. Successful Onboarding processes cover all company-wide and relevant topics and usually allow the employees joining in the same period of time to grow together into a peer group. On-boarding processes show requirements and company standards in a comprehensible way and help to internalize them. The length of an Onboarding process usually varies between half a day and a whole week. Successful Offboarding processes enable the company to understand and learn from why an employee leaves the company on his own initiative—and what the company could have done differently or better. Frequently, departing employees have good and constructive points of criticism, but these are rarely asked for. In the case of dismissals, the dismissed employee is given a comprehensible presentation of the company’s motives and, in the best case, new opportunities for the future professional life are shown at the same time. The goal of an Offboarding process is to end the common path without resentment and in a way that is comprehensible to the employee, as well as to share important information and insights in a trustworthy manner. Often the Offboarding process is neither celebrated nor carried out with decency. Especially in times of higher fluctuation and volatile CVs, the momentum of Offboarding becomes extremely relevant. It can make a valuable contribution to improvement and development on both sides.

Tips for Implementation Implementing a successful and professional Onboard/Offboarding process works best in iterations (¼ regular process improvements). The collection and provision of relevant company information requires regular reflection on its relevance. To institutionalize a successful Onboarding process, not only the HR/People/Talent/Organization department should be an active part of the process, but also various specialist departments and managers. In this way, a greater insight is provided and more important facets are highlighted. Onboarding should be interactive and consist not only of topic input, but also of active exercises and shared challenges. This strengthens the new employees’ trust in each other as a peer group and helps them to internalize the wealth of information in the Onboarding process. The implementation of a successful and professional Offboarding process also requires recurring iterations. It is important to find out which relevant information can and should be shared. The company may ask what further support can be promised to outgoing employees. The goal can be to establish a connection that extends beyond the period of cooperation and to stay in contact. Especially for inexperienced managers it is

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recommended to have an experienced person on board in the Offboarding and to prepare this well. Example

A new employee named Naida, who will be working in the Agile Team in a Marketing company based in Switzerland, starts the Onboarding process. In her future role, she will work with a variety of teams within the company. In the Onboarding process, Naida will learn all about the company’s structure and history, about the different departments and their responsibilities, and will get to know the relevant key people personally. Naida will be familiarized with the Core Values (see Hack “Core Values”) in the company, the typical work and procedures and will learn the company’s own buzzwords and sayings (¼ words and idioms that are only understood by insiders). She learns who her contacts are, where she can get technical support and which Lifestyle Perks (see Hack “Lifestyle Perks”) are available in the company. After she has been helped to set up all relevant programs and has formed a trusted peer group with the other new employees in addition to the official contacts, Naida is ready to start her work in the Agile Team. She feels strengthened and equipped with a solid basic knowledge of the company and has already been able to clarify most of the open questions. In contrast to her old job, where Naida started work immediately and over the months received a lot of important information more by chance or after her own easily avoidable mistakes, she now feels much more secure in the new company. ◄

Possible Challenges Successful Onboarding and Offboarding processes are subject to different requirements over time (see Fig. 9). It becomes a challenge if these processes are not reflected and the feedback of new and departing employees is not integrated into the further development. It can be very difficult to filter out the company-relevant content and to regularly maintain the commitment of the people involved. The Onboarding process is not finished after the Fig. 9 Circle of On- and Offboarding

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official Onboarding. Many small and big questions will come up again and again in the first weeks and should be recognized as interest and commitment of the new employee and not be understood as annoying questions. In the Offboarding process, the challenge is to create the right framework, strike the right note and actually carry the feedback received into the company and use it constructively. If there are no responsible persons to maintain contact and information from former employees, there is no additional benefit. For this to succeed, both a concept and concrete commitment are necessary.

Open Coffee Area

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An Open Coffee Area is an open and inviting area that becomes a meeting point for constructive discussions, new ideas and for a pleasant get-together.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In many companies there is no place where employees can exchange information freely, flexibly and without an appointment. An Open Coffee Area is ideal for this, as it brings together employees from different departments and provides a place for teams to meet and take breaks. At this place, employees can exchange ideas and provide assistance to other people over a cup of coffee or tea without obligation.

Description An Open Coffee Area is a place of exchange and enjoyment. As in the past with house or shared flat parties, the best conversations take place in the kitchen. This image can also be easily transferred to the corporate context. A place that is easily accessible for all employees and can become the heart of the business creates a space of opportunity that goes far beyond normal conversations in conference rooms or team offices. Especially employees from outside the company and employees who are not involved in a specific case or problem often give new impulses and suggestions with a fresh view and a different

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perspective. In contrast to earlier coffee stations in large companies, where instant coffee was provided in a plastic cup after a cash deposit, Open Coffee Areas were intended to spread an atmosphere of short pauses and cosiness. Pleasure is combined with fresh ideas and constructive discussions.

Tips for Implementation The constructive benefits of an Open Coffee Area cannot be forced. Rather, the place must be taken up by the employees and integrated into their daily working life. It makes sense to provide various sitting or standing areas. In this way, interactive and dynamic conversations can take place at the standing counter as well as in-depth conversations, for example on beanbags or in comfortable armchairs. It is important that the place looks inviting. A culture of casual exchange is only created through the active use of the area. The design of the premises promotes or hinders the culture of exchange, depending on how the place is designed. It makes sense to combine cosy with functional aspects. Example

A team in Vancouver sits in a meeting room and is stuck on a problem. They’ve been going in circles for an hour and a half and can’t get any further. Frustrated, the team decides to take a break in the Open Coffee Area. With their freshly brewed hot drink they stand at the counter and consider why this problem is so difficult. Two developers from another division, Niklas and Peer, join them and ask what the mood is like. After a brief collective moan about their difficulties, they explain their problem. Niklas asks briefly and out of impulse whether they had ever tried XYZ, as it had helped very well with a similar problem in their own team back then. Although the specific question does not produce a direct solution, he finds it easier to be heard in the coffee area and encourages the team to think about it. With the new perspective, the team goes back to the meeting room and a short time later actually finds a solution that is similar and yet different from Niklas’ solution. ◄

Possible Challenges In budget planning, it can be challenging to go beyond the simple introduction of uncomfortable (but cheap) chairs and a cheap (but poor) coffee machine. But this is exactly where the need arises: for a possible added value, a certain charm or attractiveness of the Open Coffee Area must be created. After all, you don’t sit down in an uncomfortable café with bad coffee to recover from Saturday’s shopping. Another challenge can be that employees spend too much time in this place and productivity drops. Here, the only thing that should be pointed out is personal responsibility. There are days when people

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need more breaks, and others when breaks get almost forgotten. One problem that may well be underestimated is the need to ensure cleanliness and order in the Open Coffee Area. The more employees use it, the more untidy and unhygienic it usually becomes. In order to prevent individual, usually expensively paid professionals with a high sense of responsibility from starting to clean up the Open Coffee Area for 1 or 2 h a day, it is a good idea to hire a person to keep this area clean.

Pairing

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Pairing is a working method in which people work together and the dual control principle applies.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In Pairing, the results to be worked out are created jointly by two people and this often results in better quality and a lower error rate. Pairing increases the exchange of knowledge as well as learning among each other and thus contributes to on-the-job development.

Description The most important component of Pairing is the dual control principle. This ensures high quality and the expertise of two people (and their four eyes) flows into the process simultaneously. Pairing originally comes from the field of code (programming) and involves one person writing the source code while the other person sits next to it and checks the source code for correctness, addresses possible problems and can give direct feedback. Basic rules such as not interfering with each other’s keyboard must be followed. In many innovative business contexts, Pairing has become an integral part of common working methods in teams. Here, the Pairing partners are put together in a varying, rotating manner, which ensures that everyone works together and learns from each other. No matter whether junior or senior: extensive knowledge and many years of expertise can stimulate learning and reflection just as much as naive questions and simplified procedures. This

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ensures that in almost every composition the Pairing partners can learn from each other and develop further. Pairing is no longer only used in programming, but also in other areas of the company. For example, Pairing can be successfully applied in accounting, customer support or internal coaching. The aim of Pairing is always to increase quality and to get to know the procedures and routines of the Pairing partner in order to integrate them into one’s own work if necessary. At the same time, an important discussion arises about how certain topics and problems should be approached and solved and which use of frameworks and various standards is the basis of the joint work.

Tips for Implementation If Pairing is newly introduced as a method, it is advisable to hold workshops in which basic rules, procedures and good practices are demonstrated and discussed. It is recommended to arrange fixed time units in which the Pairing takes place. In this way, a framework is set which can be varied and developed further in a meaningful way. It is also recommended to regularly reflect together on what is going well in Pairing and what should be improved. This will ensure that difficulties are addressed and that Pairing can become an integral part of the joint work processes. At the same time, it can also be used to find out when Pairing is useful as a method and when it is not. Example

The development team “Deep Blue” in an Ghana has been working together for some time on a new project. Two of the four team members work part-time and the two fulltime employees are junior programmers. The team has to realize that they can’t find the right rhythm to achieve their desired results fast enough. Agreements and explanations of content take up a lot of time and the error rate and reworking make the team’s mood worse. In the third Retro, in which Product Owner Shaibu is also involved, the team puts it aptly: “We spend too much time on everything to do with programming and have too little time to actually program. We work differently and don’t find a good common approach. It costs time and nerves!” Shaibu asks the team what they have tried so far. After different and rather poor answers he suggests to the team to try Pair Programming to learn more about the different ways of working and to reduce the error rate. Afterwards, the company is asked who is familiar with Pairing, and another team is found which already has Pairing as an integral part of its work. Shortly afterwards, the “Deep Blue” team sits down with the other team and learns everything important to try out Pairing. In the following week they sit together in different Pairing Tandems for 1½ h each before a task. After 2 weeks, the team realizes that its error rate has indeed already dropped drastically and that it has come closer in its programming style. The documentation has become easier to understand and handover times have been extremely reduced. Although the team members still disagree on some points, as a

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team they have managed to increase their speed and achieve more satisfaction and better results. In a special Pairing Retrospective, they discuss how they can further improve the process. But they are sure about one thing: they want to keep Pairing as an integral part of teamwork. ◄

Possible Challenges It is exhausting for the teams when each time it is discussed anew who paired with whom. It is a good idea to set up a weekly plan which is continued or adjusted in the following week. In this way, coordination time is saved and the focus on content work is increased. Pairing can be challenging if the two people have very different ways of working. Pairing should then be used to find out together what the greatest common denominator is and how to work together in the best possible way. It is not uncommon for Pairing to lead to friction at the beginning and a constructive approach must first be found.

Pool Team

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A Pool Team consists of a larger group of employees who work together as a permanent team for a limited time, depending on the project and task.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Since concrete planning horizons have become much shorter in today’s working world, fixed teams can make flexibility difficult. A Pool Team helps to better coordinate availability and task sizes. Flexibility is the greatest added value of a Pool Team for the company. At the same time, the quality of the work can increase, as certain standards and quality criteria are inevitably introduced on a higher level. The workload improves and the learning of the employees among themselves is greatly increased.

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Description A Pool Team is a superordinate, large and cross-functional team without fixed team structures and concrete tasks. Depending on emerging projects, the employees of the Pool Team are formed into smaller fixed teams that work together for a defined period of time and for specific projects. The project teams usually work together for 2–6 weeks. Afterwards they dissolve as a permanent project team and return to the Pool Team to take on new tasks and challenges. Basically there are two ways in which a Pool Team can function in a temporally structured manner: 1. All teams work in the same time frame (all have the same iteration length) and finish their project simultaneously. Sometimes individual teams take their project to the next iteration, which should be avoided at all costs and shows that the size and scope of the project has been misjudged. 2. Alternatively, there are individual iterations for the respective project teams. Depending on the size of the project, they define the time frame themselves. Both types have their advantages and disadvantages: With the same iterations for all teams, it is easier to create new teams for new projects, because all teams are available again at the same time. However, this includes the challenging task of breaking down the sizes of individual projects to a time frame that is always the same in order to allow for a uniformed iteration length. Project team iterations of varying lengths have the advantage that individual tasks and projects are carried out within a suitably and individually determined period of time. At the same time, it is challenging to manage the coordination in the Pool Team for new projects, because not all Pool Team members are available at the same time. Basically, topics or projects are brought in from outside or worked on from inside in Pool Teams. Subsequently, employees can assign themselves to a project based on their interests. In the small project teams there is then a Team Bootstrapping (see Hack “Team Bootstrapping”), the work phase itself and then the presentation at the Demo Day. This is followed by an evaluation of the results and a Retrospective. Pool Teams have so far been used more in IT areas of a company, but they can also be used in other areas of companies.

Tips for Implementation When introducing a Pool Team, care should be taken to ensure that expectations and objectives are communicated and discussed transparently. It is important to iteratively improve the process itself on the basis of regular feedback and reflection. Clarifying clear responsibilities and defining common standards are as important as a sufficient focus on team building and team processes. Fixed (agile) formats can support this approach, such as

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regular Retrospectives, dailies and weeklies, and planning meetings. It is important that the Pool Team is set up cross-functionally so that all necessary competencies come together for the project teams and the project teams can work autonomously. Example

An IT company in Zagreb, Croatia, with 350 employees has grown strongly in recent years. Since the services offered by the company are now well developed, new challenges are pending, which often relate to shorter projects. Sinja, the company’s CTO, repeatedly notes that many of the new tasks are difficult to assign to individual teams. She decides to try an experiment: She asks the teams which employees could imagine leaving fixed team structures and moving to a flexible large team that, depending on the projects, works together in fixed small teams for a limited period of time. In addition to some teams that definitely have to stay, she offers this to all other IT teams. The response is better than expected: 80% of the employees can imagine an experiment of this kind. After some fiddling around about how the remaining 20% can be meaningfully integrated, Sinja is ready to introduce a Pool Team. In the first iterations, she decides on fixed and equal time intervals for all project teams and discusses the new projects and their objectives with their product owners. It quickly becomes clear that some topics are more comprehensive than others and that these must be divided into meaningful units (sub-projects). During the subsequent presentation in the new Pool Team, the first step is to work out together with everyone what is important for the successful functioning of the “Pool Team” experiment. Then the new projects are presented and the persons can assign themselves to the best of their conscience. Each project has a Product Owner who can answer specific questions of the employees about the project. After some skirmishes about apparently popular projects and the request for a better distribution, all projects are appropriately staffed. The new teams go directly into a bootstrapping and discuss everything important to be ready for work the next day. It becomes immediately clear that sufficient attention has to be paid to the logistical effort, as some desks have to be moved and team rooms have to be newly arranged for a certain period of time. Then the project teams begin their work. All in all, the iteration is going surprisingly well. Certain topics, such as the setting of standards, still need to be developed and discussed together. After 4 weeks, the first Demo Day is held, where the projects are presented and discussed, followed by both a project team and pool Retrospective with all participants. During this day, a lot is learned, interim frustration is discussed and taken away for improvement for the next iteration. When Sina votes on whether there should be further iterations, almost everyone is in favour. They like the fact that they can choose projects they really want to be involved in. To finish the first iteration in a dignified way, Tina bought a huge cake in pool form, which is first admired and then devoured by everyone. In the following iterations, the process will be further improved and successfully developed. ◄

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Fig. 10 Pool Team

Possible Challenges For employees it can be challenging to constantly change the team and thus their colleagues. Experience has shown that working in a Pool Team is not practical for everyone and for some it does not provide enough stability. It is therefore important to have employees in the Pool Team who see it as a challenge and learning opportunity to work on new projects in diverse, small teams with almost no fixed structures (see Fig. 10). The scope and time frame of individual projects can often be misjudged. In this case, it is advisable to reflect again and again over time on how better estimates can be achieved together (see Hack “Estimation Poker”). Employees should be involved as much as possible in the planning and in the concrete formulation of objectives for the individual projects so that their expertise is integrated and their commitment increases. A big challenge is the maintenance (¼ maintenance and care of the completed project contents, especially in the IT area). A solution has to be found for this, which can range from a fixed maintenance team to responsibility attached to individual persons.

Postmortem Analysis

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Postmortem Analysis (PMA) systematically examines completed projects and processes and derives findings for improvements.

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Why Important: Benefits and Impact In working contexts where mistakes and problems have an immediate impact, it is important to learn quickly for future situations. PMA creates the context to gain decisive insights from previous procedures and thus reduce error rates, downtime and inefficiencies. This saves a lot of time and money and prevents frustration and demotivation. PMA promotes collaboration beyond team boundaries by increasing the common understanding of contexts.

Description The PMA basically always has the same structure, which can be adapted and supplemented according to the situation: 1. 2. 3. 4.

All necessary data and information is collected. Data and information are jointly analysed, discussed and internalized. Important findings are filtered out and causes and effects of key factors are derived. The PMA concludes with action derivations, proposals for and decisions on new approaches and subsequent feedback and reflection.

After the PMA, the most important results will be passed on to other stakeholders and future affected persons. All persons involved in the content are present at the analysis, i.e. usually between three and ten employees. In this way, all important information can be accessed and reflected upon holistically and as completely as possible. The aim is to learn from possible mistakes, omissions and blind spots, so that in a similar situation it is easier to react and proceed next time. This includes, for example, agreements, responsibilities, system errors, monitoring, cooperation and timing. The focus is not on mutual blame, but on a common understanding of the causes and their further effects in the process. In this process, the PMA sometimes analyses to the second what happened in which sequence and dependency. PMAs can be an important and institutionalized building block in the error analysis as well as in the improvement process in the company and can be integrated not only in the IT but in the whole company.

Tips for Implementation It makes sense for a group-facilitator to lead through the process of the PMA, while the employees focus on the contents. If PMAs are not yet known in the company, it is important to talk about the added value and meaningfulness and to communicate these within the company. For a PMA to be successful, it is imperative that all necessary information is made transparent and accessible. It is essential that all persons involved

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are present so that a 360-degree analysis can be carried out successfully. The positive view of the employees’ work, that everyone has acted in the best interest at the appropriate time (see Hack “Prime Directive”), is elementary for the success of a PMA. Example

A company that successfully offers travel events internationally has ten different language versions and landing pages (¼ home pages, based on the respective language). On average, 20 new users search for offers per minute per landing page. When the Spanish landing page no longer works, the customer support agent Amancio is the first to encounter this problem. He himself does not find the error and asks his team. They don’t know what could be the cause, too. Amancio writes to his colleague and developer Tine, who has her focus time and to whom no messages are sent during this time. After 2 h of intensive work Tine sees the notification and escalates it directly in the designated chat channel. Only 5 h after the problem occurs it gets fixed. During the 5 h, about 3000 new search requests could not be accepted, causing a potential loss of 50 to 75 new bookings. After the problem is solved, Tine calls a PMA. The detailed analysis reveals two reasons for the late escalation: (1) Amancio and the support team were not aware of the urgency of the immediate handling of the issue. (2) Amancio didn’t know that there is an internal “War Room”, a chat where all major bugs are escalated directly and communicated to the appropriate people. He could have limited the downtime to a maximum of 75 min. As a realization, the participants take away with them that the so-called “War Room” has to be made transparent in the company so that it can also fulfil its purpose beyond the IT area. Tine accepts the to-do, making an announcement in the company chat and pointing out the facts in the All-Hands Meeting. Within 2 h, the PMA will discover which procedures have led to which problems, as well as which weaknesses in communication or transparency regarding escalations exist. Based on these findings, to-dos are distributed and the PMA is successfully completed. ◄

Possible Challenges Especially in the case of conflict-ridden PMAs, mutual recriminations can quickly occur. Common rules of conversation (see Hack “Meeting Rules”) help to objectify the situation and must be made aware of by group-facilitators if necessary. If PMAs do not take place promptly but are postponed, facts become less and less comprehensible and therefore more difficult to analyse, which is why PMAs should take place as promptly as possible. Time pressure and working on already new projects and topics make it difficult to bring all parties involved into the PMA. In order to overcome these challenges, the support of the management as well as the involved executives is helpful.

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Prime Directive

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The Prime Directive is like a foundation for the mindset. Each person is first assured that he or she has acted in good conscience.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact A fundamentally positive and humanistic understanding is the starting point of the Prime Directive. In times of many changes, new requirements and challenges, it is important to be able to try things out openly and freely. The Prime Directive has a special significance in this respect. The Prime Directive creates a trustworthy framework in which one can move freely. If every mistake, every mishap is directly criticized, sanctioned or reproached, employees quickly lose the impulse to dare, try and experiment. Especially in times of iterative work and new innovative approaches, the Prime Directive becomes an important starting point for New Work and Agile Working.

Description The term Prime Directive originates from Norman Kerth, who for the first time in his book “Project retrospectives a handbook for team reviews” gives the positive basic attitude a concrete name. Today, the Prime Directive is used as one of the most important foundations for Retrospectives and SCRUM sprints, as it promotes an open culture of discussion and experimentation. This culture is based on trust and not on evaluating the other person. Ideally, the Prime Directive becomes an integral part of the collective mindset and supports teams, employees and managers in entering difficult and challenging conversations and situations with a positive basic understanding of themselves and others. Thus, the Prime Directive is not only suitable for agile teams, but also brings fundamental added value for companies that promote and challenge error culture, innovative and iterative work and experimentation. The Prime Directive can be consulted at any time when difficult conversations need to be held and is primarily intended for personal reflection and team reflection (see also Hack “Retrospectives”) for dealing with such situations.

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Tips for Implementation The Prime Directive is not something that you have heard once and can then directly apply and embody at any given time. Rather, it is a building block of the mindset that can only manifest itself in action and debate. In order for the Prime Directive to become part of the corporate culture and especially the culture of discussion, it is beneficial to hang it on the walls as a visual statement, for example in meeting rooms. This makes it easier to live it concretely, it does not just exist as an ideal concept somewhere on paper. Furthermore, it can be of great advantage to reflect together as a team on what the Prime Directive means for one’s own communication and interaction within the team. In this way, the Prime Directive becomes more self-evident and is integrated and brought to life step by step in the team’s behaviour. Example

There is a team discussion, because Sebi, a relatively new and motivated team member, has released a new sub-product for launch without the knowledge of the others. The other team members, it concerns a successful and well-off team, are angry, because they were not asked for their “GO” and therefore the release for the launch was not decided together. They accuse Sebi of not having kept to the joint team decision. They insist that this procedure applies to everyone and that nobody can take it upon himself to make this decision alone, as the four-eyes principle applies. Sebi, for his part, is also frustrated, as he has followed every possible step up to the launch, after having examined the partial product to the best of his conscience and conscientiously. In a later conversation between the two team members Tom and Sabine over a coffee, they consider when they made this decision of the joint launch. Both are of the opinion that this must have happened within the last 6 months, i.e. in the time when new employee Sebi was already part of their team. But since Sabine is not quite sure, she looks up the joint meeting protocol. There she discovers that this decision was made more than half a year ago. Sebi could of course have consciously noticed this decision while reading the minutes, remembered it and put it into practice. But the probability that this would happen with the initial flood of information when joining a new team is very low. If the team had immediately had the Prime Directive and the basic attitude that Sebi, as a new member of the team, had done everything he could do based on his knowledge and skills, this dispute would not have arisen at all, but rather a constructive discussion in which it would have been established that Sebi was missing this information. It would not have been a matter of apportioning blame, but of clarification and understanding. ◄

Possible Challenges People are often used to the fact that it is easier to find a culprit than to talk together about missing information and lack of support. For this reason, the Prime Directive can quickly

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be dismissed as “Buddhist hippiedom”, as it is usually easier to find a guilty party than to think about what one could have contributed oneself. What is needed, therefore, is an actual mindset shift towards a basic attitude of openness, curiosity and a positive basic acceptance towards the actions of others. The most common criticism of the Prime Directive is that people sometimes deliberately do something wrong. This may be possible in principle— but the question then arises as to what caused the person to behave in this way.

Professional Internships

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Professional Internships are (mostly) short internships of employees in other companies.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Learning from each other today can go far beyond the boundaries of the company and experiences from other companies can bring added value to your own. Professional Internships offer employees the opportunity to pass on their knowledge and exchange ideas. Impulses and inspirations from the outside bring new ideas for the own team and company.

Description In Professional Internships, employees work for a fixed period of time in another company in a similar position, gain new experience and generate knowledge which they bring back into their own company. Thus, Professional Internships fit well into the modern working world, as they can network knowledge and offer employees a form of paid further development. It makes sense to work together with several companies in a Professional Internships programme, in this way a company not only gives or lends employees for a certain period of time, but also receives this support from other companies. Professional Internships are usually accompanied by the HR/People and Organization department in the company or directly by the respective departments. This gives employees the opportunity to broaden their horizons. The immersion in another company always offers a comparison

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to the own company. A period of 1–3 weeks is recommended, as employees can get to know processes, structures and working in other companies in this way, without missing employees in their own team for too long. In the case of simultaneous internships with employees with the same qualifications, the period can be varied more flexibly, as the lack of manpower can be compensated for more easily. After the employees return home, it is a good idea to give a lecture or present a field report. In this way, other employees can also participate in the newly gained knowledge in their own company.

Tips for Implementation It is important to define what the aim and purpose of the Professional Internships is. They should not be used as secret recruiting, but should allow employees to gain insights and exchange knowledge. It is recommended to have a permanent contact person in the other company to whom employees can address themselves. Before a Professional Internship takes place, it is fundamentally important to determine how sensitive information is to be handled and the necessary approvals and access authorizations for the work. In this way, employees from outside the company are spared an unpleasant situation and the company does not need to worry about the possible transfer of secret data. Under certain circumstances it may be advisable to make a short written agreement on this. Example

Adam, a designer in a large company in Tel Aviv, has often wondered how working in start-ups actually differs from his job. He has already heard some stories from a friend of Maik’s. When the two meet again at a party, Adam tells him about his question again. Maik is also a designer and works in a start-up with 150 employees. He suggests to Adam: “Why don’t you come and spend 2 weeks with us and see how we work?” Adam has to laugh, because of course he doesn’t want to spend his precious vacation in another company and doesn’t even know if that would be allowed at all. But in the next few days Maik’s suggestion does not let him go. He goes to his manager and tells him about the idea. To Adam’s astonishment, he finds the idea interesting and sees the potential for his own team. The next day he suggests to Adam that we should discuss together what the general conditions of a Professional Internship should be. Adam is delighted and can directly record important aspects with his manager: It has to be temporary, Adam has to work there in a similar role in a team, the start-up has to support the idea, and after the 2 weeks are over, Adam is supposed to give a short presentation back to the company for his department. With this idea Adam calls Maik and tells him that it can actually come to them. Maik clarifies Adam’s proposal in his start-up and after a month both sign an agreement for a Professional Internship. After a period of time has been found that is feasible for all sides, Adam starts his internship in the start-up for 2 weeks. It will be two exciting weeks for Adam, during which he will learn a lot about modern and innovative

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structures and can generate some ideas for his own team. At the same time, he realizes that his knowledge is well-founded and adds value directly on site. His many years of experience in developing basic components, i.e. basic building blocks of individual visualizations, will inspire the start-up and show the still young designers more about systematization and the application of variable basic elements. After 2 weeks, Adam returns to his old team with new impulses and confirmed by his own expertise. In his presentation, he talks about his experience and presents ideas that will actually be tested not only in his team but also in other teams over the next few months. Adam has virtually become an expert, even if he sometimes has to google certain content himself. He is happy about this new perspective and supports other teams in streamlining processes. A few days after the end of his internship Maik gets in touch and asks if he could join Adam’s team for 2 weeks. ◄

Possible Challenges The potential transfer of sensitive data is probably the biggest challenge. In this respect, it is advisable to choose partner companies that are not familiar with the industry and therefore by no means competitors. The commitment of both companies is necessary for the success of the Professional Internships. If no concrete responsibility for the project is defined, it can quickly come to a standstill. It is therefore advisable to consciously and carefully select companies and specific contact persons. As an alternative to an exchange programme, individual persons who are intrinsically motivated (see example) to do a Professional Internship can take over the organization of the project themselves, which reduces the effort and may be the more flexible and quicker solution.

Retrospectives

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Retrospectives are team meetings in which work processes and their results are reflected in order to improve continuously.

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Why Important: Benefits and Impact Retrospectives contribute to the collection and evaluation of learning from work processes. In this way, both the team and the company learn. In this way, they promote the transfer of knowledge and learning within the company, since fewer mistakes are made and improvements can be actively integrated into work processes. This increases the satisfaction and trust of the employees and improves the corporate culture towards a respectful and constructive interaction with each other.

Description The Retrospective (retro) is one of the most important meetings in the Agile Mindset, as it is based on the principle of continuous improvement of people and their processes, teams and work procedures. Feedback is provided at the latest after, but possibly also during a work process (¼ iteration). At these team meetings, the team gets the opportunity to critically look at and question the cooperation and the work results. In a Retrospective, team members can address problems and express dissatisfaction. However, to ensure that a Retrospective does not degenerate into a complaining meeting, active work on measures for improvement must be carried out here. In meetings where the team accuses each other, there is no added value and no improvement through learning. A Retrospective therefore looks specifically at what went badly and what went well and what needs to be improved or developed further. For this purpose, a specific process is used in the Retrospective, which consists of five phases: 1. Set the stage—intro with greeting and objective of the retro as well as a warming up if necessary. 2. Gather data—collection of figures, data, facts about the project, status quo, location analysis 3. Generate insights—identify the different points of view and perspectives and develop ideas for improvement measures 4. Decide what to do—agree and decide on measures for improvement 5. Closing—Outro with final reflection, clear end and farewell Successful teams conduct a Retrospective after each iteration, usually every 2–4 weeks, to share knowledge, insights and results. In this meeting the focus is on the Retrospective, an iteration is rounded off in terms of content and decisions for future work are made. Regular Retrospectives strengthen the team and the company, promote cooperation and ultimately increase customer satisfaction, as the entire value-added process is improved and further developed.

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Tips for Implementation A Retrospective should initially become a ritual in the work process. For this it is important that managers understand and experience the meaning of Retrospectives. They themselves should also conduct Retrospectives in order to continuously improve their leadership. The Retrospective should therefore become a fixed part of the corporate culture and enable constructive feedback (see Hack “Feedback Culture”) and continuous development. At the beginning, Retros should always be accompanied by a trained group-facilitator in order to penetrate the sequence and process and to conduct the feedback meeting constructively. Even without the support of a trained group-facilitator, a lead or team member should always take over the facilitation of the Retro. This task should be clearly agreed and communicated within the team. This person should also be given time to prepare the Retro. The purpose of a Retro should be visible and experienced by everyone: On the one hand, a protected space should be created for reflection and learning together; on the other hand, however, concrete measures should be developed. The Retrospective should be carried out in order to transfer knowledge and derive concrete actions from it. It can be helpful for the team to use and try out suitable methods in the Retrospective (see Hack “Start-StopContinue”). It is often recommended to use Retrospectives also for superordinate topics and for team building and thus to consistently organize a longer retro every 3–4 months, for which it is advisable to conduct it outside the company. Example

The newly founded “Queenstagram” team in Rome is to make the Group’s brand presence at Instagram successful within a very short time. The highly motivated team works with focus and full commitment to achieve the goals. Many processes, agreements and the content design of such a marketing measure are practiced together for the first time. The product launch is imminent, which is why the team works around the clock. Errors creep in and with time also dissatisfaction within the team. As the deadline approaches, the team decides to work even harder despite the heavy workload. Exhausted and dissatisfied, Angelo tells his friends from another work area about the overload in the team. They suggest that he should reflect on his own work processes and procedures. Angelo thinks that there is not enough time for this and that it is impossible to fit the reflection into the schedule. Nevertheless, he takes the idea into the team and addresses it in one of the many meetings. The whole team is against it and wants to focus on getting the hardly manageable work done together until the deadline. However, Angelo does not let go of the thought and hopes to avoid the many unnecessary mistakes in the final stress phase. He makes an appointment with an Agile Coach for a coffee. The coach tells him about the woodcutters’ metaphor: A man comes into the forest and watches the woodcutters with blunt blades constantly cutting down trees. After some time of observation, he asks them why they are not sharpening their saws. Somewhat annoyed by the question, they answer him that they don’t have time to sharpen the saw because so many trees have to be felled. With this metaphor, something in Angel’s brain

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makes “click”. In a quiet moment he tells his team this story and suggests again to reflect together on the work process so that they don’t have to work like this for the next 6 weeks until they drop. Although the team members are not enthusiastic, they agree. Some of the team members share Angelo’s hope that this might relieve them. The Agile Coach contacted by Angelo is to facilitate the retro of the Queenstagram team. He explains the process of the retro and introduces the team to the meeting. During the retro, dissatisfactions are addressed openly for the first time and the team members learn to understand their different approaches better. When identifying measures, they discover several possible courses of action to relieve each other and avoid mistakes. Basically satisfied, they conclude the Retrospective with new insights and concrete ideas for the coming weeks. Angelo suggests that the next Retrospective should be determined immediately, to see in 2 weeks whether anything has changed and what other possible improvements could be. The “Queenstagram” team still has a lot to do, but thanks to concrete agreements and better handovers for subtasks, the cooperation is already working better after 2 weeks than before. ◄

Possible Challenges Especially at the beginning it is important that the individual phases are consciously passed through (see Fig. 11). Thus, it often happens that the phase “generate insights” is skipped, which is immediately followed after “gather data”. However, an important process step, which is to understand problems and difficulties, is not passed through, which is why the measures taken can only be to combat symptoms. The actual problem is not penetrated and no suitable measure can be developed. In Retros, it can happen that topics remain unedited or are placed in a topic memory. However, the focus in Retros should be on acute topics and concerns of the team. Topics should not be saved or taken from previous Retros. The team will repeatedly name topics in

Fig. 11 Phases of a Retrospective

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the Retro if they are still acute and relevant, which is an indicator that no good measure for the problem has yet been developed and the team can improve further in this respect. Nevertheless, the course of the Retro can be adapted to the respective team: Thus, the phases “generate insights” and “decide what to do” can also be combined with each other, in that after the respective insight, the corresponding measure is also decided upon before moving on to the next insight.

Role Definition

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Role Definitions define the respective role in the company by clarifying requirements, task areas and objectives at the beginning.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In working contexts in which areas of responsibility and entire company divisions are constantly changing, a clear definition of roles becomes an important factor in being able to work in a focused and professional manner and meet requirements. This increases work performance and productivity right from the start and avoids chaos and frustration. Role Definitions enable employees to tackle new challenges in a more goal-oriented and successful way. The communication between company and employees is simplified and takes place faster. Clear task descriptions reduce errors and miscommunication within the company and within the teams.

Description The definition of a role is fundamental to get employees up and running as quickly as possible. The goal is to use Role Definitions to determine and communicate the meaning of a role, the focus of the tasks and the general conditions as quickly as possible. For this purpose, it is necessary that requirements, decision areas and contact persons are clearly defined and agreed upon with each other. In many cases, new roles are only discussed in terms of objectives and clarification of tasks, not the basic conditions that are fundamentally important for the work are defined. Role Definitions thus go beyond a normal task

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description, since not only the “what” but also the “how” and “why” are clarified and defined (see Hack “Golden Circle”). The manager and employee sit down together and discuss all relevant issues in order to make employees fit for work in their new role. The content varies depending on the role and tasks. Typical topics that can be discussed are vision and Mission Statement, focus of the role, responsibilities, delegation level, supporting factors and time aspects (see Hacks “Vision”, “Mission Statement”, “Delegation Level”). Discussed contents are recorded in writing and reflected upon after an agreed time. This ensures that the defined framework conditions actually fit the concrete work situation. Frequently, individual aspects are then adapted, difficulties are discussed and possible solutions are jointly identified. Depending on the scope and complexity of the framework conditions and the existing basic understanding on both sides, the Role Definition takes between 2 and 5 h. It is advisable to involve a group facilitator so that both the manager and the employee can concentrate on working through the content. A clear Role Definition is particularly recommended for key functions that have to operate between different areas of the company. In some companies, such as Atlassian in Australia, Role Definitions are created together with and for the entire team when new team members join or when the tasks and objectives change. This procedure can be well integrated into a Team Bootstrapping (see Hack “Team Bootstrapping”).

Tips for Implementation New role owners are often expected to be able to perform well right away. The institutionalization of Role Definitions can make a valuable contribution to this. It is important that these meetings are clearly structured and prepared and that they are aligned to the specific role. The conceptualization and testing of Role Definitions in the company can be developed iteratively, whereby company-wide, relevant framework conditions should be integrated and attention should be paid to supplementing individual conditions for a successful Role Definition. Example

Francois has moved from his previous position, where he did user tests and learned a lot about the product, to a new job in Paris. He is now responsible for the coordination between marketing, the development teams and his former team “UX Allstars”. In his new role, he is expected to accompany all important decisions and use his experience to lead the different teams together to better results. Excited and at very short notice, Francois starts his new task and already notices in the first meetings that he can contribute in terms of content, but does not know exactly what is within his decision area. After a week he comes to his busy supervisor Merle, who only now has time for him, somewhat frustrated. Francois comes straight to the point: “It’s fun working with the different teams, but what exactly am I responsible for? When am I more of a

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companion for the others? What can I decide for myself if I think that the others want to make a bad decision for the company?” Merle has to admit that the role was introduced very spontaneously by her and she is not yet fully aware of these questions. She suggests to Francois to sit down next week and, with the support of an Agile Coach, to clarify the important questions and issues. In the 3-h meeting the following Tuesday, Francois and Merle actually manage to talk in more detail about all the fundamentally important issues. In the process, it becomes clear to Merle that she had “thrown Malte into the cold water”. Francois also manages to clearly formulate his expectations towards Merle: “In critical situations, I want to be able to go through them with you promptly and not after a week”. Furthermore, they find that they need a common weekly to be able to plan and discuss issues regularly. This way Francois also gets the desired support for critical issues. In some areas of responsibility they decide to drastically reduce the scope so that Francois can focus better. They agree to review all discussed basic conditions again after 1 month and to adjust them if necessary. Both are satisfied and Merle already has the idea to suggest this process to other managers for new roles in order to define roles more clearly. ◄

Possible Challenges It can be challenging to take the time to define roles in stressful situations and not immediately assign tasks to employees. The invested time for a Role Definition is compensated for, because clarified basic conditions replace missing knowledge about responsibilities and competencies and accordingly, work can be done quickly and goaloriented in concrete situations. Things become difficult if the manager himself has not clearly defined the requirements and responsibilities of the new role and cannot communicate them. It is advisable to be well prepared going into Role Definition processes in order to do justice to one’s own management task and to enable the employee to quickly familiarize himself/herself with the new role and to be able to work well in it.

Shared Pain Points

Shared Pain Points "

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Shared Pain Points means sharing problems in your own work with other employees in the company in order to find common solutions.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Pointing out Pain Points in companies enables employees to quickly get solutions and ideas from other colleagues. This saves time in problem-solving and solution finding and makes skilful use of the existing competencies in the company. This increases networking within the company and the awareness that difficulties do not have to be solved alone.

Description Pain Points can be unsolved problems, difficulties in dealing with each other and lack of knowledge for new challenges. Pain Points can therefore be described as a fundamental blockage in work processes. Sharing one’s own Pain Points and getting help means that the problem is openly shared and made accessible to others. The willingness to do so depends strongly on the corporate culture, in which sharing Pain Points is either recognized as a strength or dismissed as a weakness. In order for Pain Points to be shared, there must be opportunities to share them with others. There are various formats for this, such as the COP (see Hack “Community of Practice”) or knowledge sharing (see Hack “Knowledge-Sharing Formats”). Highly frequented places in the company can also simplify the sharing of Pain Points, such as an Open Coffee Area in the company (see Hack “Open Coffee Area”), where colleagues can be addressed directly without interrupting their own work processes. It is also a good idea to create digital channels for this, where the problem can be described and other employees can respond directly and promptly. Whatever ways of sharing Pain Points are designed, it is important that they are used by employees and lead to constructive solutions. In the book “Innovation as usual” by Miller and Wedell (2013) it is shown that knowledge for problem-solving is often available as a competence in the company, but is mostly not used, because the structures and processes for sharing Pain Points are not developed and employees cannot hear about the problems at all. In this way, a lot of time is lost and expensive external help is hired if necessary. A Week of Learning (see Hack “Week of Learning”) can also be a superior and company-wide event for this.

Tips for Implementation If the possibilities in the company to share Pain Points with each other are to be improved, it is important to enable the infrastructure for this from the company side and to help with the setup. This could be the establishment of a chat channel for Pain Points only, which can be split into thematic sections if necessary. On the corporate culture level, it should be

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noted that it is a sign of strength to openly point out one’s own Pain Points and ask for support. If necessary, it is advisable to have regular sessions in which Pain Points are presented and approaches so that solutions are researched together. Example

Max and Tim, both good developers in Sydney, have been sitting on the same problem for a few days. In the beginning it was fun and they felt challenged. In the meantime, it is rather frustrating and no progress is visible. After they are annoyed to discover that they don’t know what to do, they talk to their lead about their problem. Although he can’t help them solve the problem, he suggests that they briefly discuss their problem in the messages at the end of the next All-Hands Meeting and ask for support. Max and Tim can’t imagine that, because they have to show the whole company that they can’t solve their problem themselves. But after they have thought about it, the proposal actually sounds reasonable. In the All-Hands Meeting they briefly point out their problem and ask for help. In fact, three other developers from within the company approach them after the meeting and offer their support, believing they have a possible idea for solving the problem. In the same week the five of them meet. Max and Tim present the problem and their previous failed approaches to solving it, and together they think about new ways to solve it. After 3 h and concentrated competence in the room, a solution is actually found. Max and Tim are so enthusiastic about the process that they decide to create a format in which developers can share their problems and the group works together on possible solutions. After a few runs of the new format, which they call “Power Ranger Fixes”, they have already improved the process and are making sure that it will become a regular Pain Points meeting once a week. ◄

Possible Challenges Not openly admitting that support is needed can lead to a lot of time being wasted in which a relevant problem cannot be solved. Companies can counteract this by basically supporting the sharing of problems, mistakes and challenges. Thus, it can become the norm to incorporate the expertise of colleagues into their own problem-solving. Missing formats to make Pain Points visible make it difficult to work together on tricky problems outside of your own team. This is where it helps to try out new formats and, if necessary, adapt them to the company’s needs.

Shift to Leadership

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Shift to Leadership

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Shift to Leadership means that in times of modern ways of working, classical management is shifting towards the leadership of people.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In the age of knowledge work, the demands on managers are changing fundamentally. Wherever people are no longer working on the assembly line, they need support and not outside influence. The Shift to Leadership is therefore greatly important because people face different challenges individually and situationally and therefore need different nuances of leadership. The impact of leadership is particularly high because technical experts need support in their challenges and the manager does not necessarily have more knowledge. The Shift to Leadership is becoming essential, as young generations in particular want to be “empowered” and not bossed around. Pure management can no longer meet this requirement.

Description Whereas in traditional management, it is primarily processes and employees that are “managed”, in leadership the focus is on leading and developing employees. The leadership style itself is often based on a “Flexible Mindset” or “Growth Mindset”, is valuedriven and focuses on the employees. A modern manager sees himself as a supporter, companion and challenger. In New Work contexts, this type of leadership has become the norm and classic managers no longer stand a chance. In traditional companies it can be observed that the change towards leadership has already begun. However, middle management in particular is struggling with this, as they often fear a loss of power and are not familiar with the Shift to Leadership. The mindset of modern leadership is not about power and maintaining power, but about supporting others as best as possible, letting them grow and, in the best case, making oneself largely superfluous and devoting oneself to new challenges. Instead of control and cooperation at the micro level, the focus shifts to the strategic level and the removal of disruptive factors and blockades for teams, in addition to the further development of employees.

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Tips for Implementation Shift to Leadership means that the entire corporate and leadership culture is changing. It can be helpful to pay special attention to extensive support and mutual trust in the process. In concrete terms, this means having many conversations and giving room to concerns, problems and reservations. It is crucial that the senior management not only suggests and supports this shift, but above all, embodies it and acts as role models. The decisive factor for success will be that the “why” (see Hack’s “Golden Circle”) is made clear and becomes a constantly repeated narrative of the change from management to leadership. It should not be underestimated how important it is to regularly emphasize why and for what these changes are being made. In a conservative environment, it is advisable to offer Mission Statements, concrete practical examples and leadership training. In this way, managers are relieved of their fear of change and are shown concrete options for action so that they can better enter their new and as yet unknown role. In addition, various formats for exchange are available for support (see Hack “Leadership Roundtable” or “Community of Practice”). Example

A classic medium-sized and family-run production company in Austria has adapted to the requirements of its customers and opened an online shop. This area has successfully expanded over the past 2 years and has grown to 30 employees. Between managers and team members, there are always problems concerning the setting of priorities, the orientation of the shop and the way they deal with each other. The manager Toma, an experienced and long-time employee of the production company, has his firm ideas about what should happen to the shop. The employees in this area, including several excellent programmers and designers, do not feel free to make full use of their expertise and at the same time develop themselves further. After several young employees have left this team and the mood is bad, a few team members go to the owner of the company, Kai. They tell him about their dissatisfaction, the high turnover and the potential they see for the shop and thus for the company. They tell him about how other companies are structured and that start-ups in particular do a lot of things differently. They convince the owner Kai that they need more freedom and more personal responsibility to be able to work successfully. The owner, who wants to continue the family business successfully, sounds open and interested. Then, with the support of an external consultant, he decides to try out a new management model. The main aim here is to give employees more freedom and simplify decisions. After a few workshops and far-reaching changes, a new idea is born. Toma, the manager in this area, has to hand over responsibility in the future and become more a supporter of the employees. This is difficult for him at first, but after some time Toma even enjoys working with his young employees on further ideas and not having to worry about it only himself, because he simply lacks the expertise for many decisions. He increasingly recognizes how he can use and exploit the potential of his employees for the company in a positive way, and at the same time creates greater satisfaction among the employees by treating each other with recognition. After 1 year

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Fig. 12 Shift to Leadership

and many exciting and sometimes challenging experiences, the whole atmosphere in this area has changed. Toma is now only actively involved in a few everyday decisions, but supports the employees in the best possible way to be able to make decisions within the team itself. Therefore, he is asked as a possible corrective and because of his experiences in the production company himself. He can pass on his experience and at the same time support others in their work. They are has grown and 40 people work there. ◄

Possible Challenges Especially at the beginning of the change towards leadership, managers find it difficult to relinquish control over content. It is immensely important to make it clear to managers what the added value of their work can be in the future. In order to successfully meet this challenge, a mindshift is inevitable. If managers are not accompanied in the changes from management to leadership, there is a danger that they will only manage the Shift to Leadership on paper, but not in real working life. They need support, role models and regular feedback (see Fig. 12). However, some managers do not manage the Shift to Leadership. It is important to weigh up the consequences of this and consider how and whether the person can continue to make a meaningful contribution to the company. The change becomes challenging when top management wants to retain full control and at the same time expects middle management to complete the Shift to Leadership as quickly as possible. Here, it must always be remembered that this cultural shift can only happen together and does not happen overnight. It requires hard work, challenging discussions and an open and joint learning process.

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Spice Girls Approach

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The Spice Girls Approach asks about the real needs in the work context: “Tell me what you want, what you really really want”.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Knowing one’s own needs and “real” wishes makes work easier in many ways. One is able to make clear statements and delegate tasks better, decisions can be made faster and more goal-oriented and a constructive cooperation is achieved. Companies can better work out their Company Vision as well as their Mission Statement and thus work more goaloriented. Finding out what people really want and what drives them brings more commitment and better results in the company, because people work on the topics they are intrinsically motivated to consciously decide on.

Description The Spice Girls Approach goes back to the song “Wannabe” by the world famous British girl band “Spice Girls” with the famous line “Tell me what you want, what you really really want”. In New Work contexts, this phrase is used to ask pointed questions about the wishes and needs of the company, customers and employees. Frithjof Bergmann’s basic assumption in New Work is to pursue the real wishes and needs at work and to realize them. Behind this is the idea of doing meaningful work and orienting his activities accordingly. Through the Spice Girls Approach, it is always possible to find out where the real desire lies and what you really expect from your work. Dealing with one’s own meaningfulness and concerns requires reflection competence and openness as well as the courage to change, because in the normal working day the view of the essence of one’s own work in the company is often forgotten. For this reason, Stephen Bungay (2011) has derived the “Spice Girls Question” from his consulting work, which he describes in his book “The Art of Action” as a question about the essence of work. However, these essences should not only be clear to founders and management, but should also be communicated transparently to all employees. It is therefore a matter of critically questioning and thus obtaining a clear orientation that makes work easier for the company and its employees. The Spice Girls

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Question should therefore be more than just a question: It should find its way into discussions and ways of thinking in various meetings in order to do meaningful work in the spirit of the New Work idea and thus to work in a more satisfied and purpose-driven manner.

Tips for Implementation The Spice Girls Approach is easy to understand. The pithy name means that everyone in the company can imagine what is meant and the approach can be applied at all levels in the company. It is important that everyone can openly express their opinions and needs. It is therefore a good idea to explain the Spice Girls Approach and regularly formulate it as a question in various formats. Example

Mila is a young, very well educated and interested developer who joined the company just a few months ago. She gets on well with her lead and her team, contributes effectively to the team goal and enriches the team with her questions. She is affectionately called “Maxi Mila” by her team, as she always tries to get the maximum out of her work. In the annual meeting, her lead Ella prepares for a simple conversation. She is all the more surprised when she hears from Mila that she does not know how to behave and decide at the moment. She has received an offer from another company that offers her to work abroad. Mila finds the offer exciting, but doesn’t necessarily want to give up her work in the current team because she feels very comfortable and has finally found a cool working environment. Ella listens to Milas arguments, recognizes the inner conflict and then asks her: “Mila, what do you really, really want to do? She should take the question with her over the weekend and, regardless of all the general conditions, find out what she really wants and what drives her in her work. On Monday, the two of them sit down together again and Mila tells Ella that what she wants to experience and learn most of all is something new. She wants to combine her hobby of surfing with her job in a relaxed way and enjoy his independence, because that is what makes her stand out and gives her the best ideas. Ella asks her whether a company in Germany can offer her such a combination, and somewhat contrite Mila denies it. Mila decides to accept the offer abroad, as it will allow her to better combine the essentials in her work and life. Ella is sad to let Mila go, but understands the importance of following her wishes. ◄

Possible Challenges The Spice Girls Approach seems simple at first glance, but is not always easy to answer in the discussion. Therefore, it is important to invest time in the development. It is even

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possible to have the discussion take place outside the company in order to find out the essentials in a more focused way. In some cases, coaching or consulting can help to crystallize the essentials. Founders should consider when to take time for such a discussion. It often helps if they question the direction at regular intervals and can thus react to changes in time.

Start-Stop-Continue

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Start-Stop-Continue is a method that stimulates and systematizes continuous improvement.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact With the Start-Stop-Continue method, it is very easy to work out which measures should be started, stopped and further developed in the team or the company in general. In this way, the team can reach decisions more quickly and systematically improve its operational work. The division motivates teams to critically examine their topics and thus to set better priorities.

Description The Start-Stop-Continue method is a systematic procedure for working out in teams to take a closer look on which processes should be started, which should be stopped and which should be developed further. The procedure goes beyond a pure method, as it puts an essential idea of the agile mindset into its simplest form. It asks for continuous improvement on three levels: • Start: Things to start with.—“What do you want to start with?” • Stop: Things you don’t want to do anymore.—“What do you want to stop doing?” • Continue: Things you want to continue doing.—“Continue with what?” These three questions can be applied at different levels and in different forms, both in management as an instrument for strategy development and in a team that wants to line out

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and improve concrete tasks. Likewise, Start-Stop-Continue can be considered and used as a form of evaluation, whereby the status quo is challenged (see Hack “Status Quo Challenges”). The method can also be used for reflection (e.g. of sprints) as a systematization to analyse ideas and contents (stop and continue) and to bring them into the next implementation (start). The approach requires a fundamental openness to question the existing and to always check for effectiveness and meaningfulness (e.g. with regard to Company Mission Statement), which is why it can be considered an essential part of the agile mindset. In its application and as a helpful support, however, it goes beyond the use in agile teams and can create added value throughout the entire company.

Tips for Implementation Start-Stop-Continue can be used anywhere and very quickly. It helps to explain the benefits and the basic idea behind it at the beginning to reduce scepticism. Since the method sometimes questions existing ways of working, basic approval for this procedure should be obtained within the team. In doing so, it shows well whether the persons have a similar opinion on the topics or whether this opinion differs strongly. The method can also be designed as a game by distributing green, yellow and red cards in the team and then holding them up to get feedback. Green stands for Continue, yellow for Start and red for Stop (this is adjusted according to the team). In this way, decisions about certain actions can be made quickly and with fun. It facilitates implementation when start-stop continuity is applied at both management and team levels. This emphasizes a consistent and common approach, based on the same Core Values and understanding. Example

Keta is CEO of a start-up in Georgia, which has now grown up to 100 employees and continues to grow steadily. During the past months she has increasingly learned and experienced that her tasks as founder have changed and that she can no longer do everything herself and is not aware of it. Even though she has great support and super leads, she wants to stay better informed about her company and not just have insight into other people. In the evening, she tells her friend Tom about her frustration, who assures her that this is normal and that as CEO she can’t be present everywhere. “But there must be an easy way not to lose touch with my people”, she exclaims. “Surely I must know what is going on and what the strategy for the future of the company should be!” “Why don’t you just ask your employees yourself”, Tom asks her. Keta rolls her eyes and counters: “In a questionnaire like this, which nobody wants to fill in and which only costs time? It has to be clearly structured and easy to answer, Tom answers and continues: “Basically you only want to know from your employees what is good, what is bad and what can stay as it is. There’s a method for this that’s cool—it’s called Start-Stop-Continue and

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comes from agile management“. Keta lets Tom’s info sink in and takes it to her next “people meeting“. There she asks Linda about the method and explains the idea of a questionnaire with this systematic. “That would be ingenious, and it really wouldn’t take much work if the questionnaire could simply be put online and answered”, she says. She could simply download the evaluation onto her tablet. Linda will create an informal questionnaire next week and present it to Keta. After an initial test phase, both of them find that the questionnaire has not been very well received and Keta is visibly frustrated. “They think it’s an interview from the PE and don’t know you’re interested in their answers”, Tom notes on the sofa in the evening and suggests that Keta should present the questions and background of Start-Stop-Continue at the All-Hands Meeting herself. Next month, Keta will explain the questionnaire and show examples of how quickly it can be completed. After a second run, she receives much more feedback and also learns that she should continue to show the employees what information they need (Continue). They also want her to provide regular information about the results of the questionnaire (Start), but this should not always happen in the All-Hands Meeting, as other topics are more urgent there. Rather, concrete information should be provided on specific topics in the team meetings. When the workforce notices that their ideas from the Start-Stop-Continue questionnaire are being partially implemented, the employees participate in more detail in the evaluation, which now takes place every 6 weeks. An “SSC update” is installed in the team meetings, which is brought into the teams by Keta herself or Linda if possible. On the basis of start-stop continuity, all evaluations are now gradually designed and carried out within the company. Teams sit together and discuss how they assess the status quo. The good clarity and ease of working with it quickly makes it the method of choice throughout the company, from evaluations throughout the company to individual team meetings. ◄

Possible Challenges With the Start-Stop-Continue method, it is important that the benefit is in the foreground and is maintained. If, for example, different topics always appear in “Continue” (which have not already run through “Start”) and the same topics are always discussed in “Start” and “Stop”, this shows that no actions have been derived from them. This reduces the added value of the method. Here it is important that the actual necessity is critically examined and then it can be decided whether the aspect is relevant enough. It can also be checked again whether the three levels have been correctly understood and whether the topics have been clearly formulated or, for example, are too broadly formulated.

Status Quo Challenge

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Status Quo Challenge

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To challenge the status quo means questioning what seems to be taken for granted and stimulating further development.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In times of constant change, stagnation in a business context inevitably means failure. Questioning the status quo is therefore crucial in order to question routines, realign business models and further develop processes. Without consciously challenging the status quo, a company becomes blind to improvements and emerging risks.

Description In innovative New Work companies, questioning the status quo is an integral part of the corporate culture. After all, start-ups are often themselves the result of a Status Quo Challenge in which untapped potential has been identified. Various formats help them to regularly question their own approach and orientation. Specifically, it is determined which products or services as well as existing processes and structures in the company are outdated or need to be improved. Thus, the own product or service, the strategic orientation as well as the way of working itself can be challenged. In the best case, the company promotes the view that nothing should be taken for granted, but that it should constantly look for opportunities for further development and change. Probably the most used format for this is the Retrospective (see Hack “Retrospectives”). In an institutionalized way, the exhibition looks at how processes and products/services can be iteratively improved. Another format that is becoming increasingly popular is the “Nightmare Competitor Analysis”. This format outlines potentially emerging competitors and their business models that could destroy your own company. It then looks at how one’s own business model can benefit from the ideas and how it can be changed in order to develop further and, if necessary, disrupt itself (see Hack “Disruption Option”). The status quo can be challenged at all levels and can be viewed from the individual to the company level. The self-critical view and the deductions based on it for possible changes and improvements are crucial. It is important to examine the benefits and potential

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of new ideas that would change the way we work to date. The fundamental aim here is to encourage employees to share their thoughts and ideas and thus be able to develop real new opportunities and measures. In essence, this also involves questioning one’s own approach at the individual level in order to avoid working in a comfort zone where habit is more important than challenge and development.

Tips for Implementation Challenging the status quo can be inconvenient for all concerned. This makes it all the more important to promote and acknowledge critical thinking. Formats such as the Retrospective can help to institutionalize reflection and continuous improvement. Managers should support their teams in critically questioning processes and structures in the company, even beyond their own team boundaries. To this end, it can be helpful if they deal with topics such as growth mindset and innovative methods in supportive continuing education programs. Appropriate formats help them to become supporters of critical and stimulating impulses themselves. Example

After a Berlin start-up has grown to more than 300 employees in 5 years, Sabine is hired to provide further support in the people and organization area. Motivated, she begins her work and feels directly at home with her colleagues. Having worked in a medium-sized company up to now, she likes the relaxed and personal way of working very much. Her mood changes, however, when at the end of the month the monthly overviews have to be prepared, salary payments and all other expenses have to be settled. With horror she realizes that the whole process is still done by hand and that the team needs a week and a half in which no other work can be done. Since she is new to the company, Sabine decides to join in for the months work session. Moaning inside, she survives the one and a half weeks and looks forward to the beginning of the month with more pleasant activities. When asked whether the others wouldn’t mind giving up all the exciting activities for a week and a half every month, they answer: “It’s not nice, but over time it has simply become more and more. And now we have you to help us. After the end of the month is over with a lot of effort and diligence, Sabine decides to act. In the first team meeting of the new month she challenges the status quo: “For me it is incomprehensible that you are still doing this boring work by hand. After only 2 months, I myself don’t feel like doing it anymore and would like to suggest you to change the procedure here fundamentally. Otherwise the task will only get bigger and more exhausting as we continue to grow”. The other two team members feel a bit offended, but understand Sabine’s argumentation. Together they decide to go to their lead and make two suggestions: Either this work is outsourced externally or money is invested in a new program, which can carry out most of the work steps automatically after a one-time additional effort by setting it up. The lead asks for a small evaluation that shows how

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much time could actually be saved. After receiving and reviewing it, he is convinced of the need for action and change. Although both the team and the lead have known about the stressful situation for some time, nothing has been done to change it. Only Sabine took this step by consciously and transparently questioning the status quo and proposing a change. After Sabine’s courage in the start-up makes the rounds, three more changes of similar magnitude for the respective team are actually being tackled. Thereupon even the founder decides to give a fundamental impulse in the All-Hands Meeting by challenging the status quo. He has to realize that despite growth and success, challenging the status quo regarding how they work together does not yet seem to be a matter of course, and plans to change that. ◄

Possible Challenges It becomes difficult and demotivating for employees when critical thinking is desired but not appreciated or dismissed in concrete situations. In this case, one’s own attitude and behaviour as a manager must be reflected upon. Companies in which there is no critical thinking culture will initially find it difficult to hear critical feedback and new ideas from their employees. It is important to show why challenging the status quo can be so important for the future of the company and its employees and how everyone can benefit from it. Coaches, mentors and facilitators can help to encourage critical reflection and make it routine.

Team Bootstrapping

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A Team Bootstrapping is a meeting in which a newly formed team is made operational as quickly as possible.

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Why Important: Benefits and Impact A Team Bootstrapping helps to ensure that new teams can start working as quickly as possible. This saves both time and money. At the same time, it is motivating for the team, as it can work out a clear direction, define tasks and objectives and discuss unresolved issues right at the start. In this way, errors and dissatisfaction can be counteracted in advance.

Description A Team Bootstrapping always takes place at the beginning of a new team composition and includes the clarification of all important issues in order to become operational as quickly as possible. In concrete terms, this means that teams define their objectives, discuss their procedures and processes, agree on regular meetings and formats and discuss the way they work together. Topics and requirements are brought in by the manager from the company side as well as important topics and questions from the team members. The basic idea is to share all important information and to get to know each other better through the discussion as well as to experience directly the first steps of team building. A Team Bootstrapping usually takes at least half a day and is usually accompanied by a group-facilitator. Under certain circumstances, it may be useful to divide the Team Bootstrapping into two sections for the implementation: • The first part discusses topics that require the presence and input of the manager. These include objectives, requirements, areas of responsibility, dependencies and freedom, delegation level. • In the second part, all other team-internal topics are discussed where the manager does not need to be present. This gives the team the freedom and personal responsibility to clarify how they want to work together, what kind of task distribution there should be and what joint agreements and rules should be set up. It is also useful to put the team’s objectives into a Mission Statement (see Hack “Mission Statement”) and thus make the team’s identity more tangible. After an agreed period of time, the content of the team bootstraining will be reflected again and, if necessary, adapted based on the experiences already made.

Tips for Implementation When introducing Team Bootstrapping in a company, it is important to demonstrate the added value and concrete benefits that arise. It makes sense to institutionalize a separate process for Team Bootstrapping that helps all new teams to conduct the meeting according to a proven structure. It is worth developing and improving the process of Team Bootstrapping iteratively so that the added value is further increased over time. It is

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advisable to break down corporate values (see Hack “Core Values”) and the strategic orientation of the company to the team level and to apply and record them for the team to their own work and procedures. All results of the team bootstraining should be recorded in writing. Example

After the HR department in a company in Los Angeles has become larger and larger, the HR Director Anke decides to restructure the department and divide it into smaller subteams with focused tasks and subject areas. After a lengthy process in which she has involved the employees, three specific teams are now in place: the “Accounting and Organization” team, the “Training and Process Support” team and the “Recruiting” team. All teams will sit down together with Anke and have a kick-off meeting. Anke has heard of a start-up company that carries out team bootstrapping and was able to start working on the content tasks much faster. She decides to try the same thing with her teams, who agree directly on her suggestion. She prepares everything thoroughly and gets a person from one of the other teams to act as group-facilitator for each team meeting. Together they plan the procedure and structure. They also ask the respective team for important topics to be discussed and clarified. In the first Team Bootstrapping with team “Accounting and Organization” the structure is tried out. Basically everyone is satisfied with the process. The newly assembled team finds out that the team members have all worked differently so far and have to agree on certain procedures. At the same time, it becomes clear that they have learned more about their respective strengths and want to try to use them in a targeted manner. In the feedback of the meeting at the end two team members say that they liked the process, but can imagine to discuss the teaminternal topics next time without Anke being present. “That would somehow feel better”, says team member Susanne and others nod in agreement. In the next Team Bootstrapping of team “further education and process support”, Anke integrates the feedback directly into the process. In the first part, everything is discussed for which she has to be present. In the second part the team discusses all other team-internal topics independently. Since this works well and the team thanks her again afterwards for her trust, Anke decides to proceed in the same way with the third team, the “Recruiting” team, and it works again. After basically positive feedback from the three teams on Team Bootstrapping, Anke decides to institutionalize this procedure throughout the company. She has learned for herself that there are some things that she herself was not yet clear about, for example how much freedom she can and wants to give her teams. With the first team she still had to improvise, with the next team she was prepared for it. Anke is pleased to note that the three teams get to work very quickly and that there are only a few unresolved issues. From now on, the team “Further Education and Process Support” takes over the responsibility for the Team Bootstrapping in the company and supports new teams by facilitating the meeting and the accompanying preparation of the managers. This information flows directly into the preparation process and becomes an integral part of it. ◄

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Fig. 13 Team Bootstrapping

Possible Challenges Team Bootstrappings are difficult to carry out successfully if not all the necessary information for clarifying the assignment and setting goals is available (see Fig. 13). It is therefore important that the manager himself is prepared in the best possible way and tries to clarify any open questions in advance. All general conditions should be clarified as best as possible by the manager before the Team Bootstrapping. It can be challenging for teams to successfully conduct the meeting and record the results without the support of a group-facilitator. For this purpose, facilitators or trained colleagues from other teams can be called upon to provide support. Developing (and improving) an agenda appropriate to the company is recommended when introducing the Bootstrapping in one’s own company.

Vision

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A Vision is an internalized and visualized idea of the future, which refers to the company or the product.

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Why Important: Benefits and Impact Having a concrete and clear idea of one’s own work makes it easier to formulate and decide on goals, actions and plans. A Vision strengthens the entire future orientation of the company and offers a comprehensible orientation for managers and employees in the present.

Description Again and again we read or hear that in today’s fast-paced world of work it is almost impossible to plan. This is true in principle and yet a company cannot be successful if it cannot come up with an idea for the future of the company. A Vision is therefore a kind of signpost or North Star, according to which the company can orient one’s own “true north”. It is a focused, emotionalized, usually strongly visualized (vivid description) and internalized (embodied) idea of the common future, which is summarized and made transparent in a Company Alignment. Often Visions originate from the founding period of the company, as it is the initial motivation, driving force or the actual motive of the founders. And yet, a Vision cannot just be pointed out. It must be developed, symbolized and then spread and lived in the company—this does not happen overnight. A meaningful and sustainable Vision combines the individual Core Values (see Hack “Core Values”) and focuses them into one sentence or scenario. Two of the best-known Visions are NASA’s “Bring a man on the moon!” from the 1960s and the famous car manufacturer Henry Ford’s “I will build a motor car for the great multitude”. These are short, pragmatic and yet very meaningful Visions under which every employee (and customer) can imagine something concrete.

Tips for Implementation A Vision is not easy to come up with—unless it is the starting point for founding the company. It should combine the basic values of the company and condense different perspectives and statements into one image and statement. This calls for a creative process that is not easy and goes to the very foundation of the company’s orientation. Therefore, it makes sense to get help for the development of a Vision. A trained facilitator can ask suitable questions and guide through methods that make it easier to develop a concrete Vision of the company’s future. This gives all those involved in the process the chance to concentrate fully on developing the Vision. Common methods that promote the creative process here and are also fun to use are, for example, the so-called “Spice Girls Question” (“Tell me what you want, what you really really want”) and the “Five Whys”. A Vision should fundamentally align the company and, above all, be conscious and accessible to all employees in the company. Therefore, it makes sense to make the

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developed Vision of the future visible (see Hack “Visual Essentials”), to explain it to the employees and to consistently refer back to it (see Hack “Mission Statement”). Employees should know the Vision of the company by heart and want to actively work on its realization and act accordingly. Dealing with this issue can be made easier if the team members derive and work out their own Vision for the team and thus consciously refer to the overall Vision. Example

For a long time, the Vision of the Hamburg-based website builder Jimdo was “pages to the people”. With this, the three founders showed that everyone should be able to set up, create, and put online a website. Based on this Vision, company decisions could be made in the best possible sense of this orientation. Jimdo still offers a free modular system that allows the basic creation of a website: This way, Nina, as a student, can exhibit and offer her self-sewn baby clothes at no great cost. On the other hand, the handling of the construction kit is kept as simple as possible to make it possible for really every customer to build a website: Hermann is a 67-year-old home gardener and can thus share his gardening work with others and talk about difficulties and successes. In this way, Jimdo’s Vision is to keep focusing the product on its customers and to make building websites for everyone possible. After succeeding, that everybody has the chance to build a (free) website, the company decided to develop its decision further. ◄

Possible Challenges If a company wants to work with a strong Vision, it should also invest time in its development and elaboration. It is not enough to create a hopeful and colourful image for the company, but it must authentically fit the company and have a “challenging character”. This usually requires a survey on different levels and the re-foundation of the Core Values (see Hack “Core Values”), which takes time and persuasion. Those responsible are challenged in their Core Values of the company, which can lead to uncertainty and frustration. A meaningful Vision should be understood by everyone in the company and work should be designed to achieve it. If the employees do not understand the Company Vision or do not know it at all, no alignment with it can take place. Care should be taken to ensure that employees are also repeatedly asked about it (see Hack “Status Quo Challenges”), which can be exhausting and frustrating (see Fig. 14). However, this approach also offers the opportunity to react to changes in good times and always have a reliable orientation.

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Fig. 14 Working with Vision

Visual Essentials

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Visual Essentials transparently show the most important core elements in the company.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact Visual Essentials enables employees to better memorize and internalize the most important company standards (¼ Company Essentials), to be able to refer to them at any time and thus to organize their own work in the best possible way and in the interest of the company. Visual Essentials can thus be used actively as a corrective for their own work as well as for feedback.

Description Visual Essentials are all fundamentally important essences of the company (¼ Company Essentials), which support, improve and accompany the cooperation. Typical Essentials that are visibly hung on the walls of the company are Core Values, Mission Statements, Company Vision, Prime Directive or Meeting Rules. The most important points of the individual topics are presented in a visually appealing way. Especially in New Work contexts, these visual reminders can be found everywhere and shape the corporate image in meeting rooms and offices. When Visual Essentials are actively integrated in the

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company, they appear in lectures, pitches and argumentation and serve as a basis for the discussion of the topics.

Tips for Implementation Visual Essentials must be defined and communicated in a concise manner. For this purpose, it makes sense to condense the contents of the important topics piece by piece in several iterations. It is crucial that the essence itself is mapped comprehensibly with the Visual Essentials. Before complex and expensive Visual Essentials are produced, it is worthwhile to present the contents to a small group of employees from different areas. This ensures that the content of the Visual Essentials is easy to understand and coherent before it is officially presented and made visible throughout the company. Example

In a heated meeting of managers in the HR/People/Talent and Organization division, the strategic direction for the new fiscal year is discussed. Different ideas are proposed by some and rejected by others. All ideas have an interest-based effect on the respective own thematic focus. Only when one executive, Miriam, encourages the others to look around the room, do the other executives start to consciously perceive the Visual Essentials. The further procedure is then decided as follows: In small groups, suggestions for strategic orientation are worked out. These suggestions are challengingly linked to the content of the Visual Essentials and thus aim at the overall orientation of the company. It is agreed that the subsequent challenging of the mutual proposals will be based on the Company Essentials and therefore not on the own interests of the different areas. Based on this agreement, the management circle is able to define the results based on the company’s orientation and to jointly drive the success of the company with the best possible decisions. Miriam suggests that in the future the content should always be prepared directly with the involvement of the Essentials and that decisions are not made on what the other managers think is beneficial for their own department. ◄

Possible Challenges Conflicts can arise if the management wants to set their own wishes in Visual Essentials that do not fit the company. This has to be counteracted by always working out and developing Visual Essentials together and in consultation with the company divisions. Basically, it can be challenging to find the right wording so that Visual Essentials can be used with added value. Getting feedback from employees is therefore fundamental. If Visual Essentials do not (or no longer) correspond to lived values, they become the shell of

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a past time or a desired scenario. This makes it all the more important to actively integrate Visual Essentials in the company and to constructively encourage and push the discussion of the underlying Company Essentials. To make sure that Visual Essentials do not become dust catchers, it is important to develop the company culture in such a way that Company Essentials are applied to any orientation of one’s own work and become the basis for it.

Week of Learning

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During the Week of Learning, the existing knowledge in the company is intensively exchanged and shared for 1 week.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact To embrace the existing knowledge in the company means to activate existing potential. The knowledge level of the entire company is increased through the most varied learning sessions. Within 1 week, an expanded basic knowledge, an improved exchange between employees and an increased ability to act regarding the challenges of everyday life at work is created.

Description The Week of Learning is a company-wide event that focuses on learning with and from each other through various knowledge-sharing events. Depending on your needs, different elements such as keynotes, training sessions, workshops, fuckup talks, discussion groups, Q&As and other formats can be implemented. The aim of the Week of Learning is to set a sustainable learning impulse for the company and at the same time to set an example for the importance of further education. Depending on the needs or strategic orientation of the Week of Learning, the content focus and formats are set up. It is a good idea to conduct an employee survey to find out the needs and wishes for relevant topics (e.g.: Which topics could your team use to work more independently and flexibly?) When preparing the content for the format, it is important that experts are supported in preparing the topics and impulses (see Hack “Knowledge-Sharing Formats”). In terms of content, it is

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recommended that a mix of specialist topics (such as marketing tips, design, sales) and soft skills (e.g. setting goals, conducting constructive discussions, facilitating groups) be defined. If required, topic-related Weeks of Learning can also be held, which are dedicated to a general topic. Once the individual offers have been determined, they are put into a weekly structure and made transparent. Employees have the opportunity to register for the various formats and training courses. It makes sense to offer topics that are in high demand several times. If topics are not booked at all, this is also a sign that should be interpreted. In principle, the Week of Learning is a time of great appreciation and recognition for the experts and knowledge carriers in general.

Tips for Implementation It is important to allow sufficient time for planning and creating the concept. Especially when the different topics are conceived and prepared for the first time, the experts often need support and several iterations. The founders or management team should be involved in the content so that they also contribute added value to the Week of Learning (e.g. with strategic impulses). At the same time, their participation emphasizes the potential and importance of the format. Clear responsibilities and a good timetable support the successful outcome of the Week of Learning. At the international Hamburg IT company Jimdo, key essentials were filtered out as a supplement that every employee should know. These were passed on to all employees in the format as short impulses. Example

A medium-sized company from Budapest in the service sector changes its own offer for its customers due to the further development of the market. After a pilot project, which was successfully carried out, the changed orientation of the company is decided and tackled. Due to the reorientation, many employees are faced with new challenges and therefore new knowledge is required. HR Manager Tim considers together with the management team how employees can best learn, discuss and apply everything important about the change and reorientation as quickly as possible. They are planning a format that will carry out this wish intensively instead of accompanying them for 6 months. With the Week of Learning format, the company manages to ensure that all company employees can learn and acquire the necessary basic knowledge within a week. After the week, the employees feel empowered to tackle the new challenges, to contact the right people in case of problems and to critically question and review their own tasks in accordance with the company’s new orientation. Tim is also able to convince the management circle that they will continue discussion groups and communities of practice after the Week of Learning in order to address any open questions that may arise during the process. ◄

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Possible Challenges One challenge can be to convince the management level in order to allow intensive training and exchange formats to take place for a week. As a planning team, it makes sense to be able to show that even with active participation of the employees, the existing business does not stand still. Another challenge can be to find enough experts who are willing to prepare and share their knowledge. Training experts can provide active support here. To counter the argument that nothing will change after the week, it is worth considering further formats, feedback and evaluation in advance. It is also recommended that interesting discussions, findings and decisions are made transparent after the Week of Learning and are supported in further implementation.

Desired Devices

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With Desired Devices, employees are enabled to work with the (technical) devices of their choice in the best possible way.

Why Important: Benefits and Impact In times of individualization and the living out of personal preferences, it is important that employees are satisfied with their (technical) work equipment (devices) such as laptop, smartphone, desk chair so they can work well. This can result in higher productivity, satisfied employees, individual work design and a healthier working environment.

Description The way we work has changed dramatically in recent years. Especially in knowledge work and in new-work contexts, most of the work takes place either on the laptop or in conversations and meetings. In traditional companies, one product (e.g. laptop) was always provided for all employees. Some employees with special requirements or higher-level managers had the option of receiving separate devices. Today, it does not work like that

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anymore, because the ability to work is essential from the company’s point of view. Imagine what it would be like if a sports club distributed the same shoes to all its members, such as footballers, sprinters, marathon runners and handball players. In this case, these are football shoes with studs. The sports club decided to the best of its knowledge and belief that these shoes should fit everyone to a certain extent. Grotesque, isn’t it? But a reasonable fit is no longer good enough. It is similar with the working materials, equipment and technical devices. Different departments and even individual employees in the same team have different requirements for the respective equipment. Productive knowledge work is much more about individual working methods, for example whether someone basically needs a touch screen with his laptop, uses a flexible notebook because he often works in comfortable seating areas or requires a lot of computing power for his work. Young employees expect to be able to choose the tools they use for many hours every day according to their needs (see Hack “Lifestyle Perks”).

Tips for Implementation To enable employees to select their own equipment for their work requirements, it may be useful to provide them with assistance in the selection process (in terms of technical requirements). This is a matter of both “individual fit” and cost savings. If, for example, 128 gigabytes (GB) of memory are sufficient for an employee’s work, he does not need the computer with 256 GB or 5120 GB memory for reasons of prestige. Furthermore, it can make sense to develop guidelines or framework conditions that regulate the selection of the Desired Devices, with regard to time aspects (how often a new device may be ordered) or costs. Example

A new employee, Noam, joins a company in transition as a high potential. The company does not only want to survive the digital change within a few years, but wants to become an active part of this change. Noam, who already has experience in start-ups, has a slight back problem and works only with a MacBook Air. Now the company provides her with a normal desk and a standard laptop from another manufacturer. Because of her back problem, Noam asks for a higher desk so she can work better and healthier, and a MacBook Air so she can be mobile in the company as usual with a lightweight device and not have to adjust to a new operating system. She is sent to the HR department, where she is told that this is not normally intended. On her impressive request she is promised to talk about it in the HR meeting and then to contact her. Four weeks later, Noam still has not received any feedback and is specifically considering leaving the company during the probationary period. It becomes clear to her what influence individual work arrangements have on her satisfaction, productivity and ultimately on her remaining in the company. She has to invest time and energy in order to get a work tool that allows her to work optimally and provide the best possible added value for the

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company. A possible yet drastic conclusion for her is that she will leave the company frustrated. ◄

Possible Challenges Probably the greatest challenge and at the same time also a concern of the company is that the costs for individually adapted work equipment can rise dramatically. It is probable, but not inevitable, that costs will increase in principle if a choice is given here. The costs must be weighed against employee satisfaction, increasing employee productivity or the costs of a new recruitment process. A further challenge is the effort that arises when employees can individually choose their technical equipment. In this case, the selection is subject to restrictive conditions. This can also result in a better planning horizon for the company. The most challenging aspect for companies is probably that employees regard all these decisions as fundamental and ground-breaking decisions regarding their future in the company. If they are denied the bar table with which they can work better and healthier, they interpret this as a direct refusal to work healthier. This makes it all the more important to embrace discussions and find constructive solutions together. In a team, for example, a bar table can be set up first and then shared. The employee is not interested in cost production, but in being able to work effectively by adapting to his needs.

References Bungay S (2011) The art of action: how leaders close the gaps between plans, actions and results. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, Boston Miller P, Wedell T (2013) Innovation as usual: how to help your people bring great ideas to life. Harvard Business Press, Watertown Vance A, Musk E (2015) Elon Musk: Wie Elon Musk die Welt verändert – Eine Biografie. Finanz Buch, München Watts S (2009) The people’s tycoon: Henry Ford and the American century. Vintage & Penguin Random House, New York

Related References Bruch H, Färber J (2018) New Work Transformation – aktive Gestaltung der Arbeitswelt 4.0. Diskussionsimplus DGFP. Personalführung 4/2018. https://www.dgfp.de/fileadmin/user_ upload/DGFP_e.V/Medien/Personalfuehrung/Ausgaben_2018/04/PF04_Editorial.pdf. Zugegriffen: 13. Mai 2019 Delegation Poker aus Management 3.0 (2019). https://management30.com/practice/delegationpoker/. Zugegriffen: 14. Mai 2019

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Duhigg C (2016) What google learned from its quest to build the perfect team. New research reveals surprising truths about why some work groups thrive and others falter. The New York Times Magazine (THE WORK ISSUE). https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-googlelearned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html. Zugegriffen 13. Mai 2019 Gelpke A (2018) New Work: 8 flexible Arbeitsmodelle und ihre Vorteile. https://www.wearesquared. de/blog/8-flexible-arbeitsmodelle-was-sind-die-vorteile. Zugegriffen: 13. Mai 2019 Kerth NL (2001) Project retrospectives: a handbook for team reviews. Addison-Wesley Professional, Boston Planning PokerⓇ Mountain Goat Software (2019). https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/ planning-poker. Zugegriffen: 14. Mai 2019 Sinek S (2011) Start with why: how great leaders inspire everyone to take action paperback. Penguin, München Wishlist Rewards (n.d.) Learn the core values of the top 25 workplaces. https://wishlistrewards.com/ 25-top-workplaces-and-their-core-values. Zugegriffen: 13. Mai 2019

Next Steps: Further Impulses

How Can a Company Modernize Itself? This is a question that many entrepreneurs ask themselves nowadays and which is certainly not easy—if at all—to answer. Unfortunately, we cannot simply open up a recipe and recook it like in a cooking-book. There are also whole books that deal with only this one question. Here, we present our essence of how change can be approached from our experience and how modern companies typically proceed, which often deviates from classic change processes. So how can a company or how can individual departments successfully modernize and develop further, for example with the help of New Work Hacks? The basis of this question is the necessary examination of the first steps towards change. So with questions like: Why should something be changed and where do we start? What can successfully initiate change and further development? In this context, it is helpful to first become aware of or analyse at what level of development your company, department or team is seen. It is important to look at the state of the company in the area of conflict between new work and meaningful work: What is the meaning in work? Where can we make an active contribution? How do we contribute to the company’s purpose? Of course, some parts of companies may be at different stages of development and may already be more modern. In the end is also the overall maturity regarding new ways of working important, that you will find out, when you take a deeper look and analyses of the status quo.

# Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 A. Schnell, N. Schnell, New Work Hacks, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33009-5_5

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The Modern Work/New Work Maturity Model For this reason, we developed a maturity model, with which companies can elaborate and find out, where they stand and what they can do in order to improve and change towards purpose-driven work as well as modern ways of working. We first distinguish between the following three categories: • New Work Explorer: In many companies, it will be a matter of going on a fact-finding tour and taking the first basic steps towards New Work in the company. First, small changes to be tried out and iteratively introduced. The main aim here is to raise awareness for modern ways of working—i.e. the mindset—and to arouse curiosity about New Work. This is not an easy task, because changes are viewed sceptically, especially at the beginning, especially if the company is not experienced in actively dealing with change itself. Patience and enthusiasm are required here, discussions about modern work and New Work are essential and small experiments with one or two New Work Hacks are worthwhile. Above all, however, the “Why” should be explained clearly and repeatedly, as it is the foundation of all efforts. • New Work Performer: In other companies, which are already more modern in their working methods and structures, it will be a question of what the next step of further development can be. Here, the idea of continuous improvement is the driving force for further experimentation and adaptation. Here, the point is not to “get out of breath” after the start. Iterative work in manageable steps and constant pointing out of further development/improvement are regarded as incentives here. To this end, it is important that existing formats and methods are disseminated and lived out both at team and company level. The commitment of the management also plays a major role here, as it is important to internalize the New Work mindset. It is important to show positive and successful practical examples and to make them tangible for everyone, so that employees are repeatedly shown the “why” and receive impulses for further developments. • New Work Shaper: In highly innovative companies that, for example, work agilely, use state-of-the-art methods and working practices and have meaningful work firmly anchored, the focus will be on successfully maintaining this level. At the same time, however, it will also be a matter of looking for further and new opportunities to continue to work highly innovatively and based on New Work in the future. In doing so, the company can use the experience gained and contribute its existing knowledge. Developing new frameworks and procedures that will further advance the company’s own work and serve as a role model beyond the boundaries of the company is a driving force here. The “Why” is already firmly anchored in these companies, is understood and integrated into actions as a matter of course. The challenge can be to remain “hungry” for new, innovative methods and approaches and never to be satisfied with the already successful work as a new-work company.

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Depending on the starting position of one’s own team, department and the entire company, the individual New Work Hacks will have different implementation potential. Depending on the level of maturity with regard to the New Work mindset and the New Work culture lived in the company, more support can be expected or challenges can be anticipated. However, all the prerequisites have one thing in common: if the “why”, i.e. the aspect that makes sense, of an initiative can be clearly demonstrated, the chances of successful work in New Work increase. How can you modernize now? Even if all companies are at different stages of development, there are nevertheless fundamental aspects to the successful development and improvement of work that are just as effective for innovative companies as for traditional companies in transition. Here, it is important: 1. to find out and question the “status quo” in the company; 2. to analyse and determine the “need” or demand in your own company; 3. to show and communicate the “why”, i.e. the reason for the change in a comprehensible way; 4. find appropriate “actions” in the sense of procedures (e.g. New Work Hacks); and 5. to dare to experiment or try out new things with “test and reflect” in order to constantly improve, reflect, learn and further develop This rough and very general approach is important because it protects against implementing things for which there is no need (¼ no necessity and usability) or which do not fit the company. A good analysis, obtaining feedback and observing the day-to-day work will help to understand more precisely what is needed and what added value can be triggered by the initiatives.

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What Should Be Considered When Implementing New Work Hacks? Depending on whether you are an “Explorer”, “Performer” or “Shaper” and how you assess your company, different efforts are required to inform and involve your own environment as much as possible and to help shape New Work. The less the environment knows about New Work and meaningful work, the more introductory explanation and clarification of questions is needed—so that the others are literally “in the picture”. In innovative companies where New Work is lived, certain basic principles and explanations will no longer be needed every time a new New Work Hack or other initiative is to be introduced. However, one thing will always remain important: “Start with the why” and thus stimulate new ways of thinking! Based on the individual New Work Hacks and the tips for implementation, the following points can be consciously included as general assistance:

Dare to Experiment • It is always easier to test something new, if you have the possibility of not integrating it as an integral part, e.g. if the initiative is not experienced as suitable. At the same time, this corresponds to the idea of iterative work. For example, small changes from an experiment can be followed up before an initiative is directly terminated or stamped as unsuitable. Sometimes a minimal adjustment is enough to make an idea work. But only those who dare to do so will find out! Especially in experiments, employees are more willing to participate in changes, as there is room for experimentation. A prerequisite for the success of experiments is to always involve and integrate the people concerned, so that decisions are not made over their heads and the willingness to do so decreases from the very beginning. In the same way, affected persons can be important sources of ideas for changes and provide information and feedback during the process, since they experience the experiment most directly and are thus quasi “experts” for its effectiveness. If those involved were willing to give the whole thing a chance and it still did not work, honesty is important. A “No Bullshit Rule” helps to honestly analyse experiments, reflect together and learn from them what the reasons for failure may have been. New Work Hacks such as “start-stop-continue”, “feedback culture”, “iterative working with PDCA” and “status quo challenges” are suitable for this purpose.

Obtain Commitment • In order to successfully integrate and test New Work Hacks, it takes people who show commitment and are committed to supporting and advancing the initiatives. It is worthwhile to look for motivated people who are basically open and curious to try out new things. Furthermore, people from important interfaces should be involved in the

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initiatives and brought on board. With their commitment, these people can be significantly responsible for the success of the initiative by acting as supporters and networkers. It can also be important to listen to the “ricochets” or “naggers” in the company and bring them together with the “movers and shakers”. To do this, take a look at the New Work Hacks “status quo challenges”, have a look at the “Open Coffee Area” or visit “Knowledge Sharing Formats” and “Community of Practice” to find out about those who are interested.

Find Multipliers • When something has worked on a small scale, the next big challenge is to pass on the experience, knowledge and enthusiasm. The best way to do this is to involve those who have already been active in the initiatives and who now want to share their knowledge. It is also a good idea to involve people who have been inquiring about the initiative time and again and have paid attention to it. Multipliers must understand the underlying idea, have experience or a very good understanding of the challenges and be able to communicate the initiative in a proper way. Other people who have not yet been able to see anything should be informed, involved and inspired by a multiplier. Here, the New Work Hack “Facilitation Skills” or “Pool Team” can be helpful. Alternatively, you can organize a “Knowledge Sharing Format” or a “Week of Learning” to find suitable multipliers.

External Support • In some cases, it may be useful to call in external support. This can provide professional support with expertise and experience during the implementation process. It is an advantage to find external supporters who understand the corporate culture and work hand in hand with internal initiators. In this way, internal initiators can learn twice: from working together with external experts and through the process itself. This approach makes it possible to carry out even better initiatives within the company in the future and to further expand the newly acquired expertise. New Work Hacks such as “knowledge sharing formats”, “pairing” and joint “retrospectives” can help you make the best possible use of external support.

Become a Role Model • Teams and individuals who have managed to successfully test and implement a New Work Hack can become a role model in the company by sharing their knowledge and challenges and can take on a pioneering role. Internal company role models show that

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change is normal and supported in the company. Moreover, colleagues are usually easier to approach than the boss. If this openness is demonstrated, it is easier to ask those involved directly, which in turn promotes exchange and communication. Successful integration and lived New Work Hacks are probably the best reason for other teams and departments to want to try something themselves. Take another look at the New Work Hacks “Knowledge Sharing Formats”, “Community of Practice” or “All Hands Meetings”.

Transparency • It is particularly important to be as transparent as possible for initiatives that are not immediately visible. In this way, both those involved and indirectly affected parties can get the best possible idea of what is happening and what support may be needed. This also promotes the exchange among each other and does not take place behind closed doors. At the same time, transparency makes it possible to show what kind of freedom the initiative needs in the current phase in order to be tested properly. For example, it can be explained that the focus in the team is important at the moment, but that the initiative will be presented afterwards and everyone in the company will be informed about it. Actively informing and demonstrating helps to create trust, receive support and provide the necessary freedom to experiment. The New Work Hacks “Feedback Culture”, “Ask Me Anything Format”, “Mood Check” and “Shift to Leadership” are useful for reading up on this.

What Are Possible Challenges When Implementing New Work Hacks? Implementing New Work Hacks will be fun and actively contribute to finding solutions, but it will also present challenges. Being aware of these challenges from the very beginning, being prepared and being able to react makes this process easier. The following points can be used as general guidance to help you learn dealing with challenges and difficulties proactively from the very beginning:

Long Processes • Large change processes bear the risk of becoming confusing and time-consuming. It is therefore advisable to divide large change processes and introductions into sensible, smaller units. In this way, they become more tangible, easier to communicate and can be integrated more easily. They can also be adapted more quickly and easily. Of course, the “Bigger Picture” should not be ignored. Especially internal Agile Coaches and SCRUM Masters can help to break down large tasks into smaller manageable units.

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Sustained Standstill • If the implementation of a New Work Hack comes to a standstill, it is important to bring all parties together. Frequently, lack of agreements, lack of communication and too little transparency are responsible for chaos and standstills. Discussing together what is the priority, what the next steps are and how to work together from now on is essential, especially if an implementation is being carried out across several teams or departments. This approach avoids demotivation of the people who might suffer from the standstill.

Accept Criticism • Dissent and criticism in an already challenging experiment can be quickly dismissed, silenced or simply ignored. Most of the time, however, it turns out that discussion and talks with critics are useful and bring added value. For example, the opinions of employees and their expertise can be addressed early on. This not only pays off in the further course of the process, but is at the same time very much in line with New Work and the “people-focused” approach. Allowing those involved and affected to criticize and challenge the experiment encourages the New Work idea and creates trust to show potentially good ideas and actively participate in the company.

Excessive Demands • When introducing new initiatives, many things can happen for the first time. Most of the time, some things are adapted, changed, discarded and further developed during the process. If the challenge is perceived as too great and extensive, excessive demands can occur. Having the courage to make this clear and articulate it, means finding your strength again. If the effort is too great for a person, it will be essential for the success and balance of the person to receive further support. To actively ask for this and to be able to justify in a comprehensible way why support is important and appropriate makes it easier to argue. Whether internal or external expertise is used, together it is easier to cope with a challenging situation.

Further Questions for Your Own Reflection Finally, here are some questions that help you to use your own thoughts and impulses when reading the New Work Hacks. It can be useful to take some time to reflect on what you have read and to make up your own thoughts about it so that possible impulses and ideas are not lost in everyday life after a short time. Self-developed questions can be supportive and stimulating in relation to your own situation:

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• What general impulses and insights do you get from reading the New Work Hacks and how can you use them? • What suggestions and ideas do you have for your team, your department, your company, and how will you manage to place them in the right place? • What feedback, based on what you learned while reading this book, should you give to your work environment? • What do you consciously want to do to be part of the change in your working environment? • Which New Work Hacks could enrich your company and why? • What else do you need to actively commit yourself to demanding, integrating or further developing New Work and Modern Work? • And last but not least: What is your concrete next step to become active?

Outro

What would actually happen if the New Work approach were to become an integral part of the cooperation and culture in all companies? In innovative contexts, one often speaks of a “true north” as a compass for achieving goals. Let us assume that the efforts have been fruitful and that New Work is really being lived (Bergmann and Friedland 2007, p. 15). Let us dare to conduct the following thought experiment:

Life in the “True North” People no longer work full-time and no longer have one job, but their activities are geared to their needs and the meaning of their existence. They no longer know the term work–life balance, because work and private life are no longer separate, but merge into one another. In their activities, people are concerned with making a contribution to their community or society by taking care of basic needs such as nutrition, housing, energy and health. They pursue their own personal meaningfulness and thus earn their income. The concept of work is fundamentally different, and it now seems almost absurd to them to have spent so much time on just one thing in the past—precisely because they have become sensitive to the fact that there are many other exciting things to do in life, and know what they really, really want. They are always supported and accompanied in this, so that work is seen as a sense that is personally desirable and actively designed. In the many small businesses in the “true north”, it has long been common practice to support people in their interests and needs. Sometimes this even results in interesting opportunities for the company itself. Entrepreneurship is omnipresent and is promoted on a political and social level. People are called upon to become actively involved, but no longer stressed and burnt out. Companies recognize the real activity effort in good time because sufficient data is available, and can thus meet the actually feasible and desirable

# Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 A. Schnell, N. Schnell, New Work Hacks, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-33009-5_6

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requirements of people. The premise here is that challenges remain for people so that they can continue to develop. However, excessive demands are avoided so that the person remains healthy and active. In this way, the number of sick days is extremely reduced. Most stress-related diseases have almost disappeared. In “true north”, the further development of the human being has become a central component of meaningful business. Communication has improved so much that hierarchies and pecking orders have become obsolete. The focus is on communal interaction and discussion, as it reveals the meaning in the activity, so that everyone strives for the best possible and is aware of their own limits. If someone needs time off, they take it and do not have to ask for it. Everyone involved knows that there will be added value if this person comes back with new impulses and new strength after a time-out. Companies now offer everything that people need to spend time on their job happily and contentedly across divisions and together. In addition to the classic sports and healthy nutrition offerings, this now also includes experience offerings, meditation and recreational activities as a fixed component—not in order to spoil people, but to give them the opportunity to regularly question their needs and explore the meaning of their work. In this way, the work is actually carried out in a meaningful way and no one needs to prove themselves anymore. Recognition and appreciation, joint support and honest constructive feedback have replaced the ego in the working world with curious, interested and cosmopolitan mindsets of people. Most decisions are made based on facts and data-driven, so that it is no longer individual corporations and their management that decide on initiatives, but rather that the best possible decisions are coming together. Knowledge is now shared and exchanged as a on regular basis, as only in this way can the best results be achieved. Many people develop in many different areas throughout their lives, benefiting from what they already know. There are hardly any linear life courses anymore, as each person is given the opportunity to pursue his or her own inclinations, interests and needs. Many new areas of work have emerged, which, for example, focus on supporting people, automating work that no longer makes sense to do by hand and using the technologies available in the “true north” for this purpose.

Every Initiative Counts We would like to conclude our book with an appeal to see the importance of every single impulse, every single initiative. To really tackle New Work, every single step counts in the end (Bergmann 2017, p. 23). It is still difficult to imagine at the moment, and also a long way off, that we can create working conditions that have such a positive effect on the individual as well as on the masses. Today we are in a better position than ever before to do so, because we now have a lot of capacity to make work meaningful and not just a necessity in our existence. Modernising our working world requires not only thought experiments and the right mindsets, but also courageous decision-makers, courageous doubters, courageous challengers and courageous supporters. Each of us can play our part in improving and developing the work culture. No matter what position or role we play in this process—

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leading by example is always possible, although it involves responsibility, courage and challenges. We believe it is worth it. That it makes sense to make work more meaningful. That more people have the opportunity to find work that they really really want to do. For this we must on the one hand reflect and act benevolently and critically both internally and externally, and on the other hand learn to communicate our own ideas and visions. In the end, we should enthusiastically convince the people around us that our time is precious and must not be wasted. Everyone has the right to satisfactory work, to fair and humane working conditions. We have the chance to create a world of work in which it is worthwhile to experiment and break new ground. Each of us can take these first steps, which can bring about great upheavals. To do so, we need courage and determination, as well as stamina, curiosity and a lot of heart. Most important of all, is that we act!

References Bergmann F (2017) Neue Arbeit, Neue Kultur. Arbor, Freiburg i. Br Bergmann F, Friedland S (2007) Neue Arbeit kompakt: Vision einer selbstbestimmten Gesellschaft. Arbor, Freiburg i. Br

Appendix

New Work Hacks All Hands Meeting Ask me Anything Chat Community of Practice Company Essentials Core Values Cross-Functional Teams Decision-Making Knowledge Delegation Poker Design Studio Disruption Option Estimation Poker Feedback Culture Flexible Working Models Fuck up Events Golden Circle Hackathon In-house Trainings Iterative work Job Rotation Job Sharing Kanban Knowledge-Sharing Format Leadership Roundtable Lifestyle Perks Meeting Room Diversity Meeting Rules Mission Statements Moderations Skills Mood Check Offside Teamwork Onboarding and Offboarding

Difficulty

Effort

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Open Coffee Area Pairing Pool Team Postmortem Analysis Prime Directive Professional Internships Retrospectives Role Definitions Shared Pain Points Shift to Leadership Spice Girls Approach Start – Stop – Continue Status Quo Challenges Team Bootstrapping Vision Visual Essentials Week of Learning Desired Devices

Appendix