The Network of Enterneers®

The right Communication is key!

Communication takes place constantly and can hardly be forced into rigid patterns. Individuals are continuously engaged in various forms of personal dialogue. Regardless of whether this has an operational cause or not, dialogue is always accompanied by subjective influences and situations. Even no communication usually leads to perceptions and conveys messages within an organisation. Communication is therefore a constant companion within the company.

Corporate communication is an independent discipline within economics and encompasses many different focal points. Typically, it is divided into external and internal communication, each consisting of various subject areas, target groups, and occasions. It is obvious that communication is an essential component in the diverse interaction with the company's stakeholders. In Enterneering®, communication plays a central role as a core element of the corporate culture. It is about how individuals interact in and around a company, exchange messages, engage in dialogues, protect, assert interests, and occasionally simply socialize. More than almost any other element, communication represents the direct link between private or social life and the concerns of the company. Communication conveys planned messages as well as daily moods, successes, setbacks or requirements, opinions, and agreements. Communication is thus strength and weakness, opportunity and threat, or friend and foe in one form. Entrepreneurs who do not take care of communication as a cultural element, hygiene factor, and production component expose their company to unnecessary risks and threats.

It's not what you say, but the way you say it
The planning and execution of individual communication tasks, measures, and campaigns should not solely be the focus of management's attention. These things should be carefully and confidently delegated to the appropriate professionals. Entrepreneurs should concentrate on how to effectively communicate. To optimally align the approach for this, appropriate mindfulness and interpersonal understanding are needed.

Communication is everywhere! Communication takes place constantly and can hardly be forced into rigid patterns. Individuals are continuously engaged in various forms of personal dialogue. Regardless of whether this has an operational cause or not, dialogue is always accompanied by subjective influences and situations. Even no communication usually leads to perceptions and conveys messages within an organisation. Communication is therefore a constant companion within the company.

Latent dominance! It is scientifically proven that a significant portion of people's communicative behaviour is shaped by their subconscious. Entrepreneurs who want to actively shape their corporate culture should be aware of this. The characteristics of communication talent are manifold and range from verbal language to body language and emotional skills. The first step in targeted culture development is to communicate consciously.

Align communication! Companies that strive for conscious communication align it with their defined values, norms, and attitudes. This requires that the corresponding elements (code of conduct, system of values, tolerance, and transparency) are defined and implemented. All individuals within and associated with the company must be able to identify with these elements and incorporate them into their communication. The goal should be to consciously live these elements within the framework of daily communication. It is the task of the management to integrate these elements permanently and authentically into their own communication and to ensure a conscious effort towards this communication behaviour. Verbal or behavioural deficits or lapses should not be ignored or brushed off in a friendly or embarrassed manner as part of conscious communication.

Train communication! To show the right communication behaviour in every situation is an art that probably only a few individuals have truly mastered. Therefore, it is an obvious measure to provide at least managers, multipliers, or representatives of the company with suitable communication training. The content of this training should also include the skills of reflection, moderation, and conflict management. Entrepreneurs should work on themselves and ensure that there are enough suitable multipliers for conscious communication in the company.

Eliminate toxic behaviour! If there are signs of toxic communication, responsible and timely action must be taken. Toxic communication often has a core or main trigger that is accompanied or influenced by other circumstances in the company. It can emanate from specific individuals or conditions. The aim is to address the root causes of toxic communication and to take consistent action. The procrastination, concealment, or tolerance of toxic communication usually leads to massive disruptions in the culture and the company's workplace peace. Toxic communication can be recognised by the way it is used by an individual or a group of people to manipulate or coerce others to their advantage. Toxic communication is characterised by active lying, blaming, and discrediting. It can be associated with recurring immoral or antisocial messages.

Make communication an event! Conscious communication can be actively turned into an event. In other words, it is about targeted measures or purposeful situations that serve to combine the transmission of messages with an experience. For example, company anniversaries can take place in a staff meeting with a personal appreciation of the jubilarians and an entertaining programme instead of digital thank-you texts. However, conscious communication should not be equated with entertainment to an exaggerated degree. Above all, communication must be appropriate and authentic to achieve a lasting impact.

Communication is a key element of successful management, which is directly linked to most of the elements of Enterneering®. Communication thus takes on a particularly comprehensive or extensive role and is a decisive factor for a company's ability to adapt, innovative strength, and resilience. Conscious communication is indispensable for companies in the VUCA world.

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Knowledge is of no value…

‘KNOWLEDGE IS OF NO VALUE UNLESS YOU PUT IT INTO PRACTICE.’

&nbsp – Anton Chekov –

In today’s era, knowledge is no longer just the power of its owner, but an essential competitive factor for companies of all kinds. The knowledge of a company comprises of many complex elements and is strongly influenced by the knowledge of the employees in the company. It is not for nothing that the intangible assets of a company sometimes have a considerable influence on its market value.

In today's era, knowledge is no longer just the power of its owner, but an essential competitive factor for companies of all kinds. The knowledge of a company comprises of many complex elements and is strongly influenced by the knowledge of the employees in the company. It is not for nothing that the intangible assets of a company sometimes have a considerable influence on its market value.

Explicit knowledge: This part of an organisation's knowledge can be documented, evaluated, or licensed. It is formulated knowledge in the form of databases, forums, manuals, standards, or regulations.

Implicit knowledge: This knowledge resides within the minds of individuals and is often directly linked to their experience and talent. To make this tacit knowledge accessible to a community or organisation, expand it, and preserve it, more than mere documentation is required.

Knowledge management has the task of ensuring the optimal handling of explicit and tacit knowledge within an organisation. Its core objective is to improve the efficiency of an organisation and store knowledge within the company.

Why

Knowledge in the form of experiences, regulations, ideas, skills, or norms can be arbitrarily complex and is continuously evolving. It is shaped by the individual actions of people within the organisation and spreads throughout the community in a variety of ways. Companies that allow this development to run its course without implementing a system of knowledge management may not be able to convert a large part of their skills into economic success.

A systematic documentation and transfer of explicit knowledge serves the purpose of training and induction of new employees. It helps to maintain accumulated knowledge within the organisation, irrespective of the individuals acting. During times of crisis, it can protect against total loss of knowledge, for example, if most knowledge carriers from a relevant area leave the company simultaneously, and other new people should be trained at short notice. This form of knowledge management also serves quality assurance and risk management, providing important guidelines for actions and decision-making within the company.

Well-organised knowledge management helps to make decisions faster and to increase an organisation's reaction speed. In times of constantly increasing rates of change, knowledge management quickly becomes a critical success factor.

Knowledge is the basis for innovation and development. Companies with high demands on their own innovative strength and development capabilities cannot avoid systematic knowledge management.

The much-cited culture of learning from mistakes is also based on knowledge. Companies that want to ensure that learning from mistakes made internally is active and company-wide must provide the foundations for it.

Effective handling of knowledge within the company increases transparency and improves the work experience, consequently boosting the motivation of the workforce.

How

Connections to other elements: As evident in various aspects of Enterneering®, the first step in knowledge management is also to align connected elements based on their characteristics and usability. Companies with a high degree of integration of the individual Enterneering® elements will achieve considerable synergies. The elements that are most intensively connected to the company's knowledge include:

Transparency; here it must be examined whether the currently practised form of transparency serves active knowledge management or if adjustments are necessary. Active knowledge management requires a certain degree of transparency.

Governance; an effective alignment of the functions in corporate governance inevitably has a positive impact on knowledge management. In comparison, it is easy to see whether governance is actively implemented or if it has a more bureaucratic proof character. The latter can be an obstacle to effective knowledge management.

Communication; communication for knowledge management should generally follow established rules and formats. The establishment of parallel worlds is neither necessary nor useful, although individual tools and methods may vary.

Involvement; here it is important to check whether the involvement currently practised serves active knowledge management or if there is a need for adaptation. Active knowledge management requires a certain degree of involvement.

Organising and structuring knowledge: To enable active knowledge management, a basic order or structure is needed. Knowledge should be categorised, so to speak. It makes sense to sort knowledge according to topics that align well with the company and its organisation. Traditionally, the following topics are relevant:

Applicable law

Technical norms, management standards

Internal guidelines, instructions

Emergency documentation

Project programme

Product programme

Key figures, reports

News, information

Ideas, Innovations

Reference work, sources

Forums, chats

Depending on the category, there are numerous and diverse tools or systems available. The suitability of each tool depends on many individual factors. In the digital age, a wide variety of software solutions are available. Before deciding on or against a tool, it is important to outline the most important requirement criteria regarding its purpose, application goal, degree of complexity, required effort, and practicality. Simple criteria such as stringent keywording, a fully integrated search function, centralized notifications, revision security, and intuitive user guidance should also be a part of the requirement criteria. Experience has shown that interaction rates and attention are still quite high at the beginning of the introduction of digital knowledge management systems. Open issues quickly become apparent when it comes to the responsibilities and the available capacities for maintaining the systems, which can lead to a loss of attention. Another challenge is to maintain the timeliness, quality, and completeness of entries at the necessary level.

Gathering knowledge: The first step is to gather existing knowledge. Depending on the company's situation, this can be done through a comprehensive initial grassroots survey or a preparation of already existing information. The subsequent steps are about continuously updating or modifying existing information and adding new entries. Fixed time intervals are suitable for the frequency of these steps, depending on the type of information. For example, updating a well-established routine can have a longer interval than knowledge related to short-lived products. In addition to this structured gathering, there is also a spontaneous gathering of knowledge. Here it is primarily important that the corporate culture promotes open and proactive dialogue and intrinsically motivates knowledge bearers as much as possible to share their newly acquired knowledge with the organisation. Furthermore, a regular enquiry within the organisation about knowledge to be incorporated makes sense.

The more open and transparent a corporate culture is, and the more effective internal communication is, the easier it is to gather knowledge and also to continuously update it. It is important to understand that knowledge management is not a one-time investment in a tool, but a continuous process that requires regular resources as well.

Transporting knowledge: When providing knowledge, companies should always pay attention to the push and pull principle. There are situations in which the company wants to distribute certain knowledge in a targeted manner. And there are people within the organisation who are looking for specific information depending on the situation. Both ways must be operable effectively and efficiently, just as the provision of knowledge should be. Only if the company succeeds in making the transport of knowledge user-friendly and valuable, it will be able to operate effective knowledge management in the long term.

Entrepreneurs have the power to create a digital knowledge ecosystem within their company and overcome or prevent silo thinking. Many successful companies have long since extended their knowledge management to include external stakeholders such as customers or suppliers, and thus benefit from an expanded knowledge base and shorter information and decision-making paths.

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The Importance of Systems of Values

Corporate culture is deeply rooted in the feelings, thoughts, and actions of the people within the organisation. It results from the sum of the deeply anchored values and emotions of every individual in the company. Corporate culture also arises in non-orchestrated cooperation. The sum of the individual values in the organisation shapes the collective identity and the overall dominant identity characteristics shape the collective value system of a company. If the predominant part of the collective value system creates harmony, a sustainable corporate culture can emerge from it. Entrepreneurs are well advised to consciously and actively shape the value system within their company rather than leaving it to chance or the unguided forces within the organisation.

Corporate Values

Corporate values define the characteristics that are important and valuable to the company. In other words, they represent the ideals that are desirable for the company and guide the actions of all individuals within the organisation. Since these ideals are always individual and subjective, these values should also align with the personal values upheld by the company’s management. Otherwise, it can lead to a sustainable conflict of interests at the highest level of the organisation, resulting in a detrimental impact on the corporate culture. At this point at the latest, it becomes clear to all entrepreneurs that the implementation of a corporate value system cannot be successfully delegated away. After all, the rituals, standards, and rules should be authentically exemplified within the corporate community and thus made tangible for employees, customers, and business partners.

The individual values within a value system can be divided into the following categories:

Core Values, which are consistently represented by the company both internally and externally. They serve as a superordinate or generally valid orientation for action, behavioural standards, or a basis for decision-making. Core Values are also recognisable and tangible for external third parties. In a way, guiding values form the DNA of the company.

Aspirational Values, which the company strives to embody but needs in order to remain competitive or to be successful in the future. These are the values that the company still needs to work on to create and sustainably implement them.

Permission-to-play Values, form the basis for daily collaboration and behaviour among each other. In other words, they are values that regulate the HOW of personal interactions and task completion.

Accidental Values, are all those values that have not been defined in any of the previously mentioned categories and therefore do not align with the explicitly desired values in the company. These values can be temporary or permanent and can have either positive or negative effects on the organisation. Positive or beneficial accidental values can either be accepted or consciously integrated into one of the desired categories. Negative values must at least be recognised, assessed, and ideally dealt with so that they do not become a risk or hazard.

Why

The Digital Age is characterised by increasing volatility and high rates of change. Demographic developments and climate change create additional pressure for change and innovation. In this context, uncertainty increases. People are facing challenges that lack immediate solutions. However, individuals still need structures in which they can live and work, and they look for real basic values with which they can identify. In an era of digitalisation, global expansion, resource constraints, and increasing employee turnover, companies must provide their employees as well as their customers and partners with opportunities for personal identification with the company.

A strong corporate value system,

is an important point of orientation for decision-making and personal behaviour,

has a meaningful, confidence-building, and motivation-enhancing effect,

increases the loyalty of individuals within the company,

fosters a sense of identification with the company,

boosts motivation and employee loyalty,

promotes the external reputation and credibility of the company.

Towards external third parties, a value-oriented and genuinely embodied corporate culture can create unique selling points and secure important competitive advantages. Within the organisation, it is a unifying element that strengthens motivation as well as loyalty and promotes innovation. This also results in a strong employer brand, among other things.

How

The sustainable implementation of a value system in a company usually starts with a project; however, it is certainly not a one-time action, but rather a continuous process. The implementation can be divided into three stages: definition, communication, and application.

Definition
The first step involves defining the most important contents of the value system, which raises the first cultural or, to a certain extent, value-oriented question, namely about the group of participants. If the definition is made within a larger or at least representative group, this increases transparency and accuracy, which in turn ensures greater acceptance. Entrepreneurs should engage in self-reflection and reflect on their own values. It is advisable not to solely dominate the definition step and to allow ample space for group work. Nevertheless, in owner-managed companies, the values and expectations that are firmly anchored in the personal and entrepreneurial nature of the owners should be adequately considered. Otherwise, the value system creates a high personal pressure to change, because, without the authentically exemplified contribution from the owners, a value system cannot develop positively in the long term.

Do not copy! The definition of the most important values should align with the culture and the essence of the company, no matter how dissimilar they may be to value systems in other companies. The obvious thing to do is to look for other examples or specifically ask the competition about their value system. The top priority should be the company's own strategy and culture, which the value system should serve and help to achieve success. Ideally, a strong value system can make a company unique.

Be realistic! Regardless of whether they are basic values or aspired values, they must have a reliable connection to real circumstances. If the gap between reality and desired values is so large that most employees cannot envision achieving them in the foreseeable future, graduation or possibly intermediate steps should be considered. In general, prioritising feasibility instead of quantity is crucial. In practice, it has proven beneficial to keep the number of values in the single-digit range or limit them to a maximum of 10. Care should also be taken to ensure that values are described in a simple manner and do not require any special technical terms or paraphrases.

Allow individuality! If the collection and evaluation of potential values result in very rare or possibly even bizarre descriptions, these should be seriously considered. After all, it pertains to the authentic nature and desired identity of the company and the fact that being unique may be both necessary and desirable.

Know the effect! Before making a final decision about the collection of possible contents for the company's value system, the individual values should be considered for their internal and external impact. The goal is not to discard all those values that have an unwanted or negative effect at first glance, but rather to understand the associated consequences with them, and determine the accompanying measures that need to be taken.

Communication
The value system of a company can be communicated internally as well as externally through existing and known channels. It is advisable to incorporate the value system into the documentation and communication of the corporate philosophy, strategy, or work instructions. Furthermore, a strong value system can and should be actively integrated into image building in the sales, labour, or procurement markets. When it comes to employees in the company, the presentation of the value system should be an integral part of the onboarding process and within the recurring employee information.

Application
As with most behavioural elements of corporate management, the effectiveness of the value system primarily relies on its authentic and consistent implementation in practice. Good intentions or goals must be followed by recognisable actions. The consideration of the value system must be experienced in day-to-day business operations without being artificially imposed. In this regard, the role of company management and executives is paramount. It is an essential aspect of leadership work to ensure that corporate values are firmly anchored in the corporate culture. This is done through their own actions or by emphasising or even rewarding value-oriented thinking and action in the workforce. Conversely, violations of the value system should also be identified and actively addressed. Strong corporate values persist even in times of crisis and can nevertheless change over time.

Examples

As described earlier, a company's value system should not be a compilation of current trends or "award-winning" values from other companies. Furthermore, a value system should not consist of values that people should usually have anyway.

Community
Mutual appreciation, respectful interaction
Honesty, open error-learning culture
Solidarity, mutual support
Transparency, clear and open communication

Business
Customer experience, customer benefits come first
Business relationships count
Performance and excellence are the goals
Profitability comes before sales growth

Society
Accepting social responsibility
Climate protection, ecological awareness
Resource conservation, sustainable consumption
Human rights, anti-discrimination

Companies and their owners must stand by the value system in the company and not just accept it as a necessary feature of the company. Companies should not strive to adopt particularly trendy or common corporate values. Those values should not be adopted which cannot be established without compromises due to the corporate culture or the business model. Entrepreneurs must be aware of their own role models and not underestimate the impact of their personal actions on the company. What matters is the authentic application and not the way the value system is documented and communicated. For the targeted values, the current deviations from the target image should be known and evaluated, and any necessary measures to achieve the goals should be defined.

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The Most Effective Talent Management (!?)

In companies that allocate tasks based on the skills of their employees, the talent strategy is much more oriented towards determining the best possible match between talent and task. Moreover, much of this approach revolves around creating the necessary framework for talent-based staffing. Companies that have successfully implemented this approach have noticed higher levels of employee motivation, faster training times, and overall better adaptability among their employees. The reason is simple: when a person performs a job for which he or she is well qualified and which corresponds to their interests or inclinations, they not only enjoy it but also find their way around the job more quickly.

According to research by Gartner (Gartner for HR: TOP 5 Priorities for HR Leaders 2022), most HR leaders see building critical skills and competencies as a TOP priority. However, 40% of them report that they cannot implement skills development solutions quickly enough to meet changing skills needs. Furthermore, in many companies, the skills that are necessary today may no longer be needed in their current form within one or two years.

Given the realisation that development and change cycles are becoming even shorter than before in the global, digital age, there should be a radical rethink at the root of the talent management approach. Can it still be successful in the long run to attempt to "develop" people's genetic as well as evolved abilities and interests (talents) to meet specific job requirements?

Companies that want to shift their personnel and organisational structures from function-based job descriptions to talent-based tasks or roles face a major challenge. Work processes, tasks, and interfaces need to be rethought and often reorganised in a smaller way to enable talent-based allocation or distribution. This challenge is likely to become greater as the degree of complexity of an area of activity and the diversity of skills required for it increase.

In the research mentioned above, the dilemma is particularly evident in one area of activity, namely so-called middle management. These positions are often referred to as group, team, or department managers. In practice, however, the tasks of these job holders do not consist predominantly of managing a group, team, or department, but rather consist of a wide range of tasks. Middle managers often find themselves in a sandwich position with different operational matters and leadership responsibilities. Many of them are even involved in ongoing routine work with deadlines and schedules. Consequently, they have limited capacities to devote themselves to leadership. Rarely do personal talents align perfectly with this mixture of different activities. Depending on whether personal talents and preferences lie more on one side or the other, attention deficits and noticeable performance gaps can quickly arise.

Why not simply assign people who enjoy leadership work enough of it so that it fills 100% of their working time, even if this means leading a team with people performing very diverse tasks? Why does it still have to be the most loyal or best subject matter expert in the team who becomes the next team leader?

Another challenge with the talent-based approach is to consistently apply it to probationary periods, development interviews, and internal recommendations. This means that if there is a clear misjudgment of talent regarding certain tasks, a consistent reallocation or reassignment must be applied, otherwise the entire approach risks being undermined. Moreover, this approach is likely to pose a challenge in many labour markets in terms of labour and collective bargaining law, which may require involving trade union representatives and works councils.

Incidentally, the talent-based personnel approach also applies to the upper management levels. Even at the top, there are talents, inclinations, and preferences that influence the decision about the allocation of tasks and activities within top management. TOP management often aims to avoid getting involved in day-to-day operations and to keep the focus on leadership, strategy, and change. However, the real talents and interests often lie elsewhere and so-called TOP leaders tend to get lost in micromanagement. The reasons are manifold, such as personal traits, character, ego, or simply the respective talent.

Those who deal with this openly and engage in honest reflection can make a real difference in the talent management of their company. A change at the root of the issue probably starts with questioning whether talent management is concerned with "developing" people's skills so that they can take on existing jobs or whether it is about finding ways to transfer tasks more effectively to existing talents in the company.

If this small yet significant difference in orientation is put into practice, a potentially trend-setting strategic change project quickly emerges.

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No Empowerment = No Agility

In the era of digitalisation, rates of change are increasing rapidly, product life cycles and development cycles are shortening radically, and disruption and spontaneity are on the rise. This development, known as VUCA (variability, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) in the professional world, requires companies to radically rethink and realign traditional processes across various domains. The agile working environment has emerged as a prominent solution in this regard. Decisions should be made within small agile teams directly on-site. Reaction speeds are expected to increase, and the degree of self-organisation must increase accordingly. Without empowerment, such working environments cannot be successfully realised.

The term empowerment is frequently used in the corporate context and is far too often equated with a cool tool or a current trend of the New Work movement. Empowerment linguistically means something like "self-empowerment" or "strengthening of autonomy". This makes it clear that it is a profound basic attitude towards enterprise design and a basic concept for various forms of work. Contrary to common assumptions, empowerment is not limited to leadership tasks, nor is it a special award or incentivisation for individuals. Empowerment is a matter of attitude — the core of the corporate philosophy that promotes values such as self-determination, freedom, and participation.

Empowerment entails companies giving their employees extensive and, in some areas, complete personal responsibility for designing and executing work processes. The associated empowerment within the organisational units leads to progressive decentralisation and flat decision-making structures. This strengthens the self-organisation and independence of the workforce. This is also accompanied by a shift in authority and decision-making power. Empowerment implemented in this way requires not only a high degree of trust but also a corporate culture that is aligned with it and the necessary talent.

Why

Companies with a consistent economic mindset must be convinced that changing forms of work and organisational structures pays off. Fundamentally changing empowerment in an entire organisation is expensive and associated with risks. What are the possible reasons behind these considerations?

Talent
Among the frequently mentioned reasons are attracting, motivating, and retaining employees. For companies competing fiercely for every talent in markets where labour is scarce, empowerment is a significant factor. Especially the younger and more highly-qualified talents today want much more than just a secure job with good compensation. They want to realise themselves, implement their own ideas, and work in a self-determined way. When choosing a job, they carefully evaluate the working environment, the corporate culture, and the leadership behaviour.

Agility
In the era of digitalisation, rates of change are increasing rapidly, product life cycles and development cycles are shortening radically, and disruption and spontaneity are on the rise. This development, known as VUCA (variability, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) in the professional world, requires companies to radically rethink and realign traditional processes across various domains. The agile working environment has emerged as a prominent solution in this regard. Decisions should be made within small agile teams directly on-site. Reaction speeds are expected to increase, and the degree of self-organisation must increase accordingly. Without empowerment, such working environments cannot be successfully realised.

Customer Centricity
In these fast-paced times, product quality and customer value must be appropriately kept in mind. The customer experience should not be compromised by the dynamics and changes. Therefore, the shorter the change cycles become, the closer the company must get to its customers regarding specific products or changes. In the agile world, the direct customer connection takes place in a decentralised and extensively self-organised manner within the respective team of the organisation. This is hardly possible without well-functioning empowerment.

Learning
In a self-organised organisation with strong empowerment, the degree of content-related penetration into individual topics is greater than in the case of work models with delimited subject areas. This increases the absorption of knowledge and the understanding of cause-effect relationships and interdependencies in the product, process, project, or company. In addition, greater personal responsibility usually leads to greater interest in the interrelationships and results of one's own work. Ultimately, professional interactions among individuals within the organisation are elevated, resulting in a greater transfer of knowledge. Self-organised work inevitably leads to self-organised learning.

How

The right level for increasing empowerment depends strongly on the maturity of the individuals and the organisation, necessitating a gradual approach supported by necessary organisational and skill development measures. Empowerment is closely linked with good talent management, proper delegation, regular feedback, and the right macro-management by leaders. The better these elements are already anchored in the company and the individuals are experienced in them, the faster and more successful an increase in empowerment will be.

Talent Management
Empowerment cannot be prescribed and not everyone is inclined to take on more responsibility or is interested in familiarising themselves with new content or tasks. It is important to identify suitable talents and to use and develop them in the right way so that empowerment and self-organisation contribute to success rather than stress and frustration. This necessitates the presence of a talent management approach in the company or, at the very least, a thorough understanding and management of the talents of the staff. There are detailed explanations on the topic of talent management in Enterneering®.

Delegation
Proper delegation is a key element of successful empowerment. It is important to clearly communicate not only the task but also the expectation of success or outcome and the timeframe for realisation. Furthermore, foreseeable obstacles or interactions within the company should also be adequately addressed. Depending on experience and maturity, delegation can be categorised into different degrees. For instance, a lower degree of delegation involves assigning a task to an employee to develop a solution proposal, which is then discussed and decided upon together with the manager. A higher degree of delegation corresponds to a “leading by objectives” approach, where only the desired result is explained, framework conditions are agreed upon, and the way of implementation is decided by the employee. However, it is not only the maturity of the employees that is decisive for successful delegation but also the talent and maturity of the manager. Delegating requires letting go and doing so in an appropriately consistent manner. Many leaders tend to micromanage intensively. Overcoming this, in the long run, is one of the essential prerequisites for successful delegation.

Feedback
The regular exchange of information is an elementary component of empowerment in self-organised structures. Binding deadlines should be just as firmly anchored as the self-image of spontaneous feedback when needed. Feedback is not one-way and should not be equated with control or reporting. Feedback within the context of delegated tasks should be characterised by the exchange of both sides, mutual expectations, assessments, opinions, and suggestions. The aim is also to foster a mutual understanding of expectations, requirements, or constraints. Successful feedback is characterised by the fact that it generates trust, increases transparency, and enables active expectation management.

Macromanagement
Macromanagement here refers to the work towards empowering the organisation. Empowerment only succeeds when the transfer of responsibility and autonomy is accompanied by adequate empowerment and equipment of the organisation. Instead of micromanagement, the attention of the leader or the management must be focused on providing or procuring the right resources (qualification, quality) in the required amount (quantity) and at the right time.

Self-organisation and autonomy do not mean chaos and anarchy! It is essential for every company to strike the right balance and implement a suitable form of organisation. The greater the freedom of decision-making in self-organised teams, the clearer the limits and thresholds for authority to be implemented. Although a large proportion of decisions are made autonomously in teams with a high level of empowerment, managers still bear the overall responsibility. In addition to a suitable organisational form, this requires particularly the necessary talent among managers and a corporate culture such as that described by Enterneering®.

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Corporate Culture and Entrepreneurship

Successful entrepreneurs, therefore, will not leave the development of their company’s culture to chance or to the uncontrolled expansion of individual forces within the organisation.

Every company has its own culture, which is shaped by the individual people within the company as well as, to a certain extent, external third parties who interact with the company. The greater the position of power an individual holds, the greater their direct influence on how this culture is put into practice. Power, in this context, refers not only to the decision-making authority or responsibility of an individual person but also to a person’s interpersonal skills in influencing others.

As diverse as employees in a workplace can be, corporate cultures are equally diverse. Not infrequently, these cultures develop imperceptibly, over a period of time, with no collective awareness, as the result of interactions within the company. Just as there are many different cultural manifestations of companies, markets, customers, employees, etc., there are also many different standards and criteria for evaluating corporate culture. It’s not a question of black or white; there is no culture that is all bad or all ‘super-perfect’. In a growing company, as complexity and market penetration increase, one thing that should not be allowed to happen is for the company culture to become imperceptibly engrained without having been subjected to any reflection or evaluation. Once cultural grievances or ‘unfavourable’ cultural conditions become entrenched in a company, any successful change will usually require major effort.

The development of corporate culture is one of the primary tasks of every entrepreneur, and this should be defined jointly by management and employees. Delegating this task to one individual or staff position and then measuring implementation success from ‘above’ or from the ‘side-lines’ cannot, by its very nature, lead to sustainable development. Instructions or concepts from the designated person(s) will only be able to change the corporate culture to a very limited extent. If personal behaviour patterns, real-life values and social interaction among those with influence and decision-making power do not change or ‘improve’, the resulting corporate culture will not truly change either. It has been observed in practice that in situations like this, sub-cultures develop within any teams and areas that don’t fall within any overarching bracket.

Corporate culture is associated with the ways of thinking, behaviour patterns and communication in the company. It is based on a set of values, including trust, equity and satisfaction. Once established, these values allow guidelines and norms to be put in place.

For example, if the company values a good relationship with customers, its established policy may be to always communicate courteously with customers, actively address their needs and always greet them with a smile.

If, instead, value is placed on hard work, then working above and beyond what is expected and a willingness to adjust one’s personal schedule accordingly will certainly be the norm.

The culture that is practiced and experienced within a company is an essential driver for the motivation and retention of employees, for the development of their future performance and for the health of all those who work there. However, corporate culture is also an important factor when it comes to the willingness and ability of employees to successfully implement major changes and innovations.

In fact, neglecting the importance of corporate culture is one of the most frequently cited reasons for the failure of restructuring and development processes. A company’s culture also influences its ability to successfully distribute tasks among people with different social and cultural backgrounds or to optimise recruiting. The culture determines whether discussion and dissent are possible or whether authoritarian rule prevails, whether mistakes are learned from or punished, etc. Having an established culture also reduces the risk of fraud and the cover-ups. What’s more, in the purchasing departments of major companies, examination of specific elements of the supplier company’s culture is part of the decision-making basis or procurement policy, which in turn is a component of the purchasing company’s culture.

Successful entrepreneurs, therefore, will not leave the development of their company’s culture to chance or to the uncontrolled expansion of individual forces within the organisation.

The crucial elements and levels of corporate culture include:

Code of Conduct

A code of conduct is a set of guidelines supported by company leadership that establishes ethical principles and standards of cooperation for all employees. The code sets forth the company's purpose, values and guidelines for behaviour and outlines expectations for both employees and management.

Empowerment

Empowerment involves giving employees more role-dependent authority over work processes, management tasks and aspects of leadership. It emphasises self-reliance and independence and can serve to build greater trust in leadership, encourage employee motivation, lead to greater creativity and improve employee retention.

System of Values

A company’s value system describes the social, interpersonal and economic values that have special significance as well as how the company approaches the topics of work, interpersonal cooperation and the well-being of its employees.

Incentives

Incentives can be objects, items of value, or desired events that spur employees to do more of whatever is being encouraged through the incentive. When used to recognise employees for their performance, it can improve morale, satisfaction and motivation. It can also be a motivating factor in employee retention.

Tolerance

Tolerance is the ability to accept and integrate diversity and people whose thoughts and opinions differ from your own. A company’s success depends on the diversity of its customers and the differing personalities of its employees. The ability to interact with people without prejudice, to challenge and promote them, ensures productive collaboration and the company´s future success.

Transparency

The prerequisites for self-organised work and empowerment are trust and transparency. With the right level of transparency, barriers that would inhibit motivation, performance or innovation are eliminated. When company leadership reflects on the company’s goals and performance and establishes a knowledge culture, companies become more and more successful.

Knowledge

The knowledge possessed within a company represents an asset. The level of this knowledge determines the efficiency and satisfaction of employees. It is at the heart of all decision-making within an organisation. The manner in which the creation, sharing and application of knowledge is managed determines the ability of employees to act and make decisions.

Communication

The purpose of internal communication is to share information that allows employees to perform their jobs well. It keeps them informed and connected. The aim is to provide an effective flow of information within the company. Successful internal communication nurtures company culture and cultivates employee dedication.

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