Who’s Actually Interested in New Work?

The understanding of work in times of globalisation and digitalisation is closely linked to values like independence, freedom, creativity, personal development and self-organisation. Working people long for jobs that fit in well with their private lives, preferences, and free time; they expect the same flexibility from their employers in the structuring of the work environment as their companies expect from them in terms of work management.

Many years of entrepreneurial practice show that companies will only implement new work environments if they are convinced of the benefits of the change. Exceptions to this are entrepreneurs who develop corporate work environments based on their own personal motivations and value systems.

The understanding of work in times of globalisation and digitalisation is closely linked to values like independence, freedom, creativity, personal development and self-organisation. Working people long for jobs that fit in well with their private lives, preferences, and free time; they expect the same flexibility from their employers in the structuring of the work environment as their companies expect from them in terms of work management.

Then, of course, the pandemic arrived, bringing about a turbo change in the working world. And then came the end of the pandemic, and somehow everything is once again different and yet not the same as before.

According to a 2021 study by internations.org, the top five countries in which the importance of New Work was rated highest by expats worldwide were the USA, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Finland, Estonia and the Netherlands. Apart from the USA, the other four nations, the UAE, for instance, were viewed with astonishment. Nations like Germany, China, South Korea or Japan, considered leaders in other comparisons, are in the lower midfield or at the bottom of the ranking. Why is that? One relevant reason may be a lack of ability for change or the speed at which this is carried out. Another is most likely the result of corporate cultures and leadership styles that have been cultivated for decades. Entrepreneurs who are not willing or able to adapt or change their corporate culture will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to sustainably implement new work environments. Because one thing is certain: without a new culture, there is no “new work”!

Many years of entrepreneurial practice show that companies will only implement new work environments if they are convinced of the benefits of the change. Exceptions to this are entrepreneurs who develop corporate work environments based on their own personal motivations and value systems.

Find out whether New Work is right for your company, what you would need to do to implement it and what benefits it offers your company. In our Enterneering® blog, we explain the individual elements of corporate culture and people management and how companies can be organised in a way that is sustainable.

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The Impact of Corporate Purpose on Competitiveness

The importance of a strong corporate purpose is still underestimated in many companies. In markets with a high degree of industrialisation and technology, however, it is probably one of the most important components of strategic corporate development. Why is this such a big challenge? The answer lies in our past. For decades, economies of scale, rationalisation and increased efficiency have characterised the economic worlds of work. In these working worlds, a strong corporate purpose is not so crucial. But the digital transformation, pandemic-related resource and supply disruptions, climate change and demographic trends are bringing about enormous changes and fostering a new understanding of people for their environment, for their purchasing decisions and for their demands regarding work and leisure. Serious consideration of the corporate purpose requires foresight and patience. Entrepreneurs who invest their time and attention in this not only secure their competitive advantage, but also protect their company from the risk of vanishing into purposelessness.

In traditional business administration education, it has been and still is generally taught that the primary purpose of a company centres on quantitative principles, such as profit maximisation or maximisation of shareholder value. Innumerable companies and large corporations still strongly gear their culture, leadership and organisation towards this. The world in which we live and work today is undergoing massive changes in terms of digitalisation, climate change and resource shortages. In addition, younger generations have a different, more open and demanding understanding of the living and working spaces in which they must or want to fulfil themselves. The more advanced, industrialised and prosperous a society is today, the greater the proportion of the population that is concerned not only with mere subsistence, but is also reflective on the purpose of work and life and has a desire to contribute to a greater cause.

People who are self-motivated, who possess what is known as intrinsic motivation, who consciously and actively contribute to their work environments and want to identify with these, need significantly more than sales targets, profit goals or share prices to feel a sense of connection. On the contrary, an increasing percentage of employees view these guiding principles as rather ordinary or quite generalised and emotionally unappealing. This is especially true in locations where, due to demographic and economic developments, the demand for well-qualified workers exceeds the supply. It is precisely at this point that companies without a well-defined, authentically practiced corporate purpose rapidly find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. As they follow their career paths, well-qualified candidates looking for meaningful jobs in service of a greater cause seek out employers who embody an analogous purpose. And it is precisely these people who are also likely to emerge on the market as customers with similar requirements.

And there is another important argument. Companies that fail to establish the authentic, visibly practiced purpose currently being called for and instead focus on traditional one-dimensional targets, such as turnover, earnings or returns, will, sooner or later, have a high percentage of employees who can and want to live with precisely this situation in the longer term. This probably includes people for whom their income or regular working hours or having limited personal responsibility at the best possible salary and benefits are more important than innovative thinking and action, independent and solution-oriented work and the assumption of personal responsibility in dynamic and change-rich jobs. Entrepreneurs must judge for themselves the types of people they want or need to employ – where and how and in what proportion – to achieve their strategic goals.

Entrepreneurs themselves should and must deal individually with the question of how relevant their own corporate purpose is to the success they desire. There is no right or wrong or better or worse decision. It is and remains an individual consideration and decision. This has much to do with the top leadership of the company and the corporate goals, because a corporate purpose can only be a sustainably positive element if it is authentic.

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Signs of the need for action

If one or more of the following situations apply to your company, this may indicate deficits in the implementation of the corporate purpose:

  • The number of employees who actively and repeatedly ask about the actual purpose of their work or specific projects, or who discuss this with each other, is notable or has increased.
  • In meetings, surveys or conferences, employees increasingly ask about the actual purpose of the company.
  • In the context of strategic development, managers emphatically or persistently question the meaning and purpose behind the financial figures.
  • There is an increase in occasions where well-qualified applicants more intensively question the purpose of the company in job interviews.
  • Candidates more frequently turn down job offers, saying that they are accepting a different job offer because they can offer more or make a greater personal contribution.
  • In the primary published corporate strategy documents, no explanation is provided regarding the purpose of the company's existence.
  • External parties (partners, advisors, friends, family) do not fully grasp the meaning and purpose of the company.

As with most issues in Enterneering, the issue of corporate purpose cannot be viewed in isolation from the other elements of the enterprise. It may require targeted questioning, careful listening and self-reflective action on the part of management to identify and define areas where action is needed. And a corporate purpose alone is not a cure-all. The first steps are awareness of the issue and a willingness to seriously and consistently address existing deficits.

Definition Purpose

This refers to the meaning and purpose of a company beyond its monetary goals. While in traditional business management, financial success is understood to be the primary purpose of a company, the definition of purpose in terms of human-oriented corporate management goes far beyond economic success. It describes the company’s raison d'être in a social, partially even global, context. In this modern understanding of a company, economic or financial success is a basic prerequisite for the successful management of a company, which is rounded out with the definition of the company’s intangible purpose. In other words, financial success is like the air we breathe, while purpose is the emotional component of heart and soul. It is precisely this emotional component that is essential in organisations where there is a high degree of self-organisation, agility and new work. Companies with a sustainably integrated corporate purpose see themselves not only as profit-seeking market participants but as members of society, with their own responsibilities. They no longer differentiate businesses from public or state institutions according to conventional patterns but see themselves as part of the entire social system. This makes it clear that as companies, they, too, bear responsibility for such issues as the environment, climate, health or public infrastructure. In an article published in 2021 in the Harvard Business Review, entitled "Creating a Meaningful Corporate Purpose", the veteran US business expert and author Hubert Joly defines four overlapping fields that determine corporate purpose.

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Corporate purpose differs from the corporate vision and mission. The vision describes an aspirational, possibly also idealised image of the future while the mission describes the self-image of the company in the present. Both are predominantly oriented towards the company. The corporate purpose goes beyond the boundaries of the company and reaches into the social spheres of life. It answers the question of why the company is needed in the first place and what difference it makes to the outside world. Many companies have a vision and a mission, but not a purpose. Some companies have such a strong purpose that they can successfully do without a vision or mission.


Arguments for a strong corporate purpose

People Management and Leadership
Companies without a strong or firmly anchored corporate purpose have to rely instead on individual people to assess and decide what is right and wrong or desired and undesired. This approach centres around the egos, personal experiences and interests of individuals. This is a suitable approach in tightly hierarchical or autocratic structures and works in the longer term. However, it does not work in structures where a high degree of personal responsibility, self-organisation and agility is desired and where thinking and acting in functional boxes (silo thinking) is to be avoided. Here, having a strong corporate purpose helps to minimise individual interests and allow the overall goal or greater good to be pursued. Within larger organisations, it also prevents individual departments from defining their own mission statements and the development of subcultures. Modern leadership in self-organised and dynamic structures needs a strong corporate purpose to create a powerful and motivated organisation.

Recruitment and Talent
Companies looking to hire and retain well-qualified candidates are increasingly confronted with the need to offer more than just a nicely equipped workplace, a good working atmosphere, social benefits and adequate pay. More and more, people also value jobs with which they can personally identify and where they can make a tangible contribution. Companies with a strong corporate purpose can provide an important point of connection for their employees. Employee motivation and loyalty both increase where there is a connection to the meaning and purpose of the company or the job and where people believe that they are serving a greater, higher cause. This is not only an advantage when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff, but also in maintaining or increasing employees’ willingness to perform – even without having to constantly discuss financial incentives.

Marketing and Sales
A strong corporate purpose with significant external impact is a core element of smart marketing. It benefits companies who do not want their sales success to be achieved through traditional transaction-related ‘pushing’ but want to ‘attract’ customers through self-motivation on the basis of authentic and modern marketing. In an increasing number of markets, customers want to identify with the purpose of the salesperson. They want to be able to assess the meaning and purpose the provider of their goods and services fulfils. More and more, customers want to feel good about their purchases. Factors such as sustainability, climate protection, health and resource conservation are becoming increasingly important.

Agility and Focusing
A key feature of agile work is the ability of a company to implement the principle of self-organisation. Without a strong corporate purpose, self-organised working methods cannot be efficiently implemented. Successful self-organisation does not mean complete autonomy and uncontrolled decentralised decision-making. It requires a clear common direction and overarching guardrails. A jointly pursued, firmly anchored corporate purpose serves as the central point of orientation for all the company’s employees.

Transformation and Change
For successful company transformation or change processes, it is crucial to enable the identification and orientation of the people involved in the process. This ensures that measures can be carried out in a focused and well-thought-out manner. The increased dynamics and complexity in such processes can easily lead to high levels of uncertainty. A strong corporate purpose provides an important point of orientation and acts as a stabilising factor. It assists in maintaining an internal connection between the individual areas of the company and the people who work there.


3 Steps to developing a corporate purpose

1. Reflection and Deliberation
Everything begins with honest self-reflection. Two questions are essential:

  • Is there any recognition at all that the implementation or further development of the corporate purpose has a high strategic value for the company?
  • Is the company’s top management willing and able to authentically implement a strong corporate purpose?

Both questions point in the same direction. Only those who clearly recognise the importance of purpose for themselves and their company and who seriously want to develop or introduce this element should set out on this path. Those who favour authoritarian leadership structures or rely heavily on micromanagement in their businesses should carefully weigh the effort required to implement a strong corporate purpose. Ultimately, success depends decisively on the ability of the company's top management to authentically exemplify the corporate purpose and to take it into account in its everyday business deliberations and decisions.

Note to entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs on the practical application of this: A weak corporate purpose can have a more negative impact than having no defined purpose at all. Many people take such core elements of the company very seriously and are even more disappointed if the purpose is not meant seriously or is not reflected in current business activities. This can result in a company losing not only employees but also customers.

If the decision is made to implement or further develop the corporate purpose, there should be no reason not to get started. As a rule, the process of deliberation is characterised by dialogue at the management level. These discussions are particularly fruitful if they are led and moderated by company owners and top management.

2. Structuring and Distribution
Developing a strong corporate purpose will entail several structured passes or loops. To ensure good progress between these individual loops, it helps to define a simple but consistent structure, a “process model”. The following is an example of a possible process model. The approach chosen here is characterised by joint collaboration of a group of people (e.g. top management or mixed staff profiles). The group’s work begins with the “golden circle”. The participants classify their statements about the purpose of the company in three concentric circles, from the outside to the inside, with WHAT, HOW and WHY. According to the "5-Why" approach, the classification of the statements on the WHY is only done after questioning the WHY five times. This ensures that the core of the WHY is really penetrated.

In the search for purpose, it is sometimes difficult to put a concrete statement into words. A tool from the agile working world can help here – the use of images. Images are known to be a key to our subconscious. It can therefore help to provide the participants with pictures or postcards and have them relate what associations these may have with the company's purpose.

Finally, the options derived from this process should be placed in the context of the most essential corporate pillars and assessed for compatibility. The most critical corporate pillars usually include the strategy, the people within the company, including their habits and behaviours, the capabilities of the company, the corporate culture being practiced and any relevant external conditions. The simplest methodology for doing this is to assign points or grades for each option and company pillar.

Note to entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs on the practical application of this: The method or process model used is not of great importance. Much more important is the dialogue between the participants and the interaction that accompanies this. In most cases, a common group perspective quickly emerges, and even where there are different points of view, the chosen structure provides sufficient orientation and opportunity for joint evaluation.

3. Implementation and Authenticity
Since the entire topic of corporate purpose revolves around people, inclinations and emotions, the success of a strong purpose depends upon having it visibly and authentically anchored internally within the people who work for the company and, ideally, also externally. The corporate purpose must be embedded in the corporate strategy in such a way that there is compatibility and no contradictions arise. The purpose must be made tangible. This means that employees, customers and business partners should not only understand the corporate purpose, but also be able to see that the company is really serving the purpose.

Note to entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs on the practical application of this: Because our environments, markets, customers and employees continually evolve and change, the corporate purpose cannot remain static. It should be anchored in such a way that it remains a topic of conversation among staff. Once the purpose is defined, the first step should, therefore, not necessarily be the creation of an image video or an advertising campaign. It is much more important to create the conditions that will allow employees to internalise the purpose and identify with it. It should become something they discuss amongst themselves and remind each other of. And they should be able to see that corporate management has also internalised this purpose and acts accordingly. Companies that succeed in doing this will have a strong corporate purpose, one that will inevitably spread beyond the boundaries of the company and produce a positive effect.


Conclusion

The importance of a strong corporate purpose is still underestimated in many companies. In markets with a high degree of industrialisation and technology, however, it is probably one of the most important components of strategic corporate development. Why is this such a big challenge? The answer lies in our past. For decades, economies of scale, rationalisation and increased efficiency have characterised the economic worlds of work. In these working worlds, a strong corporate purpose is not so crucial. But the digital transformation, pandemic-related resource and supply disruptions, climate change and demographic trends are bringing about enormous changes and fostering a new understanding of people for their environment, for their purchasing decisions and for their demands regarding work and leisure. Serious consideration of the corporate purpose requires foresight and patience. Entrepreneurs who invest their time and attention in this not only secure their competitive advantage, but also protect their company from the risk of vanishing into purposelessness.

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50 years Growth Model by Greiner

Then as now: Success factors in growth. It’s fantastic that some principles are so constant. This enables us to better understand, comprehend and consciously adjust to them. You should definitely do the same.

Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow
by Larry E. Greiner, Harvard Business Review 7/8 1972

Then as now: Success factors in growth.

It's fantastic that some principles are so constant. This enables us to better understand, comprehend and consciously adjust to them. You should definitely do the same.

According to the Growth Model of the renowned business professor Larry E. Greiner, growing organisations go through certain development phases, all of which end in a leadership crisis.

Successful companies manage to influence the different phases in such a way that serious crises can be avoided. From my own experience I know both the successful and the other cases. Of course, in my 20 years as a manager I have gone through my own learning curve, made mistakes and experienced cause-and-effect principles in practice. I am firmly convinced that this essential component of entrepreneurship can combine motivation, fun and success if you engage in it early and consciously.

In our post Keeping Growth from Becoming a Threat, the individual phases and their cause-and-effect principles are explained concisely using a thoroughly representative practical example.

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What this bus and business sparring have in common

Some topics have been around in the business world for a long time and have repeatedly been rehashed or cited without ever being sustainably debunked in all these years. Nevertheless, like many other people, I tend to lose sight of these principles from time to time -– in certain situations, even more so – or to let them take a back seat to competing issues.

What this bus and business sparring have in common


Some topics have been around in the business world for a long time and have repeatedly been rehashed or cited without ever being sustainably debunked in all these years. I like to think of such issues as ‘laws of nature’ because this helps me to think or speculate less about them, allowing me to more easily access my own patterns of thought and action. Such topics include the Peter Principle, the Theory of Evolution or the entrepreneurial approach of ‘Work ON your business, not IN it’.

Nevertheless, like many other people, I tend to lose sight of these principles from time to time -– in certain situations, even more so – or to let them take a back seat to competing issues. Why is that? Does this make me a bad leader or a useless entrepreneur? The answer to this is a diplomatically correct ‘NO’. In actual professional life, the answer to this question is not irrelevant and is quite complex. Especially because the answer to this question is always situation-dependent. And this is precisely where the challenge lies: in defining an approach and a structure that helps you keep the focus on the essentials and yet adapt your leadership role according to the specific situation. This sounds very academic, but in my view, it’s not that complicated.

The basic prerequisite is to have understood the particular principle and to have accepted it for yourself and your role in the company. Anyone who can't get past this point and tries to disprove the principle – or successfully disproves it for themselves – can, in my view, easily spare themselves the subsequent steps. When it comes to personal acceptance, I believe that self-reflection is the next step, to identify the GAP between the core elements of the principle and the actual situation. In my eyes, it is not a sign of weakness to involve one or more other qualified persons in this reflection.

Once the GAP has been identified, it is usually easier to define and decide upon suitable measures. In my experience, the tendency to break away from these measures or structures varies depending on the type of person, role, organisational form or business situation. A kind of ‘route master’ can help here, someone without personal sensitivities or conflicts of interest, who determines and makes transparent deviations from the course at regular intervals. This will at least give the ‘guilty conscience’ of those who bear responsibility a real chance of being noticed.

If you are still not quite clear what the bus in image and business sparring have in common, just let us know and we will have a quick chat about it.

A Consistent Strategy for Targeted Enterprise Engineering

Why a consistent strategy for targeted Enterprise Engineering have a significantly greater impact today on a company’s success and medium- to long-term competitive position than in previous decades, is because in many regions and companies, the underlying conditions have changed significantly.

Basic Premises:

  • In many companies, it is standard practice that core strategic corporate and organisational development tasks are typically not integrated into the same operationalised corporate management system in which strategic core product and business development measures are planned and coordinated.
  • To free top management to concentrate on the coordination of product and business development measures, there is often a desire to “laterally” delegate the implementation of strategic organisational and human resource development.
  • In some companies, the core strategic corporate and organisational development tasks, in particular, tend to slide off the radar over time, becoming increasingly obscured and difficult to identify.

If we compare the management of a company with the tasks required of a pilot in the cockpit of a jumbo jet, it quickly becomes clear that in both cases, once the size and complexity of the tasks reach a certain point, a safe journey can only be assured with the aid of management systems. All entrepreneurs have a general understanding of this principle. Nevertheless, we regularly ask ourselves why it is, that in some companies, this principle is internalised for all of the business and customer side development and change measures, while at the same time, the organisational, personnel or cultural measures directed internally are considered less consequential.

With this type of parallel management approach, it is often apparent that not long after the measures have been defined, attention to and awareness of the company’s different strategic core measures sharply diverge. In our view, some of the reasons for this are that:

  • based on their personal background and work habits, many entrepreneurs prefer to concentrate on the customer, product or business rather than on the organisation itself and the people who work in it
  • in most cases, the risks, threats and opportunities in product or business development measures are more clearly and visibly evident
  • customers and external partners are perceived as having a more direct, rapid and effective impact on the company and its management than the company’s internal organisation and staff
    and finally,
  • there is too little articulation of the personal success and enjoyment associated with organisational and personnel development measures.

In our view, the reason the approach and behaviour described above, which can be observed in many companies, have a significantly greater impact today on a company's success and medium- to long-term competitive position than in previous decades, is because in many regions and companies, the underlying conditions have changed significantly.

In many regions, labour market conditions make it clear that labour is becoming a scarce and costly commodity. Employee attitudes towards and loyalty to their employer have changed – frequent job changes and short stints at individual companies are no longer frowned upon but have become de rigeur. Fewer and fewer young people are willing to take on leadership responsibilities at work, while they are very happy to spend less and less time on the job. Disruptions resulting from climate change, demographics, pandemics and war make employee retention or the postponement of appropriate measures nearly impossible, which usually affects large portions of the organisation. Digitalisation, too, requires a very high degree of structural and process-related adjustment, which also has a significant impact on the organisation and the people working within it.

The Enterneering® approach is an effective and successful method for countering the situations and deficits described above. For entrepreneurs who have come to the self-reflective and critical assessment that they should not – and do not want to – view the use of external support as a necessary evil but rather as a valuable and welcome service, the Enterneers® can provide expert, experienced support, not only in the implementation of appropriate company-internal measures but, if required, also in the areas of staff training and the recruitment of qualified personnel.

Implementation of Enterneering®

If a company organisation is to do more than just develop on its own, then essentially the same methodological principles apply as are used in the definition and realisation of corporate strategies. Here, too, the more incomprehensibly a strategy affecting the entire company is formulated and communicated, and the less measurable the success of implementation, the lower the plan’s prospects for success.

Successful Enterneering®, i.e. the development of the company in the areas of organisation, people and culture, requires a holistic and systematic approach. It’s not about the precise pre-definition of the content of a multi-year implementation plan. Nevertheless, we believe that successful Enterneering® should be an integral part of overall corporate strategy and planning. In keeping with this basic idea, a corporate strategy must first be in place. This means that defined strategic goals will have already been established, along with a long-term plan for achieving those goals. In addition, a suitable mechanism or process for operationalising the corporate strategy – i.e. making it viable in practice – must exist. As a rule, this type of operationalisation involves breaking down the corporate strategic goals into individual goals, for example, in the form of milestones with measurable success criteria and implementation dates. A strategic roadmap or a company backlog often forms a good basis for this.

If a company does not yet have an operationalised strategy, experience shows that systematic Enterneering® will not yield results. A suitable corporate strategy must first be defined.

If an operationalised strategy does exist, then the core elements of the corporate strategy form the starting point for the implementation of Enterneering®. The following key questions now arise:

  • Are there dedicated Enterneering® goals in the company's strategy?
  • How are the Enterneering® goals anchored in the planning and implementation of the strategy?
  • Have dedicated resources (time, know-how, money) been planned for achieving the Enterneering® goals?
  • Who is responsible as the implementation coordinator for pursuing or coordinating the Enterneering® goals?

Depending on the answers to these four questions, different courses of action will emerge, all of which have the same goal: resolving the open questions. In the process of doing this, the practical experience already gained in other companies or constellations can and should be drawn upon to resolve the questions in such a way that the subsequent implementation of measures reduces foreseeable obstacles, risks or threats and optimises the chances for success.

Goals

Reminder: Enterneering® consists of targeted work on the three corporate areas of organisation, people and culture. Accordingly, the goals of Enterneering® are also to be found and selected within these three categories. Typical examples are:

  • Future extent of development within the organisation (structural measures, degree of digitalisation, process maturity, etc.)
  • Desired or necessary core capabilities within the organisation (scalability, series maturity, interculturality, etc.)
  • Conformity to requirements (external and internal standards, customer requirements, legal conformity, etc.)
  • Changing work environments (hybrid workplaces, agility, digital work formats, labour market conformity, etc.)
  • Development of leadership and corporate culture (gender shift, work-life blending, self-organisation, etc.)

The same quality metrics that apply to all strategic corporate goals also apply to Enterneering® goals. They must be meaningful and useful enough for the long term and generally be considered feasible. In addition, the purpose of the goal must be clearly defined as well as what successful implementation will ultimately achieve, i.e. the concrete contribution the achieved goal will make to the company's success.

Anchoring

There are several ways to anchor goals in a corporate strategy in such a way that they can be successfully achieved in practice and are also measurable. We recommend that an adequate form of anchoring be established that balances Enterneering® goals with other corporate goals. This means that, as far as possible, it must be ensured that, in the consciousness of the company and the people working in it, Enterneering® goals are just as important and significant as other goals, such as those from business development. The idea here is to avoid the emergence of parallel worlds when it comes to the perception and implementation of individual elements of the corporate strategy. In this way, the Enterneering® goals can be implemented as honestly, transparently, and authentically as possible. Possible mechanisms for or methods of anchoring include:

  • Traditional Milestone Plan
  • Company Backlog
  • Strategic Roadmap
  • OKR Tableau
  • Balanced Scorecard
  • (...)

Other success factors in anchoring the goals and implementing them in the company are a dedicated change approach, a communication concept and the involvement of promoters and multipliers.

Resources

A common management error when dealing with development measures in the areas of organisation, people and culture is to put the effort (and possibly the pain) into defining and budgeting for appropriate and necessary resources in abbreviated planning models. This refers to statements such as "...this belongs to the standard tasks for managers or the HR department..." or "...we will clarify this in more detail during implementation – let’s get started first..." or "...these are soft factors anyway, which are difficult to plan ...". Experience shows that the success of the Enterneering® development measures is dependent on a clear understanding of the necessary resources. Typical elements of resource assessment in Enterneering® are:

  • Time requirements and top executive know-how
  • Time requirements and management-level know-how
  • HR expertise and resources
  • Internal communication resources
  • Budget for external support and media

Implementation Coordinator

For successful implementation of the Enterneering® goals, a clear commitment and minimum level of capacity among the management and top executives during the implementation period is mandatory. Only under certain conditions is delegation of the ‘client’ and ‘implementation coordinator’ roles to a single team (commonly, the HR team) a helpful option. Some tasks are difficult to delegate. Entrepreneurship is one of them: this role or task usually entails the cost of a partial loss of impact. A proven option is to use a temporary C-level resource with the necessary stature, who operates somewhat downwind of senior management. This person can be implemented as a kind of Change Master, comparable to a SCRUM Master, and take over the coordination of cross-departmental strategic measures. Ideally, this person should already have relevant practical and leadership experience and be as free as possible from conflicts of interest within the business organisation.

Are you interested in speaking with an expert about how to successfully implement Enterneering® in your company? If so, simply contact an Enterneer® to arrange a personal meeting.