Our January Newsletter has been published – read it online and subscribe here!
Links of the Week (Week 2/2016)
Hello again. Happy New Year! Hope you had wonderful holidays and a good start into the New Year of 2016. Here are our first Links of the Week, curated from our link collection:
Start-ups
Ross Mayfield writes about the right momentum you need to build your start-up or project. The author encourages leaders to especially look out for internal momentum such as a good team, and take the chance to use that. Momentum.
Another helpful and related advice for start-up founders has Auren Hoffmann on Quora. Deriving from sports, he draws a general distinction between the “Position player” and the “All-Around-Athlete”. Both – the highly specialized employee as well as the multi-talented one – are required in companies, but they are needed in different situations and phases of the company: How do you avoid hiring the wrong people for your startup?
Quotes of the Week (Week 51/2015)
With some quotes of the most interesting articles from our link collection this week we say Goodbye for this year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We will resume this column on January 11th.
Links of the Week (Week 50/2015)
Here are our Links of the Week, curated from our link collection:
Business Planning
Are you working on a new product but don’t know yet whether there is enough interest in your solution? Inbound Rocket offers some useful tips how to talk to potential customers and get feedback for your idea: 5 Strategies We Used to Get Over 150 Customer Conversations.
Organisational Development
Aaron Dignet draws an interesting framework to systemise current approaches and experiments for a more open, fluid business organisation: He takes the head count of the company and their specific risk and puts together a helpful matrix for self-assessment: How to choose a model of self-organization that works for you.
Personal Purpose
This is an article that is a bit painful to read when you are a person that loves to make plans and strategic decisions (like me). Chris Clark shares a conversation with Frederic Laloux about the steps that would normally follow a successful book like “Reinventing Orgnizations”. But Laloux keeps to his mindset shared in the book, refuses to make big plans and just has one major advice: Follow your personal answer to the question: “What’s next?” Where Is All This Teal Stuff Going? The Future of Reinventing Organizations.
Holacracy
A report from Dutch organisation Voys who has implemented Holacracy: People are working more, because they like their work, meetings are better and a boost of productivity ensued: “Is Holacracy our way forward or are we actually just making it harder for ourselves?”
Auf deutsch:
Kilian Kleinschmidt leitete Flüchtlingslager in aller Welt. Im Interview beschreibt er unter anderem, wie Menschen sich in diesen Lagern selbst organisieren, sich ihre individuellen Freiräume und damit ihre Würde selbst schaffen. Das tun sie oft gegen den Widerstand der Organisatoren, die Standardisierung und Kontrolle bevorzugen würden. Heute sagt er: “Es hat bei mir ein bisschen gedauert, bis ich begriffen habe, dass der Mut zum Chaos ein menschlicheres Miteinander ermöglicht.” „Arroganz des Helfens“
Links of the Week (Week 49/2015)
Here are our Links of the Week, curated from our link collection. In this week we focus on what makes us happy and satisfied at work. Continue reading Links of the Week (Week 49/2015)
Links of the Week (Week 48/2015)
Here are our Links of the Week, curated from our link collection.
Productivity
Business Planning
Good Work
This articles analyses how our understanding of the human nature shapes current workplaces and why this leads to unsatisfied humans. It has an illustrating example how economic incentives destroy the moral grounds of decent behavior. The author pleads for shaping workplaces that motivate people to do the (morally) right thing instead of the economic right thing. Psychologist Barry Schwartz on What Motivates Us to Work, Why Incentives Fail, and How Our Ideas About Human Nature Shape Who We Become.
Working Out Loud
Auf deutsch:
Die Bahn als innovatives Unternehmen? Im so genannten d.lab wird seit April kräftig experimentiert und entwickelt, um eine “Verbesserung des Kundenerlebnisses” herbeizuführen. Geschäftsführererin Kerstin Hartmann erklärt im Interview genauer, wie das gehen soll: Im Bahn-Labor der innovativen Ideen.
In der Ideenschmiede kann man übrigens mitmachen, vielleicht die Chance, gelegentlichen Bahnfrust in “konstruktive Bahnen” zu lenken?
Quotes of the Week (Week 47/2015)
This week, we offer you some quotes, curated from our link collection on Tumblr.
Seeing last week’s events, they take on a larger, deeper meaning for me. I always knew our work was relevant, but it may well be much more relevant than we thought.
Stay safe.
“Part of the problem seems to be that nobody these days is content to merely put their dent in the universe. No, they have to fucking own the universe. It’s not enough to be in the market, they have to dominate it. It’s not enough to serve customers, they have to capture them.” – RECONSIDER – Signal v. Noise
Links of the Week (Week 46/2015)
Here are our Links of the Week, curated from our link collection.
Leadership
Meetings
Organizational Development
Personal Development
Auf deutsch:
Links of the Week (Week 45/2015)
Here are our Links of the Week, curated from our link collection.
Holacracy
“So whether you decide to pursue Holacracy or not, you should take some time thinking about the issues that it brings to the fore and ask: If not Holacracy, then what?”
“Getting people involved and making them understand how to become entrepreneurial. I feel that in the long run this is most crucial and difficult part.”
Consulting
A love declaration to the white board. The article counts the pros of using a white board and explains its role in consulting work: Consulting confession: I love the white board.
“It makes the experience creative, tactile, interactive, and open-ended. It’s a running joke with my teams that I will take any opportunity to pickup a dry-erase pen and head towards the whiteboard – like a moth to a night light.”
“It organically grows what’s working, and rejects what isn’t. Yet there’s still one person holding the vision for the whole.”
Body & Mind
Auf deutsch:
“Nach einer verbreiteten Ansicht bedeutet erwachsen zu werden, dass man auf die eigenen Hoffnungen und Träume verzichtet und sich mit der Realität abfindet. Ich finde das nicht erwachsen, sondern trostlos.”
What is the Purpose of Consulting?
According to ourselves, it’s now:
“Organisations thriving, people loving their work, world saved.”
The world probably needs no saving, but until we have that absolutely clear, we’ll go ahead with this. Good enough for now.
For our organisation to thrive and myself to love my work more (and, finally, to save the world), we need a new Consulting Assistant, as Angela is taking new ways (staying with the company, doing new things).
It will be hard to replace her, but maybe you can do it.
If you would like to work with us: that is: the team of Structure & Process, with Martina (who is our Head of Consulting, Founder, and writing this) and with our community – business partners, clients, friends who care about people thriving in collaboration – please get in touch: “Join Us!” has details about the role and requirements. Please also forward this to people if someone comes to mind!