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Episode Transcript
Lisa: Okay, welcome all of you to the Leadermorphosis podcast. Thank you for being here. I wonder if, to start us off, if you could each introduce yourself and just say something brief about your role or roles in Deerns?
Miquel: Well, I can start. I’m Miquel. I am currently the coordinator outside, also seen as the managing director.
Blanca: My name is Blanca. Outside, I am People in Culture and Communications in Deerns of Spain. Inside, on the support team. I’m here to support, basically my colleagues on the people staff.
Pau: And I’m Pau. I am engineer, but in the past, I did a lot of different roles in the company, and now, the last years, I’m doing the engineer, micro engineer.
Lisa: Thank you. And I understand also Pau, that you’ve been quite an important role in terms of developing the governance and the structures also, right?
Pau: Yes, when we started with these changes in the company, I was part of the team that thought about the structures and how to do it. And it’s nice to participate in all of this. And now I’m thinking how to help in another way. So I think it’s always thinking about the company and thinking how you can help the company, and what do you like to do in this moment?
Lisa: Yeah, I think that will be a theme that we come back to in terms of things always changing and evolving and finding ways to contribute. So maybe if we rewind a bit and start at the beginning of the journey. I’d love to hear, you know what? What was the beginning for this process? You know? Why did you decide to explore this kind of different way of working? How did that happen? What was the spark?
Miquel: I think that’s for me, I think.
Blanca: Yes.
Miquel: Okay, so I start, and then you can continue. Actually, I come from the business of engineering during services for more than 20 years, and we’ve been struggling more or less with the same type of problems many times that at the end, well related with the relationships between the teams, between the teams and the client, with our maybe our external contractors or other stakeholders within the Business, within the industry.
What made me really look for other ways of organizing ourselves and working was obviously as it has happened in many of your interviews, Lisa, after reading Frederick Laloux and also I met the guys from K2K, and I did a seminar with them in actually, it was, I think, February 19, and, well, there really the spark took really certain dimension, even though I was completely unclear about how to approach it. The company is not ours, so we are simply staff members or employees and the stakeholders, the shareholders, are based in the Netherlands.
So the journey started. Then it was a journey that started smoothly, so I had to really understand if it made sense, if I was the right person, if the reasoning behind that was something related with something more personal, or really seeing the value for everyone. So it took me a while to do this personal journey, to understand, really the idea and the justification of that, and once I had it clear, I started my conversations with the board.
And it was a process that took also some time. They were completely not familiar with these new ways of working, and they were at the beginning, I could say the work could be surprised, and step by step, they were familiarizing. We did several meetings, agree on different phases so that once we completed every phase, I would come back to them and debrief on how it went and what were actually the conclusions to fail the next phase. And then we agreed on next phase, and like this, we really succeeded after, I think, four or five meetings.
And finally, it was just in March 2020, so really, when the lockdown started, that we could finally launch our process with a structure defined on how we wanted to work, an idea on the salary structure, very basic, extremely basic, and some key aspects that then I can see that they were very valuable, and they have been very valuable, especially more related with the soft understanding on how this can work than really some clear milestones on procedures or these kind of things. But this is really something that we have been building and building as time has gone by. So in 2020, clearly, I think Blanca was here, and Pau actually comes from long time within the company, so they have been also very active and taking an important role in this process.
Pau: I remember the day that Miquel explained to me the idea. So we were in the meeting room in the office, and he told me, “I participate in a seminar, and I want to create a self-management company here. Do you join us?” And I say, “Okay, I don’t know exactly what this means, but it’s okay. I think it’s interesting.” And I always like the team work and to create the team and it’s okay, it’s something similar. And then I started to read the books. I did the same seminar as Miquel, then I started to understand what this means. But this was my beginning in all these kind of companies.
Blanca: You were both already inside the company, the organization, when that was set or decided. But I remember I was told during my interview, it was June, May, June 19. I joined in June, and I was speaking with Miquel, and also Pau joined the interview, and they told me about this idea of creating this new organization system, etc. And I came from a traditional company, hierarchical traditional company. And I was like, okay, okay, that’s not true. It’s an idea they have, but it is not going to take place, or, you know, it will go nowhere.
But then I joined and step by step, we started taking actions. And until March 2020, as we said. Now, I remember saying, “Should we start remotely, or should we wait these two weeks that the government is saying that this is going to last?” And in the end, we said, “Let’s do it,” and in two weeks, “Let’s continue in the office.” You remember, and so it was like the worst moment.
But somehow it also helped in some parts, because we have two offices, Madrid and Barcelona, and sometimes we had some even if we were together and we are half and half and we we are the same, but there were some differences, like in Madrid office, in Madrid office, you do this, you do that. And with COVID and working from home, that disappeared without even trying, because there was no other way to do it.
And that is when we started working these groups that Pau was in. We had, like five groups with five, how do you say, goals for the new topics, house topics from the organization. And the first one, the biggest one, was the new structure. And it was open to anyone who wanted to collaborate on this. And it was amazing, because everyone, everybody almost wanted to collaborate in one of the five groups. I think, yeah, a lot of people.
Miquel: And since then, I could say, I mean, so it’s more than three years, and I have the feeling that we are always, always, always, like changing. It’s the last challenges we’re facing and we, we keep on. I think it’s the interesting, one of the interesting parts of this story, I think that we, we keep on evolving since the beginning,
Lisa: As I understand it as well, you had a moment almost of rebellion, where, you know, initially I think K2K proposed a structure. And am I right in thinking that at some point, you decided no, we want to develop our own thing, and we want to call it our own thing, and we want to make something that’s really ours. Can you say something about that?
Pau: I think I can, because I was in the structure group. Yes, we started, and we thought, in three meetings, we will have the structure. This will be easy. Don’t worry. We have clear what we can do. And it was okay, and we started the first, first and second day more or less well, we were improving, and the third day was very hard, very discussions.
And after that, I remember saying, “Okay, I think we are improving.” And the next person that talked after me said, “I’m not agree.” So K2K have the clear idea, but it’s not our idea, and we want to create this with the K2K help, but something that we understand and we feel that is ours. And we needed then four or six more meetings to try to have all the idea.
But for me, it was a very important day, because it was the first day that really we start to create our company. So a bad meeting, we find, we find a way to change the things. And I think it was very important that then all that happens after this, we feel that they are our company, that we are creating and that we can change things, that we can improve the company in the way that we understand that it’s better for us.
Blanca: We are very critical team in a good way. You know that we are never happy? We are never happy. I mean, we want always to reach more and to do things our way and very well, but I remember that it was almost done. I was not in that group. I was in another group. And they said, “No, we’re starting from zero.” And we were like, okay, depressive, but what is going on in there? That was at the very beginning.
But after a year, I think a year more with the help of K2K, there was also a moment where we changed some of the wording of our because we have a lot of groups and roles, and we had like “banners” which means values of the narratives, and we changed it for “values and culture”. So we followed them, but want to do it ourselves. And that was also like a moment that we felt that this structure was ours. So I think that the two moments made a big difference. I don’t know there.
Pau: There was another moment. Sorry, Miquel, that Miquel told us, “Can I help? Do you want to participate in this group and help you?” and the team said, “No, it’s our challenge, and we will do it. Don’t worry.” I remember these two.
Miquel: I think I completely agree. I mean, at the end, this feeling of ownership of or that your work has an impact, or your view has an impact. It’s been a process that has really been absolutely key for us. And what is interesting is that sometimes the decisions are not best, but others are taken and the commitment related to that decision.
So I think we have no doubt today that the structure that came out of those 6, 7, 8 meetings that Pau was saying was not best, and actually we suffered for some time due to the inefficiency, but clearly it created very strong bonding because it came and it was like this, because it was a response to what was, to where we were coming from. So we were doing something completely different that was also necessary because of the pandemic and the confinement so that it allowed a lot of interaction.
And it lasted maybe for one year and a half. And then we really had to change it, because it was completely messy and too liquid. In fact, no way, but maybe we improved performance a lot with a less efficient structure, but with a higher commitment. I would say.
Pau: It was sure not the best, but maybe it was the structure that we needed in that moment? Now we know that this was not the best, but in the worst moment, maybe we needed this structure.
Blanca: Because it broke with what we had before, absolutely. So maybe if we had started with a structure today, which is a bit more in four big groups, and we wouldn’t have felt that much the change, we would have said, “Ah, that’s not that different from what we are doing,” even if it is, I mean, there’s nothing. It has nothing to do with having like five directors, five business units, the isolation of each unit, but it was a big, big change, and especially for an engineering firm where a lot of people need more clarity.
Miquel: Evidence, clarity.
Blanca: I remember saying, “But how are we going?” The question, when we said that to this, because people had to vote for it, and the question was, “But how? What is the process? What is the method?” And we said, “No, we’re gonna do it. Learning by doing, you know.” And some engineers were like, “But what is the method again, you know?” So it was like an act of faith. I would say you need faith, because if you think of all the things that can go wrong, can go wrong, cannot go right at the first try, there’s a lot of things, because it’s something unknown.
Miquel: Yeah, and I think, in fact, this is happening. This happens even now. Blanca now, we are in a completely different situation. We are very successful financially speaking. I think the quality, the growth of the services that we do, the sectors, everything is really going very well, but we’re paying a high price with the effort of the team. And we can’t grow the size of the team because of the market conditions. But clients keep on being interested in the service we do.
So we are now the challenge is, how do we take care of ourselves? So I think that this faith that you were saying, or the trust is now we need to have trust on the fact that we can be very successful taking care of ourselves as well, taking clearly care of ourselves, physically, mentally, in every sense. And again, there are some limiting beliefs. And maybe because we are engineers, we have some more limiting beliefs that we have this pattern sometimes. But we need the manual. We need the procedures. But now the step is in this direction. Now let’s - this is where we are now.
Lisa: It’s reminding me of another organization I spoke to Mindera, which is a software development organization, and they talked about how important it is for them to involve people in shaping their processes. So for example, when they were designing their salary process, they had lots of different groups doing workshops, going off and thinking, you know, how could we do this differently, and what principles are important?
And they were saying that it takes a long time, you know, it’s a big investment in terms of time and energy and and what you design may not be perfect, you know, you might have to adapt it a year later, but I think in the long term, it really pays off, because, you know, like in your case, it’s owned, it’s our solution, you know, we came up with it together. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, we don’t have anyone else to blame but ourselves. And then we change it, we fix it, you know. So it has that, that payoff, I think, in terms of, yes, it’s kind of expensive in the beginning, but I think it has so much more power and impact, you know, in the long run, because you get that ownership from the beginning. Would you agree with that in your case?
Miquel: I think I fully agree, Lisa. There are many aspects that we have had to - we have been evolving, even the salaries. We are now on Monday, going to communicate some changes in the procedure that were decided yesterday in the steering committee, and we changed. Last time we changed was like six months ago. We review completely the salary tables, everything.
So in fact, I think since it’s something that is built together and it’s never perfect, it makes sense to adapt it, and it also makes everyone feel that it’s alive and it’s possible to change. It’s not like written in stone or a regulation that you need to attach to.
Blanca: And also, when you’re in a group, you’re in the steering committee, or values and culture, innovation, whatever, and you do something that is not perfect, or when your colleagues give you feedback or talk about it, it’s like, “I know you put a lot of effort on this, but I would…” you know, they are very considerate, because they have been in some teams too, and it’s not like when you are in a traditional company that is like, “Ah, why the five bosses are not doing this.”
You know, once you are in the for example, in the steering committee for a year, and you see how it works, and you see how difficult it is to take the decisions, to make everyone happy, and to think of everyone, you think twice before criticizing things. And this is something that I felt. I mean, I felt the difference from four years ago to now. It seems like we value more the work of each other, especially those who are in those groups, because we know that, yeah, we do it with pleasure, but it’s, it’s a bit of extra work, mentally, extra work to do these things.
Pau: Thanks. I think, how many people participated in the Pilotaje team when we started? Now, maybe 40% of the 50 or 40% of the people from the company participated in this team in some moments. So it’s a lot of people that understand how we take decisions and the difficulty that this is. So then when they are out of this team, they understand better what is the reason of the decision. So I think this is very important that a lot of different people are participating in these teams, not the production teams and other kind of teams, values or something like that.
Lisa: And the Pilotaje team, that’s like the team where you have representatives from other teams, right?
Miquel: Exactly. So there is a representative of each team, and it’s like we could be chair and executive committee where main decisions are taken, and all the representatives are chosen by the teams.
Blanca: Yeah, the day-to-day decisions are taken by the team. I mean, it’s impossible that the steering committee decides everything, because, also because we have a meeting once per month, and it’s a very structured meeting, like what things go to the steering committee and which things don’t, because they can be solved in the small teams, because it’s not that we decide everything there, but only the things that affect all of Deerns Spain.
Lisa: It’s not like a centralized team that’s controlling everything. It’s more just like a feedback loop and you have - but yes, decisions take place very locally in the teams, right? They have authority to make decisions.
Miquel: I like this idea of feedback loop, and also because we look for a balance between what’s happening in different teams.
Lisa: I wonder if we could go into an example, either salaries, or maybe some other process that you’ve developed in Deerns that, just to give listeners a bit of a picture of how it’s different from a traditional company?
Blanca: Maybe the salaries?
Miquel: It’s a juicy one, most interesting, very critical aspect. You want to start, or no?
Blanca: You can start. I’m thinking.
Miquel: Okay, okay, so basically it all started saying which should be the levels that make sense, salary levels. And we defined like three different skills that are needed for our business, that are technical knowledge, leadership and commercial skills. Commercial skills was in principle for the upper salary levels. And it started like very raw and simple, and now the table is like a big sheet of Excel with lots of descriptions.
We created a process to understand, where do you belong, what is the salary that corresponds to your skills, your development, and basically, in fact, it’s what you have demonstrated you can do. We basically do that. You have to demonstrate you have been doing that work for at least six months. And the way we work is, if you think you should correspond to a higher position, you submit your request to Pilotaje or to the steering committee, who will review it.
And normally, I mean the idea is that you have a discussion with your team to see if your team agrees on that. Then it goes to Pilotaje, and there the decision is taken. Sometimes the decisions are very complicated, because we look for, of course, I mean, we need to be as fair as possible. And sometimes, you know, it’s we are also valuing, putting in value diversity. And so the definitions are never, will never be perfect or accurate, and we also need to manage exceptions a lot, so we need to work it in the best possible way.
So one of the last learnings, for instance, has been that to make a submission of a new position, but Pilotaje rejects it for whatever reason it is, we are starting to consider it like we have a conflict, because this is a different vision of my performance between the team that is actually a representation of all the staff in the company and myself and not only my performance, but also my potential development.
So it can be hard for someone to submit an application and then that is not accepted. So when we pay that attention, really, the situation can be much more clear, much more possible to overcome and to reach an agreement and align in where each one understands that the evolution of each person is possible and to fill the belonging of the company together, so that the company takes care of yourself too. It’s not that it’s simply duty and pass the exam. That’s it.
Blanca: It’s so hard to receive like a rejection, but it’s also hard to say no from the steering committee, because we get along really well with everyone you know. When you have some friends in the company, and you have to be as subjective as possible, so it’s never easy.
But people appreciate when, when it’s a no, and then you say no, but let’s see, why do you think? Why do you consider yes? What can we do? And you start like a process of follow up with this person, especially if they are more junior, because sometimes they even, I remember they even write the request saying, “And but as you feel, or what do you think?” you know, as if they were asking for feedback more than the feedback that we have every year, which is normally more, right? And so it’s the opportunity also to pay attention to this person, this role, and see how can they develop or if they really feel that they are in a position that they shouldn’t be.
Pau: Yeah, I think it’s the transparency, because all the people know the position of the rest of the team, of the rest of the company now, so you can check if you are in the position like another person that are doing that same job as you. So surely it is most objective, and there are less wrong situations than in another kind of company that the boss and one people and one person decide which is your position in the team. No, so it’s more complicated, but it’s, I think it’s better.
And sometimes people are happy. I remember the last one that I dealt with, someone to say, “Okay, the Pilotaje agreed that you have to change your role” and he said, “It was very, very fast with your decision, only two minutes, and we all agree” and he was very happy for this, because all the Pilotaje in two minutes agreed that they can change the role. So sometimes it’s not the salary, it’s another thing that you understand that all the team are seeing what you are doing and how you are improving your work.
Blanca: From three years to now, I see that the submissions, the reactions are already very different. The first meeting we - I think we were all the first meeting of salary structure in the steering committee, and it’s high. You know, when you talk about money, and you talk about transparency, people feel really vulnerable, and it’s normal, you know? Everything was magical. Let’s create our structure. Let’s see how we want to develop people. And when you arrive to the fifth group, which was the salary group, everything changed, you know?
And I think that we are there more mature as a group, and we can propose things like what we’re going to propose on Monday that for me, were impossible three years ago, because it was like “No, no, that cannot be possible because people won’t understand what people want.” And now the trust is higher, and I think we trust the group more than at the beginning.
Lisa: So salaries are fully transparent. So I could see, or know what - how does that work? The scale?
Miquel: You know the levels.
Blanca: But for every level, there is only one number. It’s not -
Miquel: So you can guess.
Blanca: It’s quite clear. The only ones that are not fully transparent are a couple of positions, actually, that were having a salary higher than when the assessment was done, because when the change happened -
Miquel: But we agreed that no value would - I mean, if you had a salary before the change that was higher than the salary where the team thought you should be, there wouldn’t be any change. I mean, that was something that was agreed before, you know, and it’s like what happened before the new system stays. And from now on, let’s try to be more transparent.
Lisa: Yeah, fair. It’s interesting, because all self-managing organizations that I’ve spoken to do it differently. Some have completely transparent salaries. And they say, “Yeah, you know, we thought it was going to be a big deal, but we all revealed and it was fine.” For others that still feels too scary. And then they find ways, you know, as you have, to have transparency in some aspects, but not down to the detail and sometimes that stays, and sometimes that changes. So it’s interesting. Money, as you described, makes things very real, right? It’s not abstract, and suddenly it’s personal almost.
Miquel: Yeah, yeah, our system is made so there can be equality between the same positions in different teams, but you don’t need to go and see the payroll of that person. No, you just need to know that it’s fair.
Blanca: And it’s also a guide for recruiting people. That’s another thing. When you recruit people, and you tell them in the first call, I always tell them, “Look, this is how we work, this is the data. And we even have the salaries open,” because I don’t want surprises, you know, after this. And the candidates receive it really well. They are interested in that, at least interested. They want to know more. And then we continue.
Pau: And when someone is hired to a company all the team, it’s agreed with the salary that this person will have. So it’s a decision of the team. So all the people know it, and agree with it.
Lisa: I want to talk about two things that came up when we were talking about the salary process that you mentioned, which was feedback and conflict, because I know that you mentioned also about the kind of softer side of things, you know, the culture, the humanness, and not just the kind of processes. So I’m curious, you know, how have you approached that? And, you know, how would I, for example, as an individual, get feedback? Is that something that happens once a year? Does that happen more often? Is that something you were developing, and if there’s a conflict, how do you deal with that?
Miquel: So in terms of feedback, we realized, really, that this was a strong limitation in the way we were working. Because I would say that when we do have a boss, it’s easier if your boss is happy and he gives you a couple of nice words every month, that’s enough. You’re doing good work? But when you don’t have a boss, you’re simply working with a team that is doing the same you do, and they are always very occupied and doing the effort to short the part, it’s more challenging, and people, in a way, miss that recognition or that direction.
So I think it’s still work in progress, and we’ve done a couple of good things I would say, or at least, that people have liked and have allowed us to progress. We do group appraisals, so you give appraisal to all your members of the group. And this is not properly the self-managed teams. It’s groups that are stable in one business one area. So we do products or sectors. So we are aggregate of self-managed teams, and in this category, you give feedback to all others, and all others give feedback to you and there, a conversation is generated so I can ask for clarification, and all the others will maybe bring some more clarity, more context, more information, also for the group.
And from there, each one creates some commitments from the feedback he or she receives, and so we also take notes of that, and it’s for next meeting. And also it is like a group appraisal. Also, it’s not only for every member, but also, how is this group performing? What are the challenges? So what can we see? Because those challenges are maybe affecting every single member of the team. So you can really have a view on opportunities to work together.
So this is really very effective, and we are now working on the idea of mentoring, because it needs more so we and like career development or evolution, also as a person. So this is still in early stages. We also maybe we need to do not only once a year, but twice a year, these group appraisals - many things I mean. This is key, I think, for self-managed teams organizations, to have proper feedback. And it’s not as simple as in other types of organizations. We need to progress in that.
Blanca: The people that join Deerns, they have two appraisals per year, and it’s more individual. It’s not in their groups, but it’s because we need to check. First of all, this person needs feedback. Needs to know if they are performing well. And also, we as a group need to know if this person fits in, technically and as a human being. And after a year, this person, they join the group appraisals.
Which are, they are very beautiful. I mean, of course, there are things that they say to each other to improve, but people open themselves and they show their fears, you know. And then they say “No, but I have the same fear,” you know. And I remember some in your group where there were some people saying, “You look so confident.” And here the other person was like “Me? I am so insecure about what I do.” And the other one, “About what you say, you know.” And they find, in the end, you find out that what happens to you happens to others, and that the group can support you in this.
But yes, after three months again, they need feedback or recognition and we are trying to figure out how to - because we say “We’re doing it very well. You’re amazing. We have an amazing team.” And I keep repeating it, you know, technically and humanly. But there’s like, what else can we do? And it’s not about the salary, it’s not about the salary, it’s about, you know… Yeah, but we are going to be working on it now.
Last week, we had a meeting - once per year at least, we have a couple of days all together - this time in Barcelona, and we always have some discussion with an external consultant that help us improve the communication or our values, the union as a team, or this year, like with self-care we’re talking about. And so it’s always an opportunity to pick up the topics and work after these meetings, what people need. I say people, because what we need as a group, you know, sometimes I talk about the group as an entity, but because it is, you know, we are individuals, but the group is like a person. I don’t know how to say it with common needs. I don’t know.
Lisa: Did you, Pau, want to say something?
Pau: You explain it very well, and I see nothing to add.
Lisa: So you were also saying about conflict. So we’ve been working a little bit with mediators. Honestly, up until now, what has been more efficient for us is us stepping up so that the team of values and culture, being aware of where the risks in relationships are, and talking with the persons involved. And so it happens quite a lot. I mean, it’s a very dynamic team under stress, but there are many conflicts, I can tell.
And one of the things that we said in the last gathering, that Blanca is saying, is that we will need more support from outside, and maybe psychologists, maybe coaches, because sometimes also conflicts come from the way you manage your emotions, or you manage your work. So we need some support and also for mediation. I think it can be very good. I like when it’s possible that we speak with the people directly, and we also learn then, if it’s something internal, but we are growing a lot, we don’t have too much time, so we need support from the outside.
Blanca: It’s not that we have more conflicts than other companies. It’s that we talk about them, I think, because when we started saying, see to the values and culture team, said, “Come if you have any conflict, any” and then we had like five people coming, and at first I was a bit disappointed. I remember talking to Miquel saying, “Do we have that many problems?”
And then I thought, in other companies, maybe there will be a manager saying, “This person is a problem for the group, so for the team. So let’s fire this person” - extreme decision, you know, but that’s what will happen in a traditional company. And what we say is, like, “What is going on here? There are two opinions, and people raise their voice when before, maybe they just…”
[Note: At this point there was a technical problem in the recording and the last 15 minutes of the conversation were lost. The transcript picks up again with a later recording session with just Miquel.]
Lisa: So I’m really curious to know, like on a personal level as a human being, what has been most challenging for you throughout this process? You know, how have you developed or grown or transformed?
Miquel: For me, the biggest challenge I can think of is learning not to step in when there is some difficulty or some clear action needed, and it’s not happening and you see it - so letting the team take awareness and decide. And you know, I come from history, where there were some ups and downs. I went through a bankruptcy episode, and that made me a little bit reactive to some situations, so that was, especially during the first year, I would say, very challenging.
And in this sense, I think to manage this, it was very positive that we had Oscar from K2K, with us at the beginning especially in the steering committee, where he could, after that, give me some insights on how it was, and also about my behavior, this kind of thing. So this and also, together with some kind of self-awareness process, I think it helped.
And now that I’m alone, it’s only me responding, I think also meant the same. In a way, it’s a challenge for the rest, because sometimes when you know the dynamics of the groups are not as you would like - if you’re a member of a group and you see maybe someone that doesn’t have the same level of commitment, or someone that is taking a little bit too much authority and not letting the team work as we want to work. So also, it’s a challenge for them to kind of speak up and self-regulate, or this self-regulation for the team. This has always been a challenge and I think there’s still path to improve on us.
Lisa: How do you help each other if you notice that one of you is doing that, maybe stepping in too much, or stepping in when maybe it’s not the right time. How do you support each other to choose something else?
Miquel: We have this values and culture team who is kind of following up how things are evolving in the relationship within the teams and between teams, and when we see that there are issues, this team speaks to the members of the team that maybe raise the questions or directly because they didn’t raise but it is something that is quite evident.
And then it’s about creating the field for them to create, to have this capacity to respond and also awareness. Sometimes we need the help of third parties to support or organize kind of internal meetings with discussions and this sort of things. So it’s more creating the field for this awareness to be there and the people to react and take action.
Lisa: So it’s like the values and culture team might give some feedback or sort of raise awareness, like, support that person, and then maybe together explore how else they could be as a team, or like, that kind of thing?
Miquel: Exactly. They kind of support the team dynamics and they look for what is needed for them to find a way to overcome the difficulties that they have. There are some kind of procedures that we have on a continuous level. Now we are implementing the emotional KPIs, for instance. So we have the financial and we have the emotional and that allows to see what’s going on and when something’s not going on well, then there are actions to take and we are going to monitor also, what is the impact of these actions? If they are appropriate, maybe they were not appropriate, but they made an impact that was positive.
So this kind of things - the values and culture is really like the guardian of the way we want to work, the guardian. I mean.
Lisa: Yeah, yeah, the Guardians. I’m just curious, what are some examples of emotional KPIs?
Miquel: Well, we are working with a platform, and then it’s about how aligned is a team, if you agree with the kind of leadership, and also with how safe the place is, if well-being is there. So there are a number of elements that are measured every month, and we see the evolution of these numbers, and also from time to time with a deeper survey.
Lisa: Nice and I guess looking forward, what are you working on next? What are your hopes for Deerns Spain in the future?
Miquel: Honestly, I mean, we prepare our plan of - we call the plan of ideas and targets, which is combined or correlated with the budget for the overall corporate - but we work on a yearly basis, and so we don’t see like five years far, which product, which service we prefer to just evolve on what’s happening every moment or every year. So I cannot tell you in terms of financial markets or whatever.
But in terms of our evolution, I think we need to settle down a bit. I think we have all the principles working well, and there is clearly a story of success. But now what I would like is that we become a little bit more relaxed at the energy that we need to put to develop projects or to win successful projects or services, whatever - that we smoothly work more coherently, more united, more efficiently, in a way.
Because there’s been a lot of growth that has had a payoff of maybe people making too much effort that has been a little bit the difficulty, because everyone has his own freedom and responsibility, and when you take it very seriously, and it affects to how you feel, to your well-being, and maybe even physically sometimes. So well-being now, I think we need to kind of consolidate the way of working, making it smoother, maybe still growing, not that much. I think it would be still nice to develop new services, new markets, everything but settle down, really even increase our trust in the way we work. I think that’s what is next.
Lisa: That makes a lot of sense. It’s funny that a shadow side of many of these organizations that I speak to that are self-managing - and so you have people who are really engaged, like, “It’s our company, you know, we are building it, it’s ours, like we’re really passionate about it” - and the kind of shadow side of that is people at a danger of burning out sometimes, because suddenly when you don’t have holiday like a vacation allowance or a boss you have to ask permission from, then you have to set boundaries for yourself, almost. I’ve struggled with that, and I know, for example, in Buurtzorg in the Netherlands, that’s one of their challenges with the nurses, too. So you have these really passionate people so engaged and then you have to sort of together, figure out, how can we also take care of ourselves and each other and make sure we’re not taking too much responsibility.
Miquel: Exactly, exactly this is, I think, our biggest challenge now, and Pilotaje and culture team is creating some policies on how we should take care of ourselves. And now there is, I mean, there is a draft of one that says we should have unlimited vacations. So that we shouldn’t put a limit on how many days of vacation we have, because we know the team is committed to the work.
So it’s not about controlling or counting the number of hours that you work. It’s more about you do your work. You take the rest you need. We want, and you’re accountable for the results with the team as everyone but it’s, it’s you. When you need a rest, you should take the rest. And it’s all about this, how we manage, also the emails on weekend, overnight, this kind of things.
Lisa: Yeah, I also, in what you were saying, kind of recognize the challenge of in the first couple of years, you know, you’re almost spending as much or even more time working on the organization as working in the organization, you know, like you’re building the car as you’re driving it? So it’s sort of rewarding and nice, I guess, to get to a stage where the car is pretty much built now, and we’re doing little tweaks, which doesn’t take so much energy.
Miquel: Yes, yeah. And still, there is a lot of work to do.
Lisa: Sure, always, forever. Yeah, exactly. So thinking of people listening to this, who are on their own journeys of exploring new ways of working, maybe they’re in their own organizations trying out some of these ideas, what would your advice be to them? Or if you could give them a piece of wisdom that you wish someone had told you at the start of the journey, what would you say?
Miquel: Well, I think what I would - I think one of the things I value the most, and I think when you have this insight, then it brings more sense to make the effort for this transition - is to realize about the power of the collective. How in this world that now there is a lot of confrontation, there is always us and them, and there is, I mean, there is a need to self-defend in a way about so many threats.
I think that when you create a collective and it is based on trust and not a naive understanding of trust, no, it’s a conscious understanding of trust. So there is a lot of power when you can create a collective that understands or tries to understand each other, let me say, better, like this, and works together on shared goals.
When in this collective, I see that there is, for instance, for decision making, when there is this level of responsibility and everyone can bring his piece of understanding, or if it is not his subject, no need to bring anything, but when you can create an image of the different members of the team with the review, people working, maybe doing some more basic parts of the work at a certain stage, or others having the view of the client or the view of the process itself.
So I think the decision can be much more strong and can be, I mean, strongly approved that will bring somewhere better and much easier than as a team of directors, sometimes taking decision on something that they are not really that familiar with.
So also, I see that the collective when there is this value of freedom for people to develop in different directions. So if you have a group of people that have this ambition or this wish to develop in areas, and this is transparent, and we can see what works, what doesn’t work, then all the organization starts growing. And when this happens, it’s for the benefit of the people that grow in that direction, but for the benefit of everyone, it also becomes much more resilient. That’s another thing.
So at the end, in a period when where there is a lot of uncertainty and circumstances can change very easily. So if the organization grows and expands on a way to new areas, it becomes stronger. It’s this collective of people working in a shared understanding of how we relate to each other and what we want that, I think it’s very strong. So that’s kind of my message. I would say.
Lisa: Yeah. It’s like, I want people to hold on to that. You know, when it can be really challenging and you think, “Oh, my God, are we ever gonna figure this out?” It’s like, that’s what we’re aiming for, right? Is there anything else that you want to share with listeners that you would be sad if you didn’t say it?
Miquel: Really, I think there is opportunity to work in a different way. Now I am also interested in the diffusion of this way of working, which I know I said it the other day, but it’s not the only way that is successful and that brings meaning, but it’s a way that, to me, makes sense and can be very successful.
So I think we, especially also maybe your listeners know that we should make an effort to make it more present and do a diffusion more conscious of that. So I’m actually now meeting other companies, just for them to know how we work, not pretending anymore, but just inspiring. So I think it’s very inspirational as Frederick Laloux was very inspirational for me at the early journeys.
Now, I mean, with all what’s happening since he wrote the book, there are many more opportunities to inspire others, and at the end is what you’re doing, Lisa.
