More common good please! This was the topic of our first impulse workshop on the subject of corporate vision. On the second day of the workshop, we took four hours to work out Raidboxes' contribution to the common good. Imitation desired!

The consequences of climate change are now also being felt on our own doorstep, for example through enormous droughts, flooding, storms and forest fires. Politicians will not be able to solve the problem alone. Everyone is needed! Companies in particular can play a special role with their great influence.

In 2018, we therefore gave a lot of thought to how we could make Raidboxes more meaningful step by step and do even more for the common good. The first step was our impulse workshop, which made everyone want to get more involved. The following article shows how you too can develop the topic of meaningfulness and a focus on the common good as a workshop in your company.  

The workshop in five steps

• Set context and explain the "why"
• Working on the mission
• Common good / Surplus check
• Formulating the vision
• Purpose Statement

Step 1: Set context and explain the why | 20 min.

It is very helpful for the workshop leader - in this case me - to have already dealt with sustainability and purpose. To familiarize yourself, I recommend the reading I listed at the end of Part 1.

After all, it is the task of the person in charge to set the context for the workshop and explain why the topic is being addressed in the first place. You can't simply expect everyone to be motivated to get down to business if it's not clear what the overall context is.

It is important for the workshop to clarify the terminology. A lot of things are usually mixed up here. It is important to explain how you understand it in your company. In my opinion, it is important to have a good balance. I understand the terms to mean the following:

Turnover - as a symbol for an economic indicator - is particularly important for investors, employees, founders and suppliers. A company without significant sales cannot operate sustainably. In my view, it is therefore absolutely legitimate, in fact essential, to focus on this figure, especially at the beginning. Turnover and profitability create the basis and the security needed to be able to operate sustainably.

The mission is primarily aimed at customers. Our mission is to create freedom for our customers, partners and employees. Society has nothing to gain from this. At the same time, decisions can be bad for the mission in purely economic terms if only short-term profits are taken into account.

In my view, the vision is almost completely geared towards society. In the article on Workshop Part 1, I explain the criteria for a good vision.

The purpose combines the mission and the vision in a joint statement. In my view, certain purpose statements are more of a mission. The important thing here is simply to make it clear what you mean by the terms.

Important: In my view, an organization can always continue to develop in order to serve society to a high degree in the final stage. However, this first requires that the company creates high value for its customers (mission) and that they are willing to spend money on it (sales). As an organization, you therefore always have to manage a certain trade-off and cannot swing completely in one direction (e.g. only the common good).

Furthermore, there is a structural problem with capitalism in our society. This has been known in economics for a very long time and has been a topic for ages. Private individuals often make profits at the expense of the general public. Negative external effects such as climate change are paid for by the general public, for example with billions in subsidies for crop losses in 2018. These should actually be priced in and significantly reduce profits.

Example Lufthansa

The example of Lufthansa illustrates this a little. I don't want to make any direct accusations against Lufthansa in particular. The problem exists throughout the entire aviation industry and other sectors.

Whereas normal petrol and diesel for cars and trucks are subject to at least 30% tax, there is no tax on kerosene. In addition, emissions trading for long-haul flights, which are largely responsible for CO2, has been suspended.

As kerosene is one of the main cost factors alongside personnel and depreciation, it is easy to calculate what would happen to the profit of 3.3 billion euros if this cost factor were to become 20 to 30 percent more expensive. It would definitely be reduced even with certain price increases. Travelers would in turn pay "real" prices.

If aviation is a negative example here, you can imagine what would happen if every company served not only its customers and direct stakeholders, but also the general public. What would happen if it is socially desirable for companies to serve the common good and this is not just a voluntary side effect?

As a society, we accept that the invisible hand takes the common good into its own hands. It would be better if everyone was committed to working towards this.

The result would be that corporations and a broad mass of small and medium-sized enterprises would contribute to positive change instead of being forced by politicians to reduce the negative effects somewhat.

Workshop ToDos

This is where the Economy for the Common Good comes in, which will become relevant in part 3 of the workshop. As a workshop leader, you should be able to present this topic in a short talk. To prepare for this, I recommend reading the book Economy for the Common Good by Christian Felber.

Step 2: Work on the mission | 1 hour

In the founding team, we have often thought about our mission in small groups. However, we have never discussed it as a team.

The first question was therefore whether everyone felt emotionally comfortable with the mission of "giving creative people more freedom" and understood it in the same way.

The discussion here was open-ended and I, as the workshop leader, was also able to make statements. However, as the workshop leader, you are primarily responsible for working towards a consensus and, if necessary, better synchronizing different words that may mean the same thing.

Results of the workshop unit

After our discussion, our mission was modified as follows:

To give you more freedom

The team was much more comfortable with the term "Freiraum" than with the term "Freiheit" and we replaced the unclear meaning of "Kreative", which was very broad in our case anyway, with the word "Dir". Knowing full well that this also refers to us as a team.

Bringing the mission to life

What is a mission on paper worth if it is not lived by? The next question to be asked is therefore:

Have there ever been situations where we have decided in favor of our mission?

This question is extremely important. Because if no decisions are made after a mission, it is worth nothing.

Write this question on a flipchart and collect examples. I myself was pleasantly surprised at how many cases came together. The best example for us is the implementation of "domains" and "emails". Our customers have always wanted these features to give them more freedom. In purely economic terms, however, these are rather unfavorable for us.

If there are too few examples, ask everyone why this is the case and what could be changed in everyday life.

Discussion of a real-life example

However, the most effective tool is to discuss a real example where part of the team may have decided against the mission.

For us, specifically:

"Should a customer have the option of independently adjusting the payment interval downwards from six to three months, for example?"

Business administration has a clear answer here and in a discussion in a smaller group before the workshop, this perspective won out. The customer should not be given the option, as this means less money is available to the company.

Immediately after we became more aware of our mission here, the answer in the group was clear: "Of course we want to give our customers the freedom to decide for themselves which payment interval they want to choose."

Probably our most important conclusion for everyday life: Every Raidboxes team member can use our mission as an argument for decisions!

After this unit of the workshop, everyone knew our mission. More importantly, everyone now had permission to use it when making business decisions.  

Shortly afterwards, we had a discussion about the procedure for PHP updates. Are customers themselves responsible for carrying them out and are they obliged to do so? This would definitely be the simpler solution for us.

Taking our mission into account, the result was that we developed a check mechanism for the PHP update that automatically checks after an auto-update and restores the old version if necessary. At the same time, our customers are given the freedom to keep their old, somewhat insecure PHP version in the event of problems.

Break

Breaks are a must. It is important to be able to take a deep breath after a certain amount of input and strenuous discussions.  

Step 3: Common good and surplus check | 1 hour

The next workshop section is about sensitizing the team to the different areas of sustainability. The common good balance sheet is ideal in this context, as it takes a 360-degree view of an organization and at the same time is an open yet highly developed tool for evaluating sustainability.

This is a welcome change for the participants, as the workshop format changes from a discussion to group work.

Workshop ToDos

The procedure is as follows:

• Briefing on the common good balance sheet and explanation of the categories
• Common good balance sheet Quick test in groups of 2 to 3 with assessment of the status quo and improvement measures
• Brief presentation of the results in the group

As an additional aid for the group work, there was an agency's common good balance sheet, which provided a very concise overview. The public value balance sheet workbook was also available for the details.

First results of the workshop unit

Overall, this aspect has led to an initial awareness of the issues.

One particularly positive outcome of the workshop was the team's first fundraising campaign for disadvantaged families over the Christmas period. In addition, on the initiative of Leefke and Virginia, our BiteBox, which contains individually wrapped snacks, has been replaced by large jars of sweets, which we fill with healthy snacks from the supermarket to reduce packaging waste.

Overall, this aspect has led to an initial awareness of the issues.

In my opinion, this shows very clearly that it is important to make it clear from the management level that sustainability is expressly desired and can be implemented.

However, larger areas such as the introduction of an employee participation program and the recording of working hours to document and reduce overtime were also introduced.

Overtime was a particular point of discussion in the assessment of the common good balance sheet, as the consensus of the team was that it was normal to work a lot in a startup. While this may be true, it reduces the value of the common good balance sheet and measures should be taken to improve in this area in the short to medium term.

Step 4: Formulating a vision | 45 min.

The last unit of the workshop was a short session of individual work.

Everyone was able to answer the above questions for themselves in writing. Guided meditations can also help to emotionally transport you into the future, especially when developing a corporate vision. It is important to imagine yourself in the distant future, at least 10 years from now.

I consider the second question "What points can we implement today to take the first steps?" to be just as important. This has already led to some points being implemented.

At the end, everyone transferred their vision into a joint document and presented it to the group.

Results of the workshop unit

Overall, this part of the workshop produced the fewest concrete results that are noticeable in everyday life. In my opinion, it is therefore necessary for the management to continue working on the concretization of the vision and to incorporate it into the corporate strategy.

In our specific case, this means:

How do we contribute to more equal opportunities with Raidboxes?

The concise statement comes from part 1 of the workshop. Part 2 helped to identify a variety of ways to make this possible.

There was particular agreement on offering free hosting to initiatives and non-profit associations in order to contribute to more equal opportunities. There is already some sponsorship in this area, but this should be expanded further.

Step 5: Formulate purpose statement

Unfortunately, we didn't get to the last step due to time constraints and are only taking it up again this year.

Overall, the timing was very ambitious and required active moderation from me as the workshop leader. The sessions could theoretically also be held over a period of four weeks for one hour each, with a five-minute repetition of the first part.

In my opinion, the purpose statement wonderfully combines the perspectives of customers and society in one concise statement. This enables better communication between all parties involved and, just like the mission, creates the opportunity to refer to it in everyday life.

Conclusion: Walk the talk

Everyone rightly made fun of this picture. Nevertheless, I think it makes it clear what it's all about. You won't save the world in four hours. Not even in four days. It's important to take the first steps and keep going. It's a marathon!

We have achieved all the goals of the workshop and it has already had a positive impact on our everyday lives. This is already a great success. At the same time, the workshop gave us an idea of how we can shape positive change as the company grows. And this makes us want to do more and gives our work an even deeper meaning.

Conclusion: Copying and replicating is expressly encouraged! If you have any questions or feedback, please leave me a comment.