The Company Compass

I actually wanted you to comment on what you just said off record. Why are you laughing? I can't get serious at the moment. Having problems to get into the podcasting mode. That's probably because we're finally meeting again in person. Yeah, you're right. I didn't know that I can't take you serious when we're in person. I'm kidding. That's just because I haven't had my hair cut this week. Yeah, neither have I for months, but a different topic. But Christian, just for everyone, let's make this podcast a little bit visual. Close your eyes. Maybe you've seen a picture of Christian Struncki somewhere on our website or on our social medias. Struncki lives the dream. It's time to go to the lake. So Struncki is probably, if you think in like color scheme, like colors, HSB, Hue, Saturation, Brightness, where I'm like a brightness of 100. Struncki's tan is currently a brightness of 15. That's how tan he is. I would say so, yeah. Cool. So we now put you on a HSB brightness range. And I'm glad that you finally start with people's imagination, Alex. Yeah. I mean, I think it's such, it's actually a bummer, right? To just listen to something. It's okay. Maybe it's also connected to the fact that I meditated this morning and I was like listening to my breathings and closing my eyes and I mean, imagination. You know that this is also part of psychotherapy, right? Bringing people into the current moment away from their past or future. Are you in the current moment? I am. And I have a topic to talk to you about today. Well then, shoot it. So I was recently reading a great book, which is called the Organizational Compass, although it's a German book. And it's a really good leadership book to help leadership teams to clearly define the purpose of a company as well as a great plan to execute with a cool framework. And I was just, yeah, I am happy to talk about it today with you. And I'm also curious to hear your opinion. Okay. I mean, I have to admit that I'm not familiar with that framework. So you probably have to explain it a little bit more before I can give you any personal impression or feedback on it. So what I really like is that it's based on the medicine wheel. I'm not sure if you have heard about it. So ancient cultures were working with something called medicine wheel. It's actually a wheel that consists of five parts. So you have like a little wheel in the center, and then you have around it four big parts, which represents north, east, south, and west. So first of all, it sounds a little bit like spiritually, a spiritual thingy, like alternative medicine stuff. Or sailing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And when I heard about it, I was also like, what's going on right now? But actually, I've made a therapist, and he and I had to lead a workshop together. And we wanted to prepare it, so we decided to meet. And he said, okay, I am bringing moderation cards and stuff like that. And I was like, oh my gosh, what's coming, you know? So like this typical Scrum Master shit, you know? So anyway, so this guy came and he showed me this medicine wheel. And we did that exercise before I dive into it, and afterwards, I was mind blown. It was like such a great structured way to define how we define that workshop. So yeah, that's why I'm just motivated to talk about it today, first of all. Yeah, that sounds great. So you were saying it's about defining the purpose as a company, or when would I use this framework? So there are different ways how you can use that framework. And I think by explaining it, you can use your imagination where you can apply it, Alex. So the thing is, the first thing you do, like, let's take that moderation we did together. So we were leading a workshop, doesn't matter what the topic is. And we just came together and asked ourselves, first of all, what's the purpose of doing that? I think, like, especially for companies these days, having a purpose is a good thing or should be in place. So many companies also define it as a mission. I think the purpose is similar to it, but still a little bit different because the purpose rather says why we are here, while the mission rather says what we want to accomplish. That's how I would define it. But I'm happy to get challenged by you. Well, I have to admit that most of the time, when we talk about like these, oh, mission, purpose, vision, and so on, I tend to Google it. I mean, you know that I struggle like with these like, oh, okay, this term, the exact meaning and so on. Because for me, it's like always, okay, logically, like, what do I want to do, right? That's why I'm also not like the biggest advocate when it comes to, oh, this framework or that framework, right? It's like really more, okay, the goal in mind, what do we need to do? We need to align people. We need to align people behind something that we do. And I mean, yes, it could be, what are we trying to achieve? Like where do we want to get? It could be, why do we exist? I mean, I think those are all good things or helpful things that are important to define, especially to create a common understanding of why we do certain things, right? So call it purpose, call it mission, use both, right? I mean, I think nothing speaks against having something that's a little bit like more on the existence versus some goals that we want to achieve. I think one is a little bit more, maybe you can also elaborate on this, but one feels a little bit more in the now, like why do we exist? The other one is a little bit more future thinking, where do we want to go? It's like really also for us to define the future and to have some ambition to get somewhere. I would even say one is maybe the past, right? The purpose is usually a thing in the past, especially for traditional companies. But as you said, I would say, I mean, as always, and we have discussed this many times in this podcast, starting with why. So and this is exactly what you do. So you start first of all with why, and then you move on to the north side of that wheel, which is about leadership and roles. And what we did after we defined the purpose was discussing what are the roles within that group. So what are our roles, what are we doing, who of us individually is playing which part in that leadership role within that group that we were leading. So we spent some time and also wrote down, by the way, how we want to interact and what our roles are and also what the roles of the other people are who are attending, which you could also maybe break down to your own team as a team leader, for example. So yeah, that was then the second part after we defined the purpose. And then we moved on to the east side, which stands for vision. So we discussed, okay, what is the vision of what we're doing, especially when we look at the bigger picture and go beyond that one workshop that we were leading together. So we also spent some time to think about what we want to accomplish in the future and what the bigger reason is behind it. And as you maybe know, I have also written a product vision article, which is one of the most read articles by now, where I'm also saying, usually you go between three and five years if you do this within a company context. And it's actually like, it happened a couple of times that I, again, because I sometimes need like, okay, what's the theory behind what I'm doing, especially when talking to others and I had to Google product vision a couple of times and guess who is one of the first results. So well done, Mr. SEO. Thank you. However, moving on. So after we've defined a purpose, the roles and then the vision, you go to the south, which is community. So for whom are we doing this? Who are the people involved? And if you also go beyond that, on a bigger scale, who else is involved or profiting from the work that you are doing within your team, for example, right? Because it usually derives then to the customers, to society, et cetera, if we look at it from a company's angle. And after that comes the tricky part. So we have now defined four parts of that wheel. And before we go to the west side, which stands for management, by the way, you review the other parts and ask yourself if you really like what you have written down or not. So and that's actually the part where, yeah, that many people don't do right. So they maybe spend some time on defining something, but then without challenging it, they jump to the execution. I mean, even though they are, let's say, 90 percent. Was I advised by time further in the process? They further in the process. I forgot the sentence. Even if they are 90 percent further in the process than many others, it's still important to take a look back and review what you have done and what you have defined. But so again, I'm just trying to follow. North was leadership? North is role and leadership. East is vision. I mean, you can look north of Scandinavia where everything is very clear, right? Then you have the east side, which is the, let's say, Chinese visionary side. Then you have the south side, which is more like the sunny side of the world, Italy, Italy, the communities staying together. Then you have the west side, like the Americans, which is pure management. And where do you draw the line between leadership and management? You draw the line between everything and management. Okay. So you review the purpose, the leadership and role. You review the vision and you review also the community aspect. And if you are fine with everything, if you say, okay, that's what we want. That's what we need. That's what we are addressing here. Then you go to the execution, which is then the management part. And then you spend time in how to break down the work and what you want to build. So a lot of talk right now, but I was just, once I was doing that exercise with that guy, I was like, well, if you would do that within a company with a leadership team or with your design team or an engineering team for that is working for a specific domain, you could go crazy. And actually, if you do a workshop like that, it's not like theoretical bullshit. Everyone is actively working on a bigger thing. So I was actually quite impressed about it. It sounds like something that we could also try and do for the podcast once. And maybe we set up a template. Actually, that's a good idea. We could actually record that session with video so that people don't have to imagine everything. Yeah. I create a Figma template that we can publicly share with everyone if they want to play around with it. And we document how we get there and what our outcome is. Maybe it changes our format. Do we want to use Notion? Let's use Notion for everything and make a product out of it. We were just discussing Notion a couple of minutes before we started recording this episode. I mean, it's a good point. We could make a chat about that, right? Because I think what's interesting is that Notion, I mean, while it's pretty much like a tool for note-taking that developed into a tool that also can be used for documentation and so on, I see more and more people using it for their own websites, building whole products on it that they then sell to others. So I mean, it's an interesting product. I wonder if that was ever planned like that when they first came up with the idea of building that. Definitely multi-usage in that case. Indeed. However, any particular thoughts on that framework from you besides the interest of doing it? I mean, I think the interest is just to say that I think it's kind of interesting to break it down into these four different steps, right? I think especially when you want to kind of, again, group people around and make sure that everyone is kind of on the same page. It's always important to have like these sort of workshops, right? And you can do them very freestyle where they often go in the wrong direction because you just have like a lot of different people throwing a lot of different things in and so on. It's always hard to facilitate those meetings when they are too free or especially like when trying to look at something as broad as a vision or a purpose, right? People tend to then fall into, okay, the execution modes, the actual strategy for the execution. So I mean, it does sound like an easy way to break it down. But yeah, I think it would be fun to try it out and then see. You seem excited. Yeah, I am. And I was just actually thinking of trying it also out with some companies in the next time. And I'm more than happy to share the results. So I would say we can definitely follow up on that. We can share any additional materials on our website once we have them. Make sure to follow us, subscribe and check out all our social media channels, our website to not miss out anything. Well, Alex, then I would say let's continue the discussion about the beautiful watch that you are wearing, by the way. Watches. To everyone else, have a good day. By the way, do you know that the watch market is currently crashing? All those crypto guys that are currently like losing their money sell the watches that they bought as a speculation. That's bullshit. I can't believe that. The Nautilus from Patek Philippe is like down from, I think, 400 something to 350k. Well, yeah, Rolex also has a slight dip, yeah. I mean, out of interest for my watch collection, can you check Casio? Worth a watch? The most bought watch in the tech scene, the tech scene. Or the Apple Watch. Yeah, let me check. Is there a Casio? The G-Shock. Wow. Yeah. Okay. I think we're drifting away in this podcast. That's not a watch podcast, Alex. I think it's over. Okay. Casio is only 10 euros. Go buy Casios. And with that said, have a beautiful evening. Bye bye.