Corporate Rebels in Berlin
- inspiration to continue the work evolution
Back in March I attended Rebels’ event in Berlin
and I walked away buzzing with energy from the inspirational stories and people I met! Fifty rebels (and wannabe rebels) came together from Germany and all over Europe to rock the boat of established businesses and like me — to get inspiration to continue the work evolution.
It was truly heartwarming to see what workplace experiments are already taking place in small and big organisations alike.
For those of you new to Corporate Rebels, they started in a little apartment in Eindhoven in The Netherlands three years ago. Disillusioned with corporate life (like so many of us — Gallup’s numbers show 87% of work disengagement worldwide), founders Pim and Joost started traveling to learn from organizations around the world who were trying different and new approaches at work.
For the Berlin event I attended, the focus was around the Corporate Rebels’ Canvas — a collection of the 8 trends they have found after visiting nearly 100 companies.
So many colorful stories
I was so energized by the stories linked to the 8 trends I heard over the course of the day, here’s a handful of my favorites:
* Restaurant management who walk the talk of leadership values and ask their staff : “What do you need from me?” At Zingerman’s, CEO Ari Weinzweig pours water for his customers showing Supportive Leadership (trend #3) and a genuine interest in what the front line of his business thinks, feels and needs.
* Corporate Rebels are invites to surf the morning waves with Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard to kickstart a conversation on what the outdoor gear company believes in as a Purpose Driven (trend #1) business.
* How Frank Van Massenhove as the new head of the Ministry of Social Security in Belgium asks his team: “What do you need for this to be an engaging workplace?” Based on the answer the team makes Freedom and Trust (trend #5) central to the organisation — leading to experimenting with full freedom for work hours and work location (do work from home, office or anywhere).
In this video Pim de Morree shares how the organizational transformation at the Belgium ministry is one of the bravest of the many companies Corporate Rebel have visited (I also asked Pim what it takes to make it to their bucket list!)
Not just a day of “feel-good” storytelling…
Apart from the inspiring stories, the day was also a call to action. We brainstormed how we can all make space for similar revolutions to happen at our own workplaces. How to let a managed process truly go viral, and how to not get in the way by planning out a organizational change but instead democratically opening it up for any interested person to step in and take ownership. And maybe hack the process!
Work experimentations like these have a ripple effect.
Conversations with folks in the cocktail hour (though we were in Germany so this was more of a beer hour) gave further fuel to my learning! Some folks came from very established pharmaceutical companies, others from public infrastructure companies or community based food groups — all pushing the boundaries and giving wonderful testaments to the powerful experiments which are happening more and more.
You’ll meet some of those people in future LEAP Lab interviews.
You could call LEAP Lab a miniature Corporate Rebels initiative, though LEAP Lab is more focusing on the process of radical work experiments, the growing pains, the messy part more than the finished, picture-perfect results.
This is a journey of questioning, starting with our places of work, to improve and create real life long engagement (and improve those heartening Gallup numbers). The workplace hacking never ends.
