This is what we share at VillageOffice to create a common culture
How to make sure the background from where your vision of the business comes from as a co-founder is understood, challenged and shared in an healthy way?
What books, videos, blogs, podcasts, to share and discuss? What about events and meet-ups to learn differently from peers? And more importantly, what other things to do and try to foster the emergence of strong, shared, owned by the whole team, values and purpose? And a bit more about VillageOffice and why I co-founded this.
We have been toying around with these questions for a couple months here at VillageOffice, a very young company. My first take at it as one of our co-founders and storytellers, is to share with you some elements about our nascent culture as a team. Because, as the old saying goes, “you are what you share”.
The hard work on values and purpose
Internally, several efforts have been made and spear-headed by several co-founders of VillageOffice. Because of the very diverse backgrounds and experiences of a 9-member co-founding team trying to get a new business of the ground, working remotely, and lacking time for face-to-face philosophical conversations, it is a hard piece of work. By the way, most of us only met last January for the first time.
For instance, Dave managed to get us paint something together. I mean, for those who do not have kids and do not paint as a hobby or an art, like me, when was the last time you actually painted something as a collective piece of creativity, and had to wash the brushes and your hands afterwards? It was the climax of a 2-day retreat in Basel, where we also stayed overnight together in the same huge, great AirBnB, had an epic team-made breakfast and worked a lot on knowing each other better. A defining moment in this team, like our very first gathering in Ftan was, and a needed one considering the challenges ahead.
We got some important help in this process from Gertraud, you should check her out. Some awesome craft beers in an old local brewery helped team building, too.
Jean, another member of our co-founding team, has a very specific holacracy role he energizes in our organisation, a tough one: he is our “Value Steward”. Here are our values, the way he first drafted them:
Transparency
- We are transparent
- We speak the truth and are open to each other’s ideas
- We do not hide our mistakes or problems, but rather share and accept them
- We manage our organization transparently, according to the principles of holacracy
Justice
- We treat members, the community and customers fairly
- We are aware of the impact that our actions have on the local or global environment
Humanity
- The human being is at the centre
- We help each other and take care of our members
- Our goal is not to get rich, but rather to provide people with better working, living and environmental conditions
Trust
- We trust each other more than processes
- We build trust instead of controlling processes
Serve
- We serve our customers and members in a better way than any other organization
- We are showing people that it is possible to change the way things are
Now that our one-year planned pilot phase is starting, more things are coming and challenging that preliminary work from the product and service design efforts we are deep into. That means we will probably have more to share about our culture, and the culture of the community of partners and customers we started building, in the upcoming weeks.
The books you need your co-founders to read and comment
Here are the ones that are kind of mandatory to have a productive conversation about coworking and develop together a business about it that is human-centered, if you ever need/want to work with me (run away, you fools):
- The Thank You Economy, Gary Vaynerchuck,
- The Coworking Handbook, Ramon Suarez (and more),
- Tiers-Lieux et plus si affinités (FR), Antoine Burret,
- Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration, by the Stanford’s d school founders,
- Design is a Job, Mike Monteiro (the follow-up Webstock ’13 talk and the follow-up book).
In the meantime, my co-founders started to share some others I have to read or re-read urgently:
- Reinventing Organizations, Frédéric Laloux (we aim to become a teal organization),
- Drive, Daniel Pink,
- Rework, Jason Fried (you should read him on Medium too).
And because of our governance and impact-measurement systems:
- Holacracy, Brian Robertson (this is our governance system),
- The B Corp Handbook, Ryan Honeyman (we are the first Swiss “Certified B Corp Pending”, aka members of the Junior League of the less than one-year-old companies who successfully started the B Corp journey).
When I double check that list, I have a big tension: no women as authors. I asked the crowd about it, please help me here.
The videos you can’t help yourself sharing with all the stakeholders involved in a new project
I tend to stick with these three powerful TED talks:
Bonus: A great example of how to share great videos/movies smoothly with your team is the Handpicked list of great movies and talks screened during the BBC UX&D Film Club on Medium, discovered thanks to one of the UX Romandie meetup (our vibrant local IxDA chapter in Lausanne, see below) I attended this year.
The blogs, podcasts, community events and flow of information worthy to be closely followed: get out, listen and learn from peers, and spread the word to a benevolent crowd
- Dangerously Awesome’s recommended readings for community leaders and the Coworking Weekly Podcast, by Alex Hillman et al.,
- Your local ResponsiveOrg and Hacks/Hackers meetups,
- The Coworking Europe Conference (and its sibling The Social Workplace), and any GCUC near you,
- To keep a vibe of what’s new in the local web and design community, UX Romandie (and UX Lausanne), or your local IxDA chapter,
- For a good dose of hustle, the #AskGaryVee show,
- Deskmag for their annual community survey and the photo inspiration,
- Some sociology and business scientists getting it: coworking.ch member Alexandra Bernhardt gathered a great list. You might also want to check what is happening at the Harvard Business School Digital Initiative Organization Lab.
This is what I am sharing with my co-founders, and a bit of what they shared with me, in the first months of VillageOffice, with a very diverse team. What are your special culture and team spirit nuggets?
Bonus: why even read books?
Bonus #2: talking about sharing, we just released our Bylaws as a Swiss Cooperative in German, French and English, for anyone to read, reuse and remix (CC-BY CH 3.0).
A first version of this post appeared as our very first blogpost for VillageOffice.
About me
Born in Brittany and raised in Toulouse, France, I started working and playing with online gaming communities in the late 90s, and the Web industry in Brussels, Belgium, in 2011, and stayed a Brusseleir at heart. I am now a freelance Conversationalist in Lausanne, Switzerland helping organizations to engage stakeholders and communities in a better way, both on- and off-line.
My goal, co-founding VillageOffice, is to make my past and present way of working and living available to way more people, closer to them. Not in the future, but now. We are talking here about e.g. better mobility, more sustainable and resilient local communities, and a healthier way of living, collaborating and working. You can find some reasons why I and others think Switzerland is ready for this in this previous piece. I also blog sometimes for the local leading newspaper, in French (#travaillerautrement @ Le Temps).
I’ve been active in the European Coworking and third-spaces/shared hybrid spaces communities for five years, helping several communities and spaces (in that order) to start and develop. From 1.5 coworking spaces in Lausanne in 2012 to more than 20 in Western-Switzerland in 2015, the scene is moving and growing very fast. I bring a broad, global culture and network of practice to VillageOffice, and my passion to make it develop and scale faster. I look forward to our building and opening of our own communities and spaces in Switzerland very much.
Let’s talk on Twitter.
I upload bad pictures on Instagram.
VillageOffice is active on Twitter and Facebook (we need more of you to start meaningful conversations with us!).
When I’m really bored, I try to get better at Snapchat and Beme, but a link is obsolete to find people there.
Funambuline helped editing this post. And many more things.
