lifelab on focus: New Work and Thought Models

By Yanna Solace Adofina

lifelab on focus is back! This is the third out of a four-part series on how we employ the concept of New Work here at lifelab. For those new to the concept of New Work, read this.

We believe that New Work is about collaboration, with a focus on the people in each business; this encompasses a variety of values and a particular mindset. Openness, respect, personal responsibility, attention, and courage are all held in the utmost importance. However, our main anchor is the value of appreciation, which is all too often lost in everyday life and with what we have been conditioned by prior decades' work cultures. We find it essential to embed this profoundly in our structures and procedures, and to remind each other of it regularly. Genuine appreciation and fair treatment in the workplace means that New Work must be meaningful and purposeful for both the business and the individual. Work that isn't meaningful simply does not work for us. While we are already pursuing New Work at different working levels, we are still in the process of learning and improving as a young, global, startup company. In this four-part series, we aim to talk about the different levels on how New Work is implemented at lifelab.

We shift our attention to our CEOs and co-founders, Hannes and Lisa as they talk about how they envision and implement lifelab's thought models in conjunction with New Work. While both share the leadership of day-to-day operations of the company, they individually shine in their own strengths: Hannes is our Coincidence Creator, who loves making great and deliberate connections with people from different walks of life. On the other hand, Lisa is our Human-Centered Design Champion, who makes sure that we stay true to our values and move according to our energy.

Open Book ManagementWe are working on making all of our figures, procedures, and processes entirely transparent. This is to ensure that the entire team is informed and involved. This improves our ability to fairly comprehend and evaluate our current standing, which allows each team member to provide a more meaningful contribution to the company's success and expansion into other possible fields.

Hannes: "A lot has changed in terms of the team dynamic. We are now constantly making  decisions together, with output and influence from all team members. Since undertaking this step, I see the greatest potential of lifelab in terms of human capital. I believe that we will achieve great things, as we have laid good foundations.

From an entrepreneurial point of view, I can foresee that we will be viable in a year, i.e. work to cover costs, and that we have cleaned up our structures and processes. As John the Dreamer, I am convinced that soon we will reach a state of flow that will finally enable us to add more people to the lifelab community and bring more ideas forward, as we all strive for further personal development. In three years, I envision a base on another continent, where we will offer our own workshops for social change, with an emphasis on mindfulness and heartfulness, rooted in nature."

Lisa: "We are still in early stages in terms of fully implementing open book management, but we can see that the readiness is already there. What I hope this type of management will do is that it will inspire more ownership and transparency for everyone in the company. We all have split responsibilities and an understanding on how and why we need to do things — an ability to see the bigger picture. Less hierarchy and more equity. We would love to have a more diverse and creative perspective in organizing projects and discussing their financial models by listening to each person's input and opinion.

I'm hoping to continue building the lifelab space: fully functional in the way that we have envisioned it to be. In five years , we would love to see some global expansion. Also financial freedom to do different projects and experiments to fulfill our individual potentials in relation to social business and or climate change. What is important is that we create environments that help design our own life's journey."

Organizational form We are very much interested in the steward-ownership concept. In less than two years, we have entirely redesigned and repositioned ourselves as a result of all these framework conditions, allowing us to make braver decisions as a team. We perceived the pandemic as a catalyst of change, where we questioned a lot of things and tried to make changes radically according to what we have learned. For us this meant withdrawing our main line of business — the hospitality industry. Our sole focus now is on lifelab. 

Hannes: "What made me decide to go against the usual management style was the big influence of Presencing Institute co-founder and MIT Professor Otto Scharmer, with his work on Theory U and the future of management. Another influence for me was the book "The Big 5 For Life'' written by John Strelecky, where he wrote about creating a wonderful utopia of a company that we wanted to recreate as well.

I've always followed my own individual path in life, so the usual management practices and behaviors were never important to me. Since we work as a team, we constantly make an effort on improving ourselves individually and as a team."

Lisa: "I think it's a gradual process, step-by-step and still ongoing. Hell yeah, I consider myself a work in progress. I think there is still so much to learn and internalize; I am basically on my way to an immersive leadership training for social impact as we speak. To stick with your values, I think it’s important that you really get them right, and they are really YOUR (meaning of the whole team) values that you embody internally — not just some nice words you put on the outside. Next step is that you consciously take time to zoom out, get on the balcony, reflect and evaluate what is going on. If you spend all your time in the hustle and bustle of everyday business, you won’t be able to see the bigger patterns unfolding and make course corrections if needed. So stop what you are doing on a daily basis, and make it a practice to assess the bigger picture. It can be a strategic workshop where you get out of town every quarter or every year. Maybe even a smaller reflection practice every month or even at the end of each day. But it’s very important to train that muscle and change perspectives. Otherwise the needs of daily business will always appear too urgent for you to make time. In the long run it will come back to haunt you, and you will ask yourself where you lost track."

We believe that New Work is not just a future-oriented work concept; it is here and now, and it is here to stay. The New Work concept is deeply embedded in the lifelab lifestyle, and it is employed in a wide range of fields. It highlights individuality, appreciation, and the importance of the work. We think that it has great potential, and we hope that we inspire other organizations to fully realize it.

Watch out for the last article in this four-part series, as we talk to Lisa and Hannes about how structures and thought processes are in the grand scheme of New Work.