lifelab on focus: New Work, Structure, and Thought Processes

By Yanna Solace Adofina

This is the last of our 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: Doing The Work You Love

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 structures and thought processes 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.

Holacracy & flat hierarchies.
We believe that participatory decision-making processes are essential. To provide context, we have removed ourselves from the hospitality industry and shifted our focus entirely on lifelab as a result of the pandemic. The decision to almost completely reinvent ourselves was made together as a team, but what stood out for us was the decision-making process of one team member. The fact that she was wholeheartedly committed to taking this big step despite a total change of role and reorientation of her work convinced us that this is the best course of action for us going forward.

Hannes: "I had experienced strong hierarchies from many different jobs. I was often under psychological pressure, and it had affected my personality. Instead of motivating me, it did the opposite: it bred indifference and gave me many sleepless nights. That time, I swore to myself that I would never do that to anyone.

After we decided that homebase (lifelab's forerunner) was not just a side business but will be our "baby", we asked ourselves how we would like to work and put our vision into reality. Personal responsibility was important for us, so we gradually empowered our employees in developing this trait together with self-efficacy. Another inspiration came from MIT Professor Otto Scharmer's first online course in 2015. The concept of doing everything differently, even business, supported with scientific background has not let go of me since then. The concept is very simple: if we look at nature which is holistic - every organism is holistic in its own form. We are constantly trying to bring this way of life into lifelab as we work together with our community. We as CEOs still have a lot to learn regarding this concept."

Lisa: "It was something that seemed to come to me intrinsically. I have always struggled with authority that didn’t come naturally, those that were forced upon by structure or institutions. I think the first time I encountered this in my work was during my time at a student consultancy, where I was consulting for a big corporation. With this setup, it was very easy to feel the effects of different hierarchical structures in my everyday work life.

When we started our own company from the get-go, we both felt a big responsibility to things we felt were 'right‘ or 'good‘, and not just copying business as usual as we implemented new processes or structures. We wanted to build something in alignment with who we are. We really first started thinking about organizational structure when we hired Yanna who was and still is our first and only full-time employee. She inspired us to rethink business as usual and even though we came from different places on this planet, different work cultures that maybe didn’t make this come naturally at every step, we started to build our organization as holocratic or maybe rather humanocratic together step by step. It’s a journey which we are still on as an organization should not stop evolving; it should be a living organism."

Leadership from the heart. It is important to us to see the whole person and not just their work role. By concentrating on their strengths and passions, we help each other in reaching our goals. We also look to other inspiring leaders in the future of work and management, to make sure that we are leading our team from the right place.

Hannes: "Günter Falten was my first contact with the concept of entrepreneurship. For me, a completely new world opened up. Suddenly I felt like I belonged. The first course with MIT Professor Otto Scharmer in 2015 also influenced me a lot. At the 2011 Startup Weekend, I was a participant: there I witnessed everyone pulling their weight as a team. In a very short time, we were able to turn an idea into a quasi-valid business model. I still have active contacts from that time."

Lisa: "I am truly inspired by Ilaina Rabbat and the Amani Institute that she co-founded. It inspires me by how she led a global team and educated hundreds of change makers with such a brave, visionary yet very empathetic way. I was especially astounded how much she took the time in the hectic startup life to work on herself, her inner journey, and her leadership abilities that made a huge difference along the way. Taking regular times to zoom out and reflect eventually even led to her stepping back from the organization she co-founded and into a new phase in her life without Amani which I find so admiring. There is a big quality in being able to let go of things we normally get super attached to, like your own company, when the time is ready. At the same time, it is so liberating to see people do that because it automatically sends a signal to others that it is okay to do this.

Brené Brown is also someone who continuously inspires how I aspire to lead: with courage and from the heart -– allowing vulnerability and creating spaces for brave conversations. I hope that with lifelab we can build a community of people who create brave spaces together."

Agile tools such as Kanban provide the basis for our agility, structure our processes, and enable us to collaborate as a global team, regardless of location and time zone. We are also aiming to work through dynamic project-based networks. This means we get to explore projects depending more on our skills and passions, rather than having and depending on set positions.

Hannes: "We do not have clear positions because we work from our strengths and motivation. The advantage is that the right person is working in the right place. The company agilely moves in one direction. The challenge lies in moderation, as regular communication and consultation within the team are essential to avoid overlaps."

Lisa: "What's important is that we have a kind of principle where there is no hierarchy. We work according to who is most excited or moved with the task; someone who would like to lead and has the capacity to do so. This person is responsible for dealing with overlaps and making sure that things don't get done twice. We do this via weekly meetings, frequent collaboration and transparent communication through Trello."

New Work is here and now, and it is here to stay. It involves a complete change of mindset and values; departing from traditional management models of performance-based merits and hierarchy-based leadership and turning to meaningful work and authentic appreciation. Throughout our four-part series, we hope to have shed an inspiring light on how we as a team implement New Work at lifelab with intention and sincerity.

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