We learned a lot about self-management

On November 22, Jan De Visch gave a crystal-clear explanation on self-management and other new organizational forms that will become necessary as soon as Industry 4.0 breaks through. These new organizational forms put ‘learning and sharing’ in the place of ‘commanding and controlling’. The ‘we’ becomes more important than the ‘me’. And that is exactly what we have to do at Participium.

This first intro session was particularly useful. Not only because we were able to present Participium as a purpose-centric investment company, but also because we  were present with some of our managers and got inspired by Prof. Jan De Visch and the two cases from Carglass and BNP Paribas Fortis.

Away from command & control

Jan indicated that many new organizational forms are starting to see the light of day. All these new forms are based on the same basic principle: away from command & control, but with more responsibility and engagement. Self-management is not the same as ‘doing as I like’. On the contrary. Self-management means that people have to take  responsibility, reflect on what they do and how they do it, make decisions together. This means that the top of an organisation is no longer the classic top or middle management, but a coaching framework.

At Carglass, forming that coaching framework was hard job. Getting the coaches to adapt to this new mindset of coaching, rather than managing seemed very hard.  Carglass started bottom-up and now sees its figures improve drastically. BNP Paribas Fortis is a pioneer in the Belgian banking sector. They received carte blanche from France to introduce a totally new self-management concept. According to them, that is the only way to deal with the current challenges.

Fascinating things happen nowadays. Also for Participium. We are in full learning mode and are looking to introduce these new methods into our own organizations and we want to build great companies that make it pleasant to work at other companies. Those who want to participate in that adventure are always welcome for a chat.

Download Jan’s presentations: Liquid organisations and self-management

The ideal group size is 150

When building great companies where people love their jobs, it seems we cannot cross the magic number 150. “I read an article some time ago about Goretex, where all US  offices have a maximum of 150 parking spaces. Every department with more than 150 employees has to split”, Jan Lagast says.

“I was just reading in ‘De corporate tribe’ that 150 is the magic number for a maximal natural group cohesion. Several tribes in Greenland and Australia seem to consist of 150 members. Growing furhter means splitting. There is a religious that uses the same numerus clausus.”

 

Usefull information for directors, in a book that Jan  warmly recommends!

More information on De Corporate Tribe (in Dutch)

Download an extract (in Dutch)

Purpose-centricity starts at the top

Money and people are cold lovers. Investment and purpose, therefore, are not each others natural allies. When short-term results take the lead, it is much more difficult to motivate people to create value for customers. But, value for customers, is what brings in long-term results. That’s why, investors who understand that making money is not the main priority, have the best chance to make money on the long term.

Building purpose-centric companies

Building purpose-centric companies is what Participium tries to achieve. We are building several companies from idea to growth. Each of these companies should help people to be more happy at work. That is our purpose. And, it is the mother-purpose for all the companies we are building.

That’s why FunkyTime helps knowledge workers, project managers and operations managers to have  a more ‘funky’ time. That’s why Forte changes technical companies into market-oriented companies, since market orientation does make it more easy to motivate all workers to strive for the same goal.

Attracting compatible investors

There is a base law for business and industry, that says “shit always goes down”. In order to ensure we do the right things ourselves, we are ensuring purpose alignment from the top. The articles of association of Participium include an explicit statement that refers to our nature of long-term investment. We even have statements that allow us to exclude a main investor who is not in line with our purpose any longer. We are going to continue on this path, and are now creating a charter based on the values ‘trust’, ‘results’, and ‘passion’ that will refer to the purpose. And of course, when introducing new investors, we check first, whether they are aligned. Not an easy task, since ‘taking the money’ is tempting.

Interested to find out how this is going? Feel free to drop a line.

Tax shelter explained

Earlier this year Participium was a guest at Mazars for an info session on tax shelter for start-ups. The info session was aimed at (future) private investors who want to invest in young promising companies and fully exploit the tax benefits.

With his extensive expertise in tax & accountancy, Peter De Vos of Mazars comprehensively explained the legal and fiscal aspects of the tax shelter.

Because the attendees were very enthousiastic about what they had learned that evening and because we are convinced that the information can be interesting for any (potential) investor, we shared Peter’s full presentation (in Dutch) on the Participium YouTube channel and at the bottom of this news item. We have put the slides of Peter’s presentation in the video, so you don’t have to miss a thing of the interesting session.