Welcome to our interview with Robert Fuchs. Robert is a creative design leader in the software development industry with a background in systemic psychotherapy. He leads the research of the HappinessGroup on highly effective teams and corporate culture transformation. The happinessgroup.eu develops meta-frameworks, methods, and tools for decision making and problem-solving by integrating the latest insights from science with philosophical schools of thought.
Here are a few of the things you’ll learn in this interview:
- Why corporate culture is only partly visible & what we’re missing
- The critical question in getting employee full attention & best performance
- Why the current view on employee engagement is short sighted
- How we teach employees learned helplessness
Welcome, Robert, and thank you for contributing to the questions that are at the heart of Exploring Forward Thinking Workplaces 2.0.
HOW CAN WE CREATE WORKPLACES WHERE EVERY VOICE IS HEARD AND MATTERS, EVERYONE THRIVES AND FINDS MEANING, AND CHANGE AND INNOVATION HAPPEN NATURALLY?
Robert Fuchs: Change and innovation happen naturally in environments that foster learning and growth, which naturally leads to transformation and is the same as innovation.
Now comes the tricky part because the environment or the corporate culture is only partly visible through explicit values and value priorities. And at the same time partly invisible through our own constructions of this reality. This means that a culture can be perfect, but because of flaws in my perceptions of this reality, I can’t see the possibilities I have within this culture.
A culture can be perfect, but because of flaws in my perceptions of this reality, I can’t see the possibilities I have within this culture.
From a leadership perspective, I have to ensure that every voice is heard and relevance is seen in the diverse voices. From an individual perspective, I have to find a function within the organization that I can give meaning to. Meaning is not something external, but only I can give meaning to the things that happen in my life. Life by itself is meaningless unless I give it meaning. So this is the personal task of every employee, which happens best in collaboration with the rest of the team. Only in interaction and collaboration with others can I find the sweet spot where meaning for the team and meaning for me personally intersect.
Because roles and responsibilities change as fast as the business models they are grounded on, we have to regularly evaluate these tasks and refactor or reintegrate ourselves as we do with software.
Note: This is a preview of the full interview. The complete interview was selected by Apress for publication and continues in The Future of the Workplace.
