‍Esteemin the new world of work - Interview with New Work expert Patrick Gromm

New Work is - in short - an alternative approach to working methods that give employees more decision-making options, flexibility and personal development opportunities. I found this idea so exciting that I immediately wanted to implement it for clap. In fact, I wish I had known about the New Work concept before I started my first company, MIAS DIAS Event GmbH & Co. KG, I would have liked to have been familiar with the New Work concept. So I asked New Work professional Patrick Gromm for an expert interview about the new way of working.

Patrick is a partner, authorized signatory and shareholder of the TAM Academy, the oldest trainer academy in Germany. The TAM Academy focuses on the training of multipliers for the topic of New Work and modern leadership.

This interview first appeared in my book "Gründen macht glücklich! Professionally and privately".

Eileen: The term New Work is increasingly buzzing through the digital world. What exactly does New Work mean?

Patrick: There are very different answers to this. The basic idea is that New Work is more than just the artifacts and symbols of today's working world that are associated with it. There is actually a social utopia behind it that goes much deeper and almost has to go hand in hand with a social revolution. Hearing that hurts employers at first, because you can't just become a new-work company in two years. But you can always question the status quo and consider in various dimensions what you can and want to achieve as a company in order to move a little more in the direction of this utopia.

The basis for this is the triad between work, self-fulfillment and sustainable and meaningful consumption. This is how Frithjof Bergmann set up this construct. In the current use of the term "New Work," however, we have now moved far away from this. Today, everything is associated with New Work that is no longer the way work was imagined in 1990. Here, one should carefully differentiate what is really New Work or what are simply fancy employer or employer branding tools.

Eileen: For example, would it fall under the term New Work if I gave my employees the choice of working in the office or remotely in a home office?

Patrick: That goes in the direction of New Work. But that's why I would never attribute to myself as an employer that I am a New Work company. New Work has several dimensions. Markus Väth has identified five dimensions: freedom, self-responsibility, sense-making, self-development and social responsibility. Now I could consider on which dimensions the free choice of workplace falls. In any case, that would be a bit of freedom and a bit of self-responsibility.

But now comes the exciting point: If I don't have the understanding of leadership and the corporate culture that hybrid or remote working needs, but rather rely on "command and control," then this no longer pays off in terms of freedom. If I also control the working hours of my employees remotely, then I have not developed in the direction of New Work, but have only established an artifact.

This also includes underlying attributes or characteristics, such as trust. If I don't trust my employees and myself, if I don't establish a trusting culture in the company, then I can establish the most effective tools. They will always remain just some fancy tools. But I will never develop in the direction of truly felt and lived New Work.

Eileen: You said one dimension of New Work is social responsibility. Our boxes are manufactured and distributed in a recyclable way and also shipped green. We also plant a tree for each box and our products come from manufacturers who share our view of social commitment and environmental awareness. This focus on sustainability then also plays into this dimension, doesn't it?

Patrick: That's definitely sustainable and goes in a really cool direction. You're also serving the social responsibility point with that. But I don't think you'll ever have your company set up in such a way that everything is ready. New Work is an ongoing process. One of the basic ideas of the TAM Academy is: New Work is never over. That may not be encouraging - or maybe it's because it is. Because I think the beauty of it is that it also always encourages questioning and you can constantly continue to improve the status quo, change it and try out new things.

Start-ups often use the motto "build, measure, learn". So you try something out, then measure the results and learn from them accordingly. Then you can establish new measures again. The idea of planting trees is already a step in the right direction. But it may also be that there is something more effective or more that you can do. You may not have it on your radar now, or you may discover it next year as your team grows or the company expands.

The special thing about New Work is that, ideally, employees also have the opportunity to question the current system and contribute their own share. If I establish a culture that allows employees to actively contribute themselves, then I really manage to bring the point of self-actualization into play.

Eileen: How important is self-actualization in the New Work concept?

Patrick: I would put extreme focus on them because I know myself how much that does to you when you get to live out true self-realization at work.

Once you have an idea for a startup, with a real purpose and with the real idea of self-actualization, then I would always say, "Try it - and try it as fast as you can with the preparation you need!" Self-realization is a mix of what I love to do, what I am known for, and what I can get paid for. This then allows you to answer the question, "What do I want to get up for every day?" If you know that, then that's what you should do. Life is for living. Ideally, one believes that work is a medium through which one may get to know oneself and life better. If one has the possibility to create something of one's own like that - then please do it immediately!

I worked at Daimler for seven years, and there my self-actualization was on a 1.5 out of 10. At some point, I felt this as a real pain and felt constricted. I had to hand in my personality in the employee parking lot, so to speak, and was allowed to accept it again as soon as the work was finished. I wasn't supposed to contribute there, I was just supposed to fulfill all the processes. Even though I wasn't a bad employee, I was nowhere near as high-performing or as effective as I am now in a construct where I feel like it's my own.

Eileen: That's interesting that you say that. I feel that way about my team leader. She has made the company hers. My new marketing manager, who is actually a freelancer, also thinks he has the company now. I think that's pretty cool! I want them to flourish and come up with new good ideas. On the other hand, I don't like questions like "How do you want this?" at all. How do I get the employees away from the idea that they are only doing the work for me?

Patrick: There's a very simple counter-question that I ask every one of my employees: "How would you do it if it were your company?" That triggers an entrepreneurial mindset. People think about how they would make decisions economically, personally, and also ethically if they imagined it was their company. With systematic encouragement, you can achieve this entrepreneurial thinking even in people who don't hold leadership positions.

Eileen: Do I need to do more on this or is it enough to always ask this question about how they would decide in their own company?

Patrick: There is still a lot you can, should and must do. But this is definitely the easiest and quickest trick to implement. Another very good way to increase self-determination among employees is the principle of subsidiarity. This means that decisions should always be made at the lowest possible escalation level. Of course, my task as a founder is also to make decisions. But my most important task is to decide what is the lowest possible level at which it can be made. This is the level at which it has to be made. If you are aware of this, then you very systematically achieve that decisions are scaled as far down as somehow possible. On the one hand, I have the advantage that this makes me obsolete as a manager and I can occupy myself with other things. On the other hand, I achieve an ownership effect of my employees* for the product, for the company and for the success of the company. I just love that, when I see people getting absorbed in their work and really taking ownership effects.

Eileen: What other advantages of this new way of working can founders already use for themselves?

Patrick: It is very important to define values for the company and to build a vision framework already in the founding phase. We did this, for example, according to Collins' vision framework, which we used to define our path. The first step is to define a purpose. In other words, how do we do what we do? Then we define our corporate values. Once I have this construct and have made the implicit values explicit, then I can make that explicit to my team. The values help to find the right personnel, to hire them, to manage them, and also to conduct employee and feedback discussions.

Eileen: The company values help in the recruitment process. I understand that, because the values have to match. What other points should you pay attention to when you are looking for the right employees as a founder?

Patrick: I recommend hiring complementarians. These are people who are opposite to you, who complement you well. But they're not the ones you like to go drinking with. Because if I hire people who are exactly like me, I end up with a clone of myself on the team who brings the same strengths and potentials.

A business, especially if I start it myself, should be something that gives me energy and that I enjoy spending time with because I can do things that I like to do. For things I don't like to do, I hire people accordingly who enjoy doing them and are therefore good at them. You have to find those people as soon as possible to be truly free.

Once you've done that, I'm already looking forward to Monday on Sunday. There's hardly anything better than meeting employees on their way to work in the elevator who already have a sparkle in their eyes because work is about to start. That's the best feedback for me.

Eileen: What preparations can founders make to create such a working environment?

Patrick: You should be aware that mistakes will happen, by yourself and also by others. It is immensely relieving to know that in advance and not be surprised by every mistake. Instead, you should get used to this idea and be prepared to also take pleasure in either fixing mistakes yourself or also helping people fix problems. If you take pleasure in this and also know that this will happen, you have good resilience to face this whole Struggle.

Eileen: You said that well. That's why I asked 5 founders to tell their fuck-up stories for my book "Gründen macht glücklich! Professionally and Privately" to tell their fuck-up story. Mistakes happen. The important thing is how you deal with them.

Patrick: Yes, that's definitely very important, because you can really learn a lot from it. If I were to start my own company, I would immediately establish an open culture of mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is that you think everything is going great. Everyone is keeping to their working hours, all the KPIs are green. But in the end, it's not true. If I don't manage to create an open error culture myself, then I miss things. But if I build myself a culture of trust and an open culture of error, then I can move forward. That takes energy and time, and I have to take a detour. But then I can also make small mistakes visible early on and learn from them.

Eileen: How important do you think gut feeling is in this?

Patrick: Very important. Often, one reason for founding a company is that you previously experienced bad leadership or a lousy corporate culture in an employee relationship and want to make that better yourself. As a person, you have a feeling for what feels good and what is right. But you also have to dare to live that out. At TAM Academy, we never make a decision again if we don't have a good gut feeling. We don't do that for fun. The gut is such a strong organ for a reason. This has been confirmed to us many times over the last five years, and so we should have done it much earlier. By the way, you don't learn that in any business studies course: listen to your gut feeling and make decisions that feel right to you. But if you manage to systematize and reflect on that, then you're a lot closer to the point of self-realization.

Eileen: So far we've talked a lot about the advantages New Work can have for a team. But is it worth it for founders who only have a few employees?

Patrick: Here I would like to remind you that you are never finished with New Work anyway. That's why it's best to start right at the beginning, try things out and see how it works. A first step can be to talk to people and listen. As a founder, you can't do everything right anyway. But if you manage to have conversations and really understand what is important to people, then you will also make good decisions together with people.

Especially in the beginning, a "How to work with me?" framework can be incredibly helpful. This is basically a questionnaire that every team member can fill out. It can include questions like:

How do you like to work?
What are your favorite working hours?
How do you like to be treated?
Can I write to you while on vacation?
What are your hobbies?
What kind of family do you have?
When is your birthday?
What can you laugh about?

These are all just examples. But with such a framework, you can uncover the personhood and also commonalities. It allows access to the real people, so that they can trust you. This creates a completely different stability in the relationship, so that crises can then also be overcome.

I especially like the question "What can you laugh about?" If you know what other people laugh about, you can also try to integrate that into your work. Then you can create an environment where you have fun while working. I then no longer need to explain to anyone how a job works. The person then does that super on their own initiative.

You should also establish a feedback culture right from the start. This costs nothing, except perhaps fifteen minutes of time per week or month. This feedback can also have a very simple structure. The simplest feedback I know, for example, is the modern Continuum Feedback. It consists of three simple questions:

What could the person do more?
What could the person do less of?
What should this person keep the same to contribute to the success of the person himself and the company?

These three questions are so powerful because you also create an immense culture of trust and, at the same time, allow for alignment and uncovering of potential and development opportunities within the company.

A third point that you can implement from the beginning is to always give yourself as a human being and also allow others to be human. I think it's cool to cry at work and live out what you really feel like. A lot of founders think: "Now I have to be serious, now it's a real company". Instead, I say: "Just do what you want, because it's your company. Just please be who you are - then you'll attract people who like that." When people feel like everyone is allowed to be themselves at work, everyone does better.

Eileen: Is there anything you can do wrong when introducing this new way of working?

Patrick: A nice saying from the calendar comes to mind: Better to start imperfectly than to procrastinate perfectly. Actually, you can't go wrong if you approach it with a good intention and purpose. When in doubt, people help themselves. Your team will help you get something off the ground because they have an intrinsic need to succeed. If they notice that something is going wrong and the founder is overwhelmed, they will support - if they feel they don't have to be perfect either.

There is one pillar of New Work that is most neglected: smart consumerism. This is also a kind of hamster wheel: If I consume too much that I don't really need and that doesn't do me any good, then I also have to earn more than I actually need. If I have to earn more than I actually need, the chances increase that I will do a job that I don't like doing. If I manage to consume smart, then when I start up I can take the liberty of not having to pay too much attention to the money coming in. Or I can take the freedom to start up in the first place and earn less for a year or two than I earned before in my hamster wheel job.

Eileen: Do you have any other tips for founders who have never been an executive and want to try New Work directly?

Patrick: An important slogan is "employees first". Before I take care of any customer or any big project, I would always first look at what my employees like to do and how I can do it justice. My basic belief is that you automatically become successful if you put your employees first.

Another important slogan is "Openness creates openness. If I as a founder exemplify openness, then people will also be open to me. To do this, I should regularly ask myself questions such as "What am I afraid of?" or "What am I looking forward to the most? If I am open and honest about this, I will get this back from my team and also from my customers.

If it is economically possible, I would hire a person to take over HR tasks as early as possible. This term is actually outdated, "people management" fits better. In addition to recruiting, this area of responsibility also includes onboarding and employee development. This is important early on because the right hiring and onboarding process will bring the right people into the team who can be happy with their job. Accordingly, fluctuation will be low and you don't have to constantly start a new application process.

Eileen: That is an important point. However, I think that not all founders can afford this position at the beginning. Then I recommend a good interim solution: an HR coach. That's how I still do it today. Whenever I need to talk, I book an appointment with my HR coach and then we zoom or meet for coffee. Often my team leader Toni is also there because she has a better insight into the day-to-day business. The coach then prepares us for upcoming interviews, for example, or gives us ideas on how we can drive employee development forward. What I find particularly valuable about this constellation is that it also gives us an outside perspective on the company.

Patrick: Yes, external supervision helps immensely and is recommended in all situations. This can also be other founders or people you trust. Founding and leadership also affects the psyche. It helps you to get to know yourself better. But sometimes it really hurts, because you will automatically reach your limits. Then it's important to be able to exchange ideas with people who have an outside perspective. This also brings new input into the company.

Eileen: Right, outside help is so valuable! You don't have to be able to do everything, and you can't.

Patrick: Yes, but often there is not enough money at the beginning to hire your own coach, for example. Then freelancers are an economically manageable solution.

Eileen: I see we are in agreement. Do you have any final words for me?

Patrick: There are so many people out there who have really cool ideas, but don't dare to implement them - because of some fears, maybe even beliefs. Therefore again the appeal: Better to start imperfectly than to hesitate perfectly. I think that is the most important thing. You should just try it out, maybe even go off the deep end. There are so many cool start-up stories that only made it on the sixth or seventh try.

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