S2 - Episode #7: Jürgen Vogel - Engineering Leader and Co-Founder - Solvemate
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About Jürgen:
Jürgen Vogel is an Engineering Leader and Co-Founder of Solvemate (now acquired by Dixa), a customer service platform for businesses. Jürgen has in his career built and scaled multiple companies and led their teams to noteworthy success.
Synopsis:
In this episode of the Technology Leadership Podcast, Jürgen Vogel discusses the significance of an open culture in a company's success. He explains that open culture has two sides: individual and collective. He attributes the success of Solvemate, his most recent company (now acquired by Dixa), to its open culture, which helped with conflict resolution, team cohesion, and recruitment. Vogel believes that an open culture is essential for building high-performing teams, as it addresses core needs such as belonging, improvement, choice, equality, predictability, and significance.
Key Takeaways:
Understand how an open culture - making the culture of an organisation explicit and shareable - is not just something that happens organically over time.
Learn more about spending time with your team, understanding their values, and bringing everyone together and why it’s crucial for a progressive company - allowing everyone to have a say in decision-making can lead to high retention rates.
Hear more about why open communication and an open culture are essential for a company to succeed from developing a process for taking decisions to consulting everyone who will be affected by a decision.
Get insight into why in times of economic hardship, transparency and communication are even more crucial with openness being a multiplier for shared understanding for why things are the way they are in a company and facilitator of better solutions.
Consider why reducing salaries instead of laying off employees can be an option in times of economic hardship.
Understand more about the core needs of a team and psychological safety, including: Belonging, Improvement, Choice, Equality, Predictability, and Significance, represented by the acronym BICEPS.
Episode Outline:
[00:09] Meet Jürgen Vogel
[02:37] What is an open culture? Why is it important to have an open culture in your company?
[06:39] Reinventing organizations, a book by Frédéric Laloux, and what it teaches about open culture
[08:27] Developing the company vision, progressive vs. traditional companies, and company culture
[10:39] The importance of having an open culture
[16:04] Covid-19 and getting back to strength + the importance of accountability
[18:47] The positive impact of having an open culture.
[23:39] Having a culture deck for candidates + how to build high-performing teams.
[26:33] The core needs of a high-performing team.
[31:13] Building a high-performing team with an open culture.
[33:13] Book Recommendations from Jürgen
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