Google open mind.

The first thing that comes to your mind when entering the main lobby at Google is the something like: "wow, that's different". I personally haven't expected to come to an office which also could have been a Kindergarden or a leisure center at first sight. Bright colors, different interior, open spaces and room to think - all that seems to be strange for someone who only knows modern and plain office buildings and leads to the question: "How do they keep up their professionalism?"

But as our two hosts at Google Megan Danielson and Matt Jones began to speak and talk about their company the picture of a distinct corporate culture started to make sense. The entire culture is about open your mind. Work-life-balance is really important such as enough recreational activities when you need to clear your mind. Furthermore, time to think play a major role at Google. Google has applied a model known as "20%-time" that allows "googlers" to spend 20% of their time on something different than their actual project. As innovations are a key resource it's crucial to come up with new ideas - and that's the way to face it and get there. To round it up employees are provided with healthy organic food which again supports their mental and physical abilities.


"Make the world a better place"

"Don't be evil"

"Be transparent"

"Do cool things that matter"

"Take risks"


Missions and visions that come along with google and their employees. Hearing Megan and Matt conveying this strongly shows how googlers have internalized these. One strong team with low hierarchies where everybody is supposed to interact with everybody and a culture that leaves enough room to step out and think out of the box - that's what makes google strong!

If I'm thinking of our own venture "foodentity" the google culture is really admirable but not required for our business. I'd say it's great to have all those benefits and room to open your mind but for us as a start-up the most important thing is just team-spirit. The low hierarchies and the openness to all others is something we will apply to our venture. But especially in the food business "taking risks" should be vehemently avoided.

We all know that google is one of the largest firms on earth, we all know how much power and influence they have and we all know how much google knows about us. It is hard to believe that they don't take advantage out of that. But how strong the spirit and internal culture is and how strongly googlers stick to their missions Megan and Matt demonstrated perfectly.

Making the world a better place - not the worst mission to stand up for everyday, isn't it?

The organizational culture of a Bee Hive

The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others’ – St. John Chrysostom.

This quote is extremely suitable for Brenda Palms Barber and her social enterprise Sweet Beginnings. Her inspiring story gave me new perspectives and insights on social entrepreneurship. On Tuesday 28^th of July we visited Sweet Beginnings, a social enterprise. They produce honey and natural skin & body care products, for more information visit their website.

The inspiring Brenda Palms Barber, founder of Sweet Beginnings, was frustrated by the lack of job opportunities, that the residents in North Lawndale were having. Especially ex-convicts, even after serving their time and following the NLEN U-TurnPermitted Program,  they were not given a second chance. 
She launched Sweet Beginnings and gave some of the graduates of the U-Turn Permitted Program a 90-day job opportunity. They learned about science, education, accounting, packaging and many other things which allows them to grasp that second chance and improve their lives.

The organizational culture of Sweet Beginnings could be compared to the organization of a bee hive.

The Queen Bee in a bee hive is the central person, the one who creates the others and let them work together. Brenda Palms Barber, the Queen Bee of Sweet Beginnings does not only educate the ex-convicts but also allows them to work. She is passionate about her business and her mission, and that passion is contagious. When leaders are truly passionate, people feel included in the leader’s commitment, part of making important things happen. That’s satisfying on a very deep level, and it lasts. 

A Queen Bee does not make honey herself, but surrounds herself by others who produce honey. This is also the vision Brenda Palms Barber has about good leaders: They surround themselves with other amazing people. Surround yourself with good people and let them shine, that is what true leadership is all about.

The quizzes for the new employees about the core values of Sweet Beginnings, just show how important it is that everybody understands and follows the mission and vision of the company. Everybody has to be on the same page, before you can advance in business or in life.

One important lesson for my StreetTube project, was that she told us that people do not care about the story if the product is not good. So focus on the product (content) and people will become interested in the story behind.

Her wisdom and insights gave me not only some new perspectives for StreetTube, but also for my future life and that is why I want to thank Brenda Palms Barber for sharing her inspiring story.

Investment in trust

Have you ever thought about the idea of working with a person that was involved in any sort of crime?

Of course the first reaction that comes to our mind, is that this would influence our working atmosphere in a bad way. We wouldn´t feel comfortable anymore and would also suspect only bad things from this person.  So our answer would be no we don´t want to consider working with criminals.

I have to admit that I have thought the same way about criminals until I´ve met the most passionate and authentic person during our whole excursions. Brenda Palms Barber

teached us to take the opportunity of opening our minds and give criminals the possibility to introduce themselves. We should keep in mind that:

That means that people who have committed a crime are often not “bad” people for the rest of their lives, but just need a way to show us that they become a better version of themselves.

So how can we as Foodentity guarantee our customers the professionalism of  well educated and responsible employees and at the same time make a difference with our strategy?

 I think we definitely need to make a “difference” with our strategy. Because we are trying to give people a better life through great food, so why shouldn´t we give also criminal people the chance of a better life? Of course there is the fact that people with a criminal background are often less educated than “normal” people, but what if the person is just as well or even better educated as other people who apply for a job at Foodentity and don´t even get the chance to be part of our team just because of one mistake they have made in their life. Foodentity wants their customers to be open minded and to try something that brings even more health in their life, so we are not allowed to be simple minded when it comes to our own employees.  Brenda also mentioned that you have to fascinate the people with your idea.  So why should we only fascinate our customers. If we are able to make our on employees really satisfied and corporate claimers, the fascination for our brand will spread on its own.

So how can we as Foodentity make our dreams come true…

Foodentity will try to not judge about people in advance.  We will not only adapt the  concept of Target, in which we asking the people about their criminal background at the end, we also want to try to work with people, who have a criminal background, when they are showing us that they are able to learn all necessary skills for our job.

You may now thinking that this idea is a little bit too big for a start up. That we are not able to train the people and that we don´t have enough money, but as Brenda mentioned the people will only love your idea, when your are thinking big enough.  So I think Foodentity will not only make a difference by enhance the life off a huge amount off people with great food, but also by making the world of former criminal people a little bit happier:-))

So working with all types of people is not only a social "thing" but also a long-term investment. Because if your are investing in trustful employees you are also investing in your brand! 

 Lena 

Everyone deserves a second chance! - Sweet Beginnings

Sweet Beginnings - Everyone deserves a second chance!

written by Felix Kardell

Today, dated 28th of July 2015, we had the chance to meet Brenda Palms Barber at her workplace, Sweet Beginnings. Brenda’s business offers full-time transitional jobs to citizens returning from incarceration, in order to improve the quality of life for the community of North Lawndale. Her vision is to increase the living standard for people in disadvantages communities by increasing social justice and lowering income inequalities on the long run. This excursion particularly took place in accordance with our leadership and culture class, administered by our professor Valarie Beck. Brenda is the CEO and founder of Sweet Beginnings and offered to guide us through her company and tell us about the implementation of leadership and culture in her business. For more information about Sweet Beginnings and Brenda please see http://bit.ly/1E4jqWg. 

Sweet Beginnings has been founded with the primary goal of doing well to the community and its people. When you hear Brenda talking about her business, you can literally feel the passion that she has for her mission of helping people who return from incarceration to get reintegrated into society. Thereby she is improving their chances for a better living standard in the future, and simultaneously improving social justice within society. Ultimately, she supported this impression by emphasizing that in order to maintain leadership and culture within her company, the most important thing is passion. There are various benefits of having a passionate leadership style, which can be found on the following website: http://bit.ly/1MyQwWe.

During Brenda’s speech we also got to know John. He is currently working at Sweet Beginnings and is a good example of how this passionate leadership style and culture can change a person’s life substantially. Before he started working at the program, John got arrested ten times. Accordingly, he found himself in a situation in which nobody would give him a chance to show off his working skills, which eventually have shown to be outstanding as a beekeeper. Brenda gave John and 18 other people a “second chance”, a chance for a better life, a chance for a better future. For me Brenda has proven to be a role model, visionary, and a true leader!

Many of the structures of Sweet beginnings can also be applied to our business Green Dish. Passion, as it is one of the main drivers of Sweet Beginnings, is also grounded in the core values of our company. We have the passion for vegan food and we truly believe that this way of eating has several health benefits to our bodies. We hope to transfer our passion onto our customers by sensitizing them for the great variety and taste of vegan food. Our vision is therefore to integrate animal-free food as a valuable alternative for the daily food consumption for the majority of society.

Sincerely,

Felix Kardell

search for the ZEITGEIST

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

by Alexandra Zinnkann

ZEITGEIST

“Do cool things that matter” that’s one of the numerous mottos, which were presented to us on our excursion through the Chicago GOOGLE office. Getting the first step into the office one already breezes the air of innovation and the spark of Zeitgeist automatically jumps on to you.

With its very creative and playful design and furniture as well as the large announcements of off-the-job offers, like meditation or Japanese this office really reflects a corporate culture. One subject which really sticked out to me was a treadmill, with a writing table attached. That makes it a perfect symbol for GOOGLE’s work philosophy: Employees should always search for the Zeitgeist and be innovative and on the same hand have a positive work-live balance. That’s only one of the reasons why Megan Danielson, the head of Industry, Travel and Matt Jones, the team Lead and Principal Account Manager, who identify themselves as “GOOGLERS” love working for this global company. Both are also very passionate about the global rotation program, in which employees have the chance to go for a longer period abroad in order to grow personally and the leadership opportunities given to them. Megan personally highlighted the feeling to actually getting part of other companies through intense in-depth work with external agencies and clients. Mat especially appreciates it to work with such “wonderful human beings”. And of course there is the famous, free available, mostly local and organic catering and the 20% time, in which the employees are requested not to spend on their actual work, but come up with new ideas.  Altogether aroused the impression that Megan and Mat absorbed the corporate culture and are actually a part of the company and feel that Google actually cares, both in the in-and outside for its employees.

To me it is remarkably how well GOOGLE succeeded in providing a positive and innovative working atmosphere. But how can we, as a service-oriented hospitality business create and manage our organizational culture? Organizational Culture in the Hospitality Industry

Since the hotel business is not such depended on creating continuously new and innovative products, it is not necessarily desirable for us to create an innovative spirit. Nevertheless it should also be our aim to create a pleasant work atmosphere and build a strong team spirit in order to work hand in hand and strengthen the workflow within the daily hotel routine. We also heard during our stay that employees are encouraged to take risks. This empowerment to employees could apply for the LIB Hotel as well; every employee should have permission to make our guests happy. I am convinced that if we keep the spirit in our company, it will reflect towards the guests and with this we will provide them a pleasant stay in a home-like atmosphere. In order to maintain and improve this spirit, we could do it as GOOGLE and have mentoring programs and annual employee surveys. 

Last but not least GOOGLES slogan “Don’t be evil” could be a desirable guiding theme for every company. How could the LIB take care to be fair to their environment in practice? Using only local suppliers, organic and seasonal food and interacting with our neighborhood could be an answer to that. 

However for me personally the question if GOOGLE could really change the world to better by bringing the Internet to everybody, as wished by the chairman Eric Schmidt, stands still open. To find your own opinion about this topic, have a look at this examples of charities using technology to tackle problems and transform lives around the world GOOGLE is supporting: Google Impact Challenge