Towards a Lean Lifestyle Company: a new way of working
It is news a few weeks ago that the CEO of Better.com, an American online mortgage company valued in October by Forbes at $7 billion, has laid off 900 employees via Zoom, equivalent to 9% of the workforce.
It looked like a normal remote working meeting, a way to communicate more widespread during the lockdown, when due to the ongoing pandemic it was impossible to meet physically. But on the contrary…
“If you are connected, you are part of that unfortunate group of people who have been fired.”
This is the dry pre-recorded message from Vishal Garg, the CEO, with no chance of a reply.
The promise of communication from the human resources office and economic benefits for 3 months, in addition to the liquidation, certainly has not been an instrument capable of alleviating the sense of loss and sudden shock.
The real reasons then remain hidden among the words, many and not all clear.
The finance director says that with this new reorganization it will be possible to “attack the market”, but the video call, which lasted a few minutes, was also an opportunity to accuse employees of “robbing” customers and colleagues working only 2 hours a day.
In short, the accusation of being lazy for 900 employees was an additional cold shower. The CEO said he was upset and sorry, but there didn’t seem to be any emotion or empathy in that cold communication!
Surely this is an emblematic case, that makes news and rebounds on the media and social networks for the large number of people involved, for the way in which it happens, for the context and for the reference industry certainly not new to these upheavals. Surely, we also tend to think that this is an entirely American modus operandi and that in Italy such egregious facts cannot happen because the law protects workers (although the GKN case of Florence has given a shock to this conviction).
However, if we look at what has happened in the constant and assiduous search for results alone, more and more in less time, then it is clear that something in the way of leading businesses today does not work, because even if it were able to bring more wealth, the effects on people, time spent at work, stress and quality of life are often negative.
A new way of working
This case is certainly an extreme case, and emblematic one, but it reflects a common trend in the world of work and should lead us to reflection.
The increasingly obsessive search for results and performance almost seems to have led to a confrontation between results and quality of life, stress and people’s effort.
Yet it should not be so. In the early 1900s, the great economist Keynes prophesied that in 2030 we would work only 15 hours a week and the contextual income would increase by at least 7/8 times what it is today. For income, the forecast was indeed correct. For the time, effort and stress people spend on achieving these results, on the other hand, we are still far from Keynes’ prediction. In fact, despite the great abundance of tangible and intangible goods, raw materials, services, digitization and all the technology that permeates our daily lives, little or nothing has changed in our way of working and doing business.
The way we deal with our working days is increasingly complex, fragmentary, tiring, and in terms of performance does not guarantee constant increase in personal and business results, in a manner directly proportional to the effort expended.
“Today we run anxiously behind countless tasks, trying desperately to keep up with everything, but we make a great effort. We work more and for the worse”
(Luciano Attolico, The Lean Lifestyle Strategy for Businesses)
It is possible to build companies that can create profit and results and that at the same time can be places of well-being and social prosperity, places in which those who work feel safe, appreciated for their work, valued for their skills, motivated and full of energy without having to put your working life before a full and fulfilled life, and without feeling guilty: this type of company is a Lean Lifestyle Company.
A Lean Lifestyle Company is a company that works differently to achieve more results and better well-being without compromise.
In a Lean Lifestyle Company, results are just as important as well-being. It is possible to grow, innovate and improve one’s own results and, at the same time, increase people’s quality of life. In this way entrepreneurs and managers can express all the human, technological and organizational potential of their companies and leave a tangible and sustainable mark that starts from the company boundaries and positively influences society and the environment.
Towards a Lean Lifestyle Company
To combine results and well-being, a Lean Lifestyle Company works by cleverly balancing elements of:
- technical excellence (processes, tools, organization)
- social excellence (behavior, habits, beliefs, ways of communicating, etc.) always considering the needs of individuals, and those of business systems.
The Lean Lifestyle Company model helps to design and plan your evolution towards a new way of working and doing business in which results, and well-being, coexist.
To facilitate the evolution of the Lean Lifestyle Company we have collected and made operational 4 pillars on which a company oriented to results and at the same time to well-being is based:
Visionary and pragmatic: She can look far and realize quickly.
Dreaming big and acting small every day is what has always allowed humanity to accomplish great things. For this reason, vision and execution must always be joint: it is necessary to cultivate a strong future orientation to design long-term strategies, while at the same time measuring and valuing progress in the short term. In this way every day we will take a small step towards the direction we have wanted and outlined.
Lean, Agile and Digital: Generate value for itself, customers and society without wasting resources.
Business infrastructures, layouts and physical locations of the company must be oriented to ensure efficiency and operational agility. You must constantly hunt for waste in all business processes, because digitizing non-agile processes from the start is a danger to be avoided: automating waste will amplify its negative effects on people and the company.
Effective and with autonomous team: Promotes the rapid resolution of problems «where they are created» and develops autonomous and responsible teams.
The Lean Lifestyle Company is a company that encourages all people to think and contribute. Shows attention to the impact of its actions on people, society and the environment; it always involves and aligns all employees.
Well-being oriented: Promotes a lifestyle oriented to physical, mental and emotional well-being, inside and outside the company.
Professional performance and people’s overall well-being are two sides of the same coin: you only get the best result when they act in synergy because one helps improve the other. For this reason, a Lean Lifestyle Company aims to understand what can increase performance and at the same time make people more active and vital and aims to minimize everything that can take energy.
It is not necessary, and probably not even useful, to act on all 4 pillars simultaneously.
However, it is important to always have an overview of the direction in which we are moving and the areas in which we can work to make every day a step towards the Lean Lifestyle Company and transform our companies into places where people can live fully and with an important part of their lives. A place where results and well-being are not opposed but can be achieved at the same time.
It is up to each of us to take the first steps in the direction of the Lean Lifestyle Company to combine more results and more well-being.
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