Manon is on a mission. “The time of old hierarchies and profit maximization is over at Rvdb. We aim for social impact, with equal ownership and a balance between business and social success.”
We want to say goodbye to old thinking and people as resources and hello to people-oriented organizing. Our mission at Rvdb is “Bye Bye Human Resources, Hello Human Experience.”
Employership becomes more equal and leadership strengthens the human dimension in organizations. It helps people and teams to develop and get the best out of their teams. Traditionally, the board consisted of white men over 50. That is not a good reflection in our company where 70% are women. “There were these stereotypical images: women are soft, pudgy and not good at leading and men are tough, powerful and result oriented. In a suppressed system the polarities increase. I now see more women talking more easily about 'targets' and having difficult conversations, but in a different way: More together, focused on dialogue and equality. Masculine and feminine forces represented in both men and women.”
“Masculine and feminine forces represented in both men and women.”
We are now designing a 'School of HX'. We train our own people based on the HX vision. We will continue to divide this training program in separate modules and open it up to the large community of people we have matched with our clients and worked with over the past decades. We also develop the building blocks to shape HX in organizations. We want to strengthen the movement in organizations to create a meaningful, stimulating and inclusive work environment that improves the total employee experience. That may sound ambitious, but that is what we do and what I have experienced myself at Rvdb. I dropped out for almost three years with a severe burnout. Our shareholder statutes state that I should have offered my shares to the other shareholders after one year. My current fellow owners Bob and Maaike said: “We are waiting until Manon is recovered to an extent that she can make a decision about this together with us.” The outside world was already writing me off: someone with a burnout will not come back. And here we are, three years later, operating under equal ownership. That is HX to the max within Rvdb.
I notice amongst our clients that it is most challenging to adhere to a holistic view of humanity in organizations under difficult circumstances. People are not a disposable product for use. I am a mother, daughter, wife, partner and friend. I have a dog and sometimes I'm not doing well. That all influences how I approach my work. Organizations must look at the whole person when they grow, reorganize, or scale down. People should be on the balance sheet as an investment, not as personnel costs. People make success. This is poorly understood, especially in Anglo-Saxon culture. If the EBITDA is not in order, you can dismiss 20 people, but you still have to pay them. You break all loyalty and commitment of those left behind as well. They also see: this is how we are treated in this organization.
“You cannot change a culture. You can change behavior.”
Improving the Human Experience therefore also means dealing with change differently, especially change in human aspects such as behavior and culture. We are also building HX building blocks for that. Since 2012, we have also tried many things inside Rvdb to change culture. With great and sometimes little effect. We learned a lot from that. Rvdb had a servant 'you ask and we deliver' culture and we wanted to become a more trusted business partner for our customers.
First of all, we tried to change culture through new job profiles. That became a very complex project and it didn't work. We needed an anchor for change. We developed this during an initial two-day workshop on culture. The exercise that everyone remembers was the assignment to stand in a seniority circle: from the one who had started most recently to the one with the longest tenure at Rvdb. All kinds of fault lines became visible.
There were gaps in the tenure circle for the years there was a crisis, during which we did not hire anyone. The most tenured looked at themselves and wondered: do I still belong here? In the years that followed we said goodbye to several people. Leave and arrival of new people are an important push for cultural development. After that workshop, I started to write down my long-term vision. It was called @Moving Forward. It was a draft long-term vision. Now for the first time, we became more critical: which customers we do and do not want to work with and how we develop our role as a trusted partner. We also started working on performance management. A good personal evaluation of your performance is an important Human Experience. It gives a direct boost to your culture. You can't change a culture, but you can change behavior. Culture anchors such as a long-term vision, a robust performance development cycle and good conversations help with the onboarding of new people. All parts of our HX building blocks for organizations.
“Under pressure, things become fluid. The emphasis naturally shifts to doing.”
Of course, we all want to change based on ambition, a compelling noth star, but my experience is that ambition gives energy, but the pitfall is to keep talking endlessly. If you change is driven by urgency, there is no time for endless discussions. Under pressure everything becomes fluid and then the emphasis naturally shifts more to doing. Then things really get moving. 'Let's act ourselves into a new way of thinking, rather than thinking ourselves into a new way acting'. That has really become a motto. In a growing organization, people in management positions also become more important. They translate the vision and strategy into concrete actions and priorities. In an HX-oriented organization, the vision and strategy are clear and everyone knows how (s)he can contribute to it.
I know we are achieving results when people are happy in the broadest sense of the word. I mean the entire stakeholder field: from people looking for an HR position to employees and from customers to managers. In those ten years we have laid a strong cultural foundation. I know that very well because I was out for three years. Upon return, I experienced that the culture has not changed essentially.
'Hello HX, has become the new change anchor as an outcome of the new strategy. This makes a great starting point for a conversation. We involved everyone in the company setting the new direction. First of all, by asking everybody to submit their ideas for the new strategy in a 2-minute video. We invited the makers of the most appealing videos to contribute ideas during the 2-day strategy. Now we are enhancing our relationship with customers and further activating this strategy. This is not simply a matter of check lists. It is mainly about communicating the same vision over and over again in countless different ways and asking our people to embody this every day in their daily work. The essence of strengthening the human work experience is to ensure that everyone understands the strategy and knows how to contribute to activating the strategy and simultaneously develop themselves.
“Make it more natural to separate.”
As leader of RvdB, I find trust, equality and freedom very important. You are allowed to have your 'ups and downs', and everyone has her or his own ambition. This must be 'matched' with the organization. I would like us much more to reflect on our own behavior, to show our vulnerability and express what we expect from each other. Have an ongoing dialogue about our added value to the company. Then it also becomes more natural to break up. Not because something or someone is failing, but because realizing a personal ambition can be better achieved elsewhere. I hope that when that moment comes for me, people will say: We miss Manon's livelyhood and humor, but the company will continue from strength to strength.
