About Jürgen:

Jürgen Vogel is an Engineering Leader and Co-Founder of Solvemate (now acquired by Dixa), a customer service platform for businesses. Juergen 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. Jürgen 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. He shares how companies can cultivate an open culture by starting right at the recruitment process and how it gives them an edge in the competitive market.

Key Takeaways:

• Open culture is an approach to making the culture of an organization explicit and shareable, and is not just something that happens organically over time.
• Spending time with your team, understanding their values, and bringing everyone together is crucial for a progressive company. Allowing everyone to have a say in decision-making can lead to high retention rates.
• Open communication and an open culture are essential for a company to succeed. A process should be developed for taking decisions, and everyone who will be affected by a decision should be consulted.
• In times of economic hardship, transparency and communication are even more crucial. Openness is a multiplier for shared understanding in the company of why things are the way they are. Companies that communicate well during difficult times can come up with better solutions.
• Reducing salaries instead of laying off employees can be an option in times of economic hardship. An open culture and communication with employees can lead to better solutions.
• The core needs of a team, called psychological safety, include Belonging, Improvement, Choice, Equality, Predictability, and Significance, represented by the acronym BICEPS. 

Episode Outline:

[00:09 ] Meet Juergen 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 Juergen