What is Workkola and why are they all pigs? Let me explain. Workkola is a startup that wants to change the way talent gets access to work and work gets access to talent. This rocks. Because it kind of sucks now, especially if you are a young student trying to enter a complex and ever-changing job market. Your cv, for as long as this pre-historic document still lasts, is likely to end up in circular archives, also called office paper bins.
Why are all people at Workkola pigs? If you know the business fable ´The Chicken and the Pig´ you know the answer. If you like bacon and eggs for breakfast, you know that the pig provides the bacon and the chicken provides the eggs. Turns out the pig is really committed in this breakfast. He had to die for it! However, the chicken was only involved. She only provided the eggs which were not difficult to produce. Both are obviously needed to get you this dish, but fact is one was more committed than the other.
Pigs and Purpose
In startups, you need pigs. But you are only ready to be a pig if you know for what cause you are sacrificing. Therefore, you need a strong purpose. Now let´s demystify purpose. Purpose in plain English is what makes you wake up in the morning and makes you go ´Yes! Another day in paradise! Ok the reality may need a few strong caffeine injections first, but the point is to have a strong purpose. To wake up with an appetite to make the most and best of the day. Because you believe what you do will leave the world in a better pace than you found it, ultimately. Turns out most startups want to do this, because they are fed up with what it looks like now. So does Workkola. In July a workshop was organised to define purpose, the ´we are here because….´ which was ultimately bigger than every team member individual´s purpose (although still yet aligned). The purpose was so strong we couldn´t simply be chicken about it and we were more than ready to unleash the beast (in this case the pig) in us.
Picture this: success!
We not only defined purpose. We also visualised what our success looks like exactly one year from now. By starting with a desired outcome in mind, it was much easier for us to define the next actions. But what is success? In business, part of success is defined by money (otherwise we are a broke business). Part of it is defined by reputation. We are only as good a business as our clients think we are. The Tripadvisor effect. Also, success is for a big chunk made by us as a team. Knowing what collectively drives us as a team is making it easy to make tough decisions in hard times. Having a shared value set creates a strong culture that can be a make or break in the future. During the workshop it turned out it was amazing, but not unsurprising, to see how many values we shared as a team. It suddenly hit us why we all felt such a strong connection with each other despite our differences.
Awesomeness that makes us go ´oink´
So we know we are pigs at Workkola. And we are proud of this. Because when we commit, we commit. We not only wanted to commit to our purpose, our daily philosophical heartbeat. We also strongly felt we wanted to commit to ways we wanted to live by in order to keep and feed the culture that creates so much awesomeness at Workkola. As a team, we collectively agreed to our Commitment To Awesomeness. Check here what it looks like.
Shut up and drive!
With success clearly defined, and entered into our navigation system, we had to explore what the roadmap looked like in order to reach our destination. We defined a few big chunks in the important but not urgent (yet) category and did the same for our soft goals.
And now, we are just hitting the gas to get where we want to be exactly one year from now, in full throttle mode. We know that if we want to go fast it´s best to go alone. However, we want to go far, which is why we need to go together.
Will there be moments we all feel scared chicken shit? That we are asking ourselves if we are doing the right things? And doing things right? The question really is; can pigs actually feel scared chicken shit? What do you think?
And which animal are you in your startup or company? The pig or the chicken?
