Founder’s Philosophy – an example

The term ‘founder’s philosophy’ has been mentioned often in the research so far. The most popular philosophy of the founder of the organisation under scrutiny on how to run his company was cited by almost every interviewee and is summarised in the following

statement:

Create an environment with no artificial limits where a team of excellent members can reach an excellent performance and enjoy working (having fun) together at the same time. This team should get its recognition for providing the best solutions to the customers.

The sentence contains interesting phrases such as ‘no artificial limits’, ‘excellent members’, and ‘enjoy working (having fun)’. All these phrases resonate with the elements discussed before; for instance, ‘no artificial limits’ and ‘having fun’ create a setting where the employees love to work. It is impossible for the employees to have fun with negative values or bad treatment of the employees at the workplace. For the employees to have fun at the workplace, it must be an environment filled with understanding and positive values. Having fun and having no artificial limits go hand in hand and build a foundation for very good relationships, on-going discussions as well as provide a setting to be keen and creative. It goes without saying that these elements are the key elements for information and explicit knowledge transfer as well as knowledge creation.

The above-mentioned ideas are demonstrated in the following quotes by the

interviewees. Interviewee 12 explained that ‘especially my equipment … that I can work with

… such equipment is really fun … […] like the computer screen … it is amazing to work with it’ (Original quote, ‘speziell das Equipment, das was ich da habe,... mit dem zu arbeiten

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macht auch Freude...[...] also sprich, der große Bildschirm zum Beispiel ..., der ist fein zum Arbeiten’) (I12/ Q13:5).

Similarly, interviewee 29 also explained, ‘It is fun to work here, this is also very important’ (Original quote, ‘es macht Spaß, zu arbeiten. Das ist auch ganz wichtig’) (I29/Q35.1). Interestingly, interviewee 29 explained that he was amazed when he began to work in the organisation, as the organisation undertook a value process where ‘fun’ was a defined as a value. He stated as follows:

I also recognise this value; …we can take brakes; …we can go and play games; …we can talk and have fun; …it does not matter on what level we converse we always have fun when we do it; …this means we have fun, …it is jocular; …we also can use time from our daily business to do other things like going and playing a game; …or playing billiards during our break or volleyball. Yes, in fact this is fun, yes.

(I29/Q35.1)

As evident from the above statement, there are many options available to the

employees to have fun, such as take a break, go out for a walk, play a sport, just sit outside on the balcony, or drink coffee with others. These possibilities are also in line with the different cultures existing in the organisation. For instance, there are special relaxation rooms or rooms for Islamic employees, where the room and the setting in the room is directed to the east and customised as needed so that they can pray. However, despite the vast amount of possibilities of breaks, the company is not a ‘fun park’. The employees are diligent and concentrate intently on their work. The simple fact that they can use the possibilities whenever they want has an incredible effect on ‘enjoy(ing) working (having fun)’.

There are many interpretations on who an ‘excellent member’ is. The obvious interpretation definitely includes the ‘smart and intelligent employees’, but for this organisation this is not the most important criterion. In this organisation, an ‘excellent

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member’ is not only the smart and the intelligent but also the communicative, who are able to build relationships and share values. In this vein, all applicants are selected based on the traits important for the founder and his philosophy. As mentioned earlier, socialising and

communication are elements very vital to the founder of the organisation under scrutiny. The human resource department of the organisation selects candidates with not only the rights skills, but also the ability to build relationships and communicate effectively with others. In this regard, an interviewee from the HR department (I10) and the head of the organisation development/change development department (I24) explained that when they have two applicants and one of them has better skills and more experience than the other, but lacks in communication and socialisation skills or when they get the impression that the applicant does not fit their work environment/culture, they would choose the latter applicant with less skills and experience. They argued that the latter applicant can learn the theory and become experienced, but it is difficult to change the behaviour of the former so that they fit into an intensely lived setting or become communicative and be able to build relationships.

Inculcating all the elements of the founder’s philosophy in the organisation also significantly affects the employees’ ‘trust into the company’, as they can literally see the founder’s philosophy and values being lived and that it is not a separate statement on the wall. It strengthens the employees’ ‘relationship to the organisation’ and initiates and enhances passion because the organisation is different from the others. Moreover, the employees understand that they are the focus of the organisation and that they can trust the organisation. The level of relationships is important in transferring explicit knowledge and information (relationship level dominates content level of a message). In this regard, the better the relationship, the easier a person can share their innermost ‘thoughts’, and it does not matter how open they are because a good relationship is also filled with respect and trust.

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The past experiences of the organisation under scrutiny have shown that the

investment in the founder’s philosophy and values (DNA) has been the right one. Hence, the organisation under scrutiny understands that the bigger they get, the more they have to invest in programs that sustain the founder’s philosophy and DNA so that sustainable relationships can be built, interpersonal barriers can be reduced, and ideas, thoughts, and explicit

knowledge can be shared.

The discussion in this section not only establishes a connection between the above-mentioned work of Berger and Luckmann (1966) and the understanding of knowledge in this research, which is socially constructed, but also shows a connection to the end of this

research and highlights how the objectified reality of the founder (i.e. the founder’s philosophy) continuously impacts the five elucidated patterns important to establish knowledge creation with NDKM.