Setting our working hours  – January 2020 

An organization in which people can fully be themselves and where people can collaborate with each other from that position. Because we believe that that’s when people can get the best out of themselves. A great idea, and certainly challenging: because how to do that, collaborating?

For example: we do not have the same preference when it comes to our working hours.Two of us start early, the other likes to start late. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but if you run a company together it is useful to make agreements about when you will be at the office together. To start the day, to talk things through, to really have the feeling of running the company together.
So, how to tackle this? We could of course have said that we should adapt to eachother. That we will be in the office at the same times. Are we all going to start early? Or are we all going to start late? Or make a compromise that nobody is really happy with. The problem is that all of these options go against at least one of our core values: Joy. And against the principle that we want to be ourselves while working together. And in those moments where our preferences collide, we see an invitation to grow and to figure how it can be done.

So: looking for what works for all three of us, looking at where we are colliding and what is underneath. Bringing out the truth and seeing what it takes. It’s not about smoothing out the differences between the three of us, but about honoring those differences. Coming from a place where we can completely be ourselves and collaborate from there. What is needed is that we can honor our differences and still work together in the manner that we want. And in this case it means that two of us start early and we check in for the day when we are complete and that we close the day together when someone goes home.

So instead of compromising and brushing differences away, we honor that we are individuals with our own wishes and preferences. We want to come from a place where we can completely be ourselves while working with others. And so we search until we find a solution.One that works for all of us and that fits with our core values: Potential, Support, Love, Truth and Joy. This is certainly not always easy and sometimes takes a lot of time, even for something as seemingly small as office hours. And this is who we are.

Put in writing by Bert Heesakkers, January 2020