Retirement of Chairman Mr Lim Soon Hock and Transition of Board Leadership to Exco

Halogen Foundation Singapore (HFS) wishes to announce that having successfully concluded our 15th Anniversary celebrations in 2018, Mr Lim Soon Hock has stepped down from the Halogen Board of Directors on 29 November 2018, after six years of stellar leadership as Chairman of the Halogen Board.

Since 2013, Mr Lim has led the Board and organisation through a difficult time, taking it from the brink of insolvency, to building a healthy financial reserve that allows Halogen to not only grow but also take on new challenges in our quest of building young leaders and entrepreneurs.

Under his chairmanship, Halogen grew both in scope and scale. In 2014, Mr Lim helped the organisation secure our partnership with Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) in the United States and with it, expanded our impact with young people to include nurturing young entrepreneurs. The NFTE entrepreneurship programme complemented our leadership suite to uplift youth from poor and needy families, especially those who are at risks, to give them a better head start in life to build their careers and futures, and is a compelling cause worthy of your invaluable support.

Mr Lim served tirelessly in raising funds for Halogen’s cause. During his time, Mr Lim published Vantage Views III and the most recent publication, Golden Nuggets. The two book projects alone raised over $700,000 for the work of building young leaders and entrepreneurs in Singapore. Mr Lim has been a connector for Halogen and has brought in his networks to expand our reach and the public awareness of our cause.

To house the growth of the staff team and volunteer pool, Mr Lim oversaw the transition of Halogen’s office from SCAPE to the current office in New Bridge Centre where we have our in-house training and event facilities to better serve our youth and educators.

Going in to retirement, Mr Lim is stepping down from a number of his numerous appointments in other companies and charity boards so as to rebalance his time and pursue his other interests.

In line with Halogen’s constant push towards progressive leadership models, Mr Lim hands over the reins of the organisation to an interim Board Executive Committee comprising of Mr Tam Chee Chong,  Mr Ramlee Bin Buang, Mrs Tan Hwee Seh and Mr Martin Tan.

Along with the rest of the current board members, who have served under Mr Lim’s chairmanship, the Board will continue to bring with them a wealth of experience in the People, Private and Public sectors to the organisation as we enter into the next phase of youth development. Halogen will continue to benefit from a strong and committed Staff Team who will deliver the initiatives and drive the overall cause and mission as a local youth development charity.

The Board and Halogen Team would like to thank Mr Lim for his invaluable insights and investment in our cause for the last six years. He leaves the organization in a far stronger state than when he joined and we are grateful for his contributions in moving us to greater heights. Halogen records its deepest thanks and gratitude to Mr Lim for his sterling leadership as our Chairman and the passion and energy he devoted to building a generation of young leaders who will lead themselves and others well.

On behalf of the HFS Board of Directors,

Martin Tan
Co-Founder & Exco Board Member
Halogen Foundation Singapore

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1. Technology and its Impact on Jobs

2. Outperforming Economies

3. Diversity in Workplace 4.0

4. The Fight against the Illicit Economy

5. The Role of Community

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As we progress, who are we endangering or leaving behind?

• Our elderly. Already we observe how the shift to cashless payments has created the possibility of them having to rapidly learn how to operate digital money transfers and pay for their meal through their phone. What more in the age of driverless cars and delivery-by-drone?
• Vulnerable or exploited persons. Touched on very briefly in an earlier point, the nature of exploited persons being further endangered is a real possibility. Only 1% of illicit activity done over digital connections are caught – is there more we can do? Can we benefit more from tech, despite tech being neutral and value-ascribed?
• Underserved youth. One hypothesis that WEF and Sea Group researchers had in the youth survey commissioned is that youth are more optimistic the lower their income-base, and this could be due simply to the access they might have to emerging frontier technology. But with lagging exposure comes the risk of being left behind or ‘late to the game’. How can we even the playing field so the gap between the privileged and underprivileged; the access-easy and the access-tough, is not widened?

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In 1710, Jonathan Swift wrote: “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

3 centuries later, a study by MIT affirms what the writer intuitively concluded. The recent study has found that false news spreads 6 times faster on Twitter than real news, and most of it are spread by people, not Twitter bots.

Misinformation is not a new problem, but technology has enabled it to spread much faster than before. At our recent Halogen Think Tank, we invited a community of educators, as well as experts in the field, to discuss some of the issues surrounding the propagation of fake news.

1. Who falls for fake news?
2. What do they fall for? (What do they trust?)
3. Why do people spread misinformation?

Who falls for fake news?

On a spectrum of skeptical to gullible, we discussed that youth tended towards the skeptical end of the spectrum, and older adults (Baby Boomers and Gen X) tended towards the gullible end of the spectrum with regards to falling for fake news. This was evident during the controversial 2016 US Elections.

Many of the participants attest that family Whatsapp chats remain their largest source of pseudoscience (a common type of misinformation), with one participant quipping that “Whatsapp aunty tales are the new old wives tales”. The intentions might be good, but the lack of scientific credibility of what is being shared might be a reason why there is a growing skepticism amongst the youth.

While youth may be skeptical, it was found that the skepticism was directed towards mainstream or authoritarian sources of information. There was however higher levels of receptivity towards information and opinions shared amongst peers. It seems that youth gravitate towards opinion, and like to form their own. The concern is whether these opinions are sometimes formed outside of the basis of facts and evidence.

What do they fall for?

In his book “The Trust Economy”, Philipp Diekhöner highlights that trust is attributed to the interface of a website or platform. Everett Rosenfeld, Asia-Pacific Editor of CNBC added that this was true for consumers of mainstream news as well, citing evidence that a large population in the US cannot tell the difference between newyorktimes.com and newyorktime.com because they had similar interfaces whilst featuring very different headlines. The finding is consistent in the world of tech start-ups, where good design and interface trumps substance and content when looking at user adoption and receiving grants/investments. This is not inconsistent with the age old mantra that “first impressions count”.

“Trustable” interfaces can then be purposefully designed to propagate various kinds of misinformation like conspiracies, hoaxes, pseudoscience, political propaganda and the like. It takes a discerning (or skeptical) viewer to be able to filter or question the information being presented.

Why do sources spread misinformation?

This was a sensitive topic that called into the question the professional ethics of journalists and editors, especially those of the mainstream media. The balance between objectivity and chasing the bottom line profits sometimes gets blurred. It is also difficult to have objective reporting when journalist carry their own biases, and sometimes paint events through these biased lenses.

An awareness of these would probably be the key to being able to navigate the large sea of information and filter what is true from what is false. It will serve the reader well to question the motives behind each piece of content that is put out and also question what is not being said.

The world has, indisputably, become more vocal.

And it’s not just because we have immense access to content, or the convenience of sharing through the touch of a screen, and that our gateway to the world can be one instastory, one tweet, or one snapchat away.

Heading to the Big Apple for a partners visit last week, I was a little apprehensive of the terrain that I’ll be going into. After all, this is a country that is going through such a season of volatility and change — just 280 characters from the POTUS sends a media wave reverberating across the globe, daily.

Life has a way of presenting juxtaposes in your path to you reflect upon your beliefs. What caught me by (pleasant) surprise, was the absolute privilege of being in the city right in the midst of March For Our Lives. Here’s to share a bit of what made me come home, really illuminated.

March For Our Lives
On 14 February 2018, a shooting struck Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. A gunman stormed into school and killed 17 students and teachers in a 6 minute 20 second rampage. The tragedy not only shook the world with outrage, but also sowed a very deep seed in the minds of the survivors of this incident and their immediate community.

35 days to start a movement
The students shortly decided that prayers and support for victim’s families were not enough for them, and a core group of youth from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School organised themselves in a directed effort to advocate for tighter gun legislative laws — one that culminated in the March For Our Lives.

In a mere 5 weeks, the march brought together:

• at least 2 million people in more than 800 March For Our Lives protests across the country and the world.
• 3.3 million: Tweets sent with the #MarchForOurLives hashtag
• 387: U.S. congressional districts across the country that saw marches
• 104: solidarity marches outside the U.S.
• 800,000 attended the march in Washington, D.C. alone, making it the largest single-day protest in the history of the nation’s capital

(Courtesy: Fast Company: #MarchForOurLives by the numbers)

Many voices, one message
This was one of the most inclusive activism efforts I’ve seen. In the march, rallies and media representation, the most diversified pool of individuals came together for one cause. African-American students and minority races joined the march; family members of the victims, teachers, parents and their children, members of the public — even tourists — were represented amongst the march crowds. Even celebrities and media personalities made their contributions through pledges and commentaries. (see the response by former President Barack Obama).

The youngest rally speaker Naomi Wadler, aged 11, delivered her speech to the Washington D.C. march crowd.

Teens take centre stage
This march and campaign was birthed and led entirely by young people. Starting with only 3 friends in their teens, the trio quickly grew their core team and recruited key members to join their cause. The youth organised themselves and developed a clear call of action for their activism efforts. Their rally for help was extremely concerted — they sought out journalism seniors, survivors of school shooting incidents, youth across diversity profiles etc etc. They utilised media — tweets, online posts and videos — to capture the support of the youth and online audience. They told personal stories with conviction and sincerity, and roped in their peers to join them in taking a stand. Their efforts have delivered nothing short of a world class movement.Check out this speech by Cameron Kasky.

Five things we do to motivate and mould a Millennial workforce

Being a youth development charity, the work that Halogen Foundation does with schools continuously puts us in daily contact with excellent young people – and many a time this work is done by excellent young people themselves.

I’m talking about our interns. Youths who are still studying in (or awaiting entry into) tertiary institutes and who decide to spend 3-6 months with us on our Halogen Internship Programme. They come from all walks of life, united by a common passion: Impacting the lives of young people, inspiring them to lead themselves and others well.

Interns have historically been seen as a commodity in the HR world, to be used for low-level operational tasks and easing the load during high-peak work seasons. Over recent years, with the explosion of glamourous tech startups and the rise of ‘résumé badge-collecting’, interns have taken on a different angle. They look for one of two things: The potential of a startup going huge and therefore having bragging rights as one of their early ‘employees’, or the brand name of a multi-national company to add to their real-world ‘Pokédex’.

This presents our first conundrum: How do we get interns who are fully committed and engaged in the work that is done, rather than focus on a self-serving intention?

Internships themselves are a peculiar arrangement. Most companies limit the number of internships they take per year as there is usually much more invested than the approved allowance. It is difficult to justify hiring an intern above the obvious lower-tier of financial expense and an extra headcount to defray the weight of heavily operational tasks. There is of course the other benefit that many established companies are maximising on – building their talent pipeline to have first dibs on the top talent that graduate and enter the workforce. But even so, the risk of having these talented individuals leave within a year of joining is extremely high, with a recent study citing 30% of fresh graduates leaving within a year – and 37% of employers recording that most graduates do not stay for more than two years.

This presents the second part of the conundrum: How then do we ensure the loyalty of young workers, beginning at the internship level?

While we don’t dare to claim we know all the right answers, it is safe to say that Halogen Foundation has enjoyed above-average engagement and loyalty traction. Our recent employee engagement numbers from a study done with Aon Hewitt are at 84%, with 30% of our 20-strong staff being converted from an earlier internship, and 45% of them celebrating more than two years with the organisation in January 2018. As a new entrant into this wonderful organisation, it is easy to see why – it starts with our interns and how we give them the unspoken permission to display excellence, and that trickles upwards to the staff who manage them, the managers who lead teams, and the top brass being fully aware of the mantle placed upon them to grow people before growing the organisation.

There are five key actions I’ve distilled in how we build a world-class youth team, and these are things we do actively and consciously. If you have a youth team, or are planning on building a workforce of Millennials and Generation Zs (let’s face it: all of you are) then this is for you.

1. Trust First, Judge Never.

In the ‘Millennials and Gen Z’ study, it’s been found that young people more than any other generation still living have the highest level of intrinsic motivation for work they believe in. When we ask an intern to lead an ice-breaker on their first day, it doesn’t just jolt them out of the comfort zone well into the growth zone. It also sends a message: That we entrust in your hands something that may well make or break the initial customer experience – because your development is our priority, and we are committed to that.

As managers learn to let go and be the first to trust, that trust is reciprocated very quickly. Not least because judgement never comes their way, regardless of whether the first task was a booming success or a complete failure. Our interns know after that instance that they are in a safe space to experiment, take risks, and release a little bit more of their genius into the world.

2. Human First, Partner Second.

The benefit of having a young staff composition is that when interns come in, they immediately feel at home. The culture we’ve built allows for youthful vibrance and expression. But this can be achieved even without beanbags and foosball tables (we don’t have any of those things by the way). The key thing we focus on when anyone new joins us is that we see them first as humans – people who have made the conscious decision to join a charity to make an impact on young lives.

What does this mean? It means that we recognise and appreciate them as partners in the work we do, rather than as employees. Sure, management is a job we perform to lead people to outcomes, but management is a tool not a title. Titles have never got anything done sustainably, but relationships have ensured the longevity of work for generations. Allow for non-work speak openly, and engage the personal sides of your people’s lives. When you see what makes them who they are, you’ll learn what to do to help them become who they can be. And for interns, this is such a differentiating factor.

3. “I Only Win If You Win.”

A big part of streamlining an organisation’s operations involves its targets and performance measures. As we scale up in our work and impact, we want to be able to measure how we as a charity make a tangible change in the lives we interact with, and closely aligned to that are the measures of the team.

Adopting Google’s methods of measurement – more notably the OKR system – has been key in allowing us to do that. What we really like with the OKR system is that each person’s quarterly objectives are directly linked to their manager’s own objectives. This means that if someone fails, they don’t bear the brunt of the failure alone, and it becomes the manager’s job to help her team succeed. What this does is create a significant shift in the way we perceive and reward performance. No longer are persons measured by the excellent work they do themselves, but by the collective excellence displayed by everyone – including interns. When people at every level internalise this, it sets the stage for greater (more exciting) exploits like business innovation.

4. Autonomy Leads To Ownership.

In the book ‘Drive’ written by Daniel Pink, he talks about how motivation works in high-performance teams. One of the key takeaways I had from that book was the need for autonomy to be shared across the whole organisation, and how autonomy can change the way people view their responsibilities.

Unlike the conventional internship, interns who work at Halogen Foundation have a great deal of autonomy in their day-to-day workflow. They also set their own OKRs with their managers, and get to decide how they want to spend their time moving towards the team’s goals and numbers. What we found was that when people are in control of their own work and their own processes, there are only two possible outcomes: [1] They do really high-quality work that you can see much effort in, or [2] they cannot perform due to a gap in competence (but not a gap in effort and commitment). In the first outcome, the benefit is clear. In the second outcome however, while you face a short-term speed bump in team performance, the benefit is even larger – because now as the intern’s manager, you can see clearer their development roadmap and help them close the competence gap very quickly. Autonomy gives control away, and this control gives them permission to take ownership.

5. Build Competence For Their Next Step.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Interviewers ask this popular question to assess a variety of attributes: Future-orientedness, loyalty, growth trajectory, etc. We ask this question for one main reason: We want to help the candidate, if selected, to get to that 5-year vision. Most people see their time with Halogen Foundation as a stepping stone – it becomes our job as leaders of the organisation to make this the best stepping stone ever.

It’s hard for most leaders to accept that their company is a stepping stone. It posits that the organisation did not provide an experience worth staying for. But this is not the case. What we’ve found and learnt is that by actively building their competence, their attachment; the association to the organisation’s human brand value, increases tremendously. The contrarian idea is that as you see your organisation as a stepping stone for young people, the more they see it as a place they want to stay associated to and give back to. One of our earliest interns, despite spending merely 6 months with us, left with a connection that lasts to this day, tangibly manifesting in a charity fundraiser she held for us of her own volition. Building competence in your people increases their self-confidence, and allows them to tackle larger challenges. And if you’re using internships as a tool to build your talent pipeline, this becomes one of the most important things you can do for the youths who walk through your doors.

Again, I don’t think we’ve cracked the code yet. Over the past 14 years of Halogen Foundation’s existence, we’ve seen three different classes of youths pass through: The late Gen Ys, the Millennials, and now the advent of Gen Zs. How we deal with young people has to evolve, and we are now working with what research calls the ‘most impact-driven generation’. It’s important to recognise our unique and privileged positions as leaders, and use this to help the next generation become exemplary citizens and leaders themselves.

If you’re a manager, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what it takes to build a world-class team of Millennials and Gen Zs. Reach out to me – let’s chat.

If you’re between 18-25 yourself, or you know someone who is a Millennial/Gen Z youth looking for an interesting place to learn and grow, join us as an intern – I can personally promise the best culture to not just impact young lives, but to be impacted and developed yourself.

(Timothy Low is the Chief Operating Officer of Halogen Foundation, a youth development charity focusing on building young leaders and entrepreneurs. Prior to this, he founded a training consultancy, tenured as Entrepreneur-in-Residence in an L&D firm, and led an accelerator-VC programme for deep-tech startups. Tim is also an Ambassador for Sandbox Singapore hub, a member at Kairos Society ASEAN, and volunteers as a youth leader in his church. This post also appears on timothylow.com/blog.)

With the running theme of “Celebrating Breakthroughs”, National Young Leaders’ Day (NYLD) 2016 seeks to encourage youth to find their inner strength, empowering them to overcome any obstacle they might encounter on their journey towards the peak of their lives through stories of inspirational speakers.

Held in the morning for primary school students, National Young Leaders’ Day Primary Edition (NYLDPE) presented a lively lineup of four speakers with performances that were not only entertaining but carried with them the inspirational message of resilience and breakthrough.

Kicking off the event was professional magician and ventriloquist, Shawn Chua, who shared about how his own determination had brought him to unimaginable heights. Shawn explored the notion of how passion drives one to not only do the bare minimum but find ways to go above and beyond. He also dived into how passion gave him the boldness to step out and be different amongst others in his field.

Riding on how passion acts as a key driving force through the valleys and peaks of life, Gelyn Ong also shared her journey as a budding, yet accomplish artist. Being the youngest speaker of the day, this 12-year-old proves to be a living testament to youth that anything is possible when pursuing your dreams, regardless of your age.

Through the sharing of his various projects as a creative director, Pann Lim our third speaker emphasised how things might currently not be how you expected them to be, but by following your passion you can achieve great feats in the future. A pivotal take away from Pann was his quote – “We wouldn’t know where the road leads us to, it can be anywhere. It’s up to you. It’s about the attitude and creativity that you have.”

Rounding off NYLDPE, local singer-songwriter Jean Tan shared, “If you put your heart, your mind and your soul to do something. You will get there. You don’t have to search externally to know your worth. You just have to search within.” Looking at Jean and hearing her performance, you would not have guessed that she was born with a condition that prohibited her from ever becoming a singer.

After going through multiple operations, she achieved the unachievable, overcoming her disability and becoming an influential musician with the ability to move audiences with her songs and powerful voice.

In the afternoon, National Young Leaders’ Day (NYLD) for secondary and tertiary students kicked off with another set of amazing speakers, no less interesting and captivating than those in the earlier session.

Josephus Tan, a lawyer specialising in criminal defence litigation started his session by painting a picture of how things used to be for him as a teenager, sharing how even though his education journey was not a prominent one, he still managed to turn things around and worked towards his goals. His captivating, amusing mannerisms as well as intriguing personality and appearance, allowed his message to resonate with many youths who left the theatre feeling like they could take on the world. It was very motivating to see someone who used to face impossible crossroads, now stand up and fight for people to be given a second chance.

Rohaishah Hamid, a passionate educator, shared her moving life story which left some in the audience on the brink of tears. Through her arduous tribulations, one message was clear: never give up. As she effectively puts across, “Life is like a storybook. When you tear the pages, there are still many more pages. When you go through difficulties in life, there is still so much more in store for you and each and every one of us has a different story. No matter what the story is, always never give up.”

Local actress, Oon Shu An’s message of self-love and self-worth connected with many youths, allowing them to realise the importance of making their own decision and finding their own direction in life. She also left audiences with a memorable quote she lives by – “Those who have a why to live can endure almost any how.”

Vincent Yong, our last speaker ended the day by having the students clasp their chest to feel the thudding of their hearts. As silence swept through the hall, the thud slowly became more distinct, beating with a steady rhythm, becoming clearer and louder. What the students felt was not only their heartbeat but also their sheer potential.

“If an egg is broken by outside force, life ends. If broken by inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from inside.” The message of how the search of one’s limitless potential often starts from looking within was what Vincent, founder and director of Danspire, hoped to ingrain into the prospecting minds of the many youths that attended NYLD 2016.

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A common thread connecting each of the eight speakers’ intricately woven life stories was that regardless of their circumstances, all of them showed resilience, allowing their passion to be their main driving force. They stayed strong till they reached a point of breakthrough, facing obstacles with a fiery determination.

Through their stories, we hoped that the youth realise that they are able to overcome different challenges, to spark the flame of determination within their hearts and fuel them to strive for and achieve their personal breakthroughs.

— Article by Jovi Lee

Jovi Lee interned at Halogen in his last year at Victoria School.
He enjoys exploring new genres of music and adventuring into new places.

33 years into this initiative, Yoshioka is constantly pushing new frontiers with Peace Boat’s work, and there are a couple of perspectives that may help us sharpen our saws for what’s ahead:

1. Plan for outcomes, not output

Yoshioka did not start off with the notion of building a cruise enterprise. He began with a desire to bring cultures together. Carrying that heart and aspiration to catalyse cross-culture appreciation and bonding, Peace Boat is able to generate countless ideas that can be used to design learning experiences. Cruise spaces are transformed into platforms for participants to play, learn, build and celebrate together; on and off deck activities at the ports are created to allow for deeper understanding of social and cultural differences.

2. Invoke inspiration as a catalyst

The activities presented by Peace Boat often bring inspiration and excitement that draws the participants into a deeper conversation for the issues at hand. Something as simple as cruise performances are reframed into exciting cultural showcases, bringing novelty that arouses interest and inquiry. Their latest projects? To reinvent University education on deck and build a new Ecoship that will game change the way we think about cruises – radical design, solar panelled sails and a ecogarden inspired by Singapore’s very own domes.

3. Enlist your people (influencers)

A committed staff team is what Yoshioka credits to be the key to Peace Boat’s success. Looking for “cheerful people who thrive on working in a group and can build on each other’s energy to come up with new ideas” provides the organisation with the stamina for change and invention. This team of staff are also the crew that embodies the Global Voyages experience – of energy, optimism and cooperation – and that gets consistently passed on to the batches of participants.

In many ways I find that Peace Boat’s journey is no different from that of our organisation. By focusing on outcomes, integrating inspiration and building culture, I believe that organisations will experience a surge of renewed energy towards achieving future aspirations.

— Article by Ivy Tse

A Special Europe Feature on Social Innovation – Interviews with Sascha Wolff from Dark Horse and Anna Ostwald from INNOKI

I’ve heard about Design Thinking in Singapore for a few years – be it projects like the Employment Pass Services Centre from the Ministry of Manpower, or from the National Design Centre and Secondary Schools. I was curious about the process. Was it a buzzword? The steps looked simple and were almost too easy. What was it that was different?

Before heading up to Berlin, I chanced upon a meeting with a local practitioner, Trechelle. She shared that if you want to learn design thinking, it would be Stanford’s d.school in the U.S.. Otherwise, it would be the Hasso Plattner Institute School of Design Thinking in Berlin where she went.

She linked me up with her classmate, Anna Ostwald, a budding design thinker from INNOKI. I googled around and found Sascha Wolff, a seasoned design thinker, from Dark Horse, whose clients include Audi, Bayer, DHL, Luthansa and Mercedes Benz. From my interviews with them, I started to realised that Design Thinking is more of a mindset, than a process. Perhaps, this mindset can enable these youths to change Europe in fresh ways, for the better.

Halogen360 (H360): What is so unique about Design Thinking?

Anna Ostwald (AO): It is a practice that allows you to re-discover the abilities and talents you had, when you were young. You use your curiosity, grow your empathy for people and their problems then you try to find the wildest ideas on how to solve them in order to really come up with innovative solutions.

Design Thinking allows you to think with your hands as you prototype concepts and products. It also encourages you to fail early and thus learn from your mistakes quickly.

The German education system places much emphasis on rote learning and the ‘one right answer’. In a typical classroom in school, you mainly sit and listen. With Design Thinking, you’re searching for a solution through doing and failing, it is thinking by doing.

Design Thinking is also a mindset and a culture where the participants are all equal. The team gains ‘informed intuition’ – where you distill insights and a point of view from both qualitative human conversations combined with data and research. From there you brainstorm for solutions, create prototypes quickly and find something that works.

(H360): How big is your team and what do they do?

Sascha Wolff (SW): We have 30 co-founders from 25 different disciplines. In design thinking practice, it is important to bring multi-disciplinary people together as that is where you get fresh perspectives and prevent groupthink. Personally, I studied political science, environment education and philosophy and graduated from the HPI School of Design Thinking.

(AO): We are 20 equal co-founders of different academic and professional backgrounds. In our team, we have actors, engineers, neurobiologists and business owners. We use our interdisciplinary points of views to create innovative products and services. We also support other organisations in their change management journey and share our experiences through Design Thinking in Workshops for our clients. All of us studied at the HPI School of Design Thinking.

(H360): What is the structure of your team and how do you all operate?

(SW): There are no hierarchies and all 30 of us have voting and veto rights. Yes we have ‘CEO’s by law and need functional roles but by and large we’ve created a company with a structure that is pretty uncommon. We are focused on building a community, serving each other.

We create tools of trust, not tools of control. One of them include the biggest failure award – it is self-nominated and the person shares with others what they done and what they’ve learnt from that. For that, he/she gets a ‘silly’ prize. This helps open up people and create a social norm to dare to attempt. This is important as trust issues and failure are strongly related. To build trust, we need to openly talk about failures – not glorifying it or sweeping it under the carpet.

We also help build a strong internal network by encouraging people to bring their full selves to work – giving them space to share both business related information and what is fun to them be it biking, hiking etc. We also take trips together – half of which are business-related and half are fun ones. This blurs the line between private and public.

(AO): In Germany companies can be quite hierarchical, and people do things because the ‘boss says so’. Leaders fail to manage and motivate people well. The Design Thinking culture empowers people to speak up, share ideas and co-create solutions. We all wanted to change the way we work and create opportunities to dive into projects we are really passionate about. They range from finding solutions of how to use new technology in German classrooms to re-designing insurance models.

We are set in a space where we can do “office work” as well as prototype new concepts and ideas and dive into our own passion projects.

(H360): What is your business model?

(SW): Through the Design Thinking process, we work with companies like Audi, Bayer, DHL, Lufthansa and Mercedes Benz to as consultants create new solutions for them, co-develop solutions with their team and/or provide training for their employees in innovation through innovation camps. For example, for Lufthansa, we co-designed offices that facilitate collaboration in the IT department. Through participatory research, interviews and workshops, we involved 400 employees and deeply analyzed their routines, communication flows and blocks. We designed and co-created an office space with more than 3.000 m². and room for more than 200 work spaces that enables collaboration and concentration at the same time.

(AO): Our goal is to change the world with empathy – to bring an empathic view to our clients when they create new products and services while creating solutions in a fast changing world. Design Thinking not only helps us to understand our clients/ users, it also helps us to understand each other and thus live and create a new working culture. We help to effect such an culture also with clients such as Deutsche Bahn, Zühlke Engineering, Barmenia Insurances, and Cornelsen.

(H360): Sascha, Dark Horse published a book called “Thank God it’s Monday”. Tell more more about it.

(SW): As we started Dark Horse, we planned it to be a Design Thinking company. However, we didn’t realise that the biggest project was ‘us’. We applied principles via trial and error, did much self-reflection and as we did so, we found out that other people wanted to work with us. We did a workshop with a publishing company and they suggested we wrote a book (not about Design Thinking) but about ‘us’. That was how the book was birthed.

In the book, we shared more about how we worked – fun and hard work. Instead of meeting marathons, we had idea sprints. Instead of hierarchies, we had rotating offices. What we espouse is self-expression in tandem with cooperative collaboration, flexibility and digitisation.

With this, we also consult for HR managers who want are looking to attract and retain young talents with flexible, meaningful and engaging work. We help HR departments to develop their companies into employers of choice for Millennials.

(H360): Sascha, some Millennials may opt to work in established companies. How do you think they can adapt to traditional structures?

(SW): One of my favourite quotes is “Got to learn the rules so I can break dem properly”.– “Evolution”, lyrics from song by “Gentleman”, a German reggae musician. I think it comes down to the entrepreneurial spirit – yes, they can complain and they can dream of the ideal. But, I think they need to be brave to complain purposefully, find space to test ideas, not be afraid to fail, fail soon to learn and add value by creating a minimal viable product. I’ve learnt from HPI School of Design Thinking to not complain but have a spirit that asks “How can we solve this?”.

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It is with this spirit of creating solutions in these Design Thinking labs that may give Europe the next boost. With the future of work becoming increasingly uncertain, established companies are racing to innovate yet some are also held back by traditional structures. Companies like Zappos are proposing a new work order called ‘Holacracy’, that removes power from a management hierarchy and distributes it across clear roles, which can then be executed autonomously.

With thorny challenges like the European migrant crisis, the unity of the European Union and the European economic state, one thing for sure, is that new and better solutions are needed.

What will work? What will not? The future is in the hands of those who create it.

— Article by Jael Chng
Photos contributed by Jael Chng