Decision-Making Process: what helped me to navigate my organization?

In the last six months, my team and I are experiencing a new journey. A journey which forced me to rethink my existing way of working in order to define a new organizational structure which will lead us into the future. Yet, the question still remains – do we need as a team of six defined processes, structure and hierarchy. Or is there another way to cope with the market and entrepreneurial challenges.

As a former manager of a German company well known for innovations, positive corporate culture and 400.000 employees, my package of experience includes a highly structured way of thinking and operating business. Yet after one decade being an entrepreneur I learned very quickly that this package can be an advantage and at the same time a “big“ obstacle. 

In the first entrepreneurial years, I had a clear vision of what is right and what is wrong and tried to plan everything into detail, copying the previous organization in almost every aspect of the business. Some things were amazing – and our corporate clients accepted it very fast as a VETTURELLI advantage, and there were other things which were slowing our own company growth. It meant we had to change rapidly. So, 10 years ago I started to read books on being a consultant, being an entrepreneur and how to grow faster on best case practices. Everything seemed to make sense, yet it wasn’t applicable. So, an intuition journey had started. I mixed some things which I felt as useful and some which were built on the personalities, skills, and advantages of each team member.

At that time we were a team of four and we found a way to align, to be ambitious and passionate about reaching some hights. We went through a one-year team coaching process and defined our values. We developed our own way of working – and even if I thought that we hadn’t clear structures and processes I realise now that it was just a false presumption. 

Looking back, now it is clear, that intuitive our way of working was based on the so called Effectuation framework:

1. bird in the hand- when thinking on new services or projects, in order to sell them we were driven by answering the question “which are the strengths of each team member, who we are, what we know and whom do we know”. So, sometimes it seemed that we changed our core business, but in the end, having in focus the client and where we can give added value led the way.

2. affordable loss– as most of the entrepreneurs we also suffered a few losses (in terms of money and invested hours of work). 9 years ago we developed a regional web portal which was too advanced for the time being (in the last two years there are popping up). We invested a lot of money in the development and promotion, yet we had to shut it down after two years seeing it as an investment which will never bring the return. Am I sorry? No. It only learned me to be aware of how high is the affordable loss I am willing to lose in order to grow.

3. lemonade– I like to have a plan B. It makes me feel safer and more self-confident, yet since the financial market collapsed in 2008 everything changed. I started to approach each situation individually and with the question “how to use the new circumstances in order to grow our profitability”. Just recently, we created a new project for an international client and after investing almost 10 months in preparations, the client had some conflicts with a partner organization and had to stop the project”.  So, we took the ownership and will continue it as a VETTURELLI project. There are situations where we had to put an end to it, but plenty of others became our lemonade. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. ;-)

4. patchwork quilt– I am pretty analytical and demanding person with high standards regarding quality of work and reliability, so if I had to build a partnership looking at those standards I would have a huge problem. So, it is hard for me to find the “right” partner and I learned (or still am learning ;-)) to decrease my demands and focus on the question who can bring the business further. F.e. in 2015 we initiated a project B2B RUN and built a partnership with an organization which had some different values and way of working, yet it reduced the uncertainty and together we built a new market. Two and half years later the project has grown into a high potential business and we sold it to one of the biggest sports-marketing agencies in the world. So, instead of searching for a perfect match, a patchwork can work as well. ;-)

5. pilot in the plane– the only thing which I learned from my early age was that everything is in my hands and that I am the master of my life (read work as well). That I am in charge of the future and that I am the one who can decide how to navigate "into" and "through it". It is something that is deeply rooted in my person and which gives me the confidence that everything will be all right – whatever I decide.

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If you would like to know more on how VETTURELLI is Tackling the Change send me a note to: dijana@vetturelli.com