At Summiteers, strategy execution is usually about how other organizations can achieve their strategy. One of the most important aspects of this is how to properly organize the collaboration. But how do we actually do that ourselves? In this blog, Lidia Swinkels, co-founder of Summiteers, provides an insight into how we work together and shape our culture.

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Trust as a basis for collaboration

At Summiteers, we strongly believe in giving trust. We do not organize ourselves from a “what if it goes wrong” mentality, but from the conviction that everyone has good intentions and deals with information in the right way. This trust in each other's integrity forms the basis of our cooperation.

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Trust within frameworks

Of course, trust also comes with certain frameworks. A good example of this is our “Big Book”, with the apt subtitle: “If it's not here, it's not there”. It explains how we work internally and what we expect from our people. For example, everyone has the key to the building, but we assume that you treat it with respect. That means you don't organize a rave party if no one is around at the weekend. We wouldn't find that very respectful, not to the neighbors and not to the rest of our team. But we're not going to check for that.

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Humour as a connecting factor

We do all of this with a healthy dose of humor. At Summiteers, we find fun and a good atmosphere just as important as serious work. That's why our Big Book is full of jokes. For example, the book contains a gif of one of our colleagues on a lawnmower, on the slide about private work balance. And is the title of the slide where the MT's responsibilities are listed “Who does what” and the subtitle “Or... who should do what and can give you a boost if she/he doesn't do it”. We also have a monthly 'Screw up of the month' that you can nominate yourself for if you've done something awkward — which we can then laugh about as a group and learn something from. That's how we keep it light.

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Setting the bar high

Although we at Summiteers believe in a light and pleasant atmosphere, we also set high standards for our work. We expect each other to deliver quality and speak to each other accordingly. We are an informal, pleasant group of people, but we are also keen on the content and say it if something is not good enough, about that Simone recently wrote a blog. You can still do that in a respectful way; you certainly don't have to scoff at each other. But we do want to keep that bar high.

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Vision and strategy are essential

In addition to all this, it helps enormously if you all have a clear idea of who you are and who you want to be. What exactly do we do? What is our plan? We therefore set aside quite a bit of time to talk to each other about vision and strategy. Twice a year, we organize Summit Days, a kind of heather days à la Summiteers, where these topics are always covered. In addition, we have our monthly team meeting, the ROTS, which is dedicated to tactical and strategic discussions twice a year. Knowing what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what you're working towards together helps enormously in guiding, collaborating and leading your team.

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Stimulating personal growth and development

At Summiteers, we believe that personal growth and development are the key to making maximum use of our talents. We don't want a checkout culture with imposed targets, but focus on intrinsic motivation. We ask our people questions like: What do you want to challenge yourself in? How can we help you with that? From that intrinsic motivation, people will grow without feeling that they are alone.

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Creating a safe and transparent culture

A safe and transparent culture is also very important to us. You are not only a Summiteer, but above all a person and we have an eye for that. Anything can be there, including doubts or personal questions. We notice that people sound the alarm, for example, when they have thoughts like: Is this it? , Is this the job I want to do? , Does this really make me happy? Because they discuss it early, we can help with their search. This often leads to the conclusion that this is indeed what they want, but sometimes not. That's ok too. The goal is not to necessarily keep someone with Summiteers. It's about someone feeling good, having a good time and being happy about it fun things to do with nice people. If that's with us, Top. If that doesn't turn out to be the case anymore, that's okay too.

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Growth is a means, not a goal

In our society, the focus is often on growth: the more, the bigger, the better. At Summiteers, growth is not an end in itself, but a means of making it fun and interesting. Our ambition to grow is there, because it makes it even more fun and we can do even cooler assignments, but not at all costs. Sometimes we don't grow, maybe one day we'll take a step back. Then it can still be a successful year. If you let that way of thinking celebrate a bit and are more concerned with people and trusting each other as a team, something beautiful will come out, no matter what.

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About Summiteers

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