CASES · LEADERSHIP
A learning journey through new working worlds
How do space, collaboration and leadership hang together? As part of the leadership development programme at ipoque we visited Unite in Leipzig — an organisation that has translated its ideas about working together not only into leadership models but very concretely into architecture and the design of its rooms.
The engagement
- Client ipoque — a Rohde & Schwarz company
- Sector Companies · IT
- Period November 2023
- Service Leadership development programme
- Format Learning journey · hosted by Unite, Leipzig
THE PROCESS
Space, leadership and mindset.
1 Exploring
The organisation becomes visible
The learning journey did not begin with a presentation but with a walk through the new Unite premises. No straight corridors, flexible walls, different working zones, intelligent lighting and a cafeteria that doubles as an all-hands space: a great many details show which forms of encounter, concentration and collaboration the organisation wants to make more likely.
2 Understanding
The leadership DNA behind it.
We then moved from the architecture to leadership. In the “Summit”, the largest meeting space, the Unite board member for HR presented their understanding of leadership along the integral model. The axes I and we and inner and outer open a different view of subjects that otherwise easily stay below the surface — and make them discussable.
In that logic, Unite is a “shaded green”: an organisation that relies strongly on getting along well together and on shared responsibility. That is precisely the bracket connecting leadership culture and the design of the space.
3 Transferring
Do not copy. Translate.
At the end we returned to our own system: what of this is interesting for ipoque — and what would not work there? A learning journey does not supply a blueprint. It widens the space of what seems possible and helps you observe your own taken-for-granted assumptions against another organisation.
FROM THE WORK
Insights.
Participant feedback
None of this can be transferred to us at all… although, hang on a moment!
A participant from software development (translated)
A systemic reading
A learning journey is interesting because one organisation observes itself through another for a few hours. The question is not what can we copy? but what irritates us here — and what does that irritation say about our own routines and possibilities? Good examples therefore do not supply solutions. They change the view of your own organisation.
Dr. Jonas Asendorpf
LET’S TALK