A big part of Monday’s success has always been our capacity and courage to keep reinventing ourselves. We believe that progressive reinvention is the key factor to compete against the largest players on the market, such as the big Agencies or Consulting firms.

But starting last year our biggest transformation ever started. It stopped being about how we treated our team and our clients and it started being them at the center of everything, as the force that drives us all. According to Star Wars, the force is something that grows inside you.

During our short 12 years of existence, our team’s well-being was our main priority. We were against late hours at the office, although sometimes it could happen, but shouldn’t be the norm. Their families had to be their first priority. Living a healthy life, both physically and mentally, had to be a goal. All this was highly important for us as managers.

Now all this is a given and therefore our focus has changed. The company itself has been reinvented by the team, and the projects are created by the client. The force is growing inside each one of us.

Two main changes took place:

1 — The team reinvented the company

How could we promote design thinking Processes for business strategy if we wouldn’t do it ourselves? How could we speak about collaboration and co-creation if we would promote a top-down strategy?

What was different now? This reinvention was led by the team. What we are today as a company is the result of pure collaboration and co-creation by the team, through Design Thinking processes, focused on value proposition creation and client’s alignment. In the end, it’s not what we do, it’s about the value we create with our client.

Management had no influence on the company’s redesign of the services we are offering today or on how the company now presents itself.

We, as leaders today, have to work as facilitators. Our job is to provide our team the support and the tools needed for their amazing performance. We have to be invisible and when we are visible we should be listening 90% of the time.

“We, as leaders today, have to work as facilitators. (…) We have to be invisible and when we are visible we should be listening 90% of the time.”

Another relevant point was coaching. Today information about any topic is available online. Training is not an issue. We believe that we have to facilitate tools to develop the emotional intelligence and emotions management of our team. Quoting António Damásio, the famous Portuguese neurosurgeon, “Emotions and feelings aren’t a luxury, they’re our way of communicating our mental states to other people. But they’re also a guide for us to make decisions.” Coaching is new in the company, but it’s outcome is starting to blossom.

2 — Co-creation and collaboration with clients

There is an amazing dichotomy, the time that we speak about Digital transformation is the same where people are more relevant and at the center. There is no Customer Experience Transformation without empathy. Empathy is, in my opinion, one of the strongest concepts in management today.

The client is our hero. But the client is a company. So the client is more than one person. So we need them. We need to be with them. We need to hear different people. We need to challenge different people inside a company. We need to co-create with them. We need to feel their purpose, because we need to help to transfer that purpose to the consumer. It’s all about emotions.

Purpose comes from inside the company. Purpose comes with feelings and emotions, and these create empathy. Purpose is a healthy and honest way to create communication.

At Monday purpose is a work in progress. Purpose can’t just be defined and imposed. You live it, you feel it. It goes in your blood. We are almost there, and for sure we will share it with you soon.

Thank you for reading

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Monday is a Business Design Consultancy based in sunny Lisbon. We believe in the power of brands and we work side by side with our clients transforming their customer experience. This core philosophy stands at the center of everything we create. Clients include: Snickers, Red Bull, Twix, Philips, M&M’s, Guloso…