What are you standing for? What do you want to achieve? What is your overarching mission? For us at Allsafe, our mission is clear: "Your success with a visible attitude" sums up how we want to work. Every day I see how firmly this phrase and its meaning is anchored in our employees' minds. The individual divisions have even specified it for themselves - and each has derived its own mission from it.
And precisely because I know how strong such a mission is internally and externally, I keep noticing it: At a higher level, in politics, in society, such a mission is missing.
In order to address this desire for a roadmap at state level, a strategy for Baden-Württemberg, I gladly accepted the invitation to talks from Stuttgart.
Honest exchange
I have to confess: I was a little biased when I went to the Unternehmer:Innen forum in the state capital in June. In addition to Andreas Schwarz, leader of the Green Party in Baden Württemberg, our Minister President Winfried Kretschmann was also due to take part in the event. My expectations were: We would certainly only see a greeting message from Kretschmann on video and the other politicians would, as is so often the case, be more interested in talking than listening. But I was wrong ...
When I arrived at the Ratskeller in Stuttgart, I was met by a small group of around 20 entrepreneurs, some of whom reported on their current challenges and the most pressing problems. The Minister President diligently took notes and then categorized the various aspects and briefly outlined his views. I found this exchange to be very honest and valuable, nobody minced their words and everyone was very open about where the shoe pinches.
I had the impression that this event is a great platform for entrepreneurs to present their views to politicians. And I would like to encourage you to do the same: Take advantage of opportunities like this to make your concerns heard!
No moon landing without a mission
I was also able to get my message out: "If J.F. Kennedy hadn't had the vision of sending Americans to the moon before the end of the decade, if NASA hadn't been inspired by this vision to realize its mission of sending astronauts into space, there would be neither Google nor Apple today. We lack such a big goal! As a company in Baden-Württemberg, we need a clear mission from politicians! And then sensible framework conditions to be able to implement this mission in the future."
Where are we heading with digitalization? Which technical developments will be in demand in the future? How are we tackling the issue of sustainability as a federal state? Yes, there are some exciting initiatives that the state government is driving forward. There are many studies with interesting results. But in my opinion, we don't hear enough about this in our companies. There needs to be more communication here. We need a clear mission that gets to the heart of the matter.
My understanding of leadership is that we as the management team provide the direction, while the employees shape the path. A clear mission helps to ensure that everyone pulls together and participates. This is not only possible within a company, but also at a national level. And that's why I hope that even more companies will pull together to tackle the major challenges together.
Jens Laufer
