The Way Beyond in 2020, 2021 and beyond!

Culture Way Beyond
Written by Way Beyond

We, in this "new" world

2020 was a year of losses and gains. Not everything that was lost was bad. Not everything that was gained was good. Much, or almost everything, was called into question. As we are no exception, we decided on an exercise of self-observation, of analysis of our small universe and the wider world around us.

By way of a TV news warning, some parts, especially at the beginning, can be interpreted as "heavy" or "negative". Perhaps they are but we still believe that much positive can be taken away if one accepts the benefits of "thinking negative".

With the evolution of the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus, causing COVID-19, the world is being forced to change at a speed that could not have been foreseen. The usual resistance to change has caused its troubles. On the one hand, some seem to resist it more than others, who, due to the stubbornness, idiocy and lack of humanity of the "some" end up making life difficult or even bringing about the death of the "others". On the other hand, this situation seems to have injected in some people a double dose of courage and clarity, which are fundamental for making long desired or necessary changes. At Way Beyond we have received some beautiful "injections".

Out with the prejudice! Hello online format!

As a virus that is transmitted by human contact, direct or indirect, all activities that imply this premise are questioned, suspended or outright eliminated. Those that seek to prolong the life of those infected and maintain the health and life of those who have not yet been infected escape. All this, of course, until the solutions found in record time have time to have an effect and we can touch and be touched again, literally, at will.

Way Beyond, a project born more than 20 years ago but whose most recent metamorphosis has not yet reached three years of age, is one of the organisations whose physical presence, although dispensable, was the preferred stage for the course of its activities. If it is true that for some time we resisted the online format to do what we do best, it is also true that quickly, much by necessity, we uprooted this belief.

We will tell you in a moment what we have done in this regard.

A good dose of humility, "by force

As a team and as a company we were working on the basis of certain assumptions, both material, emotional and cognitive, that were limiting us. If we already had some awareness, with circumstances like the one we lived through it became impossible to ignore and not act. Such assumptions may have reduced our agility, which we usually translate as 'difficulty in implementing'. We now realise that these were excuses and justifications that fuelled our resistance to some changes.

One of the assumptions we identified was "being good people", in the sense that we were "dirty", sometimes too much, even for each other... It may also have limited the speed of our development as a team and as a company.

Another assumption was linked to "our" space, which was spectacular and in which we had invested an important part of our income, even though it was not ours. It was a luxury we had to give up. Today there are more flexible and agile alternatives that can help us maintain and, who knows, even enhance the type of experiences we want to offer our people and our clients.

We had been aware for some time that the Way Beyond team should be more agile, in more than one sense. Firstly, it should be agile in terms of thinking. Then, it should be agile in transposing ideas into actions, services and offers (from programmes, written content, audio, video, etc.). We had not been as agile as we would have liked. One of the reasons was that we were dragging a heavy structure with us, which also included these assumptions that probably weighed the most.

We may be important but we are not essential. Will we survive?

However many artifices of thought and language we may resort to, however poetic and appealing the argument may be, the pandemic has revived a perception we already had: the activity of Way Beyond is not essential to everyone. Especially in these times in which we live, when we hear testimonies from different professionals who are "in the front line" saving lives in the most diverse ways, we tend to think that we are not (so) essential; however, when we are deprived, for example of access to culture, we don't take long to feel and say that culture is an essential good and that we follow #unidospresenteefuturodaculturaemportugal. So where do we stand? We stand in the knowledge that we don't save lives in the literal and so noble sense of the word, but we believe that what we do is important and that it makes a difference in the people, teams and organisations we work with.

In order to think about ourselves we needed, and still need, not to forget that we all have to stop surviving, alluding to the title of the book by the Portuguese philosopher André Barata and not necessarily to Maslow's pyramid, which is so often misinterpreted. We have been moving towards becoming and being recognised as a project, as a team and as people who help to develop and acquire abilities and skills that may be of extreme importance, essential even for the most attentive and courageous. In a world that prefers utility, efficiency and productivity to importance, our path has been, in a way, counter-current and counter-cultural. This is because we want to find those who risk taking the risk with us to dedicate themselves to what is important, even if it is useless, inefficient or unproductive.

Inventing new ways of being and doing

Besides this evidence, the uncertainty about the future, in a broad sense, and about economic developments, specifically, made us feel that the work of Way Beyond was, is, at serious risk. And we are still not sure how or when we will overcome these times of tightness. We have made various decisions and taken measures that have increased our time in existence and which, we hope, will make it possible to survive the economic effects of COVID-19. None of this has made us stop, on the contrary, and to continue existing we have decided to create a more minimalist version of ourselves.

This minimalist version has triggered the need to review the way we do business. And we will talk about this later.

This was undoubtedly an opportunity to get rid of our assumptions more quickly and create others more in line with our vision for the project that would allow us to create a team that is freer and more in line with what we want to be and the impact we want to have on society.

Our 2020

The adjustment of expectations

In 2019, we predicted that 2020 would be the year with the best results ever, following in the footsteps of the previous years, since 2017. It would be the year of consolidation of our new brand, new positioning, creation of new products and services and the qualitative leaps as a team that we had worked so hard for.

We had in the pipeline projects with new and repeat clients that occupied almost 100% of our agenda until the end of May. One after another, the projects began to fall through, the prospects of new business to be postponed without any forecast of resumption and the agendas began to free up, against our will.

All these circumstances brought us to a reality where we had to resort to layoffs for 4 months; the managing partners reduced their salaries by 25% (to maintain the fairness of treatment that we value in our culture), a measure that affected everyone, we reduced (all) salaries by 20% after we stopped resorting to layoffs; two people from the team, Ana and Tina, whose jobs were closely linked to the office we loved and decided to leave behind, reached an agreement to terminate their contracts; we had to resort to moratoria and take out loans, we who did not have and who made sure we did not have any source of financing other than the fruits of our labour.

In the final accounts, the falls in activity and turnover meant that 2020 was not the best year ever but one of the worst, in terms of financial results.

Against resistance, there is change!

Our team did not give up. On the contrary, in a very short time we managed to organise ourselves and, more than surviving, help each other to live better through a very difficult situation. The team was going to change, as we had known for a few months, because Inês was leaving to dedicate herself to her personal project (congratulations and much success, Inês!), but she was with us during the most difficult phase, until June.

Fortunately Way Beyond has had a policy of choosing flexible, digital and nubile (yes, this word exists and is in the dictionary) work tools. In fact, unbeknownst to us and having never been a remote team, we were fully prepared to be working from home, from a technological point of view.

So much so that 2020 was the year in which, with high probability, we made the most radical decisions about ourselves, were quickest to implement important and complex changes and, despite everything, to get new projects and new clients.

What we achieved (and didn't achieve) between March and December

In no chronological order or order of importance, here is the list of our achievements of 2020:

I want to tell you that I read your monthly newsletter and I think it's the only one I currently read, because it's different, because it doesn't just deal with business issues, because it takes me into areas and reflections that I would hardly do alone.

Congratulations to the whole team for the newsletter - very relevant content and a document with "space" to be read calmly.

CONGRATULATIONS! The (intelligent) text is incredible - you can feel the enthusiasm and positive energy on this side! Best wishes for continued success and the contagious spirit you have!

  • We created and, in November, launched Short Films: Learning Shots by Way Beyond, of which we are very proud!

    • It attracted the interest of several clients. One in particular, Kelly Services, challenged us to hold 7 sessions on 3 themes, reaching 140 people.

  • All the ongoing individual programmes - of coaching or our personal learning journeys - continued at a distance and we started others. Some of them with new clients.

    • We noticed two directions in these processes. Some people will have enjoyed it even more and for others, given the circumstances, it was very difficult or impossible to continue. Some processes changed their scope a little bit to have more of a support function, deviating from their initial purpose.

  • We adapted programmes already known to regular clients and partners to an online format. For example, Liderar Teams e Negócios and Liderar através do Coaching with REN; First Time Leaders with SONAE MC; Leadership Essentials with AbbVie; Surf for Employability with Surf Social Wave; among others.

  • We had clients, some new and others old, who challenged us to new projects and new formats, which led us to collaborations and partnerships. For example, a digital event for over 70 people simultaneously - the Team Digital Gathering - for a Farfetch department in collaboration with House of Beautiful Business; or a programme for Politejo leaders where we invited Pur'ple;

  • A new client, in the Education sector, was in our objectives for 2020. We were very happy to have been invited to design a cycle of programmes on communication for the Doctoral School of NOVA University of Lisbon.

  • We have extended the partnership to all the people of Way Beyond! Yes, now we are all partners(or partners, if you prefer a more "modern" designation). It was an old idea and vision that we finally realized. If before this step we no longer used titles that differentiated us hierarchically, now we are all partners! If before each person already saw this project as their own, now this is even more true. One more step in the consolidation of our culture of transparency, commitment and equity.

  • We made the Way Beyond Librarypublic and issued a challenge, which was met, to help us with the categorisation of old entries.

  • We have maintained our Way Beyond Conversations - each month one person in the team invites another to offer feedback - we continue to learn from each other.

  • We rehearsed "a kind of Tea Talk", this time private and exclusive, in three editions, to discuss the state of the world and the future "of things". Thanks to Ana Paula, Célia, Miguel, Vasco and Guilherme for sharing.

  • We have launched a questionnaire to find out more about how you see us.

  • We continued to work and to count on our partners and friends of always. Thanks to Zé, Paulo, Inês and Inês, Pedro and Pedro, Rui, Alice, Luís, Ana Paula; Miguel and the Adagietto team; Ansof for your friendship and support.

2021 and a longer time

We already told you that at the end of 2020 we asked Way Beyond's clients, friends and acquaintances to answer some questions about us. We wanted to satisfy some curiosities (it's true!) and, above all, to see what we can't see for ourselves, about us.

Fulfilling the path of sharing and transparency that we have been walking, we want to share with everyone the analysis we made of the several dozens of responses. This detailed analysis (which we still want to share in the near future) is not included here, but we believe that it is worth highlighting some aspects that have already helped us to start thinking about 2021 and beyond. We chose to bring here what the people who answered us say they like most about us and what they think we could improve or do more of or differently.

In fact, the analysis of the answers did not bring us any big surprises. We didn't expect them either. However, they were extremely useful and important because they helped us to define the path we want to follow: trying new approaches in relation to the aspects that have been holding us back and insisting on others in which we believe, even if they go against the trends and expectations (it's not stubbornness, we think. It's conviction!).

What the people who have replied like most about us

Those who answered us like us, like our team: our values, seniority and experience, proximity, sympathy, friendship, transparency, honesty, trust with which we relate to our clients, partners and friends.

They like the way we do what we do, particularly our focus and the way we dedicate ourselves to working with and for clients; the approach we say is disruptive, creative, innovative and original; the delivery, commitment and professionalism we put into the challenges we are set; our practical sense and close alliance with a solid theoretical grounding. They like the way we communicate, the way we listen, the space we give to dialogue.

We get vain and thank you! If it's all right, let it stay!

It is also true that it is increasingly clear to us why we exist and we are convinced that we want to continue to be as we are and to do much of what we do as we do it.

Because we believe the world of work needs to reinvent itself, we know we have a long way to go. But isn't that what we have been doing ever since we became who we are? We think so and we believe that we have also contributed to designing learning experiences that help create new ways of relating to what we do. We do it, first of all, with ourselves and we try to do it with our clients.

We would venture to say that in whatever we do, observing and understanding the way people relate and interact with each other and with their surroundings, how they talk, how they question themselves, how they open up to other perspectives, is one of our greatest fascinations.

That is also why we look at the answers they generously offered us and, at this particular moment, at what they say they like best about us, the attentive and curious look, trying to understand better what they mean and listening beyond what is said. To do well what they say we already do in this way is one of the few plans we have for 2021 and for the more distant future.

Writing about this near future is not easy. Circumstances don't help. We write and delete a few times and still the words do not seem to convince us. Truth be told, what we feel is that this is a year to keep questioning, evolving and consolidating. Planning is so 2019!

(To) Where we want to evolve and what we should invest in

To help us change and grow, we picked up what those who answered our questionnaire told us about what they like least about us and what they would like to see us do.

We're not going to lie, we were happy to realise that many people don't have an answer to this question, there's nothing they like less about us (or didn't want to tell us, which is also worth it).

We also learned that the fact that our public identity is mainly associated with coaching does not please some people who would like to see our other areas more visible and highlighted. Still, it is understandable that we are seen this way. After all, it is one of the activities to which we have most dedicated ourselves over the last 13 years and where we want to continue to invest. Change costs and takes time. To change in the eyes of others even more so!

They also told us that they would like us to expand our presence/brand in the market, to continue innovating, remaining true to who we are, continuing to be "different". This has been, in fact, a well-known challenge for us. Beyond communication, we believe that the path may pass through that different way of doing "business" that we mentioned before.

This new form will mean activating an even more careful selection of clients and the projects we accept, and having more courage to refuse some challenges, as necessary. It is well known that this is a difficult balance to strike. We have bills to pay, after all! But the time has come to say, first of all to ourselves: we must respect and be coherent with our purpose! We may have to take a risk and reduce the number of simultaneous projects, so that the whole team, or almost the whole team, can dedicate itself to each project. On the other hand, we have to learn better how to distribute effort and energy as a team. This may imply defining less ambitious financial objectives, but sufficiently projected to guarantee the well-being of the people in the team.

Last year we already did that. We chose to continue with a more balanced team in terms of seniority and/or capacity; a team certainly composed of more mature people. In larger projects or those that require different skills, we will recruit and hire people on a fixed-term basis, by project, who add value to the Way Beyond team, as well as continuing to use the partnerships we have had for decades.

We also noticed that they want us to design and implement new programmes, namely short duration, reflection/discussion sessions in company and between groups from different backgrounds, as well as online programmes. These seem to be the desires and the trends.

Who owns the future?

In part, we are in tune with our clients, friends and acquaintances: we want to be seen more and seen by more, we want to continue to be a reference school in coaching training but to be more aggressive in making known more of what we do (and we believe we do well!) and what we love to do! So, in 2021, in addition to our much-loved Way Beyond Coaching Class, we will put more chips on Way to Lead: The Art of Facilitation (the pandemic will not beat us and we will be able to do it as we would most like - in person - but, with high probability and with pleasure, we will go back to the drawing board to launch it in an online format); in Short Films: Learning Shots by Way Beyond of which you can already hear the buzz in some mouths; in our Way to Speak communication programme that so many, like us, know can make a difference to the way you communicate. We will continue, as before, close and attentive to our customers, and we will be braver, we know what we want and what we believe in, so let's get to work.

The start of 2021 is likely to be more difficult than we expected. More for some than others, it's true, but for all, certainly, very demanding.

The article we wanted to write was about what we would like it to be this year. But in the meantime... Cooooorta! Let's rephrase: the articles we will write will be about what this year will inspire us to be, to think and to do.

Of one thing we are sure (can we still say this?): we around here will continue to be restless, curious, restless, to question ourselves and lead others to question themselves and, in our own way, we will continue to do "our thing".

We will persist in giving life and strength to some ideas that have always been with us: the belief that "by talking well we understand each other better" and that people who work in companies in this way will feel better, with themselves and with others, and in their workplace.

We will keep you informed throughout the year and in December we will be here to take stock.

 
Way Beyond
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