From enablement to engagement: the organizational culture of Consumentenbond

April 14, 2022

Designed to bring democracy and transparency to our everyday purchases, the Dutch consumer protection organization Consumentenbond also benefits from a uniquely decentralized and self-organizing approach to governance.  A model worth exploring in detail, we discuss Consumentenbond with Henk de Torbal, Lead Link for Customer Value, and Niels Kamper, Lead Consumentenbond Academy & Way of Working.

VIVACE:  What are some of the key attributes and objectives of Consumentenbond?  

Consumentenbond is an association dedicated to representing consumer interests. It seeks to empower consumers with respect to the production, distribution and consumption of private and collective goods and services. This includes providing information about qualities and prices of goods and services, and raising awareness on pricing strategies or agreements that may harm consumers. 

Founded in 1953 by a group of Dutch civil servants and economists, Consumentenbond seeks to engage with and mobilize individual consumers who are making consumption decisions that are both conscious and conscientious. Today, it is among the largest and most active consumer associations in the world. Its financing is generated based on member contributions and remains independent from political, industrial and commercial interests.  

Despite the community-driven mission of the association, Consumentenbond went through an intense period of self-evaluation and initiative to change its organizational culture, which other companies and organizations can use as a point of departure for their own organizational culture programs. 

VIVACE:  What were the steps involved in moving Consumentenbond’s culture to one of collaboration? 

It began with an honest look at the fact that the old ways were not working. Employees were not happy and the membership statistics of the organization were suffering.   

We focused on putting into place the “ADKAR” model, which is a five-step process to move from enabling change to engaging change, including: 

• Awareness:  Why should the organization change and what types of change are necessary?  What is the risk of not changing? 

• Desire:  What decisions need to be made?  What incentives do teams have to change? 

• Knowledge:  How can teams develop new skills and build new tools and ways of working?  How can this be implemented and measured? 

• Ability:  How to demonstrate changes in performance and behavior?  How to measure new capabilities gained? 

• Reinforcement:  How to reinforce actions aimed at expanding change?  How to recognize and appreciate engagement of teams? 

Naturally, there were some employees that were not keen on these changes, but generally speaking, it has generated tremendous benefits.  Our current low employee turnover and team satisfaction statistics prove this. 

VIVACE:  How does self-government work at Consumentenbond? 

The Consumentenbond approach mixes Holacratic principles with its core values.  Although the organization has fixed goals and job descriptions, all of the roles are adjustable.  Work is organised into roles, clarified by a set of responsibilities and name for that role and people are found to fulfill it. 

What prompted the change was a difficult period for the organization.  We had a declining number of members and felt our organizational culture was suffering.  Starting in 2018, we began defining our strategy and “must-reach” goals.

The approach is based on the concept of “circles.”  The entire company is defined as one extra-large “XXL” circle.  Within this are “XL”  and “L” circles.  Each circle has a clearly defined purpose, responsibility and role.  The XL circles include three types of senior circles:  proposition teams (commercial, with responsibility for business models and revenue streams); guilds (subject-matter experts in the areas of communications, content, publications, technology and customer value) and strategic programs. 

The backbone of this approach is the weekly circle meeting.  It ensures team alignment, creates space to process tensions and review next steps.  All circles have a weekly meeting of one hour (as opposed to two or three hours, as was the case previously).  Meetings are run efficiently, even when over 20 items are on the agenda.  Metrics and projects are reviewed along with a list of yes/no “checklist” questions.  Objectives and key results are closely followed for each project. Remuneration is decided in accordance with the “Baarda” model, which uses eight different employee profiles in which to situate employees.  An academy exists to uncover and enable professional and personal growth opportunities, for example through webinars, internal and external training.

VIVACE:  What advice would you have for companies that are beginning the arduous path of improving their ways of working? 

According to Henk and Niels, the corporate world’s focus on personal hierarchy, KPIs, performance reviews and appraisals often leads to the feeling of things not being achieved.  Consumentenbond’s organizational approach allows it to focus on constant improvement and celebrating teammates’ accomplishments.  In some ways, the absence of the traditional hierarchy allows the organization to be more free and open to greater opportunities for success.  In terms of advice, the approach will naturally vary depending on the organization, but a few key points include: 

• Focus on adding value.  Implementing a model that involves mobility between teams and job functions requires knowing oneself and determining what will give you energy and satisfaction.  It also requires honest self-evaluations and 360-degree evaluations that are designed to determine not only where someone can add value in the organization but where he or she will be happy doing so.  

• Live the growth mindset.  There should be a consistent way of giving feedback that is responsible and empowering, designed to bring people into a mindset of wanting to improve and developing a plan for making improvement attainable.  This requires a certain amount of self-discipline to favor and preserve collective resources over personal gain. 

• Focus on progress over perfection.  Growth is an iterative process that seeks constant improvement instead of perfection at the first try.  Progress is the goal, however slow it may seem. 

Henk and Niels were recently in Paris to accept the “self-management at scale” award from the NextGen Enterpise Summit on behalf of Consumentenbond.  While it is too early to predict how tomorrow’s companies will be structured and operate, they are hopeful that Consumentenbond will be a successful model of participative, democratic governance that is aligned with the core values of entrepreneurship, collaboration and honesty. 

CPM 

*  *  *  *  *