Who are the relevant stakeholders (groups and/or specific individuals)? Which stakeholders have which need for a future ownership solution?
Workshop: Map your Needs
Summary
Text
The workshop mapping the needs of the respective company and its stakeholders takes a central role in many processes of implementing steward-ownership. The Map is about identifying and documenting the needs of the company's stakeholders for the design of its ownership. These are specifically related to the various ownership rights: voting rights, profit rights and inheritance and sale. On the basis of the resulting needs map, a further process can be designed, and the legally appropriate solution can later be found. The result of this workshop thus forms an important basis for the next steps without already thinking in terms of (legal) solutions. The focus should be on mapping, so seemingly conflicting and contradictory needs can also be included without weighing them against each other or trying to solve them. The agenda that now follows is a suggestion of how this workshop can be designed. Of course, the agenda can be adapted individually for the respective company.
Preparation
In preparation, the questions to be worked on in the workshop can be sent in advance. They do not have to be answered conclusively, but they should have received some thoughts before the workshop. In case you already worked through Your attitude towards companies and Unsere Vision , the results you got there will help here as a basis. It is also recommended that participants have read the contents of Understanding Ownership as preparation.
Prep questions
Answer the following questions for yourself and your company without jumping to the solution or person-related level yet:
- How would you define entrepreneurship, being an entrepreneur or a company? What does that actually mean to you? What do you associate with it for our company? What not?
- Formal control of a company: who should have it in our company and why? Who should not, and why not?
- What do you envision our company to be in 5, 10 or 20 years?
- Desired image?
- Anti-image? (What should not happen under any circumstances?)
- What role should profit play in the company? Who should have monetary claims on the company and why?
- How would you describe the investor(s) or financing partner(s) that would suit us?
- Which stakeholders are relevant for the process of ownership structuring (as an important feedback provider for the process and the decision or because there are concrete needs or demands for the future ownership structure)? You can name abstract roles as well as concrete people.
Workshop
We create an overview of the stakeholders and their demands in the context of our company and the new ownership structure, so that we define an orientation and basic attitude for the development of our steward ownership implementation.
- Checkin
- Warm-up questions
- Collect stakeholder
- Mapping of needs
- Meta-view
- Next steps
- Checkout
How are you doing? And: Why do you think it is important to deal with the issue of ownership? Why not just carry on as normal?
Have a round where each person shares their own thoughts on the preparation questions (without the other people having to react or refer to them) so that you know from each other who stands where, where you have similar views and where you have different views.
Collect relevant stakeholders (people, groups of people and entities) and fill them into the matrix below.
Then discuss each stakeholder and locate them in the matrix according to their needs and the rights you think they should have. Recognize which needs are linked to ownership and which aren’t, also linking to the questions above.
Meta-view: After all stakeholders and their ownership needs are named, what tensions or patterns emerge? Are there still uncertainties and if so, where?
What tensions, to-dos or follow-ups should be addressed as the next step?
What did you take away from the workshop?
Matrix: Mapping the Needs of Stakeholders
Stakeholder
(Persons, groups of persons or legal entities, e.g., founders, investors, employees) | Voting power:
Formal power, control | Dividend rights: Financial claims on the company | Inheritance and sale? | Other |
Published by: Purpose Schweiz
Graphics and illustrations: Purpose Stiftung