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Young entrepreneurs at the school of management consultants: The consultants of 4flow AG have consulted ten student-run companies of the German Children and Youth Foundation in Berlin for one day
The whole company could not make a journey, only six excellent employees. Jasmin and Domenique belong to them. The girls from grade 9 are active long-term members of the Café Relaxx student corporation. Actually, Jasmin is a member of the management. On this Saturday, 28 October, the friends got up early. Their train to Berlin departed just before 6 a.m. from Aschersleben, Germany. Together with four schoolmates and two educational staff members of the full-time school Albert Schweitzer they came to Germany’s first day of advanced training for student-run companies. The German Children and Youth Foundation, together with the management consultancy 4flow, invited ten student-run companies of the program 'SCHUELER UNTERNEHMEN was!' ('STUDENTS run COMPANIES!) in order to be consulted by professionals one day long. 'SCHUELER UNTERNEHMEN was!' is a program of the Heinz Nixdorf foundation belonging to the German Children and Youth Foundation – with currently more than 250 student-run companies all over Germany.
At 11 a.m., 60 students from ten student-run companies meet in a room of the crystal-clear, ample office floor of 4flow AG. A couple of teachers and pedagogues accompany them. All of the young entrepreneurs are from Germany’s New Laender. The youngest of them go to grade 6, the eldest make their high school diploma. The muttering sounds fidgety, the laughter excitedly. None of the students has ever dealed with real management consultants. Neither have the consultants - the more than 20 consultants have never consulted student-run companies before. A sole exception are the organizers of the German Children and Youth Foundation (GCYF) who have already experienced premieres like this one. In the run-up, they have laid the ideal foundations for the event’s success.
Committed leisure entrepreneurs
On a little stage with a microphone, Andreas Kick from 4flow welcomes the unusual clientele. He convinced his bosses and his colleagues to have a consulting day and arranged the project together with the GCYF. "I am responsible for a trouble-free procedure. And for the quality assurance. In case your consultants do not do what you want." The students laugh about this unlikely complaint. Dirk Waldhoff, head of the program 'STUDENTS run COMPANIES!' of GCYF, briefly introduces the present companies. 4flow’s CEO, Dr. Stefan Wolff, knows what it means when students sacrifice their free Saturday for their company. "I think your engagement is amazing, and that is why I said yes, we’ll do that." Stefan Wolff also does not take for granted that the accompanying teachers and pedagogues commit themselves to their students on a free Saturday. He himself has also made time for consulting the "Energie-Team SAG" from Koenigs Wusterhausen. The most important facts have been said, at 11.30 the work within the teams begins. Ute Gelbke and Karin Winkler, the pedagogic employees of Café Relaxx, say goodbye to their students annotating "Don’t embarrass us." They attend the workshop for pedagogues in order to talk to other teachers, tutors and staff of the GCYF about their experiences with the student-run companies.
Rules for the case of emergency
Jens Hettenhausen and Claudia Trautmann from 4flow stay in the room with the six employees of Café Relaxx. The three girls are 14, the three boys are 12 and 13 years old. In groups of three, they sit next to each other at the big desks that have been entirely cleared. They have a lot of respect for the two consultants who present themselves now. Vested in shirt and blouse, black textile trousers and cleaned shoes. The boys and the three girls wear sneakers, jeans and t-shirts. Just as they go to school. The meeting - as it is common use - already begins with the expectations everyone has. First, no one wants to say anything, but after Jasmin has begun, everyone knows exactly what he or she wants to know today: talking about new ideas, becoming more communicative, passing on our ideas to the young talents, talking about the realization of the ideas, and one of them wants to know how a company works in general.
Claudia Trautmann noted the wish list on the flip chart. She warns immediately that the day is too short to understand how a company really works. The second point on the agenda, which the students can see on the computer monitor at the head of the desk, are the rules of team work. When it comes to “turning off the cell phones”, everyone is digging in their bags. Objectivity, letting everyone speak out, respecting all opinions, thinking before speaking, and confidentiality (no fear of the teachers) are further rules.
Everybody wants to sell only
The six students from Aschersleben, Germany, thaw slowly. During the next 30 minutes they present their company Café Relaxx. The student corporation was founded in 2004. It has 20 employees and runs a kiosk and a cafe at the school. The turnover is approximately 200 euros per month. For two weeks of work during lunch break, the employees earn 5 euros. Jens and Claudia have taken notes on the provided information according to costs, turnover, purchase, sales, customers, the company’s objectives and assortment. Jens Hettenhausen and Claudia Trautmann host the conversation and suggest new ideas, they have said, but later the students will have to realize them on their own. Jens Hettenhausen asks the most important question right away: “How do you want to bring forward your company?”. He does not want to speak about problems, but about challenges. Most of the numerous topics the students name are about product management and employee development. How can we sell more? Which new products should we offer? How do we motivate and strengthen employees? There are many yellow notes sticking on the flip chart. The students, however, wrote their problems on some of them, such as how to assert the ban on cell phones, or how to chuck out students at the end of the break. In the next step, the six students have to decide which points they consider the most important to discuss and mark them with a red dot. All dots are glued to the complex of product management. And here we go. Each consultant sits together with three students and analyzes with them what kind of products they already have and what they wish for. Jasmin and Domenique want to add fish rolls to the assortment, Fabian doesn’t. Domenique’s counter-argument: “You don’t have to eat it.“ Fabian dreams of an ice cream machine like that of Mc Donald’s. But Claudia Trautmann cannot tell him immediately how much it costs. The notes are filled with red, blue and green handwriting. 90 minutes have already passed, it is time for lunch.
How can employees be motivated?
At 2 p.m., the second round of consulting begins. Annika, Maria and Christoph from the student-run company L.W.L. of the secondary school Pampow sit in a small conference room. Six employees have been signed up, and there begins the issue that worries the manager, her substitute and the EDP manager: employees who are not motivated, not reliable, who are not present. In the morning analysis, they analyzed the strengths and weaknesses together with the consultants Karsten Ploog and Peter Vagedes. L.W.L. stands for Lernen.Wissen.Leben (Learning.Knowledge.Life) and describes the three columns of the company very well. It offers extra tuitions from students for students as well as computer courses for adults, organizes events like the autumn ball in four weeks and takes on some projects such as the designing of a philosophy book. In mid-October, at the fair of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the management found out that L.W.L. does quite well. Their presentation was awarded with the first prize.
The three students take their responsibilities very serious. In the same manner as success. Last year, they improved a student’s grade point average from 5 to 2 (German grades: 1=best, 6=worse). For them, the thank-you letter of the mother was the most important award.
Today, however, they will deal with the focuses. In their opinion, they have problems with team work, communication, finance and time management. Annika states: “We have a nice structure, but the problem is the personal attitude.” Maria adds: “Listlessness causes very different problems. If employees are missing in the last meeting, the communication does not work.” Karsten Ploog directs the attention to the meeting culture of the company. They all meet every Thursday. How can the departments develop an own identity this way? Peter Vagedes points out that some people do not become committed in larger groups, but liven up in smaller structures. Annika wants to draw conclusions immediately, and develops the next steps at once. Karsten Ploog warns not to jump to conclusions. “We haven’t come that far yet. What consultants say will not always be realized one-to-one.” First, they should consider if the proposal goes with them.
Peter Vagedes slows down the great hopes for improvement with a realistic limitation: “Your attendance is compulsory. That’s why you have to live with the fact that there are people who are not motivated. But every once in a while, you could really try to motivate the people.” They come to the solution that it would be good if the four department heads would take more responsibility. There is to be a meeting, in which the management meets the departments heads separately, delegates duties, and status reports are talked over. This would also improve the communication within the department. Annika stays completely convinced of the way and knows already how she wants to start: “We have to say that from now on we will do it this way. We have to take more drastic measures.” With Maria and Christoph, concrete questions on personnel are redebated immediately. What can be expected of schoolmates from grade 13 who will be gone in two months? And the offspring, what is it capable of? Will it be like in emergencies that they have to do everything on their own?
How is the inter-generational conflict to be solved?
In the big conference hall, the workshop for the pedagogues with the teachers, who take care for the student-run companies, holds a meeting. The flipchart is full of working notes and structures the problems that are to be discussed. Three tutors who supervise the student-run companies sit in the middle and discuss the inter-generational conflict, the pecking order among the students. All the others listen and take notes. Karin Winkler of Café Relaxx is in the middle, too. At the beginning, this “fishbowl method” was not very comfortable for her, but then she contributed very much to this intensive discussion. In order to get rid of the anger, the “Energie-Team” of Uwe Peschel talks about “mud”. With this metaphor, he describes a downtime, in which feedback can be frankly provided. Then, everything that is annoying can be addressed – else the handling rules of the corporate culture are valid. In everyday life, they are soon forgotten. Now the listeners from the outer circle participate in the discussion, they complete the input of the three. Besides the people of the GCYF, who are responsible for the program, there are also the tutors of the GCYF for the student-run companies. They can report on the experiences and beginnings of solutions from other companies. Bettina Korn, consultant for student-run companies in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, reports on the symbolic hand-over of keys that L.W.L. practices at transitions of generations. For resigning staff members, she also writes references of the GCYF about their engagement.
Courage to have gaps - presenting without fear
Back in the working room of Café Relaxx, students and consultants perk themselves up at the end of the second round of consulting. They stand in a circle and play “ah yes”. Everyone has to propose a movement that they all make after having shouted “ah yes”. The walls, the glass door, the cupboards are wallpapered with the results of the afternoon. Six favorite requested products have been selected, and it was analyzed how promising they are. Little pieces of pizza and small chocolate-covered cream cakes scored well, closely followed by sausages. Newspaper has been judged worst, milkshakes and fish rolls could not convince neither.
On the next charts, there stand short-term and long-term measures for the product launch. Even the advertising has already been invented. On the blackboards, there could stand, for example: “Cheaper than the competition” or “Only awhile”. They could do a poll in the student magazine in order to get to know better the customer preferences.
After a short coffee break, the four companies meet at 3.45 p.m. in the big conference hall. Karin Winkler and Ute Gebke are quite anxious about what their students will present. His spar partner Helge stands in when a word is missing. Both get applause for the amplitude of their product developments. Like a shot they answer the question of what they are going to do first: “The pizza”.
Annika, Maria and Christoph, the three executives from Pampow, Germany, have developed two solutions for their communicational problem and one for their price policy. They want to present the realization of the developed proposals on November 9th in the plenary meeting and would like to launch the new prices in November already. For call backs, they have the consultants’ business cards in their pocket. If there are problems with the realization, they can call again.
Management consultancy certified by student-run companies
At 5 p.m., all teams meet again in the room where everything began six hours ago. The mood is exhausted, but relaxed. On charts, they can study the results of the other groups. Andreas Kick hands out certificates to all teams, their supervisors, teachers and consultants. These certificates document that they have participated in the first German consulting day for student-run companies and that they run a 4flow-certified company. Dr. Stefan Wolff has the final words. “I have rarely seen so much entre-preneurial spirit as today,” he compliments the young entrepreneurs. The challenges they have in small are the same large companies have, too. However, those companies would never come to results that quickly because the business processes are far more complex. The speed of cooperation and progress has impressed the professionals of 4flow today.
Domenique and Jasmin only heard this praise from their consulting team Claudia and Jens. They had to leave earlier in order to go on their long journey back to Ascherleben where they live. Their baggage includes the charts and results of their discussion. At the end of their working circle, they examined the list of expectations once again with Claudia and Jens. All expectations could be checked off as fulfilled. Even the great expectation to know how a company works. Put in parentheses – but today they have understood a little bit more.
Author: Gesine Wulf, freelance journalist, Berlin (translated by Jeanette Gonsior)
Photos: Piero Chiussi, freelance photographer, Berlin
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