Do the best Dutch companies apply scientific insights consciously or unconsciously is today's question to Dimi Albers. We will talk about how to get different blood groups in a company to work well together, about retaining culture while growing organically and also taking over companies. And we will talk about how to maintain creativity in an organisation of more than 3000 people.
Dimi Albers is CEO of DEPT®, a digital agency for pioneering tech and marketing combinations to strengthen digital brands, with over 3000 employees in more than 30 offices on 5 continents, once started by two Dutchmen Paul and Bart Manuel.
Focus
How is it that DEPT® is doing so well? Dimi looks back at his predecessors. "I think Paul and Bart have done two things very well. One, they have thought well about a clear focus on what we should and should not do. After all, we are a service company. That means that we deploy our people to create success for other companies. We are not a products company. So it is not the case that we create a software programme that you can then buy with a monthly subscription. That seems like a big difference and it is. But they have been smart to split those two things. They have also focused on getting the right people on the bus. A culture where it is constantly about maybe not the best people with the best qualities, but the ones who best fit the culture of the company".
Grey
According to Dimi, start-ups often say that you have to make mistakes in order to learn. But one thing Dimi has learned from Paul. "You can make mistakes, but don't make big ones. I think that is really true. At DEPT® it is all about doing things as well as possible. And if you make mistakes, make them small. Huge mistakes can let you slip into a place you don't want to be".
But when is a mistake a big mistake or a small one? The CEO of DEPT® says that with them things are often more grey, not black or white. You create that by having a broad layer of people who all, one by one, feel responsibility.
Curious about the whole story of Dimi? Check out the latest episode of the Work Professor!
Links
More about Dimi Albers
Podcast Lennard Toma
More about the Working Professor
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