Dear TECHHOUSE Friends,

Our everyday life as we knew it, went off track within a few days. We all must now work together to reorganize our daily lives, create new structures and establish new daily routines to keep our things going. In private with our families and friends, and professionally with our colleagues, teams and business partners. For this to succeed, we need new digital communication tools, so that we can continue our work the best way possible over the next few months and also rethink work and cooperation itself for the time after the crisis.

To ensure that communication within our company and with our business partners – in Techhouse’s case across different locations, countries, and time zones – can continue to work, new leadership skills are needed, that connect everyone in our team and partner network: Inclusion and empathy, but also trust in your team’s abilities, are more important than ever – for us these are essential skills so that remote work can succeed.

At TECHHOUSE we are applying various digital cooperation tools to work on our projects and tasks from wherever we are around the world. A clear structure and a high level of independence – going hand in hand with the same level of individual accountability and solidarity within the team – has helped us greatly in this new challenging process. 

Yes, it is a challenge to establish new professional structures and routines as quickly and efficiently as possible, which enable getting the whole team on board – and keep it there during the time of Corona crisis, of which we don’t know how long it will last. But it is also the time when we as business leaders should ask ourselves the vital question: How can we use this crisis also as an opportunity to create structures, that fully embrace the digital space and economy, and the possibilities that go hand in hand with it? Although the current situation is challenging, we should not be scared to ask questions like this one, and engage in further considerations.

Let us not only manage the crisis, but let us also use it question the status quo and get a head start for the challenges of the future. Let’s take full advantage of the possibilities that modern technologies and the digital world offer us, but let’s also not forget to reflect on what we could have done better on an individual level, but also as society as a whole. 

This is how the TECHHOUSE team is tackling the crisis and what we have learned:

• Fostering the “WE-Feeling”: Although every individual team member will have to do his or her part, the idea that we are all working towards a common goal has brought us closer together and has made us stronger to tackle the challenges ahead of us
• Psychological Safety: For us clear and inclusive communication within our international team on a daily and structured basis is a key element for success of the organization
• Trust, Independence & Accountability: Everybody is aware of the situation and his or her individual responsibility. 
• Applying the Tool Set: Using various digital communication and collaboration tools to work with our colleagues and business partners from wherever we are around the world
• Keeping the Individual in Mind: We live empathy and inclusion
• Humour: Never lose it (GIFs help ;)