On several occasions now a significant number of Gefühlsmonsters left our headquarters in the direction of Hilti AG and we got curious – what are the Gefühlsmonsters doing in Liechtenstein?
A little while ago, we had the opportunity to interview Mr Peter Metzler, ‘Sherpa‘ at Hilti AG, on the role of the Gefühlsmonsters at his company:
As part of their commitment to creating an employee-oriented corporate culture, Hilti AG has been organizing seminars on corporate culture, the so-called “Team Camps“, for all of their roughly 23,000 employees worldwide every two years for 12 years now.
To that end, the company employs more than 70 trainers, internally referred to as „Sherpas“ (Mr Metzler: „And that is not because we want to carry people’s loads for them, but because we define ourselves as the ones setting the direction.”). Key topics for the Team Camps are set by the company’s management team and then moderated by the ‘Sherpas‘ who are specifically there to look after cultural and intercultural concerns, things like social interaction, internal relations or team development based on corporate goals and values.
That is why the two-day Team Camps are not only about evaluating the current corporate strategy by each team (‘Where do we stand?)‘), but also about a mutual exchange across all levels. This is facilitated and encouraged via different means such as walks where employees get a chance to get to know or to give feedback to one another and communication workshops with video debriefing. But even with this intentionally broad variety of methods, Mr Metzler told us, “you still reach a point every time when you get the same behavior again and again.”
In search of something to counteract this phenomenon, Mr Metzler came across the Gefühlsmonsters. They made their debut straight at the top, with the Hilti board of management, then with other trainers in the company. Reactions were similar – quite skeptical and critical in the beginning, “brilliant“ after people were able to gain their own hands-on experiences with the cards.
Now the Gefühlsmonsters are used to complement the wrap-up sessions of the Team Camps across Europe. Participants are encouraged to select 3 to 5 cards to sum up their thoughts and feelings at the beginning, during and at the end of camp. Mr Metzler: „Our work with the Gefühlsmonster® cards is received very positively in this context because for the first time participants do not only talk about subject matters, but primarily about feelings.”
Our sincerest appreciation goes to Mr Metzler for taking the time to give us such in-depth feedback about his experiences with the Gefühlsmonsters and for providing us with photos from the Team Camps.