allUpp x CoGrow: Initiating the Transformation

The Hero: allUpp

allUpp is one of the few Salesforce consulting partners headquartered in Austria. They accompany their clients on every step of their Customer and User Journey for Marketing, Sales and Service. By following a clear engagement strategy, they develop tailor-made CRM systems based on Salesforce Customer 360 that promote their clients’ growth at all levels, helping them achieve their entrepreneurial best. 

Their mission is to implement CRM solutions that adapt flexibly to each of their clients‘ processes—and not the other way around. Through their work, allUpp aims to strengthen their clients’ companies and make them fit for the digital age.

Behind allUpp there’s a young, dynamic and ambitious team with experience in implementing Salesforce CRM for companies of all sizes – from start-ups, SMEs to international companies. One of allUpp’s major priorities is offering Austrian and German companies unrivalled accessibility, short communication channels, efficiency and speed. Furthermore, allUpp is guiding the client’s transformation not only with digital high-tech but also with social high-tech, enabling Agile Transformation.

The Challenge: Scaling Sustainably

Over the past four years, allUpp has been rapidly growing. To support continuous operation and future growth, allUpp’s leaders decided to initiate a constant, ongoing renewal process: they realized that for allUpp to develop, a constant development in mindset was needed. 

allUpp needed to start generating a conscious WE space with co-ownership for more growth to occur, both in terms of profit and team health. Co-creating this inner developmental space would help spread the organizational development work more evenly across all the members and not only on the managers.

Ultimately, taking action and recognizing their need for a deeper alignment would enable allUpp to start strengthening the base from which they operate, readying themselves for sustainable growth. In a regenerative organization, leadership is a collective phenomenon.

The Approach: Regenerative Transformation Immersion Workshop

CoGrow.Space‘s Regenerative Transformation Immersion Workshop was designed for organizations that are ready to shift their mindset and make space for continuous growth to emerge. The workshop fuses Theory U‘s 3D Mapping, with Open Space Technology and CoGrow’s own practices, with the aim of helping teams feel the heartbeat of the transformation. allUpp’s openness and their understanding of the importance of embodying a growth mindset as a means to growing as a company made them the ideal client to pilot a new version of the Regenerative Transformation Immersion Workshop. 

To kick off the workshop, every team member was asked to check in with the group. Then, Gerald Smech, allUpp’s CEO & Peter Pospisil, allUpp’s CTIO, introduced their perspective on the company’s current status, and their vision for allUpp’s future. 

A table was already set up with all sorts of objects and art supplies with a variety of qualities such as Play-Doh, toys, Legos, and pine cones. Randolf, trainer at CoGrow.Space, then gave an introduction to the 3D Mapping, and the intention behind it. The idea is that the team starts by creating a 3D model that represents the current reality of the system, and later, the whole team reflects on the sculpture and makes changes. The stories told and perspectives shared during the creation of the model hold the highest value here, as relationships are deepened.

3D Mapping is a method for making systems visible to their players and stakeholders.  

The collective building of the model helps bring to light all the different dimensions and perspectives making up the system of the organization. At the same time, the process activates each of the members’ creativity and the deeper sense of knowing that comes along with it. Additionally, it reinforces the notion that all members are co-creating the organization’s reality on a daily basis. Through the process, each person’s perception is widened thanks to the individual perspective and the witnessing of the perspectives of the other colleagues. 

Typically, the 3D mapping is done in groups consisting of 8-10 people. During allUpp’s workshop, the process was done by the entire team, comprising over 20 people. No one can transform something that is not understood, so having the whole team go through the process of understanding the system allows the transformation to become all the more effective. A system needs to see itself to be able to transform.

When mapping the organization’s present state, each object in the model symbolizes a part of the system, an element, a quality, or a particular participant. One by one, allUpp’s team members placed an object in the model and shared with the others what that object represented. The act of witnessing carried by the group as each member adds an object is just as important as the act of incorporating each object and explaining the reasoning behind it. 

This first model is co-created within a maximum of 45 minutes. After its completion, the group goes around and reflects upon it from 4 integral directions: the feelings, truth and action, the systemic barriers, and the deeper purpose. During allUpp’s workshop, at this point, Randolf asked the group a few questions related to each of the 4 directions. A flip chart was used to capture the key aspects of the debrief. 

The next step involves changing the model in such a way that it reflects the change that the group wants to bring about in the best possible future. The group shares a moment of stillness to take everything in and consider what is the emerging future that they want to collectively manifest. After this, the allUpp team was ready to start changing the model so that it better represented the future they want to bring into the world. Again, one by one, each team member makes a change and shares the reasoning behind it. 

For the rest of the day, the participants dedicated themselves to harvesting the key insights found when comparing the first and second models. This involved identifying the structural changes made to transform the first model into the second, the most significant change overall, and the key leverage points in the system. 

The next section of the workshop commenced with an introduction to Open Space Technology. This methodology aims to provide an opportunity for participants to learn exactly what they feel they need, and to connect people with similar interests so that they can learn from each other. The Open Space has a theme and follows 4 guiding principles. For allUpp’s workshop, the theme selected was the movement from the current state into the emerging future. 

Every participant could choose which session they wanted to join. When the sessions were completed, each topic was presented to the group in the form of a story. To close the Open Space, everyone took a moment to reflect upon the topics and consider which topics would be discussed afterward with the whole group.

allUpp’s Regenerative Transformation Immersion Workshop ended with a closing circle, where everyone contributed. 

The Impact: Understanding allUpp as a System

allUpp was seeking to create the inner space necessary to continue growing healthily. The Regenerative Transformation Workshop allowed them to co-create this space. They chose to collectively take their first steps in their journey towards their developmental edge. The whole team is now aware of the fact that allUpp is a system—comprised of each and every employee, customer, and stakeholder. Participants understood that they can and should influence this system creatively as a means of bringing about necessary change. All members have gained a clear picture of allUpp, and everyone got to sense the heartbeat of their own transformation journey.

Additionally, many undisclosed internal initiatives were initiated to bring allUpp to the next level.

What Participants Said About the Workshop

How Participants Described the Workshop