Christo Davel
I worked closely with Sasha to articulate our purpose, our values, what we’re about and how we work. The most significant result of that work was an inspiring and beautifully written culture handbook for everyone in the business.
I’m a great believer that, as Peter Drucker is attributed to have said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, and it was proven to me by the handbook. Several employees – really special, talented and highly sought-after people – told me the handbook was one of the reasons they wanted to work at 22seven. We also had extremely committed and loyal staff with unusually low turnover.
One of the positive side effects of doing this kind of culture work so well was that, even though the book was really intended for people in the organisation, it became a powerful marketing tool, attracting exceptional people and impressing other stakeholders, from funders to customers, and even industry colleagues and competitors were a little envious.
Several of us had made several previous attempts to encapsulate who we are and what we stand for in a manifesto. Sasha came along and summed it up clearly and very succinctly – in about half as many words as we had managed ourselves.
That manifesto is now part of much of our marketing collateral, including being very accessible to anyone who visits our website. And in fact we’ve found that it is one of the things many clients and potential clients look for. People don’t just want to know what you do, they want to know why you do it and what you stand for, and our manifesto is an important part of that storytelling for us.
As part of our brand repositioning initiative, we felt that it was time to re-examine our purpose, values and culture and articulate these in a manner that could resonate with our staff.
From our first introductory meeting with Sasha, it was clear that he just “got us”. He clearly understood what we required in re-crafting our purpose and repositioning ourselves internally and externally.
He was instrumental in drafting not just our purpose and values in a simple, easy to understand and clear way, but also assisting us in rolling this out to the entire organisation through various workshops and engagement sessions.
We as a team thoroughly enjoyed working with Sasha and appreciated his professionalism, drive to get this implemented and guidance on how to practically live our values.
Sasha holds space for me as I find expression for the most conscious form of leadership I can muster. I know the word ‘holding space’ is a divider. Being a certified and experienced coach, I have an appreciation for what it takes to do it well. Sasha has earned my trust as my inner world’s keeper through his competence, sincerity and intention. Yes, there are playbooks for conscious leadership and we utilise those. For me, it’s ultimately personal and everything is on the table. Fortnightly, I account to him on this otherwise private journey. I never miss, postpone or delay this appointment.
Apart from bringing great storytelling and simplicity to our positioning and messaging, he made an immediate and lasting impact on the culture in our team. He instigated ways of working that ensured creativity came from the entire group (not just the so-called “creatives”).
Additionally, he introduced rituals, initiatives and thinking that really helped make us an extremely engaged and productive team in the business.