‘Pragma-tizing‘ a Semco Style Transformation  

Semco Style Stories with Pragma, South Africa

Pragma, the South African engineering and consulting company, takes the stage in the latest episode of Semco Style Stories. This company is known for its enterprise asset management software tools and management practices, which makes day-to-day operations more efficient. However, managing people took a step back, and Pragma had to then start focusing on individual strengths and happiness.

When it was just the four engineers who built the company, managing people and the business was not an issue. As the company grew into a globally-represented organization with close to 500 employees, the dynamics of sustaining this balance became much harder. What became increasingly challenging was staying competitive and making quick decisions from either the office space or from home, when required.

This pushed Pragma to start a cultural transformation with the aim of enhancing performance, impact and happiness. The person behind this cultural transformation is Stéphan Pieterse, Chief People Officer at Pragma. Stéphan is trained in mechanical engineering, and fully understands the operational requirements of the business. He is also motivated by unlocking human potential, with the intention and determination to bring humanity back to the workplace. As he puts it, “I am a mechanical engineer – machines don’t talk back to you, but people do”.

In his 15 years at Pragma, he has broadened his horizons by exploring different facets of organizational development. He set his eyes on combining all that makes Pragma authentic: being people-oriented and staying true to their South African origins in today’s forward-thinking world. Diversity lies at the core of all things Pragma — originating in a diverse country like South Africa, covering a range of industries as clients, and employees scattered across the globe. The idea was to tap into mutual interests and values, and then mold those into a model that is able to handle the complex business challenges of today.

It becomes essential to understand the core strengths of the organization when embarking on a journey. This helps in optimizing the tools and mindsets before taking a deep dive into transforming a company.  

For Pragma, this meant that the first steps in their road to self-management started with ‘Pragma-tizing’ the people, technology and even the appearance of the campaign. As Stéphan puts it, “We don’t want external people to change us internally”. Therefore, the magnifying glass was pointed towards elements, teams or individuals that were already flourishing within the organization. Identifying these, and then amplifying and communicating what they were achieving was the approach to keep the process of experimentation as close to the heart of the organization as possible.  

The core of the organization was represented by the Gemba, which roughly translates to ‘the real place’. Gemba, in Lean philosophy, are the operational teams. Implementing all learnings into the cornerstones of the organization — the Gemba — reflected the expansion of their knowledge circle that starts at the CEO level, and filters through to the sponsors, ‘drivers’, and team leaders.     

“We don’t want external people to change us internally”.

One of the ‘drivers’ came up with the analogy of climbing Mt. Everest. Three phases were chalked out, representing the three different phases of self-management: preparation for self-management (reaching the Mt. Everest base camp), self-organization (advanced base camp), and eventually, self-direction (summit). The last phase is when teams can direct themselves with minimal input from the top. The initial idea, as Stéphan says, is “the desire to get everyone to basecamp.”  

He adds that, “not everybody is going to reach the summit, but we want to make sure that there’s a good understanding of basic models and principles.”  

From knowing to applying   

The next goal was to encourage a positive atmosphere. This was when all employees agreed on the rule of using three positives and two negatives while giving feedback. The approach to support colleagues was especially helpful in their digitalization strategy. Stéphan, though already versatile, had to diverge from his role as facilitator into his original role of an engineer. This created a platform that enabled positive energy to disperse throughout the organization.  

To effectively spread the knowledge of the ‘drivers’ across multiple teams, selfie videos were introduced into an Isikobeat application. This ‘positive’ momentum was accelerated when seeing the faces of colleagues in these videos, who shared several practices and principles of the Isikobeat movement in an interactive manner. Pragma was thus able to create better awareness of the transformation among its people. This helped the organization evolve its model from solely knowing facts, practices and principles, to actually applying these.   

Pragma has made major progress by continuing to apply self-management in the organization, all while staying true to its authentic self. These days, Pragma has started to involve more changemakers and team leaders in its transformation process. Here, passion and authenticity are crucial conditions in the selection, apart from just past records.  

The results, till now, have been outstanding. Increased creativity has emerged from the Gemba, which has seen markedly higher levels of ownership and happiness. Monitoring the pulse of the Isikobeat on a monthly basis and communicating the outcomes transparently has driven all employees to explore in-depth the status of the organization. For instance, the ‘Principles of the Month’ and the ‘Value Adding Ambassador’ program – that highlights outstanding employees based on certain principles — emphasize the need for creativity and innovation in tough times.   

In order to keep momentum alive, Stéphan says, “There needs to be energy behind it, especially in the light of something like the COVID-19 pandemic, otherwise it can quickly die.” Involving everyone in this creative process has been vital, both to build an authentic culture and to take back the positive changes in the process. Overall, Pragma continues to show its determination to reach the summit of self-management by taking as many people as possible along and facing any kind of adversity head on.  

You would like to re-watch the full session with our guests from Pragma? Scroll down and check out the webinar recording!