The Optimist, located in The Hague, is the publishing house of opinion magazine The Optimist and the online community of the same name. The content is about people who are leading the way and new ideas that change the world. The organisation consists of 10 employees, divided over an editorial staff, a customer care department and a marketing and sales department. Make Energy Work only involved the owner and the editor-in-chief in the energetic change process: Roland Pluut and Brian de Mello respectively.
Problem
In early 2020, publishing house The Optimist contacted ECOintention. What was missing was a healthy ‘flow’ within the company. The number of subscribers didn’t grow fast enough. Recruiting both commercial and content partners was difficult. And new projects didn’t get off the ground quickly enough.
Solution
The energetic starting scan showed that The Optimist scored far below the target values on many energetic values. In consultation with Roland Pluut and Brian de Mello, the following objectives were drawn up:
- to strive for better cooperation;
- to strive for a proactive working attitude;
- to strive for more subscribers and commercial relations.
The energetic change process started in January 2020. The continuation phase was successfully completed in February 2021. Brian de Mello now guides the renewed, healthy energy within the company himself. The latest measurements were outstanding.
Result
In the stabilisation phase, cooperation improved significantly. Brian’s colleagues noted that the atmosphere had become much better (more relaxed) than a year before.
‘We have experienced Nils as a highly skilled partner. Nils and Monique are engaged and motivated professionals who have guided us well. At first, we didn’t know what to expect, but after some time we noticed that everything went more fluently and smoothly than before. The results are above our expectations.’
The results at a glance
- the self-reliance of colleagues has increased, despite the fact that most of them work from home due to the corona crisis;
- work meetings have improved considerably, despite working from home;
- the number of commercial and content relations has increased enormously;
- the number of paying subscribers for Medisch Dossier has increased considerably;
- the website was renewed in a short time;
- an anniversary edition was released at an accelerated pace;
- the administration has finally been put in order;
- creativity seems to have increased: ideas for new articles, collaborations, work processes and business models seem to come ‘out of nowhere’.