Beyond Budgeting Case Study Schindlerhof

1. Outperformance
International Center for
The Schindlerhof.
A school for future
entrepreneurs.
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2. The Schindlerhof.
A school for future entrepreneurs.
“I never have worked in my life ever. I do not know what this is. I only have played.
I cannot handle people who always look on their watch and say:
'Only one hour left then I can finally go home'”.
Klaus Kobjoll, CEO Schindlerhof
The Schindlerhof in Nuremberg, Germany is no place to come to work. Despite it is listed for three years as a
best place to work within Germany and even Europe. Nor it is a hotel, but a school for future entrepreneurs.
Co-CEO Klaus Kobjoll is even convinced that the Schindlerhof does not need a CEO at all and that
management has been outsourced a long time ago. Titles? Have never existed internally in the 25 year
history of the Schindlerhof, nor the term employees or a HR department at all. The CEO's salary?
Transparent to everyone! The company's core competency? For sure not even thought of by C.K. Prahalat
and Gary Hamel. Tom Peters seem here a bit more fashionable as also German Ralf. G Nemeczek.
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3. The Schindlerhof.
A school for future entrepreneurs.
Table of Contents
Introduction to the Case Study .........................................................................................................................4
The Schindlerhof...............................................................................................................................................5
Past to present.............................................................................................................................................5
An alternative view of the organization and work.........................................................................................7
Vision and shared principles........................................................................................................................9
CEO Klaus Kobjoll.....................................................................................................................................10
Management practices ...................................................................................................................................11
Assumptions held about human nature......................................................................................................11
Beyond-Budgeting-Principles.....................................................................................................................12
The Schindlerhof's leadership principles....................................................................................................16
Hiring the Schindlerhof-way.......................................................................................................................17
Job Sculpting the Schindlerhof -way..........................................................................................................19
Personal development the Schindlerhof-way.............................................................................................19
Appendices.....................................................................................................................................................20
Appendix 1: Awards of the Schindlerhof ...................................................................................................20
Appendix 2: MAX (Mitarbeiter-Aktienindex / employee share index).........................................................21
Appendix 3: Virtuous Cycle of Svenska Handelsbanken...........................................................................22
Appendix 4: Fixed targets vs. relative targets............................................................................................23
Appendix 5: Outperformance thinking tool “Dual process development”...................................................24
References.....................................................................................................................................................25
License...........................................................................................................................................................26
Version 1.1: March 2009
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4. Introduction to the Case Study
The following case study describes both the Schindlerhof in Nuremberg, Germany and its management
practices listed by Beyond-Budgeting-Principles. It is according to our knowledge not only the only available
publication in the English language, but also the largest collection of the management practices of the
Schindlerhof compared to single German resources and the first case study written with reference to Beyond
Budgeting or Management Innovation/Management 2.0 ever.
This Beyond-Budgeting-Pioneer was identified in February 2009 by independent researchers apart from the
BBRT. With this publication current research is fully made transparent and provided under a creative
commons license with some exceptions. The Schindlerhof itself maintained the alternative mind-set over a
period of 25 years, thus revolutionized within the decentralized model.
In overall 7 principles (customers, organization, autonomy, responsibility, values, transparency, rewards) are
fully applied and 3 principles (controls, goals, coordination) are partly confirmed by secondary research.
Further research has to be conducted. Currently a budgeting system is in use, but due to the relative small
size of about 80 intrapreneurs/co-entrepreneurs or ensemble members as the people at Schindlerhof are
called, further primary research has to be conducted. Incompatible with the Beyond-Budgeting-Model is
planning due to an annual and top-down planning process and plan-actual comparisons.
Control at the Schindlerhof does clearly not come from a command-and-control management style moreover
from control by transparency, by a sportive team pressure (MAX1), by control from the customer, and self-
control. Famous quotes from co-CEO Klaus Kobjoll with reference to control include: “[your salary] is not
determined by me. The salary always pays the customer!”.
As compared with other pioneers, the Schindlerhof may be the smallest pioneer ever discovered and
documented, nevertheless we find many similarities with other mature German Pioneers (dm drogeriemarkt,
Alnatura) and mature North American pioneers (Southwest Airlines, AES Corp., Nucor Steel, W.L. Gore &
Associates) especially regarding language towards people, job sculpting, sense of the organization, the
meaning of joy and passion at work, people as the most important success factor before customers and the
“spirit” as the company's uppermost success factor.
1 See appendix 2
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5. The Schindlerhof
Past to present
The Schindlerhof is Germany's leading and within Europe one
of the leading Congress Hotels (4 stars). It was founded 25
years ago in Nuremberg in 1984 by Klaus Kobjoll and his wife
Renate Kobjoll. Since 2000 leadership has been passed to
daughter and co-CEO Nicole Kobjoll into the second
generation. The Schindlerhof does belong despite is size of 80
co-entrepreneurs (about 20 of them are apprentices) or
ensemble members, as the people at Schindlerhof are called,
to the German Mittelstand (mid-sized companies) and is
complete owned since the foundation by the Kobjoll family. Starting with 37 rooms in 1984 the Schindlerhof
evolved within 5 building stages to nowadays 92 individual designed hotel rooms and 10 congress halls.
Since 1998 the Schindlerhof is divided into three independent profit centers, mainly restaurant, kitchen and
creative congress. Well-known customers include leading German companies like BMW AG, Daimler AG,
Siemens AG, Microsoft AG, or Deutsche Bahn AG.
With reference to productivity, productivity is twice as large as the industry average. The overall growth rate
was 300% within 25 years.
The Schindlerhof has since its foundations received leading German awards as congress hotel, for the
quality management systems, and has been for the last three years (2007 – 2009) among the top-positions
of the best places to work within German and Europe in the category 50-500 employees and No. 1 in
Germany in the category hotel. With reference to the recent nomination as Germany's 8th best place to work
in 2009, co-CEO Nicole Kobjoll states that: “This award does testify that we are on the right way and that we
employ without any doubts the best team within our industry in our company.”
All awards are included in chronological order within appendix 1.
An successful apprenticeship at the Schindlerhof is like a big spring-broad within the European hotel
industry: finished apprentices can freely choose between the different offers from leading European hotels.
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6. The following chart outlines the turnover development from 1994 to 2007.
Turnover in million €
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1994 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Year
Within the hotel KPI “average turnover per bed” the Schindlerhof is Germany-wide positioned higher than
major German hotels like e.g. Sheraton Frankfurt, Hilton Berlin, Steigenberger-Airport Hotel Frankfurt,
Holiday Inn Frankfurt, Dorint Garmisch-Partenkirchen, or Classic Congress Hotel Stuttgart.
From the Business model perspective, the Schindlerhof is positioned as many other Beyond-Budgeting-
Pioneers within a niche market e.g. like Aldi, Ikea or Southwest Airlines.
From the strategy side the Schindlerhof is positioned as a “Innovation leader”. The co-entrepreneurs
contribute about 700 improvements a year, from which about 81% are made real. Regarding the
improvement proposals there are 2 playing rules at Schindlerhof: every co-entrepreneur has to contribute
one proposal a month and has to make real his or her proposal, or correspondingly form a temporary cell
with other co-entrepreneurs who he or she attracts for his or her proposal.
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7. An alternative view of the organization and work
CEO Klaus Kobjoll does not see the Schindlerhof as an company, but as an orchestra with ensemble
members or as a huge playing field. Within this playing field no policies, but “playing rules” do exist, no work
contracts are offered to ensemble members, but “playing contracts”, no work work culture does exist, but a
“playing culture”, no firing takes place but an “ending of the engagement”. Nor does the Schindlerhof employ
HR, personnel or staff, but ensemble members or intrapreneurs/co-entrepreneurs that are regarded as
partners within the organization. No HR department does exist, but a “casting office”. Even the notion hotel
or restaurant may be inappropriate. The Schindlerhof is a school for entrepreneurs, in which co-
entrepreneurs experience even if they are apprentices more freedom to act as long-year professionals at
other hotels and competitors. Profits are regarded as a condition, but not as the ultimate reason for being. As
Klaus Kobjoll points out: “It is never purpose of a company “to make profits”. To make profits is a
consequence of the company purpose.”
To Kobjoll's view business is around a higher purpose, as outlined in detail for the Schindlerhof in the next
chapter: “A meaningful live presumes a sense in my life. I cannot simply say “work is work, and schnapps is
schnapps”2. Both have to suit.”
Therefore the first thing new apprentices learn at the Schindlerhof is, what the meaning of work is which is
outlined by Klaus Kobjoll by the following points:
• work enables each co-entrepreneur to develop his or hers skills and talents
• work enables humans to overcome their egoism and act as a team
• work generates products and services required for life.
2* German: “Dienst ist Dienst, und Schnaps ist Schnaps”, German proverb to distinguish the differences between working and leisure time
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8. When it comes to leadership Klaus Kobjoll points out the following principles in line with Beyond Budgeting
1. to live the values, vision and shared values of the organization
2. to foster continuous improvement
3. to win the voluntary work of their employees, with a stress on “voluntarily”.
The policy “Employees first, customers second” is not to verbally in place as e.g. Svenska Handelsbanken,
Southwest Airlines, Virgin or HCL Technologies, but undermines everything as Kobjoll states: “We have to
keep this order: We firstly have to establish good relationships with our own people, then we can let them
loose, and they will be able to to create and nurture customer relationships.”
With reference to the concept of core competencies, the Schindlerhof has adopted “heartiness” as their one
and only core competence.
The creation of the alternative model at Schindlerhof is mainly influenced by Klaus Kobjoll's own experiences
with other start-ups within the hotel and restaurant sector. As he points out: “I firstly had to learn to trust,
otherwise I had gone bankrupt. But to recognize this, I firstly required 11 start-ups. The employee is the most
important success factor. Here at Schindlerhof I applied this insight from the beginning.”
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9. Vision and shared principles
“You cannot impose on personal purpose vision on other humans. You only can derivate
values from it, that you place into the room and that then polarize. Then there are
employees that are attracted to these values, und other feel rejected by them. For those
that are attracted the value fulfillment is purpose fulfillment”
Klaus Kobjoll, CEO Schindlerhof
Entrepreneurship means to make mistakes, otherwise we are negleters.”
Klaus Kobjoll, CEO Schindlerhof
Klaus Kobjoll does believe in purpose visions are characterized by the following three points:
• What is the most important thing within our life?
• For what do we accept heavy losses?
• What is the deepest desire of our heart?
As the Kobjoll family made their vision workshop, they defined as their individual family vision, that the most
important thing within their lives is joy at work (Klaus, Nicole and Renate Kobjoll), the freedom to decide
(Klaus und Nicole Kobjoll) and harmony (Renate Kobjoll). According to Klaus Kobjoll there cannot be any
shared purpose vision, but the fulfillment of shared principles derived from the purpose vision can be
purpose fulfillment. At Schindlerhof the following shared principles are derived from the purpose vision:
1. Joy at work: leisure similar work. For Klaus Kobjoll joy at work means to have no hierarchy and as
few as possible privileges for leaders.
2. Freedom: freedom determines the highest possibilities to make one's own decisions, but also to take
on the responsibility for the decisions. Freedom also means to try new thinks and not receive
punishment for the mistakes related to. It is named at the Schindlerhof as the principle of “No risk.
No fun.”
3. Harmony: friendship-related, hearted relationships
Based on the purpose vision and the shared principles the model of self-organizations is created. In this
model no CEO is required.
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10. CEO Klaus Kobjoll
“It is a wonderful feeling if you can withdraw and your organization even runs along.
That's the model of self-organization.”
Klaus Kobjoll, CEO Schindlerhof
Klaus Kobjoll was born in 1984 Bamberg, Germany. After High-School in
Bamberg he attended a hotel management schools in Tegernsee,
Germany and Strasbourg, France followed by compulsory internships
and a traineeship. With 22 years and a starting capital of 2,500 € he
founded his first start-up in 1970, the first crepe shop within Germany
followed by several others bars, hotels and restaurants until he founded
the Schindlerhof as his 10th start-up.
Klaus Kobjoll is today Professor for Marketing at the University of Applied Sciences of Nuremberg, a thought
speaker on motivation, leadership and marketing for the German Mittelstand and has published 7 books
(“Motivaction“, “Virtuoses Marketing”, “Abenteuer European Quality Award”, “TUNE”, “MAX”, „Wa(h)re
Herzlichkeit“, “No Risk, No Fun!“) that are best-sellers within Germany. Some of them have been translated
into Russian. His presentations and workshops on DVDs are an integral part within the German professional
and hotel schools.
The main academic influencers3 of Klaus Kobjoll may be seen early in Tom Peters and Peter Drucker, and
nowadays in Reinhard Sprenger and Fredmund Malik.
3 Mostly referred to or cited
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11. Management practices
Assumptions held about human nature
The assumptions held about human at Schindlerhof represent Theory Y.
• Co-entrepreneurs are trusted. e.g. trust-based working time is in place and when the Kobjoll family is
on their annually 4 week long holiday, no business cell phones are carried with.
• Motivation is seen as intrinsic.
• Individuals can be themselves as possible for self-fulfillment, the individually if co-entrepreneurs is
fosters as possible, but on the other side people have to be aware how much conformity is required
to achieve organizational goals. This border the co-entrepreneurs have to decide themselves
where's the border between free space and borders
• Furthermore co-entrepreneurs are free to break the ISO 9001 processes whenever common sense
and heartiness require it reelecting the outperformance thinking tool “Dual Process Development”
(see appendices) or to say it in Klaus Kobjoll's words: “Rules are in place to be broken, if required by
common sense or heartiness”.
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12. Beyond-Budgeting-Principles
Customer
The Schindlerhof is completely aligned to market-pull, not only from external customers, but also both by
internal customers and external stakeholders. Kobjoll's famous quote for the external customer market pull
that is port of the company's credo: “The guest determines our opening hours, because we know he pays our
salary. Serving comes before earning”.
New customer needs are researched by secondary research within 20 fully available magazines and by
primary research using “smiley” feedback sheets or direct communication with customers, e.g. when they are
leaving the congress hotel. The internal CRM Tool “MOHRITZ” keeps track of customer needs and wishes.
All co-entrepreneur can access the MOHRITZ data and usually 10 minutes before the work starts the consult
MOHRITZ about the guest in the area of responsibility.
Organization
The network cells at Schindlerhof are called ensembles from the orchestral view of the organization and are
both fully independent as also responsible. According to Förster/Kreuz, the ensembles work like the Whole
Foods Market's network cells except hiring.
Autonomy
Klaus Kobjoll has as CEO delegated 90 % of his decision making power to the empowered co-
entrepreneurs. From this 90% about 10% of the decisions are made without he even recognized it, for the
remaining 80% he is only informed on what the decision has been made to be up-to-date, but he is not
involved in the decision-making at all. Normally a copy e.g. of the contract is placed within post basked or he
is set CC within emails. For the remaining 10% he has got a veto right, which actually means the the co-
entrepreneur investigates and proposed his or her solution to Kobjoll. If Kobjoll does not execute his veto
right and interferes, the co-entrepreneur is free to make his or her own decision.
Furthermore each year the Kobjoll family as also leaders within the Schindlerhof delegate parts of their
routine work to other co-entrepreneurs in order they can enjoy their new tasks.
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13. Responsibility
Within the Schindlerhof, the co-entrepreneurs are regarded as fully partners in the complete business. The
co-entrepreneurs are both nearly completely autonomous in their decision-making as also also fully
responsible within their ensembles.
Values
Parts of the Schindlerhof's sphere of activity are the already mentioned purpose vision and shared principles.
Further besides the business model and the brand, the playing rules4 (policies) and the playing culture5
(company culture) determine Schindlerhof's sphere of activity.
Transparency
All information, incl. sales numbers, the balance sheet, the CEO salary, and the annual plan is open to
anyone. Daily before 8 o'clock new actual sales figures compared against planned figures are posted openly
on all white boards within the company. The single reports are created though the own software tool and
management information system (MIS) ErfolgSpiegel® (successmirror) by co-entrepreneurs or by the CEOs
The single reports are commented by Klaus Kobjoll with Smilies, dependent on the performance, ranging
from Smilies with tears in the eyes (bad performance) to Smilies with Euro sign in the eyes (good
performance). Two times a year Klaus Kobjoll discusses e.g. with the apprentices how to read the balance
sheet and interpret the current numbers.
Besides the numbers all ISO 9001 processes are transparent to the co-entrepreneurs and no apprentice can
ever claim, that he or she did not know the process or s.o. explained it differently to him or her. They only can
claim that they slept during their process workshop or never put an eye into the documents.
As a conclusion co-CEO Klaus Kobjoll creates control not by a command-and-control management style, but
by trust through complete transparency throughout the organization. As Nicole Kobjoll points out: “We are
convinced that an employee without information cannot take on responsibility. Does he or she know the
numbers, he or she can also think like an entrepreneur. It is unbelievable how many good ideas are created
by this.”
4 Currently only available in German: http://schindlerhof.de/dnl/flyer.spielkultur.pdf
5 Currently only available in German: http://schindlerhof.de/dnl/flyer.spielkultur.pdf
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14. Goals & Controls
“We enjoy fun comparing our performance in relation to others.”
from the Schindlerhof's playing culture (principle 10)
As relative targets are in integral part of the Schindlerhof playing culture as also demanding goals in general,
they are practically not fully realized.
Relative targets include:
• The main company's KPIs that is turnover growth in relation to previous periods (relative stretch
target)
• external industry as cross-industry benchmarks as also internal benchmarks are used to improve
specific KPIs e.g. fluctuation, number of staff away sick or specific cost structures.
• A self created KPI entitled “employee share index” (Geman: MAX Mitarbeiter Aktienindex) that is
used internally on league tables for single employees, teams and communities. The employee share
index is described within the appendix.
Fixed targets include:
• annually planned KPIs that are top-down broken into single fixed targets for single employees using
a BSC. They are reported by plan-actual comparisons
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15. Rewards
The problem with only individual bonuses tied to (fixed) targets is well known within the Schindlerhof and
therefore the main part of the bonuses are like to the entire organizational performance, only a small part of
the bonus relies on individual work achievements. Despite the Schindlerhof is not unionized or has no work
council, basic salaries are much higher then the industry standard.
The Schindlerhof is also famous for its non-monetary rewards for achievements that include besides small
surprise gifts and fringe benefits e.g. interest-free loans mainly travels abroad. As all financial information is
transparent to all co-entrepreneurs, they exactly know how much financial resources are left for their shared
travels and celebrations. But also according to Kobjoll's view it is essential as rewarding achievements to
celebrate mistakes.
Planning
The Schindlerhof does have an annually strategic planning process that is like a “roadbook at the Rally
Monte Carlo” done manually in November by the CEOs and leaders. It has about 60-70 pages is signed
ritually by the CEO family and leaders and is presented within a half day workshop to the co-entrepreneurs.
Resources
Not much is currently known how resources are allocated within the Schindlerhof and its at least three profit
centers. Within interviews the language clearly refers to “budgets”.
Coordination
Although the Schindlerhof does have some kind of budget and fixed sales quotas, the complete
organizations is managed by market pull. Not only by market-pull generated by the customers as also by
market-pull from suppliers, finance markets, employee markets. As in the words of Klaus Kobjoll: “Today is is
not enough to align a company only to the customer market, that was marketing of the 60s and 70s. You
have to align a company to all markets [...].”
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16. The Schindlerhof's leadership principles
In 1999 co-entrepreneurs decided upon themselves and even without involvement of the CEO Klaus Kobjoll
how they envisioned leadership at the Schindlerhof. The leadership principles derived from the workshop
include:
• “We are enthusiastic with joy and performance.
• We show heartiness from the inside and foster a beloved relation with our internal and external
clients.
• We work with clear and for all understandable goals.
• We accept others and their own mode of operation.
• We a achieve a over average, professional performance fostered by professional and personnel
development .
• We have the ability for innovation and engage with joy and passion in change in continuous
improvements.
• We foster with self-discipline a trust balance.
• We act conducive with constructive critics. We show this with a critics readiness and critics ability.
• We design our relationships clearly, consequently openly and honestly”
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17. Hiring the Schindlerhof-way
The Schindlerhof hires as the most Beyond-Budgeting-Organizations (Semco, Google, Toyota, AES,
Southwest Airlines) by mainly attitude and fit with the Schindlerhof “spirit” and not by knowledge or skills. The
right attitudes the Schindlerhof is looking for are:
• talent for the offered position
• intrinsic motivation for the position or the professional field (“passion” “glowing eyes”)
• persuasive power
• heartiness
• sympathy which the team colleagues
• hard working personality with about 45h to 50h a week
• no experience within large companies
The Schindlerhof has developed a unique hiring process based on several filters after the application has
been received to determine a people's fit with the unique Schindlerhof culture. To receive applications from
potential apprentices normally a recruiting brochure is send out to schools and trade chambers and to
leading European hotel schools. Within 2005 875 students and pupils visited the Schindlerhof. Several of
them are attracted to the culture. If job advertisement are placed, always the same starting text is used that
filters potential applicants: “Family owned, proudly independent [in English]. We are not a hotel but a school
for future entrepreneurs. Several years within our legendary leadership crew, and you have everything for
your own start-up or other career. The following procreation positions wait for talented and achievement
hungry applicants, best without corporate group experience.” Former job advertisements included the
headline “Imagine joy at work and you are going to.”
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18. 1. Self-presentation of the organization with an explicit warning if the candidates don't like this culture
to withdraw, normally 10% withdraw, the next notice includes that travel costs are not covered: the
next 5% withdraw
2. Interviews with apprentices are placed on Sundays or bank holidays to test their willingness. Usually
30% withdraw
3. Candidates are showed during company visits around all eyesores
4. Partner Screening with a standardized interview questions. At the end the salary is determined by
the applicant. If the proposed salary is not within the Schindlerhof salary channel, the candidate is
dismissed
5. Personal interview with the Kobjoll family which is the most important filter. After this filter, the Kobjoll
family has no veto right regarding the hiring of a candidate and his or hers dismissal
6. Two week sample work after which the team decides about hiring the candidate without the veto
right of the Kobjoll family
7. Graphologic judgment only for leadership positions
8. Playing contract and playing rules (work contract and policies). The playing contract lists a working
time of at least 45 hours a week without renumeration of over hours
9. Long probation period
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19. Job Sculpting the Schindlerhof -way
“Humans are like stones: edged and quirky personalities. And the organization has to be
the mortar, that adapts to these personalities.”
Gerd Gerken's underlying philosophy of the Schindlerhof
According to Klaus Kobjoll's view co-entrepreneurs should be assigned to tasks that match their interests
and strengths and not their weaknesses to not waste talent. To determine strengths and weaknesses
internally the Herrmann-Dominanz-Instrument HDI© is used.
Personal development the Schindlerhof-way
Co-entrepreneurs are free to choose between 37 workshops on various topics from the Schindlerhof
Academy and make ISO certifications on a free-of-charge basis on the condition that it is done not within
their regular work time but within their leisure time.
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20. Appendices
Appendix 1: Awards of the Schindlerhof
1989 Management award by the Josef Schmidt Colleg in Bayreuth
1990 Hotelier of the year in the category private held hotel (Deutscher Fachverlag)
1994 German marketing award of the Hotel Sales & Marketing Association (HSMA)
1994 ISO-9001-certification as first hotel Germany-wide
1997 Finalist of the seven European companies, as Germany only one company at the European Quality
Award in Brussels for „independent small and medium sized companies“
1997 Klaus Kobjoll is awarded Entrepreneur of the year (Akademie für Führungskräfte Leonberg)
1997 Special Award of the magazine Business Traveller for the most innovative hotel concept
1998 Winner of the European Quality Award 1998 for „independent small and medium sized companies“ of
the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) in Brussels
1998 Winner of the Ludwig-Erhard-Preises of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Qualität (DGQ)
1999 Number 1 in Germany „Selected congress hotels for well-being“
2000 Number 1 in Germany „Selected congress hotels for well-being“ (second time)
2001 Number 1 in Germany „Selected congress hotels for well-being“ (third time)
2002 ISO-14001-certification
2002 “Best congress hotel in Germany”, selected by 20.000 Readers of the magazine „acquisa“ and
„wirtschaft + weiterbildung’
2003 Great Marketing award Germany of the HSMA Hotel Sales & Marketing Association, Munich
2003 Special Prize der European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM): European Role Model on
Customer Focus
2003 Winner of Ludwig-Erhard-Prize of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Qualität (DGQ) – second time!
2004 After a three year of suspension: Nummer 1 in Germany „Selected congress hotels for well-being“
(forth time)
2004 Award as „Deutschen Denkerpreis 2004“ of the Deutschen Instituts für Betriebswirtschaft (dib)
2004 Special Prize der European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM): European Role Model on
People Development and Involvement (incl. MAX)
2005 Number 1 in Germany „Selected congress hotels for well-being“ (fifth time)
2006 Number 1 in Germany „Selected congress hotels for well-being“ (sixth time)
2006 The Schindlerhof is awarded the “Start Up” prize for best company succession by McKinsey and
Sparkasse
2007 Conga Award 2007 – Klaus Kobjoll is awarded as one of the top 10 speakers within Germany
2007 Best place to work Germany: No. 1 in Hotels, place 18 Germany-wide within small sized companies,
place within Europe's best 100 employers
2008 Best place to work Germany: No. 1 in Hotels, place 12 Germany-wide within small sized companies,
2009 special award for “long-life learning”, place within Europe's best 100 employers
2009 Best place to work Germany: No. 1 in Hotels, place 8 Germany-wide within small sized companies,
place within Europe's best 100 employers
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21. Appendix 2: MAX (Mitarbeiter-Aktienindex / employee share index)
The employee share index (MAX) was initiated by Klaus Kobjoll and introduced in 2003 at the Schindlerhof.
Today over 100 companies from 8 different European countries have adopted the it, incl. facility management
firms, consultancies, contracting business, banks, hospitals, retirement homes, professional schools, and a
city administration.
At the beginning each co-entrepreneur receives a depot of 1000 “pixel”, as the internal currency is called.
This value can be either improved or decreased by specific and for all co-entrepreneurs the same measures.
Measures might include e.g. proposals of improvements, mistake quote, voluntarily work on projects,
training, accuracy, illness days, smoking, body mass index, violation against the playing rules, etc.
The MAX is itself not linked to salary, salary improvements or bonuses and it cannot be converted into real
money.
At the end of each month everybody lists his or hers issues and the team and the company wide index is
calculated. The pixel values are transformed into ranking tables that are published openly.
From the Beyond Budgeting perspective the MAX does support the following principles: goals, controls,
rewards and transparency.
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22. Appendix 3: Virtuous Cycle of Svenska Handelsbanken
Source: BBTN
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23. Appendix 4: Fixed targets vs. relative targets
Source: BBTN
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24. Appendix 5: Outperformance thinking tool “Dual process development”
A process is a chronological sequence of operations, which are linked to a shared problem and which are
divided into two single groups and represent this way the duality of the process. The first group of operations
are those which are repeated each time (they are the structure) and due to this fact are fixed within a
process description that depends on rules. The second group are operations which built a reaction to
surprise and therefore cannot be fixed within a process description but usually handled individually by people
using principles. If dynamics are low, there a few surprises, which will be solved with a common sense or
viewed as a higher interference. Usually in low dynamics new processes are initiated afterwards a surprise. If
dynamics are high, there are more surprises and fewer repetition takes place. In high dynamics the original
process description is not altered (only the structure of the process gets smaller and therefore the process
description is shorter, too), but as surprise shows up, decisions based on principles are required for action. In
this way the rules (process descriptions) are replaced by principles and people capable of making decisions.
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25. References
Web, all accessed 24rd February 2009:
• www.schindlerhof.de (all subpages)
• www.kobjoll.de (all subpages)
• www.wirtschaftswandel.de (all subpages)
• O.V. “Spielkultur”: http://schindlerhof.de/dnl/flyer.spielkultur.pdf
• O.V.: “Hotel Schindlerhof, Nürnberg: quot;Es war kein einfaches Jahr 2007.quot;: http://www.cafe-
future.net/aktuell/news/pages/13783.html
• Meyer, Annemike: “BusinessVillage Erfolgsstory: Landhotel Schindlerhof”
(http://www.businessvillage.de/mag-190_BusinessVillage-Erfolgsstory:-Landhotel-Schindlerhof.html),
2005
• Bier, Peter: “Vom Lächeln, das man hört” in BrandEins 9/2008:
http://www.brandeins.de/ximages/1093514_068b10908s.pdf
• Sommer, Christiane: “Modelle für Menschen” in BrandEins 04/2003:
http://www.brandeins.de/ximages/11280_064modelle.pdf
• Video: “Klaus Kobjoll in Aktion”: http://kobjoll.de/referenten.kk.kurztrailer,4_18_66.html?
sid=30027360270036618133606901221003&vid=640
• Video:”Nicole Kobjoll in Aktion”:http://kobjoll.de/referenten.nk.kurztrailer,4_23_73.html?
sid=19427360270036630393067262712491&vid=640
• Video: “Klaus Kobjoll im Interview”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEhnTLByh8o
• Beyond Budgeting Transformation Network (BBTN), http://www.bbtn.org
Books:
• Lehner, Sabine: “Unternehmenserfolg mit einem scharfen Profil”, Markenwerkstatt, 2007
• Wohland, Gerhard; Wiemeier Matthias: “Denkwerkzeuge der Höchstleister”, Murrmann, 2007
• Kobjoll, Klaus: “Wa(h)re Herzlichkeit. Kobjoll beigeistert weil er tut, was er sagt”, orell füssli, 2008
(2nd edition)
• Förster, Anja; Kreuz, Peter: “Spuren statt Staub. Wie Wirtschaft Sinn macht.”, Econ, 2008
• Wüthrich, Hans A.; Osmetz, Dirk; Kaduk, Stefan: “Musterbrecher. Führung neu erleben.”,
Gabler 2009 (3rd edition)
• Pflaeging, Niels: “Fuehren mit flexiblen Zielen”, Campus, 2008
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26. Pictures:
The pictures from the Schindlerhof, Klaus Kobjoll and the Kobjoll family are used with kind permission by
Tingle & Glow Unternehmensberatung GmbH (Schindlerhof). Sources:
• http://kobjoll.de/gut.presse.fotos,4_18_64.html?sid=47427360270036650233067262733474
• http://schindlerhof.de/presse.download,140_170.html
• http://schindlerhof.de/schindlerhof,8.html
License
This paper except all logos and except all pictures from the Schindlerhof, Klaus Kobjoll and the Kobjoll family
is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA License. Credit: quot;International Center for Outperformance
(www.intco.org)quot; within the reference list. The exceptions from this license concerns only derivative works.
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