{"id":800593,"date":"2020-01-24T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T08:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/?post_type=articles&p=800593"},"modified":"2020-11-17T09:23:31","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T08:23:31","slug":"a-single-spirit","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/articles\/a-single-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"A Single Spirit"},"featured_media":800595,"template":"","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[]},"schools":[29,33,35],"areas":[16,21,25],"subjects":[417,422,425],"class_list":["post-800593","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","schools-business-school","schools-human-sciences-and-technology","schools-university","areas-competitiveness-growth","areas-innovation","areas-talent","subjects-entrepreneurship","subjects-innovation-and-technology","subjects-sustainability"],"custom-fields":{"wpcf-article-summary-enable":["1"],"wpcf-article-summary":["Breaking barriers as a pioneer requires talent, passion, trust, focus, the capacity to scale up, and most importantly a team spirit that enables all members to share common goals and ambitions. In this article, Erik W. Hiep, Professor at IE Business School, analyzes the case of a company that has done just that. The Dutch automaker Lightyear has shown that sharing goals and building the necessary capacities are the key to achieving goals. CEO Lex Hoefsloot started designing the world\u2019s first long-range solar car just three years ago. After two years of intense work and persistence, the company reached its goal: the Lightyear One."],"wpcf-article-leadin":["The automotive industry is characterized by large players with large budgets for innovation, production, and marketing. The entry threshold is high. Nevertheless, breaking that barrier and producing the world\u2019s first long-range solar car is exactly what the Dutch automaker Lightyear wanted to do."],"wpcf-article-body":["Two years of hard work, determination, and persistence culminated this summer in the unveiling of the prototype of the world\u2019s first long-range solar car. \u201cOur car, the Lightyear One, is completely different,\u201d says Lightyear CEO Lex Hoefsloot. Indeed, each wheel has its own electric motor. The car is relatively low, and therefore more aerodynamic. The roof is covered with solar cells, but the car can also be charged by plugging in, like other electric cars.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nPioneering<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWhen I first met Lex about three years ago, he had just taken up this idea. He started off with a small team of five founders, which they pioneered into a company that now has over 150 employees. The founders knew each other from Eindhoven University of Technology, where they designed a car for a solar race in Australia. The aim of that race was to travel as far as possible with a solar-powered car. The students thought that the same technology<\/a> would also be feasible for passenger vehicles. And so it happened. The starting point was the same: drive as many kilometers as possible on solar power. Lightyear views itself as a group of engineers who saw a way to combat climate change. The team saw something that could be done and they\u2019re doing it. I would call this a true pioneering spirit.\r\n
If you create a high-trust environment in your organization, everything moves at a faster pace.<\/blockquote>\r\nMission first<\/strong>\r\n\r\nAs a professor and management consultant, I am always interested in observing and diagnosing how drive, passion, and will to win make it possible to achieve goals. The Lightyear team\u2019s focus on the mission and will to win are probably among their most important characteristics. Lex told me right from the start: \u201cWe are a tech<\/a> company on a mission\u2014to create clean mobility for everyone\u2014and this is super important. We need to figure out how Lightyear can expand while still maintaining our focus on winning and on our mission.\u201d\r\n\r\nPersonally, I am most impressed by Lightyear\u2019s commitment to the mission. Failure is simply not an option. You find a similar mindset among those who explore space, as well as in the military.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWinning team<\/strong>\r\n\r\nTo be quite honest, at first there was a lack of diversity. The initial team consisted entirely of Dutch millennials, mostly former technical university students, all capable and willing to work 24\/7. They had a similar \u201ctech\u201d mindset, a certain dry sense of humor, and a huge drive. On top of that, they shared a common belief system about why to fight climate change and how to best capitalize on technology<\/a>.\r\n\r\nThis uniformity was very powerful during the start-up phase. It was easy to align the team and everyone was quick on their feet. The \u201crules\u201d on how to behave<\/a> and what was expected were unwritten, yet very clear. Then, during the scale-up phase, the team needed to expand in size, skills, and quality, so more diversity was needed in the initial team, as well as in the rest of the company.\r\n\r\nGrowth Officer Maijke Receveur is responsible for getting Lightyear\u2019s workforce up and running. She is working relentlessly to set the company up for victory in this next stage of its development. The key question here is how to create an environment where everyone feels at home, where equality rules, and where team members can play on their strengths most of the time. \u201cThe company\u2019s values are our guiding principles when hiring people, but also when architecting and designing our workforce structure,\u201d she notes.\r\n
Focus on the mission and will to win are probably among the most important characteristics that enable a company to achieve its goals.<\/blockquote>\r\nHigh trust<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIf you create a high-trust environment in your organization, everything moves at a faster pace. This is helpful if you live in a red ocean where time is scarce. High-trust environments also foster honesty, playfulness, and spontaneity\u2014essential ingredients if you need innovation<\/a> on a daily basis. If you are on a super-important mission and you need to pioneer creative solutions with your team, this high-trust environment is a must. Everyone in the company needs to have that same spirit to make it happen.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s one thing to create such an environment, but quite another to maintain it and continue developing and growing it in a crowded, high-pressure marketplace. Lightyear is doing all this and more\u2014as we speak.\r\n\r\nThe \u201cLightyear spirit\u201d is about a team of ambitious pioneers working on an important mission and knowing they will achieve their ambition. This spirit is the driving factor behind their success.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00a9 IE Insights."],"wpcf-article-extract-enable":["1"],"wpcf-article-extract":["By Erik W. Hiep<\/strong>. The automotive industry is characterized by large players with large budgets for innovation, production, and marketing. The entry threshold is high. Nevertheless, breaking that barrier and producing the world\u2019s first long-range solar car is exactly what the Dutch automaker Lightyear wanted to do."]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/800593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"schools","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schools?post=800593"},{"taxonomy":"areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/areas?post=800593"},{"taxonomy":"subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subjects?post=800593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}