enSoie

Anna and Sophie Meier are part of the enSoie management team. Anna is the brand's CEO and creative director, while Sophie is head of the Zurich store. Together, the sisters talked about working as a team and teamwork at enSoie.

Anna: Sophie, in your opinion, what are the characteristics of good teamwork?

Sophie: For me, it starts with being respectful to each other. That includes listening, trying to understand what the other person wants, and helping each other. There are a lot of very delicate moments in the store where we rely on good teamwork. For example, when advising customers. To not disturb the conversation with the customer, a lot of communication among the team is non-verbal. The fact that our staff can read each other's subtle signals and know exactly when to get a product for a colleague or when to support each other in a difficult consultation shows me how well our team works together. This is something that touches me every day. 

Anna: Definitely. For me, meetings with a lot of dialogue, many good ideas, and different opinions brought together make me feel happy. It gives me the feeling that the team is well put together and that we can all benefit from each other and move a project forward together.

Sophie: Dialogue is also an important topic between the two of us. As part of the management team, we are available for each other from 8 in the morning until 10 in the evening. A lot is going on. Always. Small things and big things too. At the moment, for example, we are planning the façade decorations for Christmas.

Anna: I see the fact that we are both not only part of the management team but also sisters, as an additional advantage. It allows us to communicate in a very honest and transparent way. At the same time, it is important to keep our personal and professional roles separate. When we see each other privately, I can only wish that you, Sophie, would do something for me. When we are at work, there are situations in which you give me an assignment and vice versa. One takes the lead.

Sophie: It doesn't work without a leader. To move a project forward, you need good dialogue and someone to take responsibility and make decisions.

Anna: I think leadership is an important topic in any team, even in a company like enSoie with flat hierarchies. At the same time, we try to run enSoie like a farm. In other words, help is given, wherever help is needed. Whether it regards your department or not. The decision to lend a hand is entirely up to the employees. To stick with the farm metaphor: if a cow escapes, the whole team helps to catch it.

Sophie: And we are very lucky that we have always worked with people who want to work on this "farm". You cannot take that for granted.

Anna: Yes! I think working in a family business is generally a bit different from working in a large company with lots of different divisions. The lines of communication are shorter. It is more emotional, a lot happens bilaterally across the boundaries of our individual departments.

Sophie: And not everything requires detailed strategies or has to be discussed in various committees.

Anna: At enSoie, you can come up with an idea on the tram on your way to work, present it to me on the same day, and put it into practice the same week. Teamwork and working at enSoie in general always have something sporty about it, I think. We act and react quickly. We don't spend hours thinking about things, we make decisions intuitively. This also applies to teamwork. As a team, you often have a shared intuition.

Sophie: Trusting and relying on those intuitions is also about mutual trust. I think that respect and trust are essential for a good team spirit at enSoie.

Anna: And gratitude! We are grateful to everyone who is part of our team, who thinks, helps, and contributes to a unique team spirit.