Frank Jensen, COB of Søren Jensen, on making purpose work

About Frank Jensen

We had the great pleasure to interview Frank Jensen on how he makes purpose work.

Frank is chairman of the board of Søren Jensen, a family-run consulting engineering company, founded in 1945 to help bring relief after the devastation of war. This mindset of positive impact is still very much present today as the company helps clients to reduce their carbon footprint.

Frank shares his insights on the importance of a generational timeline, the success that came after financial downturn by focusing on sustainability, increased agility after moving to a team-of-teams model and fostering thought leadership and client driven innovation.

He also speaks about the benefits of being able to benchmark on positive impact, coupling planet and profit and embedding sustainability.

Watch, listen to or read the interview further down below.

Listen

Listen to the interview on this page or on your favorite service: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn

Watch

Watch the interview right here on this page or directly on our channel on Vimeo.

Read

Read the full interview down below.

Introduction 

Context

Leon: Our planet and our society are facing big and complex challenges. Stakeholders expect companies to step up and make a difference. The pressure they apply has changed the landscape. Organizational purpose and positive impact are rapidly becoming a necessity. And this leads to a pressing question. How to make purpose work? 

Today, Frank Jensen, chairman of the board at Søren Jensen, will share his insights. I'm very happy to have you on the show. Welcome Frank and thank you very much. 

Frank Jensen, COB of Søren Jensen

Leon: Would you mind introducing your company and share your personal connection to purpose and positive impact?

Frank: Sure, my name is Frank Jensen. I'm an engineer. I’m also chairman of the family company Søren Jensen. We are a consulting engineering company. And we do bespoke engineering design for buildings mainly in Denmark. 

As it’s third generation in the company it’s off course my responsibility to lift the legacy of my forefathers. But also thinking about what's next. What is the 4th generation going to take over in the company? Hopefully, I've three kids, and hopefully one of them will find it interesting enough to carry it on. And if not, then hopefully somebody else will. 

So, long term the predominant thinking we have in the company, and I have as chairman and since 1945 where my grandfather founded the company, we tried to be a positive impact to society. 

Back then it was about helping to rebuild society after the Second World War. Whereas now, it’s things have turned around a little bit. And now we have, we're using too much material, building too much. And how is it we can work with that and make sure that the planet is in good health when we can deliver it to the next generation. 

Leon: Thanks for sharing. 

Set-up of the interview

Leon: Before we continue to the questions of the interview itself, I want to explain a little bit about the setup of this interview. 

There are three segments. We’ll start with some key aspects to positive impact, followed by one specific action that delivered on positive impact for your company. We will finish with an organizational tool that you find helpful in your positive impact journey. 

So first some key aspects to positive impact. I'm going to ask you 8 questions. 

Key aspects to positive impact

As someone that's making positive impact work, you may need to push boundaries. When does it make sense to lead and when is it best to follow? 

As an engineering company in the construction industry, there are many many disciplines and markets, technologies one can decide to lead in. As a small actor in the field of engineering in Denmark we have to be very wise in where we decide to invest our time. 

So what we do is we look back and say, what is it that we've been good at historically? What is it the market expects from us? And then we try to take those things and think forward. Where is it that those things will lead us to be in 5 years and then we select 1, 2, maybe 3 areas where we decide to lead. That's what we're trying to do. 

How has leadership style changed to make purpose work?

It's a small question, but then it's still a big one. For about a decade ago we actually started transitioning our leadership model. 

We wanted to go from a smaller one person led company, led by my father. And I came into the company at that time. And then moving towards what we call a team of teams model. Where we work with interdisciplinary teams and they are allowed a lot more independent decision making rather than going up the leaderboard. 

And then they can make decisions further down so we can respond much quicker to both client needs, but also project needs and demands. And we also think that that way of leadership model. That that kind of enables the individuals to participate more in their decision-making processes, but it also becomes, it supports their own need for leadership, as in we believe that individuals also need a clear leader. Somebody who can help them whenever they have challenges. 

And by decentralizing the leadership from a single person to many more in the organization, we also allow or we enable to support our staff much better then we previously were. And for me personally, that's also kind of allowed me to take more of a clear leadership role rather than a manager role, where I managed a lot of staff before. Now I can have a leadership role where I lead the company and focus on bringing the company and our clients forward. 

What's the most effective behavior you see around you that supports positive impact? 

There's many effective behaviors around me. And so therefore I think I'll just have to speak about myself. 

I think for me to create positive impact, it's about explaining the why and then trying to teach the person I'm talking to. Why is it important and how is it that I would resolve something or do it and carry out a job? 

And then leaving it to them to take on ownership of how they then resolve and do it themselves so that they have a learning process for that and making it work for them basically. 

Which three organizational tools do you find most useful in your positive impact journey? 

For sure the first one is that we changed the leadership model to a team of teams model and that's the most important one because that's enabled a lot of things following that. 

Secondly, it's about focus on our sales efforts and networking efforts on getting projects that allow us to create a positive impact and value to projects so that we select which sort of projects we go for.

And then the final one is fostering a culture of thought leadership. It's both a desire to be among the best, but also that if we are the thought, the people who know the most about a given subject, then where the clients come back and they ask us for more knowledge. And if we always learn more from time to time the clients are usually willing and would like to see us again. So, it's always about how is it we know more than the client and how is it we learn more for ourselves and be the best people we can be. 

Would you mind naming the three types of stakeholders that have the biggest impact on your organization's positive impact journey and rank them in order of impact? 

The most important one is our clients. They were the ones who started asking for more sustainable solutions and kind of set us on our way, on our journey, to become a sustainable practice. 

And then somewhere along the way on our journey we overtook them. And now we help them, and we lead them towards more sustainable solutions. So they're very important.

Secondly, it's the family. I have my father, who's 85, still goes to work every day working as a structural engineer with us. And I have a younger brother who also works with me. And having that sort of generational timeline that you're thinking about what's, you know, 40 years ahead. And also, if I have my kids who would like to take over the practice at some point, then what is it that I leave with them? And that's hugely important, I think in that journey. 

And thirdly it's the staff. And what they're thinking and what is it they would like to do that they will like to be part of a great organization. And they also want to do great and they push us as leadership towards becoming both better leaders. But also making sure we, as an organization, learn and become better ourselves. 

And how do you stay informed and connected to your highest ranking stakeholder, so, your clients? 

Well, I have the privilege and the freedom to take many many meetings myself. So, I go out and meet with our clients, discuss current projects, upcoming projects and also quite a lot about what projects are out there.  

What are they looking for, for projects which are 3- 5-10 years into the future. How is it that we can add value to that? What is that we should know when we start on those projects for them? What is it we should learn? And where do they see engineering companies, architects, contractors, so forth, moving in the market.

And all those influences our own strategic choices and particularly the way we develop talent. And we say if we need to know that for that given client at that point, then we need somebody to be taught that and learn that. And so, we're working a lot with client driven development for our staff.

Which benefits do you see from putting positive impact front and center for your organization? 

We made the choice of becoming a certified B-Corporation a couple of years ago. There's a predefined way of saying what is a sustainable business, a responsible business. And that allows us to benchmark both amongst ourselves internally, but also externally. As in how well are we doing. And we can measure it. Similar to doing our financial statement. 

And I think that's been very both positive, but also demanding for our organization that we suddenly benchmark on these levels. 

But it also allows us to be precise when talking to clients who want sustainable solutions. We can look up on their website saying by the way, we got so many points in our Big Corp score and we're feeling the pressures that you might feel as a client. We kind of undergone them ourselves, and we can help you go through the same transition or whatever it might be that they're going through. And we're taking them along on a journey we already have started. Rather than us coming as consultants and telling them, you know, where they should go along on their own journey. So, it's been. It's been hugely important for us to develop that. 

And are there any downsides and which one do you notice? 

Well, there is. One can only have focus on so many places. So, when you focus as much as we have on becoming a responsible and sustainable business, there's of course other things which doesn't get quite the same attention. 

And I think one of the things we can feel is that we've for a while have not been able to focus the same way on the more technical skills, traditionally for engineers. How is it we become better structural engineers, how is it we become better mechanical engineers and so forth. Because the leadership team has had their, our energies and focuses elsewhere. So, I think we're looking forward to catching up with that in a few years when we kind of are even better going on this sustainable agenda. 

Leon: Thanks a lot for all the answers. That concludes the segment on key aspects. 

Identifying tomorrow's business drivers

Leon: Next, I would like to learn about a specific action that has delivered on positive impact. 

Could you name and describe the action and share why it matters to you? 

Frank: Well, I don't think we have a name for it, but let's for the sake, let's call it identifying tomorrow's business drivers. 

A couple of years ago, we weren't doing too well financially, we were lacking new projects and had to lay off a significant number of staff unfortunately.

And I think in that time of crisis, we kind of developed a mindset of saying let's try and analyze the sustainable construction market for what we will build, by whom and why. 

And it's allowed us to identify some very big new clients for us and where we could then do a better match of what is our focus, as a sustainable business and what skills do we have? And thankfully now we have 8 out of the 10 clients we set out to get, back then, we now have them on board and they drive a lot of repeat and new business for us. 

And what was the key challenge and an unexpected challenge you encountered and how did you overcome this on this journey? 

The key challenge has been to obtain and improve and sell the key knowledge elements around sustainable construction for these clients they desire. We need to always know something they would like to know too. As in we need to be a step ahead. We must be thought leaders in the field, as I said earlier. 

And I think the unexpected challenge for us has been that we've been so successful. And we've become our own bottlenecks, so to speak. So, we've had to recruit quite massively, both externally and internally. And we're talking about 500% growth rates over the last couple of years. And because we didn't know we were going to be successful with this. So definitely being able to create a positive impact for both ourselves, but also for our clients has become a key success parameter for us. 

Could you also name some key successes, or could you name the key success and unexpected success and how did you maximize those? 

Leon: You already mentioned you grow a lot so I can imagine that's a success. 

Frank: It is. Of course, growing is a success, particularly in this field, but it's not the only thing. I think what we've become very good at for our clients is to talk about sustainable constructions, sustainable buildings in a way where we couple it with the financial side of things. 

How is it we can develop sustainable projects that are also financially good? So, all the way back to the original definition of sustainability is both a financial and a social impact we're trying to create. And therefore, we've been able to couple the financial and the sustainable side has been, well, an unforeseen success. And that's been, and that's been very good. 

Leon: That was the second segment. 

B-Corp certification as a tool

Leon: So, there's one segment left. The final segment is about a tool that you find useful in an organization's positive impact journey. Which organizational tool do you want to discuss and why? 

Benefits of becoming a B-corp

Frank: Well, I think for us the most important tool was that we became a B-Corp certified business and that's because that allows us to have a given tool set where we can get benchmarks. As I told earlier about, both externally but also internally. 

And also, we become recognized for being a responsible business. Again, part of the thought leadership approach to our clients is that that people can see and we can certify that we're good at what we do. 

And also, before we were running like a family in a leadership team that thought we were a responsible business. But now we know for sure that we have a responsible business. We haven't changed that much, but it's just really nice to know that my grandfather, my father for me, also rank responsible businesses. So, on a personal level, that's very nice. 

Embedding sustainability at Søren Jensen

Leon: Is there anything you would like to change in your organization regarding this tool, and if so, what is it and why? 

Frank: I think mentally we're still talking about being a responsible, sustainable business as something we are developing. It's a mindset where we should now do this and we should do that or we should pick some of the lowest hanging fruits and all the rest of it. 

I think what we all like to do over the next couple of years is kind of ingrain it more in the core of the business and saying it's part of running the business itself. It's not that every year we need to add things, but it's more like it gets into them. Into the machinery of the business. So, it's something that we report on monthly and it's just like it's just a standard thing so that sustainability and responsibility is just like another form of standard reporting rather than it being something special. 

Leon: Do you have any idea on how you might do that? 

Frank: When you have your own business as we do, we set our own KPI's, key, performance indicators. And it's really trying to get them down to a level where you will report monthly on individual projects. And also staff retention and so forth, but particularly in terms of projects. 

We are in Denmark. Right now, the government has, after many, including ourselves, has recommended that for new builds and also transformation renovation of buildings, there should be not just an energy framework of how much energy you can use on running your building. But also, how much you can actually use on building the building and then running it afterwards. 

And that means that we for every project we do, we already do some calculations on that, but we'll have to do it more. And that way we can, every month, report on how is it. Are the projects we design becoming more environmentally friendly, are we reducing the carbon footprints and so forth. 

So, we might be leading the stream, or at least we're going with the stream. And trying to say how is it we document that the projects we're developing are working with a more sustainable approach throughout month after month. 

Digging deeper and becoming even more what we're always trying to be in our business

Leon: And then we come up to the final question of this interview. What is the biggest success in your organization regarding this tool and how so? 

Frank: I think my response to that is a little bit unusual. Becoming a responsible business and getting that approach has allowed us to take the core of the company, the spirit of the company one step further. 

As in, back in 45, my grandfather started a company to you know, he wanted to do good, help things along where it was difficult. There were not many materials, and you had to have tenacity and perseverance to get projects done at that time. And you have to be creative. And I think for now we can kind of say like well, we're working towards becoming net-zero 2030. That all our buildings are carbon neutral by 2030 and we have to convince all our clients that their building should be this.

And now the whole creative approach and engineering and all the rest of it. It kind of makes sense. Because we are now working towards a goal that is bigger than just running a business. And so, I think in 45 there was a need in society. And I think that, that needs were probably during a period not as obvious. At least not in the 2000s, where I've been along, 2000 - 2010’s, where it's been booming years for many parts of the world. And whereas now you can really see there's a need for what we can do and how we can contribute. And I think becoming a B-Corp and having that focus on creating positive impact is also kind of allowed us to dig deeper and become even more what we're always trying to be in our business.

Leon: Thanks for sharing. It's very interesting how all of that is connected all the way to your grandfather, to today, to the future with your own kids and how you can contribute to a positive impact to planet and society. I find it very, very interesting. So thanks for sharing all your insights. 

Wrap-up

Leon: It was the final question, so we've come to the end of the interview. 

I'm very grateful for all your insights on our show. Thank you very much for sharing all of that. It's very luxurious to just hear your story. So, thanks and I enjoyed your talk a lot. 

Frank: Thank you and thank you for allowing me to be on your video podcast. It's been good to see some of the other leaders as well, and I've been inspired. So thank you very much. 

Leon: Thanks to you too. Thanks. A final word to the audience, Frank. Visit our website if you want to watch, listen to or read this interview with Frank Jensen: www.makingpurposework.com/blog.

If you enjoyed this episode then don't forget to like, share and follow through our LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube accounts. 

That's it. Thanks for watching or listening. I hope to see you again on our next show. Thanks.