Wonder Handbook
Wonder Handbook
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Personal Development

This page is maintained by Paulova Arteaga

TL;DR: Personal and professional development plays an important role in our culture. Here are the most important things we do at Wonder to ensure that we grow and develop.

1:1s

The 1:1 is a regular meeting between managers and employees (30 minutes every 2 weeks) that we consistently use at Wonder across teams. It's reserved for personal matters, such as personal development, feedback, work relationships or hopes and concerns. It is crucial to separate 1:1s from content-related discussions. People tend to avoid personal conversations, so letting content-related discussions creep into 1:1s usually leads to personal conversations being left out.

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The 1:1 is owned by YOU, not your manager. It's your space to discuss your progress and discuss any personal topics. You set the agenda and you define the topics.

At Wonder, we make our 1:1s more powerful by linking them to a tailored personal development plan that is based on our strengths (what we're good at) and our drivers (what motivates us).

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1:1s at Wonder

Strength-based personal development

At Wonder, we use a strength-based approach to personal development. This means we set goals and develop our skills using what we are good at and what motivates us, rather than what we are less good at. Note that concentrating on strengths does not mean ignoring challenges, but using strengths to overcome them.

This approach corresponds to our values and the way we think about people. It is grounded in positive psychology and is based on the belief that employees and organizations best flourish by focusing on the positive qualities or the talents of each individual. It positively influences employee’s well-being, employee’s positive affect, and employee performance (Meyers and van Woerkom, 2017).

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Strength-based personal development

Personal development budget

All team members get a generous personal development budget (between 1.000 EUR and 4.000 EUR per year, see

), that they can use for anything that is not related to their core task (things like relevant conferences or courses are covered independently).

The most popular use of the budget is:

  • Coaching (reach out to stephane@wonder.me to get some recommendations for coaches in Berlin)
  • German language classes

Defining role expectations (coming soon)

One of the most important parts of working together productively is to be clear about your role and expectations. Each person sits down with their manager once every quarter to talk about their role.

Here is a template that you can use for the kick-off conversation

Discussion about the aims of the role

  1. Tasks and expectations - discuss the core task or theme of the job. Why does it matter, what is the output, and what would constitute success (in a great, satisfactory and unsatisfactory scenario).
  2. Personal goals - ask employees why they care, what they are passionate about, where they see this job in the context of their overall aims.
  3. Development goals - have a dialogue on development goals. What are the current gaps in skills/knowledge to become better for the role. What does the employee want to learn, where do they want to develop, how can we help them get there.
  4. Discuss working style preferences - how do they want to work, what do they need to be productive (including equipment).

Feedback and appreciation (coming soon)

We're currently working on a new process that we will roll out in the next 1-2 months. Stay tuned! 😉

Performance management (coming soon)

We're currently working on a new process that we will roll out in the next 1-2 months. Stay tuned! 😉

Pulse-checks & team interviews (coming soon)

We're currently working on a new process that we will roll out in the next 1-2 months. Stay tuned! 😉