My companions explained: “Most likely there is a baseball game today. The local baseball team is the “Hiroshima Carps”.” I was like “What? Carps? Who would name a baseball team “Carps”? I can picture the crowd going …” (while I was mimicking a carp face: wide open eyes, blown up cheeks, opening/closing my mouth very slowly, I hope you all can picture my face). I simply could not connect any attributes of a carp with what I would like to see in a sports team. Mimicking the carp should become our running gag for the day.

We visited the A-bomb dome (see photo) which is a building left in the status of August 6th, 1945, when “Little Boy”, was dropped on Hiroshima. From there we passed the park where the pictures of the G7 summit leaders were taken just a few weeks ago. We went on to the museum. The story of the atomic bomb disaster was told in a very deep, personal and touchy way. The explosion had eliminated the city. 130.000 human lives were taken. Countless personal stories. Pictures of badly burned human bodies. Stories of orphans, poverty, and hunger in the aftermath. Definitely, nothing for the lighthearted. Towards the end of the exhibit there were displays about the development of these weapons. And stories of the reconstruction of Hiroshima, with the fact that 4 years after the explosion the local baseball team was founded. At this point a personal recommendation: everybody should take the chance to visit this place once in their lifetime. It changes perspectives.

We went on sightseeing. Had “Hiroshima Okonomiyaki” for lunch, and a beer. At dinner, the inevitable happened: we came back to the question: why does anybody name a baseball team “Carps”? Long story short: I got some insight about the history of Hiroshima and its castle, also called “Carp Castle”, since it was surrounded by waters riddled with carps. But what is more: koi carps are a very strong symbol in Japan. They stand for many good qualities: Known to swim against the current and overcome great obstacles, koi symbolize strength, courage, patience, and success through perseverance. Well, I can now see why a baseball team that was founded 4 years after an atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima, was named “Hiroshima Carps”. It was a strong symbol of hope, which was desperately needed in dire times. And when I leaned that… I felt somewhat embarrassed about my mimicking of the carp.

And it reminded me not to be too quick to judge actions or words for which I am lacking the big picture. How about you? Are you also sometimes too quick to judge?

And then last week...

Still, one aspect somehow has not been present in the discussions, at least not in our team. Until last week. We had a virtual team meeting with our group leaders from different sites. I was challenged: “What are the directives on how move forward regarding the use of HomeOffice? Home many days can we work from home?” Well, long story short, we ended at an extremely valuable point: how does the value generation model work in our company? We were soon at the point that our team realized how valuable personal interaction between us is for how we generate value to our customers. We recognized how important it is to have the random interactions in the hallway, the unexpected personal walk-in into the supervisor’s office, the coincidental meeting in the coffee-corner. To informally exchange information. To generate ideas and challenge them, to ask, and change perspectives. Inspire one another. Help. And experience and feel that we are part of a group of humans, and not only a tiny link of a corporate process chain. Group cohesion provides a feeling of safety for us as individuals. It seems so obvious.

What we had overlooked...

And then … the one key aspect we had overlooked: companies do not survive because of their processes, but because of networks of competent and motivated people. These networks fill the gaps that cannot be covered by processes and central directives. When meeting personally, it is so much easier to positively contribute to our corporate network. And this aspect will also help to keep profits healthy. Everyone likes profits, also our associates. Profits mean safe jobs. Even more in current times of economic uncertainty and exploding energy prices. I am pretty sure that our team will not end up with rigid “you must come back to the office 3 days per week” rules.

We will find our "new way"...

Our people are eager to generate value. They will seek and appreciate personal interaction. We will find many new ways to balance personal interests and keep our corporate value generation model running at high efficiency. And our leadership team will be leading by example in this never-seen after-covid field trial. I am looking forward to it.

In most parts of our planet, the Covid-19 pandemic still has a firm grip on the business world. Each of us is experiencing this time in our own unique way. There are companies whose business is booming, while others are experiencing a financial fiasco and hoping to survive with government support programs. For some of us, the pandemic means additional stress, like homeschooling while generating back problems even with a laptop at the dining room table. Others experience the current time as a welcome deceleration. Yes, there really is. The Covid-19 pandemic has many different facets.

What is the mood like?

How are your employees doing in the HomeOffice Lockdown? How often do you talk to them on the phone or video conference? And do you ever ask them how they're coping? What they do on the weekends? Are their children at home? Maybe you are in the home office yourself, while a few of your employees are the "last man standing" in the company and have to keep things running. What is the mood like among them?

Something is happening

I notice that the longer the lockdown phase, the more differently employees cope with the stress. There are people in the team who really enjoy working from home. While for others, the energy level is visibly dropping and nerves are beginning to fray. Last week I had to watch a situation escalate, and highly emotional emails with half-truths circulated. For me, this was a warning signal: something is happening. Working from home leaves its marks, and we as leaders need to be mindful of the state of mind of our employees.

Mastering as best as we can

Many people gain energy from working directly with people. This is nothing new. Especially those of us for whom relationships with colleagues are very important, who feel a lot of empathy for other people, or those who are very creative in interacting with others: they all suffer especially from the seemingly endless LockDown HomeOffice, according to my perception. Well, it will certainly be a while before we get back to our offices on a large scale. So it's still a matter of mastering this time as best we can until the vaccination campaigns start to show results.

It is those little things ...

My request to all of you who currently have employees and colleagues in the HomeOffice: communicate more intensively right now than you normally do. Be visible. Call from time to time without demanding a specific business topic. Just to talk. Turn on your camera when you do so, if possible. Show interest in the lives and well-being of your associates and colleagues, and try to replace a little of the energizers we usually experience while physically together in the office: the informal conversation in the kitchenette, the colleague's grin, the bitter comment in the meeting, or even just the appreciative handshake from colleagues or the boss in the morning. There are many little things we miss. It is those little things that we lack to recharge our batteries.

My appeal:

In the current situation, leadership does not only mean setting goals and making decisions. It also means being a source of energy, inspiration, and hope. By ... talking. Talking is gold in the current situation. Let us pay special attention to this in the coming weeks.

Will you join in?

Hopefully, this year will go down in the history books as "the Corona year." Hopefully, because only "one" year. Presumably, however, the road to a new normal, where we can once again engage personally around the world, meeting and hugging people, is still very long.

Learned something again

The world is practicing "social distancing," lockdowns, and wearing mouth-to-nose coverings to prevent the spread of the virus. After initial shock, we have gradually learned many things about this virus. For example, scientists examined apartments of affected people in a hotspot in Weinsberg, Germany. The result: hardly any viruses on the door handles. Hardly any viruses in the air. But plenty of the dangerous Covid-19 viruses in the wastewater. With this knowledge, something can be done. Stop drinking from the siphon, for example. Or stop washing vegetables in the toilet. Another lesson learned. The chief medical officer in Canada, Teresa Tam, has pointed out that the risk of a Covid-19 infection during sexual intercourse is lowest, if you are the only person present. That is an important piece of science! I am inclined to add that this finding might only true, if you have disinfected your hands before engagement. Well, since I'm not a scientist, and it's just a guess, I'll leave it there.

People need people

Working from home has been another risk mitigation measure. And with that has come new requirements regarding how to work, and how to lead. Many of us are now experts in telephone and video conferencing. It has worked amazingly well, this remote leadership thing. After not being able to physically come together in our team, we retired a wonderful colleague this year with a global video conference. We also held a joint virtual Christmas party across countries. To tell you the truth, I was pleasantly surprised myself at how emotional such virtual events can be. Nevertheless, my conclusion after a year of field testing HomeOffice is: people need people. Creativity and innovation lag behind when people can't meet in person. Company buildings where people meet also have an effect on employees and the energy level at which they work. Architectures and spaces influence our ways of thinking.

This should make us think

What else? Yes, that's right: Johnny Depp and his ex, Amber Heard, got into a mud fight in court over the summer. Was she actually beaten? And if so, by Johnny Depp, or after all by „Tesla- Elon“, because ... he supposedly had a thing going with her too, right? Electrifying. Amber allegedly dropped her defecation in Mr. Depp's bed, so he said. Because he was late to her party. Amber´s response? It wasn't me! It was ... the dog. Yeah, right! While the rest of the world is fighting a pandemic, and thousands of people are dying, celebrities are arguing about who shit (excuse my language) in whose bed? That should give us pause for thought.

Hallelujah for a new energy discussion

Some businesses are "Corona pofiteurs," while many others are struggling to survive. Restaurants. Coaches. Florists. Corona bailout packages have been launched. Sums of money beyond imagination. And with the money, new technology grants have been set in motion. Hydrogen is supposed to come. Hallelujah! Are battery cars really so CO2 neutral and sustainable? Well, I read that a large part of the electro-hybrid company cars are returned after the leasing period with the charging cables still in their original packaging. Well, that's true sustainability, isn’t it? Charging cables that can be reused indefinitely because no one uses them! Joking aside: we need a technology-open and critical discussion for two different problems in the context of mobility: how do we reduce our CO2 emissions, and how do we improve the air quality in our cities. These are two different issues that are all too readily lumped together. From my technical point of view, hydrogen produced from renewable sources is the only alternative to solve our CO2 problem on this planet and at the same time to maintain a stable energy supply. The emerging critical discussion in the matter of battery mobility is for me an absolutely positive side of the past year.

Prominent points will disappear

The stock markets have crashed and are already back at all-time highs. The Wirecard fraud case has impressively shown how control systems can be undermined if only there is enough criminal energy and people look the other way for long enough. Many of our administrations and large organizations have shown how much they struggle if things happen for which there are no rules, processes and paragraphs yet. Instead, information, opportunities and risks have to be evaluated, responsibility assumed and decisions made. Even artificial intelligence is said to have found its limits when airline bookings collapsed and the automated systems tried in vain to attract customers with price reductions. Switching to manual mode was the order of the day: if you have to travel now, you pay premium prices. As prominent as all these points were this year, they will disappear from my personal attention radar very quickly.

Cultivating relationships across borders

Another thought, however, will bear with me for a longer time: the concern about the increasing polarization of society, further fostered by the Covid-19 crisis. Fronts forming within the US after the presidential (des)election. Demonstrations in Germany by Corona deniers and so-called "Querdenker“. Growing distance and trade wars between the major economies of this world. I think: Right now we have to stay in dialogue with each other and cultivate personal relationships across borders! Right now we have to keep our own egos in check again and again and look for compromises which are sufficient for all! Also for our planet! We owe that to our children and grandchildren. This will not be easy. We can succeed together. Let's take up the challenge together!

And one more thing:

I, too, now have gained a little more gray hair in the past year. But that's a small price to pay for all the wisdom we have gained over the past year, right?

With this in mind, I wish you all a healthy, peaceful and successful year 2021!

Yours truely,

Bruno Hartmann

In 30 years of my career, I have never experienced such a situation: businesses stay closed, supply chains collapse and entrepreneurs look for ways to ensure the survival of their company. Governments are putting billions of dollars into protective umbrellas to prevent economic collapse. And the market for medical protective equipment is being transformed by Wild West methods.

Others worry about what will happen after the crisis. How are we going to get the material flows moving again in a coordinated manner? It won't be easy. What happens when some suppliers or customers will not have survived? What shall I do better so that I spend fewer sleepless nights in the next crisis being entrepreneur or manager?

In the current times of uncertainty, orientation and effective leadership is critical for the success of our companies. It is essential to analyze existing challenges with a cool head and to move forward decisively. To give direction, to set the framework. But it is also important not to ignore the fears and concerns that many of us have. And to focus on what we can influence. Otherwise we run the risk of losing ourselves in thought spirals of unsolvable problems. During the financial crisis of 2008, I was able to learn things that are important to me in extraordinary situations. At this point I would like to share a few of my thoughts with you.

1. Share the bad news timely

Try not to withhold difficult information. Employees have the expectation that information about the seriousness of the situation will be shared openly and honestly. Otherwise, the feeling that there is a "hidden" agenda quickly arises. This breeds mistrust. Is that easy? No, it's not easy. In crisis situations it is a fine balancing act between openly communicating and creating panic.

2. Sort your priorities and refocus

In a crisis, many things are different and new bottlenecks arise. So clarify what is really important and urgent? When it comes to the survival of an organization, liquidity is often at the forefront. Is your cash flow planning transparent? In which areas could you actively improve, e.g. through negotiations with business partners? Reduce your key performance indicators to a bare minimum that are really relevant, in order to gain speed and open up room for solutions. How to retain key associates? Focus your energy on things and small steps that you can influence yourself.

3. Bring your "Samurai" forward

Established processes no longer work, people are insecure and in shock. In critical situations, different leadership qualities are therefore required than in normal times. Even if the term "Samurai" (= servant) seems to be a bit unusual in this context, it is still appropriate for me. Excellent training, a feeling for the situation (not everything can be grasped with key figures or data now) and strength of implementation are required. Bring your best employees with such qualities to the fore. Perhaps you have crisis-tested, competent colleagues in your organization who did not make it to the top floor because they were not "system-compliant". Now these employees may be your foundation to get through the crisis. Perhaps it is precisely these employees who, with a steady hand, knowledge and life experience, can steer or make a contribution in a calm manner.

4. Switch visibly to "crisis control mode"

Change your leadership routines. The urgency and uncertainty of the situation requires close communication, coordinated action and discipline. Uncontrolled activism will not help your team. Therefore change your meeting routines. Meet more often, shorter, and at defined times (if necessary via video conferencing). Maybe every morning and just before closing time. Set up a special room ("war room") where activity plans and to-do lists are visible, provided you can meet in person.

5. Blend a rational-structured approach with an emotional "we" feeling

Often managers have the reputation of being "top-heavy" or "number-data-facts" fetishists. In a crisis, this remarkable ability alone is not enough. It is much more important to cultivate a social component in addition to systematic work and a cool head: the group feeling. People are social beings and draw strength from a sense of community. Tapping into this source of strength becomes critical to success, especially when times of tension last for a long period of time. Therefore, especially in difficult times, be approachable, make the team visible, and show yourself as a team member (yes, bosses are also part of the team) also from your personal side as a human being.

6. Take your stand on the bridge as a captain

Become more visible to your employees as a boss than usual. Talk live or via video conferencing regularly with the entire staff. In crises people want to see or hear "their" captain. Talk openly about shifts in priorities, changed expectations on your part, and changes in procedure and behavior. And ... even if you don't know yet how exactly you will sail through the storm, spread the confidence that you have or will bring in all the necessary talent and expertise in the team and thus master the crisis. Share your vision of how it will feel when you have mastered the crisis together and communicate intermediate successes along the way.

7. Take care of your health

Despite all the tension, uncertainty and stress: Critical for successfully mastering a difficult situation is that the high performers are and remain high performers. If you or your key people spend too many sleepless nights and eventually collapse, this would be an additional problem for your team. So even in times of crisis, take care of yourself and listen to your body. Get exercise, sleep regularly, and also take some time for nice things (e.g. family, music) to recharge your energy storage again and again. Your team will be grateful you for it.

You all take good care of you and stay healthy!! All the best to you and your loved ones!

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Companies are something fascinating. Companies are a wonderful reflection of the diversity of us humans. All the creatures that creep and flee in God's wonderful zoo! And what these different people do in our companies there! Istn´t it amazing?

A wonderful breeding ground

The head office happily increases its cost allocation every year in order to solve problems that would not be there without the head office. The company closes the fiscal year with a top result. This is reason enough for the executive management to launch the next "cost cutting" program. And now firms are also going digital: the HR department is getting maximum transparency through a new process. And I as the boss no longer talk with my subordinate during the target discussion, but we now jointly stare at the screen to fill out the online target deployment form correctly. Companies are a wonderful breeding ground for all kinds of nonsense. I don't know about you, but I think that's great! Actually, we should make movies about this. If only it wasn't so tiring.

The danger of getting carried away

Leaders have a very important role in the company! Why? They have to bridge the gap between their companiy´s top executive team and ... the real world. Sure, management needs vision. They have to worry about the big picture, keep their „heads above the clouds“. The danger is to float in abstract strategies, to take off and lose contact with the ground station. A question for you, if you have responsibility for employees yourself: When was the last time you gave 30 minutes of your time for a personal one-on-one conversation to an employee who is one, two or three levels below you filling a role? Not to make announcements, distribute tasks, but simply to ask: - How are you doing? Which problems do you face in your role? - Does the way we proceed as an executive team make sense from your perspective? - What could help you to do your job more easily? How long has it been since you have had such a conversation? If we can't find time any more to talk with our employees about their view of things, how solid then is our own picture of the real world? Can we still build the bridge at all? Or to put it another way: what signal do we send to our employees if we constantly postpone or even cancel their regular appointments with us: the boss has more important things to do than talk to you!

My piece of advice

Hence my piece of advice: decide consciously and disciplined, again and again, to invest time for one-on-one personal meetings with your employees. Even 10 minutes are valuable. Ask questions and be honestly interested! Use the view of your employees to get your feet on the ground of reality again and again. Ask for feedback from time to time to develop yourself further. Personal one-on-one talks are a seemingly small thing, but have a big effect. Yes, our time is limited. There are so many other important tasks as a manager: here a report, there an evaluation, or preparing a decision paper. Nevertheless, the effectiveness that you as a manager gain through honest and open face-to-face meetings more than outweighs this. And one more thing: In our digital age, there are supposedly employees in our companies who apparently cannot speak or pick up the telephone. They thrive to do everything online or via email, even if the target person is sitting just one desk away. Please: talk to these digital "nerds", too! In person. Also "Nerds" are humans, to whom personal conversations might have a positive impact. ☺

Dear Greta,

How are you? You must be very busy these days, since I see you a lot on YouTube and TV. To be honest, I envy you a little bit. You seem to travel the world and meet so many important people. Recently, you threw a grim face to president Trump. I saw the picture. It is so great that you want to save the world. However, there are so many things that I do not understand. I hope you do not mind if I share my questions with you. You seem to be pretty smart, certainly much smarter than me. My daddy, I belief, is also pretty smart. But a lot of what he says does not fit to what you say, which confuses me totally. And he also says that he feels so sorry for you, since you must be setup and staged by others. Hopefully, you will not suffer from this in the long run. I hope so, too, if this is true.

It is about the money 

“Everybody can make a difference!”, my daddy likes to say. I guess that is also what you want to do in your way. Save the world from being destructed, because we all use too many resources. My grand-grandpa told me stories about how they lived in poverty when he was a child. I actually feel very fortunate to have a heated house, new clothes, enough to eat, and also parents that drive me to music lessons, or sports. Many kids on our planet cannot enjoy these privileges. If we look to Africa, or India: many of the kids there also would like to enjoy some of our privileges, like schools or new clothes. But how? If those children also ask for schools, transportation and heating (or most probably, they would rather enjoy air conditioning, since it is not so cold in their countries), how should that be accomplished? Who will pay for solar based energy supplies in these countries? The people there are so poor. So, yes, it seems to be about money again. Are people in Sweden willing to wire money to Africa for support? I do feel like the people in my country are not so excited about this idea. How do you think can we solve this problem?

Where to send the old batteries?

I am also confused about what to do with cars. I like our car. In our country there are big discussions about pollution in cities. And that all cars must become electric. My friend Lisa told me yesterday that her daddy will lose his job. Some cities have even banned Diesel cars from entering downtown. Crazy. Because car makers are unclear about the future of combustion engines, some managers in her daddy´s company decided to close the factory. They are making some parts for engines. Don´t know what exactly. And he is going to lose his job next year. Is this because of your speeches? Lisa is concerned now if they still will have the money for her horseback riding lessons. Maybe they will need to move away to find new work. I do not like this idea. My daddy says that the discussion about electric cars is too much emotional. People should be thinking more on facts and not rush out of one problem, into another one, just because it is fashionable to beat on one horse. Diesel cars are not so bad either, he says. They use less fuel. He also says that the batteries in cars will lead to big problems in the long term, since it is not easy to recycle them. This is much different with engines, he says. I don´t know. How do you view this problem? You are driving around in an electric car I have read, and you certainly have a better picture than me. Maybe you will start a battery recycling company in Sweden one day, then we can send all the waste batteries to you?

It would be nice to just push a button

“It is always about the best compromise! There is no button to reset the world.” is one of the favorite quotes of my daddy. Maybe, we have to seek more for these compromises, rather that blaming people. To be honest: I did not really like that you were blaming another generation for stealing our future the other day. I think we can do a lot also by ourselves. On how we travel; on how we use public transportation; on how often we buy new smart phones and how we get dressed; also on how we are getting educated better. Actually, I am not participating in the “Fridays for Future” demos. Many of my friends do. I rather study. I want to become an engineer to better understand what is going on. And I want to find best compromises and better technology. This is my dream of the future. Maybe I can also contribute a little bit to making this world a better place, since we cannot just push a button. It would be nice, though.

I cannot make passionate speeches to world leaders, like you do, to make a difference. And my parents cannot take the time to drive me around. They need to work and earn money, they say. Maybe you have some answers for me. I know, you are very busy travelling the world.

I wish you the very best!

Greetings from Bavaria,

Tom

"Are you agile yet, or are you still leading?" Do you ask yourself that from time to time? In a time of digital change, there is no way around agile ways of working, right? No matter if team boards, Kanban or stand-up meetings: you just have to do that and promote it if you want to be a modern boss. All teams are then highly motivated, define their own direction, deliver great results at every sprint, and all we bosses have left is the task of coaching our employees and counting the money that all the new business models will produce. Wonderful new world. I am really looking forward to it, because then I will have much more time for my life-work balance. Beautiful dream. However, back to reality.

Agile working methods are nothing new. Companies always start out agile because they are in an environment of great uncertainty and therefore have to feel their way forward. An incremental approach is indispensable because the big plan does not yet exist. Experiment and keep moving. Always check progress. Small teams sit or stand together and talk. Think. Discuss. Reflect. Develop new ideas and decide: who does what until next Monday? Nowadays process-loving companies try to break up their homemade silos and structures with these start-up methods. Countless "agile teams" in all possible areas work cross-functionally and accelerate tankers like speedboats? Do you really believe that something like this can succeed?

I think you can make a difference with such new methods. However, provided you consider a few supposedly old-fashioned leadership elements. First and foremost: a powerful strategy. My forecast: Companies that set out into the agile world and send teams off without having a powerful strategy on which the teams can orient themselves will fail. However, perhaps on their way towards the agility chaos the teams will experience a lot of fun. In the beginning. Leaders who don't understand and reflect where agile methods actually help will find themselves in the midst of frustrated people. After countless workshops, teams may find out that they can't even detach their agile team from the existing organization because there may be too many interdependencies that need to be considered. Or maybe at some point they will notice that you are dependent on the input of other teams, who in turn do not care about them.Value streams need to be thought through from beginning to end. Even in agile organizations: teams in dependencies must be coordinated with each other. Ultimately, what counts is the agility of the company as a whole, not the agility of a single team. A single fidgety fish helps little. The formation of the entire swarm makes the difference.

Maybe teams will just banally find out that the team board doesn't help them because there is simply too much work for too few people. Colorful, agile cards are no magic wand. If you're about to embark on the agile transformation of your company, I'd like to ask you a question that can perhaps produce a valuable thought-provoking impulse: how many executives do you have in the company who can make strategy? And I'm not talking about a sales growth curve. Rather the description of a direction and a playing field on which the agile teams can cavort and work creatively. What do we want to do, what not? Why is this question relevant? If we don't manage to describe the playing fields, then our agile teams will think and develop in all kinds of different directions. That does not have to be a problem with a singular team. It may even be desired. But if several parallel teams move, without mutual coordination and without the clearly described framework of what is permissible and what is not, sooner or later the transformation ends in chaos. Similar to a children's birthday party, where no frame and no limits are set. That can be fun, but it does not necessarily have to be.

In this sense I would like to encourage you: define the sandbox and its limits, define the common strategy and make the interdependencies transparent, before you send agile teams to improve the world! Your employees will be grateful.

No new territory w/o risks

In Germany, business and training magazines currently outdo each other in their headlines with transformation buzzwords: agility, mindfulness, digitization, and of course: VUCA! Unfortunately I don't speak Japanese and therefore I don't know what's in the newspapers right there. In my discussions with local top managers such transformation buzzwords did not even show up once. Are the Japanese missing out on the ongoing change? Will the desire for process perfection be a stumbling block for Japanese companies on their way to a digital society? While in China you can already pay beggars with your mobile phone, in Japan I had to change cash to buy bus tickets. Digitization, where are you? Those of you who already do business with Japanese companies may know how hard it can be to make decisions there with a little risk. Will companies in the future be doomed by their own "classic" value systems, which focus on things like quality and risk avoidance? No new territory without risk. Right?

Sustainable ways, or knights of fortune

Another conversation with a local manager showed me a interesting facet: under the impressions of the disaster of Fukoshima, his company had built a new plant and set out to reduce electricity consumption by 90%. How daring to formulate such a challenging goal! The goal was achieved by means of a completely new energy concept and amazing architectural finesse. What a change! So it does work after all? Different mentalities deal differently with the topic “change”. While some people are more like knights of fortune in quick implementation and seeking profits, others are looking for more sustainable ways. I don't want to judge at this point, but rather open up a new perspective on the subject of innovation: How are innovations created?

Problems, knowledge, and capital

One of the greatest innovations in human history was certainly the invention of printing. The starting point was a problem: people had a need for knowledge, and the monks were no longer able to meet that need by writing books. Printing was begun with wooden matrices. But they were worn out very quickly and became unusable. This was where Johannes Gutenberg from Mainz came in. He looked at the problem with his eyes. And these were the eyes of a goldsmith who knew how to work metal. The idea of reusable metal letters was born. This idea was implemented from 1450 and revolutionized the spread of knowledge. The great challenge for Gutenberg was to provide the necessary capital. Innovations arise where problems, knowledge and capital come together. Is that important?

Old world and new technologies

Yes, it is! Instead of always carrying new buzzwords into the world, we should take a step back from time to time with a little serenity and ask ourselves: which problems do we actually solve with what is invented here? And: what knowledge do we need for that? Our markets will not work if everyone develops only apps and data networks. We need more. The exciting part of the ongoing change is to recognize which knowledge from the supposedly old world we have to combine with new technologies in order to create new knowledge. This one needs then to be applied. In many areas we will even have to deepen our existing knowledge and better understand how cause-effect relationships work in old products or technologies. Only in this way can the opportunities offered by the new technologies be used in a truly meaningful way.

Those who have strong values for orientation, those who already know a great deal because they have penetrated facts and technologies and strived for perfection, those have more than good chances of winning the competition for new knowledge. The prerequisite is, however, the willingness to search for new ways, experiment and take risks.

Sometimes also provoke

There will be no patent recipes for our companies for the changes already underway. Because: every value creation model is somehow different. However, I am convinced of one fact: there is not “the-one-person” who knows it best. The knowledge we will need is just being generated. We do this by reconnecting existing knowledge, changing perspectives, and experimenting. That brings us to the heart of the matter: we have to generate new knowledge, and to do this, people with different backgrounds and experience have to question, knead, reconnect and struggle for the new path of a company. Perhaps it is not about one, but several paths. A respectful culture of conflict is indispensable for this, since different personal and professional interests, but also different experience and knowledge meet within one company. The buyer sees the world differently than the production manager. The controller sees the world differently than the service technician. There won't be “the-one-person” who knows how to do it. This makes it all the more important to hear different arguments, put forward theses, question them together, and test them with experiments. Sometimes it might take also to provoke in order to get to the core, or to bring experience-knowledge and gut feeling into the scales of decision making.

We need the spark

Different opinions will and must come to light. I am convinced that the way in which our company deals with these different views of things, how they are discussed, provoked and how decisions are made, will become a decisive success factor in the ongoing transformation. Those who seek perfect harmony will fail. A respectful culture of conflict is the prerequisite for peeling out our new value propositions from the forest of possibilities. We should not give in to the illusion that we will cuddle up to success simply by furnishing seating corners with singing bowls or transforming our bosses into coaches. Sparking is caused by friction. And we will definitely need the spark in our companies.

Stay curious!

Have the courage to engage in necessary - but not endless – discussions, and then make good decisions. Especially for the older semesters I recommend to actively take part in the necessary discussions and not to “cocoon”. Dare to say things that might not be "main stream" or en vogue. Ask, if you don't understand something. Stay curious! Check critically your "old knowledge", but also the effectiveness of the new methods. Not everything that says "agile" nowadays really helps always and everywhere.

I wish you much success! The way to top performance in companies is not possible without a respectful culture of conflict. We need sparks. With or without digitization.