The topic of AI is still a black box for many managing directors of SMEs. There is uncertainty as to how best to approach the new technology. In my article, I present low-threshold approaches.
Mistakes are seen as a flaw in our society. We are brought up not to make mistakes. If we do make them, we are penalised.
The result of this education is a culture in which risks are shunned, change is met with resistance and innovation suffers. It is therefore crucial for companies that managers set an example of fault tolerance and embed it in their organisation. 9 tips on this.
Managing director knowledge: 9 tips for a constructive culture of fault tolerance
Many organisations have been overstretched for a long time. Absenteeism, internal dismissals and resignations are on the rise. The resulting economic damage in Germany in 2023 was over 150 billion euros!
We describe common symptoms so that you as a manager can recognise whether your organisation is also overstretched. However, we also provide suggestions on how you can break the cycle of excessive demands so that your organisation can recover.
The overstretched organisation: symptoms, causes and recommendations for action
How can the change towards a modern leadership culture succeed?
The BLANC & FISCHER Group from Oberderdingen joined us on the path of this cultural change at the beginning of 2022.
Bernd Kratochwille, Head of Corporate Human Resources, in conversation with Sabine Walter, gives a very good overview of the procedure, the challenges and critical success factors in this process of change.
Leadership culture in transition
Many teams are still focussing on their content agenda.
Too little attention is often paid to the interpersonal component. However, we all know that if there is a lack of co-operation, progress on substantive issues is also slow. This article therefore provides you with concrete approaches on how to grow together into a trusting team.
Teambuilding - The path to trustful cooperation
Many companies, including medium-sized ones, are questioning their tried and tested structures and organisational forms. The desire for more agility, the workers' demand for greater scope for creativity and more self-determination, skills shortages and increasingly complex business challenges bring the multi-level hierarchy to its limits. Team-centred and role-based working is pushing to the fore. But how does this structural change succeed?
From hierarchical structures to role-based working
For many companies, the speed, with which they develop themselves and their service and product offerings is already today a decisive competitive factor. However, the cultural framework conditions often work against this demand and the entrepreneurial necessity of constant further development.
Therefore, this article is about three questions: What are the characteristics of learning organisations? What framework conditions do learning organisations need? What concrete first steps can you take in your company to establish a learning organisation?
The Learning Organisation: Success Factors and Recommendations for Action
Many companies have realised during the pandemic that competitive business models go hand in hand with innovation. The pressure to establish a culture of innovation is increasing. The question remains how to do this. In an interview with Dr Patricie Merkert, Head of Innovation & Technologies at E.G.O. Elektro-Gerätebau GmbH in Oberderdingen, Sabine Walter asked her the question: "Can innovation be learned? The answer is complex and contains valuable tips for companies that want to become more innovative.
Can innovation be learned?
More and more companies are working agilely or are at least converting individual company areas to agile working. Such "pilot areas" are, for example, IT or the innovation area.
Regardless of whether an entire company changes its culture or only sub-areas undergo this change, this process rarely succeeds smoothly. In this article we outline the different phases involved in an agile transformation and present what we consider to be the critical success factors.
Leading Agile Transformation Successfully
Entrepreneurial thinking and action is a competence that is becoming increasingly important for the competitiveness of companies.
But it is not enough for this competence to be developed only at board or executive level. Rather, through appropriate leadership and personal development, it is a matter of anchor entrepreneurial thinking and action in as many employees as possible. In this article we explain how this can be done.
Promote entrepreneurship
Corporate identity, i.e. what makes a company tick, is becoming increasingly important as the identity that office space creates dwindles. What companies can do concretely to strengthen their CI, you can read in this article.
The importance of corporate identity in times of home office
While some companies lay off or put employees on short-time work during the pandemic, other companies are hiring and have to answer the question for themselves: "How do we integrate new colleagues when everyone works in a home office?" The answer to this question encompasses various aspects: Getting to know each other, creating trust, communicating culture and values, familiarisation - all with or despite a digital proximity. In this article, we give recommendations on how to get off to a good start even in times of home office.
Onboarding in times of home office
"New Work" is a development that is occupying more and more companies. But what is "New Work" - a trend or an important further development of our understanding of work?
In this article we look at the topic and answer four questions:
Where does "New Work" come from? What does it mean? Why is the further development of our understanding of work necessary? How does "New Work" change the corporate and leadership culture?
"New Work" - what is behind the "megatrend"?
Germany's innovative strength now ranks only 9th out of 129, well behind Switzerland, Sweden, the USA and the UK.
Reason enough to increase innovative strength. That is what this article is about. What are the fields of innovation? How can innovation power and innovation culture be improved?
Creative and structured. Impulses for a structured innovation process.
Wolf Lotter writes in his prologue to the focus topic "Pause" in the current issue of brand eins: "The word pause has two meanings that today seem to contradict each other. One is rest, the other standstill. A break is a short interruption of a process that is supposed to continue all the better afterwards. ... Standstill, on the other hand, is a word that the new age has never really been able to handle. ... Standstill is the nightmare of industrialism..." In this article I would like to take up the topic and outline why progress needs standstill and pauses in the conventional sense are not sufficient for this.
Progress needs standstill - a thesis
Structures are essential for every company - no matter how small, how large, whether traditional or hip. No matter how many employees and no matter what management style is tried out or practised. The art is to create and change structures in such a way that they serve the people in the company and the achievement of goals. This implies that these structures are only ever defined for a certain period of time and must be continuously questioned. Why are such so-called organic structures a prerequisite for lasting competitiveness? And how can they be created? You will find ideas on this in this article.
Organic structures - a prerequisite for lasting competitiveness
Trying out new things, starting an exploratory process with an open mind, continuously fine-tuning it until the result is something we are satisfied with, is an important competence. But how can this culture be established in a company? It requires seven elementary factors.
Long live the joy of experimentation! Seven success factors for a culture of experimentation
For national or international teams in professional sport, it is a must if you want to play sustainably at the top: Teamwork. In the top echelons of industry, it sometimes comes up short. But why is it no longer enough at board or executive level to hire a group of competent alpha personalities? Why do we also need a well-functioning high-performance team at C-level?
More high performance teams at C-level
In July 2019, the Global Innovation Index Report 2019 published. The report presents the Innovation power of 129 countries worldwide evaluated on the basis of various criteria.
Switzerland is the front-runner for the second time in a row. Germany is in 9th placeThe report invites readers to take a closer look at Germany's innovative strength.
Enemies of innovation
Start of the year - time for strategy workshops and strategy talks. Even though this is already carried out in a very structured way in many companies, we experience time and again that an essential strategic building block is missing: competence development. The following procedure helps to bring structure and continuity into the process of competence development.
Competence development - a must for sustainable competitiveness
In view of the advancing digitalisation in companies, it is elementarily important that we consciously take time again for real encounters and create space for real encounters. This is also the task of managers. Without these genuine encounters, the emotional bond with companies will continue to decline. As a result, their innovative strength and performance will decline.
Back to the roots: Real encounters remain a basic need even in digital worlds.
The idea of self-organised teams is becoming increasingly popular in business practice. But many questions arise when introducing this management philosophy: To which companies does it fit? How do I get my employees to work independently? Who bears the ultimate responsibility? Do we still need leadership at all? What does this leadership look like? ... We answer some of these questions in this article.
Self-organisation: opportunities for teams and companies
Our world is complex and very fast-paced. We receive a wealth of information every day and sometimes have to make far-reaching decisions in a fraction of a second. Karsten Miermans from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich explains how critical thinking can help us, what exactly is behind it and how we can learn and train it.
What fascinates you about critical thinking, Mr Miermans?
Do you have playrooms in your company? Not yet? Then let's do it. Play is generally attributed to children. But the joy of play is part of our DNA. Inspired by the book "Save Play: Because Life is More than Functioning" by the author duo Hüther / Quarch, we present in this article the benefits that games have for all of us and thus also for companies.
Come and play! A plea.
Corporate values guide action. Unfortunately, however, there is a discrepancy between theory and practice in many organisations. Read this article to find out why corporate values are important and how to make them tangible.
Dead or alive? Corporate values in theory and practice.
More and more companies are realising that they can only be successful in the long term if they develop themselves in general and their employees in particular. Employees should learn. Constantly. Everywhere. Self-driven. With fun. In our work, however, we experience time and again that the cultural framework conditions in companies often counteract this demand for learning employees.What does that mean? And above all: What can you do differently in your company?
Be a lobster! On personal growth and learning organisations.
Who wouldn't want that: a well-functioning team in which the individual members mesh like cogs, complement and support each other perfectly and act like a smooth whole. Accordingly, a lot of time and thought is put into the composition of teams, and new team members are carefully checked for their team skills and "personal fit". Friction is to be avoided as much as possible, because this could be an indication that the cooperation is not running "like clockwork" and that the employees do not yet form a real unit. What is fundamentally overlooked is this: Friction is not caused by distance, but by closeness.