January 17, 2025
Vision - Verantwortung (3/3)
[Falls du dich fragst, warum die lange Funkstille: Liess das PS ganz unten.] Nachdem ich meine in den letzten beiden Beiträgen meine Überzeugung bzgl. Selbstbestimmung und Selbstorganisation geteilt habe, geht es hier um den dritten und letzten Teil: Verantwortung. “Meine Vision für KMU: Selbstbestimmt Selbstorganisiert Verantwortungsv...
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September 18, 2024
Vision - Selbstorganisation (2/3)
Nachdem du im ersten Teil von meiner Vorstellung über Selbstbestimmung gehört hast, geht es heute um das Thema Selbstorganisation. “Meine Vision für KMU1. Selbstbestimmt 2. Selbstorganisiert 3. Verantwortungsvoll” In diesem Artikel beziehe ich mich vor allem auf Portfolio-Unternehmen (KMU) der Phoenix Beteiligungsgesellschaft. (Beginn ...
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July 26, 2024
Vision - Selbstbestimmung (1/3)
Meine Vision für KMU: 1. Selbstbestimmt 2. Selbstorganisiert 3. Verantwortungsvoll Heute geht es um Selbstbestimmung. Was macht eine selbstbestimmte Organisation aus? Wie werde ich das umsetzen? Wer hat das Sagen und Stimmrechte? Wer hat eine Stimme? Ein Unternehmen, das langfristig bestehen soll, muss in Jahrzehnten und Jahrhunderten ...
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July 10, 2024
19 Vorbilder für Selbstorganisation
Wenn ich mit anderen über Selbstorganisation spreche, höre ich als Reaktion häufig ein "Ja, aber…". [Umständlich für "Nein, denn …"] Die Begründungen gehen häufig in diese Richtungen 1. Das funktioniert nicht in unserer Branche/Land/Unternehmen 2. Das ist "Survivor-Bias" (Erfolgsbeispiele); erzähl mir von denen, wo es nicht funktionier...
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June 28, 2024
Herausforderung mit Sinn ❤️🔥
Was motiviert mich ein Projekt wie Phoenix VerantwortungsUnternehmen* zu starten? TL;DR: Frust und der Glaube, dass es besser geht, sind mächtige Treiber. Frust als Treiber Nach über 20 Jahren Erfahrung in klassischen Organisationen – gross und klein – war ich frustriert über die Art der Arbeitsorganisation. Und ich bin nicht allein: D...
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June 19, 2024
Wir brauchen bessere Organisationen
Unternehmenskultur endet nicht am Werkstor. Sie beeinflusst und durchdringt unser privates und öffentliches Leben - positiv wie negativ. Eine Anekdote dazu Ich habe aus keiner Branche so viele Personen kennengelernt, die pauschal schlecht über einander geredet haben, wie aus der Finanzbranche. Sobald es in Unterhaltungen um die Finanzt...
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January 23, 2024
Geteilte Führung = 🔑 zum 🏆
🚀🌟 Weg von Autorität, hin zu geteilter Führung! 🌟🚀 Der Schlüssel zum Erfolg liegt nicht in der Hand einer/weniger Führungspersönlichkeit(en), sondern in verteilter Führung und Verantwortung. 🫶 Mehr Führungskräfte im Team, statt weniger! ❓ Warum Nur dezentral kann die Intelligenz der Gruppe besser genutzt werden. So können Unternehmen s...
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January 19, 2024
Einfluss von Unternehmen auf Demokratien
Die Demokratie ist mit ihren gewählten Vertretern fortschrittlicher als Unternehmen, die man täglich (er)lebt. Wir können mit gestalten, uns engagieren und Interessensvertreter frei wählen. Wir haben ein Recht auf Transparenz zu Debatten und über Entscheidungen in Parlementen und Regierungen... Dagegen herrscht in den meisten Unternehm...
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January 17, 2024
Herausgefordert: Demokratie
Eine Erinnerung an unser aller Verantwortung als Bürger, Volksvertreter, aber auch Organisationen und Unternehmen. Demokratien werden wieder herausgefordert. Weltweit. Nicht nur von aussen, sondern insbesondere von "innen". Das letzte Mal als das in Europa gelang, war niemand mehr frei noch sicher - selbst nicht die Anhänger der "Herau...
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December 15, 2023
Neue Welt – Alte Methoden
Wow, das war eine lange Funkstille hier! Nun nehme ich mir mal wieder Zeit meine Gedanken zur (Arbeits-)Welt zu sortieren und zu teilen… Unbewusst war mir die Arbeitsweise und Kultur in grossen Organisationen schon immer ein Dorn im Auge. Ich sträubte mich dagegen und tat es ab, als meine Abneigung meine "politischen" Fähigkeiten in Un...
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June 27, 2023
A bad system will beat a good person
“A bad system will beat a good person every time. — William Edwards Deming (1900-1993)” 87%‼ of employees in Europe are not engaged, or actively disengaged at work. The lowest score in the world - across all industries and organisation maturities and sizes. (Gallup report 2023) Most companies hold on to organisational practices that ar...
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April 28, 2023
"Founder" is not a operational role/responsibility in an organisation
"Founder" is merely a Snapshot in time - not a operational responsibility in an organisation Founders can't be hire, promote or fired - it is not related to competencies nor (well) fulfilled responsibilities Founders will always be the ones who made the first strides of a venture - not matter what happens next "Founder" is not - a sign...
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March 28, 2023
The Industrial Age Lives On in Tech Companies! 🤷🎉
Tech corporations are symbols of digital disruption across industries (e.g. Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon, Salesforce, Twitter …). But, the vast majority still organize and operate like firms in the past century. Unfortunately, they serve as role models to the startup ecosystem - incl. VCs that push their investments to follow an outdate...
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December 29, 2022
Asynchronous communication wins
Slow down to speed up. 🔥 We are obsessed with synchronous communication and fast exchange. There's a believe that this leads to faster decision making and better performance. Everything is urgent. We dread every new notifications which might be another task, a question asked the 100th time, or just a distraction from the task at hand. ...
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December 12, 2022
VC funding -> Some times looks like a socialist idea
"People familiar with Gorillas’ finances said […] It had been losing an average of €1.50 for every €1 it generated in net revenue […]" (source: FT) 🤯 This is not entrepreneurial. This is/was riding a wave of FOMO and cheap money. If anything, this is a distribution of capital from the rich to the middle-class. Kind of a socialist idea ...
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November 18, 2022
No managers = more control & better information
"If there is no manager there is no control over quality of delivery and who would make decisions anyway?!" That's something I regularly get as a response when I talk about self-managed teams. In fact, there already is no real control: An (executive) manager in a hierarchical organisation can only make decisions based on poor informati...
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October 27, 2022
Money can't buy you love … nor employee engagement & loyalty (Part 2)
My last post on this subject (see part 1) ended up being a little bit of rant on how companies (big & small) hold on to outdated* methods of people/talent attraction and retention. *) There was little evolution since the days of Henry Ford. I'd claim, most firms are overspending and underperforming due to this. [Inspired by this post, ...
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October 20, 2022
Money can't buy you love … nor employee engagement & loyalty (Part 1)
Companies struggle to hire and retain talent. Throwing more career promises and money/bonus at it did not solve this challenge. It's a flawed idea. Why? TL;DR: This may work for people early in their career, or some one that needs the money now. People that come for the cash or title will leave again for money and title … or a more ple...
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October 5, 2022
A focus on output destroys value
Focus on output leads to ineffectiveness in pursuit of ambitious goals and causes frustration within organisation. Real life anecdote: Lose-lose-lose-lose 📉 A renowned brand I used to work for figured out that a Sales rep should be able to have on average of ## daily 1-1 customer interactions (i.e. calls, meetings, visits, demos ...). ...
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September 28, 2022
Soft leadership vs soviet-era military
I'm tired hearing from people in different industries that flat organisations, more autonomy and/or self-managed teams will not work in their industry/business. They claim their people/jobs are different than others and people expect a boss, clear orders/tasks, expect a bonus/commission, etc. I came across an inspiring article about se...
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September 19, 2022
Celebrate self more
Not even 24h after completing a half-marathon, I was getting already critical with my own running technique when viewing a personalised running video by the organisers. Pride, happiness and celebratory feelings gave way to self-awareness... "I run like a robot", I thought, getting totally absorbed by thoughts what should be improved .....
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September 10, 2022
Self-management
Lately I've been looking into self-management as an alternative to traditional organisational models, i.e. command & control hierarchies. Examples: Morning Star (tomato processing), Mindera, Liip, Hair, Spotify, NER Group and many more. They have different implementations of a model where decisions are made closer to the frontlines (cu...
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September 10, 2022
Start-up economics
It seems, for the last two decades, fund raising for a business (and hiring lots of people) has become an achievement in itself. Raising funds = sale of a piece of your risky venture in return for cash and rights/options over your freedom (personal & business). It's debt in it's most expensive form: you get contractually locked-in, hav...
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September 6, 2022
150-year-old Management Principles
Something that I picked up recently and made me think. We all make decision and commitments, big and small in our lives: making investments (i.e. education, funds, shares...), buying a car or house, getting married (or not), having kids and raising them, going on vacation around the world, investing in education, pursuing a hobby, ... ...
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September 6, 2022
Don't promote your best performers
I mentioned the Peter Principle in my last post. Back in the 1970s Laurence Peter (Wikipedia) observed that people in a hierarchical organisations tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence". Why? This is where incentive systems (carrot & stick logic) play a role: If you do as you're told and achieve your goals, you will be pr...
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September 5, 2022
Kindergarden Engine
It's time to change how we build and run organizations. Digital economies have changed everything ... but companies are build and run like in the good old days of the industrial production lines: hierarchies, top down command & control, carrot and stick. Now, we face The Great Resignation (BBC). And, it's not even sparing Germany with ...
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