TL;DR Humans are bad in imagining the impact of things. What we are good at is looking at and touching things and then understand them. It’s how we became who we are. We created tools not by thinking of them. We created them by needing them, working on them as things, trying them and then […]
TL;DR Stories are second nature to humans. Somehow, stories in work life were pushed into the corner by supposedly scientific models and “objective” data. By rediscovering the power of Story Telling and working with it in companies and teams, we can help transcending boundaries in companies enforced by silos and hierarchies and finally improve understanding […]
TLDR As humans, we love instant success and instant results, but it is the wrong incentive. We just love the story of the prodigy as a hero, running over the established with little knowledge but an insane level of skill and smartness. The problem: Instant success and overnight success are one in a million, random […]
TL;DR Communication and intense collaboration inside and across teams can be difficult. The reasons are manifold and hard to get over. This leaves lots of excuses, why we shouldn’t and couldn’t improve. By just committing to cooperate intently and closely with someone each day for one or two ours, we can make an immediate change without having […]
The guitars in the picture above from left to right cost ca: 3.500$, 1.200$, 500$. They serve completely different models of interaction between producer and consumer: Custom, Product and Commodity. The following article explains the difference and why it matters. Warning. This is long. Hence a “TLDR” in the beginning and a “Bottom Line” at […]
This is the first of two small pieces on the impact of process. This one is more about how processes can make us blind to the needs of our customers and colleagues. The next piece will be on the impact that process can have on who might work with us and who is left out. Choices […]
Extremes that we approach define what will be normal tomorrow. Embracing extremes and finding room for them is the most normal and basic way to innovation: Personally, in companies and in society. 8 May 1978. I was 13 years old. Aldo Moro was killed by the Brigate Rosse in Italy. A military coup in Afghanistan […]
My last post was on the difficulty on identifying opportunities for team work. This one is closely related and is about growing teams. There are many things that make working on physical products and services much easier than in the non-physical world. But there are at least two aspects which make our work harder in […]
Once upon a time as a species somehow we discovered that breaking down big things and then collaborating on them makes sense and helps us do bigger things, have bigger impact. Fine! Great even! Not many species on earth can do that do the extent we do. (Of course that potential impact brings the burden […]
Talks and case studies don’t mention that Methods will not save you I’m not a nihilist. Neither am I against methods. At all. A few days ago, I made this observation: https://twitter.com/markusandrezak/status/874950419159580672 What I observe a lot is that people explain success stories. Teams get from zero to super great, companies go from stalling to incredible […]