What does “leadership” mean to you?
The German Benedictine priest and leadership trainer Anselm Grün described it like this: "Above all, leadership means awakening life in people, drawing life out of them" Society is giving companies more and more responsibility, business cycles are becoming shorter, things are becoming more complex and the ambiguity of information is making it increasingly difficult for managers to find the "right" course of action. The term "Zeitenwende" (word of the [...]
Steering conflicts into constructive channels
We can observe that conflicts or disputes in larger organisations are increasingly being conducted in public. The best example of this is the dispute in November last year between the Board of Directors and the CEO of Open AI. Following the dismissal of the CEO, there was an internal revolt by the employees, which led to the reinstatement of the CEO and the dismissal of the board. Different value [...]
Authenticity in the context of digital communication
Based on the job advertisements, it can be stated that in today's modern working world, at least one digital competence is required to cope with the work accordingly. The requirements in terms of digital skills will increase even more rapidly and, if the various studies are to be believed, companies will have an acute shortage of digital skills in the coming years. Although Intel found in a recent study [...]
Middle management – sandwich position or unutilised collective knowledge?
The workload is increasing and almost half of employees feel stressed at work. One observed phenomenon is that the number of managers in companies is increasing and consequently the complexity and potential for conflict is growing. While the working population has grown by 8.3 per cent in the last ten years, managers have seen an increase of 38 per cent. Today, every 12th person in the labour force is [...]
Resilience in the business environment
Sickness-related absenteeism is reported to be in the billions. In 2022, employees were absent from work due to illness for more than nine days on average. The premiums for daily sickness benefits alone, with which companies insure the wages of their sick employees, would amount to 4.6 billion Swiss francs in 2021, as the "NZZ" recently wrote on Sunday. Stress, bullying, workplace disputes are responsible for workers becoming mentally [...]
How is stress experienced and how do I manage my everyday challenges in business?
The human brain tries to direct its actions and decisions in such a way that physical, social or even emotional pain, or stress, can be avoided. The realisation that human action is driven by pain avoidance is not new and should be balanced with motivational needs in relation to one's own understanding. As the brain strives for pain avoidance and well-being, it tries to create coherence or congruence between [...]
Recognise the need for change in everyday business
How quickly a business situation can change is shown by the fact that as recently as spring this year, an optimistic mood was still evident among Swiss SMEs. The current expert reports show a changed situation and the business situation is rated as unfavourable as it has not been for two years. Is the flexibility sufficient to withstand this situation resiliently and to be able to sustainably assert itself [...]
Predetermined breaking points in leadership are reflection windows
Upheavals and changes, some of which have an external impact on the daily management routine, are breaking points that are full of opportunities. Strategy changes in response to crises do not work properly, are flawed and have not brought sustainable calm to the system. The prospects of success have also not materialised as expected and attempts are made to patch up what is not wanted or unexpected with the [...]
Rethinking leadership
"Leading means above all awakening life in people, drawing life out of them" (Anselm Grün, German Benedictine priest and leadership trainer). In transformative leadership, the development of employees plays just as much a role as the abstract idea of the development of a company. Social capital, through collective knowledge, builds a community of values that allows leadership to align them together towards a goal or, in the best case, [...]
“Future management” of governing bodies put to the test
We live in times of great radical change and restructuring. Many governing bodies are confronted with new challenges and constant changes in an ambiguous information society are now part of everyday business life. Our observations and a wide variety of conversations with managers confirm this trend and are looking for ways and solutions on how they, as a collective leadership body, can steer their company into the future. Many [...]
Corporate culture – economic cost factor or lever for corporate success
More and more companies are recognising the economic damage of a non-sustainable, non-values-based corporate culture. According to an article published in the NZZ on 8 March, incapacity to work for psychological reasons is steadily increasing and provides facts from the recently published survey by Swica and the Workmed competence centre of Psychiatrie Baselland. According to the evaluation of examined daily sickness benefit dossiers, 57 percent of all psychologically induced [...]
Achieved a lot – done a lot and still not asked!
The recent article in KMU_today of 1 March 2023 looked at the question and its aspects of why over-fifties are dismissed more often than employees of other age groups. "Arc careers" only work to a limited extent, meaning that if older workers would accept a low wage, there is a bias in this regard in terms of their loyalty, although younger workers would often switch after only two or [...]
Promoting an integrative corporate culture or how can managers help shape the future?
It is groundbreaking to observe the direction in which a wide variety of business leaders are thinking about the companies of the future and the world of work.Jean-Christophe Deslarzes, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Adecco Group, spoke in the NZZ am Sonntag of 22.1.2023, about what the working world of tomorrow should look like and outlined his answers to the current shortage of skilled workers in Switzerland. [...]
Benefits of holistic leadership
Thoughts on the latest study by Travailsuisse on stress and job changes The latest study by Travailsuisse shows that 650,000 employees are considering a job change because of excessive stress. The shortage of skilled workers is stressing employers and employees alike. The patrons, because they are having more and more trouble filling vacant positions. Their employees, because the gaps in staff have increased stress and workload. Leadership models are [...]
“Going into action” – a huge step in consciousness or how do I achieve self-determined impact and change?
Do you also know the situation after a leadership seminar or Management Day that everything will now change and you go home with a feeling of being able to cope? How can you implement this spirit and the newly acquired knowledge and transfer it into practice, as the benefits are undeniable? We think that we have again gained the necessary knowledge to be more successful in everyday business. The [...]
As a manager, sustainably using collective knowledge for the company – or what is my contribution to effective employee development?
Society is placing more and more responsibility on companies, business cycles are becoming shorter, things are becoming more complex and the ambiguity of information is also making it more difficult to take the "right" course of action. As a result, the world of work has also become a world of learning. In work-based learning, a close connection between knowledge and practice is sought and the learning success must prove [...]
What must executive or leadership training include?
What must executive or leadership training include? In a service society, employees are the social capital and form the basis of every company through collective knowledge. It is a community of values that contributes to the successful effectiveness of the company and promises sustainable, as well as quantitative and qualitative success for the future. It is therefore important that companies pay more attention to executive coaching for women leaders. [...]
What distinguishes you as a leader of the “new” age?
We are on the threshold of a changed image of the leader. Intuitively, we feel the need not only to think about new corporate structures, but also as leaders to consider what qualities and self-image we may develop as leaders in the coming period. The expectations of a manager have increased in recent years and the requirements profile causes a perceived pressure situation that makes classic management tasks less [...]
Holistic leadership or how one’s own perception influences one’s own reality
In the Sunday edition of the NZZ of 26 June 2022, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was Danish Prime Minister from 2001 - to 2009 and then Secretary General of Nato until 2014, describes having recently looked through his old notes. These notes are from 2008 and come from a meeting between Nato and Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin already made the statement at that time that Ukraine is not [...]
What is the added value of tailor-made mentoring programmes and why are they important for every company?
What is the added value of tailor-made mentoring programmes and why are they important for every company? It is a relationship based on trust between a responsible and mindful person who, also from experience and training, understands the business challenges of the "mentee" and accompanies him or her through process-oriented work in such a way that the personal goals and the goals of a company are achieved in a [...]
Understanding enterprise as a learning world
Which company has a culture that has created enough space in its attitude, procedures and business processes for answers and solutions to the rapid acceleration of our world Due to the Covid 19 situation, persistent supply bottlenecks, the Ukraine war, rising financing costs and changes in social developments, the nature of cooperation at the economic level has changed significantly. Change is visible and tangible and, in an ambiguous and [...]
The desire for self-determination or how companies can understand teams as a learning world
One of the last articles in "investrends.ch/editorial:ras" took up the current mood of confidence among the Swiss population with regard to self-determination and independence and looked at the various factors in the Swiss Life Self-Mood Barometer. The annual Swiss Life Self-Determination Barometer shows that the Swiss population's desire for self-determination has increased in the wake of the pandemic measures. In this survey, it becomes clear that fewer people are [...]
What makes a top leadership team?
Udo Lattek summed it up aptly when he said: "I want the best eleven and not the best eleven." When leadership teams (board of directors, management, executive committees in public authorities, etc.) are dominated by engineers, natural scientists and economists, an individual conviction can quickly develop that one's own, analytical "skill" is a universally valid means of finding answers to given problems. You know from the outset which things [...]
