Magic Pill #1 - Reflect
When I recently talk to people, two things are striking: first, there is a year-end madness with huge workload; second, a big uncertainty looking forward. As a result, motivation is at an all-time low, talents are fleeing their safe jobs, and people dive even more into daily work because there seem to be no other solution. On my side, I am a big advocate for long-term success . When we want to...
Is all the change overwhelming? Agility might bring the structure for success
Many people say that the pandemic brought a lot of change. Though, when looking at 2010s, we talked a lot about digitalisation, working from home, e-commerce, VUCA, new digital currencies, psychological safety, and many more topics. Some people argue that we are not introducing new topics, though the transformations are happening a lot faster due to a new urgency and necessity. Here is where...
Customer Value is Augmenting your Purpose with Meaning from the Ecosystem
Let's continue to talk about the principles of agility, today we look at how we can create value to our customers. I like to explain that our purpose is giving us meaning from within and is making us as a group unique. The second part that provides meaning in our work is that we are delivering exciting solutions to our customers . Both are directing us in our daily job and help us to make...
Yeah! I got certified as Scrum Master - What did I learn?
For years, I have been looking into agility, its principles and how they help to create lasting success in teams. We have brought agility into manufacturing, R&D and for sure also in IT teams. Earlier this year, I then decided to jump deep into the certification for Scrum Master. What did I learn? There is one thing that becomes obvious very quickly: scrum as methodology is not prescriptive....
Agility & Speed in your Digital Transformation
This article was originally posted in the GloCoach Blog .
Qualities of a Leaders Mind - What about Malleable?
Last week I was sharing some thoughts with a friend about leadership and how we can bring the best out of our team members and peers. In this conversation, we thought about a new quality of a good leaders: being malleable - able to be changed and to adjust. Around us we can observe managers that want to give direction and give guidance to their team members. They are confident with the experience...
CFOs - Here is the New Finance Team
This week the CFOConneX network has launched the first workshop series and I am delighted to be part of this event! Thank you David Newton and the entire team! The entire workshops series is about how CFOs can take a new spin to business intelligence; reflecting on how we are doing business planning, budgeting and forecasting. The first session was giving an overview of what this topic entails....
How to develop your future-proofing skills? By practicing change management
The SkillsFuture organisation is doing an excellent job, supporting the development of the workforce in Singapore. They have recently launched a set of Critical Core Skills that are vital for all of us to thrive in a business environment that is rapidly changing in terms of technology and human interaction. The sixteen competencies are grouped in the following three areas: Interacting with Others...
How to Increase Productivity? Work Less Hours
Back when I was working in Europe, I had my tradition to be in the office over Christmas. Undistracted and focussed working time - that is what I was seeking. And I experienced in these weeks that I was able to complete a lot more work in the 5-6 hours at my desk. And here I am reading the scientific evidence of that: “Research indicates that five hours is about the maximum that most of us can...
Design Thinking Facilitates Change
About three years ago, I started to run design thinking workshops and brought the topic closer to people in various companies and functions. As a change management practitioner, I immediately realised the attraction and the synergies between the two stream of thoughts. Let's look at two of the traditional barriers to innovation and leadership : lack of speed in decision-making and lack of...
Experimentation, Options and How to Cultivate Lasting Success
About a year ago, I was introduced to the term 'antifragility' - a new word that intends to describe the opposite of being fragile. This term is about going beyond robustness and resilience - we want to thrive in chaos, not only survive. Nassim Taleb introduced the term antifragility with his book "Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder". Today, I want to take a quote from the book and...
Output vs Outcome - Or the 5 Whys in Reverse
In one of the projects I am supporting, we are going through regular activities to define and review objectives and key results. In this context, the difference between output and outcome is emphasised. Outputs are defined as features the team can develop, like a information dashboard. Outcomes are defined as business value the teams can impact, for example customer insights. In this context, the...
Core Ingredient to Innovation - Critical Thinking
The uncertain times we are living in made one thing clear: we need to innovate! In order to stay successful in our businesses we need to find new ways to create value to our customers, our operations face new challenges we need to address, and our employees require environments that keep them healthy, nimble and engaged. Small improvements will not suffice - in many areas we need to go back to...
Agility from a Change Management Perspective
We all heard about it - Agile Transformation! I have seen the term used in two situations. Either the organisation wants to introduce Agile Development and that is indeed a major transformation. Or, the organisation wants to drive change (innovation, market expansion, increased competition, etc.) and they decided to become more agile. I suggest to converge to the latter. So, how can a change...
Continuous Transformation in Times of Uncertainty
Since about a decade, we talked about a business environment that is constantly changing, complex and exposing our company to disruption. The year 2020 showed us, how real this can be for any business and for our entire life. Over the last five years, I have developed a framework which I think allows us, our teams, and our company to create a platform for lasting success . A conversation...
Planning in an Agile Organisation
Agility is often mentioned to be the accelerator for performance. And yes, when introduced in the right way, agile working methods can deliver solutions that are closer to what customers need within a shorter time frame. At the same time, I observe that these benefits are not so easily reached. One crucial component is how we are planning with agility. Oh, are we still planning in agile? Yes, we...
I am Proud to be a Change Management Practitioner
This year, I am celebrating my 10 year anniversary as a practitioner in the field of change management. I started to get curious about the topic while I was deep in implementing knowledge management programs at a multinational company. We were constantly presenting new ways of working to our colleagues and it was natural to get closer to the levers of facilitating change. Admittedly, Change...
Antifragility Study 2021: People Take Center Stage. Vision and direction are lacking
We are excited to provide you with the findings of our follow-up study about how leaders in Asia and Europe are working through the pandemic. If you remember, in July we published the first report: Teams Come First - New Business Models Later . Here comes part two... The second study has crystallized some key questions for the way forward: How do you provide a sense of stability in an uncertain...