Articles & Blogs

Shine like the children do

„All of us are destined to shine like children do“. These words by Nelson Mandela came to me, shortly after an executive coaching session with a division manager from the finance industry. We had talked about our inner shares and related attitudes (child-attitude, parent-attitude and adult-attitude). We also discussed which attitude is the most useful in maintaining your self-efficacy in today’s challenging environment. While transaction analysis is all about the integration of these three shares, in coaching we use the power of the inner adult to set and achieve our goals, whilst being generous, brave and open to gain experience.

Read More
narcisstic leader

The Rise and Fall of the Narcissistic Leader

Narcissus, the young man from Greek mythology, fell in love with his own reflection in a pond and ultimately drowned in his attempt to get too close to his own image. Leaders with narcissistic tendencies fit perfectly into both the modern business world and also the political system. Donald Trump or Silvio Berlusconi are perfect examples for this phenomenon in the political domain while business leaders like Elon Musk (Tesla) or Thomas Middelhoff (Arcandor) are prominent cases for the business world.

Read More

What is Your Ikigai?

The US-American Dan Buettner is an extreme sportsman, adventurer and author of National Geographic. On his expeditions to various parts of the world he had become aware of a phenomenon that he first reported in 2005: the "Blues Zones". These are geographical regions which are characterized by a significantly higher life expectancy than in the rest of the world. One of these "Blue Zones" is the Okinawa archipelago, which belongs to Japan today. Japan's southernmost prefecture consists of 363 islands, on which a total of 1.3 million people are living. 900 of these inhabitants are 100 years and older, which is an unusually high life expectancy even for Japanese conditions. The average life expectancy for men there is 86 years while German or US-American men on average only become 78 years old.

Read More

You have to fix this guy

There I was sitting. Already 25 minutes in the anteroom of the CEO, waiting. Not that I had been warned in advance that my conversation partner would be extremely busy. But of course I had shown up perfectly in time for the clearing conversation for one of his top managers from the first management level, responsible for 16.000 employees in more than 20 locations.

Originally I had suggested a meeting among the three of us. So, we could start coaching process with the same basis. But this suggestion was crushed by the CEO’s secretary weeks ago. He wanted to speak with me alone, the matter was critical.

Read More
Sprungturm

The Zen of Networking

Networking
She was standing in the back of the room thinking to herself "Why am I doing this? I could be at home on my couch relaxing and watching my favorite TV show..." Instead she was struggling to take the next two steps into the room, locate herself at one of the tables and start a conversation with someone she didn't know. Ah, here comes the waiter with a tray of wine glasses - a secure haven at least for a few moments since the relationship and the mutual expectations are clear - a glass of wine in exchange for a warm ‘thank you’.

Read More

Jump start – how to become a successful leadership team

A booming industry provides an encouraging ground for new entrepreneurs - be it through start-ups, spin-offs or management buy-outs. So does the real estate industry. However, not all of these start-up’s and spin-offs become equally successful - despite the fertile environment they incubate in. This is rarely a result of overconfidence of the new leaders, lack of market access or bad deals, but rather a lack of investment in the partnering on the top of the company - the newly found leadership team.

Read More