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Leblose vs. gelebte Vision?

Andrea Grünewald — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 11:18:00 +0000

How important are vision, values and passion really for the success of a company?

We basically like to distinguish the "lifeless" vision from the "lived" vision.

Here is the recipe for a lifeless vision:
Find impressive words that the customer or even employees are sure to like to hear and, as a manager, announce at every available opportunity how important the vision is, even if you don't believe in it yourself. Place the vision impressively where it will be noticed and elicit an "Ohhh" or "Ahhhh" from all stakeholders. Whether the representatives of the company pay attention to the values it contains is not a big deal, since the vision exists mainly only because everyone has to have one.

And here is the recipe for a lived vision:
Invest enough time and effort in the vision because you know how crucial it is for the company's success. Express your passion in it, because how will your team be motivated if you are not? Think about what really serious contribution you want to make! You know that the real value of the vision is to work inwardly and not outwardly.

The Importance of Passion
Passion is the drive, the chi, the breath of life of a modern and innovative company. Passionate employees work with motivation and have a high identification with the company. The corporate culture develops from the connection of the passion with the corporate values. Passion cannot be extrinsically induced, but it can be made conscious . True passion comes from the sparkwhich is already in place and causes real corporate success.

The Importance of a Vision
Employees need a clear orientation, a unifying corporate philosophy and a meaningful mission. There is one elementary need for guiding values and goals, that give meaning to the work. Employees want to be a part of something (bigger) that they can be proud of. There is nothing that motivates more than a meaningful contribution .

Sales, profit and growth are the result of a good strategy with a high benefit for the customer. The higher the added value for the customer, the easier it is to gain market share and to place the product or service adequately on the market.
The vision stands for the contribution that the company makes.

The passion is no Corporate Statement. Without the passion that exists and is radiated among leaders, the vision can never be achieved.

Vision, values and passion in the people who work in a company, to make conscious and to anchor, should therefore be at the top of the list.

Ist die Teamkonstellation der Schlüssel zum Erfolg?

Stefanie Braun — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 10:34:00 +0000

Does personality and mindset determine team success?

Good technique, fitness, the interaction of the players and an inspiring coach who is strategist, motivator and observer at the same time, decide in sports whether the team enjoys the game and success - or not? Isn't this also the guarantee for success in good teamwork in companies?

Modern teamwork means,

that properly assembled teams betterand bring faster results than haphazardly thrown together groups
that people in the team organize, manage and lead themselves, which creates a high level of skill pressure among those involved.

The requirement of personal responsibility of modern teams in organization and leadership sets different standards in the composition of the teams and in the staffing of the team leadership function.

What is the right team combination?

When putting together a team, many companies pay attention to the various hard skills, but not enough to the personality and mindset of the potential team members. In most cases, values and visions are not taken into account. It is precisely the mindset and the personal characteristics (soft skills) that decisively shape the behavior of the employees in the team.

What if there are only creatives in the team, but no critics? What if the mindset does not contribute to the achievement of the company's goals?

In teamwork, companies expect their employees to have social competence and self-reliance, but do not take these soft skills into account when selecting team members. Instead, in many companies, more consideration is given to the DIVERSITY factor in team selection.

What does considering diversity in team composition mean?

By paying attention to diversity, the team gets different competencies and also even more or different perspectives into the team. It often also brings better representation of other stakeholders into the team. However, diversity is counterproductive when it results in the formation of mini-groups on the team. WHY?

What is the right team size?

Teams should organize and lead themselves and should therefore be as large as necessary and as small as possible. Three to seven people are optimal, ten the upper limit. Small teams can easily share ideas among themselves. With too many team members, the risk of conflicts increases and the coordination effort also increases. Often, when teams are too large, members also no longer work together effectively; instead, individual employees withdraw and no longer contribute to discussions. If a larger team is necessary, the group size should be divided, because these risks increase exponentially with the number of members on the team.

Specifically, it requires good communicators who coordinate properly, who share information and other resources, who address conflicts openly and constructively, and who respect and support each other.

What skills does the team leader need?

The team leader must be able to motivate and appreciate people:

He should be able to withdraw mentally to an observer position zand let the team organize itself. This creates motivation, energy and a sense of unity.
He should value team members because each competency contributes equally to success or failure.

In addition to appreciation, a central management task is to establish identification with the team and thus to shift the internal competition to the outside.

Managementfalle: Starres Mindset

Andrea Grünewald — Sun, 28 Aug 2022 10:30:00 +0000

Why Mindset Decides (Entrepreneurial) Success...

The world in which we live and work is the way it is. However, the way we perceive it differs enormously!
Our mindset is responsible, how we perceive things and how we respond to it. This in turn influences the results we achieve:

If we could positively influence our mindset, how successful could we be?

However, there is at least one presupposition in this statement that we must first examine:
The statement that our mindset is changeable- yes, freely selectable!

To do this, we should first take a look at what Mindset actually means and how it differs from personality, for example...
"From the perspective of psychology, a mindset primarily encompasses individual attitudes and the way people feel and act, so from this perspective, mindsets are primarily shaped by personal experience. Mindset theory was developed by motivational psychologist Carol Dweck and was primarily intended to show the implications that people's beliefs about their own intelligence and other personality traits have on their learning or learning efforts. (Mindset - Online Encyclopedia of Psychology and Education'. Online Encyclopedia of Psychology and Education. https://lexikon.stangl.eu/27984/mindset)

YOU CAN'T THINK NEGATIVE AND EXPECT POSITIVE.

Dynamic versus static self-image

Dweck has proven in numerous studies that people with a dynamic self-image ("Growth Mindset") think in a growth-oriented way and consider how they can still develop further even in crisis situations, whereas people with a static self-image (Fixed Mindset) tend to react to failure with helplessness, get under pressure and question themselves. People with a Growth Mindset see problems as a challenge that they can grow from. People with a Fixed Mindset, on the other hand, see their abilities as a given, which means they will generally avoid challenges.

But how can you develop a growth mindset?

Try a little exercise of always putting the word NOCH in front of a negative statement and you will quickly feel a change. People with a Growth Mindset focus on the fact that they can achieve anything. They bring the word "NOCH" into their language use. Instead of saying, "I can't do it," they simply say, "I can't do it yet!". People with a Growth Mindset know they can achieve anything. Constant learning is one of their most important characteristics. ...and again: The Mindset makes the difference!

Deutschland braucht reflektierte Ja-Sager

Andrea Grünewald — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 10:34:00 +0000

How good is your Change-Management?

With a broad-based campaign "Germany needs more YES-sayers", a newspaper in November 2021 is promoting the willingness to think NEWLY and MORE OPENLY and to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing

world - but also to question them critically:

YES to challenges
YES to now-not someday
YES to curiosity
YES to impatience
YES to questioning
YES to wanted to know
YES to experience/strong>
YES to believing in oneself
YES to high goals/strong>
YES to perseverance
YES to starting small
YES to planning great goals
YES to dreaming
YES to action….

In business, openness to change is more important than ever to...

– to remain competitive,
– meet challenging customer requirements,
– to assert themselves in the face of increasing international competition,
– to take advantage of the opportunities offered by global networking,
– to work more efficiently and effectively,
– and, and, and… (Keyword: VUCA World)

But why are many change processes, which are supposed to have a positive effect on the company's success and on securing the future of its employees, not successful? What challenges do companies and their employees face?

In theory, every company knows that an important success factor for sustainable change is the exchange of information about the goals to be achieved and their impact on the company and its employees.

In addition, management must agree that the necessary resources will be made available in the long term. In short, the change should be well planned.

For managers, change means "leading" employees through unfamiliar terrain toward a new goal. In the process, tensions, conflicts, fears and resistance should be adequately taken into account and ideally resolved.

Change is not an everyday occurrence and is often not in the "repertoire" of managers. On the other hand, employees who are affected by change want the certainty that there will be no doubts about further implementation in the event of setbacks, or that solutions exist if the change does not go according to plan.

This is precisely why management support and awareness of these challenges is a key factor in the success of the change.

In reality, however, things often look different: The motives for change are sometimes incomprehensible to employees. There is usually a lack of clarity and persuasiveness, and often simply a lack of time, which has been underestimated for informing and involving employees. In most cases, possible scenarios are not discussed in advance.

How do managers, who are largely responsible for the success of the project, manage to implement change successfully?

Change meansletting go and not holding on to old structures. The process of letting go must be enabled in order to make room for the new. Breaking away from familiar ways of doing things is not a rational process. This high emotional involvement of employees requires leadership. It is not surprising that entire management teams show signs of being overtaxed and underconfident in view of the dimension of the leadership tasks in change processes, because this change process also often has to take place in parallel with day-to-day business.

What should managers be prepared for in the change process?

Successful leadership must deal with the various emotional stages in the change process and take the time to accompany the change. Good employees should not be "lost" in the process.

A good illustration of these different stages has already been described in 1996 by C.F. Janssen and further developed by P. Kirkbride in the so-called"House of Change".

Surveys have shown, that when Changemanagement is successful, that is, when there is a excellent leadership, the process takes place more quickly and with fewer "casualties."

Poor leadership leads to higher levels of resistance and friction, resulting in demotivation, loss of time and resources, and in extreme cases, the loss of good employees.

Every responsible manager should consciously deal with the emotional stages before the vor change and take the employees along accordingly at each stage.

Die Kommunikationsfalle: „Ich verstehe Sie einfach nicht“- K.O. Kriterium oder Hilferuf

Andrea Grünewald — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 09:16:00 +0000

I don't understand you! How often have you heard this sentence in meetings or team discussions?

Obwohl andere Teilnehmer exakt den Inhalt verstanden und nachvollziehen konnten, hatten vielleicht eine oder mehrere Personen ein großes „Fragezeichen“ im Gesicht. In solchen Situation sprechen wir von dem Phänomen der „Communication trap".

Where do these communication traps come from?

The situation described above can be based on three fundamentally different communication deficits:

The other person did not understand acoustically what was said, but does not dare to say it.

The other person did not understand the content of what was said.

The conversation partner has a completely different communication pattern.

Let's take a closer look at these three points:

1. The conversation partner did not understand acoustically what was said

If this is given as a reason, it is quite simple: We simply bring our conversation partner back on board by repeating what has been said or summarizing the most important things for them.

2. The other person did not understand the content of what was said.

Here we just need to remember the basics that are taught in every management course:

Provide enough background information so that all participants are kept engaged
Formulate clear and precise statements
Avoiding extraneous words - e.g., not using specific marketing vocabulary in sales meetings, paraphrasing. Who knows what a Delphi survey is? Explain better that it is a multi-stage expert survey in which the results of the previous round are fed back to the respondents.
Talk through important presentations or conversations with an external person first and thereby simulate the actual conversation or presentation situation. You get direct feedback and can use this feedback in the preparation for the actual conversation / presentation.

But despite compliance with these well-known rules of the game, misunderstandings can still occur! Why?

Have you ever heard about metaprogram ?

Metaprograms are perceptual filters and describe, how a person takes in information, processes it, but of course also applies it himself.

3. The conversation partner has a completely different communication pattern.

Indicator of the communication trap is often that the conversation partner rejects your proposal or even your statement, but introduces the same content as a proposal in their own words. Then it could be that they have a different metaprogram.

It is important to know that most people are not aware of their metaprograms, although they are crucial filters of our perception. Discovering your own metaprograms leads to an impressive form of self-knowledge. You will realize that you not only get to know yourself better, but you will also build a bridge to the other person faster, which leads to more understanding and comprehension.

In total there are over sixty different metaprograms, of which we would like to give only a small selection here. Main polar directions are shown, which are rarely found in people across contexts. In certain contexts, however, clear patterns can be recognized. So we humans have preferences, but these can be quite different depending on the situation (e.g. professional/private). Here are a few examples:

a. Metaprogram Direction: Towards / Away from

Towards-oriented people are predominantly focused on goal achievement, while away-from-oriented people want to avoid problems.

Example: New-product development

Towards: wants to create something new to serve new markets
Away-from: would first like to work out solutions for existing problems

Depending on the situation, this can lead to a conflict of interest. Unless they are able to develop a product that is truly something new and at the same time helps solve existing product problems.

b. Metaprogram information size: Overview vs. Detail

There are people for whom it is important above all to get an overview. Details and individual small process steps seem unimportant. Ex: Presentations are held at helicopter level; slides are skipped or shown only briefly.

In contrast, there are people for whom the detail is important for making decisions. Even in conversations, they often want to know things very precisely because they can only really understand when they know all the details. Detail-oriented people also tell more details, they invest a lot of time in explaining every slide in a presentation in detail.

The presenter loses detail people when skimming the slides - overview people, on the other hand, when the presentation goes too deep into detail.

c. Metaprogram Information Source: Internal vs. external

Internal people find their motivation within themselves, but praise from outside is still important. They are convinced of what they do and what they achieve. Critics of this performance, according to the internal persons, are not sufficiently in the subject, i.e. not able to evaluate their performance. When speaking, they often use the phrase "I know..." and resist when someone interferes with their decisions. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

External people need the opinion and praise from outside for motivation. One's own performance can be poorly judged. External people like to let other people decide for them. When speaking, the reaction of the other person is closely observed in order to deduce how what is said is received.

CONCLUSION:

Communication traps can be avoided if we know the metaprograms of ourselves, but also of our interlocutors. One form of art in communication is therefore to take into account the most diverse metaprograms and to appreciate that the other person simply has different patterns in his or her thinking.

Another art is to adapt your own metaprograms depending on the situation without bending. So how about, for example, the next time you notice that your conversation partner needs more details, you deliver them or get to the point when your conversation partner gets impatient because you get lost in the details? We hope you enjoy exploring!