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What should I do next?
„What should I do next?“, the applicant asks. „What does my CV need?“ Although I highly value that people want to get good degrees and the entry ticket into certain jobs, I am wondering whether these are the wise questions to ask!? Because ‚your CV‘ is a reflection of your life and the time you spent in certain tasks (job, univeristy, family). And I am wondering whether ‚someone‘ should tell you how to spend your life. And even if it might be smart to ask good mentors for advice, the question must be asked when you will stop asking ‚what does my CV need‘? What isn’t transparent to students and…
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Career (un)planned!?
Talking to business people, you realize quickly that most people have started their careers with some sort of plan. You can see it in their CVs, too: elite university, year abroad, the right internships But are these colleagues the most inspiring ones? When I recall the happiest and most inspiring leaders and colleagues, they all had one thing in common: some sort of unpredictability crossed their life that led them to their current position. They took their chances when they had the option: the musician who went into consulting; the consultant who took a sabbatical and biked through african countries; the doctor who started a career in business coaching. They…
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Be a LEADER – without holding a management position
This is how to build a great team out of nothing
Meaningful Team Calls – but how?
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What to do when a team member quits
“I need to leave the team”, she sighs. After training her the past year in different roles, I have offered her a leadership position in the team. And while she was thinking about it, she realized that she needed to focus on another role in her life. And that role is not in my team. I have mixed feelings: I am more than proud that she thought deeply and made a decision (these are the type of people I want in my team!) all while I am sad because I will not work with her in the future anymore. Did people quit in your team, too? It is very easy…
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How to handle a missed promotion
Why being UNHAPPY is actually great
Attention: trap ahead!
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How to survive the journey of becoming a cool boss
‘Every boss is an asshole’, she claims loudly. Having several managers at the table, the rebuke comes instantly. A discussion unfolds whether bosses have the capacity to be nice or if a certain career molds people inevitably into assholes. All agree that at least some sort of toughness can be seen in every leader they know and that there is the risk of bad behavior. As I have heard similar statements quite often, I am wondering whether there is a piece of explanation why especially women do not thrive for leadership positions. Might they fear to loose their integrity? And on the scale of ‘being an asshole-type of boss’, I…
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Why the next promotion is not a goal
I am chatting with a friend about goals. “My next goal is the promotion in a year from now”, she says. I am nodding. Sounds reasonable. There are these job profiles which make goal-setting easy – there is always an upcoming promotion. A system that mimics the trained sequence of school and university deletes the necessity of finding a ‘why’ for continuing the job. You don’t have to think for yourself. You can just follow the beaten path. I am wondering if this is one of the reasons why you find so many uninspired and uninspiring people in hierarchical companies with clear career paths. I am wondering if this missing…
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Doing a career is easy [1/2]
Turning bad experiences into valuable lessons
Will your tombstone inspire others?
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RoL – return on love
„Ship your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return.“ The Bible, Ecclesiastes 11:1 The picture of shipping grain across the sea implies uncertainty. Back in the days, you couldn’t know whether your ship will reach it’s destination. You didn’t know whether the grain was still good when reaching the harbor; or if the goods were valuable at the market. After many weeks, your sailors would return and you would find out what you get in return – Spices? Salt? Fine linen? … or just some average payback? Despite the risk of not getting a return, people continued sending grain over the sea, trusting that…
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Am I a leader?
My manager doesn’t care
Build the workplace of your dreams
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Your narrative determines success or failure – but differently what you expect
The project is intense. Everyone delivers at their best. You deliver at your best. You walk every extra mile – for the client, for the team, for your career. Mostly, you get positive feedback. But one of your deliverables gets rejected. The feedback feels horrible. Instead of walking on and putting the one negative feedback in perspective to all the affirming ones, your mind plays a trick on you. The feedback regarding your work somehow transfers to you as a person. The sentence „the deliverable is not good enough“ echoes into a „you are not good enough“ – getting louder and louder. If the self-talk isn’t stopped at this point,…
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Resilience through thankfulness
How to handle pressure
Grief is a sneaky bitch
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Do you dare to dream?
“My dream always was to build a sailing boat”, he smiles. “And I have already created the design with a well-known yacht architect.” As we start discussing about design elements of boats and how life led these two people together, I let the moment sink in. This is exactely the type of talk that I have missed so much during ‘lock down’. Not meeting new people also means not meeting new ideas. And while you don’t feel the absensce of those ideas on your couch, it is more than deliberating when talking to people and exploring their thoughts and dreams. Just a day earlier, a lady tells me her story…
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Why are you such an asshole?
Consider LOVE in business
This crisis kills my empathy
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Millennial? Don’t get hooked by this trait
Teamdinner. We are chatting about the new generation of employees. Millennials. Entitled, bold, naive, excited, world-changer and pleasure-seeker at the same time. What do they have in common? They long for appreciation and praise. It seems that it is the one language they really understand. ‘Well done. You are the best’ resonates within them big time. Unfortunately, this trait sets them up for manipulation quite easily. If someone performs better when they get appreciated, managers can press that button on any occasion. If the team member doesn’t know where he or she wants to go, they will follow the praise path. Ideally, this path leads more or less to a…
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This is how to build a great team out of nothing
Make appreciation stick
‘Move talk’ – winning the asshole-style
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Why should I even head for a career?
Whenever I ask women what ‘career’ means to them, I hear ‘personal development’, ‘having impact’, ‘developing others’ and further more. What is never a driver is ‘money’, ‘power’ or ‘status’. Interestingly, most coroporate careers offer exactly that: status, power and money. They are tightly connected to the hierarchy levels within the ranks. And ‘running through these ranks or ‘climbing the ladder’ is the general definition of doing a career. As this system has been designed by men for men, it is no surprise that there are little incentives that are attractive for women. Unfortunately, a lot of women do not pursue a career because the immediate gratification seems irrelevant to…
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How a ‚well done‘ feedback kills your career
How to survive the journey of becoming a cool boss
Walking with purpose
