• Highheels

    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…

  • Highheels

    Consider LOVE in business

    That client with all his problems … the colleague who always speaks negative about his job … the back talk about you that kills your mood … the hustle of being successful (somehow) and getting to the next level … that deal that really requires your weekend to work on … – the list is endless. And you know every shade of it. Memes parodying the extremes of doing a career while every party is filled with the ‘heroic’ stories of self-exploitation. And still, people stay in their careers not really knowing why. Unfortunately, these people become the visionless leaders that every juniors knows and fears. But how can a…

  • Boots,  Highheels

    How to handle a missed promotion

    Promotion time! And everyone has been promoted except for you! At least, it feels that way. How can you handle such a moment in your career? First of all, stay silent about your disappointment in business – especially if the emotional rollercoaster is still ongoing. In the heat of your emotions you might make statements which you regret once you have thought about it for a while. Therefore, take some time, walk through your emotions with friends and family and let the high peak pass through. Once you feel, you can think clearly again, evaluate your situation. Here are some questions to consider: Why did you miss the promotion? To…

  • Highheels

    Who is your heir?

    While doing a career we can be so focussed on our own success that we hardly think of the next generation. But this one-way-street thinking incorporates the risk of missing valuable support along your career journey. This support comes two-fold: first of all, you need people who fill in your position once you move on to your next step. And secondly, a hungry next generation pushes you to progress as it generates a healthy competition that ensures that you don’t become lazy (which you don’t want to become anyway). Ideally, this next generation is part of your network and wants to see you bloom as you want to see them…

  • Boots,  Highheels

    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,…

  • Highheels

    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…

  • Highheels

    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…

  • Highheels

    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…

  • Highheels

    Is it opportunistic to take that new job? Or: When loyalty becomes a toxic value.

    I can recall many conversations in which the behavior of colleagues – especially younger colleagues – got labeled with being ‘opportunistic’. For example, when they asked for a new project opportunity, said ‘no’ to extra work or even switched companies for a new offer quite quickly. The word ‘opportunistic’ has different shades, but in these moments it was used in the bad sense of the word – with the slight touch of betrayal and unethical behaviour. As I knew a lot of these people very well, I knew that they had what you call a ‘good heart’. They did not act out of bad motives. For them, having the choice…

  • Highheels

    What it takes to make a career

    „What does it take to make a career in consulting?“, is a question I get asked on a regular basis. Coming from several years of university, young professionals want ideas on how to be successful in their new realm. Therefore, I put together some key learnings I have seen working over the past years. For sure, they are not comprehensive. But they are proven principles that will make you successful in your team, with your clients and you can even apply them in other life areas. SERVANT MINDSET – I love working with people who have experience in service, e.g. from travel business or gastro. Serving people requires a lot…