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What social work on sunday morning at 6am taught me
It is early sunday morning. Cold. Dark. Rainy. The group of people meets to work together for a few hours for a social cause. ‘How is the energy level’, the leader of the group asks and smiles into the tired faces. You can call a 5 on a 10 scale a good average. One person puts it quite nicely: “Now I am a 5, put I am here because I know that at the end of our session, I will be a 10.” Four hours and a lot of work later, the group gathers for the wrap up. Everyone smiles and is happy. The work ran smoothly, there was time…
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How to handle pressure
My heart is racing. I can feel the steady hammering against my chest. Strong. Loud. My thoughts are spinning. Fast. Unstoppable. ‘What if I cannot meet the deadline?’ ‘What if the result is too weak?’ ‘What if I am not convincing enough in this important meeting?’ WHAT IF … I fail … I loose… I am not enough!? The what-ifs kill my sleep. The pressure takes away my joy. The stress assassinates my peace. I am not me anymore … and I have no idea what to think … or do … I hate these moments. This is not the life I want. This needs to STOP! So I pause.…
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Do you have ‘career DNA’?
Why do some people walk on in their careers while others stop?
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I am not too stupid, I am just grieving
Grief is limiting your power. As a high performer, it will be very frustrating to lose your ability to walk the extra mile. Get some ideas how to get through the grieving season - quickest.
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Why leading a few is harder than leading many
When people think about leadership, very often they envision a large group of people. Getting up the career ladder results in many people in their department – corresponding displayed in the income. But is this the place to learn leadership? From a personal perspective, I learned the most of my leaders when I have been one-on-one with them or in a small group. In these moments I was able to connect to them – and sense what drives them. They shared their heart more openly and I could understand their reasoning and decisions. Yet, they were still my leaders and I was aware of the hierarchy involved. Same is true…
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How a ‚well done‘ feedback kills your career
“I only got positive feedback for my slides”, the new joiner smiles at me proudly. He just had the first project weeks with his new manager and the slide deck was the first deliverable he contributed to the project. As much as I am happy for young professionals to get positive affirmation, I am wondering whether feedback should also include the parts what can be changed!? People contributing in projects without getting feedback that puts them on a learning journey, will stay good but won‘t get better. And as the only-positive-feedback continues, they are assuming that they were lucky this time at best – and, at worst they are learning…
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Turning bad experiences into valuable lessons
We were discussing a certain consulting method, in short: creating solutions by starting out from bad client experiences. Identifying emotional hiccups is quite easy as negative emotions are stored quite well in the brain. A customer will recall those moments in more detail than a smooth process with no interferences. Once you have a negative incidence, solutions are created to change the process and reduce bad client experiences. You can use this technique also for our life. Think for a moment: what can you remember from last week? Most likely, all situations coming to your mind will be connected to emotions – quite often negative emotions. And this is a…
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‘Move talk’ – winning the asshole-style
Do you remember the last time you gave a presentation and someone in the room made an inadequate, non-content-related comment? Everyone laughed and you felt overwhelmed. Somehow you got out of concept and your presentation was weakened. Afterwards you were frustrated and you would have loved to say or do anything. In literature you can find this concept being named ‘high talk’ (content related talk) that was hit by a smalltalk comment. It is done by people in the room who cannot challenge your content but who know how to discredit you as a person or in your role – and if you are not prepared, you lose your technical…
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You can change the world today
Here is a true story from the 70s. We are in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge are in charge and rule the country brutally. Within 4 years up to two million people die. In those years, a baby is found by a swiss lady working for the red cross. The baby lays abandoned near the road to die. The forces of the Khmer Rouge are close and the lady decides quickly: she rescures the little baby girl, takes her to Switzerland and finds parents for adoption. Roughly 35 years later, that former baby girl is now a highly educated, healthy woman – with a family of her own. She and her…
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Wanna keep your job?
Interestingly, there are some people who will always tell you how much they have to do, how stressful their job is and when coming to complaining about colleagues and bosses the day doesn’t have enough hours to contain their words. It seems, their whole life is awful and punished by the few people around them. Often I am wondering, whether they are aware that one part of their misery is the constant echo of their stressful workday in their private lives!? But aside from crashing the atmosphere at home, most likely their job isn’t that bad after all – at least they haven’t changed positions or applied for a new…