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Why so serious?
This morning, my playlist played „Why so serious“ by Alice Morton. One of my favourite songs these days. By the way, one of my kids’ favourites, too. I like the tune. But even more I like the lyrics: “Why so serious?”. Listening to that song, a couple of seemingly unrelated…
Clone Wars
In “Mittelmaß und Wahnsinn” (Mediocrity and Madness), I tend to struggle with many things around how we manage Human Resources in our big organisations. The notion that humans should not be reduced to being mere resources like — say — a waggon load of steel is hardly new but things…
The non-bias problem
In “Mittelmaß und Wahnsinn” (Mediocrity and Madness), I passionately argue that diversity is much more than gender diversity and that building true excellence does not stem from a blend of people that is on average above average but from a team of divers talents, each of them standing out in…
Empowerment humbug
In “Mittelmaß und Wahnsinn” (Mediocrity and Madness), I also touch upon the concept of “empowerment”. I argue that — at least in workplace management — there is reason to being wary about “empowerment”. All too frequent, it is patronising in disguise. Humbug. Fake empowerment More often than not, we have…
Seeking the entrepreneur
One of the key propositions of “Mittelmaß und Wahnsinn” (Mediocrity and Madness) is that almost as a law of nature, size drives mediocrity. You can reasonably argue that all the initiatives your average corporate giant undertakes are made to fight this correlation: “Customer Focus — Season 7”, “Operational Excellence –…
Mission impossible
Another piece inspired by “Mittelmaß und Wahnsinn” (Mediocrity and Madness). One, I suffered from dozens of times myself. One, everybody in our project driven business world can tell a thing or two about. Hear the epic poem of Beowulf and Grendel! These are our modern times’ monsters: large-scale projects. Doubtlessly…
How to reward the clown
Actually, I didn’t want to write about my book “Mittelmaß und Wahnsinn” (Mediocrity and Madness) again today. But then I came across this article on SPIEGEL Online (“Erfolgreiche Teamarbeit – Diesen Typ braucht jede Gruppe”) and I ended up regretting that I hadn’t found this gem before. (Future) Martians NASA plans…
Matrix overloaded
This topic cuts close to the heart of my book “Mittelmaß und Wahnsinn” (Mediocrity and Madness). I am a strong believer in takers of responsibility. Only those who take responsibility stand a chance of achieving something. Consequentially, the design of organisations needs to foster taking responsibility. Yet with responsibility alone,…
Dust to Dust
The people consulting me on writing my book “Mittelmaß und Wahnsinn” (Mediocrity and Madness) tended to urge me towards providing THE ANSWER. “It’s easy to see what’s going wrong but that’s of no avail. We have to look forward, not back!” is a very common notion in today’s corporate meeting…