After my switch from our small but fine start-up esc Solutions to the BMW Group IT in 2015, I was asked more than once whether I really was serious about this move. To be honest, I asked myself this question also more than once in the first half of 2015. A short story full of pictures about the pain of adaptation in a large corporation and how it helped me find my role as corporate rebel and court jester.
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A year ago, I published the six theses of the Manifesto for Human Leadership on this blog. The response was overwhelming. Almost 600 people have signed the Manifesto since, I have had countless inspiring conversations, talks and workshops. And, of course, I have continued to think and write about the different theses and leadership in general. Therefore, I take this anniversary as an opportunity to publish the manifesto in detail as a small book at Leanpub.
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The year is not yet a month old and my resolutions are waste paper. I wanted to handle my time more mindfully, focus better and prioritize more effectively. Like so many others, my schedule is crowded and the 5-hour rule, i.e. following the example of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and to set aside five hours a week for reflection and learning, seems unattainable. I am neither proud of this nor do I want to brag about it. I prefer to take it as an occasion for a brief recollection of the insights of the Stoics and their proverbial serenity and peace of mind.
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When it comes to agility, many people think in terms of methods such as Scrum on a small scale, frameworks such as LeSS on a large scale or tools such as JIRA. This perspective leads to a multitude of cargo cult, i.e. artfully celebrated actions without any effect. Agility is first and foremost a question of stance, which is best captured by the notion of sailing by sight. While classic plan-driven companies always strive to analyze, plan and then implement as comprehensively as possible, agile companies pragmatically ask themselves periodically what they can do here and now to improve and further develop their product.
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The Roman Emperor Caligula became the epitome of the autocratic tyrant with his motto oderint, dum metuant (“let them hate, so long as they fear”). Fortunately, there aren’t so many of these species today in economics and politics – although nationalist and right-wing tendencies don’t bode well. Yet fear in more or less subtle form is the unspoken leitmotif in the hierarchical structures of so many organizations that lend absolutist power to their protagonists. This is against better knowledge of the detrimental effect of fear on creativity and productivity.
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