Latest Posts

The Lively Disorder of Agile Organizations

Published by Marcus Raitner

The biggest hurdle for companies undergoing an agile transformation is the perceived loss of control. At its core, agility means self-organization. The more decentralized decisions are made, the more flexibly the organization can react to new situations and the more adaptable it is as a result. So far, so good. But the more decentralized decisions are made, the messier things appear for the existing management and especially for the management in companies with a high proportion of engineers, as is often the case in Germany. However, this disorder is not a flaw, but an expression of creativity and liveliness. Only those who can accept this and recognize that this lively disorder can be reconciled into a coherent whole with the right leadership can overcome this first hurdle in their agile transformation.

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Leading With Passion

Published by Marcus Raitner

Leadership unfolds its impact always in two dimensions: on the one hand there is the Why, which manifests itself in a common purpose and attractive vision and on the other hand there is the We of how people are involved and touched. Good leadership is characterized by passion in both dimensions. Through the personal and exemplary commitment to the common purpose on the one hand, and through its love for people and through the belief in their talents on the other, leadership sparks enthusiasm, inspires people and thus changes the world – both large and small.

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Against the Over-Regulation of Collaboration

Published by Marcus Raitner

Less, but better. This motto of the famous German designer Dieter Rams should guide us not only in the design of products, but also in the design of our collaboration. In the most cases working together in large organizations is over-regulated and the people in these organizations are over-protected. The resulting stability and security in honor, but individual initiative, creativity and top performance are stifled by this abundance of rules. According to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, collaboration is only perfectly regulated when nothing can be omitted. A plea against the incapacitating and humiliating over-regulation of collaboration.

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Everyday Sabotage

Published by Marcus Raitner

Who doesn’t know that? Everyday office life, a series of never-ending meetings, rounds and circles that should have become an e-mail. Or to say it with Rainer Maria Rilke: His gaze against the sweeping of the slides has grown so weary, it can hold no more. To him, there seem to be a thousand meetings and back behind those thousand meetings no world. That’s the way it is and it’s the way it is everywhere. But perhaps there is a completely different explanation for this everyday sabotage of productivity from the last years of World War II. But beware: some of the answers are likely to unsettle the population.

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Context Not Control

Published by Marcus Raitner

What does Netflix have in common with a nuclear submarine? Although at first glance they couldn’t be more different, their exceptional leadership culture is very similar. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, prides himself on making as few decisions as possible and preferably none at all for an entire quarter. And Captain David Marquet decided to stop giving orders on the nuclear submarine USS Santa Fe. Both rely on context instead of control and are very successful with it.

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