
Business

This is my authentic story of what it means to being alive in five acts. ACT I – Waking up During my first work experience in Germany, I thought of ending my life. I felt miserable, because I was not seen, heard, respected, and had few opportunities […]

How can we invite a whole large organization to co-create change at scale? – OpenSpace Beta Self-organization and agility are THE buzzwords in business right now. And even when you have not heard about those, at some point you have to ask yourself, how can I architecture my […]
OpenSpace Beta – A handbook for organizational transformation in just ...

An organization is the collective story we tell and believe. Once upon a time, there was a social group of people that came together during the evenings, when they were done with their work of the day. They gathered around a campfire and shared what they had seen, […]
What story does your organization tell?

The Cynefin framework The Cynefin framework helps leaders and managers to identify how they perceive situations and make sense of what actions are appropriate for their given context. Essentially it is a sense-making device that asks what context are you in and builds on the premise that different situations […]
The Cynefin framework – A sense-making device

AUGENHÖHE film AUGENHÖHE is a german documentary about alternative ways of working. The english translation is ‘on equal footing’. It portrays six organizations from various industries and sectors ranging from SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) that are family owned to large multinational corporations. All these companies work differently, […]
AUGENHÖHE film

Last week I came across an article that triggered me in several ways, which I will outline below. My intention is not to pick on the author or the presented viewpoints, in fact I agree to some of them actually, however, I believe that looking at the statements closer unveils […]
Business as a force for the greater Good – Purpose ...

This is the transcript of my very first speech with HumanBusiness on the future of work and how the Generation Y is changing it. It is a mix of reflection of my own experiences as well as building on insights of other people. The worst generation? The Generation Y, […]
How the Generation Y is changing the way we work

As part of the Europe trip with the Reinvention Movie I had the opportunity to share my perspective on the future of work as part of “A future beyond HR” – think tank organized from 2bahead. The following is the manuscript for my speech about the journey towards ourselves given […]
The journey towards ourselves – How does work change when ...
The Reinvention Documentary team will be traveling throughout Europe capturing authentic transformation stories that will allow to transform ourselves, humans and organizations. We will be sharing inspiring stories from people that have faced their greatest challenges in the work context in order to create happiness and abundance in their lives. […]
Reinvention Europe trip – Infographic

Hejhej! Here comes a long overdue update from HumanBusiness. The last months have been busy with exploration of different projects and directions as well as intro-perspective on the experiences made. There have been a lot of learnings on the way towards a more human way of working, which I […]
An update from HumanBusiness

Can an organization grow profitable on a long-term perspective and provide value to customers over and over again, by bringing out the full potential of every employee? In the following I am sharing a case study of how inspiring work can be. I am going to take a […]
OSCAR – Case study

[amazon asin=1594484805&template=image&chan=humanbusiness] Dan Pink shines scientific proven light on what drives us – intrinsic motivation or extrinsic incentives? Mismatch between what science knows and what business does Imagine I have a great business idea and would suggest you the following business model. I would work with a group […]
Drive – The surprising truth about what motivates us

Consensus Democracy is a community building process tool that satisfies the needs of all stakeholders involved. Responsibility of own actions Consensus Democracy realizes the impact and the responsibility of own actions on other people. It is born out of the idea of Uwe Lübbermann who started the Premium […]
Consensus Democracy

Is it possible to create a culture where individual, selfish actions at the same time are altruistic and benefit the culture we are part of? What is our ethical norm? Imagine we are working at an organization that is cutting corners by giving small gifts to state officials or […]
Synergy: Patterns of culture

Can an organization satisfy the needs of all its stakeholders, while keeping an own identity and growing constantly? Making everyone happy For many organizations it is already difficult to just satisfy their own employees and many struggle to keep their customers happy. How can a network of around […]
The Premium Collective Case Study

Motivation-hygiene theory “The human animal has two categories of needs. One set stems from his animal disposition, that side of him previously referred to as the Adam view of man; it is centered on the avoidance of loss of life, hunger, pain, sexual deprivation, and on other primary drives, in […]
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Motivation

The Hierarchy of Needs developed by Abraham H. Maslow provides an understanding about the motivation of human nature and the desire for personal growth in a simplistic way. When we have nothing to eat, our first impulse is not to go to an art gallery and enjoy the beauty […]
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The way we work and organize work is not suitable for the complex tasks we face today. Combined with the pace of change we experience, we need a new approach to work. In a series of posts, I will look at what the problem with our current system is, […]
The way we work makes us sick

What is sustainability? When I hear sustainability I immediately think about nature and how it is destroyed by us humans. I think about the environment, the planet we live on and the limited resources we have. I think about air pollution, deforestation, overfishing, meat consumption or fossil fuels. But that […]
Framework for strategic sustainable development

[amazon asin=0385513518&template=image&chan=humanbusiness] The Fred Factor – How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary Mark Sanborn tells the story of Fred, who is an ordinary mail carrier that has a passionate attitude towards his work and life and thus turns an ordinary job into an […]
The Fred Factor

Human-centered design (HCD) is a creative problem solving technique that puts the human into the center of all activities. International standards The dictionary defines “human-centered” as marked by humanistic values and devotion to human welfare. The word “design” has several meanings ranging from the abstract conception of something to […]
Human-centered design

Seljak Brand The Australian Seljak Brand proves that a sustainable business model with local materials, which others consider as waste, is not only possible, but it can lead to creating beautiful and valuable products. Circular economy Seljak Brand applies the circular model in their production process, which sees […]
Seljak Brand

What can we do to understand what the customer really wants? “In order to understand why people do what they do, we have to view the world through their eyes and understand how they make sense of things.” – Kurt Lewin How to NOT do customer service Lately I wanted […]
Put on the shoes of the customer

[amazon asin=194342599X&template=image&chan=humanbusiness] Expanded and updated – How your desire for impact, personal growth, and community is changing the world. In the Purpose Economy Aaron Hust explains why we try to find meaning and purpose within ourselves to be able to deal with the increasing amount of information and economic instability. […]
The Purpose Economy

[amazon asin=1591846447&template=image&chan=humanbusiness] Start with why ‘Start with why’ raises the question how can organizations repeatedly attract customers and employees? What is the reason behind companies that over and over disrupt industries by coming up with innovative products? Why do some teams outperform others despite the fact that they have […]
Start with why – how great leaders inspire everyone to ...

Why do we treat the employees with the most knowledge about the customer with the lowest respect and pay them just above average salaries? Who has the knowledge? Do not sales people who daily interact with customers have the deepest insight into customer needs? Do not field service […]
The bottom-up approach

Who is paying the true cost in the fashion industry? We start everyday with waking up, having something to eat and putting on some clothes. These are elemental parts of our everyday life. But how many times have we thought about, where our clothes come from? Who is making […]
The True Cost

Changes When we search for inspiration we sometimes do not have to look that far. People around us go through life-changes every day as well, some are small and some are a little bit bigger. All seem to be scary in the beginning, but once we have decided to […]
Akims30seconds

The financial crisis of 2008 The worst financial crisis in global history according to Ben Bernanke, former head of the Federal Reserve, had a worldwide impact and led to dropped housing prices and increased unemployment rates. “The years before the crisis saw a flood of irresponsible mortgage lending in America” […]
How to treat misbehavior – a framework for employee alignment

It seems like having a mentor is the thing to have as successful business person nowadays; or if you simply want to make progress in life. The Internet is full of tips for finding a mentor. See this Muse article for a good overview. There are even complete step-by-step guides […]