[27-Sep-23] Get into doing quickly ...

Do not wait for things to happen by magic ...

Two of the ten factors of the Frank Sonnenberg What’s Holding You Back? article above.

The 3rd Data & Analytics Meetup yesterday did go really well, besides two unplanable impacts. A short power outage of 3 seconds that did shutdown all audio and video equipment including our live stream for 5 minutes. And a change in the order of our agenda, as two participants had to leave earlier than initially planned. 

The feedback yesterday and today was very positive about content, the mix of topics in the agenda and the way of presentation. We collected good data for the next Meetup in 2024, assuming it will happen after a retrospective we are planning for end of October-23.

Also the 11 BreakOut session in the afternoon had been visited by a lot of people. 36 on average and 71 in the session with the most people. Really interesting topics and good insights into the work we are doing in our department.

Another topic is CHATGPT AS CEO: STARTUP'S €400K PROFIT & RAPID SUCCESS WITH AI - ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, takes the reins as CEO of a Portuguese startup, AIsthetic Apparel, turning it profitable within a week. The AI-driven company focuses on selling T-shirts with AI-generated designs, and with its innovative approach, projects a promising €400,000 annual profit.

An interesting idea as a lot of companies are looking for young people with a lot of work experience. ChatGPT is definitely young and the 3.5 version has a lot of "CEO" experience until 2021. The missing two years until today should be easily covered by all the available knowledge and expertise taken from a nearly endless database. Have a look.

• Dan Rockwell: 3 RULES FOR BEING YOURSELF AT WORK

• 37 Ways to Be Happier at Work ASAP

• ChatGPT Data Analysis Cheat Sheet
• How to give feedback Cheat Sheet

• 10 Things Smart People Never Say

• Virtually Agile: 18 Templates / Canvases for building great teams

• “What’s the best way for someone to grow professionally?” 70-20-10

[24-Sep-23] My week 38-2023 highlights

"The culture and leadership of your business play a critical role in promoting or hindering effective communication." -- Monte Pedersen

A good picture for our Meetup event on Tuesday that is all about communication and story telling. We will do some small preparation work tomorrow and then we are good to go after more than 6 month preparation work. Two good links related to the communication topic below:

• International Day of Sign Languages 23 September

• Video: MOHAMMED QAHTANI: The Power Of Words (a Saudi Arabian engineer, won the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking)

You potentially know already that I like Japanese frameworks and special ways to do things, here a new one that I heard about today - Furoshiki - a really sustainable way for e.g. gift wrapping

"The most popular modern day uses for Japanese furoshiki include: packing bento lunch boxes and protecting them from spilling open; wrapping gifts; transporting glass, ceramic or fragile goods. Particularly fine patterns can be hung on the wall as art, or worn over the shoulders as a shawl. Furoshiki bags can come in all shapes and sizes. They can also be easily used as a tablecloth, or a picnic hamper for your next hanami picnic. In an emergency a furoshiki also makes a great sling or temporary bandage! The uses of the furoshiki are limited by only your creativity."

For further communication purposes some interesting content to look at:

• Happiness at work? A competitive advantage, indeed. Stay on the bus: the proven path to doing unique and meaningful work. Digital transformation KPI.

• The 30 Questions Every Leader Must Ask to Stress-Proof Their Workplace Culture

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (22-Sep-23)

• McKinsey & Company: Top Ten Reports │ Third Quarter 2023

• HOUSE of LEAN (Sketchnote)

• Scaling the Leadership mountain

• 7 Books to Help You Press Reset on Your Mindset

• 8 ways to develop Metacognitive skills

• Emotions and mindset. Fascinating combination. These can be paradoxical more often than not (image)

• The Amazing Ways Snowflake Uses Generative AI For Synthetic Data And Natural Language Queries

[22-Sep-23] You are the sum ...

Of the 5 people around you or maybe A.I. soon? 

Quick summary of the last week. PI planning was finished successfully and the confidence vote delivered a 4.1/5, a pretty good result. The next 3-month project phase starts next week Tuesday, the same day when we have our 3rd Data & Analytics Meetup. For this event the slides are ready and everything is prepared. The short-notice surprises will be handled, when they come up, really agile.

Remaining on my ToDo list after the Tuesday event is the school workshop next week Friday, then I am ready for two weeks holiday. For sure well deserved.

Then I have seen a picture and article about the topic - AI systems perform better than humans in language and image recognition in some tests - let's see, what OpenAI thinks about this topic?

AI systems have proven their superior performance compared to humans in language and image recognition tests. With advancements in technology, AI algorithms have been fine-tuned to accurately understand and process vast amounts of written and visual data. Whether it's understanding natural language patterns or identifying objects and patterns in images, AI systems have shown remarkable capabilities in outperforming human counterparts. This breakthrough in AI has paved the way for significant advancements in various fields, such as healthcare, self-driving cars, and customer service.

The ability of AI systems to surpass human performance in language and image recognition tasks opens up endless possibilities for businesses and individuals alike. With AI, the speed and accuracy of processing large volumes of data have skyrocketed, enabling businesses to make informed decisions and gain competitive advantages. Moreover, these AI systems can learn and improve over time, constantly refining their abilities and staying up-to-date with the latest trends and patterns. The growth of AI technology is revolutionizing industries, empowering us to harness the potential of intelligent algorithms and achieve new levels of efficiency and accuracy in language and image recognition.

Not so bad I would say and A.I. found the bear on the chocolate packaging by the way :-) -- Have a great weekend.

• Here are the top 10 mental models that will revolutionize your prioritization approach

• The true 100% commitment at work😁

[19-Sep-23] About Productivity ...

Some quick insights and links before the PI planning tomorrow

"Simply put, productivity measures the amount of value created for each hour that is worked in a society." -- McKinsey

The presentation for tomorrow is nearly finished, possibly some final changes are required between 07.30 and 08.30 AM in the morning, last minute. Better to do it then in time for the kick-off meeting.

Preparation for the 3rd Meetup is also making progress, I am just collecting the slides from all presenters.

• 10 Most Common Leadership Styles and Their Pros and Cons in 2023

• 2023 AI Maturity Model

• 9 Bad Manager Mistakes That Make Good People Quit

• "A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it." - Chinese proverb

• 12 AI Profile Picture Generation Tools

• Moms Who Lead: The Overlooked Impact of Closing the Talent Gap, Equal Pay, and DEI

• Your personal brain lab (great sketchnote by Maria Luisa Engels)

• Self-promotion done right: how to share your successes without sounding arrogant

• Your Sprint length doesn't have to be two weeks!

• The ultimate Leading Change cheat sheet
• Do you need that meeting? Cheat sheet

[15-Sep-23] How to uncover potential?

The Pygmalion Effect: the powerful influence of shared expectations.

In order to come from a rock to statue you need some tools. It is the same when you want to uncover your potential. The right tools might be learning, personality tests, some mentoring/coaching, maybe just some feedback from an outside opinion or perspective? Up to you, and depending from where you are and where you want to be?

Another potential could be found in hidden champions - Hidden champions are companies that dominate their respective niches, but are largely unknown to the general public. These companies are typically small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with annual revenues of less than €5 billion - I did see a Peter Kreuz article about this topic today (only in German), but also found his series of English speaking videos on Youtube for the same topic, have a look. 

Finally a paradigm shift could help as well and unlock a lot of potential. See an example for leadership with a great Tanmay Vora sketchnote included.

“Success is knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others.” -- John Maxwell, taken from 40 Inspirational Quotes On Potential.

• The secret to accelerating performance - What winning companies do differently

• JAW-DROPPING ELECTRIC MINI RACER ACCELERATES TO 62 MPH IN LESS THAN ONE SECOND

• The Scrum Master as the Leader of the Future

• MEETINGS ARE TOO BIG TOO FREQUENT AND TOO LONG

• Kotter's 8-Step Process for Leading Change

• The 5 Biggest Risks of Generative AI: Steering the Behemoth Responsibly

• The 5 Guiding Laws of Life!

• 10 Sentences advice on what Scrum Master need (credit to Mike Cohn)

[13-Sep-23] Issue and improvement

Clarify the problem and find a solution

I found the picture yesterday and shared it in my team. The spillover joke came up immediately and I answered, when you want to keep a clean table, don't do any spillovers. Today I found an even better solution on Youtube, the 2023 answer - Robot Barista Making Latte Art!

Next issues is the baby-boomer generation retiring shortly and the current

shortage of skilled workers. Two trends going in opposite directions. A huge number of baby-boomers are leaving the workforce in the coming years and the current shortage of skilled workers will be getting worse. So re- or upskill your younger employees and develop what you need on your own. My project will be facing the same issues with respect to software development. A first idea is to do pair-programming or mentoring between older and young team members, maybe a coding autumn-school to upskill a larger group quickly. I will be thinking about this in more details after my October holiday.

Finally a new idea to avoid synchronization or undertitles in videos - just use AI for translation into other languages and to match the new words and mouth movements. Have a look at HeyGen or this example.

• Dan Rockwell: 7 WAYS TO LEARN TO SAY NO WITH KINDNESS

• Redesigning your career path in a Skills-Driven world

• Frank Sonnenberg: How to Work Smart and Achieve More

• 10 metrics more valuable than velocity

• Activating Growth Mindset (at scale)

• Worrying is not at all bad if you have the right mindset.

[10-Sep-23] My week 36-2023 highlights

Basketball World Cup Final: Germany 83 : Serbia 77

The historical days did go on today, when the German Basketball team did win the World Cup for the 1st time. What a great day and very well deserved after winning all games during this tournament. And a perfect analogy to the picture today, as the great intersection of all player types and their experience in the past together made a winning team. Congratulations and Basketball will now get much more visibility with a broader audience, because only the final was shown on free TV in Germany.

Germany can be lucky to have Basketball now, as Soccer is a complete disaster in the moment. After losing against Japan yesterday the coach was fired today, much too late from my perspective, but better late than never. Next friendly game is against France on Tuesday already and an interim coach has been announced. Will be interesting to see, who gets this position long-term. 

I was busy the whole day yesterday to update and fine-tune my presentation for the school workshop on 29-Sep-23. A lot did happen in the technology and digitalization area in the last 2 years, what had influence on the content I plan to present. I asked ChatGPT to get 10 key topics to be covered during this workshop and 5 dangers I should warn the kids about. Really great results for easy questions, very helpful. And a good confirmation for the content I did share in previous workshops in the school already. Good to have this task finished now, only some additional notes will be required for my voice-over during the presentation. I plan to have two active sessions for the audience besides the slides I will show. 

The coming week starts with our System Demo on Monday, much more customer focused this time. Looking forward to the feedback of the audience afterwards, to see if our effort and change in direction was successful?

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (08-Sep-23)

• Why Shallow Leadership Principles Backfire: The Dangers of Simplistic Mantras

• The 2023 MAD (Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence & Data) Landscape

• Our VELUM system steps in to provide a solution. sewts VELUM feeds towels and other terrycloth into folding machines, closing this significant gap in automation of industrial laundries. Our inhouse developed AI analyzes the textile and translates these findings into robotic commands.

• SQL in a Nutshell

• What technology analysts are saying about the future of generative AI

• Teach Your Children To Care Inspirational Video

• The best example of “don’t try to change something that works”.

"I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics. Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that's what I wanted to do." -- Steve Jobs

[08-Sep-23] A historical day ...

Basketball World Cup: Germany 113 : USA 111

The German team was the 1st time in the Semi-Finals after 21 years, did win against the favorites from the USA today and is now for the 1st time ever in theWorld Cup final on Sunday. Well done guys.

As well today is the 1st anniversary of the death of Elizabeth II, 70 years on the throne and now the 1st year without her, still a little bit unusual.

The picture today is another great Tanmay Vora sketchnote, always a good combination of content and related sketches.

12 more days to go until the next 2-day project planning starts, another 6 days for the 3rd Meetup and then finally the school workshop on 29-Sep-23, before 2 weeks holiday start, will be well deserved by then.

Next Monday we will have our System Demo with the main customers and stakeholders, as official finish for the last 3-month period. Then we start our 5-days of dedicated innovation, training and exploration phase before the next planning. As we want to be much more customer focused and less technical in language on Monday, we had a dry-run with all team members today. Some minor adjustments are required, but the rest will be working fine. Looking forward to it and the feedback of the audience afterwards.

• Dan Rockwell: BETWEEN STUPIDITY AND WISDOM
• Dan Rockwell: CHANGE YOUR FRIENDS CHANGE YOUR LIFE
• The New Happy: Borrow it
• The New Happy: Talking all day
• Simon Sinek Video: Optimism Is NOT Blind Positivity
• Video: Amphibious Velox robot uses undulating fins to swim and crawl

• XEV YOYO MY23 is here! The full electric city car, which responds to a need for urban mobility with practicality, technology, and an unmistakable design, improves in every aspect

• Generative Team Design: Innovation, Psychological Safety, and Empathy

• DevOps Tools Stack Wheel

• 11 Important Soft Skills
  

• Mindsets, the unseen builders or wreckers of success, play a crucial role in teams and organisations

• Intrinsic drive: from curiosity to mastery to achieve the impossible

• The Power of Intrinsic Motivation: The most powerful habits are those that come completely from within.

"For artists, scientists, inventors, schoolchildren, and the rest of us, intrinsic motivation-the drive to do something because it is interesting, challenging, and absorbing-is essential for high levels of creativity." -- Daniel H. Pink

[06-Sep-23] The Bulldozer ...

Sometimes you just need to drive alternative ideas

In one of our strategic projects we have a "driver triangle" of Time - Resources - and Smartness. As the enddate is fixed and we cannot increase the number of skilled resources in the remaining time, we have to work smarter and push new, alternative and maybe crazy ideas, to get things done.

During a meeting today I took the Bulldozer role and shared some "fancy" ideas. Why should we spend a lot of effort to reduce the duration of an existing process from e.g. 11 to 8 days? Just tell the involved people that the new duration cannot be longer than 3 days and they should be coming up with smart ideas to make it happen. Discuss good pratices and combine what works well. If a competition between teams is required to be faster, why not - gamification can help as well.

Another proposal was to use the Pareto Principle - by just spending 20% team effort, we should come to a 80% quality and confidence level after testing. We will see soon, if this is possible?

• Lean for the modern company

• Dan Rockwell: 4 BAD HABITS THE WORST LEADERS LOVE

• What is an Agile Release Tram?

• 11 Habits of Ridiculously Likeable People

• Eve Simon: Maternal Ingenuity: How Moms Drive Progressive Innovation
• Sketchplanations: Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• Frank Sonnenberg: Some People Have No Shame

• 10 Time Management Tips for Talent Professionals

• Beyond the Facade: Why a Strong Core Is Key to IT Success

• How to stop - Taking Things Personally

[04-Sep-23] Meeting the requirements?

It is always good to have a plan B or version 2.0

I am just reading two new books from Michael Bungay Stanier (MBS):

• The Coaching Habit (2016)

  • The Coaching Habit gives you 7 questions and the tools to make them an everyday habit. Master them, and you’ll be able to work less hard and have more impact.

• How To Work With Almost Anyone (2023)

  • Every working relationship can be better.
    This book is your guide to creating relationships
    that are safe, vital, and repairable.

I started with the Coaching Habit and it is really easy to read and understand. Looking forward to the remaining content and then the latest book from MBS.

As promised I did select the Interns for the 2nd round of interviews today. Difficult to meet the requirements of the departments searching for Interns, and making it to the 2nd round is no guarantee to be invited for a 2nd interview. We will see.

"The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it." -- Ray Kroc, American - Businessman October 5, 1902 - January 14, 1984

• FROM THEORY TO TRIUMPH: THE CIO’S GUIDE TO GENUINE BUSINESS AGILITY

• Video: 100 WAYS TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF by Steve Chandler | Core Message
• Video: Simon Sinek - Great Leaders INSPIRE Others To Do Great Things
• TED Talk Mar-22: How "digital twins" could help us predict the future
• Dan Rockwell: YOUR LENS DETERMINES VISION

• Coaching questions are the most powerful tools in your arsenal as a coach

• A collaborative communication framework

The A.I cartoon from Paul Noth as perfect fit to the Labor Day in the USA today.

[03-Sep-23] The week 35-2023 summary

A happy heart is good medicine ...

Above the text from my Fortune cookie that I took away from the Vietnam restaurant where we had our dinner today. Nice food for a happy heart.

We did book our October holiday today, nearly two weeks in the southern part of Germany, looking forward to it. Besides that I started to prepare my presentation for the School workshop end of Sep-23. Just 90 minutes this time, what is good as my 2nd hands-on activity will be changed and ites are necessarys much shorter than normal. As the last workshop was back in 2021, some updates are necessary. ChatGPT did not exist by then, definitely one topic to add. There might be more?

Next week some basic decisions are to be taken, as we enter the hot weeks before the next two day planning phase on 20-Sep-23. Have a great week 36:

• TED Talk: Why I'm done trying to be "man enough" | Justin Baldoni
• Video: After Learning to Code at 81, She Made a Game for Fellow Seniors
• TED Talk: Now is the time to get your own wings | Masako Wakamiya 
• Video: How to Stop Overthinking

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (01-Sep-23)

• 10 Agile Transformation Pitfalls - Old habits die hard

• What Is a Blameless Culture – And Why Should You Care?

• 99% dont know those 10 AI tools that will save you hundreds of hours of your work

• Uncertainty. It's the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about

• Write queries with Duet AI assistance

• Good leadership requires you to think like a farmer!

• 7 Keys To Human Leadership

[01-Sep-23] 1st 1,000k reader anniversary

One year can pass by pretty fast ...

Exactly one year ago I was celebrating the first time 1,000k readers on the counter of my BLOG. I am wearing my celebration jacket today that I did design for this occasion back then. As best possible assumption I did set the counter to 1,308,000 readers today, see the bottom of the Welcome page as reference. Just in case you are interested in more details about the celebration last year, see

[01-Sep-22] Blog post, see 2022 eBOOK page 121 for details.

Had a busy day today, starting in the morning with our monthly OneTeam coffee, a voluntary meeting that does not need to have any business context. Out of 450 potential participants only 4 showed up. Voluntary none business topics are not really attractive is my summary, but we had a great time. Did talk about Indian lunch, Vietnam as the 2nd largest coffee producer in the world and some really good Spanish wine. A promising start in the day.

After lunch a one hour Q&A session about our Cloud strategy with 100 people, seemed to be a more fancy topic, based on the pure numbers. People were invited to give feedback about the session and 9 did take the time to share some thoughts. The result was between 1 (complete waste of time) and 5 (cool stuff), difficult to make everybody happy. Anyway we provided some transparency and this is the idea.

In the afternoon two interviews with potential Interns, one 20 the other 36 years old. I will take the decision about next steps in the coming week.

Have a great weekend ...

• Google Cloud Tech Blog

• Challenge accepted: High-speed AI drone overtakes world-champion drone racers

• Charted: Youth Unemployment in the OECD and China

• Tracking Antarctica Sea Ice Loss in 2023

• Adam Grant: The 12 New Fall Books to Enrich Your Thinking
• TED Talk 2023: The AI-powered tools supercharging your imagination
• Dan Rockwell: 20 WAYS TO INCREASE PERSONAL ENERGY

• The 8 Paths to Humility, How to Recover from Setbacks, & More

• Tanmay Vora: How to Have an Effective Dialogue

• The best HR & People Analytics articles of August 2023

• India's $7 billion electric bus plan, and other city-focused stories you need to read

• Why is the Moon's south pole so important?
• 5 Team Practices that improve Agility and Focus

[30-Aug-23] Watermark AI

Making AI generated content visible ...

The AI capabilities are really impressive in the meantime, but how to find out who created the content you see or read? Some options below:

• Identifying AI-generated images with SynthID

• Breaking Barriers: Originality.AI's Multilanguage Release Supports 15 Languages (Most Accurate AI Content Checker & Plagiarism Checker for Content Marketers)

• EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence

Just today I uploaded a new version of my 6th eBOOK with content until 29-Aug-23. You can get it via the Downloads page in the menu above.

On Friday 01-Sep-23 I will celebrate the 1st anniversary of having 1,000,000 visitors on the counter of my BLOG for the first time. Due to the change of my BLOG hosting company on 08-Dec-22 the visitors are counted differently in the meantime. Based on some earlier investigation my estimation for the counter status, according to the previous measurement logic, is 1,306,700 today.

• TED Talk 2022: How to find joy in climate action by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

• Gallup and Lumina Foundation are committed to studying perceptions around the most pressing issues facing higher education (FEATURED REPORT)

• Dan Rockwell: TAKE THE NEXT STEP

• The Fairphone 5 is finally here

• Frank Sonnenberg: It’s Better Done Than Said

• Are you working enough ON your business?

“We have seen AI providing conversation and comfort to the lonely; we have also seen AI engaging in racial discrimination. Yet the biggest harm that AI is likely to do to individuals in the short term is job displacement, as the amount of work we can automate with AI is vastly larger than before. As leaders, it is incumbent on all of us to make sure we are building a world in which every individual has an opportunity to thrive.”

– Andrew Ng, taken from 40 Best Artificial Intelligence Quotes

• The New Happy: It’s never too late

• The longer you think about something, the less likely you are to do it

• Dan Rockwell: WHEN SOLUTIONS CREATE PROBLEMS

• Build a positive Team Culture

• Video: Is the World Ready For The Impacts Of AI?

• The 2023 Gartner Hype Cycle for AI is here

• Increase Your Talent Pool Up to 10 Times by Doing This

• The History of Innovation Cycles from 2021

[24-Aug-23] Tools or Frameworks

Two sketches from Olina Glindevi, the Visual Agile Coach

I like her approach to capture rather difficult topics in easy pictures:

• Left: The Agile Manifesto: Where it all began!
• Right: Dysfunction Mapping; A tool for effective agile coaching

Just back from my two days with workshops, on Tuesday for 2 hours with my senior management team and Wednesday a whole day offsite with a small management team of another department. Both a great success and the basis for more assignments.

I am still working on my future position as the Feelgood Manager of my department and see two ways to get there. Either to be nominated by the HR department or via an election of all employees. The more workshops I host the higher is the probability for option two. I will go on with this approach, as it is a great experience and learning for me. The fun to see that the preparation work is leading to a smooth workshop is on top of this.

Now the focus will go back to the project and the 3rd Meetup coming up end of Sep-23. The next planned holiday is early Oct-23 for two weeks. One day before I will be hosting the school workshop this year, needs some preparation work as well, as the last one was 2021. The topic is Digital Transformation and this is changing really fast.

"The personal ego already has a strong element of dysfunction, but the collective ego is, frequently, even more dysfunctional, to the point of absolute insanity." -- Eckhart Tolle, German - Speaker Born: February 16, 1948

[21-Aug-23] Asking more questions

Best advice for people of all age ...

Asking questions is the best and first advice for the Interns during their onboarding session. It also works for other people, independent of their age. And with ChatGPT there is now a new tool available that can answer basically any question with a pretty accurate answer.

I used it yesterday for my upcoming school workshop in September. The pupils are close to leaving school and will either start an apprenticeship or study. Some know already what they will be doing, others are struggling with the available offers or cannot take a final decision. In order to help I am collecting websites that support the decision making process. I did post 6 new sites today on my German Beratung & Coaching page. With the right question ChatGPT can add many more

pages, I stopped after 15 new ideas and will be using this way of generating valuable content during my workshop. Making best use of the available capabilities.

• 13 Timeless Lessons from the Father of Advertising

• TED Talk: The case for a 4-day work week
• TED Talk: How to binge a college semester in one week | Steven Hayward
• Video: I am blind, please help
• Video: How to stop procrastinating | SOLVING THE PROCRASTINATION PUZZLE by Timothy Pychyl | Core Message

• 11 Things Organized and Productive People Do Every Day

[20-Aug-23] The week 33-2023 summary

Handling fear and your comfort zone ...

No additional title for the England team as Spain did win the final today and did become now the 5th team to ever win the Women's World Cup. Congratulations.

This morning I had a discussion with my wife about leaving the Comfort Zone, as this was one of the workshop topics in the past week. Here what OpenAI thinks about the topic:

Leaving the comfort zone can be a daunting prospect, but it is essential for personal growth and development. Here are 10 compelling arguments why taking that leap of faith is worth it:

1. Self-discovery: Stepping out of your comfort zone allows you to explore new challenges and push your limits, leading to a better understanding of yourself and your capabilities.

2. Increased resilience: By confronting difficult situations outside of your comfort zone, you build resilience and learn to adapt to change more effectively.

3. Expanded horizons: Embracing the unknown opens doors to new experiences, opportunities, and perspectives that you may have never encountered otherwise.

4. Overcoming fears: Facing your fears head-on can be liberating and empowering, helping you to become more courageous and confident in all areas of life.

5. Enhanced creativity: By exploring new situations and environments, you stimulate your creativity and problem-solving skills, finding innovative solutions to challenges.

6. Personal growth: Leaving your comfort zone pushes you to learn and develop new skills, expanding your knowledge base and fostering personal growth.

7. Building resilience: By facing uncertainty and adversity outside of your comfort zone, you become more resilient and better equipped to handle life's challenges.

8. Boosted self-confidence: Each time you step out of your comfort zone and achieve success, your self-confidence grows, paving the way for greater accomplishments in the future.

9. Embracing change: Leaving your comfort zone prepares you to embrace change gracefully, ensuring you are not left behind in an ever-evolving world.

10. Increased opportunities: By venturing beyond what is familiar, you expose yourself to a broader range of opportunities and possibilities, both personally and professionally.

Not so bad, some minor adjustments and all is great. 

In The Mouse on TV today they explained why the track and field athletes run around the stadium to their left (counter-clockwise)? They did look at different possibilities like e.g. Historical Tradition, left-footed versus right footed people (bio-mechanics), Fairness, Comparability and Standardization. In the end it was a very short IAAF rules book entry from 1913 to standardize on a global basis. 

In the afternoon I did ask ChatGPT 3.5 the same question and got the same answer - "Ultimately, the combination of historical tradition and practical considerations, as defined by the IAAF rules, has led to the widespread practice of track and field athletes running in a counter-clockwise direction around the stadium.". Only when I asked for a combination of this story and leaving the comfort zone in the same article, the system was struggling a lot. More to come ...

• Domestic chores could be done by robots 40% of the time within a decade - new study

• TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, and NXP Establish Joint Venture to Bring Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing to Europe

• Video: How to Consistently Enter Flow States

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (18-Aug-23)

[17-Aug-23] Getting luckier ...

Lifelong Learning, you have to practice, practice, ...

Today I delivered the final package to the participants of the workshop yesterday. The presentation and a summary of the results the teams did work out together. I did get more posititve feedback about the two days and even an offer to host another workshop next week. A little bit too short notice for me, as I had two other workshops scheduled already. Maybe next time?

Later today I delivered several appreciation certificates to team members of my project. This time to the silent heroes/performers. They do great work and deliver or over deliver on their commitments on a regular basis, are a backbone of their teams and do not talk about it a lot. As recognition is one of the top motivation drivers in our teams, we do these kind of appreciation regularly. Helps the recognized people a lot, and is a good signal to their supervisors as well for the next performance review for example.

• Grant Snider: Fairy Tale After Jan Pieńkowski

• This infographic identifies 6 principles underlying influence

• Dan Rockwell: ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: A LIVING DOG IS BETTER THAN A DEAD LION

• Boston Dynamics wants to change the world with its state-of-the-art robots

• What the Most Engaged Organisations in EMEA Do Differently

• The CIGAR Coaching Model

[16-Aug-23] Passing the fear zone

Back from the 2-day offsite workshop

Besides the public transport that did really work well in both directions, I had to take two trains and two busses to get there and again on the way back, the workshop was a great success. It was the 1st time for me to host nearly 50 people in one room, so far the larger workshops with 50+ people were only online.

On the first day we did the Motivation workshop that works well with any kind of participant number, together in a room, online or in a hybrid setup. This morning the presentation of the Personality Type test results and to close the session the 2025/26 journey.

All three topics are related to leaving the personal Comfort Zone, by passing the Fear Zone on the way to the  Learning and Growth Zone. And the same happened on the evening before, when Karaoke was on the agenda.

Some people could really sing well, others did it just for fun or did not care that they still have room for improvement, and a lot did not sing at all. Too much fear to leave the comfort zone, so we potentially missed some good singers, who did not even know how good they are, because they never tried? Overall a lot of fun and good mood of the team, and a good preparation for my workshop today, as I could use the behavior as example for my story line.

The next two workshops are next week Tuesday and Wednesday.

• Frank Sonnenberg: Map Out Your Life’s Journey

• Dr. Marcus Raitner: Practice Makes Perfect

• Ten Signs You’re Burning Out (And How To Stop It)

• Want to Be a Talent Leader? Here's How 600,000 Others Got There

• 24 Cognitive Biases

• Anders Indset: Leben ohne Leistung ist Sinnlos (German only)

• Dan Rockwell: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU DISAGREE WITH LEADERSHIP

• The ‘Godfather of AI’ Has a Hopeful Plan for Keeping Future AI Friendly

• Strategy in the Face of Complexity: Revisiting the Stacey Matrix

• 5G-Nachfolger: Netzwerk-Analysen sind Voraussetzung für 6G-Forschung (German only)

[09-Aug-23] Learn from your personality

You just have to find the right details ...

Today was the last day to deliver the "homework" for the workshop next week. In order to avoid triggering bad vibes from their former school time, I called the homework preparation task lately. Maybe this will help. When I left the office today we had a return rate of 81%. As the participation is voluntary for all workshop participants a good result so far. Maybe we will see some more late deliveries in the coming days, I will keep the door open until Friday noon.

According to 16Personalities their test results are rated 91% accurate, what is a great starting point for further activities with the data. As you can see on the picture there are several JOB ideas for every of the 16 personality types. Definitely a hint and something to think about, but in the end everybody has to make the decision on their own.Maybe some helpful ideas for you as well?

At work we had a discussion about pros and cons for a Part-time Master study. A lot of additional stress and work for minimum 3 years on the one side, versus making a dream come true and the possibility to earn more money and reach higher positions in the organization. Besides the general Yes/No decision, what to do - there is also a discussion about the right content and topic for the Master study required. Especially in the current situation of the industry with an increase of AI, the baby boomer retirement coming up shortly and the already existing shortage of skilled workers.

Taking a Personality Test could be a good starting point, to understand yourself and what could be a good decision and content? Exactly my proposal: Go for the Master study, but spend some more quality time on the right subject and content to be selected.

• Sahil Bloom: Career Advice That Doesn't Suck

• Employee Resistance to Strategic Change

• Frank Sonnenberg: Is There a Difference Between Right and Wrong?

• 6 Soft Skills Recruiters Will Need in the Age of AI

• Comic Agile: #138 – Dual Operating System
• Comic Agile: #254 – The Psychological Safety Self-Assessment

[06-Aug-23] The week 31-2023 summary

FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 making progress

On 02-Aug-23 I did write about the four teams that did win the World Cups so far - USA, Germany, Norway and Japan - after 2 games of the last 16 teams today only one team is left - Japan.

The USA team did lose against Sweden after penalties. The end of the career for another great player - Megan Rapinoe. Possibly not the end she was looking for, but it was not in her hand today.

“Real change lies within all of us. It is in the choices we make every day. It’s in how we talk, who we hire, and what we permit others to say in our presence. It’s in reading more, thinking more, considering a different perspective. At its simplest, it’s in whether we’re willing to spend even five minutes a day thinking about how we can make the world better.” --

Megan Rapinoe

One more day of holiday tomorrow and the summer is coming back on Thursday, no rain anymore and temperatures above 25 degrees celsius again. Not so good for the kids in school as the summer holidays will be ending on Monday and for me as well, only rain during my days off. But do not get frustrated about stuff you cannot influence or change (in case of the weather possibly not yet, but anywehere soon) anyway!! 

First thing Tuesday will be to remind the two audiences of my workshops in the week after, to finish their homework in time. I am pretty sure people who are 20 - 40 years out of school did not change their attitude towards doing their homework. It is still the same, people who did do their homework in the bus or just shortly before the time they had to deliver it, will still do the same. Today they just need a final reminder and the consequence that their delivery will not count, will be my pleasure.

Have a great and productive week, maybe with some sun?

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (04-Aug-23)

• Sketchplanations: The isolation effect
• Video: 4 Strategies To Accelerate Your Personal Growth By 200%

• The science of habits: how small changes lead to big results

• 5 monkeys in a cage with a ladder

• Google just released 10 FREE Generative AI Courses

• Business analysts and data analysts are two distinct roles that play critical roles in decision-making for organizations

• 6 key data terms you should know

• On Scrum, the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Nash’s Curse

[03-Aug-23] Having the right skills

Knowing what you have and what you need ...

I have seen the Korea Republic v Germany | Group H | FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™ game today and it was really painful. The difference between the potential outcome on paper (in theory) and what was visible on the field, really hard to understand.

The German team just had to win, but this was not possible today. So they have to go home now and the remaining 16 teams will find out the new World Cup champion on their own. Immediately after the game the discussion started about the WHY could this happen? "Not enough professionalism in Germany's women soccer and the mentality was not sufficient to handle the pressure situation and to adjust to changing circumstances during the game quickly". 

More and more mental coaches and psychologists are working in professional sports, but mentality problems are still used as argument when things go bad. What is going wrong there?

I think you need a good combination of basic skills, the right attitude, some experienced players and fresh minds, combined with good team spirit and the believe that your participation in the tournament is a one time opportunity. Main focus should be on the combination of the right attitudes in the different team members, because this is a given, you can just train skills.

For sure there are many different ways to handle this, doing a 16Personalities Team Assessments could be one of many? We just should give it a try.

• If you don't want to be average, build these 7 habits

• MANAGING COMPLEX CHANGE

• The 10 Biggest Mistakes Companies Make When Creating an AI Strategy

• How To Set Your Goals

• Smart people are assets, not threats

[02-Aug-23] Time for holidays

Some days to relax before the next busy phase

Yesterday we had a final dinner with my friends from Scotland. Some beers and Indian food, a good final for their Germany visit. Today my holiday started. The weather is still more rainy than dry and temperatures around 20 degrees celsius. The same weather is expected in the coming days in a 2 hour radius by car. So we decided to stay at home and to do daily tours in the area around us.

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 is making good progress, just one day to go until the round of the final 16 teams is complete. USA, Norway and Japan are already qualified - Germany has to win tomorrow, then all four former champions are under the last 16 again. Brasilia, Italy and Argentina are out, but two teams from Africa and Jamaica are qualified. Will be an interesting next round.

"Never give up, and be confident in what you do. There may be tough times, but the difficulties which you face will make you more determined to achieve your objectives and to win against all the odds."

-- Marta, Brazilian - Athlete Born: February 19, 1986

• Don’t Waste Constraints: How Challenging Times Can Drive Change

• Grant Snider: No Time for Burnout

• Be a grasshopper

• The art of the turnaround—circa 27 BC

• Top 28 cheat sheets for leaders

• How nature can help cities fend off record-smashing heat

• Leadership Freak: 3 WAYS TO BE LIKED AND RESPECTED

• Frank Sonnenberg: Are You Set in Your Ways?

• Why These Talent Leaders Are Pushing Back On Gen Z Workplace Stereotypes

• AI Content Detector Accuracy Review + Open Source Dataset and Research Tool

"I think my main objective is to watch as many players as I can and grab a little bit from each of them, especially the things they do well." -- Marta

[31-Jul-23] By the numbers ...

4 colors/categories to describe personality types

Besides the DISC model you can find many more personality test on My new business page, just scroll down a little bit.

For one of my Aug-23 workshops I am using the 16Personalities test, the return rate from 55+ participants is over 60% already. And a lot of people are surprised and in a positive mood about their results. Mission already accomplished.

• 25 Technology Megatrends and Future Predictions – Tech that shapes our future

• CURIOSITY: 5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS YOU CAN ASK TODAY

• Gen Zers could comprise more than one-quarter of the global workforce by 2025

• Five essential paradoxes of happiness

• Living longer in better health: Six shifts needed for healthy aging

• 5 Ways to Be Much More Persuasive

• Leadership 2.0: How Being Busy Kills Your Productivity
• 1% better every day (Atomic Habits by James Clear)
• How emotion influences B2B buying

"You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results." -- James Clear

[30-Jul-23] My week 30-2023 highlights

What is everybody thinking and no one is saying? What are the past issues that we can’t let go of?

Above 1 of the 50 Most Powerful Questions Smart Leaders Can Ask

from GUSTAVO RAZZETTI. 

Today Linda Caicedo from the Colombia women soccer team did play her third World Cup in the same year. 1st the under 17 tournament, then the under 21 tournament and now the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™. She did play against Germany with her team and did win 2:1 and is just 18 years old.

Still all fine for the German team, they did win the 1st game and the 3rd game is against the last team in the current league table. We will know more on Thursday.

Sprint-2 demo tomorrow and one of the Interns will be leaving in the afternoon, the Master Thesis is nearly finished. Two new Interns will be starting on Tuesday. From 02- until 07-Aug-23 I have another short holiday before the workshop season is starting on the 14th. Three workshops in 2 weeks.

The 30th Benrather Bierboerse was really nice today, after all the rainy days last week the first day with sun and dry most of the time. My friend from Scotland liked the concept a lot, you just put up some tents, offer beer from different countries around the world and the guests will come, no worries. Next is the 36th Opladener Bierboerse from 11- until 14-Aug-23 in Leverkusen. It is a four day event, as Opladen has a separate area available outside of the city center.

Have a great week, for me it is just two working days.

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (28-Jul-23)

• Why we need business, operational and financial resilience to optimize cybersecurity

• How Tuvalu is using technology to adapt to rising sea levels

• World’s most powerful radio telescope being built in outback Australia

• Video: Tips from Simon to Improve Your Leadership Skills

[28-Jul-23] Getting unstuck ...

Small changes and different choices can help

17 Goals to Transform Our World: The Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.

The Our World in Data team delivered a Measuring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals article on 18-Jul-23.

In order to make different choices and to break free, it would be good to know where you are and what do you want? With respect to skills and methodologies for example.

• When To Use Which Project Management Methodology?

• Leadership Freak: NEGATIVE COMMENTS CAUSE SELF-DOUBT

• 3 Strategies To Overcome The Future Skills Shortage

• Mastering Teamwork: Top 10 Strategies for Better Collaboration at Work

• Global youth expect better access to skills. Here’s how businesses can respond

• "I-shaped," "T-shaped," "Pi-shaped," and "Comb-shaped" refer to different skill profiles or competency models that individuals may possess in the context of a team or organization

• Your productive power

• The limits of our personal experience and the value of statistics

Getting stuck is reactive, getting unstuck is proactive. — Sherene McHenry, taken from Collection of top 28 famous quotes about Unstuck

[26-Jul-23] Problems and Anger

How to solve problems and manage anger ...

My standard public transport connection from home to the office is currently under construction, the whole summer holidays and beyond until the end of Aug-23. My plan B solution is to take a bus to come to the train station of another line. Normally no issue, but it did really go bad yesterday.

The train was late and did not go until the station where I get out to catch the bus. The option was to wait for the next train (20 minutes) or walk to another bus stop. Would have been no issue, but the city center is under construction as well and the bus stop had been moved somewhere else. So I looked for another one on my way home, what took some time but helped to go beyond my 7k steps per day. When I finally reached the bus stop I had to wait another 10 minutes for the bus. 

So good anger management and problem solving skills help a lot, to stay calm. I will be away to see my friend from Scotland tomorrow, he and his wife arrived today.

• The Powerful Benefits of Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone

• This is why women are bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis, according to research

• Future of jobs 2023: These are the most in-demand skills now - and beyond

• THE 5 SKILLS MANAGERS MUST MASTER

• The New Happy: How to really walk in someone’s shoes
• Management Tools: Pick mine, pick theirs, but pick a tool and stick with it!

• Frank Sonnenberg: You Can Learn a Lot from a Lousy Role Model

• Unleash The Power Of Data: Transforming Business Models For Tomorrow’s Market

• How to make great things framework

• The Most In-Demand Jobs on LinkedIn Right Now

[24-Jul-23] Different perspectives

About thinking, thoughts, experience and change

As the reverse mentoring meeting is coming up this week, the perspective is also driven by your age and especially the time you were born.

See an example from ANDERS INDSET in CHANGING THE CLIMATE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: 

"This week, I read an apt comparison to our time full of crises—a breakdown of someone born in 1900. Imagine that when you turn fourteen, World War I engulfs the globe. Four years later, by your eighteenth birthday, 22 million people have died. At the same time, the Spanish flu breaks out. Until you’re twenty, the daily confrontation with death is part of your life: another 50 million people die. In your twenty-ninth year, the New York stock market crash (October 1929) begins the great economic crisis—the Great Depression, entailing a 25-percent unemployment rate and GDP collapse of 25–30 percent. When you’re thirty-three, things ease up a bit until World War II breaks out when you’re thirty-nine. In the prime of your professional and family life (age 39–45), 75 million people die in war worldwide. Then, when you’re fifty-two, comes the Korean War, which claims another 5 million lives. When you’re sixty-four, just before retirement, the Vietnam War begins, ultimately dragging on until 1975. Millions more die. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War are all daily topics in old age. In your seventieth year of life, the first Earth Day is organized: 20 million people take to the streets and shout “climate crisis.”"

I was born 62 years later into a much better period of time, lucky me. This drives my perspective, thinking, experience and how to handle change. Looking at Generation Z (comprises people born between 1996 and 2010) who was born ~100 years later, the perspectives are different again, no surprise.

• HOW TO OVERCOME NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

• 7 New Books on the Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence

• Video: Be an infinite leader | THE INFINITE GAME by Simon Sinek | Core Message
• Video: SMART HOUSE – ENGLISH VERSION – REMA 1000 (really funny)

• How to Recruit Passive Candidates and Unveil Hidden Talent

• Walking the Ethical Path: 12 Strategies to Enhance Your Personal and Professional Life

• Understanding the Global Supply of Water

[23-Jul-23] The week 29-2023 summary

About quotes, values, experience and control ...

A lot of very different topics covered last week and even the OpenAI text generator did get a chance.

Next week is all about workshop preparation for August. Even one more, to talk about the results of the employee survey in the meantime. It is mandatory for all departments. We are still talking about the best approach for our whole team and how to fill in the requested action plan.

Besides that further alignment for our 3rd Data & Analytics Meetup in Sep-23, for the Agenda in the morning and the Break-Out sessions in the afternoon. And on Thursday another Reverse Mentoring session with my GenZ partner. The topic will be Employee Engagement, see

• Four Elements of Employee Engagement

Finally my friend from Scotland is coming over for a Germany visit for 9 days. It was delayed some years due to the COVID-19 guidelines and travel restrictions, now it is possible again. Looking forward to it, I will see him the first time on Thursday after work.

• As Master Yoda once said, 'Do or do not, there is no try.'

• Video: 7 Habits Of Unsuccessful People You Don’t Want To Copy

• These are the 8 things I have the most problems with from Scrum Guide

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (21-Jul-23)

[22-Jul-23] Circle of Control

Control choices, thoughts and actions

Faster than expected the required document for my eSIM arrived today. Installation was working fine and now the new mobile phone is running smoothly. Just focus on, what you can control and do not worry about the rest.

Since some weeks ONE.com is offering a helping hand for writing text powered by OpenAI. Below a first example for Circle of Control in Orange color:

"In life, there are many things beyond our control. It is easy to get caught up in worrying about these external factors. However, it is important to recognize that focusing on what we can control, known as the circle of control, allows us to exert our power effectively. By directing our energy towards things like our mindset, actions, and reactions, we can improve our well-being and achieve our goals. Embracing the circle of control empowers us to navigate life's challenges with resilience and adaptability."

And an alternative by LifeHack:

"Focusing on the Circle of Control allows you to keep your psyche healthy. In other words, you can expect better mental wellness when your life is only focused on things that are within your control."

Have a great weekend.

[21-Jul-23] New Experiences ...

How to spend some money

After using my Fairphone 2 for four years I decided to buy a new Fairphone 4 this week. Initially the plan was to proceed using Ubuntu Touch as operating system, even when some constraints had to be accepted.  

But during the initial setup of the phone I updated the Android version from 11 to 12, what did not work with the current Ubuntu Touch installer anymore. Bad luck, but maybe an update of the installer in the future will help? One mistake done opens another opportunity, to use both SIM card slots of the new phone. One Nano-SIM and one eSIM.

"As the name suggests, this is a SIM card that’s built into your smartphone and can’t be removed. It performs the same function as a traditional SIM, except that it’s programmable and physically connected (soldered) to your smartphone’s motherboard." 

From a sustainability perspective a good idea as well, no plastic SIM card required and no logistics effort, just an Internet connection. So far the theory :-)

I did go on the webpage of my service provider, selected new mobile phone and exchange SIM card, but this caused an error message. After some discussion with the service chat bot I called the help desk. Something you do not very often when the service is working as expected, so I did not remember my contract password. The guy did take some action on the phone to help, what was great. Today I learned that he will send all required details for the eSIM by mail, will arrive tomorrow or Monday. Painful and funny at the same time.

As I had to call the help desk from the right mobile phone number for identification purposes and no free SIM slot in a smart phone, I took out an old Nokia 6210 that was more than 10 years in my desk switched off. Loading the battery, increasing the size of the SIM card with an adapter and ready to go. Easy usage & look and feel, like coming home. Another fun fact of this story, until I get the eSIM it will be my backup for text messages.

• How to become a true master at something?

• Shuhari is a Japanese martial arts (Aikido) concept that describes the progression of training or learning.

• Artificial Intelligence In Manufacturing: Four Use Cases You Need To Know In 2023

• Quantum Computing: What Every CEO Needs to Know

• Do you have trouble prioritizing?

• A sketchnote summary of Amy Edmondson's book the 'Fearless Organization'
  

• Video: Q & A with Simon Sinek
• Video: AMAZING. The audience singing Bohemian Rhapsody QUEEN before Harry Styles concert - Warsaw 2023
• Video: Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees (Ragtime Rockabilly Cover) ft. Wild Bill
• Video: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One | The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History (Tom Cruise)
• TED Talk: Will superintelligent AI end the world?

• 9 reasons why Scrum is great for developers

• The New Happy: Find your people

[18-Jul-23] About The Agile Triangle

The right priority for Quality, Constraints and Value

The traditional Iron Triangle is the Agile Triangle in the meantime. It is all about VALUE and we do not de-prioritize or give up on Quality. So the only area to balance/manage the progress is in the Constraints  (Cost, Schedule, Scope) area.

In one of our current activities the end date is fixed as well as the costs, in the number of available skilled resources this time. So we have to reduce the scope, to get the work done in time. Everything, what is not required anymore, can be stopped or solved differently, will help to better manage the remaining scope. In the mindset of transparency we should openly communicate the situation and our constraints to the customers, to solve the issues in partnership.

The faster we are 100% clear about the scope, the earlier we can plan the available resources in the remaining time. Let's go for it.

And according to the 10/90 rule - "The 10/90 rule states that the first 10% of the time you spend planning and organizing your work can turn into as much as 90% of the time that you save in execution." - getting the scope clear, before you start to work can save up to 90% of the required effort.

• How Do Chinese Citizens Feel About Other Countries?

• TED Talk: Could an orca give a TED Talk?

• A SIMPLE APPROACH TO RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

• Seth Godin: Appropriate tension

• More than half of the world's large lakes are drying up, study warns

• Off the clock: How our perception of time can affect productivity

• Transforming human capital into competitive advantage

• Simon Sinek on how to best have uncomfortable (but important) conversations
  

• Nine Presentation Lessons from Steve Jobs

[16-Jul-23] My week 28-2023 highlights

Some very diverse topics and a day off

Did you ever hear about the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel - The underground cathedral protecting Tokyo from floods? I learned about it in a TV series today, initially planned and build to protect Tokyo from a once in 100 years flood, now used several times per year to handle the increasing number of heavy rain.

The so called cathedral was build because of Shikata Ga Nai - "The Japanese language has certain words and phrases that are so common, they actually become somewhat of a mindset or philosophy. One of those phrases is “shikata ga nai” and it’s common enough phrase to hear it used daily. What does shikata ga nai mean? - With that understanding of each part of the phrase, we can see that 仕方が無い means “there is no course of action (that one can take” or something like “there is nothing that one can do (in this situation).”" - you cannot avoid it, but it is good and smart to be prepared.

Tomorrow is our Sprint-1 Demo, normally not a lot to present just two weeks after the planning phase, but we have a good overview from all the teams prepared for our stakeholders. Will be interesting to see, also for me. As I am one of the reference points for understandable presentations in the customer language, because I do not really get in detail, what the teams are doing from a technical perspective. 

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (14-Jul-23)

• Can we build a people and nature-positive future with systematic land use?

• A Skills Market exercise allows you to discover your team's skills, abilities, and goals, so you can support each other's development

[12-Jul-23] Some more Optimism ...

Try to change how the situation feels 

In one of the upcoming offsite workshops in August we will be using the 16Personalities framework to look at some insights of the department, based on their aggregated data. In the moment all participants are sending me their personality type, assuming they are willing to share it as the process is all voluntary, a preparation homework.

With more than 849 million test taken they can offer a lot of supporting material and statistics, really helpful for the workshop. As one random example see the Nepal Personality Profile data.

Out of experience I can say that not a lot of people have been interested in their personality type before the homework assignment. Now they take the test and get a lot of valuable information and insights about themselves. See for example the CONSUL personality, what is my type by the way :-) - really cool stuff ...

• 7 QUICK TECHNIQUES THAT MAKE MEETINGS BETTER TODAY

• 60 team building activities to bring your team together (and have fun!)

• Green buildings can reduce city temperatures by up to 2°C, study shows

• It’s Easier to Criticize Than to Contribute

• Data Cleansing: Applying the 5 Whys To Get to the Root Cause

• Global Risks Report 2023

[11-Jul-23] Back from the Ahr-valley

Quick status update after 1.5 days 

Two years after the huge flood in the Ahr-valley a lot is looking good again, some locations even better than before. Others are still struggling, waiting for money from their insurance company or the local government. 

As you can see on the picture, the water was standing in the streets

above cellar and first floor two years ago. Today the water in the Ahr creek was so low that a duck we have seen had issues to swim properly. 

The house on the picture is from 1761 and has possibly seen a lot in the last 260+ years, but the flood was special. And the repair process is still ongoing.

During the breakfast today a lot of politicians and mayors of the local villages arrived in the hotel where we stayed, to come togther for a status/progress update after two years and to give a press conference afterwards. Interesting to see all the activities behind the scenes and how many people are involved to prepare something, what looks pretty easy and straight forward on TV later.

Some guys were carrying a lot of paper around, the personal protection security guys of some politicians more muscles. You never know, what will happen.

• Video: How to defeat your inner enemy: COMING ALIVE by Barry Michels & Phil Stutz | Core Message
• Leadership Freak: 12 WAYS TO MAKE TODAY A GREAT DAY

• When Your Boss Gives You Bad Feedback, Badly

• Research on 2,400 languages shows nearly half the world’s language diversity is at risk

• Here is the framework that Musk uses to captivate his audience and sell his vision
  

• Company Culture Iceberg

• What Is Your Conflict Style? Using the THOMAS-KILMANN INSTRUMENT

[09-Jul-23] The week 27-2023 summary

Celebrating the 7th anniversary and more ...

A great success story and some new opportunities started last week.

Monday afternoon my wife and I will be leaving for a short holiday to the Ahr valley. The whole area was destroyed two years ago by a

catastrophic flood during one night. Now they are running a marketing campaign - We are open - to attract tourists again and get people back in the region. To show, what they have accomplished in the last two years and to get money back into the region. We are happy to support this idea and enjoy some nice time in a beautiful valley.

Back Tuesday afternoon for three more working days with one System Demo on Friday and a Sprint demo next week Monday. As we have a tough milestone planned for 18-Sep-23, every interaction with our stakeholders is an opportunity to get early feedback and to gather their opinion about the progress we are making. Will be valuable ...

Have a great week, I will :-)

• The Psychological Safety Bubble: When Too Much Safety Becomes a Hazard

• Video: How a Serious Stress Reduction Strategy Can Improve Your Life
• Bernard Marr Video: Artificial Intelligence At Wimbledon 2023

• Here are 10 Stoic principles that are priceless learnings to remember

• Ten visuals on the topic of happiness, illustrated by Roberto Ferraro

[07-Jul-23] Employee engagement

Gallup - State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report

According to the Gallup measurement - Employee engagement is the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in both their work and workplace.

For Germany 16% of the employees are engaged, 68% are not engaged and another 16% actively disengaged. Meaning 5 of 6 people are not engaged or disengaged, what is a really tough number from my perspective.

After the latest employee survey we are discussing why the index did go down 13%? It is still above 50%, what is much higher than the Germany average of 16% from Gallup, but the 13% decrease is the current concern. Looking at the details there are different explanations possible:

• The employees did give an honest answer and no "greenwashing"?
• The questions driving the index are more describing the mood than the engagement level?
• Maybe more measurements are necessary to get a full and realistic picture?

More to be discussed ...

The reverse mentoring program did start this week. My new mentor is the same age as my oldest daughter, we will be discussing first business topics later in July. This will be a great opportunity and I am really looking forward to it. With my two Gen Z daughters we are discussing general and family topics, no work or business related stuff.

[05-Jul-23] Emotions and Motivation

Extending the scope of my motivation workshop

In one of my two offsite workshops in Aug-23, I will be hosting parts of my workshop portfolio during 2 days. Today I did get the request from my customer to extend the motivation workshop with an emotions part.

After clarifying that we are talking about the Kuebler-Ross curve, I came up with the following idea. To get over the depression phase in the curve you can spark the motivation, what is basically the content of the workshop - to be clear about your personal and team motivation drivers, and to propose different ideas, how to improve the current situation. Small changes can have real impact.

• Top 7 Ways to Engage Stakeholders in Sprint Reviews

• How to Stay Open-Minded and Attractive as You Get Older

• HOW TO FACE RESISTANCE TO YOUR GREAT IDEAS

"We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear." -- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, American - Psychologist July 8, 1926 - August 24, 2004

[02-Jul-23] My week 26-2023 highlights

Be different and focus on the right topics ...

A lot of good work done last week and a really diverse list of topics covered as well. Only two days to go until Tuesday, when my BLOG has the 7th anniversary on 04-Jul-23. What a great achievement and journey, it was definitely not expected like this, but I am really proud and satisfied about the content created during this time.

7 years = 84 month = 365 weeks = 2557 days

I initially started the BLOG when I left my previous company and was looking for a new job. I just wanted to document my approach and what happened to me on the way to a new assignment. I just realized that I am now working for my new company for 5 years already, I started      01-Jul-18.

Next week will be a little bit more quiet, as the new 3 month project phase will start Tuesday and a lot of people are starting their summer holiday now. On Thuesday will be the get-to-know-each-other session of the reverse mentoring program. Looking forward to it.

• McKinsey & Company: Top Ten Most Popular

• How Bees Work: Understanding the Honeybee Social Structure

• The State of Organizations 2023: Ten shifts transforming organizations

• This is how we can achieve harmony between capital markets and nature

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (30-Jun-23)

• Sketchplanations: Complaining at the weather

• The best HR & People Analytics articles of June 2023

• How Technology Is Transforming The Future Of Healthcare

• Your Team Probably Has No Clue What Alignment Really Means

• If Prioritization is a puzzle, WSJF is an equation to solve it: WSJF = Cost of Delay / Job Duration

[27-Jun-23] A magic moment

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY MOVIE 2018 Side by Side w/ the QUEEN LIVE AID 1985

It was impressive to see the LIVE AID concert on TV back in 1985 and even more the Bohemian Rhapsody Movie from 2018, both magic moments. Great work as you will see in the Side by Side video, especially the acting of Rami Malek as Freddy Mercury. Enjoy the music and comparison.

• The new sustainability mandate

• LeadershipFreak: UNRAVELING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
• Grant Snider: Tidying Up
• The New Happy: You are not one thing

[26-Jun-23] About ratios ...

Fibonacci and Golden Ratio for example

"A Fibonacci spiral is made by creating a spiral of squares that increase in size by the numbers of the Fibonacci sequence. So: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc." - what you see on the picture.

As the current number of daily, weekly, monthly and overall readers on the new BLOG hosting platform is very different to, what I was used at the previous one, I started to compare the numbers today. Putting it all together and looking at short-, medium- and long-term duration, I think a ratio of 7:1 (the previous platform did show 7-times more visitors than the current one) sounds like a good assumption to start from.

On 08-Dec-22 I wrote: "Until further notice or better information I assume that the counter was showing 1,109,000 with the final switch of my Blog hosting company." So in the meantime it should be at 1,267,452 sounds not so bad.

Today was the Reverse Mentoring kick-off meeting, a random match will be working together until Nov-23 and the younger person will mentor the older one, sounds interesting? A longer meeting is scheduled for Thursday this week, to get to know each other better. Looking forward to it..

• Are we close to a green energy tipping point?

• We can do much better - Agree?

[25-Jun-23] The week 25-2023 summary

Nearly half of the year 2023 and the longest day are gone already ...

Our three cross-team knowledge sharing events had been very much appreciated, we had over 120 participants. Our colleagues were really impressed by the level of automation we could accomplish in the meantime. More to come.

Tomorrow is the last clean-up and preparation day, before the next planning phase starts Tuesday for 2 days. Our Indian colleagues have a public holiday (Bakrid/Eid ul-Adha) on Thursday, so we will finish the planning phase with our regular Team Building session on Friday. This time we start with a quotes quiz, followed by a session about personal and team values - we will start with 400 and reduce the list to 5 in the end - we finish with a satisfaction survey and voting for the role model of the last 3 month period. A good program for 90 minutes.

As visible on the picture today, YOU are one of the wonders of the world. Exactly why I use the WE and ME picture as background of my Team Building presentations in workshops. A TEAM (WE) is made of many Individuals (ME) and the opportunity is to find a good combination of the skills, experience and attitude they bring to the table. You just need to go through the team stages afterwards.

"An educational psychologist named Bruce Tuckman discovered a five-stage development process that most teams adhere to in order to achieve high performance. Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning were the stages he identified and studied."

Enjoy the coming week, mine will start with the personal kick-off of the reverse mentoring program with our Gen Z colleagues. Looking forward to it.

• The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (23-Jun-23)

• A Simple Guide To The History Of Generative AI

• Video: 7 Smart Habits to Boost Mental Clarity
• Video: The Engineer Comedian - Don McMillan Comedy

• The Essential of Leadership in Government

• The future of Data Engineering. Is this role going to vanish? Tech Recruiters must also read

• Roberto Ferraro: Ten visuals on the topic of relationships and trust

"Nothing can be more certain than this: that we are just beginning to learn something of the wonders of the world on which we live and move and have our being." -- William Ramsay

[23-Jun-23] Experiment, learn faster

Make mistakes and learn out of it

"Since the brain doesn’t distinguish between good and bad habits, and it’s difficult for the brain to unlearn them, it can take an average of 30 to 60 days to actually break a habit, according to Shelton.

Some research has found that it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit, with individual timeframes varying widely, from 18 to 254 days, and dependent on factors such as the complexity of the behavior."

This week we had several opportunities to break a habit and learn faster out of a mistake, but the motivation to keep the status quo was much higher than to make the smallest change to choose to get better.

• A large migration project has several month time to happen, but a technical issues is blocking the progress. We could either fix the technical problem with a lot of effort or find a new way of doing things in the available time. As we are not really willing to take enough risk for the required change (breaking a habit), we will keep the status quo (not learning out of mistakes from the past).
• In order to get into a better position to handle the well known

  skilled labor shortage, it could be a good idea to think more international, but this also requires to be aware of legal differences. Same as above, you can either defend the status quo or choose to change or get better everyday.

My motivation is change, as I see good results everyday, but I am a minority as most people want to stay inside their Comfort Zone. What is perfectly fine, but against the idea of "Experiment, learn fast". I keep pushing.

• TED talk: A 3-step guide to believing in yourself

• Free Python Developer Course !

• Portugal just launched a ‘government-funded’ 4-day workweek trial

• This Emerging Role Can Help Companies Boost Retention — and Keep Top Talent

• unFIX: Behavioral Values - Core, Wish, Emergent, Expected

• Tanmay Vora: How to Create a Culture of Change Acceptance

[21-Jun-23] About perspective ...

A way of looking at or thinking about something

The MOTIVATION workshop yesterday was a great success and very much appreciated by the participants, even during the workshop already. 3 hours that did pass quickly and in the end the teams did work out some really good ideas, how to improve the motivation level even further.

For a future offsite workshop in August we had the first alignment with the management team today, to discuss timing and possible topics to be covered during the 2 days. The MOTIVATION part and a detailed personality test using 16Personalities are some of the building blocks we selected already, more to be agreed.

Yesterday was the Kick-off meeting of the Reverse Mentoring program, initiated by our Gen Z (NextGenLab) community. 10 teams-of-two will be working together for several month and discuss different topics of interest. Due to the workshop yesterday I will have my Kick-off next week Monday, looking forward to it.

Enjoy the Summer start today, with the longest day and shortest night.

• 9 ways to ruin your Scrum Team

• Artificial Intelligence: The Journey to a Thinking Machine

• unFIX: Ikigai - Meaning and Purpose
• The Five Principles of Engaged Feedback

• Job Posts That Feature Skills Attract More Applicants, According to LinkedIn Data

• Frank Sonnenberg: What Constitutes a Meaningful Life?

• How Successful People Make Smart Decisions

• Why do large projects go over budget?

• Comic Agile: #247 – When is the Agile Transformation Done?

"Positive thinking is more than just a tagline. It changes the way we behave. And I firmly believe that when I am positive, it not only makes me better, but it also makes those around me better." -- Harvey Mackay, taken from 100 Best Perspective Quotes To Get A Different Outlook On Life

[18-Jun-23] My week 24-2023 highlights

Good fit of the picture today with the topic from yesterday

A busy week this time with the one day offsite workshop as my personal highlight. The self-brewed beer and the white wine that I did get as gift was really great. The weekend was a good opportunity to taste, enjoy and relax.

The next workshop is scheduled for Tuesday morning with 24 people. During the next week I will have some clarification meetings for the two workshops planned for August. Besides that we have our System Demo tomorrow, to officially finish the last 3 month project period. Next Tuesday we start with our 5 days Innovation and Planning Iteration.

Always an opportunity to do some Innovation, Exploration, Training and Knowledge Sharing tasks. One idea is to repeat our cross-team presentations planned for tomorrow for a larger community and the other Agile Release Train (ART). These guys will not have time tomorrow, as they do their Sprint-5 demo at the same time.

The knowledge sharing with the other colleagues will be a good opportunity to reuse the preparation work we have done anyway and to get into detailed discussion with them about the progress and development we are making.

Have fun and a great next week.

• The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (16-Jun-23)

• There are several skills that can contribute to success in various aspects of life

• #EMPATHY— a vital leadership competency though it has always been a critical skill for leaders

• Empathy in the Workplace: A Tool for Effective Leadership - White Paper

[17-Jun-23] Japanese frameworks ...

I did a short investigation today

In some of our next BrownBag sessions we are planning to invite our department head for motivational purposes for the team and to give him the chance to stay connected with the working level. A WIN-WIN situation. Another session will be around Japanese Methods and Frameworks, the country has a lot of great ideas to offer, some are already known a lot of others are still hidden.

I did put some interesting links and references together on a Wordpress page today, to make it directly accessible for you. Have fun ...

• TED Talk: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google manipulate our emotions
• Brian Bacon: Whole Brain Model

• How to get structure from unstructured data
  

• Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker sketchnote

• Our World in Data: Time Use
• What's your Leadership-to-Management ratio?

[16-Jun-23] Interesting correlation?

Making an assumption based on different data

When you compare the birth rates - Birth rates are commonly measured using a metric called the “crude birth rate” (CBR), which represents the number of live births per 1,000 individuals in a given population during a specific period—usually one year. - with the - 2023 ranking to highlight the top cities in the world that encourage work-life balance. The ranking compares data from 128 cities to form the Work-Life Balance Score, which is marked on a scale of 100. - you could come to an interesting assumption about Spain?

It is #4 on the list with the lowest birth rate in 2021 and holds the 21st, 23rd and 24th place on the list of cities with the best work-life-balance. What does this mean? Is extending the family and taking care of the next generation not part of work-life-balance anymore? I am sure there are different perspective and it is just a matter, how you read and interpret the available data. 

The team building workshop yesterday was very well received and did get a positive feedback in the end. Besides the personal appreciated by the participants I did get a white wine and two bottles of self-brewed beer as present. A nice surprise.

Next workshop is scheduled for Tuesday with 24 participants, nearly double the size of yesterday, but only for 3 hours. Besides some team building or getting to know each other better, we will be focusing on Motivation drivers.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw, taken from 105 Motivational Quotes by Famous People

• 10 UNEXPECTED ACTIONS THAT ENERGIZE YOUR TEAM TODAY

• The five new foundational qualities of effective leadership

[14-Jun-23] Customer experience

Some individual use cases to check ...

We are just in the process to think about solar panels for our roof and maybe a heat pump for the future, to replace the current gas based heating system. Lately a Unicorn did come up in the German market offering these kind of systems for rent or to purchase. They do a lot of their initial investigation, inventory of the status quo and clarification of questions online or App based.

One guy did a video conference with me and we used this connection to show him around and to collect necessary details and measurements. For another product two guys visited me yesterday and did clarify all open topics by following a questionnaire on their mobile phone. Two offers and/or feasibility studies will be coming shortly, based on the collected data and worked out by their technical experts.

An interesting customer experience that possibly does not work for everybody. Based on age, interest and technical expertise, but this process helps to reduce cost and to focus on the product in the center of their business model. In order to do this, you have to spend a lot of quality time upfront, to be clear about the end-to-end process to follow and the data to be collected. Looking forward to the quality of the offer.

Next customer experience was an iNSIDER: Customer Lab meeting today. All employees are supposed to be doing regular iNSIDER assignments to stay connected with our customers. In the Lab we had 5 customer use cases that we should solve as small teams by using the available service and help functions. It was difficult and the current customer experience has still room for improvement, still some way to go.

“Customer service is the experience we deliver to our customer. It’s the promise we keep to the customer. It’s how we follow through for the customer. It’s how we make them feel when they do business with us.” — Shep Hyken, taken from 75 customer experience quotes to supercharge your business in 2022

[12-Jun-23] About adaptability

More or less, when you look at the pictures ...

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” -- George Bernard Shaw

• Motherhood and Leadership: A Powerful Combination Shaping the Future

• How to Build a More Equitable Workplace for LGBTQ+ Employees, According to LinkedIn Survey Data

• 5 Ways You Can Use Mindfulness To Fix Your Brain and Reduce Stress

• Video: Spend extravagantly & cut mercilessly: I WILL TEACH YOU TO BE RICH by Ramit Sethi | Core Message

Have a great start into your week. Some more details about the 4th workshop that I am supposed to be hosting, will be clarified later this week, we will see.

[10-Jun-23] Some nice stories ...

Sounds like a modern fairy tale?

The one German guy did still organize barbecue events for his best friends 10 years ago to celebrate the UEFA Champions League finals. Tonight he plays for Inter Mailand in exactly this final in Istanbul and did invite his friends to see him playing. 

The other guy is a German born out of a Turkish family. Tonight the

Team captain of Manchester City with the possibility to win the final in the capital of Turkey. Many first time happenings.

Here the comparison of Robin Gosens and Ilkay Gundogan, have a look when you are interested.

Next miracle is the Four Colombian children found alive in jungle weeks after plane crash. Unbelievable story and great education in young years (the oldest kid was 13 years old) by their Indigenous community to survive under these circumstances together with a one year old baby. Respect and well done.

Finally the 100th anniversary of the 24h Le Mans race in France this weekend. Crazy cars, crazy high-speed and weather conditions. A very special car is the Hendrick Motorsports' NASCAR Chevrolet, joining for the 75th NASCAR anniversary. A very fast pit crew, an unusual motor size and sound, and no doors to get in and out of the car, the window is enough.

[05-Jun-23] Get up and learn ...

Time for some Dopamine and Serotonin

Learning new stuff can be motivation and a positive DOSE, it is up to you. Here some examples:

• FREE Google courses you shouldn't miss

• Video: The Product Owner Decides What, Not How
• 8 Japanese Techniques to overcome Laziness

• LOW GOALS: 7 UNEXPECTED ADVANTAGES

• How To Be Calm Under Pressure

Enough for the moment and fine when you do not take any action. It is your choice anyway. But the FUN happens outside of your Comfort Zone:

• Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone By Trying 25 New Things This summer

• 7 Simple Steps to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you." -- Zig Ziglar

• Nvidia Joins the Trillion Dollar Club

[04-Jun-23] My week 22-2023 highlights

Adjust your mindset and ways-of-working

As mentioned in the Einstein quote, you come to a moment when you have to make a change. Adjust your mindset & ways-of-working, and come up with some new ideas.

Take most of the banks and telecom providers as example. All marketing money goes into the acquisition of new customers - special offers, discounts, services and free migration from the old to the new provider - no money and motivational offers for the existing customers over month and years!! In the worst case you have to cancel your current contract and open a new one, to get a better deal. What a waste of time, money and resources?

In a lot of companies the same applies for employees. More salary and better benefits for new starters coming from the outside, just the standard increase for the existing staff. Or sometimes less salary for new starters, as they have no or less experience than the existing staff, but are younger and state-of-the-art with e.g. technology. Why not think about up- or re-skilling of the already existing staff, they know the company, culture and purpose already?

Sounds crazy, WHY? We have to change our thinking anyway, so start as early as possible and do not waste more time. Let's work on our mindset and ways-of-working NOW.

Tomorrow we have our Sprint-4 demo, coming closer to the end of the current 3-month project phase. First changes and content for the next phase are already clear, more to come and to agree in the next weeks.

On June 15th and 20th I will be hosting two Team Building and Motivation workshops, details about a third one in August will be discussed tomorrow as well. The more workshops I host, the more demand gets created, even outside of my current department. Great stuff and success :-)

One month to go today until 04-Jul-23, the 7th anniversary of starting my BLOG, what an unbelievable journey. I will be thinking about a special by then.

• The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (02-Jun-23)

• Noteable: The ChatGPT Plugin That Automates Data Analysis

• Ten visuals on the topic of learning, illustrated by Roberto Ferraro

• 7 Books That Reveal the Wonders of Writing and Language

• Agile Coaching in a Nutshell
• Focusing On What You Can Control

• Indian origin CEOs conquer the world ??

“Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.” – Albert Einstein, taken from 26 Best Albert Einstein Growth Mindset Quotes

[02-Jun-23] About empathy and more ...

Can We Walk in Another Person’s Shoes?

“When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.” -- Stephen Covey

In the last couple of days several issues happened that could have been managed better with a little bit more empathy and imagination to be somebody else - for creative problem solving.

Our current government is a coalition of three parties and all together are lacking a base level of empathy in the meantime. Too much discussion and battling, not really solution oriented and the population started to complain month ago.

At work a decision has been finally taken after a long time of negotiation and now the community is split in two camps. The one is happy that all stays unchanged and we keep going as before. The other camp that was driving for a disruption, something new, scale-able and reliable, will now get a lot of pushback as money, time and resources are limited.

Finally an issue in the project that could have been avoided with a little bit more communication between the team members and a higher level of empathy - walking some time in the shoes of a team member and taking a different perspective. As this did not happen, we had an escalation and did clean up the mess today, could have been avoided. Maybe next time.

Enjoy your weekend and go for a walk.

• Video: Teamwork motivational video
• Video: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business mit Joe Justice — Hands-on Agile EXTRA
• TheNewHappy: Look within

• Artificial intelligence is transforming our world — it is on all of us to make sure that it goes well

• Comparing Population Pyramids Around the World

• Finland is on track to meet some of the world's most ambitious carbon neutrality targets. This is how it has done it

• The Definitive Guide to Scrum PDF

• How to Create a Culture of Change Acceptance

• Roberto Ferraro: Measure the right thing

• Olina Glindevi: THE COACH vs THE MENTOR

[29-May-23] Having good conversations

Had some free time for testing Wordpress today

Once again a great sketchnote from Tanmay Vora today. More details about the Creative Commons license mentioned in the top left of the picture, see at CC BY-NC-ND.

Besides the Website Builder that I am currently using for my BLOG on the new website hosting platform from ONE.com, I could also use Wordpress offered by them as alternative and maybe better to run a BLOG? To be confirmed.

As I do not have enough time right now, to easily switch between the two environments, I started with a test environment some weeks ago. See Wordpress-BLOG-Test. I am still far away from being an expert, but started with some easy and obvious functionality. The long list of available plug-ins is very helpful to come to a pretty professional environment quickly, with respect to security, quality and maintenance.

One of the advantages I see already is that Wordpress offers a unique URL for each BLOG post, similar to the setup of my previous hosting company. Want to give it a try? See [29-May-23] The Six Leadership Styles by Daniel Goleman for example. Thanks in advance for checking, as I did install a visitor counter plug-in today, more traffic might be realized quickly? We will see, looking forward to your interest :-)

• FREE resources to use, to master AI if you want to succeed in the next years

[28-May-23] The week 21-2023 summary

Two more 4-day-work weeks are coming up

Tomorrow is Whit Monday and on Thursday 08 -Jun-23 we will have Corpus Christi, two more public holidays in Germany and two more 4-day-work weeks.

After 93 years (1930) Germany did play against Canada in the Ice Hockey World Championship final again today. They lost the game 5:2, but did win a medal for the first time after 70 years (1953). Well done and congratulations, a great team effort and success.

I will be enjoying the day off tomorrow.

• The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (26-May-23)

• How to effectively use the concept of Fluid Scrum Teams in SAFe

• Video: How to Not Procrastinate Under Pressure

• ABC of a People-First Organizational Culture

• The world's first ever AI ballet will soon be in theatres

• How to Learn Anything with the Feynman Technique

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool." -- Richard P. Feynman, American - Physicist May 11, 1918 - February 15, 1988