Please send an email to rethinkandfocus@gmail.com for questions and feedback. Thanks a lot.
Interested in eBOOKs with the yearly content of my Blog? Please check Downloads in the main pages below. Pressing any picture will bring you to the source/reference I used, same for the text in blue. Enjoy!! Now also availabe on Substack, see https://rethinkandfocus.substack.com/
The BLOG posts below are covering the period from 31-Dec-23 back to 08-Dec-22.
For 2024 posts see https://www.rethinkandfocus.com/blog-2.0
All eBOOKs are available at https://www.rethinkandfocus.com/Downloads
Have a great start into the year 2024 ...
We did visit the exhibition yesterday and it was really interesting to see the differences and also commonalities between the two artists Picasso and Beckmann.
Wishing you all the best for your start into 2024, have a great, surprising, relaxing, funny and successful next year.
The Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge 2024
The 10 Most Important AI Trends For 2024 Everyone Must Be Ready For Now
Happiness is built by habits and the five chimps theory. Intent-based leadership. Product/market fit: experience & data.
Your Last Encouragement Before 2024. Start the Year Strong with this FREE Resource!
The Most Read Workplace Culture Articles of 2023
Step-by-step guide for using ChatGPT & Python for exploratory data analysis
For our 20th wedding anniversary, we plan to go to Wuppertal for this exhibition
Below an excerpt from a discussion with ChatGPT about the two artists - Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann:
ChatGPT: "Assigning specific agile roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Team Member) to artists like Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann is a creative exercise, as the roles in agile development are not directly analogous to the characteristics of artists. However, we can draw loose parallels based on certain aspects of their personalities and contributions. Keep in mind that these comparisons are metaphorical and not a direct reflection of the nature of agile roles:
Product Owner: Pablo Picasso
Reasoning: Picasso's innovative and versatile nature, coupled with his constant desire for exploration, could align with the role of a Product Owner. The Product Owner is responsible for defining and prioritizing the product backlog, making decisions that maximize the value of the product. Picasso's ability to envision and create diverse artistic expressions might metaphorically correspond to the Product Owner's role in shaping and guiding the product vision.
Scrum Master: Max Beckmann
Reasoning: Beckmann's introspective and contemplative mindset, coupled with his focus on human dynamics, could loosely align with the Scrum Master role. The Scrum Master is responsible for facilitating the Scrum process, fostering collaboration, and addressing impediments to the team's progress. Beckmann's ability to empathize with individuals and address emotional aspects might metaphorically correspond to the Scrum Master's role in supporting and coaching the team."
Have a great rest of 2023:
As we approach the end of the year, I wanted to share a goofy visual about toilet paper, but it also shares an important message
The future of Coaching & AI
Study finds popular LLMs make content more neutral in sentiment
Only McKinsey: Highlights from our 2023 ‘Insights to Impact’ publishing journey
When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see?
Some good time for Lifelong Learning, start now ...
The four remaining German players in the last 32 field of the PDC World Darts Championship did play really well in the last two days, but nobody made it to the next round. The other players were just better on the day of the game, had more luck, or just played some great darts in the crucial moments. Next chance in Dec-24, we will see and are looking forward to it.
On the picture and the AI Learning Resources page you can find a lot of helpful learning information. Have a look.
LinkedIn is currently asking selected people to comment on different topics with dedicated questions. Below three examples with my comments:
How do you leverage your program project experience? -- "Always be open for a new perspective, mindset has nothing to do with your day of birth in your passport. I did lead Water Fall projects for 30 years and started to look closer into Agile in 2020. Became a Scrum Master in Jan-21 and now I am leading two forward looking projects as Release Train Engineer. It is all about people and giving them a good feeling, by being successful and delivering on commitments."
How does program management help shape organizational culture? -- "Avoid hybrid structures, having line-management and agile roles together in projects. Like in Conway's Law (https://learningloop.io/glossary/conways-law), a lack of roles & responsibilities will not lead to the best possible result. It is one of these rare situations, where a black or white decision is much better than any variantes of grey. According to my personal experience so far, what might be wrong?"
“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.” -- Doris Lessing, taken from
64 Lifelong Learning Quotes To Never Stop Learning
The Agile Community: Embracing Complexity in a Time of Uncertainty
Understand and Exploit GenAI With Gartner’s New Impact Radar
Pluralistic: What kind of bubble is AI? (19 Dec 2023)
2024: The year AI gets real
Top 5 Kafka use cases
What is required and how to get there?
Four more days and the 2027 outlook is just 3 years ahead. Not a very long time, depending on what you want to accomplish by then. And it is always good to have the wording clear - skills versus attitude versus mindset versus behavior as example. Let's read, what OpenAI thinks about this topic?
In this rapidly changing world, it is crucial to equip ourselves with skills that will remain in high demand over the next 5 to 10 years. Here are the top 10 skills that are highly recommended for the future:
1. Digital literacy: With technology playing an increasingly important role in every industry, having the ability to navigate and adapt to digital tools is essential.
2. Critical thinking: As automation takes over routine tasks, individuals who can think critically and solve complex problems will be highly sought after.
3. Creativity: The ability to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions will be invaluable in a future that requires constant adaptation.
4. Emotional intelligence: As automation replaces certain job roles, skills like empathy, communication, and relationship-building will become even more valuable.
5. Data analysis: With the exponential growth of data, being able to analyze and interpret it will be crucial for making informed decisions.
6. Adaptability: In a rapidly changing world, being able to quickly adapt to new situations and learn new skills will be essential for success.
7. Collaboration: The ability to work effectively in teams and bridge cultural and generational gaps will be highly beneficial in an increasingly globalized world.
8. Leadership: As technology advances, strong leadership skills will be needed to steer organizations through periods of change and uncertainty.
9. Financial literacy: Understanding financial concepts and being able to manage personal or business finances will be important in a world that is becoming increasingly complex.
10. Lifelong learning: With the pace of change accelerating, the ability to continuously learn and upskill will be essential to stay relevant in the job market.
By acquiring these skills, individuals can equip themselves with the tools needed to thrive in an ever-evolving future job market. Whether it's the ability to navigate technology, think critically, or adapt to new situations, these skills will be vital for success in the coming years. So, start investing in these skills today and prepare yourself for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Some of the Top 10 skills are also on the picture, others like e.g. Emotional Intelligence might be difficult to replace by AI shortly? Definitely a good area to invest in ...
More Diesel-Killing Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Trains Heading For Germany, Plus India Piles On
Hydrogen-powered aircraft completes first flight and is voted Breakthrough Technology of 2023
The 6 psychological responses to climate change - which one is yours?
This is how to accelerate the move from coal to renewables in emerging markets
Why Internal Mobility Should Be a Top Priority Right Now
Tomorrow Christmas is over already
A lot of people in Germany were concerned about three public holidays in a row with shops closed. Tomorrow we are back to normal. One of my Christmas presents was an invitation to a Burns-Night on 03-Feb-24. An evening with Scottish food, poetry, music and Whisky. Sounds like fun.
Next level of unlimited vacations is to celebrate all public holidays and festivals together with everybody in International Companies. Will definitely help with the cultural awareness.
AI-powered video creations at scale
Canva makes it easy to create professional designs and to share or print them
Video: Simon Sinek's Guide to Cultivating Psychological Safety at Work
Why Everyone Should Have Unlimited Vacation Days
List of foods that are generally considered beneficial for various parts of the body
10 Japanese habits that'll level up your life (in 2024 & beyond)
A new vision for electrifying commercial shipping
Have a great Christmas and enjoy the celebration. I am back in some days.
Jólabókaflóð, or Christmas Book Flood, is the charming Icelandic tradition of giving books as gifts
We could need some Temperance and Transcendence for Christmas
Interested in your personal Character Strength? - The VIA Character Strengths Survey. Get to know your greatest strengths. Why take the survey?
"The VIA Survey is the only free, scientific survey of character strengths in the world. Take this simple, 10 minute character test and discover your greatest strengths. Research shows that knowing and using your character strengths can help you."
The 4th German player did also qualify for the last 32 players at the Darts PDC WM today, now they cover 12.5% of the remaining field of participants. The tournament goes on after Christmas on 27-Dec-23.
Storytelling That Drives Bold Change
Storytelling that drives bold change. The fourth agreement: always do your best. Evidence of abundance: debunking dystopian myths.
10X Your Productivity With Just 20 Sentences. The perfect way to start 2024.
Have a great Christmas time and enjoy the celebration. I am back in some days.
"Christmas is a bridge. We need bridges as the river of time flows past. Today's Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday." -- Gladys Taber, taken from 95 Best Christmas Quotes Perfect for All of Your Holiday Celebrations
A lot of sources are offering their 2023 summary already
Quote by Jim Kwik, the founder of Kwik Brain Universe, author of the best-selling book LIMITLESS and host of the #1 brain performance podcast, Kwik Brain. "I am a world leading expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning."
Normally it is happening between Christmas and New Year's Eve, but I found good 2023 summary material today already:
wellfound: Ten top startups. Ten trending industries.
The 23 Top Data Visualizations on Visual Capitalist in 2023
Best TED Talks 2023 (in 4 categories)
From the five German players starting at the Darts PDC WM, one is out and three made it to the 3rd round already. The fourth one can follow tomorrow. See bracket tree.
Two ball videos to close for today:
A simple demo of order and chaos (and order again) - Home made Pendulum Wave with 15 billiard balls
Life is all about Ups and Downs | Best Balls Example of Life | Life Quotes | Multi Talent Macha
Not as full as last year ...
But still a great collection of success stories and areas to improve next year. I will find out in early 2024, when I read all notes and make a high level summary of the content. Looking forward to it and only some days to go.
As we decided yesterday to have a real Christmas tree this year, I did go out for hunting it together with my youngest daughter in the afternoon. We found one at the 4th place where we did check. With the right size, volume, look&feel, and price in the end. As we still use real candles and do not have too much room available, we selected one with strong branches and one side with less volume, to come closer to the wall. Sounds like CTaaS = Christmas Tree as a Service or ToD = Tree on Demand. Nothing new:
You Can Rent a Live Christmas Tree—And We're All for It
Tree As A Service - A proposal to plant a mature tree for a fixed annual price
On-Demand Christmas Tree
Some more helpful links for the day:
The Kampano Framework for evolutionary companies
A 2024 road map for the C-suite, in eight charts
The Top 50 Business Books of 2023
Here are 10 habits to foster a positive company culture
7 can’t-miss episodes from top podcasts. World-class thinkers from Stanford, the Navy SEALs, MIT, and TED. As we head into 2024, leverage these 7 episodes to supercharge your success.
Certificates are nothing without experience. Experience is everything without certificates.
There are numerous great ways to collect money for charity. Here are ten ideas to get you started (generated by OpenAI):
1. Organize a fundraising event: From charity walks to bake sales, events can bring people together while raising funds.
2. Create an online donation page: Make it easy for people to donate by setting up a simple and secure online platform.
3. Ask for donations in lieu of gifts: Encourage friends and family to donate to a charity of their choice instead of giving traditional gifts.
4. Partner with local businesses: Seek out local businesses willing to donate a portion of their profits or host fundraising events.
5. Set up a crowdfunding campaign: Utilize online platforms to share your cause and gather donations from a wide audience.
6. Host a charity auction: Collect donated items and hold an auction event to generate funds for your chosen cause.
7. Launch a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign: Encourage others to fundraise on your behalf by setting up personal fundraising pages.
8. Offer a service: Use your skills to offer services like pet sitting, home organizing, or car washing, with proceeds going to charity.
9. Collect spare change: Place collection jars in high-traffic areas and ask people to drop in their loose change.
10. Seek corporate sponsorships: Approach local businesses or companies to sponsor your charity event, providing financial support and exposure.
These are just a few ideas to inspire your charity fundraising efforts. Get creative and remember that every contribution counts in making a positive impact on the lives of those in need.
Collecting money for mothers in need
The local radio station did organize a 5 x 24 hours LIVE streaming event on Radio, Internet and TV to collect money for mothers in need. A team of four well known moderators plays music wishes for everybody who donates some money. The 5 days will be finished tonight and our family did use the opportunity yesterday to meet at the location of the glass house, close to the Duesseldorf theatre. I just heard they did collect over 8 Million Euro, a really good result and more than last year.
We had not really the best weather, it was raining, but good music and Christmas market food and drinks - a bratwurst in a roll with mustard and a nice hot red Gluehwein. All you need to be happy ...
My holidays started today and I did buy some drinks and food for the upcoming Christmas celebrations, besides that just no work. Below for you some interesting material to check out during your days off (some more after 2 days without a post):
Video: A Holiday to Remember | Chevrolet
What to Say When Your Schedule Is Too Busy
A Guide to Recruiting Gen Z
DEEPMIND SAYS ITS AI SOLVED A MATH PROBLEM THAT HUMANS WERE STUMPED BY
How Curiosity and Vulnerability Drive Courage in Leadership
Elevate Your Tech Team with These 4 Free Soft-Skills Courses
8 Ways Smart People Use Failure To Their Advantage
Success in life and business requires core elements, traits, mindset, and ACTION!
7 Incredible Things That Happen Once You Learn to Love Being Alone
Being authentic and sticking to it ...
The George Carlin quote pretty well summarizes a part of my last week. I just read my [07-Dec-23] BLOG post about the Employee Survey topic again and I am still very confident with the content and main message. Two more days to work in the coming week before my holiday, the topic might come up again?
During this time of the year the NFL is coming closer to the 1st decisions for the Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on 11-Feb-24.
And in the same time the PDC World Darts Championship (DEC 15 2023 - JAN 03 2024) started this week. Just some minutes ago the 1st German of five in total did win his 1st game. More to come, last year we had one in the last four participants.
The World Darts Championship in London is also an opportunity for participants from around the world. One great story about South Africa’s Simon Adams, who did wait 40+ years to play in this tournament for the 1st time today.
And for two women this year - Both England’s Fallon Sherrock and Japan’s Mikuru Suzuki have qualified for the tournament through the PDC Women’s Series. 2 of 96, more should be possible in the future.
Have a great next week:
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (15-Dec-23)
How Culture Has Become a Powerful Manipulation Weapon
In the Agile world, the one-eyed is leading the blind
Here are 50 cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence Tools which can help you earn
Beyond AI, What Are The Biggest IT Challenges For 2024?
"Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be." -- George Carlin, taken from
125 George Carlin Quotes to Make You Laugh, Smile and Think
Some pictures fitting to the current time
Saturday is a good day to have some fun and enjoy interesting links and the video. The three guys on the scooter are worth watching.
Make the Most of This Opportunity
The Christmas tree effect. Radical candor for effective communication in the workplace. Evolution of NFTs.
Deloitte 2023: Mastering an AI Operating Model
8 Step Practical Problem Solving!
"Mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty"
Due to our Christmas party at work yesterday, the next Blog post today. It was really a great opportunity to meet again in a larger setup with ~3,000 people after a 3 years COVID-19 break. I did see a lot of people who I know due to my Workshop activities and being in several departments since 2018. A great final for a successful 2023, definitely from my perspective.
In the last post I covered the Quiet People topic, this time three types of Courage. Assume the quiet people have the courage to speak up and even support/promote a minority opinion? Some people will say welcome on the blacklist, and others would very much appreciate a different perspective, with the opportunity to rethink an idea or approach. Give it a try ...
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid but he who conquers that fear.” — Nelson Mandela, taken from 85 Courage Quotes That Will Inspire You to Face Your Fears
'Nobody Knows Anything At All' and Other Things That May Surprise You About AI
Develop Your Coaching Competencies!
The world is full of wonderful people
Match the 16Personalities types against Agile Roles, ENFJ as Scrum Master from ChatGPT
"Quiet people have the loudest minds." -- Stephen Hawking
Especially in hybrid work environments you should be taking special care of Quiet People, being in the meeting room or online in their home office. They might have great ideas and opinions, but are not willing or interested to take the floor in any case. Be careful not to miss their perspective.
"When I was young, all I wanted and expected from life was to sit quietly in some corner doing my work without the public paying attention to me. And now see what has become of me." – Albert Einstein, taken from
91 Quiet People Quotes (That Introverts Can Relate To)
We finished our two day planning phase today for 7 of 8 teams. One team had to change the content of their work on really short notice, what requires replanning for one more day. Our every three month team building will be done tomorrow as planned, and the confidence vote that is officially closing the planning phase on Friday this week. We have to be flexible.
[13-Dec-23] Agile perspectives
Should Leaders Focus on Results or People?
"People who don’t know me think I’m quiet. People who do know me wish I was." – unknown
... imagine what it would be like to face deadlines without getting stressed
"I love the focus here on people going home happy here. We are after all - People first. Employees second." -- Chris Stone
We had our brainstorming session today about general communication concerns and areas for improvement. Same happened for potential process simplification opportunities. Using more of the left-side values on the picture might be a good idea as well? We keep this in mind going forward.
In the next RETRO we will recommend anonymous feedback and ask for specific examples, to better understand the background of the concerns shared, as a first improvement step.
How To Instantly Connect With Anyone
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”
-- Frank Zappa
Crickets In Your All-Hands Meeting? It's Time to Ask Better Questions
The fear of negative evaluation can cripple your organization
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (08-Dec-23)
The Most Thought-Provoking Generative Artificial Intelligence Quotes Of 2023
Giving Feedback is one of the most necessary activity, especially for anyone managing people
Looking forward to the last full working week in 2023
Good content last week and a lot of interest in my BLOG. 170 visitors per day on average according to the new measurement (equals ~1,200 readers per day on the old hosting platform). Might be related to my additional ReThinkandFocus company related activities on LinkedIn, who knows?
Next week will be really busy:
In the following week I only have 2 working days before I go on holiday until 07-Jan-24. Have a great week, I will do my best.
AI Industry Analysis: 50 Most Visited AI Tools and Their 24B+ Traffic Behavior
How to keep an open mind - Think Again, Adam Grant
Ten visuals on failure and success, illustrated by Roberto Ferraro
Are you able to learn anything out of a fake, besides not doing it again?
Failure = "lack of success"
Fake = "a worthless imitation passed off as genuine"
Two days ago I posted the article about - Google: Introducing Gemini: our largest and most capable AI model - and today I found this one -
Google Admits Gemini AI Demo Was at Least Partially Faked.
The second time that a Google AI solution is not as good as advertised. Running behind OpenAI and Microsoft seems to be difficult for them?
The best AI chatbots: ChatGPT and other noteworthy alternatives (27-Jul-23)
Bard: A conversational AI tool by Google
Have a great weekend with some interesting material:
The Top 23 Happiness Books of 2023
Problem solving: quantity vs quality. The surprising benefits of gratitude every team should know. The ThreePercentRule.
New Happy: "I am working towards what matters most to me."
Wisdom Made Easy: What life Are You Designing?
Get 80% more time and money by doing this
Employee surveys have gained popularity as a tool for gathering feedback and improving employee engagement. However, it is essential to consider the potential risks and downsides associated with these surveys. Here are 20 arguments why employee surveys may not be as effective and could even be risky for employee morale:
1. Lack of anonymity can lead to biased responses.
2. Employees may fear retribution for providing honest feedback.
3. Surveys can create the illusion of listening without taking action.
4. Survey fatigue can set in if employees are repeatedly asked for feedback.
5. Surveys may focus on superficial issues instead of addressing core problems.
6. Low response rates can render survey results unreliable.
7. Surveys can perpetuate a culture of complaints rather than encouraging solutions.
8. Staff may view surveys as a waste of time if they see no tangible outcomes.
9. The same survey questions may not apply to employees in different roles or departments.
10. Surveys may disregard the unique needs of individual employees or teams.
11. Management may cherry-pick survey data to support preconceived notions.
12. Employees might feel pressured to respond positively, fearing negative repercussions.
13. The survey process can distract management from addressing urgent issues.
14. Surveys may create the perception that management lacks the knowledge or insight to make informed decisions.
15. Employees may feel disengaged if they perceive that their opinions are not valued or acted upon.
16. Surveys could be seen as a substitute for open communication and dialogue between employees and management.
17. The language and tone of survey questions can bias responses.
18. Surveys may focus on symptoms rather than underlying causes of workplace issues.
19. Employees may doubt the confidentiality of survey responses, especially if conducted externally.
20. Surveys may inadvertently encourage a culture of blame rather than fostering teamwork and problem-solving.
It's crucial to recognize that while employee surveys can provide valuable insights, both the process and the interpretation of results need careful consideration to avoid potential pitfalls and negative effects on employee morale.
... and the possible downside for all involved parties
Based on my personal perspective, experience, opinion, investigation of content and once again the OpenAI help. Surveys might be a good idea, but it is all about TRUST, how serious you take the process, the results and what you finally do with it.
Three example statements from different articles:
Leading questions or poorly worded questions can lead to incorrect interpretations of the results, rendering surveys less useful.
Low participation and the lack of honest responses are among the biggest obstacles employee engagement surveys face. This can distort results, diminish data representativeness, and reflect a lack of confidence or enthusiasm for the survey process.
16 Types Of Employees Surveys (Pros & Cons Of Each)
When you go through the same process multiple times - e.g. pre-announcement of the survey, take the voluntary & anonymous survey after several reminders, waiting for the results, getting the results, take a decision about the areas to improve, make a related workshop, collect ideas and start again after 6 month - you possibly get frustrated, when no real changes are happening.
So you either take it serious, invest the necessary time and resources, with dedication and real motivation to make a change, OR just forget about it and find a different approach!! Some of my ideas:
Today I had a 90 minute interview with a master student about gamification in the Scrum Master education, as basis for his thesis. Time well spend, great content shared and a good learning experience for both sides. Takes time, but delivers results, we need more of this.
5 Ways to Revolutionize Recruiting with AI
What does remote working look like around the world?
Unlock the secrets to world-class leadership
11 Ways To Beat Procrastination
There's no change vision if you can't visualize the change
We all know Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. Or do we? We’ve heard of it and can draw the three circles with Why, How and What. But do we really understand it?
The most popular TED Talks of 2023 are here!
When pictures do the trick, no words are required
‘It’s a Voyage of Joy’—Two Top CEOs Say Optimism & Courage Are Key to Shaping the Future
Besides that some more helpful ideas:
AI Will Kill Offshoring
Finding solutions through the art of asking great questions
10 Communications Strategies For Conflict
"Foundations of Machine Learning - Lecture Notes"! (120 pages)
The 9 Worst Mistakes You Can Ever Make at Work
Feedback loops provide you with new information
During the System Demo today we several times got the information that we are moving closer to our goal or are still on the right track. Good to know as our next 3-month phase is starting on 19-Dec-23.
Thanks to Chris Stone for providing the statement today and two more RETRO templates:
The Home Alone Retro - Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animals
The Die Hard Retrospective - Yippikayaiii!
Last week and next week are all about learning ...
I covered a lot of different topics this week - patience, coaching, change, moving fast, fixing things and purpose. Starting Tuesday this coming week, we will even more focus on learning and the differet styles mentioned on the picture in my project. We will have a programming challenge, some team and project updates, enough material for self-learning time and maybe a dry-run for a Senior Management presentation scheduled for 11-Dec-23. A really good program that we have available.
Let's see, what my OpenAI friend says about learning:
There are many different approaches to learning new topics, and the best way can vary from person to person. Here are 10 diverse ideas to help you expand your knowledge:
Remember, the best way to learn ultimately depends on your personal preferences, learning style, and the nature of the topic itself.
Will be a really interesting week and a nice break before the next planning phase starting 12-Dec-23.
It's time to value your product!
Humor at Work: The Superpower of Successful Teams
MIT University is offering free online courses to learn Data Science
"Why you do something or why something exists"
A quote from Seneca: “The beginnings are in our power; the results are judged by fortune, to which I grant no jurisdiction over myself” taken from Roberto Ferraro's - The metaphor of the Stoic Archer. Put people before purpose and humanize leadership. Digital transformation failures: the root causes.
As always finding a definition for purpose is difficult. Maybe - make the best out of your attitude and skills to accomplish your current WHY - what do you think?
The German under 17 (U17) soccer team definitely found their WHY today and did win the FIFA World Cup in Indonesia against France. The 2nd title in 2023, they did win the European Championship also against France in Jun-23. Well done.
A very good example with respect to purpose, motivation and dedication to the game for the German men and women teams, who are currently struggling a lot with their performance on the pitch. And the next tournaments are waiting already. The men's UEFA Euro 2024 in Germany and the women's Oympia 2024 in France. We will see.
An affordable, reliable, competitive path to net zero
Ten key requirements for a systemic approach to climate adaptation
Here are some FREE courses that can help you learn end-to-end Python
5 Effective Problem-Solving Strategies
To earn trust and respect ...
Another great work done by Tanmay Vora - "I particularly loved the 2×2 matrix of speed and trust which outlines the concept very well. Here is a quick snapshot of a few ideas from the book in form of a #sketchnote summary."
Only seven days to go until the 1st anniversary of my website being hosted on the new One.com platform. So far 38.3k total visits have been tracked, what roughly equals 270k on the previous counter. Not so bad I would say.
A lot of the discussions in the past week, including my coaching assignment for two colleagues, is going around the roles & responsibilities in agile projects. What are Product Owners, Scrum Master and Teams supposed to be doing versus the reality? You might already know my opinion about certificates? It does not mean anything without proper experience in managing the daily challenges.
I prefer personality types and attitude over a piece of paper, to staff the agile roles. Product Owners are content, facts & figures driven, Scrum Master empathy and people centered. When the personality type does not match the role, nobody will be happy - not the team, not the project, and especially not the person owning the role. One of the colleagues I am currently coaching is working on a OnePager to easily explain the roles and what is in and out of their scope!! For junior team members to learn and for more experienced ones to remember once in a while.
Maybe we can use the document already during the IP-Sprint next week? We have 5 days reserved for innovation, exploration, learning, knowledge transfer and having a good time, after 10 weeks of project pressure.
All the above does pretty well fit to the FIX map mentioned on the sketchnote, not a surprise :-)
AI Writing and Parasite SEO Found at Sports Illustrated
10 Agile Transformation Pitfalls - and how to avoid them
Purpose (Finally) Goes Mainstream, Be a Hero in Your Own Story, & More – The Leadership That Works Newsletter
Progress on 2030 Renewable Energy Targets by Country
The secret sauce of a GREAT Agile Coach
From the Detective to the Road Warrior, meet the personas that are moving work forward
If you want to give yourself a personal MBA (in 6 months), read these books
Only 50% feel psychologically safe at work - here's how to fix it
Animate Anyone: Consistent and Controllable Image-to-Video Synthesis for Character Animation
Microsoft, Google, Harvard University, DeepLearning.AI, LinkedIn, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University have all released free courses on AI
Standing still is actually a step backwards
As personal, team or company change is a daily/weekly/monthly business for a lot of people, it is good to have a strategy to handle it. Some examples on the Cheat Sheet today.
In the last days I did try a FREE LinkedIn campaign for one of my KISA Posts. Kind of boosting the presence/visibility in the LinkedIn environment. For the value of $100 I did get 98 website visits and 12k impressions in 4 days. No idea if this is good or bad, but currently no motivation for me to start another campaign with my own money.
Some links more or less related to change:
How to prepare for anything
SWOT analysis can be a very strategic tool to address the issues effectively
Transform your team with the Harry Potter Retrospective
Shipping is targeting zero emissions. Here’s how an industry coalition plans to help
When Albert Einstein met Charlie Chaplin in 1931, Einstein said, "What I admire most about your art is its universality. You do not say a word, and yet the world understands you." "It's true." Replied Chaplin, "But your fame is even greater. The world admires you, when no one understands you."
Thriving in Stillness - Don't Rush the Process
Patience to learn new topics, improve on your weakness and further develop your strength:
Start delegating like a Fortune 500 CEO
Watch these 8 TED Talks to level-up your life
How This Vietnamese Company Burned Down The Traditional Management Playbook (explaining picture)
5 Lessons from Comcast on Building a Skills-First Approach to Talent
As I will have another coaching session tomorrow, some OpenAI based insights before:
Coaching is a process where a trained professional, known as a coach, helps individuals or teams to achieve their goals and maximize their potential. It involves a collaborative partnership where the coach supports and guides the client in identifying their strengths, setting realistic objectives, overcoming obstacles, and developing new skills and strategies.
There are various coaching frameworks that coaches use to structure their sessions and provide a systematic approach. Here are the 10 most common coaching frameworks:
1. GROW Model: It stands for Goal, Reality, Options, and Way forward. This framework helps clients clarify their goals, assess the current reality, explore options, and create an action plan.
2. SMART Goals: This framework emphasizes setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals to increase motivation and track progress effectively.
3. Positive Psychology: This framework focuses on building strengths and cultivating positive emotions to enhance well-being and resilience.
4. Solution-Focused Coaching: It centers on exploring solutions rather than dwelling on problems. It involves envisioning the desired outcome and identifying practical steps to achieve it.
5. Cognitive Behavioral Coaching: This framework combines elements of cognitive-behavioral therapy with coaching techniques to help clients identify and change negative thought patterns that may be hindering their progress.
6. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP): NLP techniques are used in coaching to reprogram thought patterns, beliefs, and behaviors for personal and professional growth.
7. Emotional Intelligence Coaching: This framework aims to develop clients' emotional intelligence, which is the ability to recognize and manage their own emotions and effectively deal with others.
8. Appreciative Inquiry: It involves focusing on strengths and positive aspects to create a desired future. This framework helps clients explore what is already working well and build upon it.
9. Wheel of Life: This visual tool helps clients assess and balance different areas of their life, such as career, health, relationships, and personal growth.
10. 5 Why's Technique: This questioning technique is used to dig deeper into the root causes of a problem or challenge by repeatedly asking "why" to uncover underlying issues and potential solutions.
Each framework offers a unique approach to coaching, and coaches tailor their methods based on the individual client's needs and goals.
Looking forward to the session ...
"Retrospectives and reviews of performance can sometimes focus on the negatives. Rose Thorn Bud ensures a balanced discussion." -- Olina Glindevi
As retrospectives are not always appreciated by the teams, speaking out loud requires a good level of trust, it can be a helpful approach to use interesting templates like the ones from Chris Stone or Olina Glindeva for example.
Just today I uploaded a new version of my 6th eBOOK, now the whole year 2023 until 24-Nov-23 is included, see Downloads for more details. Yesterday I did work on our yearly family calendar that we use as Christmas present for friends and family. A lot of work to reduce 1,200+ pictures to 12 A4 pages only, with an average of 10 pictures per page, in total just 10%. And when the calendar is ready, it has to get the approval of all family members, my wife and daughters, before it will be printed. A very critical audience, but this time I only had to select 4 new pictures after review.
Next week I will be 2 days at the Campus, to meet my new team members that will be finally coming together early 2024 after the latest reorganization. Besides that some socializing and a face-to-face coaching session for another colleague. Wednesday 06.00 PM the LinkedIn Prioritize, Structure, and Cultivate Business Success with Scrum@Scale event.
Have a great week, some interesting links below:
Videos:
Last Night on Earth | Short Film (2022)
Why Self Discipline is So Difficult
Happiness is helping others
Learning:
The silent secret to the world's best teams: They prioritise psychological safety
Here are the top 15 free courses Steve Nouri recommends to learn AI in 2023
Your perspective matters
Five tactics to combat a culture of false urgency at work. Building your personal braintrust. The ThreePercentRule
How can we truly make an impact in our lives and the lives of those around us?
Links:
Ranked: The Most Innovative Countries in 2023
The Top 5 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Trends For 2024
The Surprising Benefits of Gratitude Every Team Should Know
Visualizing the Global Coffee Trade by Country
The Virtual Agile Coach Chris Stone is offering a wide variety of retrospective templates, have fun
The project wide retrospective was yesterday and I used the DIWALI template as main theme. For the Indian colleagues to remember their festival that was just one week ago, and for the other team members to get some cultural awareness. My plan did work out pretty well, we got some good results and the team members had interesting discussions about non-business topics.
Next will be some brainstorming about the main topics per category, to agree next steps and some responsible people to drive the progress. All volunteers welcome, because we have self-managed teams now and no command and control anymore.
This week I started a new coaching assignment for a colleague, due to psychological safety only some very high level comments. 1st the person being coached has to formulate the problem to focus on. 2nd is to solve this problem, and the coach is just facilitating the process and offers a helping hand, nothing more. Main topics for the problem statement are for example communication skills, time management and change strategies.
"Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen." -- Pete Carroll, taken from 21 Powerful Quotes About Coaching
The STEPPA coaching model
OpenAI: the future is looking great for AI, less so for humanity
The Naval Way in life dilemmas: change, accept, or leave
STACK YOUR UNFAIR ADVANTAGES
Johari Window - How well do you know yourself?
Which is better? Thinking fast? Or thinking slow? Find out right here
The distance between dream and reality is called ACTION
Interactive Map: The World as 1,000 People
The Top 50 Largest Importers in the World
Insights from the LinkedIn Nov-23 Future of Work Report
A pretty consistent picture for the different countries listed on the picture for Non-AI as well as AI Skills. I have seen the report the 1st time today and found several related artices afterwards:
AI Candidate Assessments: The Hiring Process Now
21 ChatGPT prompts for HR you can use to assist you across a variety of HR tasks
Julian Joseph's used AI to apply for 5,000 jobs offers insights into the evolving job market
Interesting to see that both sides, companies and candidates, are using AI to reduce effort and work. With the hope to be more successful, I assume? In the end AI is writing the application on the one side and another AI is rejecting it, as it does not meet the expectations. A brave new world.
Back in 1989 when I did apply for my 1st job, the general advice was "you have to stand out and differentiate yourself". Could be a good idea for 2023 as well, why not?
First check, what AI would be writing about you in the application and then make it more YOU, authentic and standing out. With a personal touch ...
Top 12 free courses with certificates for PMs
As a Scrum Master, your primary goal is to create an environment where everyone can contribute to their fullest potential
Top Universities Offering FREE Courses in All Fields.. It's Best Time to Grow
It is always a matter of your perspective and where you stand ...
Being a German, I can confirm that we tend to be more negative than positive and complain a lot. When you look at the picture today you would be asking WHY? A pretty good average weekly salary for the lowest average working hours per week.
YES it is just an average and there are definitely worse situations, no doubt, but what about a more relaxed and realistic perspective? Just now one of the train driver Unions is voting about a longer strike during the upcoming holiday season. Shutting down the public transport in the X-Mas break, not a propotional approach and solution I would say.
Nothing against Unions and their rights to strike, but what is their reference point here? Asking for a salary increase in general and less working time for the same payment might be a good starting point for the negotiation? But when it becomes a too political discussion and influences the life of many bystanders, where is an acceptable level?
Some case studies for less working time:
"I think 'Dilbert' will remain popular as long as employees are frustrated and they fear the consequences of complaining too loudly. 'Dilbert' is the designated voice of discontent for the workplace. I never planned it that way. It just happened." -- Scott Adams, American - Cartoonist Born: June 8, 1957
Only a quick summary today ...
Just coming back from a concert with Michael Kaeshammer and Seven, as part of the Leverkusen Jazz Days 2023. Really great artists with good bands. Always welcome when musicians know how to use their instruments. And Jazz offers a lot of opportunities to show capabilities and talent.
Our Sprint-4 planning was scheduled for tomorrow, but it is not going to happen, as we do not have enough worth content to present. Due to the Diwali festival during the 4th Sprint we had only reduced capacity available and could not finish some of the MVPs. Not an issue, we will now focus all resources on the System Demo on 04-Dec-23.
Have a great and successful next week.
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (17-Nov-23)
What to do while waiting for AI to turn your world upside down?
The workforce is aging. 3 labour experts share how companies can prepare
The best 18 AI Tools you need for your landing your dream job!
You are unique as anyone else ...
A good way to work on your uniqueness is to leave your comfort zone and learn something new or improve an existing skill. Here some opportunities:
IBM Offering FREE Online Courses with Certificates in 2023!
FREE Google Project Management Professional Certificate
Free AI Guide!!! Save 10.000 hours of work
Overthinking is the art of creating problems that were not even there
7 TED talks to turn your procrastination habit into a productivity habit
What does it take to be a good mentor?
Unique is also OpenAI's ChatGPT. They just dropped their CEO Sam Altman, sounds like the former Apple story with Steve Jobs, but the tool is great. I had another discussion with the 3.5 version today. "Cult cinema film characters mapped to key SAFe roles at Programme level", you can see the results here. A new analogy for my KISA = Keep it Simple Agile idea.
The Team Building workshop did go really well
"Self-awareness is your ability to perceive and understand the things that make you who you are as an individual, including your personality, actions, values, beliefs, emotions, and thoughts. Essentially, it is a psychological state in which the self becomes the focus of attention."
The workshop was all about self- and team-awareness, to bring some of the hidden topics above the "waterline", when you use the Iceberg Model as analogy. We covered some personal topics, individual and team values, and made a retrospective of the collaboration and communication in the team. Even the best teams can still find some room for improvement, what we did.
The best and most out of their Comfort Zone part was Speed Feedback. Like Speed Dating, but with a 1 minute feedback in both directions. Then you change the partner and do this with the whole team, we had 9 people yesterday. In their faces you could see that it took some time to get warm and used to the situation, but in the end everybody did really appreciate the experience. Something you could/should do more often.
In the end the whole day was flying by pretty fast and we might plan a follow up workshop next year? Before my holiday season starts on 20-Dec-23, I have 3 more workshops on my list. The ART retrospective next week, a team logo workshop early December, and the regular team building workshop to close our 2-day planning phases on 14-Dec-23.
Charted: Marvel’s Box Office Rise (and Fall?)
We often hear that AI will take our jobs. But what jobs will it create?
Climate: The ultimate industry disruptor
Find your edge: escape competition through authenticity
The power of diversity
EU criminalises environmental damage ‘comparable to ecocide’
We are often too busy and stressed to remember, what should be common knowledge ...
Tomorrow is the Team Building workshop, an opportunity for the participants to remember some useful knowledge, to learn something new and to leave their comfort zone sometimes. No pressure.
All my agenda topics have an idea behind, not always obvious, but helpful for a holistic approach. To best use both sides of the brain and to avoid using the standard answers. Addressing most of their senses and to combine some of it at the same time, for new ideas and impressions. Some helpful links for the text and picture:
83% of people suffer from stress at work
18 effective strategies to improve your communication skills
No Matter How You Feel…You’re Not Alone
The DISC model is a powerful tool for understanding and improving communication, behaviour and leadership skills
Be more open for change
Will keep you posted about some highlights, but only in general terms, because it is a safe environment.
“You think it’s dumb when someone says there’s no ‘I’ in team, but you stick one in there and you see how dumb that looks.” – Brendan Kiely, Author, taken from 61 Best Team Building Quotes for Bonding at Work in 2023
"Kindness shows us we’re all worth the effort and all our efforts have worth."
The picture is a good fit to the Kindness Day today. The more kind you are, the less do you hurt someone. Sounds straight forward?
I did follow The 2nd Curiosity Forum online today and worked on my Retrospective preparation in parallel. The content and panel discussions were okay, but not really a lot of great news from my perspective. Maybe I was not listening too focused, as multi-tasking does not really work well. Anyway the concept for my ART-wide Retrospective is ready and thanks a lot to Chris Stone for his great template ideas.
I selected the DIWALI retrospective as the most team members are from India and they are just celebrating this festival this week. Will be interesting to see, how they react to my proposal?
Slack announces radical week-long shutdown due to an internal skills crisis
Global Gender Gap Report 2023
2 Companies That Are Getting Internal Mobility Right
2 WAYS TO BE WATER FOR THE THIRSTY
6 Toxic Relationships You Should Avoid Like the Plague
This cheatsheet is your go-to resource for navigating vast AI toolkits
For anyone, whether you are a leader or just navigating through your life, dealing with challenges is inevitable
11 MEETINGS PROJECT MANAGERS-DO NOT NEED
Good start today with the Norman Vincent Peale quote
I released another KISA post today, this time I used the main Looney Tunes characters and checked their strength and weakness related to an Agile Mindset:
Bugs Bunny:
Strengths: Agile adaptability, quick thinking, and resourcefulness. Bugs' ability to adapt to any situation, think on his feet, and turn things to his advantage reflects Agile principles.
Weaknesses: Sometimes his overconfidence and desire to outsmart everyone might lead to situations where teamwork might suffer in Agile contexts.
A summary of all my KISA analogies so far is here.
Tomorrow is the Curiosity Forum: 2nd Edition
Curious About Gen AI - November 13, 2023 - 14:30-16:30 GMT • 15:30-17:30 CET • 9:30-11:30 EST • 6:30-8:30 PST, looking forward to it.
On Thursday the Team Building workshop and in parallel I am preparing an Agile Release Train (ART) wide retrospective on 23-Nov-23. Will be a combination of fun and work for the teams.
Some LEARNING links:
Microsoft Offering One of Amazing Free Courses to be a Professional in using Power BI and be a Data Analyst
167 pages of Machine Learning with Python tutorial
MIT University is offering free online courses
How to Build a Culture of Feedback That Actually Works
And some other links for the new week:
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (10-Nov-23)
Problem solving is a skill, made up of many sub-skills
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Leading Change Effectively
The Hu.ma.ne AI Pin is an innovative, screenless wearable device designed to offer a range of AI-powered features, potentially rivaling smartphones
Christo and Jeanne-Claude compared with HA Schult and Elke Koska
I had a discussion with my wife today about art and what e.g. Picasso or Van Gogh would think about the amount of money people pay for their pictures these days. We quickly came to local artists in the Cologne and Duesseldorf area and ended up with Elke Koska and HA Schult.
Long read curly hair seems to be a commonality of Jeanne-Claude and Elke, below what OpenAI had to say about the two couples:
ME: Please compare the art work of Christo and Jean-Claude with the activities of HA Schult and Elke Koska. What are their main differences and commonalities?
ChatGPT: Christo and Jean-Claude were known for their large-scale environmental artworks, often involving the wrapping of buildings or natural landscapes, like "The Gates" in Central Park. Their collaborative approach, where both were considered equal partners in the creative process, was a distinctive aspect of their work.
On the other hand, H.A. Schult and Elke Koska have their own unique artistic endeavors. Schult, known for his "Trash People" installation, focuses on social commentary and environmental awareness through the use of recycled materials, particularly garbage. Elke Koska, a sculptor and installation artist, explores themes of nature, transformation, and the relationship between human beings and the environment in her artworks.
While both pairs of artists engage in large-scale installations and environmental art, their methodologies and messages differ. Christo and Jean-Claude's work often involved monumental, visually striking transformations of existing landscapes or architecture, often for a temporary period. Their art was more about reshaping the perception of familiar spaces.
In contrast, H.A. Schult and Elke Koska use recycled materials and direct social commentary in their works, focusing on environmental issues and the human impact on the planet. Their art tends to have a more direct, provocative message about society and consumption.
Commonalities between these artists might include their shared interest in environmental art and the use of large-scale installations to engage audiences. However, their approaches, materials used, and the messages they convey differ significantly.
ME: What are the most mentioned artworks of both couples?
ChatGPT: Christo and Jean-Claude are renowned for several iconic artworks, but a few that often come up in discussions are:
The Gates (2005): Installed in New York City's Central Park, this project involved installing 7,503 gates with saffron-colored fabric panels along the park's pathways.
Running Fence (1976): A 24.5-mile fence of white fabric running through the California countryside, ending at the Pacific Ocean.
Surrounded Islands (1983): They surrounded several islands in Biscayne Bay, Florida, with pink polypropylene fabric.
H.A. Schult's "Trash People" series is a frequently mentioned body of work, where life-sized human figures made entirely from recycled materials are placed in various locations. As for Elke Koska, her notable artworks may not have the same level of widespread recognition, but pieces like "Seedbed," which consists of sculptural installations reflecting nature and transformation, have gained attention in environmental art circles.
ChatGPT is still not perfect, as you can see from my misspelling of Jeanne-Claude in the initial question. The content is correct, but the system did not adjust the name spelling. Room for improvement.
As I could not find enough details about Elke Koska and do not use Wikipedia as source, I asked ChatGPT for a summary, see at the end of the chat.
Have fun, be open, flexible and authentic ...
I found the quote on LinkedIn today and it perfectly fits to several stories in this post.
For possible measurement have a look at:
Tom Brady Says Remarkable Success Comes Down to This Simple Mindset Change: Why You Should Embrace the Power of Lead Metrics
Leading, Lagging, and Coincident Indicators
The quote might also fit to the Beatles and their latest single, now #1 in the UK and Germany:
The Beatles top singles chart 60 years after their first hit
The Rolling Stones' new album Hackney Diamonds sets US chart record
As we are talking with our Indian colleagues about the upcoming Diwali festival for days now, this might be another good example for the quote selected today? "Diwali is India’s most important holiday—and a celebration of good over evil. Observed by more than a billion people across faiths, this five-day festival of lights brings prayer, feasts, fireworks and, for some, a new year."
In order to do some personal marketing for my small - one man ReThinkandFocus business, I am pushing my related LinkedIn page today. 250 free credits to invite new followers, a nice opportunity to come to some better times maybe? And a fun side effect could be to re-establish some relationships and contacts from the past. Definitely a lot of potential after 34 years of work.
Besides my full-day Team Building workshop next week Thursday I started to work on the upcoming team building session after the next 2-day planning phase in my project, scheduled for 14-Dec-23. As it is also the Year End session for the whole team before the holiday season starts, I will do some fun activities during these 90 minutes. 1st an anagram quiz, followed by a scavenger hunt and closure with a sketching challenge.
7 Proven Ways To Keep Stress From Damaging Your Brain
Unlocking the Potential of MachineLearning
The 8 Biggest Future Of Work Trends In 2024 Everyone Needs To Be Ready For Now
Uncovering the AI Industry: 50 Most Visited AI Tools and Their 24B+ Traffic Behavior
How to Gain the Ultimate Advantage in Life
Where nature is in peril, these industries are too
Dan Rockwell posts:
STOP HEDGING – IT MAKES YOU SOUND WEAK
21 THINGS LEADERS DON’T NEED TO DO
THE EMPATHY ADVANTAGE: 7 REASONS EMPATHY MATTERS IN THE REAL WORLD
Have a great weekend:
The Minimum Viable Library - Agile Edition - 71 books to up your game
Mental toughness makes a bigger impact than talent or intelligence
The Empathy Map is a canvas- style tool that puts the user or end client at the center
The Uncomfortable Truth About Agile: 10 Lessons for Leaders
"To make the quickest progress, you don’t have to take huge leaps. You just have to take baby steps and keep on taking them. In Japan, they call this approach kaizen, which literally translates as ‘continual improvement.’ Using kaizen, great, and lasting success is achieved through small, consistent steps. It turns out that slow and steady is the best way to overcome your resistance to change.” – Marci Shimoff
Referencing the Tanmay Vora 02-Nov-23 Blog post
“The first step to living the life you want is leaving the life you don’t want. Taking the first step forward is always the hardest. But then each step forward gets easier and easier. And each step forward gets you closer and closer until eventually, what had once been invisible starts to be visible. And what once felt impossible starts to feel possible.” – Karen Salmansohn, taken from 88 Baby First Steps Quotes
A great summary by Tanmay in his post about the book "Thoughts to Build On" by M. R. Kopmeyer.
Perfect fit to our Learning Day tomorrow, the 4th one in 2023. When you know where your weak points are, just take a first step and move. If you are not sure where to look, ask your family, friends or colleagues for help. The Johari Window is a good tool for explanation, everybody has a Blind Spot.
Also a good reference to the Peer Group picture from yesterday. Properly select the group you are learning with, train less advanced people and use more advanced people as your target level.
4 must-have decision tools for leaders
Transform Your Life with Positive Psychology
Continued self development is necessary to increase your leadership potential
Building High-Performing Leadership Teams: The Power of Group Dynamics
Psychological safety boosts employee engagement by 76%
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Initiative Readiness Assessment: Free Download
Fit best in the right place to build your reputation
I did add another example to my KISA = Keep it Simple Agile discussion with ChatGPT. This time matching the main Marvel and Star Wars characters with Agile Roles. I am collecting all my examples on one webpage. Have a look.
ZEAM is Connecting companies with the future for Generation Z & Alpha. An interesting approach, just in case you have the need?
Some helpful links to start the week:
Sketchplanations: Whose job is it?
10 Habits of Mentally Strong People
Four-day work week trial in Spain leads to healthier workers, less pollution
Use this ChatGPT cheat sheet to get ahead in your career
Mothers: The Unseen Masters of Systemic Thinking
Young people who work remotely are 'probably not' going to become corporate CEOs, an NYU business professor says
The Obama quote fits perfectly to the current difficult situations in Ukraine and Israel. Hopefully they do not stop or finally start talking?
Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence
AI education resources: What do we teach young people?
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (03-Nov-23)
How to Promote Psychological Safety in an AI-Driven Workplace
Unlocking the Power of Data: Your Essential Guide to Key Data Concepts
Walk in the shoes of other people ...
"Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else's position and feeling what they are feeling."
You will find Empathy also on the 11 Pillars of Servant Leadership picture that includes a list with 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯
Since yesterday you can download my 6th eBOOK until 04-Nov-23 for now, with 118 pages of very diverse content. More to come until the end of 2023. Looking forward to it. I reuse a lot of the stuff for my "5-minute" learning bites at work and to search in the PDF file for interesting topics, when needed.
Tomorrow we have our Sprint-3 demo, in the middle of our 3-month project phase with good progress so far, but much more to accomplish until mid Dec-23.
You always have a choice, like it or not ...
After two days break I am back today. I did celebrate my birthday on Thursday and did go out with one of my present yesterday evening. A cooking show in front of 100+ people in our city hall. The chef is a former journalist, who made his hobby to his profession, 1st just on the radio and in the meantime live with a larger audience.
He likes to make cooking as simple and easy as possible and provides helpful background information about the quality and origin of his ingredients and spices. Was a lot of fun and did taste really well.
Today I did get two references on LinkedIn. The first from a project member who did get a team appreciation on Friday, for the good work he did lately. He posted the certificate and was really proud for getting it. Exactly the idea behind our approach, surprise the people and show them that we are interested in their work and the outcome for our project stakeholders.
Second one from our new Intern, who did start Thursday and shared that he was happy about the onboarding during the first two days and that he will be supporting us until Apr-24.
Besides that I did find several interesting articles, videos and free training courses from well known Universities or Companies. As mentioned on the picture, you can use it to proceed in your current direction or to change it. The more opinions you listen to or information you process, the better for you and your way forward.
The articles:
Tesla Agile Success
Byron Wien’s 20 Life Lessons
THE BEATLES JUST RELEASED THEIR FINAL SONG THAT RESURRECTS JOHN LENNON’S VOICE WITH AI
A LONG AND WINDING ROAD INDEED!
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto by Marc Andreessen
Why kindness at work pays off. It’s okay to not be okay. How to start a startup.
Investing to Deliver Value: A New Model for People Analytics
The videos:
A Viral Interaction On The Sidelines Of World’s First AI Summit -
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Elon Musk
Simon Sinek: Purpose should be prioritized over metrics
Science Behind Disney's Adorable And Lifelike Robot AT IROSS 2023
New Innovation Launched! The T-REX wheel-legged robot from AgileX Robotics! Let's unlock the T-REX!
LDRIC the golf robot info HD (from 2016)
There is an interesting difference between LDRIC and the Disney and T-REX robot. In 2016 it was a rudimentary piece of mechanic with some smart programming, today it is a tool box of mechanical movements/possibilities with a self-learning engine. Similar to the differences between Atlas and the Tesla Bot.
About Learning:
Today, AI does not outperform people on most tasks.
The Agile Coach Hype Cycle
6 Free Online Leadership Courses from Harvard University
Harvard University is offering FREE world class education in Data Science
Google is offering free online courses with certification.
1963-2023: From 0.0 Leadership to 5.0 Leadership
Free Data Analytics Courses for Beginners
The CEO's KPI Checklist
Next week Wednesday we have our 4th #SpiritDay in 2023. A full free day dedicated to learning. Perfect to cover the 5 - 30% area in the picture above. In my two workshops in mid Nov and early Dec-23 I take care of the 90% area by teaching other people. In my daily job as Release Train Engineer (RTE) I am in the 75% area, practicing what you have learned before.
How AI reshapes the IT industry will be 'fast and dramatic'
The most neglected words of the Agile Manifesto
4 RULES FOR GREAT RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK
Generative AI Is Decoding Science to Radically Improve Lives
How To Experience Flow and Get Crazy Productive
91% of managers prioritize culture over skills
69% of employees say they Want. More. Feedback
Lean vs Six Sigma
Communication matters. How do you know your communications strategy is working?
Comparing two sides of one future coin?
Frank Sonnenberg did come up with a very detailed "Are you a good friend" list today, as you can see on the picture. From my perspective adding long term investment in a friendship and not directly asking for or expecting something in return, could be a good addition?
Let's see, what the build in OpenAI writer thinks about this topic in comparison?
A good friendship is defined by the sincere support and care shared between individuals. Here are ten examples that demonstrate what it means to be a good friend:
By incorporating these qualities into your friendship, you can create a strong and lasting bond with your friends.
Sounds good and in a lot of areas pretty similar, but my point is not included as well.
"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." --
Oprah Winfrey taken from 50 Inspiring Quotes About Friendship
Most Popular Halloween Costumes of 2023?
After the success of the Barbie film this year the #1 position for the costumes today is not really a surprise.
As I could use the KISA = Keep it Simple Agile idea in the last two days several times already, to explain behaviors and to propose new approaches for a better customer understanding, I asked ChatGPT if Barbie could be a good Scrum Master. See the results below. When you press on the picture you will come to the conversation in ChatGPT and can even further proceed with it, when you have a login:
"However, it's important to note that the effectiveness of a Scrum Master depends on their ability to apply these principles in a professional context." - A good summary of the requirements and closure sentence. A certificate without experience is nothing, experience without a certificate is much better!!
3 CONDITIONAL STATEMENTS SMART PEOPLE NEVER SAY
These NASA images show the staggering impact of drought
Make Purpose ‘Real,’ the Power of Empathy, & More – The Leadership That Works Newsletter - Oct-23
5 Lessons Pfizer Has Learned About How to Maintain Agility
Google invests in OpenAI rival Anthropic as AI race heats up
5 Ways to Be a Better Leader from Ex-New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
Free Online Leadership Courses from Harvard University
Happy Halloween: a management horror story
Simple language and simple usage
As you see on the Affordance picture, the easier (with the least possible options) the solution you offer, the better for the customer.
I did add another picture for the KISA idea from yesterday (simple language for difficult topics). This time explaining Scrum with the Monty Python Holy Grail film as analogy and the help of ChatGPT.
Not every analogy works for everybody as we did find out last Friday during the OneTeam Coffee meeting. During the 45 minute discussion we did touch Monty Python films and only the 55+ age guys did know the details. All younger participants had no idea, so not a perfect analogy for them.
Since today I am showing the Green Web Foundation certificate that my BLOG hosting company One.com is running on green energy, see on the Welcome page. "WE WORK TOWARDS A FOSSIL-FREE INTERNET BY 2030 - The Green Web Foundation is an independent non-profit that tracks how much of the internet runs on green energy. Manage the environmental impact of your digital products. Apply best practices in digital sustainability. Advocate for a more sustainable and just internet."
See this related article - "The artificial intelligence (AI) industry could consume as much energy as a country the size of the Netherlands by 2027, a new study warns."
Tomorrow we start the week with the Retro of our Data & Analytics Meetup from 26-Sep-23. It took some time until everybody was back from Autumn holidays. We are looking forward to a 4-Day work week, as Wednesday 01-Nov-23 is a public holiday in Germany. The next Intern starts on Thursday with one day delay due to this. Have a great week.
How to Run an Effective Team Offsite: Success Metrics Explained
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (27-Oct-23)
What Do ChatGPT’s New Capabilities Really Mean For Us All?
Westrum organizational culture image gallery
A typology of organisational cultures by R. Westrum
The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Revolutionizing Women's Sexual Health
Dr. Stephen R. Covey lists the following seven behaviours of highly effective people
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Applied to Employee Engagement
Explaining 9 types of API testing
How responsible, equitable AI can help us improve global health outcomes
Use a more simple language in the interest of your customers
KISA = Keep it Simple Agile, was the result in a discussion with a friend yesterday evening during a nice dinner.
In a tight market for Agile services you need a Unique Selling Point (USP) that gets you closer to your customer base and not farer away. Agile experts speak their language and their novice customers do not understand a word. Difficult to decide for them, who is the best candidate? Some use certificates as selection criteria, others seem to role dices.
I think the solution is an easier language to proof expertise and not a more difficult/complex one. When you can explain to your kids or partner, what you are doing and trying to sell to your customers, you are on the right track.
Storytelling could be a good solution? Use a well known analogy, ask OpenAI to simply explain the Agile topic and to use the analogy as reference, then finalize the story with your own experience and expertise - as shown on my picture above. Smart usage of the Pareto Principle, OpenAI is doing 80% of the work in seconds, you do the final 20%, when still required.
See two examples to explain the Agile Manifesto, for 4 - 6 year old kids with Bob The Builder as analogy. And for 16 - 18 teenager using the Life of Brian film. Really impressive, what this OpenAI/ChatGPT 3.5 system can do!!
Now is the time for grimoires. Forget work-life balance. Imbalance works better. Level five leadership: the triumph of humility and fierce resolve.
A Pre-mortem analysis is a powerful tool that can help teams
Java vs. Python: The Tale of Two Titans - And a Speed Debate!
Have a great weekend and enjoy some content:
The Christmas Tree Effect
What's the big deal with staying positive?
The 10 Biggest Cloud Computing Trends In 2024 Everyone Must Be Ready For Now
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Agile Project Management: Best Practices and Methodologies
Redefining success: why outcomes, not output, truly matter
About Lifelong Learning and other areas
Personal growth is a lifelong journey that involves continuous learning and development. To help you on this path, here are five key areas to focus on for personal growth:
By working on these areas, you can enhance your personal growth and create lasting positive change in your life. Start embracing growth today!
A good summary and start from the OpenAI text generator I would say. All AI generated content in Italics font and Orange color, for clarification purposes.
In the monthly OneTeam coffee meeting this morning we covered some of the 5 key areas above. It is a voluntary meeting with 400+ invited people and 4 did show up today. Big Thank You to my Interns community, they represented 50% of the participants. I definitely have to work on some marketing here, but it is also a mindset issue. Voluntary and mostly not business related topics get only low or even no priority. Has to do with e.g. Time Management, Emotional Intelligence, Communication, personal Goal Setting and Mindfulness. Surprise, surprise the 5 Personal Growth areas. You can either focus on or avoid these topics.
Experience comes from experiencing, in a positive or negative way.
We did talk about proper time management, to make the OneTeam coffee happen once per month for example and lifelong learning. Depending on the life cycle phase you are currently in. It is a difference between an Intern, still learning for their Bachelor or Master Studies and people with 20+ years of work experience. Interesting discussion for the 4 people , the other 396 missed it :-)
Was Tijen Onaran's answer to a hater comment after taking some time to think about it before ...
Sounds like an INTROVERT approach and does not need to be a contradiction, when you see her in public. I would judge myself as introvert as well, even when I am hosting the Meetup on stage in front of nearly 100 people and do regular workshops for groups of 5 to 50+.
A lot of the students that apply for our Internship positions want to be a Data Analyst or Scientist in the future. Below some insights for a good development path:
We had a discussion about KPIs in our agile project today. I believe this has to be implemented Top Down. Senior Management has to be clear, how they want to drive the organization. For these drivers you can think about adequate measurements as basis for the KPI. When you know, what to measure you will be clear about the data that are required. Finally this gives clarity about sources and tools to use. Sounds easy.
What are agile metrics?
12 Agile Metrics & KPIs You Must Track in 2023
27 Examples of Key Performance Indicators
30 KPIs To Measure Performance
Interested about building great teams?
There’s a lot of talk about “customer experience” and “employee experience.”
Some videos to start with today:
... and some articles to finish, not a lot of time today:
Uniting a divided workforce: How leaders and employees can scale new heights, together
4 Ways One Tech Company Invests in Emerging Talent to Fill Key Roles and Its Leadership Pipeline
How Effective are Your Human Capability Investments and Disclosures?
The most destructive behaviors in relationships are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling
Finance and data analysts can become key enablers for a sustainable future - here's how
It is never to late to learn something new or to better understand your issues
Two time management related pictures today. I finished the preparation for the two workshops I mentioned on Sunday. One just needed a date and timing update, due to the move from March to December. The other one needed some more focus. Hosting a Team Building workshop planned for 7 people for a group with double the size, requires timing and content adjustments. 3 weeks to go.
Some more questions to work with ...
I finished the 2nd Michael Bungay Stanier (MBS) book yesterday and did get additional questions. See the blue picture. Very helpful framework and once again easy to understand and use. We will see ...
Tomorrow is our Sprint-2 demo, the Sprint-1 demo did not happen, as we had no real content to share and I was on holiday. We will be taking the same customer facing and customer language approach as for the System Demo last month. Only content related to our Top-5 objectives will be shown. Might be hard for some team members, who cannot present their work anymore, but the best possible approach for customer buy-in and business understanding.
For November and December I agreed two new workshops. A follow up Team Building workshop, based on my activities in August and a Logo/Slogan workshop for a team I am working with. We had initially planned the activity for Mar-23 already, but it had to be delayed, until Dec-23 now.
In a discussion with one of my Scrum Masters last Friday we did wonder about a rule that seemed to be existing, but nobody knows why and when it was implemented. Might be based on the The Five Monkeys Experiment as you can also see on the white picture? Always question the status quo and try to understand the WHY behind the rules, something I tell my Interns during the onboarding meeting as well.
The next book I started to read is "Be your own f*cking hero" from Tijen Onaran. She is questioning the status quo in all areas - entrepreneurship, business fashion, migration, integration and many more. She has her own Role Model Barbie and lipstick called "Red Tijen", not bad from an appreciation and visibility perspective I would say. The beginning of the book is already offering a lot of insights, more to come and to share.
Have a great, surprising and successful week:
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (20-Oct-23)
Chat GPT kind of knows what a Scrum Master does -- But not fully - and that is problematic
Two is Better Than One: The Art and Science of Workplace Buddy Systems
24 hours with a Navy SEAL - Lessons from a day (and night) in the wilderness
Pros and Cons of the 4 Day Work Week -- Pssst... 4 day work week = 32hrs with no drop in salary
There is a world outside of ChatGPT: Here are new AI websites you don't want to miss
As reference to my 04-Oct-23 post, covering The Coaching Habit
The book can be summarized in 7 easy questions, to make coaching easier. In Retrospectives you work on continuous improvement, also by asking questions - for example:
Very helpful approach, when it is happening in a psychological safe environment.
One of the references in Robert Ferraro's article was the TED talk of Pia Lauritzen below:
Source Youtube: What you don't know about questions | Pia Lauritzen | TEDxFrederiksberg
The Stacey Matrix - The key lesson that this matrix provides is that you should be aware of the complexity of your situation and adapt your decision-making approach to it - is another approach, where asking the right questions will help to better understand your situation and the right way forward.
UNITED MOURNING THE LOSS OF SIR BOBBY CHARLTON
Found a good video with some interesting content
In order to deliver regular posts in my BLOG some input is required. I do get a lot of information from newsletters and other blogs during a week in my inbox. Today there was an email from Stefan Wolpers with the mentioned video that was leading me to additional useful content.
Agile Coaching Growth Wheel
Source Youtube: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling w/ Bob Galen — Hands-on Agile 53
CURIOUS ABOUT GEN AI: The Curiosity Forum · Second Edition · November 13, 2023
Spike Lee on Curiosity, Overnight Success, and Why 'Not Everyone Is Denzel Washington'
Picture based on a McKinsey research - Some employees are destroying value. Others are building it. Do you know the difference?
"Archetypes are universal, inborn models of people, behaviors, and personalities that play a role in influencing human behavior. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung's theory suggested that these archetypes were archaic forms of innate human knowledge passed down from our ancestors."
3 days back in the office and not a lot did change during my holidays. 2 weeks is a good time, not a lot will happen in 10 working days anyway and you can still remember your password. I just had to change it when I was back, due to the security guidelines for a regular update.
Besides the daily project work we discussed topics around the reverse mentoring program with our GenZ employees, some basic coaching approaches and direct feedback:
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
Systemic coaching questions
Systemische Fragen für erfolgreiche Coachings
How to Overcome Protective Hesitation So EVERYONE Gets the Feedback They Deserve to Learn and Grow
For the review about the reverse mentoring pilot I had a lot of agreement with my Mentor:
Some helpful links to close for today:
Change How You Feel About Change: 4 Tips on How to Embrace It
Python Tricks pdf
Do you know the difference between vision, mission and purpose? Here’s a version of a meaningful distinction and a simple formula for how they relate to each other
Women in the Workplace is the largest comprehensive study of the state of women in corporate America.
"LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company have published this report annually since 2015 to give companies the information they need to advance women and improve gender diversity. Over the past nine years, we have collected information from almost 900 organizations employing more than 23 million people."
In the time of "War for Talent" no company can staff the VP, SVP and C-Suite levels only with external hires. So you better develop your own talents, what requires a much larger entry level base and good development and promotion circumstances/environments. Take care.
As a side note: CAROL in the marketoonist picture is using an AI solution to handle "waste of time" work - working smarter not harder.
First day in the office and a lot of questions about my holiday. Luckily I did post some insights between 04- and 14-Oct-23, even with pictures. Works as a good reference.
Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Outcomes
The Most Important Recruiting Metric You’ve Never Heard Of: Time to Alignment
Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2024
10 Habits That Will Dramatically Improve Your Life
Do you see the signs that you need an attitude adjustment?
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (13-Oct-23)
Why a Culture of Being Too Nice Is Holding Your Team Back
The 30-60-90 Day Plan: Your Secret Weapon for New Job Success
Work It – How do you retain talent as your workforce gets older?
35 Genius ChatGPT Prompts to Help You Prep for Job Interviews
You can have a great holiday in Germany ...
After nearly two weeks the summary is easy. Great weather for October, nice locations, cities and food. You do not have to leave the country to relax and have a great time. Looking forward to the next time.
Had to do some admin tasks - creating my 6th eBOOK until 12-Oct-23, updating my Linux Mint (Victoria) and Ubuntu (Mantic Minotaur) versions - before going back to work tomorrow.
Source Youtube: The Art of Improvement - Why Constant Learning is the Key to Success
Some more details about the Alpaca hiking yesterday
To start with, below what OpenAI did quickly summarize about Alpacas:
Alpacas, a domesticated South American animal, are known for their soft and luxurious fleece. These gentle creatures belong to the camelid family and are closely related to llamas. Alpacas have been raised for thousands of years for their valuable fiber, which is used to make various textiles and garments.
Alpacas are social animals that are often found grazing in herds. They have a curious and friendly nature, which makes them popular among farmers and animal enthusiasts. These creatures are hardy and adaptable to different climates, able to withstand harsh conditions including high altitudes and freezing temperatures. Alpaca fleece is highly prized for its excellent thermal properties, as it is lightweight, hypoallergenic, and naturally fire-resistant.
In addition to their valuable fleece, alpacas are also cherished for their gentle temperament and easy maintenance. They are known to be intelligent animals and can be trained to be lead with a halter or to perform various tasks. Alpacas communicate through body language, humming, and different vocalizations. Their diet primarily consists of grass and hay, and they have efficient digestive systems that allow them to obtain nutrients from low-quality forage.
Alpacas are not only an important source of livelihood for many communities but also fascinating animals to learn about and be around. Their unique characteristics, stunning fleece, and serene nature make them a delight to have on farms, as well as an intriguing subject for those interested in agriculture or animal husbandry. Whether you are considering raising alpacas or simply curious about these captivating animals, exploring the world of alpacas can be an enriching experience. Remember, this is just the beginning of your journey into the extraordinary world of alpacas.
Interesting content compared to what our guides told us during the hiking. There are roughly 40,000 Alpacas in Germany either for their wool or for hiking tours. There are two types of Alpacas - Huacaya and Suri -
they are really very social animals, go together to the toilet and decide on their own the order of the Alpacas during the hiking. Every participant did get one Alpaca, mine was called Paul, the only black one. White Alpacas are preferred for breeding, it is easier to use their wool and to color it. In general Alpaca wool has very interesting characteristics. Have a look.
Rosenhan (1973) Experiment – ‘On Being Sane In Insane Places’ - mentioned in a Dr. Peter Kreuz article
Which of these 10 types do you recognize? Welcome to the Management Zoo
Artificial Intimacy: How Generative AI Can Now Create Your Dream Girlfriend
We traveled from the Black Forest close to Ulm today
We came here to be in time for the planned Alpaca hiking tomorrow afternoon.
"What is an alpaca?
Alpacas are members of the camel family, domesticated by the people of the Peruvian Andes 6,000 years ago for food, fuel, and fiber. They are ungulates, a group of large hooved mammals that also include sheep and giraffes, with large bodies and legs, long necks, small heads, and medium-length fluffy tails. Although they are often confused with their cousin, the llama, alpacas have shorter ears and blunter, but equally adorable, faces."
On the picture you see: "Ulm´s town hall is situated not far from the Minster and is easily recognised by its opulently painted, early renaissance facade. The oldest part of the present building, the main south east building, was built in 1370 as a ›new trading house‹. It was first mentioned as a town hall in 1419."
Will keep you posted about the hiking tour.
SWEDEN INVENTS FLAT PACK CAR. IT'S LIKE IKEA, BUT FOR YOUR CAR.
15+ powerful writing tips to transform your writing game
You Can’t Be a True Scrum Master With Only a Certificate Or Training
Want to be a leader people love and respect? It's time to put serving first!
AI is taking the world to the next level
These countries are leading the way in the energy transition
“What’s the difference between knowledge and wisdom?”
We did visit the Blackforest Line yesterday
"Take your time before you take your first step on the BLACKFORESTLINE and enjoy the anticipation. Ahead of you lie 380 metres of bliss, supported by just two pylons and held by two steel cables. The interplay of distinctive architecture and wild nature fascinates not only technology fans." - Really a great experience and impressive technology, especially for me as engineer. Was a lot of fun and a great day yesterday.
Today we did visit another Black Forest lake with a small city at the shore, but it was very touristic. A lot of souvenir shops and several groups from Asia and the USA. Tomorrow we have our last day in the Black Forest before we leave to another region for two days on Thursday. We drive back home Saturday morning.
After covering the feedback topic last Sunday I found several more articles and pictures, see below:
Here's how the best leaders handle difficult conversations
The importance of giving feedback cannot be overstated
Before I share some other links another feedback quote: “Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.” – Jim Rohn, once again taken from 49 Best Quotes on Feedback
Performance Development: Unlock Your Team’s Potential
Keep the circle of control in mind and just let go stuff
3 Principles for Better Wellbeing
"Godfather of Artificial Intelligence" Geoffrey Hinton on the promise, risks of advanced AI
What if You Could Skip the Resistance of Changes?
Internal growth requires a constant change of environment
Just today I am running my BLOG for 10 month on the new hosting platform. According to the Website analytics I had roughly 223,000 visitors during this time, thanks for being part of it.
How to Build a Culture of Feedback: 5 Shifts Required
3 Principles for Better Wellbeing
Intelligent failures vs. costly mistakes
The 10 Biggest Business Trends For 2024 Everyone Must Be Ready For Now
“We can only grow as leaders if we’re willing to accept feedback,” paraphrasing Jennifer Hyman’s famous quote. "Great execution requires that we always share positive feedback with our teams."
There exists a set of skills that remain timeless in their value
The 125 KPI Mega Checklist
“True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes.” -- Daniel Kahneman taken from 49 Best Quotes on Feedback
"Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don’t quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don’t quit until you reach it. Never quit." -- Bear Bryant taken from Stadium Talk: Greatest Coach Quotes of All Time
Visiting the waterfall at night today
Three times per week the waterfall close to our holiday apartment is illuminated after sunset. A really impressive view, we did take some good pictures. The cell phone cameras are getting better and better, especially without flashlight.
Tomorrow we plan to visit the Suspension bridge BLACKFORESTLINE, looks interesting. We will see how it is to walk over it.
Having a great time ...
Yesterday we did some hiking today we made a boats trip on the largest lake in the black forest. Both days really sunny and warm.
"The Black Forest in Germany is known for its breathtaking beauty and rich cultural heritage. With its dense, evergreen forests, charming villages, and stunning landscapes, it offers an array of attractions for visitors to explore. Here are the top 10 attractions in the Black Forest:
1. Triberg Waterfalls: Marvel at the picturesque waterfalls, which are among the highest in Germany.
2. Europa-Park: Experience the thrills and adventures of one of Europe's largest theme parks.
3. Titisee: Relax by the tranquil lake and indulge in water sports or boat rides.
4. Freiburg: Discover the vibrant city with its historic old town and magnificent Gothic cathedral.
5. Black Forest Open Air Museum: Immerse yourself in the region's traditional culture and architecture.
6. Feldberg: Climb the highest peak of the Black Forest for panoramic views and outdoor activities.
7. Baden-Baden: Unwind in the famous spa town known for its thermal baths and luxurious resorts.
8. Mummelsee: Visit the mystical lake nestled in the heart of the forest, surrounded by legends.
9. Schauinsland: Take a cable car ride to enjoy stunning vistas and explore the mountain's hiking trails.
10. Vogtsbauernhof: Step back in time with a visit to this open-air museum showcasing the region's rural history.
Whether you are seeking adventure, relaxation, or cultural immersion, the Black Forest offers a myriad of attractions that promise to leave you mesmerized."
A Recruitment Process That’s Out of This World: How NASA Selects Astronauts
Candidate Experience: How To Get It Right and Win More Top-Tier Talent
Chart Your Path towards Mastery - 15 Agile Coaching reads
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does" - William James
28 KEYSTONE SPECIES EXAMPLES IN NORTH AMERICA (interest triggered by the book I am currently reading -
How To Work With Almost Anyone)
How Remote Employers Can Nail 3 Essential Workplace Activities
Good team communication is key. When it's missing, things slow down
10 Things Genuinely Confident People Do Differently
New & Updated Scrum Framework
Best wishes from the Black Forest
A relaxing travel by car yesterday during the public holiday and a nice local food dinner directly after arrival was a good start. Today a late breakfast and some sigthseeing with blue sky, we start it slowly. I even had the chance to nearly finish The Coaching Habit book. A simple, one page summary with the key essence below:
Ready for the holidays, looking forward to it !!
Source Youtube: MAGIC WORDS by Jonah Berger | Core Message
Source Youtube: This Country Runs on 98 Percent Renewable Energy | Ramón Méndez Galain | TED
Video: What is leadership? - With David Marquet
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (29-Sep-23)
Build Your Own Ladder, ‘Read the Air,’ & More – The Leadership That Works Newsletter
The 10 Most Important AI Trends For 2024 Everyone Must Be Ready For Now
The importance of negotiation in business and everyday life
A really funny picture, great kind of humor ...
Perfect fit as I am not a Microsoft fan, even when it is the operating system on my work laptop. I prefer Linux or even Chrome OS sometimes.
The 75th city anniversary was great and we did even get two free concerts in the evening, sponsored by two local companies. 5,000 people on a parking lot with great warm weather on 30-Sep-23. First we have seen Kasalla, a well known band from Cologne that did play back in 2011 in our city in front of ~150 people. Afterwards greenbeats a percussion band, well known even on International level. A great event.
After a really successful week with the Meetup and the school workshop, two well deserved weeks of holiday. We will go to southern Germany on Tuesday. I will keep you posted with some updates during the time off, but not every day as it is my holiday.
Then I just found an interesting article - Should We Fire All the Agile Coaches? - what triggered several thoughts:
"The reality is, you don’t need a coach to be agile at the team level. You can just start. And that may lead to another reason that organizations get rid of coaches – they focus only on “doing agile”" - it is more about a cultural change towards an agile mindset and there you need all employees
What do you think?
Final workshop done today, ready for holidays now
Last day in the office and some activities had to be finished before going on holiday. I did summarize the different team inputs from the retrospective after the last planning phase and finalized the video editing for the Meetup on Tuesday. Then a presentation preparation about my project for an interested team and a meeting directly after the holidays.
In the morning I had the school workshop about Digital Transformation with 30 kids in the room, this time 1/3 girls and 2/3 boys. The topic was well received and especially taking a personality test was a real success. Only issue was that the kids could not be silent together as a group and their Attention Span was just too short:
Why Everyone's Worried About Their Attention Span—and How to Improve Yours
5 Things To Do For Better Focus & A Longer Attention Span
No further details about the workshop due to psychological safety, GDPR and the Las Vegas slogan. Makes sense ...
“Las Vegas is a place where you can have a great time, and then wake up the next day and wonder what the hell happened.” – Drew Carey
“In general, the route to establishing psychological safety begins with the team’s leader. So if you are leading a team—be it a group of coworkers or a sports team, a church gathering, or your family dinner table—think about what message your choices send. Are you encouraging equality in speaking, or rewarding the loudest people? Are you modeling listening?” – Charles Duhigg
Have a great weekend. We will be celebrating the 75th anniversary of our town officially becoming a city, party on ...
PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2023
Navigating the Realm of Data Science? Here's your roadmap
Automated Machine Learning: Top technologies & Benefits
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.
37 Ways to Be Happier at Work ASAP
10 Things Smart People Never Say
“What’s the best way for someone to grow professionally?” 70-20-10
Tomorrow is event day and all is ready to go
Dr Hannah Ritchie is a Senior Researcher and the Head of Research at Our World in Data. She focuses on the long-term development of food supply, agriculture, energy, and environment, and their compatibility with global development.
Final alignment with the technical team, my co-host and supporting staff today. Looking forward to our Meetup tomorrow. Will keep you posted.
"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
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)
HOUSE of LEAN (Sketchnote)
7 Books to Help You Press Reset on Your Mindset
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
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😁
Help others to improve standards for a common interest
The first day of our planning did go really well today. All team members get more and more used to doing a 3-day planning in two days, and the quality of the results is improving with the increased experience over time.
Today is the German World Children’s Day, two month before the UNICEF
World Children’s Day on 20-Nov-23.
"In 1925, International Children’s Day was first proclaimed during the World Conference on Child Welfare in Geneva, Switzerland. This day is still celebrated on June 1 in many countries. However, in 1954, the United Nations resolved that November 20 should be Universal Children’s Day, which later became known as World Children’s day; at the same time he UN suggested that each country should choose a date that was appropriate and met the needs of for their own people to celebrate."
Related to the headline today an article from Frank Sonnenberg -
Lowering Standards Is a Fool’s Errand - enjoy reading.
The only healthy and worthwhile comparison is you yesterday vs you today - Focus on that.
How much risk do you take?
Essential Data Terms for IT Pros in 2023
"Nobody likes me! I wish I could like you, Charlie Brown, but I can't ... If I were to like you, it would be admitting that I was lowering my standards! You wouldn't want me to do that, would you? Be reasonable! I have standards that I have set up for liking people, and you just don't meet those standards! It wouldn't be reasonable for me to like you! I hate myself for being so unreasonable! — Charles M. Schulz
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
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
Self-promotion done right: how to share your successes without sounding arrogant
Your Sprint length doesn't have to be two weeks!
"A self-serving bias is one where we attribute our failures to external factors and our successes to our own admirable qualities and efforts."
Two weeks left until my Autumn holidays and the next week starts with a special System Demo only for the Senior Management team tomorrow. Less technical than last Monday and also to collect some benefit hypothesis, acceptance criteria and the definition of done for the coming project phase from a business and customer perspective.
Tuesday we have the 3rd #SpiritDay this year, a full day for team or personal training. We will start with a team session about Resilience.
Wednesday and Thursday we have our 2-day planning phase, with two new urgent projects to focus on. All available resources with the right expertise and skill set are taking care, the rest will proceed with other smaller tasks, to make some progress there as well.
On 26-Sep-23 finally the 3rd Data & Analytics Meetup. The event was close to be canceled due to a conflict with a higher management All-Hands meeting, but we could come to a compromise. Moving the start 30 minutes later and a little less room in the agenda will work for all involved parties.
Enjoy your next week.
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (15-Sep-23)
Clearing the Fog: How to Stop Ambiguity from Frustrating Your Team
A Visual Guide to AI Adoption, by Industry
Embrace the Age of Generative AI: It's Already Here!
The productivity cheat sheet to save 20+ hours/per week
Found some more material about the topic
Besides the picture that covers a 9 step process, I also found another article about potential - The P-Word: 3 Actionable Tips to Reach Your Potential - with additional pictures and explanations.
Let's add some motivation and Non-violent communication content to further improve the potential.
Finding or improving potential is also one driver in my school workshop on 29-Sep-23. I finished the presentation today with some additional slides and my notes for the workshop. The final result is already available for download on my Beratung & Coaching page. You can also find my 2018, 2019 and 2021 slides there. Have fun and a great weekend.
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
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)
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.
The changed "habit" during our System Demo today, more focus on outcome and benefit for the customers and less technical details and language, did go really well. And the collected feedback afterwards did proof that we are on the right track. More to come the next time.
"Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it." -- Ralph Marston, American - Writer
About Time Management
What gives me the most joy, as a coach?
McKinsey & Company have developed this simple matrix to assess your organisation’s #culture.
10 Ways Smart People Neutralize Toxic People
Norman Vincent Peale wrote, “The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”
Agility can often look natural and even effortless from a distance
36 AI Tools to Start Your Online Business in 2023
Python Data Structures Concept Map
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.
What technology analysts are saying about the future of generative AI
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
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.
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
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
What is an Agile Release Tram?
11 Habits of Ridiculously Likeable People
10 Time Management Tips for Talent Professionals
Beyond the Facade: Why a Strong Core Is Key to IT Success
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
Coaching questions are the most powerful tools in your arsenal as a coach
The A.I cartoon from Paul Noth as perfect fit to the Labor Day in the USA today.
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:
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
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 ...
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
The 8 Paths to Humility, How to Recover from Setbacks, & More
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
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.
Gallup and Lumina Foundation are committed to studying perceptions around the most pressing issues facing higher education (FEATURED REPORT)
The Fairphone 5 is finally here
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
I read the statement above in a LinkedIn article today. Not sure if it is really 10 years, but you definitely lose a lot of time. Just do a quick test, to get a first impression and to better understand differences:
INSTRUCTIONS:
RULES PER ROUND:
Which round took longer? Surprised ...
After the workshops in the last two weeks I had a discussion with one of the participants today. The topic was to understand more details about the 16Personalities test and how to make best use of the results in a small team setup. I proposed two other tests - IKIGAI and DISC - and some ideas how to approach the next steps. Further discussion is necessary in the future. We will see, what comes next?
8 Habits of Highly Emotionally Intelligent People
Coaching Models: STEPPA
“To change your life, you need to change your priorities.” -- Mark Twain
"To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are." -- Eric Hoffer
We start with the Sprint-4 demo tomorrow and afterwards plan the priorities for the next 3 month phase starting 26-Sep-23. Due to a lot of outside influences we are not free to choose our way forward, but we will try to find the best balance between short-term needs and long-term success.
Might not be always easy to create the right awareness of the capabilities in our team, but we will do our best. As we are short with skilled resources for the legacy environment we want to retire soon, any automation or possibilitiy to make use of machine learning will be helpful. To be scalable, faster and deliver with less people and high quality. We will start tomorrow.
Like the onion describes the awareness of problems in the organization, the same applies for knowledge about capabilities. The higher you come the lower the insights. So we have to improve our marketing activities and deliver on commitments more often, to build the trust needed.
Nvidia has become an early winner of the generative AI boom.
The company reported record revenue in its second quarter earnings report, with sales of AI chips playing a large role. If we compare to other American competitors, what do the AI chip sales of Nvidia vs. AMD vs. Intel look like?
The well deserved weekend is coming up and I am looking forward to it. Next week back to standard business with our Sprint-4 Demo and the preparation of the next planning phase on 20/21-Sep-23. Alignment is required as well as dependency checks and a common priority setting across different projects.
Besides that I will be starting to prepare the school workshop tomorrow. Needs some updates with 2023 data and capabilities like ChatGPT.
Have a great weekend:
5 POWERFUL WAYS TO RELEASE NEGATIVITY
Don't limit yourself to ChatGPT. Here're 5 new AI tools that outshine ChatGPT
Good working relationships are essential for a positive and productive work environment
How stress improves us: the hidden power of antifragility
I like her approach to capture rather difficult topics in easy pictures:
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
Willem-Jan Ageling: 10 brilliant ways to fail by ignoring the Agile principles
How climate adaptation can both protect and grow your business
How to Retain Gen Z Employees? Provide Them the Learning Experiences They Want
Johari Window: a visual approach to conscious and hidden biases
Soft skills are non-technical skills that relate to how you work and interact with others
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
11 Things Organized and Productive People Do Every Day
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
The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (18-Aug-23)
“It won’t be a surprise to see in the next 24 months, multiple billion-dollar companies built on top of OpenAI’s foundational models. The startups that will be the most successful won’t be the best at prompt engineering, which is the focus today, rather success will be found in what novel data and use case do they incorporate into OpenAI’s models. This novel data and application will be the moat that establishes the next set of AI unicorns.” -- David Shim, taken from
The Best ChatGPT Quotes
How Long it Took for Popular Apps to Reach 100 Million Users
The 8 step practical problem-solving process is a methodical approach
The top 70 books for leaders (according to 70 high performers)
6 Free Online Leadership Courses from Top Schools
Learn how to be a leader in an agile world with this free infographic
The ability to "multi task" is highly valued and often comes up in job descriptions
"We can struggle with what is. We can judge and blame others or ourselves. Or we can accept what cannot be changed. Peace comes from an honorable and open heart accepting what is true. Do we want to remain stuck? Or to release the fearful sense of self and rest kindly where we are?" -- Jack Kornfield
I could prepare both workshops for next week on Friday, just need to wait for the senior management team to deliver their homework, will see the results on Monday.
After lunch on Friday we had our bi-weekly BrownBag session, this time the topic was around Japanese culture and frameworks. Very well received by the audience and less technical than our previous topics. Interested in more details, see the two links below:
[17-Jun-23] Japanese Methods and Frameworks
[19-Aug-23] More Japanese concepts and techniques
Finally the final of the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 tomorrow morning - England versus Spain. Three European teams in the last four, Australia finished 4th against Sweden today. After winning the European Championship last year, this could be the 2nd title in 2 years for the team from England. The last and only international title for the Men's team is the World Cup win from 1966 against Germany.
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.
This infographic identifies 6 principles underlying influence
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
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.
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
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)
Picture taken from a GUSTAVO RAZZETTI article - Disagree and Commit: A 5-Step Playbook to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions - check it out for more details.
Tomorrow is our Sprint-3 demo, but only for 30 minutes. Not much to present in the middle of the 3 month period. Gives me more time to prepare the 1st workshop in the afternoon. Just changing the order of some slides and copying the results of our online brainstorming into it. Then we are good to go, hopefully everybody will be happy with my interpretation of the HR directions.
Tuesday and Wednesday is the two day offsite workshop in our training location in Koenigswinter with 55+ participants. On the 1st day my slot is directly after lunch and before their outdoor team activity. On the 2nd day between breakfast and lunch. The content should be interesting enough, to keep the people motivated. Maybe on the 2nd day morning some will be struggling after a too short night, we will see - those who can party can also work afterwards. Due to the workshop hosting and preparation I might be too busy to write a BLOG post until Wednesday, you will find out :-)
The preparation for my workshops in the coming two weeks is making good progress. Two mandatory workshops after the last employee survey next week Monday and on Tuesday in the week after next week. One offsite workshop about motivation, personality types and a virtual journey to 2025 next week Tuesday and Wednesday. The 4th workshop on 23-Aug-23, a full day teambuilding session for a smaller team. Will be a lot of fun and a good learning experience for me as host and hopefully a valuable time for all participants, in total around 100 people in the 4 workshops. Looking forward to it ...
The FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 did proceed with the quarter finals today and the last former champion - Japan - has lost against Sweden. Good for the tournament to get a new champion in the final on 20-Aug-23, but bad luck for the Japanese fans, who did always clean up the stadiums after each game - real role model behavior.
And today: The 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop™ will be the most epic year in Hip Hop history! Celebrations will be held all around the world to uplift and honor every aspect of Hip Hop culture. From concerts and tours to battles, competitions and exhibitions, all of your favorite DJs, MCs, Breakdancers, Beatboxers, Graffiti artists and more will show up and show out to make this golden anniversary of Hip Hop culture the most extraordinary year yet.
With the help of the Jobs per Personality Type picture and some Coaching questions we could come to a good solution on the next day (10-Aug-23). The personality type and the proposed jobs did fit pretty well and in the end we came up with an interesting idea for the subject of the planned Master study. The Personality Test was possibly not the solution, but a helpful start to trigger a thinking pocess.
On the same day I found an article on LinkedIn about - 7 Workplace Personality Tests That Can Help Improve Your Team - maybe a selective perception, but good to read.
The New Happy: You have to Look for the need
"Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values." -- Ellen DeGeneres,
American - Comedian Born: January 26, 1958
Hotter Than Ever: 2023 Sets New Global Temperature Records
A collection of 72 viral LinkedIn post examples from 72 favorite creators
How to develop an intrapreneurial culture
The unique challenges of developing R&D Leaders
The Future of Work: The Three Digital Challenges Every Company Must Address
CHOOSE HOW YOU SHOW UP BEFORE YOU SHOW UP
Identify impediments impacting multiple teams using Impediment Bingo
WHEN PROBLEM-SOLVING IS A PROBLEM
Why team happiness is a sad target for Scrum Masters & Agile Coaches
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.
Employee Resistance to Strategic Change
6 Soft Skills Recruiters Will Need in the Age of AI
Had a great last day off today, even the weather was supportive.
The Power of Coaching: Why Mothers in Leadership Positions Need Guidance
7 Small Things People Use To Judge Your Personality
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)
The science of habits: how small changes lead to big results
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
On Scrum, the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Nash’s Curse
Or just say "So what." as Andy Warhol. The best approach for the weekend.
"I hear my friends and my mom tell me I'm special, but honestly, I still don't get it." -- LeBron James
The 4 Pillars of Integrity in action
Here are 8 ways to keep your backlog clean and actionable
McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2023
The state of AI in 2023: Generative AI’s breakout year
Trusting in the weather forcast we did visit Bad Muenstereifel today. The city was also badly impacted by the flood in 2021 and the rebuilding process is still in progress. A lot has been accomplished in the meantime, but there are still things to be done. Due to the worse situation after the flood a lot had to be build from scratch instead of repairing it. A good decision according to the local inhabitants, finally all is new.
Below a new OpenAI generated text about different types of stress:
Stress is an inevitable aspect of life that affects us all. However, it is important to recognize that there are different types of stress that we may experience. One type is acute stress, which is typically short-term and often caused by specific events or situations. This can include things like giving a presentation at work or dealing with a conflict in a relationship. Acute stress can be challenging in the moment, but it usually dissipates once the situation is resolved.
Another type of stress is chronic stress, which is ongoing and persistent. This can result from long-term issues such as financial problems, work-related pressures, or ongoing health concerns. Chronic stress can have a significant impact on our overall well-being, as it can lead to physical and mental health issues if not managed effectively. Understanding these different types of stress can help us develop appropriate coping strategies and seek the support we need to navigate life's challenges. So, let's take a moment to reflect on the stressors in our lives and find ways to minimize their impact on our overall well-being.
One more AI generated text below:
At ReThinkandFocus, we understand the power of a positive team culture. Building a harmonious and thriving work environment is essential for productivity and employee satisfaction. We believe that a positive team culture starts with effective communication and open dialogue. By encouraging team members to express their thoughts and ideas freely, we foster a sense of belonging and teamwork. We also prioritize trust and respect, creating a safe space for collaboration and innovation. Together, we can create a positive team culture that inspires success and mutual support.
Creating a positive team culture also involves recognizing and celebrating individual strengths and achievements. At ReThinkandFocus, we believe in the power of appreciation and recognition. We encourage team members to acknowledge and celebrate each other's accomplishments, fostering a sense of camaraderie and motivation. By valuing and appreciating each team member's contributions, we build a positive team culture where everyone feels valued and motivated to give their best. Join us as we explore the strategies and techniques to build a positive team culture and enhance your organization's success. Together, we can transform the way we work and achieve greatness.
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.
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
Be a grasshopper
The art of the turnaround—circa 27 BC
How nature can help cities fend off record-smashing heat
Leadership Freak: 3 WAYS TO BE LIKED AND RESPECTED
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
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
Living longer in better health: Six shifts needed for healthy aging
5 Ways to Be Much More Persuasive
"You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results." -- James Clear
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
Both pictures fit pretty well together. Kids with not a lot of experience making decisions so far, get only limited options --> to stay inside the lines. Makes sense and is kind of the drawn line between good (between the lines) and bad (outside of the lines) choices as well :-)
The older you get and the more decisions you have taken in the meantime, the better will you be in handling the decision making process. And it can make a lot of sense to think outside of your box by then:
In order to have a proper company symbol in my LinkedIn profile for my own company, I created this page yesterday. Now all should be fine.
Besides that a 60th birthday party tonight and a visit to the Beer Boerse in Benrath tomorrow with my friends from Scotland. Even the weather seems to be getting better, no rain anymore and temperatures around 20 degrees celsius. People in Greece, Italy and Spain would be really happy about it.
Being the weather these days is not a lot of fun. You can offer what you want, people will start to complain after 2 or 3 days latest. If it is too sunny they ask for rain, is there too much rain they ask for sun. If it is too hot it should be colder, when it is just 20 degrees it should be 10 degrees higher. Just make the best out of the weather you get, there are a lot of regions with much worse conditions.
10 Reasons Solitude Is The Most Effective Mood Regulator
Nuggets Coach Michael Malone Shared This Brilliant 26-Word Poem After Winning the NBA Finals. It's a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence
Is there too much stress in your life?
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
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
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
Frank Sonnenberg: You Can Learn a Lot from a Lousy Role Model
Unleash The Power Of Data: Transforming Business Models For Tomorrow’s Market
The Most In-Demand Jobs on LinkedIn Right Now
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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'
9 reasons why Scrum is great for developers
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?
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
Assuming you are a several-times reader of my BLOG then you should be aware that I like quotes a lot? It is an appreciation to reuse the smart ideas or thoughts of well known or less known people. And it fits to my way of doing things - reuse, steal with pride, copy and transfer, keeping it simple and lifelong learning.
Just in case you want to try my self-paced Quotes Quiz see
https://ahaslides.com/TW0FO - will be fun ...
And as a surprise, there are many more people besides Mark Twain who have been quoted.
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
Sometimes it is difficult to find topics and content for my BLOG, as yesterday for example, and today it was not difficult at all.
I have seen a report on TV about the artist Guillaume Legros (Saype) yesterday. "Self-taught, Saype is known today for his paintings on grass, made with eco-responsible paint. Certainly one of the most publicized artists in 2019, he was notably named by the famous magazine Forbes as one of the thirty most influential personalities under the age of thirty in the world, in the field of art and Culture."
And I did read an article about the BMW Art Car number 20 that will be presented in 2024. "BMW Art Cars – three little words that stand for the legendary fusion of car icons such as the BMW M1 or the BMW Z1 and world-famous artists of the caliber of Roy Lichtenstein or Andy Warhol. Since 1975, 19 BMW Art Cars have been created – each one a unique piece. Number 20 will soon follow in 2024, designed by Ethiopian painter Julie Mehretu." The other picture shows Andy Warhol's Art Car #4 from 1979, amazing.
Some more ART related links, have a look:
25+ Works of Art Made Using Unusually Awesome Mediums
40 MOST FUNNY ART PICTURES THAT WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH HARD
10 Street Artists You Should Know
Vincent Bal Shadowology: Never judge a duck by its cover
Amy Cuddy • TEDGlobal 2012: Your body language may shape who you are
Community of practice explained. A very gentle introduction to large language models without the hype. Readers are leaders.
It is just a matter of Work-Life-Balance. Sometimes more Work and sometimes more Life. This week definitely more Life, not really bad. You can get used to it pretty quickly. As you do it today.
7 RESPONSES THAT DEFEAT DEFENSIVENESS
How managed services partnerships drive outperformance
How to Build a Positive Team Culture
The Red Flags of Agile
"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” -- Kacy Maxwell
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
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.
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
What Is Your Conflict Style? Using the THOMAS-KILMANN INSTRUMENT
"Awareness, even at a subconscious level, beats fancy checklists without it, track or you will fail." -- Tim Ferriss
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
Here are 10 Stoic principles that are priceless learnings to remember
Ten visuals on the topic of happiness, illustrated by Roberto Ferraro
The 6 shifts that can transform climate finance
How female entrepreneurs in India succeed despite funding challenges
What Is Internal Mobility and How to Get It Right
Originality Report for Google Docs Including AI Score and Ability to “Watch the Writers Write”
Sustainable Smartphone Arrives in United States: Murena Fairphone Comes to America
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:
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.
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.
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"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
What a journey in the last 7 years? A lot of work, fun and appreciation that leads to valuable content, satisfaction and intrinsic motivation, to go on. Assuming an average of 5 posts per week, I have written 1,825 posts on 2,324 pages so far, stored in 6 eBOOKs.
Initially I wanted to find out the correct number of posts via a smart search in the eBOOK PDF files via a Linux terminal command, but several approaches did not lead to a sufficient result. In the end I decided to make a good estimate, better use of capabilities :-)
Interested in my 7 birthday posts so far, the the references below:
[04-Jul-16] Blog post, see 2016 - 2018 eBOOK page 693
The Yeast plait on the picture with the red background was made by my wife for a small birthday party today, all celebrations are welcome!!
And just in case you need a quick translation of the text on an image, you can use Yandex for example. I had an urgent request from a contact in France today, who was asking for a translation of a document in German. As it was a PDF file and I could not select the text in the document, I just made a screenshot and used Yandex to translate the image in English and French, great functionality and result. Just double check the final result to be on the safe side.
The Genuine Influencers: Mothers as Key Leaders and Influential Change Makers
Leading with Impact: Proven Strategies for Empowering Team Decisions and Facilitating Productive Meetings
New Bioinspired Robot Flies, Rolls, Walks, and More
Ranking Industries by Their Potential for AI Automation
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.
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Employee engagement is the strength of the mental and emotional connection employees feel toward the work they do, their teams, and their organization.
Bad or lower than expected results in an engagement survey could be caused by the circumstances of a company, but do not have a direct impact on the work that gets delivered. We are all professionals and know, what is expected and has to be done, if we are in a bad mood or not. The engagement numbers go down immediately, when the employees are realistic and give honest answers, but the results will follow later. Possibly enough time for countermeasures to be taken by the company, if they take it serious.
After the two day planning phase Tuesday and Wednesday, we had to pause for a day, as our Indian colleagues had a public holiday. Today we finished our planning with a 90 minutes Team Building session.
We started with a Quotes Quiz. Just in case you are interested, here the link to a self-paced version of it - https://ahaslides.com/TW0FO - have fun :-) - and no need to use your real name ...
With 22 questions from very different categories of content, to give the participants from Brazil, Germany, India and Portugal a more or less equal chance to win. As we are all no experts in this area, in the end the fastest and luckiest respondent did win. You will see, what I mean when you take the Quiz.
We finished the Team Building session with a discussion about Personal and Team values. Closing task was a satisfaction survey about current roles in the project, with a result of 4.3 of 5 possible points, pretty good I would say, but still some room for improvement. Will be my task in the coming month.
The Sketchplanations picture is a great fit to my quote - Start simple, it always becomes complex over time!!
Employee Engagement on the Rise, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci & More
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The spaghetti and marshmallow tower challenge: fun learning with your team!
5 Psychological Tricks That Will Make You a Better Learner
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Michael Bungay Stanier: Thank you for being here
“It’s very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It’s easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.” – Fred Rogers, Children’s Entertainer, taken from 61 Best Team Building Quotes for Bonding at Work in 2023
How to Inspire Greatness in Those Around You
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Decision-making support with the Cynefin framework
Our two day planning finished today at 02.30 PM. Due to the 3.5 hours time difference to India, a faster than expected delivery of the final 3 tasks and in preparation of a public holiday in India tomorrow, everybody was fine and happy.
Last step in the 2 days is the Confidence Vote, to verify with all participants, how confident they are with the outcome of the planning phase? We made a 4.1 of 5 result, what is really great. Next week Tuesday we will start the next 3 month project phase, looks really promising, but we do have a lot of work to be done to keep the trust of our stakeholders. No pressure no fun.
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.
"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..
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.
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A Simple Guide To The History Of Generative AI
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"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
Interesting to see that Windows (my first PC had version 3.11) is still dominating the Operating Systems market with more than 70%, but the Microsoft browser (also based on Chrome technology) is below 10% market share in 2022. This was different in the past, as you can see in the data behind the picture.
My favorite Operating System is Linux (Mint & Ubuntu) and ChromeOS (also Linux based), both together have roughly 6% of the market, what is difficult to understand, as Windows (I use Win 11 at work) is not so much better according to my personal experience.
Video: When will AI be smarter than all humans combined? | Dr. Pero Mićić
"Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really crappy operating systems." -- Linus Torvalds, Finnish - Businessman Born: December 28, 1969
"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.
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.
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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.
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"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
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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.
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Empathy in the Workplace: A Tool for Effective Leadership - White Paper
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 ...
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
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
YOUR EXPECTATIONS DON’T JUST INFLUENCE YOUR DESTINY, THEY DETERMINE IT
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“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
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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.
Manchester City did win the Champions League final yesterday. Inter Mailand was good, but not good enough. "So stand up, straighten the crown and try again next time". A lot of different circumstances have to come together at the same time in the right order and never underestimate your opponents, they did spend a lot of time, effort and resources as well to come to this place. A failure is fine, as long as you learn out of it and try again, never give up to easy and early.
Same applied for the 24h Le Mans race in France. The Ferrari team did win for the first time since 1965, a longer learning phase. The IRON DAMES, a women only team, did finish on the overall 30th place and the 4th in their category, after being in the lead for most of the 24 hours. It is not over before it is over and you have seen the Finish flag - easier said than done. And the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR finished, what was their main goal, on the 39th place of 62 cars, a big success and great marketing with a very special kind of car.
Tomorrow I will be having an alignment meeting with a department that wants me to host a team building session during their offsite meeting. Will be the 4th workshop on my schedule for the coming weeks and month. One this week Thursday, a full day offsite for Team building, another one next week for 3 hours around Motivation and then 2 days planned in August, offsite again with a combination of Team building and business topics. A lot of fun and a great learning experience for me.
Never forget to value your personal time and do not give it away for free. The minimum salary per hour in Germany is 12€ in the moment, but your time should be worth much more. Try to keep this in mind.
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“Time is a gift that most of us take for granted. We get so caught up in the busyness of our daily lives that we rarely stop and take a serious look at how we’re spending this gift.” – Cheryl Richardson
"Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.” – Harvey Mackay, both taken from 50 Value Of Time Quotes
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.
The picture analogy will better work for you, when you know India Jones?
"In the early 1980s, filmmaking legends George Lucas and Steven Speilberg created Hollywood’s seminal action-adventure franchise starring Harrison Ford as a thrill-seeking archeologist and college professor named Indiana Jones. The adventures of Indy have now spanned over four decades, culminating in this year’s final film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny."
And I found a great website for Infographics from CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT TOOLKIT, check out FiveWhys and ParetoAnalysis for example.
“We Don’t Follow Maps To Buried Treasure, And X Never, Ever Marks The Spot.” -- Indiana Jones, taken from 20 Most Entertainment Quotes From The Indiana Jones Movies
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"When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist. I choose to be an optimist. It’s all a matter of perspective.” – Harvey Mackay
A quick post on the public holiday today. Most colleagues will take a bridge day tomorrow, to have a really long weekend. I will be working and enjoy the quiet time, to get some stuff done.
Techno music from Scooter with some surprising text quality, as you can read in the quote.
Less meetings means more time for positive thinking. A Virtual Meeting Planner might be a helpful tool? But saying "NO" more often could be smart as well.
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Another way of positive thinking or advice was the statement of Sascha Lobo about AI at a Digital Conference some weeks ago. "We should not worry too much about the negative possibilities or mis-use of AI, as this will be happening anyway and experts will find ways to handle this. Much higher priority should have the investigation of the positive functionality and opportunities of this technology, the faster the better."
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Learning new stuff can be motivation and a positive DOSE, it is up to you. Here some examples:
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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
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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.
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Noteable: The ChatGPT Plugin That Automates Data Analysis
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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
“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.
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Olina Glindevi: THE COACH vs THE MENTOR
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
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.
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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
The final decision about the champion did happen in the 89th minute of 90 minutes on the last game day of 34 days. Bayern Munich did win the 11th consecutive title today, because Borussia Dortmund was not able to win at home, how painful. In the end it is just a game, who cares?
Maybe for most of the people, but not for the Executive Board of Bayern Munich, the dismissed two of their leading managers directly after the game finished. They just do not know, what deep respect for people means, even when the performance was not as expected. I just stop mentioning it ...
Much better was the German Ice Hockey team in the half-final of the World Championship in Finland against the USA today. 4:3 after overtime for Germany, now we play in the final tomorrow afternoon. A great success, respect.
Due to the latest updates of our Agile SAFe framework - SAFe 6.0 is a comprehensive update from version 5.1 and includes many new and advanced practices alongside a new Big Picture (BP) and terminology updates - some training might be useful?
"The gamification theory in education is that learners learn best when they are also having fun. Not only this – they also learn best when they have goals, targets and achievements to reach for, of course in a way the learner still perceives as fun."
Our idea was to combine a necessary refresh of the agile roles, what was required anyway as the proper common understanding of roles & responsibilities is key for success, with an introduction to the latest changes in SAFe. We approached it top down, starting with the management team and later on with all Scrum Masters and Product Owners. Every workshop finished with a quiz, just to check how successful the session was for the participants.
Next step is to do a train-the-trainer approach for all our agile teams, hosted by the Product Owner (PO) and/or Scrum Master (SM). My proposal was to use a little bit of gamification at the beginning of the sessions and start with the quiz this time. I think a good idea to check the current level of understanding in the teams and a "smart" way of making knowledge gaps transparent for everybody quickly. When you know, what you do not know it will be much easier to motivate people to learn something new and refresh their existing knowledge base.
I finished a 1st version of the quiz today. Now we will do some testing, adjustments and final approval to go ahead with the PO & SM team. I will keep you posted.
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Finally only one night left before the German soccer league has the most thrilling final ever, or maybe in the last 15 years.
"The joy of sport is its unpredictability. There are the favorites, the perennial winners, but there is also a place for the underdogs – the dreamers.
But for too many years such against-the-odds romance has been absent from Germany’s Bundesliga, with Bayern Munich winning a record 10 consecutive league titles to rid the championship of any surprises in the last decade.
In fact, the last season Bayern didn’t win the championship was the 2011/12 campaign, when now Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp guided Borussia Dortmund to the title."
Tough times ask for new approaches, why not some more happiness? Give it a try.
Busy times and no real time for more text today, but pictures will do as alternative, for sure.
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The Skill Will Matrix
We are not like butterflies, but have the potential to change ourselves in us. Easy for skills, just unlearn what you know and learn something new. Much more difficult for attitude, this takes time and effort, sometimes not possible at all.
In any case personal change only works, when you see a benefit for yourself in changing. It can be an intrinsic or extrinsic motivator, who cares, but you need to see it first. And surprise, surprise your persistence energy will normally be much higher than the energy to get in motion. Nobody said it is easy ...
And when you finally come into motion, other people might be blocking you?
The Tallest Poppy - How the workforce is cutting ambitious women down.
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AhaSlides is a platform to help you make interactive presentations
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As mentioned yesterday I did hear back already today from the NextGenLab team and was invited for the Reverse Mentoring Kick-off meeting mid June 2023. It could have been luck, or I was just one of the few Baby Boomers interested in the concept, who cares. In the end I am in and looking forward to the upcoming activities.
Selective Attention - Is the process of directing our awareness to relevant stimuli while ignoring irrelevant stimuli in the environment.
Works well for the Generation topic and me in the moment. I found the Employee Evolution picture today and two TED talks that perfectly fit as well. When you properly look at the picture you will quickly realize that it is all about circumstances and personal willingness to change or to start an evolution for change. It has nothing to do with the generation you might be belonging to!!
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Besides all the days we had to celebrate during the last week and a wide variety of pictures to select from, also some helpful frameworks like the SWOT analysis and De Bono's Thinking Hats.
The next week will be 5 working days and starts with our Sprint 3 Demo on Monday, then 6 weeks are over already and we have another 4 weeks to go, to reach our goal for the current 3 month period. The 6th two weeks period is reserved for innovation, knowledge sharing, training and some exploration activities besides the next 2-day planning phase.
After the coming week we have two more weeks with just 4 working days, as Whit Monday (29-May-23) and Corpus Christi (08-Jun-23) are public holidays in Germany. The May/June period is really great every year.
How four-day-week trials are working out in the UK
Gen Z is bringing the optimism on gender equity. Companies need to keep up
Maybe next week I hear already back from the NextGenLab team that offered the reverse mentoring program for all generations. We will see. My BLOG hosting company managed to fix the daily visitor counter, now it is just 2 hours behind the current time, what is perfectly fine for me.
Have a great, interesting and surprising week:
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Good picture from The New Happy newsletter today. I did share some useful links related to Tools and Newsletters via the Interesting Links section in the menu above. I will add further helpful content there when available.
Interested in your strength and weakness? Ask your family, a friend or colleague for feedback and a list of your blind spots. If this is not your preferred way of approaching it, try a SWOT analysis - "SWOT analysis is a great way to effectively evaluate a person, campaign, strategy or product". Give it a try.
With your result, what is next? You can ignore the outcome and stay in your comfort zone, completely up to you and perfectly fine. Or you can try to work further on your strength and improve it to the next level - e.g. from Superwoman to Superwoman 2.0 - why not?
Finally you can select one of your weakness, I am sure there is more than one, and improve it over time. To lift up your base level of skills and capabilities further. The choice is yours, BUT ...
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Today is a public holiday in Germany, Ascension Day, the same day we celebrate Father's Day here. Different than in the USA where it is happening on the third Sunday in June.
When we have a public holiday on a Thursday a lot of people take Friday off - the bridge day, to enjoy a long weekend. This means not a lot of people in the office/homeoffice tomorrow, only our colleagues in other countries like India for example. I will be working and enjoy a quiet day.
On Tuesday our NextGenLab participants (a group of Gen Z employees) did organize a BrownBag Lunch to share some details about their done and planned activities. One of their ideas for the near future is to do a Reverse Mentoring program. Gen Z members are mentoring other generations to share some of their perspectives and insights, for the benefit of both sides. On Tuesday they were still searching for volunteers to participate in the program. I used the opportunity to fill in their questionnaire to apply for the program. Will be interesting to see, who gets selected in the end. Maybe I am lucky?
Will definitely be fun and an interesting interaction, given the fact that my two younger daughters are Gen Z as well.
WHEN YOU LOSE YOURSELF
Agile Coaching Growth Wheel
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Besides Growth and Customer we selected Simplification as one of our main focus areas for this fiscal year. An easy way to do this is to say NO more often and to reduce the number of options you have before the final decision. Sounds smart, but requires some mindset change.
The daily visitor counter of my BLOG hosting company is still improving. When I checked the counter today it was just missing the last 5 hours, much better than 5 days before.
The Playbook for Navigating Uncertainty
90 books to further your agile learning today
Enjoy the power of pictures and some interesting links, just in case you are interested and have some spare time available?
‘The Power Is Inside of You’ – Jon Gordon, Jade Gordon & Doug Conant on How to Use Positive Leadership to Make a Difference
How to help Scrum Teams embrace self-management
How banana waste upcycling is kick-starting Uganda’s circular economy
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Quick recap of the European Song Contest from yesterday evening. Another year another last place for Germany. The song was much better than the final position, but we have to accept the result and add the experience to our collection of failures. Looking closer into the many
rumors and conspiracies around the German outcome will not make a change, so we better focus on a different strategy for a future success.
Another 4-day work week is coming up as next Thursday is Ascension Day, a public holiday in Germany (week 20). Week 21 is a 5-day work week and then we have week 22 and 23 with 4 work days again. The last public holidays before the long break until 03-Oct-23.
Yesterday I did spend some time to look into the capabilities and functionality of Wordpress that could be the alternative for BLOG writing offered by my website hosting company? The challenge and/or opportunity is to find the right balance between the available functionality and, what is really necessary to write easily and quickly. See my current test results, just starting ...
Have a great next week:
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A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a business, project, or individual
Just in case you do not know all the brands listed for Gen Z don't worry, Fashion and Candy in the list of another 8 Apps.
Today is the Japan-Day Duesseldorf/NRW 2023 for example. An interesting program during the whole day and a Japanese fireworks in the late evening.
400 Japanese companies based in Duesseldorf
After isolated Japanese “scouts” started coming to Duesseldorf as of 1952, the trading firm of Mitsubishi was listed in the local Commercial Register in 1954. The trading house of Okura & Co. followed in 1957. The Japanese community grew – slowly at first, but then very quickly – keeping time with Japan’s international commercial success. Today the Japanese community in Duesseldorf is the third-largest in Europe after London and Paris. Around 8,400 Japanese nationals live in the Duesseldorf city area alone, with some 14,800 in North Rhine-Westphalia as a whole. Almost 620 Japanese companies are operating in NRW, around 400 of them in the state capital itself. Japanese companies in North Rhine-Westphalia employ more than 52,600 people (as in 2020).
Also today is the Spring ball at our dance school, but we decided not to go there. The lazy monkey on the one shoulder did win against the motivation monkey on the other shoulder. It sometimes happens.
Finally the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest tonight, this time in Liverpool as the event could not take place in the Ukraine, the 2022 winner country. One daughter will be at the Spring ball the other one will be watching the song contest with us, really a cult event for committed
fans. As long as the band representing Germany is not ending up on the last place, we will all be happy. We have a long history of last places in the past years.
Critique of the 9 box grid
Although the 9 box grid provides a clear way of managing talent and performance, it is not undisputed.
Its biggest shortcoming is arguably its connection to traditional performance management, characterized by a once-a-year, subjective rating by one’s manager. Many companies, including Accenture and Deloitte, have moved away from annual performance reviews, opting for continuous feedback instead. This provides more opportunities to improve performance as well as more data points to accurately assess performance. We highly recommend measuring performance using as many objective data points as possible.
What is the 9-Box Performance Grid?
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In a meeting of our project TRIFECTA (Product Management, Release Train Engineer and System Architect) today we discussed the proper recognition of high performers in the team as well as how to support the team members struggling or needing some outside help.
As two of the three Trifecta members are baby boomers we have experience with the 9-Box Performance Grid from e.g. previous companies, asssignments or projects. In our new roles we are not only heading the project, we are also responsible and kind of the role models for an agile mindset.
Our solution is easy and obvious for and engineer, reuse: Copy an existing and well established model, take the valid critique above serious and transfer the idea into our new agile environment. Instead of one supervisor doing the review once per year, we are asking the whole team to do an assessment of all team members, voluntary and anonymous. This will definitely guarantee many objective data points and hopefully will lead us to a common perspective in the 9-box Grid by team. We will see and are for sure supporting the idea of self-managed and self-responsible teams.
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Today we had our first #Spirit Day in the fiscal year that just started on 01-Apr-23. One full day for learning in the whole company. We had a lot of different topics and information sessions to choose from, no meetings and daily tasks to be taken care of.
After a small project status call in the morning, also a kind of learning about the progress we are making :-) , the next two session were about writing text that somebody else wants to read and our new glas fiber strategy. Then I did watch some Youtube videos of the OMR Festival 2023.
I did close my day with an Agile role workshop hosted by our SAFe Practice Consultants (SPCs). Besides the roles descripton and responsibilities, we did also cover the changes coming with the new SAFe 6.0 framework. A great learning experience, very interactive and with an open discussion about issues we are facing in the moment. A quiz with 10 questions to verify the learning did close the session. Right answers and the speed to answer did drive the number of points you could collect.
Fun fact - I think I was the only participant without a SAFe certification, but finished the quiz on the first place. That made my day for sure :-)
Between the different learning sessions during my day I did also share some "5-minute learning" bites to my colleagues, team members and audience. Some examples:
Back by popular demand: Google Cloud products in 4 words or less (2022 edition)
The art of leading in the AI age
As a main topic today was working agile and an agile transformation, some related articles, more or less:
“AGILE” HAS LOST ITS MEANING
Digital Transformation Is So Yesterday
AI Content Detection Accuracy
The Future of Recruiting 2023
I am still in contact with the ONE.COM support team. They are working on fixing the daily visitor counter, in the moment still two days behind the current day. But for the loading performance of the start page the feedback is not good so far. The current environment is not really sufficient for a BLOG, but I am looking into their Wordpress functionality as alternative solution. We will see.
The picture today is taken from a Frank Sonnenberg post - Are You Living the Life That You’re Meant to Live?
Some more interesting links for today:
Mojo: The Programming Language for AI That Is Up To 35000x Faster Than Python
The GROWTH Model of Coaching by Kenneth Acha
4 SIMPLE QUESTIONS TO CLARIFY COMPLEX CHALLENGES
A brief history of tech skepticism
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COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency. Here's what it means
Baby Boomers consist of people born from 1946-1964—making them 56-74 years old as of 2020. Baby Boomers were given the name due to a surge in births during the economic boom after World War II. While they didn’t grow up with technology like Gen Z, they are catching up. Even though more than half, 68%, of the generation own a smartphone, they are more likely to be accessing the internet using a desktop or laptop.
Gen Z is made up of anyone born in 1997 and later. As of 2020, they include people ages 23 and under. Older Gen Zs are starting to make purchasing decisions on their own. Gen Z is now the largest generation, making up more than 90 million people.
As ADSHARK is from North Dakota, United States all data above are related to the US population! Interested in global 2023 data, check the United Nations World Population Dashboard for example?
To make it more specific, I was born in 1962 (a baby boomer) and my two younger daughters are from 2000 and 2003 (both Generation [Gen] Z, year range of 1997–2012).
The Gen Z is now entering more and more the workforce, not only as Interns like most of my applicants, but also as employees. Just lately some of our Gen Z employees founded a NextGenLab to get heard and take action. They had a day with most of our Senior Leadership team members and are strong in marketing their ideas via the internal communication channels.
In my opinion a great opportunity for us in two ways. 1st to better understand their opinion about and needs for the company products, as they are not only entering the workfoce, but also the customer base. And 2nd to balance the upcoming exodus of the Baby Boomer generation and workforce into retirement, e.g. I have another 6 years to go.
Time enough for the required knowledge transfer, regular experience exchange and some mentoring and coaching in both directions. We are short with talents and skilled workers already, the only solution is to train, grow and develop the existing community. Let's start better sooner than later.
The better we will be in doing these transfer activities and the more we talk about it, the easier we can attract new talents from the outside, also a necessary strategy to think about and start quickly.
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The factory tour was great fun and we learned a lot about the company.
"Since 1829, addi has been producing exclusively at the Altena site in Germany. The company is managed in the 6th generation by the owner family. In addition, addi has been involved in local social projects for many years and supports many associations and institutions. addi stands for openness and transparency. Buy “Made in Germany” and help us to continue to act in a socially responsible manner in the sense of sustainability."
30% coverage of the German market, customers in 59 countries and 93% of all products Made in Germany, most of the material from regional suppliers. This and many more information was shared in the opening session. Afterwards we did take a 90 minutes factory tour, the staff did work on a Saturday only for the visitors.
Interesting and unexpected to see that it takes 25 steps to manufacture a knitting needle. High quality is the main focus and in order to guarantee this they are always looking for new talents with sensitive fingers. They find a lot in other professions, like hair dresser, baker or pastry cooks.
A great weekend with a nice hotel and food in the Sauerland region.
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Thanks to Leadership Freak Dan Rockwell for his Blog post and pictures today.
We left early at home to get to Altena in time. After a nice dinner we will get prepared to start the ADDI factory tour tomorrow morning at 09.00 AM. Our hotel is close to the factory in walking distance.
First stop after checkin and on a short walk around the hotel was a wool shop on the other side of the street. The owner is also famous for her Youtube channel, so we had a short fan-moment, just joking :-)
Have a great weekend, we will definitely have fun ...
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Interesting, what kind of holidays are referenced to one single day. Besides the obvious Star Wars Day on May 4th I found 26 other entries. There might be many more? World Password Day and
National Candied Orange Peel Day are two great examples.
The coffee meeting with the CEO and the HR lead was very interesting yesterday. Possibly the group of participants was a little bit too large to get into a real discussion, but we covered several topics and could get some rare insights into the thinking process of our leadership team. A really great opportunity.
Today I had the "opposite" meeting with 4 of our Interns for a coffee chat in the Tower Cafe. Also a great experience and really interesting perspectives about a lot of topics, business and none business. With people from France, Africa, Germany and India at the same table, it is easy to find discussion points. Sports, food, cooking, religion and Haribo are only a few examples. More to come ...
We also had the official announcement of the so called "PI Champion" in one of our project teams today. The best junior team member selected by the Product Owner and Scrum Master based on proposals of the team for the last three month project phase. We did run this as a Proof of Concept for this idea, to motivate and recognize the good work of our younger and fairly new team members. To get them up to speed quickly. It did work out pretty well and the selected team members were really happy, but did not have a thank you speech prepared. Maybe next time? The test will proceed in this team and we think about promoting the idea in other teams as well.
Finally some words about our new Architecture 2.0 approach. We had a technical framework in place, to transport files from our on premise environment into the Google Cloud (GCP). We started roughly two years ago and did setup a new environment from scratch, based on open source and cloud technologies. During the last ~24 month the environment did grow, we made mistakes and learned a lot, changed directions and the scope, and adjusted the capabilities over time. In the meantime it is working well, but we were sure that more is possible.
So we defined the Architecture 2.0 approach. Come up with a fast, simple, standardized, fully automated, scalable and reliable solution that uses latest technology and does, what the existing solution is already doing. But keeping the mistakes and learning from the last two years in mind by reducing the scope to the least necessary. We selected the best guys from all involved teams supporting the end-to-end solution and gave them the ownership to come up with something new in the least possible time, the faster the better. As we wanted to replace the existing solution as quickly as possible.
The self-organized and -managed team did take on this task bravely and came up with useful parts of the solution faster than expected. Really great teamwork and spirit, to get something done together, for the benefit of the whole project. Counts for the experts in the dedicated small task force team, as well as all the other team members who made the move of the experts possible, by standing in for their previous assignments. Nobody dropped a ball, well done TEAM!!
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My webhosting company is still struggling with getting the daily visitors right. So far they are just 4 days late. The history statistic for year, month and parts of the week are fine, but no daily information is available. They are not giving up, what is the good news of the day.
Another 6 month seem to be over, because today we did get the link for the two times per year employee survey. As always voluntary and anonymous participation. Interesting scenario in an International company. The competition for highest percentage of participants per country is on now and we will see several reminders to be part of the final result.
After the previous survey we had already a discussion about the possible south-north incline in results. The more you come to northern countries the lower are the positive votes. On average Germans will not vote higher than a 4 on a 1 - 5 scale, because there is always room for improvement.
I was most wondering about a question related to the activities after the last survey. "Did you realize that different teams and/or groups of managers did take action? Yes/No" - Yes there were some activities, but did they really make a change to the positive? This should have been the question in my opinion.
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The Musical visit today was great, very close to the Dirty Dancing film, good music, dancing and acting on a very small stage. A lot of fun for the whole family.
With respect to the future jobs topic of today, you can have a look at:
Interesting details and Infographics summarizing great content. Besides that not a lot happened during the public holiday today. Going back to work tomorrow and looking forward to the promising topics for the rest of this week. Have a great time ...
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20 jobs that GPT-4 will replace as per written by GPT-4
Highlight of the week was the 2-day offsite workshop, great location, food, content and outcome. Could be the start of a longer coaching of the new team that just came together last week?
The next week will be even better, a 4-day workweek, starting with a public holiday tomorrow on 01-May-23:
20 ESSENTIAL 4-DAY WORKWEEK STATISTICS [2023]: BENEFITS + REVENUE
Four-Day Workweek: Everything You Should Know
We will be enjoying the Dirty Dancing Musical that is currently on tour in Duesseldorf. Then on Wednesday the already mentioned coffee talk with our CEO and the head of HR. Might be a good opportunity to discuss some burning topics from an employee perspective?
On Friday I will be leaving early as we have to be in time for the addi factory tour on Saturday morning 09.00 AM. It was a birthday present for my wife two years ago, but could not happen so far due to COVID-19 restrictions.
addi respectively the company Selter as a successful family business in the middle of the green heart of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Sauerland. Here innovation meets tradition. In our valley in Altena, we produce knitting needles and crochet hooks of the highest quality with the brand name “addi” in the 6th generation and ship them to customers in 59 different countries.
Interesting for my wife and her knitting & crochet hobby and for me as mechanical engineer, to see the factory process and their facility in Germany. Will be a fun week for sure.
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We had an interesting situation in the German soccer league yesterday. The referee made a mistake, as he committed today, and did not give a penalty kick. The game ended 1:1 and the team that wants to win the league this year lost two points.
In the last ten years always the same team did win and nearly 10% of the inhabitants in Germany did not see another team at the top during their lifetime so far. This year it could be different as the top team from the previous years is struggling. There are 34 games every season and you can get 3 points for every game you win. So enough time and opportunities to win the league when you are pretty consistent in delivering your performance, what the team from yesterday is not doing by the way!!
In the end everybody is complaining about the referee today and the one mistake he made, and not the team that did not play good enough to win the game without needing the penalty kick. And nobody knows, if the penalty kick would have been a goal in the end.
So as in the last 10 years all other teams in the league are making too much mistakes and are not playing consistently enough to get a new team on the top. Might happen again this season? Stop complaining about referees and play as good as possible and necessary to win the cup --> Keep Going, Keep Growing or Play in the Puddles! as written on the pictures.
Based on the feedback I got and my personal impression as host, I would say the workshop was a success. The first day was all about team building and leaving the comfort zone. The second day about understanding the strength and weakness of the two teams coming together, some first common ground and ideas, and finally to agree first common steps that make sense in the current situation. More to come ...
Another step on my way to become a "Feel-Good Manager" not as part of HR, but directly out of the same department with all required insights to be of help. Makes a lot of sense in the current situation, where another reorganization and general change is just around the corner. "When I feel good, all around me will be feeling good as well" is my slogan and an extension of my Release Train Engineer (RTE) assignment to the next level, as far as I see it.
Next Monday is a public holiday in Germany (01-May-23, May Day), a good start of the week. Then on Wednesday the opportunity for a coffee meeting with our CEO, our head of HR and 20+ colleagues. Looking forward to it and might be a chance to address the Feel-Good Manager idea?
Agile Product Manifesto
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Not a really great participation, but it was voluntary and nevertheless
I will provide some ideas related to the mentioned topics below:
Coaching
Mentoring
We’re Huge Fans of Online Mentoring Platforms (So We Made a List of 26 of Them)
Mentoring Trends We’re Seeing In 2023: From The CEO’s Desk
Leadership
The 25 Best Leadership Websites You Need to Check Out This Year
100 Best Leadership Blogs
Agile
Workshop formats
Surprises
Mapped: The State of Democracy Around the World
There is so much more related to all the proposed topics, I just made a quick selection for YOU today.
Due to the 2-day offsite workshop starting tomorrow, I will be back on Friday. Have fun and try checking some of the links above, if you have a little bit spare time available.
Finished the Sprint-1 Demo today with some technical issues. Even with preparation something can go wrong and it did today. Next time we will be better. One day to go for the offsite workshop, most parts are covered in the meantime.
And you have still one day to share your feedback, see the MENTI link in the headline, thanks in advance for participating.
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"World Book and Copyright Day is a celebration to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. Each year, on 23 April, celebrations take place all over the world to recognize the scope of books - a link between the past and the future, a bridge between generations and across cultures. On this occasion, UNESCO and the international organizations representing the three major sectors of the book industry - publishers, booksellers and libraries, select the World Book Capital for a year to maintain, through its own initiatives, the impetus of the Day’s celebrations."
Gen Zers are bookworms but say they're shunning e-books because of eye strain, digital detoxing and their love for libraries
Just in case you had no time or motivation yet to participate in my voluntary and anonymous feedback collection, there are still 2 days left. Please use the link https://www.menti.com/27ksa3j43s to share your opinion and ideas, thanks a lot in advance.
Tomorrow we have the Sprint-1 demo of our current 3-month project phase, not a lot to show yet, but always a good opportunity to stay in contact with the customers and stakeholders. And to gather some early feedback in the current phase.
Besides that 2 days left to finish my concept sheet with the detailed timing of each activity for the 2-day offsite workshop starting on Wednesday. Really looking forward to it.
Wish you a creative and successful week with some learning experience.
"Starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling the plane on the way down." -- Reid Hoffman
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“Reading an hour a day is only 4% of your day. But that 4% will put you at the top of your field within 10 years. Find the time.” – Patrick Bet-David, taken from 41 Fearless Patrick Bet-David Quotes That’ll Motivate You
“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.” -- Maya Angelou, taken from The 100 Best Quotes About Reading
"The first Earth Day in 1970 mobilized millions of Americans from all walks of life, giving birth to a broad new movement to protect the planet. On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — took to streets, college campuses and hundreds of cities to protest environmental ignorance and demand a new way forward. The first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Earth Day is now recognized as the planet’s largest civic event each year."
What drives us - the keys to our motivation is a perfect fit to my MOTIVATION workshop from Wednesday.
Have a great weekend.
Barry Humphries, Australian comedian best known for alter-ego Dame Edna Everage, dies aged 89
My phrase of the week is definitely "Rapid Unscheduled Disassemply". In the agile mindset - fail fast, fail often as long as you learn something out of it - SpaceX had a great time until 4 minutes after lift off and a perfect learning experience. A lot of sensors did collect data and the next time it will be better, for sure. A quite expensive MVP I would say - "(MVP) is a concept from Lean Startup that stresses the impact of learning in new product development. Eric Ries, defined an MVP as that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort." - a little bit like a crash test with a real Bugatti Veyron for $1.9 Million, painful but it needs to happen.
The MOTIVATION workshop on Wednesday was great and the team had a surprising learning experience I would say - a challenge to change. The outcome was very helpful and can be implemented easily in the coming weeks.
Today the concept and content of the two day offsite workshop for next week was approved by my customer, just one small change could be added in 5 minutes. Will be fun and I am really looking forward to it. A lot of reuse from previous workshops combined with some new stuff - copy and transfer - good when you have a growing portfolio of activities that you can easily combine for new requirements.
After feedback from the support team I could switch the Start page of my BLOG back to the small Welcome page that starts much faster than this page. Hopefully they could gather enough data - like SpaceX this week - to improve the environment for the next launch :-), we will see and experience shortly?
Just in case you did not have the chance and time yet to participate in my feedback collection via MENTI https://www.menti.com/27ksa3j43s please do so NOW or in the coming days, would be very much appreciated, to come up with topics that you are interested in or that make you happy? So far we have e.g. mentoring, coaching, workshop formats, leadership and agile as proposals, but only from two participants in the survey :-( from around 100 vistors daily not a lot!! A little bit more would be great - participation is anonymous - don't worry.
Many of us cannot imagine our lives without the Internet. But the technology is still young; only 60% of the world’s population was online in 2020.
WHEN DEVELOPMENT WORKS AND WHEN TO LET THEM GO
Paraphrase Plagiarism Checker – Is Quillbot Plagiarism?
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Some lines out of the video:
"Imagine what the world would be like if we decided to share and exchange in more powerful first experiences. Would we feel more loved? Would we feel more connected? Would we feel more brave? Most importantly, would we feel more human? Each and every one of us has so much to experience if we allow ourselves the gift of another powerful first experience."
For a short period of time I had to switch the Start Page of my BLOG back to the initial BLOG 2.0 page, to give the technical support team time to measure the real performance and loading times. The daily visitor counter is still having issues, but some improvement is already visible.
At work I did get a new laptop today after 5 years, as the old hardware was not compatible with the new Windows 11 operating system anymore. I am not a Windows or Mac fan, because I am more into Linux. But in a work environment Windows is still the standard, so you just have to get used to it and learn about the changes. The Windows logo is now in the middle of the menu bar and not on the left side anymore. Hopefully this UX (User experience) adjustment was not too expensive :-) The rest of the look and feel is getting closer to a Mac is what I heard from a colleague, who cares.
The best thing was a super smooth transition between the two laptops, thanks a lot to the support team, just login and waiting for the initial profile load and setup. Then I could proceed with my work as before, with double the memory and much more power now, a good day.
Tomorrow is the MOTIVATION workshop with a team of 13 people and the concept for the 2-day offsite event next week is nearly finished. One of the ideas will be Speed Feedback. At the end of Day-1 the 6 participants will have the opportunity to give each other feedback for one minute each. So 5-times giving and getting feedback will be a very good learning experience and a good preparation for Day-2. What did go well and what could be improved? What do the others know or did realize during the day that is not known to the individual? Will be an interesting approach, let's see.
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The 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞 provides a roadmap for how we can continually adapt, grow, and evolve.
"The Johari window is an exercise that helps you gain a better understanding of yourself and how others see you. It was created by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955 as part of their work on group dynamics. Fun fact: “Johari” is a combination of their first names."
6 Easy Tricks That Will Make You Way More Productive
I mentioned my BLOG post from yesterday on LinkedIn and did even create a dedicated post there with major parts of the content. And I referenced Dr. Miriam Meckel, who did also participate in the TV discussion about AI.
The next three days I will be at our Campus in Duesseldorf, Monday to onboard a new Intern, Tuesday to get a new laptop (the old one was not Windows11 compliant) and on Wednesday to host another Motivation workshop. Besides that the preparation for the 2 day offsite workshop in 2 weeks is ongoing. The main topics are clear, but the details need to be worked out and a proper timing is still required.
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Last Thursday there was a TV discussion about AI and the transition that we are already in or that is ahead of us. It covered e.g. topics like AI ethics, general control initiatives/processes/institutions, personal data protection, Watermarks for AI generated videos, pictures or text,
where do we stand technically and what can be expected in the near future?
The also from Elon Musk supported initiative - Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter from 22-Mar-23 - was part of the discussion as well. Musk wants to pause AI development for 6 month, but why? Because he has so much insights into the current technology development progress, or he wants to catch up with other AI leaders?
A guy who plans to connect brains with computers (Neuralink), develops software for self-driving cars (Autopilot) and is working on the Tesla Bot to manufacture his cars much faster, definitely has the insights. And he did found a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI on 09-Mar-23 - really interesting, especially the timing. But let's believe in the positive of people before the opposite can be confirmed.
The most interesting part of the discussion was the topic, if AI is able to think or not?
THINKING: "the process of forming an opinion or idea about something, or the opinions or ideas formed by this process"
To avoid the discussion or philosophical exchange, if any AI system is able to think or not, what might be really difficult to proof by the way, it could be easily solved by using a different nomenclature or words?
A useful analogy might be the naming issues/conflicts of vegetarian or vegan sausages, burgers or bacon? Why should something that looks like a sausage or has the form of a sausage, but is out of e.g. pea protein, be called sausage? Only because the marketing department is not smart enough to find new names or the customers are so used to the "old" names that a change or transition is not possible or takes too long? As a side note I did ask ChatGPT to help:
"I plan to do a marketing campaign for a vegan sausage and I am looking for product names. Can you please propose 20 appropriate names, the words sausage, vegan, veggie and meat are not allowed? Some fantasy names would be great." - here examples:
Herb & Spice Links
Savory Bites
Plant Delights
Nature's Bangers
Zesty Sticks
Faux Franks
Garden Grinds
Vitality Bites
Bold Bites
Flavor Fusions
Pure Energy Links
Earthy Snackables
Wholesome Bites
Some are not so bad ...
Back to the new names idea. As Apple starts everything with "i" and Elon Musk with "X", why not using "AI"? Like proposed in the headline - AI-thinking. This would give some clarity and could manage expectations, kind of a Watermark? Something to think about ...
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein, German - Physicist March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955
Please share some feedback via the MENTI link in the headline, would be really great and very much appreciated. All voluntary and anonymous, thanks a lot in advance !!
As planned I did try the AI Content Detector and Plagiarism Checker today. The first impression was really good, GREEN background for Original text (written by me) and RED background for AI generated text by ChatGPT. Thanks to Jon for giving me free access to the tool, pretty interesting technology.
The Plagiarism check works really well, assuming the webpage is known, mine was not in the used search index yet. Some more development is still required for mixed text with Original and AI parts, but slow progress is better than no progress!!
Better together: Let’s start getting ecosystems right.
Scotland to launch the world's first self-driving commuter bus fleet
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Why Scrum (or Agile)? Poster
Escape the speed trap: 5 metrics that outrun velocity
Same message as yesterday - The daily visitor counter of my web hosting company is still not working properly - their technical team is working on it, we will see how fast this solves the problem?
In the discussion with the service agent I mentioned the slow loading speed of the start page and he proposed GTmetrix to find improvement ideas. By connecting the new Welcome page to my web address the GTmetrix Grade improved from F to B in the meantime. Same for the SEO score, no complaints about the slow speed anymore.
2nd change is to add a new counter on the Welcome page, just to double check the clicks, as the daily visitor count is still not working. And then the request to ask for YOUR opinion and ideas in the coming 14 days, just use the MENTI link in the headline or here. Thanks a lot in advance any feedback is very much appreciated.
The picture today is like a Venn Diagram - "Venn diagrams are diagrams used to visually depict sets, relationships between sets, and operations on sets. The Venn diagram shows the relationship among sets using circles and the area they cover concerning each other.
A Venn diagram, also known as a set diagram, depicts several set operations like set intersection, set union, and set difference. We may also use it to represent subsets of a set."
90 years ago Montserrat Caballé was born, "a Spanish operatic soprano, admired for her versatility and phrasing and for her performances in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, Gaetano Donizetti, and Richard Strauss." You might know her from the opening song of the Barcelona Olympics together with Freddie Mercury? She died Oct-2018.
61 years ago my Scottish friend was born, he is celebrating his birthday today, congratulations and party on.
In the coming days I will have a look into the capabilities of Originality.AI - "by far the most accurate AI (Chat GPT, GPT-2, GPT-3, GPT-4, Bard and ONLY Paraphrase Detection (quillbot)) Content Detection tool on the market."
Exploring the Future of Skill-based Organisations
Try creating your own personal SWOT for career development or at your team level
These book summaries will save you 1000+ hours of reading
Ageling on Agile: A great new Fluid Scrum Teams use case
The Evolution Of AI: Transforming The World One Algorithm At A Time
The daily visitor counter of my web hosting company is still not working properly, but I learned today that I am not the only one who realized it. Hopefully it gets fixed quickly?
I have seen the Comic Agile cartoon today and it did perfectly fit to my post from yesterday about "the power of words". This time the word is PROJECT and the meaning of it according to PMI (Project Management Institute) versus the Scrum Guide.
PMI: "All projects are a temporary effort to create value through a unique product, service or result. All projects have a beginning and an end. They have a team, a budget, a schedule and a set of expectations the team needs to meet. Each project is unique and differs from routine operations—the ongoing activities of an organization—because projects reach a conclusion once the goal is achieved."
Scrum Guide: "Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems. Scrum employs an iterative, incremental approach to optimize predictability and to control risk. Scrum engages groups of people who collectively have all the skills and expertise to do the work and share or acquire such skills as needed. Scrum combines four formal events for inspection and adaptation within a containing event, the Sprint. These events work because they implement the empirical Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation."
Similar words and similar content I would say and the same is mentioned in the cartoon. The difference is more an ideological one and the responsibility of the team doing the work - in the PMI Waterfall world they have their line management taking care - in the Scrum Agile world the teams are self-managed, -organized and -responsible, what makes a big difference.
With my 4 years experience in the Agile world and 26 years in the Waterfall world before, I clearly see advantages for the self-managed teams and their motivation, only issues is the line management that is loosing more and more control / responsibility, without any proper replacement for it. Taking over an agile role could be a great way out, but this requires a personal change, what is not so easy to do.
Maybe the new Management 3.0 practice - Connection Circles - could be a good approach to get some clarity for the necessary change, just give it a try?
I selected the VALUES picture today, because I will be using the topic personal and team values in one of my coming workshops. Interested to find out your personal values?
The Ultimate List of Core Values And How To Find Yours
The Ultimate List of 400 Personal Values (PDF)
"We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence - and even start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors." -- Suzy Kassem
As you can see on the Tanmay Vora picture, to make the difference clear between e.g. the words CHANGE and TRANSFORMATION, you have to spend some time and effort that is really worth it to avoid any misunderstanding or misinterpretation later on. Especially in international teams and work environments with a lot of none native speakers (English for example) you will quickly realize that team members will translate words into their own language to better understand and grasp the meaning.
As you can see from the example links below, there is a lot of help already available, purely focusing on English as the language. Now assume you have 3 - 4 different languages in a team, how many possibilities you will have to misunderstand each other? A lot!! So spending quality time on agreeing on a common understanding in the team is really necessary to be successful:
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? Many words are often used interchangeably, even when they have distinct meanings
DiffSense - compare and contrast word meanings
What is the Difference Between ...
SYNONYMS FOR difference - Thesaurus / difference
"agreeing on a common understanding" is a little bit like Planning Poker
"an agile estimating and planning technique that is consensus based. To start a poker planning session, the product owner or customer reads one of their user stories or describes a feature to the estimators.
The estimators discuss the feature, asking questions of the product owner as needed. When the feature has been fully discussed, each estimator privately selects one card to represent his or her estimate. All cards are then revealed at the same time. If all estimators selected the same value, that becomes the estimate."
Same value is similar to a common understanding - a prerequisite to be successful together as one team.
Today the hosting environment is working smoothly, no bank holiday - lucky me. I have a service ticket open as the daily visitors have not been counted on 4 days in one week and the loading of the first page should be much faster. My SEO tool is complaining about this one.
Change management toolkit tips tools and techniques PDF
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Easter Sunday and the best possible movie on TV - Life of Brian - from Monty Python. Possibly not the preferred movie of the church, but a great learning experience of British humor and if you like to get a Latin lesson.
Next film after this is Monty Python and the Holy Grail (from 1975), an even more special kind of humor.
My website hoster seems to have a technical issues today, on Sunday. So I will finish the post quickly, have a great next week.
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"Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernica is certainly his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War."
A great artist with an interesting journey during his private and "business" life. Have a great Easter time.
Today is Good Friday a bank holiday in Gemany and a lot of other countries, even the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is closed. Means for me some days off, as next Monday is a bank holiday in Germany as well and then I have 3 more days holiday. Well deserved after two pretty busy weeks. The planning for the next 3 month project phase did go smoothly and we closed it with a Team Building session yesterday.
We had face-to-face sessions at 4 different locations in 3 different countries and the rest of the team did participate online. Not everybody lives close enough to a company location, to get their easily for a one day get-together. The team members who did come together at one location had a lot of fun and I am pretty sure this was not the last time to close a planning phase with a team event.
As I made some small marketing for my personal BLOG yesterday during the team event and my daughter is spreading the info about the existance of my BLOG with her friends lately, I am just using the opportunity to welcome some new readers today. As I am a strong believer of treating new and existing customers in the same way, also a warm welcome message to my one-time, many-time and every-time readers. Your support is very much appreciated every day!!
I did write my first BLOG post on 04-Jul-2016, some excerpts below:
Why now? After nearly 10 years working for my company I took the opportunity for a voluntary leave, as I needed a change and was not happy anymore with the current situation as IT Manager. I am in Garden Leave now, having suffcient time to look for new opportunities and to RethinkAndFocus. A Blog or Online
Diary looks like a good idea to share my thoughts regularly and to describe, what is happening during my current journey in a central place?
To be very clear at the end of this introduction. I am doing this for me and not for money. The links and references I am using are there to support my thoughts and arguments and not for any sponsoring or advertising purposes.
So in summary my personal journal with a lot of diverse, interesting and fun content, with details as far as I am searching for it. Looking for more? You can download all my BLOG posts since 2016 as eBOOKs from my Downloads page for FREE. You are welcome ...
The Teambuilding session yesterday had two focus points. A Personality Type overview for the whole team and to come up with an Elevator Pitch for our project. A lot of fun and time to leave the personal comfort zone. We used the 16Personalities test, great effort-outcome ratio, and a lot of details and supporting material are available. More personality test:
The 23 Best Personality Tests In Ranking Order (2023 Update)
14 Free Personality Tests That’ll Help You Figure Yourself Out
12 Free Personality Tests You Can Take Online Today
We had a 70+ % return rate in the team, could cover all 16 Personality Types in the team and were pretty in line with the country profiles. A great outcome and team spirit!!
DISAPPOINTMENT – NAVIGATING A DELIGHTFUL PAST
If you open a meeting with icebreakers, end with these wrap-up equivalents for better closure
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“Your real personality identity is not an option, it is the foundation for your happiness and health.” -- Diana Dentinger
Was the comment of Geraldine GAUTHIER in her post that used the iceberg picture and analogy. The whole picture with the topics above and below the water line are a great fit for the workshop that I did agree to host last Monday. It will be a 2-day offsite session end of Apr-23 with part of the senior management team. The 1st day is going to be very personal, about e.g. personal maps, values, motivation and team building. On the 2nd day we will be working on the upcoming transformation and what needs to happen until 2025 - focus areas will be customer, people, simplification and growth. I am just preparing the concept and content, a combination of reusing parts of my previous workshops and some new topics/ideas - copy and transfer - one of my beliefs.
"Manage the system, not the people" is the Agile Leadership guideline from Management 3.0 - check out more of their practices. Preparing the right environment to work and giving people the chance and a lot of different opportunities, to find their own way and to grow beyond expectations - that is what we are looking for in 2023.
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I have seen the video on LinkedIn today with the headline "See how Coaching can help you break your mental barriers". As the difference between Coaching and Mentoring is not easy to define and understand, here the try to explain it from the article referenced above.
"Whether this individual takes support from a coach or a mentor, depends on many things. If you need to discover the journey from Point A to Point B by exploring yourself, then you should choose a coach. Choose a mentor if you want instructions and lessons from previous experiences." I think the monkey behaves like a dog coach in the video as both discover the journey over the river, with the monkey in the lead. What do you think?
The coming week has just 4 working days, as next Friday is a bank holiday in Germany (Good Friday). The same with Easter Monday on 10-Apr-23. Until then four busy days left with the two new Interns arriving tomorrow and the next 3 month project phase starting with two days planning and the team building session and come-together on Thursday. Get ready to rumble ...
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The Finnish Secret to Happiness? Knowing When You Have Enough.
Simon Sinek's Golden Circle TED talk is one of my all time favorites. He is using three simple circles to explain a lot of interesting topics and connections. Always good to see again.
Changing one letter can mean a lot as in the Malcom X quote, the benefits of reading of books could be applied to Blogs as well, why not? And the Emojis for Engineers picture might be a little bit too harsh, but we understand humor and are able to change over time. I have "The project is finished" face very often.
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Be the change you want to see. Be a change agent and become a role model. "Large-scale change can only occur when massive numbers of people rally around a common opportunity. At an individual level, they must want to actively contribute. Collectively, they must be unified in the pursuit of achieving the goal together." from The 8 Steps for Leading Change by John Kotter
"It's very difficult to innovate without requiring people to do something different. And whenever you require people to do something different, you're talking about change." -- John P. Kotter, American - Educator Born: February 25, 1947
Everything is well prepared for the 2 planning days next week. We have enough content for three month work and our kick-off presentation is nearly finished. Only the homework for the Team Building session needs some more speed as the response rate is below 50% so far. In order to have a statistical relevant result my target is 75% or more. But as the participation is voluntary, too much pressure will not help. Regular daily reminders have to be the solution until next week Wednesday, we will see.
In the last two days I could agree to host two new workshops for April. The Motivation Driver workshop again for a whole department and a new workshop for 2 days off-site that will be discussed in more details on Monday. With my portfolio of workshop content I am ready to fill 2 days by reusing existing content in combination with some new ideas, depending on the requirements of my customer. More to come ...
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What is green steel and why does the world need more of it?
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Gartner: 4 Emerging Technologies You Need to Know About
Ecosystems for the rest of us
Thriving in the AI Revolution: Eight Essential Insights for Navigating the ChatGPT Era
Why smart siting of renewable energy is crucial for people and planet
Huge Group Calls for Temporary Pause on AI More Advanced Than GPT-4
Have a great and relaxing weekend.
Great achievement and a really sustainable approach taken by Fairphone. The operating system was updated for 7 years, the phone hardware is still supported and you can buy spare parts for the modular system. Really a role model.
Yesterday the Belgian team did win against the German soccer team for the 1st time after 69 years. A great success for Belgium and their team that is in a positive flow in the moment anyway. For the German team the already difficult situation is getting even worse. A lot to be done until the UEFA EURO 2024 starts in Germany on 14-Jun-2024.
Finally the visit of King Charles III in Germany today. I wanted to check, when the last British King did visit Germany, but was not really successful. His mother was just too long the Queen.
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As everything is more or less related to change it is an ongoing topic to write about.
Yesterday we had our System Demo to finish the current 3 month project phase. A really good overview of the work we have done, presenting our end-to-end solution in a combined demo of several teams. We are getting better in delivering the committed work and in improving our tools and way of working in parallel. Going forward it needs to be even more simple, standardized, fast and scalable.
A way to do this is to question/change the status quo, automate as much as possible and involve all required parties as early as possible. Especially the necessary change is causing some issues and areas of fear. People start to get concerned that we are sawing the branch that they are still sitting on. The 4 practices on the picture will be helping a lot going forward with this change.
The Germany wide strike yesterday was not leading to the expected chaos as a lot of people did adapt as needed. No public/private transport by plane, train and bus was not at all leading to the traffic jams that everybody was forecasting before. People stayed at home, thanks to the COVID-19 experiences from the last two years, or used the remaining transport systems besides their own cars - e.g. bikes, taxis or e-scooter. As every employee is responsible to come to the office in time, they had not a lot of choice. yesterday Hopefully the next negotiations between the unions and companies will lead to results shortly, we had enough strikes this year already.
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The Steal like an Artist video very well supports my personal belief that "Stealing with Pride" and "Copy and Transfer" is not just a minor proof of the laziness of engineers, but also an appreciation of the work of other people. Using their great work and idea as basis for reuse or a new development is a high level of valuation. Think about it.
Spending the 1hour and 6 minutes on the Leadership and Purpose video with Simon Sinek is really worth it. Yes you can do a lot in one hour, but this video is full of great ideas, story telling, real life examples and a basis for further learning and investigation. Great stuff!! Some related material to check out:
THE VISION OF FOUR SEASONS
Bob Chapman, CEO and Chairman at Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc
“Everyone wants to contribute. Trust them. Leaders are everywhere. Find them. Some people are on a mission. Celebrate them. Others wish things were different. Listen to them. Everybody matters. Show them.” – Bob Chapman
Had a busy last week and the coming week will be even more busy. We start with the System Demo tomorrow, the presentation of our project results from the last 10 weeks. A lot of good stuff to show to our stakeholders and as great motivation for the coming three month. Tuesday the workshop with the homework, the team is expected to come up with a slogan or logo for their project. Will be interesting to see, how the different personality types will handle this.
On Tuesday we will be starting with our Innovation, Knowledge Sharing and Learning phase, always happening in the last two weeks of a 3-month project phase, we call it IP-Sprint. For the rest of the week we will be preparing the next planning phase starting 04-Apr-23. Much to do ...
Grant Snider: The Two Types of Stories: Expanded Edition
Chat GPT-4: The AI-Powered Best Friend We've Always Dreamed Of?
20 Steps to Achieving Anything by Daryl Daughtry, Publisher
8 Top Tips to Boost Your Learning (Infograph)
“Management is about telling people what to do, and leadership is about allowing people to do what they’re capable of doing.” – Bob Chapman, taken from 25 Inspirational Business Process Improvement Quotes
"Earth Hour 2023 to rally more people than ever to join the Biggest Hour for Earth" on 25-Mar-2023 at 08.30 PM your local time.
After a two days break back to the blogging fun. Sometimes you just need to focus on something else to refresh your mind. A lot of good stories and links came up during this time, a small collection for you today.
During table tennis training yesterday I did play against a much younger team member, I assume the age difference was 40+ years? Experience and overview beats youth and speed. Exactly the same, what I experience when I play against our oldest player who is 80+. You can run as fast as you want when you are always too late and the other player takes advantage of your weak points. Something the younger player had to accept as well in the end after losing two sets and the game. Next time is a new chance ...
Yesterday I had a coffee break with three of our Interns. A really interesting come-together, one coming from Vietnam, from India and Zimbabwe. All students in Germany, even speaking German, respect. These kind of meetings are great for cultural awareness, we had an interesting discussion about Easter, what it is and how to celebrate it. Next month we have three new starters from Germany, France and Cameroon to extend the already very diverse community. Looking forward to it.
Do you remember your school times and how you handled making your homework? I am confident it has nothing to do with skills, but is mainly driven by your attitude!! For the next two workshops I did ask the participants to prepare a small homework, just doing a personality test, as we will use the results during the session. After several reminders there are still people who are not aware, their listening or reading skills need some updates, and the majority of the rest is just waiting until the last minute. You can still do it on the day of the workshop, in the bus or before the lesson like in school, you could make something up or just copy the result of a colleague? 10 - 40 years after they finished school and nothing really changed, must be attitude. With the result of their personality test they might understand better why? We will see next Tuesday.
Ten great illustrations on #personaldevelopment and #growth
7 WAYS TO MEET THE NEED TO FEEL SEEN, HEARD, AND UNDERSTOOD
Frank Sonnenberg: Terrible Role Models Make Great Teachers
Video: He's The Best Teacher Ever , Teacher of Life Lessons
The Top 4 Examples Of How ChatGPT Can Be Used In Telecom
3 WAYS TO BRING YOUR BEST SELF
How vertical farms could boost food production in India
How many steps a day do we really need to take? Here are the facts
Here's how to get older adults exercising
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (24-Mar-23)
"World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD), 21 March, is a global awareness day which has been officially observed by the United Nations since 2012. The date for WDSD being the 21st day of the 3rd month, was selected to signify the uniqueness of the triplication (trisomy) of the 21st chromosome which causes Down syndrome."
See two impressive lists of successful people:
10 Inspiring Famous People with Down Syndrome (2023)
10 Of The Most Successful People With Down Syndrome (2019)
"I always say I am Pablo Pineda and that I have Down’s syndrome. There is a big difference between 'having' and 'being.' 'Being' can crush you down and 'having' shows it is only one feature." – Pablo Pineda, the first European with DS to graduate with a university degree - taken from 21 Quotes from Extraordinary Individuals with Down Syndrome
Verbal to Visual video: The Map of Emotions
Jason Sudeikis and ‘Ted Lasso’ cast meet with Biden for mental health discussion
3 WAYS DOGS AND PEOPLE RISE
5 Reasons Why Most Attempts to Create a Coaching Culture Fail
3 strategies that can future-proof the global food system
"People with Down syndrome can do anything. They just do it at their own pace. Give them a chance, and you will be rewarded beyond your greatest expectations." -- Madeline Stuart, taken from Madeline Stuart Quotes
"The World Happiness Report research leverages six key factors to help explain variation in self-reported levels of happiness across the world: social support, income, health, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption. Governments are increasingly using this analysis to orient policies towards happiness.
Finland remains in the top position for the sixth year in a row. Lithuania is the only new country in the top twenty, up more than 30 places since 2017. War-torn Afghanistan and Lebanon remain the two unhappiest countries in the survey, with average life evaluations more than five points lower (on a scale running from 0 to 10) than in the ten happiest countries."
"The IPCC prepares comprehensive Assessment Reports about knowledge on climate change, its causes, potential impacts and response options. The IPCC also produces Special Reports, which are an assessment on a specific issue and Methodology Reports, which provide practical guidelines for the preparation of greenhouse gas inventories."
AR6 Synthesis Report - Climate Change 2023
Are you a micromanager? Or do you just work for one? 5 ways to tell
10 Bad Habits You Must Eliminate from Your Daily Routine
Everything you need to know about hydrogen in the clean energy transition
Achieving climate goals and renewable targets first requires solving the storage conundrum
For Meteorologist spring time started 01-Mar-23 according to the calendar it is tomorrow, the weather does already know and the temperatures go up. Time for gardening, we did start with first activities yesterday.
Just in case you are interested in all my BLOG posts from 2023 until 17-Mar-23 as PDF file in the moment, have a look on the Downloads page. The small eBOOK is available there.
Next week is kind of "the calm before the storm" week, a lot of preparation tasks for two workhops, our final system demo, 5 days innovation & training activities and the planning for our next 3 month project period. Hosting the workshops will be a lot of learning for the participants and fun for me, looking forward to it.
GPT-4 Is Here: Unleashing the Power of Multimodal AI and Redefining the Future of Communication
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (17-Mar-23)
How Africa’s new Free Trade Area will turbocharge the continent’s agriculture industry
Affordable childcare is possible — and access to it would benefit us all
5 months ago, I asked 70 LinkedIn creators: "What is the ONE book that most impacted your career?
Have a great next week ...
More details about Usain Bolt
After a discussion with my wife we came to the conclusion that a circle or several circles could be a good approach to explain and present content as well. We are not the first ones :-)
Some examples on the picture and as link below:
10+ Types of Diagrams and How to Choose the Right One
What is the DISC Model?
I like the Venn Diagram a lot, you just have to find the right text in the different fields to give it some content and value.
"There's this famous observation that I totally believe: Great startup ideas are the ones that lie in the intersection of the Venn diagram of 'is a good idea' and 'looks like a bad idea.' So you want most people to think it's a bad idea and thus not compete with you until you get giant. But for it to secretly be good." -- Sam Altman
Two years ago from today I was still on my old BLOG hosting website and the counter did show 500,000 overall readers. Just a small anniversary today. With my switch to the new hosting website and provider on 08-Dec-22 the counter was at 1,109,000. Since then there is no real counter anymore and I have to rely on their Website analytics information. The last month total visits number was 2,915. No idea how the old counter and the new way of counting visitors match? But as I have no possibility to influence it, why bother about the topic anymore?
According to the analytics I had 12,085 total visits since 08-Dec-22.
"You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three." -- Sam Altman, taken from 200 Sam Altman Quotes
There are many triangles used to explain topics and priority setting alternatives. Besides the Success one, there is also the Iron Triangle or sometimes called the Golden Triangle of Project Management for example.
Today we have seen a first review of our new technical solution architecture, the 2.0 version of our status quo. Two more weeks to see the 1st MVP. Everybody is looking towards it, as we are on a really good track. Our challenge will be to put the green dot in the right place on the square that I came up with today. Reliability will be key as well as quality, but the new solution has to be fast and simple as well. The faster the better, as we need to scale up the daily/weekly delivery pretty fast.
And, not so easy for developers during their process, in the end the solution has to be operated by another team with less expertise. So it should be simple to maintain and reliable to reduce the effort of the new team taking over the responsibility in the future. Some more discussion might be needed, to agree the priorities and properly place the dot. Will keep you posted.
LET GO – 4 REMEDIES FOR EXHAUSTED CONTROL FREAKS
A Simple Guide to The (New) ChatGPT API with Python
Tokyo wants to build a future-proof city. Here’s how
Between Minds: Thought Leader vs Do Leader Source: Mindset and JESS3
How CFOs further value creation by leading on sustainability
Actions the best CEOs are taking in 2023
Google search was launched 1997, 26 years ago so easy for a lot of parents to be older than Google. On the kids side age has a different perspective, all people above 20 are old when they are around 10+.
A new release of the Scale Agile Framework version 6.0 came out today. See What’s New in SAFe 6.0
Why skills development is vital for shipping’s green transition
Hiring in 2023: How Talent Leaders Are Navigating a Changing Market
Do You Want to Be Heard or Understood?
What is ‘dark data’ and how is it adding to all of our carbon footprints?
7 LIGHT-WEIGHT LEADERSHIP PRACTICES THAT DELIVER HEAVY-WEIGHT RESULTS
Investing in Automated Hyperintelligence or Hyperintelligent AI, or how to win the global AI race
Personal user manuals - The approach you never knew you needed
Decision-Making: The 10-10-10 Method
Source Youtube: Little Girl Leads Horse || ViralHog
This was the quote related to the video, found on LinkedIn today:
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” —John Maxwell
My immediate interpretation was - who has the line/leash has the say - and my wife's comment even better - now I do understand why your line managers want to stay in their role/positions :-)
In the next Team Building workshop after the Planning phase of our project, we will be closer looking into the Personality Types we have in our project and teams. I will be using the 16Personalities test that is also featured in My new business page. The test results are distributed in 4 different roles (Analysts, Diplomats, Sentinels and Explorers), each with 4 different types. We will just be counting the number of people per role and type, to keep their personal privacy. Even the participation in the test is voluntary, no pressure. On the picture some details and the known distribution by the countries represented in our project - Brazil, Germany, India and Portugal. Will be interesting to find out the details.
A great night with a lot of surprises and interesting stories. 4 Oscars for a German film, actress in leading and supporting role over age 60, and
Ke Huy Quan who did appear in an India Jones film as kid for the first time and did not play in any film for 20 years, wins the actor in a supporting role Oscar - respect and congratulations to all.
Jamie Lee Curtis wins her first Oscar
Green buildings can reduce city temperatures by up to 2°C, study shows
Dr. Travis Bradberry: 8 Great Tricks for Reading People’s Body Language
Say Goodbye to ChatGPT: Here Are New AI Tools That Will Blow Your Mind
A new week started ...
One more comic page today that offers a lot of good content and easy to understand visuals - Wisdom Made Easy. The picture today shows how far we are already into 2023, week 10 of 52. 19% of this year is already gone could be time for a 1st review.
Business wise we delivered a great milestone at the beginning of the year, I did already host three workshops, another reorganization is in progress and I did send an initial heads up for the 3rd D&A Meetup scheduled for 26-Sep-23. The earlier the better, to have everybody aligned and supporting.
In private life we e.g. have a new family member, the daughter of my nephew, some admin tasks have already been taken care of, had a great short holiday and the studies of my daughters are making good progress. Looking forward to the next 10 weeks.
Tomorrow we start with the Sprint-4 Demo and then get ready to finish the current 3-month project period, with closing the open tasks, preparing our innovation & training days and organizing the next planning cycle. As outcome of the last team building workshop we are preparing local come-together opportunities in India, Portugal and Germany. As we cannot be together in the same place this is the only alternative for now.
Asking questions is my strong advice to all Interns during their Onboarding, as on the picture the answers are sometimes a surprise.
EMOTIONS WHEEL FEELINGS WHEEL EMOTION CHART
The Best Examples of What You Can Do With ChatGPT
Have a great start into a productive and interesting week.
Source Youtube: Purl | Pixar SparkShorts
Reuse systems: in search of a vision for tackling plastic pollution
Charted: Global Energy Consumption by Source, and Carbon Emissions (1900-2021)
Algae-powered computing: Scientists create reliable and renewable biological photovoltaic cell
Where does Europe's electricity come from?
Beyond ChatGPT: 14 Mind-blowing AI Tools Everyone Should Be Trying Out Now
The Purl video is not only a good example to support the Women's Day this week, it goes for a lot of diversity topics. Being different is difficult and stressful, but there are many opportunities for change, as you will see. Be strong, authentic and look for support.
The popular surviving bonsai from Hiroshima is priceless, not only because of its age, but also because its branches and trunk were able to survive the brutal devastation caused by the nuclear bomb. It is a small tree, a Japanese white pine, approximately two feet high, with a stout trunk, short strong needles, green and yellow in color, planted in the year 1625.
The age of the tree is really unbelievable and that in a more or less artificial environment. Great work of the gardeners taking care of it.
Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts?
Five key findings from the 2022 UN Population Prospects
My next two workshops will be around Personality Tests and to prepare an Elevator Pitch based on a predefined template (WHO, WHY, WHAT, HOW). Knowing their personality types, the participants will be able to work on the template in their preferred style or to go outside of their comfort zone to try something new and show some courage. We will see, who is doing what? Stay tuned for more insights and results.
Have a great weekend.
In my list of helpful comic pages two days ago I did forget to mention The New Happy, see their Be You picture today. They are always offering great analogies between their pictures, mainly made out of dots and squares, and a supporting text. Get their newsletter ...
contrarian: a person who takes a contrary position or attitude
specifically : an investor who buys shares of stock when most others are selling and sells when others are buying
You need courage to do this, but it can be very beneficial in the end. It is the same in a discussion or meeting, when all participants have the same opinion, you can just talk about the weather :-), if not there can be a lot of fun and results in the end.
courage: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty
Yesterday and Today I have seen several articles about courage and still had the Be You picture in my backlog for future posts. Today I will combine it all:
Leaders, March Towards Courage
How to Get Started with Skills-Based Hiring
HOW TO CLARIFY AND SHARE YOUR ASPIRATIONS FOR THE WAY PEOPLE TREAT EACH OTHER AT WORK
Do you have the courage of your convictions?
It Can Be Lonely to Stand Up for What’s Right
The Ultimate Guide to Workplace Flexibility
Here a quick list of comic pages that I am using regularly to look at:
Comic Agilé by Luxshan Ratnaravi & Mikkel Noe-Nygaard
Give it a try and have some fun ...
"When you talk to people smarter than you, it enhances your intelligence. I do things with people I like who are smart. It's not complicated." -- from How Shaquille O'Neal Made Himself Bigger Than Ever--as a Founder and Investor
These are some of the surprising benefits of a four day working week
Mapped: Asia’s Biggest Sources of Electricity by Country
Space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock honoured with her own Barbie doll
Fairphone 2 gets its final software update, seven years after original release
Women in business, with Danuta Gray
3 ESSENTIAL CULTURE RULES ALL LEADERS MUST APPLY
pwc - Risk: See it, share it, sort it
When you read the Scrum Guide or any other helpful documentation around the AGILE topic, you will easily get the theory clear, but what does this mean in your daily work?
People take a training to hopefully understand e.g. Scrum and their role in this framework. All bring their personality, attitude, experience and expertise from past projects and assignments. With this backpack of capabilities they start their new agile role. And when they are willing to follow the Cycle of Growth to Unlearn - Relearn - Change (see picture), all should be fine, but this is not the reality.
Different kind of personalities with different previous roles, now in new agile roles are working together as good as possible, but never perfect and by the books or guides out there. Ongoing training, re-training and awareness sessions could help to improve, but these are not the standards. And the involved individuals have to be willing to change from their old roles to new ones, what is not always successful.
And I did not even talk about the line management that decides who is taking which role and what to do in it. As long as we are working in hybrid environments - established organizations in an agile transformation that is not finished yet - roles and responsibilities are not 100% clear and subject to interpretation, what is causing issues. Sometimes more sometimes less.
“…the agile movement in software is part of a larger movement towards more humane and dynamic workplaces in the 21st century.” -- Rowan Bunning from 10 Quotes Related to the Agile Methodology To Get You Inspired
Which countries have the most gender-equal parliaments?
How to Revamp Your Company’s Meeting Culture
13 Things Science Says Will Make You Much Happier
20 Free Newsletters That Will Drastically Improve Your Life
The workshop had been delivered on Tuesday and the summary from all departments last Friday was promising. Now we just have to make an improvement plan and deliver it quickly. Any further change will help.
Another workshop is already planned, I will host the Motivation Driver workshop again for a whole department. To combine some learning and teambuilding.
In the coming week the portfolio management team will decide about priorities and focus topics for the next three month project period that will start after Easter on 11-Apr-23. Still a lot to be prepared, a good story line for the teams about the coming objectives, helping them to finish the current 3 month period and getting ready for the next one. We start tomorrow.
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (03-Mar-23)
GPT-4 Is Coming – What We Know So Far
Ocean treaty: Historic agreement reached after decade of talks
9 Questions That Should Be in Every Employee Engagement Survey
The promise and challenges of sustainable travel products
International Women's Day 08-Mar-2023
You should never underestimate the power of words and speaking the same language with your customers. Assuming you are offering agile services and your customer is a beginner in this environment?
Then you have two issues:
Strip down your agile language to the customer level and find a good match between the customers's and your vocabulary. Give it a try ...
Grant Snider Comics: Overwhelmed
Gary Straughan video: Can You Really STOP Estimating? + FREE Cheat Sheet
THE POWER OF VALUES-BASED DECISIONS
4 TOOLS TO KEEP MEETINGS ON TRACK
LinkedIn 2023 Most In-Demand Skills: Learn the skills companies need most
When I write a new BLOG post, I copy the old one and adjust the date first, to keep the overall format and page layout in sync. I just realized that my last post had 29-Feb-23 as date, it is now 01-Mar-23 :-) Next check is always the Mobile Phone formatting, text with date goes before the 1st picture!!
I did add a new link on my Interesting Links page - What is Tall Poppy Syndrome? - interesting Infographic and read.
The six Ms of strategy on the picture do fit to other areas as well. For example people applying for a new job in a new company:
Not so far away I would say.
The consolidation of the customer loyalty workshop results today did show a lot of commonalities in the different departments:
Finally yesterday we had the Customer Loyalty workshop that was mandatory for all departments. The public transport strike had minor impact and as I had the data/opinion collection parts prepared for a hybrid setup, we could easily support two team members on the phone. In the end even the people in the room did use the online data collection possibilities, much easier for me to consolidate the results and less paper handling and waste.
We collected, what people SAY, THINK and FEEL about our company. In two rounds we shared our personal opinion and what we hear from friends and social media. A good collection of information and due to different sources from 13 participants, pretty accurate I would say.
Next step will be a consolidation from all department workshops for our CFO. Hopefully the results will be used to initiate a customer centricity initiative and mindset, there is definitely room for improvement. As the idea of my adjusted workshop was to combine the required data collection with a learning experience, the Empathy test was very much appreciated. Some people were surprised about the questions and even more about their result.
In alignment with the Customer Loyalty workshop I started to read a new book that came out the first time in 1993, 30 years ago.
The German title is "Das Einzige, was stört, ist der Kunde: Clienting ersetzt Marketing" An interesting journey back in time, a lot of stuff is pretty new (back in 1993), some stuff is really visionary, and surprise, surprise still valid in 2023. What did we do in the last 30 years, not really focusing on customers I would say. And especially Germany is not famous for customer service and orientation --> The only thing that bothers is the customer ...
In 1993 there was no Google search, Social Media and iPhone yet, crazy times.
Watch The Incredible 70-Year Evolution Of The Cell Phone
From the garage to the Googleplex
The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin, and Where Could It Go Next?
4 WAYS TO PROCRASTINATE SUCCESSFULLY
Taken from ntv article today: "More than half of the data traffic in Germany takes place on websites of five companies. For years, mobile communications companies have been demanding that Internet giants such as Google, Netflix and Meta share the costs - and they're getting a hearing in the political arena.
Mobile providers are calling more forcefully for large online services to pay for the use of their networks. Every day, 55 percent of data traffic is generated by just five companies, said the head of telecoms group Orange, Christel Heydemann. This costs European telecommunications companies around 15 billion euros a year, she said." Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
A really big number and the mobile providers want a fair share of it. Not really a surprise and a smart way to increase revenue. But you better do not underestimate the reaction of the big five companies. They might be faster to find alternatives for their traffic than the service providers get their share of the costs via politics or in court? More to come ...
I have a new sub-page since today, see Interesting Links for details.
It took some time to find the right source of the picture, but in the end I came to - Amazing Sculptures Show People Carving Their Ideal Figures Into Their Own Bodies - and even selected another picture of the ones available. For me it has nothing to do with body shaming or e.g. curvy models versus six packs, it is just a great analogy for the potential that everybody has below the surface, you just have to develop and grow it.
With the right attitude and skills you can do everything, if you have a certificate proofing it or not. I did get some feedback about my 22-Feb-23 post about certificates. I am not at all questioning people having a certificate that finally proves longtime experience or well developed expertise. As I always say "Other people need to see you as their role model, then you deserve this title. You cannot just take it on your own!!" Same with certificates, what you are doing should be fitting with the idea of the certificate and you should be filling the related role. The more the better.
I am getting concerned, when people are not covering the full scope of work and responsibility behind their certificate, or when the certificate does not at all fit to their personality type (find a lot of different personality tests on My new business page). For example not everybody should be or could be a good Agile Coach. With a low Empathy level or more interest in facts & figures than people, you better go for a Mentoring and not a Coaching assignment. My 2 cents ...
Most agile coaches should be called agile mentors, but this is a different story :-)
My planned Customer Loyalty workshop on Tuesday will be influenced by the strike in Duesseldorf, either via public transport restrictions or the airport that is impacted as well. We will see in 2 days.
Some changes were required to be compliant with the SEO guidelines on my BLOG platform. I did update the My new business and Beratung & Coaching pages. New URL, some clean-up and adjustments on both sites. Besides that I had to search for a broken link, it took some time to find it in the 12-Dec-22 post. Now all is fine until further notice.
I am doing my BLOG for fun and interested readers and not for money or top SEO rankings, so I do not have to be perfect. And the hosting platform is it not either, as all posts since 08-Dec-22 are part of one long text now and there are no unique URLs per post anymore. Exactly the explanation that I gave to an interested marketing guy today, who wanted to place some articles or links on my BLOG for small money. We will see, if he is still fine after my explanation and how this opportunity will go on?
Next Tuesday I will have the Customer Loyalty workshop at our location with 16 team members. Should be fine as all is prepared right now. Only issues is another strike of the public transport system in Duesseldorf. The union wants to put a lot of pressure on the next negotiation round with the employers. We will see how many more rounds and strikes are required to come to a final agreement?
Ranked: Biotoxins in Nature, by Lethal Dose
5 SIMPLE WAYS TO PRACTICE BEING PRESENT EVEN BUSY LEADERS CAN TRY
What does it mean for a species to be at risk of extinction?
Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are
4 WAYS TO DO LESS AND GET MORE DONE TODAY
5 Simple Habits That Will Make You a More Successful Talent Leader
A busy day after one week holiday today. Some activities needed to be initiated for the coming days and people waited for some feedback and reaction from my side. All covered, so I can go on holiday in the future again :-)
Last week we had an internal SAFe training for some of our Product Owners, hosted by an internal trainer. Every participant gets the opportunity to do a certification at the end. You have to pass 80% of the exam questions to get the certificate that is valid for one year and needs to be renewed then.
The process makes sense for our trainers - Certified SAFe® Program Consultants (SPC) - as they need to host a number of trainings during a year to keep their certification. For people taking the training I have a different perspective.
In the worst case you just have to answer 80% of the questions correctly and get the certificate for one year. After one year you renew and get the certificate again and so on. It only proves you could answer the questions when required, but does not say anything about your experience working on the job.
In the best case you can easily answer the questions based on your day-to-day experience working in agile environments and renew the certificate as this is the process defined by Scaled Agile.
The challenge is on the employer side, when they try to select experts based on the certificates they provided and have no real process in place, to verify the expertise that is required behind the agile roles they are searching for. It is easy to write something in a CV, but much more difficult to properly check it by employers. Having people already with the expertise you are looking for might be helpful to check new joiners or let the team decide, we are in an agile world. So proven expertise and experience beats certificates, no surprise.
Mapped: Unemployment Forecasts, by Country in 2023
Here’s Why Forcing Workers Back to the Office Is a Bad Idea
Here's how documenting your eating habits can promote healthy eating
12+ Free Resources to Get Started in People Analytics
The procession in Cologne had the 200th anniversary and JACQUES TILLY could show his 2023 motto wagons again after a two year break, due to COVID-19 and the Ukraine war start last year.
On the picture the Railway Station in Zandvoort, a city at the beach with a lot of history and the Formula 1 circuit as mentioned yesterday.
A combination of different buildings and holiday region styles together in one location, not really my style, but it seems to be really attractive for tourists and visitors of the Formula 1 race, once per year.
Tomorrow we go home, to have one more day off before I go back to work on Wednesday.
Have a great and surprising week.
Ranked: America’s Best Places to Work in 2023
Will ChatGPT Put Data Analysts Out of Work?
As more electric vehicles hit the road, our charging habits must change - here’s why
Everything you need to know about hydrogen in the clean energy transition
Cities aren't designed for women. Here's what's needed next
The picture is called - De Tuin (The Garden), 1893 by JACOBUS VAN LOOY. He is one of several painters on the list of famous people who were born in Haarlem, the city close to our holiday location. More details in the following article, just in case you need more details - 4 Surprising Facts About Haarlem in the Dutch Golden Age.
Today we made a nice walk at the beach and even the sun came out, but it was still windy and not really warm. Nothing to be concerned about with the right clothes and shoes.
Windy, low temperatures and cold water, I could feel it through my
rubber boots, but perfect conditions for Kite Surfers, we have seen a lot of them. Really a high-speed sport and a good fit to the Circuit Zandvoort - HOME OF THE FORMULA 1 HEINEKEN DUTCH GRAND PRIX - that is close by.
The Excel sheet overview is taken from the Website statistics provided by my Blog hosting company today. In total 9,203 visitors since 08-Dec-22, the start date on the new platform. Visitors are coming from 90 different countries, really interesting distribution around the globe.
Which Countries Pollute the Most Ocean Plastic Waste?
Visualizing Mismanaged Plastic Waste by Country
"When we break our routine, we break free from our limitations." - Michael Pedersen
Video: This origami-inspired helmet can fold flat to fit in your handbag
Why older talent should be a consideration for today’s inclusive leader
This new 'levitating' Chinese train will be the fastest in the world
Leadership Skills 2023 Report
Certification: It makes money, but does it make sense?
We did visit Haarlem today, another nice town in the Netherlands.
"Haarlem with its many historic buildings and beautiful old squares lies near the beach on the banks of the Spaarne river. It is wonderful to stroll through the narrow streets lined by the monumental buildings built by master Lieven de Key. Visit extraordinary museums, such as the Frans Hals or Teylers Museum, and explore its countless cafés and restaurants. Haarlem is called the most Flemish city of the north with reason!"
One of the famous people born in Haarlem is Guido van Rossum, a noted Dutch computer programmer and author, better known for creating the ‘Python’ programming language that earned him the title of the "Benevolent Dictator for Life" (BDFL).
"Python is an experiment in how much freedom programmers need. Too much freedom and nobody can read another's code; too little and expressiveness is endangered." -- Guido van Rossum
Thanks a lot to Markus for sharing the ALAAF picture from Cologne today.
After more than 2 years with COVID-19 everything is back to normal again, even the bad weather. It was supposed to be raining close to the official start at 11.11 AM. We left 12.00 PM to our short holiday at the Neatherland coast and the weather did go with us, as you can see on the picture I have taken from the living room.
But as the experts say "there is no bad weather, just unsuitable clothing" and we are prepared.
Yesterday we have been to the cinema again, this time the new MARVEL film - ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA - interesting to see and a new start for a lot of other Marvel films in the future. With a new bad guy - Kang the Conqueror. Most obvious was that Marvel and Star Wars both belong to Walt Disney for a longer period of time already.
We have seen some reuse of scenes between the film studios, just a minor adjustment of colors and brightness, saves a lot of time and money.
How a plastic-eating enzyme could inspire a truly circular economy
What leaders get wrong about responsibility
Workplace Learning Report 2023: Building the Agile Future
The Most In-Demand Skills for 2023
Quote taken from - 100 Kindness Quotes By Famous People. Some good ideas on the poster, maybe you can try some out? I like for example - SMILE, ASSUME THE BEST IN EVERYONE and PICK UP LITTER. Works fine and gets noticed by other people as well.
Tomorrow is my first day holiday, I am off until next week Tuesday. The project will be fine without me - when the cat is out the mice are dancing on the table, for sure.
Ranked: America’s Best Places to Work in 2023
ChatGPT is absolutely remarkable. But try these 8 free AI tools to save 100+ hours of work
‘Just Say No’ to These 4 Interview Formats
The final result was 38 : 35 and only small mistakes, or the fear of making mistakes, decided the game. The experience of previous Superbowls and the confidence to win helped Mahomes to make it in the end. Well done and congratulations.
As discussion about ART does not make any sense, you have to come to your own conclusion about the Halftime Show with Rihanna. I preferred the game over the show, other people did see it the other way round. Probably depends on your year of birth?
International Day of Women and Girls in Science
8 Habits of Incredibly Interesting People
The Real Reasons For Big Tech Layoffs At Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon
Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone to form ad tech joint venture
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” – Vince Lombardi, did give his name to the Superbowl Trophy
Due to the hot phase of the carnival season that is starting next week Thursday and as I had to take my remaining 2022 holidays before end of Mar-23, I will be on holiday starting Wednesday. Tomorrow we will have the first Sprint Demo of the current three month period and Tuesday I am at the Campus again to say good bye to two other Interns.
This year is the 200th anniversary of the Cologne Carnival parade, a really long time that this all started.
Another anniversary has Levi Strauss & Co. - Celebrating 150 Years of the Iconic Levi’s® 501® Fit. - "We've been innovating to meet people's needs since 1853. We invented the first blue jean, and we reinvented khaki pants. Our brands are among the most celebrated names in apparel."
Today we are celebrating the 57th Superbowl, will be interesting to see, who will be winning in the end? - Only seven Black men have ever played starting quarterback in a Super Bowl. That number includes Mahomes. Hurts will become the eighth. - Super Bowl match-up between Black QBs doesn’t obscure the NFL’s racism.
Interested in a comparison of Mahomes and Hurts, see Comparing starting QBs in Super Bowl 2023.
“The best thing about it is you’re showing kids that no matter where you grow up, what race you are, that you can achieve your dream.” -- Patrick Mahomes
“With the opportunity I have, I just wanna share some light, and show these kids that you don’t have to choose the wrong way. You can do anything you put your mind to.” – Jalen Hurts
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (10-Feb-23)
Meet the ‘Oldfluencers’ – Canadian baby boomers putting a new face on aging
*THE BRAIN OF AN ELDERLY PERSON.*
What are the top 5 things people want from work? New report
All In On AI: How Smart Companies Win Big With Artificial Intelligence
On the picture you can see, what the Dream AI generated based on the words in the headline.
Brothers due to the Kelce family, one brother is playing for the Kansas City Chiefs the other one for the Philadelphia Eagles. And the mother is supporting both.
The women navy pilots due to a historical flyover at the Superbowl 2023 with an All-Women Team. "The Navy says the flyover will honor "50 years of women flying" for the maritime service branch, which began teaching women to fly in 1973."
The Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) of my webpage is making progress and the score is 77% in the meantime, I started at 28%. Interesting to see, how this environment works and what brings the score up.
Looking at the website statistics I do not realize a difference yet, since 08-Dec-22 the start date on the new hosting platform 8,497 visits have been counted. No idea, what this would have been on the counter of the old platform, but it does not make sense to worry about this anymore. This is history ...
Why Elon Musk Does Not Follow Agile
What Is Leadership? 10 Ways To Define It
What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team
30+ Killer AI Tools That Are So Valuable That They Feel Illegal To Know — No BS
What is generative AI? An AI explains
I am already looking forward to Sunday, beer is cold and some sweets are waiting for two weeks now. A special Superbowl edition. What other people are eating, check this out:
Super Bowl Food By The Numbers and some Commercials
Video: Super Bowl Commercials Teasers Compilation 2023 All Big Game Ads Teasers (8:29 minutes)
I had an interesting day today at the Campus in Duesseldorf. Public transport was on strike for 48 hours, to get a salary increase above the inflation rate. So no underground and buses working from the Duesseldorf service provider. Luckily I could use a regional train and then a bus run by an outside Duesseldorf provider, to get close to the Campus. Just 10 minutes walking instead of 60 minutes.
Besides taking care of two Interns who had their last day today, I had a System Demo in the morning and a Brownbag session after lunch. Both meetings with customers and a feedback cycle at the end of the session. I normally ask two questions: To rate the meeting between 1 (low) and 5 (high) and then an open question, how to improve for the future.
In the afternoon Brownbag session we presented a less technical and more business language like overview of the proof of concept we delivered early Jan-23. We had 160 people in the audience, what was much more than expected and the presenter from our team did a really great job in telling our story. The feedback was great and a good result for the effort we spend.
A small number was still complaining about the approach we have taken, but you cannot make 160 people happy at the same time. So a good starting point with the potential to further grow/improve in the future. We have all, what is needed.
Have a great weekend ...
AI timelines: What do experts in artificial intelligence expect for the future?
International LEGO® Day 2023 - 28-Jan-23
Here's why ChatGPT raises issues of trust
Four Categories of Customer
Data Privacy - 5 Best Practices Everyone Should Be Following
Upskilling for the Age of Workplace Flexibility
7 RELATIONSHIP BUILDING RULES FOR RESULTS-DRIVEN LEADERS
Cambridge Dictionary: HAPPY = feeling, showing, or causing pleasure or satisfaction
I started to do regular satisfaction checks in my project in last December. The latest survey was initiated yesterday with two questions:
After one day recognition is the top voted point, perfect match to the outcome of our last Team Building session around motivation drivers, where recognition was the top vote as well. But there are some more days to go, so we will see.
In parallel the whole project team is voting for the Top 3 Role Models of 2023 so far and the winners will get a certificate as 1st recognition. One step in the right direction.
"In behavioral economic terms, when we offer recognition we are acknowledging that the recipients have met a social ideal. They are behaving in a certain manner because they believe is the right thing to do. If we then recognize that behavior with praise or appreciation, we offer a confirmation that their behavior is desirable, and do so in a manner that recipients find meaningful." -- Cindy Ventrice, taken from
Top 102 Employee Recognition Quotes To Celebrate Their Endeavours
Using analytics for smarter sourcing and hiring decisions
8 things you need to know about AI this month
A neuroscientist shares the 4 ‘highly coveted’ skills that set introverts apart: ‘Their brains work differently’
How Lil Nas X’s Performance Coach Develops Talent
43 Best Resume Tips for Landing a Job in 2023
ChatGPT Passes Google Coding Interview for Level 3 Engineer With $183K Salary
These are the technology trends that will shape our lives in 2023
Here's why we need to get more women in transport and logistics
When you compare the FORTUNE 2023 list with the Tech Layoffs since 2020, you will see a lot of same names (e.g. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet/Google and Salesforce), but why?
"The biggest tech companies may be facing relatively tough times, but the 25th edition of the Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies All-Stars list suggests that the giants’ peers respect them as much as ever. For the 16th consecutive year, Apple finishes first in our annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a poll of some 3,700 corporate executives, directors, and analysts. Amazon and Microsoft tied for second."
People deciding about layoffs or analysts estimating the impact of these decisions at the stock market might have a different opinion/perspective than the employees, who have to look for a new job shortly, for sure. The further growing "War for Talent" will help them to find alternatives quickly, and with the large number of Baby Boomers retiring in the coming month and years, even better.
"Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense." -- Winston Churchill at Harrow School, 1941
The reference to Churchill was on the last page in the HOW THE MIGHTY FALL book that I finished today, just to explain :-)
What Is Weisbord’s Six Box Model? Weisbord’s Six Box Model In A Nutshell
Google’s new Bard AI may be powerful enough to make ChatGPT worry — and it’s already here
Baidu to finish testing ChatGPT-style project 'Ernie Bot' in March; shares rally
How One Healthcare System is Addressing a Talent Shortage
Who’s Who in Future of Work? Top 50 Influencers to Follow
Accelerating reuse models to achieve a world free of plastic waste
I know the new #1 on the Artists of all Time list, but the 2nd to 6th places are really surprising. I do not even know some of the names, mostly Classic and Country music artists.
We had an interesting discussion today about the planning cycles in our project. Every year is roughly divided into four 3 month long increments and we use an ongoing calendar over several years. For all team members to better plan their holiday periods.
The next planning will be between 04- and 06-Apr-23, one day before Good Friday and in the first week of the Easter school holidays in our part of Germany. We talked about three possible scenarios - stay with the initial plan, do it one week earlier or minimum one week later, to avoid a conflict with the holiday period. After a quick check with the Product Owners and Scrum Masters we realized that a lot of the team members did make their holiday planning, keeping the long known planning dates in mind, well done!!
In order to appreciate the smart guys we will make no changes to the planning dates. The rest either does not care or is not aware yet, so why bother? Keeping it simple ...
"Once you see the outcomes and the results, and you see how many people are helped and benefitting, you want to keep on doing it because it's so simple." -- Dolores Huerta, taken from Quote Master
We Asked, They Answered: What Women Leaders Really Want at Work
8 Things Smart People Never Reveal About Themselves At Work
How Electronic Arts Improved Diversity With Something That Looked Like Bureaucracy, But Wasn’t
A good variety of topics this week. And I could activate the search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities on my BLOG hosting platform for free. Will be interesting to see if it will have any impact on the number of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly readers that are shown on the website statistics page?
One downside of the new hosting platform is that the Blog posts are part of an ongoing text. You cannot address one single post with a unique URL and when you want to make a print-out, all text since 08-Dec-22 will be on paper. My mother was complaining about this today, as her weekly print-out was a little bit longer than normal.
It has also some impact on my eBOOK design, currently I try to print two pages of text on one A3 page on the new platform. Maybe I find a better approach over time?
Have a great, surprising and productive week, I will do my best:
The 6 Most Important Tech TrendPredictions For 2023
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (03-Feb-23)
IMPACT AND LIFE PURPOSE WITH IKIGAI
Food waste 101: The facts and solutions
TED: The incredible cancer-detecting potential of photoacoustic imaging
"In Japanese culture, there’s a belief that only imperfect objects, like a cracked teacup, can truly be beautiful. This is called wabi-sabi. Try to let go of the quest for perfection, and instead accept the beauty that lies in all of life’s imperfections. The result will be extra energy, less stress and a longer life." -- Blinkist, taken from 35 Ikigai Quotes That Will Inspire You and Make You Reflect
Three days back Tom Brady decided to retire from football for the second time. I wanted to wait a little bit, just in case he changes his mind again :-) Not yet, what is understandable, as the Greatest of All Times will now become the best paid NFL analyst on TV. I think he will be able to manage this, we will see ...
Last Sunday we did spontaneously go to our local cinema, to see the newest The Three Investigators film. The book series did initially start 1964 in the USA, but is much more successful in Germany for example. Here we call it the three questionmarks - ???. The two youngest kids are 19 and 22 in the meantime, but there is still this fascination for the story and so we took the chance and saw the film. Funny side effect, the kids only had to pay the kids price in the cinema. And we have not been the only parents with kids, but all others were possibly 10+ years younger than ours.
Have a relaxing weekend.
This writer analyzed 100 graduation speeches — here are the 4 tips they all share
3 ways cities can promote new, greener mobility services
Performance through people: Transforming human capital into competitive advantage
The concept of the customer loyalty workshop was approved yesterday. We double the initially proposed one hour by HR to two hours, try to make it more personal and combine a learning experience with a team brainstorming session. In the end we will be using a Circle of Control to get clarity about our situation and possibilities.
In the mindset of Lifelong Learning it is always good to learn something new, leave your comfort zone or get/take another perspective once in a while.
Today was a great day as we did restart bi-weekly Brown Bag sessions in our project environment. One answer to the outcome of our last Team Building session around MOTIVATION drivers that asked for more Recognition and Learning opportunities. With the session today we offered learning around Python Coding Standards for the team and a recognition for the presenter in front of a larger audience. When we can come to a higher level of common understanding about standards and priorities, we could improve the quality of our software code over time. Exactly, what we need.
3 WAYS TO FIND ENJOYMENT TODAY
PRESENCE: 12 SIGNS YOU AREN’T HERE
Video: 3,200-Megapixel Camera Is Nearly Ready
5 Big Ideas for Building Great Cultures
Aristotle on Storytelling in User Experience
No Bad Ideas or Silly Questions: How to Facilitate a Truly Inclusive Culture
Creating slides with MARP
"What motivates people to choose you, to choose your products over the hundreds of alternatives? What makes your company, and your products, better than the rest? The answer: your value proposition."
What works for companies can also work for employees, as you can see on the picture today. Just copy & transfer a little bit.
"At the end of the day, the true value proposition of education is employment." — Sebastian Thrun, taken from 27 famous quotes about Value Proposition
Infographic: Generative AI Explained by AI
Tony Robbins | The #1 Thing I’d Teach My Kids Today
EFFICIENCY: ONE SIMPLE PLAN TO LOSE LESS MONEY
How to Do 4 Hours of the Best Work of Your Life (Without Cheap Hacks)
The Top 6 Reasons Digital Transformation Fails
Six reasons successful leaders love questions
You can say a lot about Steve Jobs as a person, but he was great in selling products. 9 hints how to improve on the picture.
I finished my first cycle of preparation for the Customer Loyalty workshop at the end of Feb-23 today. I did add feedback cycles using Mentimeter and even the possibility for a hybrid workshop setup, just in case not all team members can make it to the Campus to come together in the same room. Now I am waiting for comments from selected colleagues to further improve the concept.
What People Want from Work in 2023 – The Leadership That Works Newsletter
Google created an AI that can generate music from text descriptions, but won’t release it
A watermark for chatbots can expose text written by an AI
Companies that change the game can change the world
Attributes of a Powerful Question
Luckily the Website analytics is working again, currently the counter is at 7,474 total visits since 08-Dec-22, according to the One.com approach:
"There are two ways of obtaining data to do web analytics; from the access log files or from page tagging with Javascript in the browser. Our statistics tool gets its data from the access logs. The advantage with using log files to collect data is, that you don't need to add any code to your pages and that all your pages are automatically analyzed."
As you might remember I am currently reading the HOW THE MIGHTY FALL by Jim Collins book (please scroll back to 28-Dec-22 for details). I am half way done and came across the name Carly Fiorina last week. Fun fact is that I know her from 24+ years back, when I was working in the IT management team of Lucent Technologies. During an IT Summit in New Jersey she was giving a key note speech in her role as Chief Marketing Officer. Really impressive personality.
I also mentioned her in my [11-Feb-21] Blog post, see 2021 eBOOK page 350 for further details.
In the Jim Collins book she is mentioned in her role as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Hewlett-Packard Company (1999 - 2005). In 2016 Carly did even join the Presidential Race. What was not really well received with her activities and "accomplishments" before. A lot can happen in 18 years, to be judged by better experts than me.
11 Habits of Supremely Happy People
Boston Dynamics SHOCKING NEW Atlas AI Robot Automation Technology + 3D Modeling GeoCode AI
Gerd Leonhard #Futurist #humanistic analysis and review of #chatgpt and #generativeai gerdtalks13
U.S. Employee Engagement Needs a Rebound in 2023
“Being young is a state of mind, it doesn’t depend on one’s body.”
Elon Musks Idea Of Colonizing Mars Is Crazy, But Would Be A Massive Step For Humanity – Russian Cosmonaut
Today is the 4th anniversary of passing the 100,000 overall reader milestone back on 29-Jan-2019. A lot happened since then when I passed the 6-digit counter for the 1st time. Last year I reached the 1,000,000 milestone on 01-Sep-2022, the first 7-digit number. Due to my Blog hosting company change the counter is not available anymore and the Website analytics is still a little bit foggy and not really easy to understand for me. Just today the analytics numbers from yesterday are gone and a very small number is left. Hopefully only a mistake that can be fixed shortly? We will see next week.
The other picture was provided by Stefan Wolpers in his weekly newsletter. Here some more of the articles he shared:
Finding Adequate Metrics for Outer, Inner, and Process Quality in Software Development
Building Products With AI
In the coming week I will be three times at our company Campus. Monday one Intern is leaving, on Wednesday another one is starting and Thursday for a face-2-face meeting with my boss. Always good to use this opportunity. And early Feb-23 all COVID-19 restrictions at the work place will be finally gone and we are back to "normal".
Have a great, interesting, surprising and productive week. Here some supporting material:
Quiz: Are you an extrovert, introvert or ambivert?
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (27-Jan-23)
The Increasingly Important Role of AI in Customer Experience
Back in 2021 I did already write in my BLOG about this topic and made a difference between spending 20 and 10,000 hours to get familiar with any subject.
Short thought jump: Due to the change of my Blog hosting company on 08-Dec-22 a lot of capabilities and functionality did become better, but some nice features are not available anymore. Since then I cannot easily reference any Blog post via an unique URL anymore, as it is just one single address https://www.rethinkandfocus.com/ now with a continuous text. It all has pros and cons and after any change the guarantee is only that it gets differently and not better in all cases.
So my workaround solution for now is to reference:
I know this is not perfect, but better than nothing ...
Jumping back: So why am I in a position to host a workshop about e.g. Motivation, Customer Loyalty or Team Building? Because I am interested in the topics and did spend sufficient time - definitely not 10,000 hours, but between 5 and 10 maybe - to come into the 10% knowledge position. And finally you need to have some interest in people and like to share information, knowledge and your experience, for them to grow and for yourself to have some fun and to learn better. A Win-Win situation.
And the more workshops you host the better you become in time management and delivering the content in a fun and understandable way. You can rely on your portfolio of good ideas, icebreakers, content bits and transfer pages to prepare new subjects quickly - Steal with Pride - Copy & Transfer your own ideas. Looking forward to the next workshops ...
The $16 Trillion European Union Economy
FUTURE CANDY Tech Trends 2023 (only in German)
A…loch-freie Zonen (only in German)
Pollinator populations are falling, here's what that means for our health and economies
Harpoons, robots and lasers: how to capture space junk and bring it back to Earth
3 ways to reduce gender inequality in the workplace post COVID-19
"The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate." -- by Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker
Thanks to Eric Hofmann for sharing the Charlie Chaplin picture with the following story. Here the translated version:
"Charlie Chaplin told the audience a wonderful joke and everyone started laughing. Charlie repeated the same joke and few people laughed. He repeated the same joke again, but this time no one laughed. Then he said these beautiful lines: "If you can't laugh at the same joke over and over again, why do you keep crying over the same worry?""
The first review of the planned Customer Loyalty workshop did go well yesterday. We scheduled it for end of Feb-23 now and try to get as much as possible team members together at our location. Some fine-tuning is still required and I need to get all material that I plan to use also in English language, for our none German speaking team members.
My MOTIVATION workshop for the project team last Monday was very well received and I did get good feedback afterwards. I was asked to give it again for a larger team in the near future. Mouth to mouth recommendation is the best way to grow.
You’ve heard of interior design and graphic design – but what about protein design?
Liquid Metal Robot : A Real Life Terminator
5 ways that ChatGPT could transform Microsoft Office
India's Solar Canals. Lateral thinking at its finest!
Explained: What is ChatGPT?
40 Nonfiction Books to Watch Out for in 2023
5 PROVERBS FOR PEOPLE WITH BIG DREAMS
Employee well-being: The holistic way
Averting an energy crisis requires bold investment in renewable energy — particularly in developing economies
Dennis Hong is a professor and the Founding Director of RoMeLa (Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory) at UCLA. His research focuses on robot locomotion and manipulation, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots.
His latest TED talk is giving great insights into the work of his laboratory, the spirit, motivation and mood of his students, worth seeing.
Besides that even the World Economic Forum is picking up the ChatGPT topic in an article today - Here's why ChatGPT is just the start of the generative AI boom
"Just imagine, in a classroom a teacher writes on the blackboard and a blind student can see what's written and read using these non-visual interfaces." — Dennis Hong
THE SECRETS TO SELF-LEADERSHIP
As you can see, I was finally successful or reached a less busy slot in the system, to get three questions answered. The two ones I wanted to ask earlier and a third one to get the confirmation about the time based knowledge span of the bot.
Besides that I started to prepare the Customer Loyalty workshop today, based on the template provided by our Human Resource department. It is not perfect and I would have approached it differently, but these are the guidelines and I can only do some minor adjustments.
10 DYNAMIC JOB INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Microsoft and OpenAI extend partnership
“It is not your customer’s job to remember you, it is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.” -- Patricia Fripp, taken from 19 Quotes on Customer Loyalty that Help you Appreciate Your Loyal Customers
The MOTIVATION workshop did go really well and doing it at our Campus location made a difference. As planned I did wear a colorful shirt and most of the audience was already waiting to see it. The interaction between the team members was great and besides learning something about the wide area of motivation drivers, the interaction in a more or less none business environment and topic was very much appreciated.
Starting tomorrow I will be preparing another workshop around Customer Centricity and Loyalty. Looking forward to it ...
REJECTION PROOF by Jia Jiang | Core Message
Martec’s Law: the greatest management challenge of the 21st century
3 SURPRISING TRUTHS ABOUT BIG GOALS
This 22-year-old is trying to save us from ChatGPT before it changes writing forever
9 Bad Habits You Must Break To Be More Productive
The Pomodoro Technique Really Works, Says This Productivity-Hack Skeptic
8 Levels Of Listening – Complete Guide (2023)
Short break over the weekend after a really great week with the System Demo and successful delivery of our Proof of Concept last Tuesday, the new planning phase Wednesday and Thursday and the Team building workshop on Friday. As we combined the first two Sprints into a 3 week cycle, the result of an earlier adjustment in the timing due to the Christmas break in the project, there will be a little bit more time to focus on other tasks in the meantime.
Besides the MOTIVATION workshop tomorrow I will be looking into another workshop that should be scheduled for our whole team, to think about customer centricity, an initiative kicked-off by our Senior Management team for the whole company. One of the first challenges will be to come to a common agreement about - who is the customer?
A lot of the departments, especially the ones providing services to other departments, are not directly facing customers who are buying our products. So we have to make a difference between external customers and something, what we might call a business partner as example. Another opportunity to better understand the customer perspective could be the situation that some of our employees are also customers of our products. Let's make best use of these insights.
"I believe in the power of recognition and empowerment leading to great employee engagement. And employee engagement is critical to guest engagement. Employee empowerment and recognition is the core of our culture and how we achieve outstanding customer service." Herve Humler
The picture today, my search on the LEXICA page for "AI chatbot", looks cute and good.
Looking forward to next Monday, when I will be hosting the MOTIVATION workshop with a smaller team onsite or in a hybrid setup, depending how many team members will be participating online? Doing a training with all participants together in one room is definitely a difference to online, as you have another dynamic and see, what the people are doing during the Break-Out sessions.
And in order to be clear about who is the host in the training, I will be wearing a colorful shirt. Also useful to do an opening warm-up joke when you are taking the sweat-shirt off and the colors become visible :-)
Just now the German Handball team is playing against the Netherlands at the 2023 Worldcup in Poland and Sweden. When we win, we are qualified for the Quarter final (last 8 of 32 teams). For decades we see the competition between the two countries in Soccer, now we add another sports. The German team did really great so far and is leading by half-time 15:12, much more could be possible we will see in the coming days. 8 minutes to go in the meantime and 9 goals in front (29:20), looking good. Final result 33:26 Quarter final here we come.
Another highlight today is the start of the Divisional Round on the way to the Football Super Bowl LVII. Now 8 teams left and in every game you either finish your season or make it to the next round, excitement is guaranteed.
The unFIX plotter by Gabor Daher - Design your own organization!
Living With Intention at Work and at Home
Or new Aberdeen gnome arrived, the left one, but it took some time due to the Brexit changes and a lot of strikes in the UK. So not in time for Christmas 2022, but super early for Christmas 2023. The right gnome now has a partner, much easier to talk about home :-)
ChatGPT is still not reachable for me, but in the press everywhere. Luckily alternatives are popping up, seems to be a coming market and the next "Gold Rush"? And first concerns about AI created content are getting louder, something to keep an eye on.
Microsoft Plans to Build OpenAI, ChatGPT Features Into All Products
AI art tools Stable Diffusion and Midjourney targeted with copyright lawsuit
How Will Artificial Intelligence Impact Project Management?
These were the biggest AI developments in 2022. Now we must decide how to use them
The surprising Exits of the week are Jacinda Ardern resigns as prime minister of New Zealand and Tom Brady finished the NFL season much earlier than expected.
My busy week finished smoothly, the planning phase was successful and the confidence vote after just two days much better than last time, even with one team more to keep an eye on. Now we have 8 teams in our Agile Release Train (ART). Today we finished the planning phase with a Team Building session around Motivation Drivers. 40+ people in two Break-Out sessions had a lot of fun and even learned something new. Positive side effect, I can reuse the workshop next Monday with another team - courageously simplify!!
HOW TO ASK QUESTIONS THAT WAKE-UP PEOPLE
Atlas Gets a Grip | Boston Dynamics
Agile Forecasting... WITHOUT estimates?
5 trends shaping the world of work -and how ministers and CEOs are addressing them
The Fastest-Growing Jobs Around the World in 2023
5 Signs You’re Much Smarter Than Average
30 Types of Happiness (And Why You Should Try Them All)
How many steps a day do we really need to take? Here are the facts
The project system demo last Monday did go pretty smooth and everybody was really impressed and positive about the achieved results. We did get a lot of good feedback from the Senior Management participants, what helps for team motivation going forward.
Yesterday the final preparation of the next 3 month project phase did take longer than expected, as usual because everything has to be ready at the evening before, due to an early start the next day. And with team members from three different time zones that are 5.5 hours in range, you have to be flexible in start and end times.
Today was the first of two planning days and we tried to maximize the Breakout session times for the different teams as much as possible. More work and less administration time is the idea. Tomorrow is Day-2 and we are already pretty far with the details for the coming three month.
As you see on the ChatGPT picture the system is still taking a break, as the growing interest seems to be much higher than the currently available resources. We will see, if this changes shortly? Maybe they have a hidden selection criteria in the background that gives new users higher priority than the ones who had already some interaction with the Bot before?
A busy week is starting and not much time left besides finishing the last and starting the next 3 month project phase this week. Due to this just some pictures and interesting links today.
A lot of stuff was still to be done after 3 weeks holiday with the final delivery date coming up tomorrow and the next planning phase starting Wednesday. The team did a great job and we are nearly ready after two Dry-Runs. All is prepared, we just cannot be 100% sure, due to unplanned illness or technical problems. Let's keep the fingers crossed.
The "10 Ways to have a better conversation" sketchnote from Tanmay Vora is a great fit to the ChatGPT discussion earlier. And as you can see on the other picture the Chatbot is currently down as the system is overloaded due to unexpected interest.
Bad timing, as I wanted to ask two more questions:
Maybe later today or tomorrow the system is working again.
After the teaser from yesterday I did get into some more details today, created an account and had some first chats with ChatGPT. Really surprising I would say. Selective perception, the more you think about something the more you find and see about the topic.
Microsoft in talks to acquire a 49% stake in ChatGPT owner OpenAI
Microsoft was already an early supporter of OpenAI, now they want to get into the driving seat I would say. Either to better control, what is going on. Or to shut a competitor down, Google is already very concerned about ChatGPT.
As the NFL season is now coming to the serious part before the Super Bowl LVII in Feb-23, I did ask ChatGPT one question there, facts and figures work quite well as far as I can judge!!
Now starts the time of Tom Brady, win or go home for the season is his preferred level of pressure and stress, we will see how far it goes shortly, maybe already this weekend?
The statement of ChatGPT about the Turing Test is pretty smart I would say, shows some level of "self-awareness" and self-reflection already.
The answer to my question about the quote from my Blog post from yesterday is nice and political correct. Avoiding any conflicts and not answering anything wrong or stupid. Smarter than a lot of humans :-)
Animated Chart: The Rise and Fall of Music Sales, by Format (1973-2021)
Every Song With Over 1 Billion Spotify Streams
Top A.I. Tools of Early 2023
DEEP down into ChatGPT's rabbit hole
When Big IS the Next Small Step
Tokyo wants to build a future-proof city. Here’s how
How to get Scrum Teams comfortable asking for help
4 leadership trends to watch in 2023
Want to get — and stay — employed through 2030? 10 jobs to consider (article from 01-Jul-2020)
4 Ways to Rewire Your Brain for Positive Thinking
The Biggest Global Risks of 2023
Simon Sinek: If You Don't Understand People, You Don't Understand Business
No Trousers Tube Ride - London Underground 2023
The Top 26 Science Books of 2022
Everything you need to know about hydrogen in the clean energy transition
Can bossless management work?
"Research has shown that people quit their resolutions for the year by the second Friday of January." Exactly my argument why resolutions make no sense. If you need it, you should start and stop in your own time and not waste your New Year with it. If not, even better.
Dan Rockwell did post a nice article about this topic today - DON’T MAKE STUPID COMMITMENTS
Did you hear about ChatGPT so far? "We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests."
When you read about a topic (ChatGPT) in very different newspapers, it gets more than less hyped in Social Media, market leaders get a little bit concerned (Google) and people you would not expect come up with this topic as well (in this case my 80+ year old father in law), you can be sure it is serious. Last time this happened it was TikTok. Some insights:
I Used ChatGPT Every Day for a Month, Here’s What I’ve Learned
ChatGPT gained 1 million users in under a week. Here’s why the AI chatbot is primed to disrupt search as we know it
Maybe a good opportunity to discuss about the Turing Test with ChatGPT? - "What Is the Turing Test? The Turing Test is a deceptively simple method of determining whether a machine can demonstrate human intelligence: If a machine can engage in a conversation with a human without being detected as a machine, it has demonstrated human intelligence."
7 SMALL ACTS OF DEFIANCE
Today a collection of different links and topics that could be related:
Poor Habits Lead to Poor Results
Navy Seals Can Teach You How to Have an Unbreakable Mindset
Development That Pays: Let's put Agile to work! in videos
The secret to a happy life -- lessons from 8 decades of research
These 3 smartphone apps are helping to reduce food waste around the globe. Here’s how
In the next two weeks I will be hosting two Team Building workshops for different teams in size, project content and location. For a pretty small team locally at our Duesseldorf Campus and for my Agile Release Train (ART) on the last day of our next 3 month planning cycle. A much larger team with people in Germany, India, Portugal and Brazil for example. Will be interesting to see, how the same workshop works onsite versus online?
Due to a change in our ART setup in late Nov-22 that was agreed to get more focus for a committed delivery by 16-Jan-23, we have seen a lot of increase in motivation and team spirit. A good opportunity to learn a little bit more about individual and team motivation.
In the mindset of "knowing your role models", "stealing with pride" and "copy and transfer" I used the Jurgen Appelo article about The 25 Drives Grid as my starting point.
The current concept is to take a 5 step approach:
This will also work with the smaller local team with some minor adjustments. Keep it simple and reuse good concepts - think once use often ...
Source Youtube: HOW TO BEGIN by Michael Bungay Stanier | Core Message
4 Practical Ways to Get Skills-First Hiring Right
Doctor Explains How the Power of Positive Thinking Improves Mental Health
THE POWER OF THE WEAK
6 Things You Must Quit Doing Now To Be More Successful
5 charts that show how renewable energy generation has soared
Besides the approach on the picture you can also use the Eisenhower Matrix for example. For my first day after holidays the focus on Must Do tasks was sufficient. Our System Demo Dry-Run did go smoothly and with the next 3 month planning phase starting on the 18th, it was easy to separate between could, should and must do today.
"Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Interesting how fast 3 weeks holiday can be over. We had a great Christmas time and start into the new year 2023. And the highlight was the Hamburg visit with the Hamilton Musical. Now work starts again tomorrow and the coming three weeks will be really busy.
We have the dry-run of our System Demo inside our team tomorrow that has been moved out for one week until 17-Jan-23, to get all missing tasks finished before we get in front of our stakeholders. One day later we will already start the planning for the next 3 month phase, still a lot of work to be done by then.
Besides that new Interns will be starting and leaving until the end of Jan-23, and new contracts have to be prepared for starters in March and April this year.
Today I have seen "The Last Word" comedy - "If Harriett’s to get her positive obituary, she’ll have to resort to desperate measures. Bribes? Threats? Should she simply dictate the obituary she wants written, word by word? Or should Harriett Lauler start living a life worthy of a glowing obituary? Even at 81, maybe it’s not too late to craft a life worth praising in print. Because as Harriett well knows, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." - I liked it a lot and thinking about your future obituary might be an interesting approach in four areas?
What would your family and former colleagues say about you, what would be a surprising factor about yourself, who did you influence to something positive and how? Great questions to think about ...
5 Habits You Should Avoid to Become Highly Productive
What Does ChatGPT Really Mean For Businesses?
ChatGPT: Everything You Really Need To Know
The Highlights Of CES 2023 – The Must-See Products You Can’t Miss This Year
The 10 Best Examples Of Low-Code And No-Code AI
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (06-Jan-23)
Some examples below, have a great weekend.
France’s plan for solar panels on all car parks is just the start of an urban renewable revolution
The ripple effect of a coaching culture at work
CES 2023 Day 1 favorites-Dell 6K Monitor, Acer electricity generating bike desk, AI exoskeleton, and more
A new space-based invention will radically improve climate change forecasts - here’s how
Animals on the brink: Why extinctions matter
Real-world data quality: What are the opportunities and challenges?
“If there is anything I would like to be remembered for it is that I helped people understand that leadership is helping other people grow and succeed. To repeat myself, leadership is not just about you. It’s about them.” – Jack Welch, taken from Famous Quotes on Coaching for Leaders
There is a really interesting LinkedIn post using the picture with the three kids - This post from Joe Rogan will help all of us keep things in perspective today.
As promised on 28-Dec-22 I did open my JAR today and reviewed the success and fail notes of 2022. In total I had 62 notes, 29 work and 29 private life related ones. Only 4 fails - one for the Russia invasion in the Ukraine in Feb-22, one more for the stock exchanges going down due to this. Then one for a broken Linux Mint installation - I decided to install a newer version over the existing one as alternative to a new install from scratch, what was the approach in the end as the update did not work as expected. The last fail was related to a marketing department that did not understand my NO to their offer immediately, so I had to repeat it several times for them.
A lot of the private life successes had been related to my BLOG, to the overall counter, weekly or 5 week average reader records, an article series about Symbiosis that I finished in Jan-22. Fits to the thinking versus writing picture today, as well as the Sahil Bloom 1-1-1 method - Every single evening, at the end of your work day, open up your journal (or favorite digital tool/application) and write down three simple points: 1 win, 1 point of tension and 1 point of gratitude.
The other private life topics were related to e.g. finishing books, learning new stuff, nice holidays, meeting friends, celebrating events with the family, taking care of must do tasks (one-time or yearly), a new bike, etc.
In the work environment the success notes had been related to three main areas:
Was a really great experience today, to review the year 2022 based on the 62 notes. Will do it again for 2023 and did put the 1st two notes into the JAR today.
We had much fun in the HAMILTON Musical yesterday and learned a lot about the main character Alexander Hamilton "one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers. He was an impassioned champion of a strong federal government, and played a key role in ratifying the U.S. Constitution. As the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Hamilton built a financial foundation for the new nation against fierce opposition from archrival Thomas Jefferson."
A great story, a great cast, good music, songs, voices and a really matching stage design. Worth seeing and listening, three hours well spend.
Before the Musical we made a short sightseeing trip in Hamburg, only downside was the rain, something you cannot influence. Great was the public transport system, really cheap prices, good connections and short waiting times. If all public transport systems in all main cities would be on a similar level, this would be a real alternative to cars. Still a long way to go for e.g. Cologne and Duesseldorf the main cities in my area, their prices are much higher and the integration of different transport systems are far away from role models like Hamburg and Berlin.
During the Musical trip the PDC World Champion finished with a great final and a new Champion - "Michael Smith produced the performance of his career to defeat Michael van Gerwen 7-4 and claim his first Cazoo World Darts Championship title in an incredible final at Alexandra Palace on Tuesday (03-Jan-23)". Both played THE GREATEST LEG OF ALL TIME with 17/18 perfect darts. Michael Smith finished 501 points with 9 darts (7 x triple-20, 1 x triple-19 and the final double-12), Michael van Gerven missed the double-12 in the end. See the video for confirmation.
He deserved to win the 1st Championship in his 3rd final !! Super high level game.
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” ~ John Wooden, taken from 33 Expressions That Have Stood the Test of Time by Frank Sonnenberg
Dan Rockwell: 2023 WILL BE A SUCCESS IF
Dan Rockwell: 5 WAYS TO EXPOSE YOUR INNER CRITIC
The promise and challenges of sustainable travel products
Why the 4-Day Workweek is Gathering New Momentum
The power of generosity in ecosystems
The route to longer life? 30 minutes a week of muscle-strengthening exercises, new study says
Updates to WSJF © Scaled Agile, Inc.
Timeline: The Most Important Science Headlines of 2022
My take on Dan Rockwell's article on "2023 will be a success if _______.”
Another 90 minutes to go before Gabriel will play his Semi-Final at the PDC World Darts Championship, the 1st time for him and for a German player in history so far. He had a great game against the #1 in the Darts world yesterday and will play against the last year finalist today. Looking forward to it and hopefully his impressive journey will be going on to the final?
On the left side the statistics of my 5th eBOOK with respect to overall word count and the most used words. The same information for all 5 eBOOKs together with the blue background, 478k words so far.
The beginning of the year is always time for statistics, finishing old and restarting new tasks. Like the eBOOK and the word count. To review the content of my 2022 JAR is still on the list, but has to wait until the Hamburg visit is over.
As I will be away for two days, some interesting material to check out besides my 5th eBOOK :-)
Biggest drone display ever! - Guinness World Records
23 lessons for Coaches setting yearly goals in 2023
10 ways to get the most out of your time on this planet (from Jan-22)
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023 (by Dan Rockwell)
INCIDENTAL COMICS: Effort
"Every time I play darts I try to keep my poker face on and stay focused until that last dart has gone in." -- Fallon Sherrock, English - Entertainer Born: July 1, 1994
Just finished putting together my 5th eBOOK. It is already available via the Downloads button in the main menu/page. 388 pages with all my content, pictures and links from 2022. This is more than one page per day. Have a look, worth checking it out I would say, but I am not objective ...
I did also create a PDF file with all my five eBOOKs today, just for me 2,246 pages in total, as reference and to search for interesting topics that I did cover in the past already. Very valuable once in a while, when you quickly look for different references related to one topic.
One the picture today an overview of the 4,627 visits on my BLOG page since I started on the new hosting platform on 08-Dec-22. As the statistics page is making a different between USA and the individual federal states, I had to add all up to one total number and percentage. Giving a really good overview of the main reader countries as well as the global distribution of all interested parties so far.
This week we will be going to Hamburg to see the Hamilton Musical. Finally, as we had to move the date two times due to COVID-19 before. Waiting for it will be worth it, according to what my daughters did tell me about the music and story so far. We will see in the coming week ...
Queen guitarist Brian May, fashion designer Mary Quant top U.K. honors list
The Top 10 Tech Trends In 2023 Everyone Must Be Ready For
The Top 5 Technology Challenges In 2023
Top 5 In-Demand Tech Skills For Jobs In 2023
The 5 Biggest Business Trends In 2023 Everyone Must Get Ready For Now
How To Build A Positive Hybrid And Remote Working Culture In 2023
I had a day off yesterday to celebrate the 19th wedding anniversary with my wife. It is called the Honeysuckle one, or Mother of pearl in Germany. The German name sounds better, anyway it was really nice and much too warm for a Winter day. Today it will be even above 17 degrees celsius, time for shorts and not New Years Eve. More global warming ...
The review of my 2022 and finishing the 5th eBOOK will happen in the coming days. Goal setting for 2023 is easy: No new year resolutions, staying authentic, sharing knowledge/ideas/experience, having fun and enjoying life-work coexistence. All the best for your 2023.
Scott Galloway: 2023 Predictions
3 reasons why the future of carbon capture looks promising
This chart shows the growth of India's economy
Close to the new year 2023 and the three famous people on the picture died in the last week of 2022.
“I was born to play football, just like Beethoven was born to write music and Michelangelo was born to paint.” — Pelé (born: October 23, 1940 - died: December 29, 2022)
“Fashion is about eventually being naked.” — Vivienne Westwood (born: April 8, 1941 - died: December 29, 2022)
“Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the center of your lives.”
— Pope Benedict XVI (born: April 16, 1927 - died: December 31, 2022)
Just assume these three would be sitting together in a train on their last journey, where ever this is going? Interesting topics to be covered: How you win three soccer World Cups as player? How you combine Punk music and fashion? How you retire as Pope and cause a lot of issues, as there is no pension fund planned and no appartment available, besides the crypt with former Pope graves :-)
They all did go their own way against the pressure and different opinions from the outside, a good concept.
In the picture below the results of my first test run by using the Midjourney Bot on the official Discord server today. The key words had been "baby olaf skull spider woman 3d photorealistic", not so bad I would say?
The other test picture is even better, with "baby yoda surfing giant wave with spider man suite", or what do you think?
Two days to go, take a break and have some fun:
Top Heavy: Countries by Share of the Global Economy
NOTHING BUT NUGGETS FROM THE TOP POSTS OF 2022
Digging into the details, this map compares our world’s rivers and mountains
Why the circular economy is the business opportunity of our time
“I will have all the answers when I am older, like why we are in this dark, enchanted wood. I know in a couple years, these will seem like childish fears, and so I know it isn’t bad, it’s good.” – Olaf taken from 90 Olaf Quotes From the Most Popular Snowman
As you can read in my 2022 eBOOK on 03-Jan-22 the JAR was to collect my "successes" and "fuck-ups" during this year. Pretty full in the meantime, I think I had more than one note per week. Reading all the details will be an interesting recap of 2022.
After the Personal Annual Review of 2022 approach by Sahil Bloom that I mentioned back on 21-Dec-22, today the next step his Annual Planning Guide, see the summary below (Sahil is offering a free template again):
Together on the JAR picture from today you can see my new book - HOW THE MIGHTY FALL by Jim Collins - he did also write the really famous GOOD TO GREAT book. So far really interesting material, but I just started :-)
“The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed. Guided, taught, led-yes. But not tightly managed.” — James C. Collins taken from 51 Inspirational Jim Collins Quotes
Some best of 2022 TED Playlists, have a look:
Vodafone's mobile network has a digital twin
AI generated MARVEL BABIES | Turquoise TV
There are so many ideas, what you can do to reflect on a full year, why not using the 21 questions? The article behind the picture goes into much more details and examples, have a look.
"By three methods we may learn wisdom. First, by reflection, which is noblest. Second, by imitation, which is easiest and third by experience which is bitterest."
– Confucius, taken from Top 100 Reflection Quotes To Gain Perspective
Tsundoku - "A beautiful Japanese word for the acquiring and piling up of books without reading them. Constructed from 2 words loosely meaning piling up and reading".
Perfect fit to our sustainable Christmas tree this year, see my 23-Dec-22 post. The majority of the books have been read in 2022 and piled up in the form of a tree, so let's call it a 75% Tsundoku.
As a side note: Due to the new hosting provider of my BLOG I cannot reference single posts with the URL anymore, sorry for that. You have to download the eBOOK and search for the right post in the PDF document. Not the best solution for a one time search, but quite comfortable if you search for several times or different posts.
The NFL did just take a short Christmas break, because there is not much time left until Super Bowl LVII, it will be played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on Sunday, February12, 2023.
As you can see on the picture, the value of a whole team is not at all connected to the success in the league und the current playoff picture. The LA Rams, the last season winner and a high valuable team, is not even on the picture yet. Only money does not win championships.
An interesting information about the most innovative countries in the last 11 years, especially when you compare it with the PISA 2018 results, see Mathematics and Science on page 7 and 8 of this PDF document for example. Countries like e.g. Switzerland, Netherlands, Finland and Sweden are showing up pretty high in the ranking on both lists. Seems to be no coinidence.
The PDC 2023 World Darts Championship is picking up speed again tomorrow after a short Christmas break with the last 32 players. Still two German players in the championship that will finish on 03-Jan-23.
NEVER FINISHED by David Goggins | Core Message
How to Improve Your Decision-Making
Space: The Next Frontier For Data And Artificial Intelligence
Rethinking The Future (by Tony Seba): The Great Transformation
How can individuals use their influence for positive change?
As you can see on the left picture our sustainable Christmas tree out of books is ready. Still a kind of tree, just out of paper in the meantime and with a similar silhouette. My daughters did struggle a little bit with the amount of books required and the right concept to get a tree like look-and-feel with the best possible hight. Some more years to go and we will have a perfect tree out of books, for sure. Enough DIY's are available, but finding it out on your own is also a lot of fun and better to learn about a proper building process.
Make your own selection, what is of most interest for you today. And tomorrow you can make another choice ...
Source Youtube: How to Take a Brain Break | Jim Kwik Source Youtube: The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen | Takaharu Tezuka
5 Workplace Trends to Lose in 2023 and 3 That Need to Keep Going
pwc1: Strategic coherence for tumultuous times
The best HR & People Analytics articles of December 2022
“There is nothing wrong with people’s brainpower; there is something very wrong with people’s perception of reality.” -- Dr. Eli Goldratt
The Everyday Change Play Book: Because change doesn't need to be shit - arrived today already. When I am quick and the book is not that thick, it can still become part of our sustainable christmas tree, based on all the read books in the family during 2022? We will see.
My first day of the holidays and this was my highlight. The breaking news on the news channel I follow (the translation from German) - "At some distance from Earth, a team of researchers observes a large exoplanet in its death throes: According to their calculations, Kepler-1658b is getting closer and closer to its star as time goes by - a collision is inevitable."
I like the some distance from Earth statement as well as the urgency of the collision. When you read the article in more details, here an English version, you understand that the distance is 2,600 lightyears and the collision is expected to happen in 2.5 million years from now. Luckily I did not miss this message, so I am prepared in time :-)
Just in case you want to do a Personal Annual Review of 2022, here an idea from Sahil Bloom with 7 questions. He is offering a free download template:
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” — Phil Jackson, taken from 49 Famous Teamwork Quotes And Sayings
This Algae Powered a Computer for a Year With Just Water and Sunlight
Why Internal Mobility Should Be a Top Priority Right Now
Student-made solar-powered car sets a new world record by traveling 620 miles
Ask Yourself What Really Matters
The power couple: Why solar and storage are key to reducing geopolitical risk and securing access to energy
As mentioned yesterday we had the final whole team meeting today. We did take a look back in 2022, reviewed the status quo of the project and, what will be coming early 2023. A great session with a lot of fun and involvement. We did select the Role Model of the year - a person who someone admires and whose behaviour they try to copy.
In the end we had two winners, selected by the team and everybody had 3 votes. One was an obvious choice the other one more a secret favorite. He was very much surprised to see his name and appreciated the choice of his colleagues a lot. An early Christmas present for him.
In the end I used the opportunity to make some marketing for my Blog, especially with the India feature from yesterday. In the current Statistics visitors from India are only 13th place with 1.23%. There should be much more possible :-)
At the end of the day I started my Christmas holidays until 06-Jan-23, really looking forward to a more quiet period and some time to read a book. One on my list is - The Everyday Change Play Book: Because change doesn't need to be shit.
Management 3.0 Blog
Lisette Sutherland - Interview with Jurgen Appelo
16 PRACTICAL WAYS TO BE AN INSPIRATIONAL LEADER
‘A New World of Work Requires a New Way to Lead’—Stephen M.R. Covey, McKinlee Covey, and Doug Conant on Leadership in 2023
Differentiate Yourself as a Leader: 4 Ways to Challenge the Status Quo
The power of incremental momentum
10 DOS AND 7 DON’TS FOR MENTORING MILLENNIALS
How trees make oxygen, and other ways they are vital to human existence
What Santa Gets Right About Workplace Culture
10 Ways To Spot A Truly Exceptional Employee
"Hypothetically, if India’s states were to all became countries today, they would take up half the spots in a ranking of the world’s top 20 most populous countries."
When you look at the numbers you will realize that a lot of countries would fit into the whole population of India. I am working with Indian teams for a lot of time already, but did never take this perspective. You can always learn new stuff, when you are ready to change.
Find a 3.5 minute video summary of the book at Managing Transition William Bridges by Constance Jenkins Pritchard.
Our Sprint-4 Demo today was a great success and we could show a lot of progress on our journey until 09-Jan-23. Tomorrow we will finish the year with a 1-hour get-together, to recap our accomplishments, to celebrate the good work a little bit and to get aligned for our way forward in 2023.
10 days running on the new Blog platform now. I still have to get used to the missing counter and the different way used as basis for their Statistics page, but on the other side there is still a lot of new functionality to explore and to be used in the future. We will see ...
The new World Cup winner is Argentina, congratulations after 36 years again, and Morocco the surprise team from Africa finally finished on the 4th place of 32 teams, respect!!
Just two days work left next week then I start my Christmas holiday until 06-Jan-23, looking forward to it. Before that we have our Sprint-4 demo tomorrow, where we present the current status of our Proof of Concept for the first time. We still have time left until 09-Jan-23 to finish it, but it will be a great 1st milestone for the teams as well as the stakeholders to see how far we did come until now. Will be a lot of pressure, but also fun and satisfaction, we will find out.
On Tuesday we will celebrate the first year of our Agile Release Train (ART) in a before the year end come together with the whole team. We will do a short summary of the accomplishments so far, maybe the outcome of the demo tomorrow and an outlook for the next year. When we deliver to our commitments, we will have a great future in the comming years.
We had an interesting discussion about our Christmas tree for this year today. It was quicky clear that we will go for a sustainable solution that does mean no real tree and not one in a flower pot with roots anymore, as the last two one we had did not survive after Christmas. We will put a light chain on the tree we have on our balcony anyway and did discuss about putting pictures of previous year Christmas trees on the balcony door in the form of a tree as our 1st idea. In the end it will be a tree out of piled books, all the ones that had been read during 2022. For more ideas see 20 Alternative DIY Christmas Tree Ideas.
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (16-Dec-22)
The Future Of Cloud-Based Data, Analytics, and Machine Learning: Highlights from AWS re:Invent 2022
Five Important IT And Security Trends For 2023
The Top 4 Customer Experience Trends In 2023
Is Our Digital Future At Risk Because Of The Gen Z Skills Gap?
I had to update my Blog post from yesterday this morning, as the order of text and pictures did not make sense while reading it on a mobile phone. Luckily the new Blog hosting company is offering a dedicated format option for mobile phones. I used the new option and now everything is fine. Going forward I will always check the mobile phone formatting, to be sure that every reader gets the best possible experience of my posts, because 75% of the overall readers of my Blog use a mobile phone to do it. Thanks a lot to the really detailed Statistics part at one.com.
With respect to the counter I finally decided to go with the standard Statistics page of my hosting company. Might not be perfect solution and comparable to the previous use of the counter on the old hosting platform, BUT I have to be open to be changed :-) and this is, what I do.
The Statistics page counts Total visits on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis, starting on 08-Dec-22 when the domain was migrated. According to the definition below a good compromise from my perspective.
"Visit - A visit is a continuous browsing event with no more than a 15 minute break between requests. The requests must come from the same browser and the same IP. So, as long as a visitor clicks somewhere on your site every 15 minutes, it is counted within the same visit. If the visitor doesn't do anything for more than 15 minutes and then clicks again, this is counted as new visit."
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift... that's why they call it the present!” -- Master Oogway
Climatarian, flexitarian, vegetarian, vegan: Which diet is best for the planet? (And what do they mean?)
Mapped: The World’s Countries Compared by 20 Key Metrics
‘Wind and Solar Are Proving Themselves’: Renewables Met Rise in Electricity Demand During First Half of 2022
This MIT research could help us unlock smaller, lighter and safer batteries
When you like cartoons, but never heard about The Roadrunner and the Coyote from The Looney Tunes before, this joke might be hard to understand?
"The Acme Corporation is a corporation that features prominently in the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons as a running gag featuring outlandish products that fail or backfire catastrophically at the worst possible times." - so much about ACME ...
In summary the key point in communication is, be aware of your audience and their diversity types, not only with respect to age :-)
Yesterday we have been to an improvisation theater directly after work. Was a lot of fun and really interesting to see, what kind of strategies are used between the actors to survive with the unknown and unexpected topics coming from the audience. You must have a lot of different skills to handle these kind of situations.
We had a communication topic as well at work this week. How to best present something to a larger audience, coming from different countries, with different languages and a diverse list of cultures, skillsets and interests.
The story line should be easy to understand and follow, besides pictures or icons/logos the text has to be simple, but not too simple. And you should avoid words or phrases that trigger a negative perception or mood in the audience. Everybody will immediately jump to conclusions, biases or prejudices, if they like it or not and if they are aware about it or not either. Using Nonviolent Communication and wording for example could be one of many approaches to be taken? It is already clear that you need to spend much more time on the proper selection of words, to be successful with the message you wan to send. Have a great weekend, already the last one before Christmas!!
The Emerging Degree Reset - How the Shift to Skills-Based Hiring Holds the Keys to Growing the U.S. Workforce
at a Time of Talent Shortage
The Einstein Principle, Visualizing History, & More written by
SAHIL BLOOM
6 WAYS TO HONOR YOUR FUTURE NOW
5 WAYS TO USE SUCCESS TO CREATE SUCCESS
How to become more motivated by controlling your dopamine
Source Youtube: Why you should define your fears instead of your goals | Tim Ferriss
Applying the Pareto Principle (The 80-20 Rule) you should be pretty good already (80%) with 20% of your effort. The remaining 20% to "perfection" will need another 80% of effort that you should better spend on other tasks. So do not fill the room for improvement up to 100%, just try to come to a good balance of Speed, Cost and Quality.
I had an interesting and positive discussion with the one.com service desk team today, the company offers a chat bot and real people chat support after some time. My Blog was not visible on my company computer and we did find out in the end that it was related to using the VPN connection. Switching it off and on again fixed the issue.
As part of the discussion and investigation for the root cause I found a detailed Statistics page offered for my domain and it shows really interesting details. My mother will like this a lot as she was always asking, where all the readers of my Blog are coming from. Since the Blog hosting provider migration on 08-Dec-22 the system counted 909 readers, you can see the distribution by country below, just the top 10 list to start with. A lot of the USA States are coming up in separate lines so the total is around 48% in the last 5 days . Cool stuff.
12 HR Trends for 2023: Humanising (the Future of) Work
The Science of Gratitude
The Overlooked Quality That Can Drive Success with DEI
HOW TO MAKE GOALS COME TO LIFE
When you want to better understand your status quo, a personality test might be a good starting point. I have a list of tests available at the bottom of the "My new business" page. Have a look and give it a try.
To find out required skills for the future, here some examples:
Top 16 Essential Soft Skills For The Future Of Work
The Top 10 Most In-Demand Skills For The Next 10 Years
13 Easy Steps To Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills
10 Most Important Leadership Skills For The 21st Century Workplace (And How To Develop Them)
And just in case you believe in good resolutions for 2023, get clarity about your status quo, the gap you want to close going forward and start to improve - YES YOU CAN.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
Here some more links to start your week:
Build our houses the way we build LEGOS?
14 Things Ridiculously Successful People Do Every Day
Why a Career in Innovation Management is a Bad Idea. And What Can You do About it.
In the meantime the main topics are covered. The counter is up and running again and all past Blog posts are available as eBOOK download. Should be sufficient for the start, more to come in the next weeks.
The picture on the left shows the 2022 Tech Layoffs and in Germany our
chancellor just started a discussion that the baby boomers should not go into their retirement too early. If you did work long enough you can retire with age 63 without any financial impact, but we are short on talents and expertise already and still need them.
Not being attractive for young talents and loosing to much long year expertise and experience is putting a lot of pressure on the companies in the moment. Smart ideas are welcome to better balance this situation.
From my personal experience I do have the feeling that a lot of companies are not taking this situation serious enough, to be more flexible, initiate change and take new approaches. More diversity with respect to age, could be one of many?
Next week will be the last full working week before I start my Christmas holidays. So pushing the delivery of our Proof of Concept forward and slowly preparing the next PI Planning that starts 18-Jan-23 is on the schedule.
The 10 Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (09-Dec-22)
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The Top 4 Telecom Trends In 2023
Source Youtube: Having an Optimist Mindset
The new one.com platform did migrate my 1,850+ blog posts into separate pages, what always takes a lot of time during the publishing process. Now you can only go back until 21-Nov-22 and all other posts since 04-Jul-16 are available as free eBOOK download via the Downloads link only, see in the menu above. Give it a try and let me know your opinion. Thanks a lot in advance.
By the way the interaction with the one.com service desk is pretty good so far. I just got a hint, how to add a counter on the Blog again. I can even set it to any initial starting count I want. I will let you know, when it is working properly.
I am starting to use some of the new features that are available, like the two pictures uploaded today. Both are separate and directly linked to the source, if you press on it. More to come and to investigate ...
With respect to the two pictures that I used already on 03-Dec-22 a quick reality check. The Netherlands and Brazil are out on the left side of the Football Bracket, same for Portugal on the right side. England and France just finished their game and France made it to the next round. So in the end one team of the forecast made it to the Semi-final. Brazil will definitely not win the Cup!! But both teams from the last World Cup final (France and Croatia) are still in. We will see.
The biggest surprise so far is Morocco, the first team from Africa to make it to the Semi-final of a World Cup ever. Respect and once again the proof that team spirit and standing in for each other is much better than dancing around super stars like Messi or Ronaldo. Or did you know any player of the Morocco team before the tournament started?
Lately we had an interesting discussion about how to best change the mindset from nearly 100% perfection - kind of a German thing and a basis for the Made in Germany slogan - to good enough. A little bit like the quote from Sheryl Sandberg
“Done is better than perfect.” We are still working on the right selection of words, to get a buy in from the whole team, but did an interesting article to start with.
Why Good Enough Is Actually Pretty Great
Besides that have a great weekend.
“Your life’s course will not be determined by doing the things that you are certain you can do. Those are the easy things. It will be determined by whether you try the things that are hard.” — Sheryl Sandberg
As a customer you have two choices, accept the change or look for a new service provider for your Blog. So a more or less acceptable migration path between the two platforms on the one side, or an unknown future where you first have to find and select a new platform, before you can even start to work again.
I did select the first option, but have to get used to much more possibilities to write and present something. The previous SimpleSite platform had a reduced portfolio of features and capabilities, not very flexible but easy to use. Less options make my life easier :-)
Now I have the year 2022 good-in-class features available and the big problem to understand and select the right ones. More design and presentation to compromise on less content is not my way. I will try to get used to the more look-and-feel capabilities and provide you with the content I am still happy with. Okay?
What drives us: autonomy, mastery, purpose
What will be your biggest problem in 2023 and beyond: finding customers or finding employees? And what is your current strategy doing to solve that problem?
The brief history of artificial intelligence: The world has changed fast – what might be next?
P.S.: 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.
I will need some time to get familiar with the new environment and to proceed as you are expecting it. For now all articles since 21-Nov-22 are under "My Blog 1.0" the rest can be made available as eBOOK on demand. The counter is not visible anymore. I am working on it, please stay tuned :-)