The visits of my grandparents to Franconian Switzerland. The hikes through the Lüneburg Heath. Or the trip on the ferry across Lake Lucerne. My childhood was marked by exploring and traveling. Coupled with unforgettable encounters, small experiences became seminal memories.
And even today I look back on this time with gratitude. Because it made me aware at an early age that change is the only constant in life.
Change has never made me feel uncomfortable. Quite the opposite - it helps me to create something progressive out of what already exists. And to break up old thought patterns through new perspectives.
While the majority of my environment seeks security in permanence and the fear of the uncertain rages within them, I look at novel developments with fascination. But much more than that: I want to be a part of them.
And so, while I was still at school, I developed a learning tool for my classmates that made it easier for them to learn languages. This probably earned me my nickname Doctor B. aka "the Brain" during my studies at the Dutch School of Management & Economics at Tilburg University or in so many of my projects around the globe.
Since then, I've always worked hard to complete as many projects as possible while exploring different company locations. Around the globe.
During my studies, I set up a database for repairable spare parts for Siemens Medical Services at the Erlangen/Fürth site. This shaped my time as logistics IT coordinator at Grundig's headquarters in Spain and my work as Principal Consultant at Price Waterhouse LLP in the USA. As a member of the management team, I set up Arthur Andersen Management Consulting in Germany and supported its Europe-wide launch.
With the evolutionary and discruptive progress of technology and the question of what makes companies run or fail in mind, I supported the market launch of a start-up in the Swiss telco business as a transformation expert.
With the leap from 50 to 1,200 employees, we proved with a great team that transformation in a highly competitive environment, complex market mechanisms and the will to implement not only go together, but will succeed. Implementing what drives you drives my curiosity. I increasingly manage my projects with a focus on networking and collaboration across organizational boundaries. What makes companies literally move, what drives managers, what role do they play today and what role will they play in the future?
I wanted to know how I could help companies grow faster and establish stable connections with other companies. So I gained a foothold in the European consulting business for Ariba and focused on collaboration-based business models based on network effects. This was the ideal prerequisite for my many years as a consulting and division manager in SAP's cloud business.
However, I had to realize that the consulting business is a tough place. And that I was often the first one there. Not only on Saturday mornings in the office. But also in the team of a freshly founded consultancy. In the management of a Silicon Valley startup on its way to Europe. And as the person who brings together hundreds of organizations and decision-makers via an app. But once again, I had to realize that I was one step ahead of the times.
Sometimes change doesn't come as quickly as we had hoped...
But you know what? All these goals of my long journey have been worth it.
Now I am one of those who coaches executives, solopreneurs and teams. And help them to respond skillfully to change, to prepare for upcoming challenges and thus to remain fit for the future. Full of resilience. Just as I have done all these years.
Because my career has been marked by change. Change that - admittedly - has sometimes jolted me out of my comfortable routine. But it has always taught me helpful insights and allowed me to try out new things with courage. Because change expands the scope of possibilities.
In the meantime, I have an excellent sense for change. I can sense that the snow is coming - even though it's warm and beautiful right now. And that it is necessary for a product manufacturer to offer its service to the market right now - even if the company has no expertise in this area so far.
The world does not stand still. Because change is a natural permanent state that no one can escape. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said so well, "Nothing is so constant as change."
And so it is not the strongest or the most intelligent who survive. But those who are most able to adapt to change.
As a business coach, I use all my experience, tools and creativity to help 100,000 companies and decision-makers take a prominent position in the digital business.
My tools & methodology
We live in a world where new technologies influence our everyday life more and more.
Digital transformation is in full swing. Not as marketing hype, but as a necessity for success and competitiveness.
As digital transformation continues to pick up speed, you should step up to avoid being left behind. However, this does not require timid attempts, but proven methods and tools that reveal opportunities for growth and change for you.
Act confidently when stress, unexpected and unknown events take over. Evaluate challenging situations with foresight and master them more calmly. Resilience has many facets in a business environment.
To glide through crises alertly and evaluatively, playfully and calmly, is not a pipe dream, but the mission of the adaptive company: the company acts actively and preventively. If crises occur, it knows how to assert itself and use crises as an opportunity.
With the 7 pillars of resilience you develop and strengthen the corporate structures, processes and organization. The resilient company is not the industry hero, but consistently and consciously builds its protective shield in other markets, such as digital. The resilient company calculates and provides intuitively. It protects you from failures and helps you learn from them.
Build shared knowledge. Develop creative models. Receiving new impulses. And always take the customer's perspective into account.
With the help of the 9 Business Designs, you will discover up to nine business strategies that turn outdated ways of thinking on their head and give your ideas and products an innovative polish.
Make your company fit for the future and rethink your business model options.
While the market is constantly changing and the digital transformation is making new demands, the idea behind your offering suddenly begins to falter.
The path you have taken reveals almost insurmountable hurdles and unclear branches.
Now imagine that a letter puts you back on the road to success. It lets you get in touch with your target group, sharpens your positioning and opens up old and new opportunities.
Let's take a journey through the alphabet together. On a roadmap to your concrete market offer, which inspires your customers and leads you faster to the goal of a successful and future-proof company.
Liquid Transformation succeeds in a networked world.
The world needs new ways - not only physically -, trust and an indispensable, non-negligible reliability. How does one succeed in a world of disruption, uncertainty, curiosity, eruption, and consumption as the all-important criterion for prosperity?
In order to nevertheless assert oneself as a person and as organizations, clarity and networked thinking are needed first and foremost.
The very idea that people, organizations, services and things can grow digitally interconnected still seems absurd to many of us. Networking requires neither boundaries nor inward-looking thought structures.
If, on the other hand, organizations open up and allow a wide range of new partnerships, for example, network effects can be realized more smoothly. Innovative sales concepts will find a prepared field. Decision-makers will grow by a factor of x.
For this purpose I have investigated and built up growth criteria - quality and quantity of network building. I have worked out and tested many things over many years for the most varied of industries - within the scope of the decision-making space granted to me at companies such as SAP - and am successively implementing this with digital value creators (DVC) partners.