Through my extensive experience working in large tech organizations in the Silicon Valley (20 years) and at Zalando (Berlin), where I scaled organizations up to 400 FTEs, I can provide you with feedback and new impulses to support your team(s) and organization(s)
As your Sparring Partner I can help you transform your Organization into a New Workplace with my principles and methodologies of New Technology Leadership
My focus areas are dealing with toxic and stressful work environments, all forms of organizational pain and dysfunction, and lack of communication as well as collaboration.
This all leads to suboptimal results, and possibly even suffering among your top talent.
My strength is mindful observation, a scientific approach, and relying on concrete data points, as well as feedback. Based on this I can work with you and your team to come up with a systematic plan to transform your organization into a New Workplace using proven methods that proceed measurable results.
With my experience in digital transformation, agile methodologies, and data-science you can also take advantage of emerging technologies to increase the level of product innovation in your organization.
Here are a few areas of my expertise (but not limited to) where I can generate value in your organization:
Leadership Challenges:
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How do I transform my Leadership Team with New Leadership principles to create a competitive & sustainable New Workplace?
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Achieving Clarity on your Organization's Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Values and accordingly purpose alignment with your teams and employees
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How do I scale my Organization (from 15+ to 50 employees, 50+ to 150, 150+ to 400) amidst constant and rapid change?
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How to organize highly productive Teams with clear Purpose and Ownership, that are aligned with your company's mission, values, and business objectives
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Optimizing agile engineering processes and teams with clear ownership based on principles of purpose, mastery, and autonomy
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Address challenges through Remote Work and working with virtual distributed teams
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Break up communication and collaboration silos across organizational boundaries.
Technology Challenges:
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Understanding the landscape of emerging technologies, i.e. artificial intelligence (AI) and how to take advantage of it
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How to attract & retain key technical talent to tackle major technological problems
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Identifying major technology opportunities to disrupt your industry
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Defining a digital / AI strategy to modernize your business
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Best practises and guidance on supporting technology to establish an effective virtual team and a remote working culture
Product & Innovation Challenges:
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Building up a culture of rapid and deep Innovation to impact the world with meaningful and disruptive products
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Setting up an idea engineering process to turn ideas into products that delight your customers
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Setting up a strong product management team, and helping to implement a solid product development framework (e.g., 4D, Lean Startup)
This is how I support your Organization
In our collaboration you will receive:
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Fresh ideas and growth impulses for yourself, your leadership team and your organization
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Suggestions on how to systematically foster research and innovation in your teams
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Guidance on how to grow and scale your organization
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Practical steps to transform your company toward an agile mindset
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Methods to achieve clarity on your company's purpose, vision, mission, and values
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Tips on how to increase trust among employees and make the health of your teams a priority
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Principles on how to implement mindful leadership in your leadership team to increase the level of collaboration, harmony, and unity in your organization
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Guidance on how to setup a world-class engineering and product management team
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Clear KPIs that measure the progress of our work together
If you're a leader, I could become your sparring partner and advisor to help you:
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Build up organizations based on the principles of purpose, clear values, mastery, autonomy, and wellbeing
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Using latest agile methodologies to iterate quickly on learnings
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Amidst rapid change help you scale organizations on an ongoing basis as your business growths
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Ensure teams are healthy and focus on collaboration and values of unity
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Apply Mindful Leadership training and coaching to your leadership team to increase their overall leadership capabilities and effectiveness
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Implement a sound organizational setup where research and innovation can thrive, and impact your products in a powerful way, by aligning short-term tactical business needs with long-term strategic objectives
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Help your company to be on the fore-front of technology by understanding and leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), and transfer it into an executable strategy
Our Collaboration
Before we start our collaboration I will set aside some time with you in an introductory 30 min meeting (you can schedule one here) to get to know you a bit and have a first glimpse at your high-level context, challenges, and overall objectives.
The requirements for our collaboration are:
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openness and willingness to experiment with new approaches and methodologies to leadership to shape a New Workplace
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an organizational purpose that is focused on generating positive and sustainable contributions to the greater good of mankind
If we both would like to pursue further after our initial conversation, I propose we schedule a second 1 hour follow-up meeting to dive deeper into your specific challenges, organizational context, and business objectives for the next 1-2 years. To prepare for this meeting I encourage you to compile a short narrative (one-pager) that contains these details, so that I can familiarize myself with this prior to our meeting to make it efficient.
Based on our discussion I will summarize the outcome in a one-pager proposal, which summarizes the goals and focus areas in our collaboration going forward.
Depending on your budget constraints and objectives I can offer different levels of service and support.
How I Support You?
My typical offer comprises weekly 60+ minutes meetings (Zoom) where I can provide feedback, guidance, or ideas on current organizational topics and act as a sparring partner. If there are pre-reads needed for the meetings I would set aside sufficient time to study them prior to make our time in the meeting as efficient as possible.
In addition, I will also provide support to ad-hoc questions in-between via email.
Intense 2-day Sprint Work-Blocks
If you need more support you can add one or more 2-day intense work-blocks per month to generate sufficient focus in order to meet important deadlines or simply get stuff done.
Work-Blocks can be used for example to:
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Meet with employees or members of the leadership team to learn and gather important feedback (on-site or via Zoom)
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Study and analyze organizational problems in order to produce ideas as well as suggestions for solutions
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During project work I focus always on THE most important and relevant topic of choice (not on many). As an essentialist I have seen that organizations that lack clear priority of importance will produce suboptimal results.
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Develop concepts for effective leadership training formats and work in the role of a trainer to conduct the training, organize workshops if needed
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Coach members of the leadership team using the scientific and systematic framework of the "7 Pillars of Mindful Leadership"
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Determine clear KPIs to measure and evaluate our progress
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Summarize and share recommendations and results in short and clear narratives (2-pagers)
Ideally you would let me know ahead of time when you need this extra level of support so I can plan accordingly.
Getting Started ...
In my initial proposal I will recommend based on your requirements a personalized 6-month high-level offering of consulting and services on a monthly basis that we can use as a starting point for our collaboration. Based on your specific needs, requirements, and budget you can adjust the service levels if needed.
If we both would like to move forward, we will set up a 6-month (standard) consulting contract, which defines and outlines the scope of our collaboration. This contract is the foundation of our collaboration, and will extend per default for another 3 months, unless you or I cancel it.
To get started I first need to sufficiently understand your organization and context, in order to make effective as well as relevant suggestions, I usually plan to integrate myself full-time within the first month into your organization for at least 1-2 days and meet as many relevant people in your organization as possible. It is all about listening and mindfully observing. This can be achieved typically via one intense work block.
The result of my work will usually be delivered in a written narrative form (e.g., 2 pagers), which is clear, crisp, and actionable, and can also be used as a basis for a solid discussion and clarifying questions in our meetings.
For certain topics that emerge during our collaboration I also offer to prepare special workshops or presentations. I can also work in the role of a (leadership) trainer or coach to facilitate special seminars or leadership training if needed.
I would bill you on a monthly basis based on service level and expenses.
I'll work in your office or remote based on business needs.
Contact me to setup a (free) introductory get-to-know Call
