Culture
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When the Person Who Keeps Everything Running Announces He’s Moving to Spain
Every company has one. The person who keeps critical systems alive through a combination of institutional memory, personal relationships, and a folder structure that would make an archaeologist nervous. His name doesn’t matter. Let’s call him Harry. Who Harry Is Harry has been with the company for 40 years. He wears a Queen Magic Tour…
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Why Slow Data Still Makes Businesses Rely on Gut Feeling
We have spent the last decade building structured, data-driven systems. Our operational environments are now filled with automation, dashboards, and real-time alerts. In logistics, finance, and IT, decisions are increasingly made by algorithms or are at least heavily supported by them. And yet, when it comes to day-to-day tactical decisions, we still fall back on…
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Enough: Time to Stop Doing these Stupid Things at Work
Last Tuesday, a group of colleagues and I spent 15 minutes brainstorming. That short session gave us a painfully clear list of things we do every day that add little to no value. Result: a list of everyday habits that look busy, sound professional, and quietly destroy productivity. So: we’re done. Here’s what needs to…
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Stop being so Agile !!!
Last week I visited a customer of mine. He showed me around in his new office and explained to me how his business unit was doing agile. He introduced me to agile team members and showed me around in the agile room where all four walls were covered with post-it notes. His goal for this…
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Treat Your Team Like Children, and They’ll Start Acting Like Children
I’ll share an example from my own experience as a micromanager. I was organizing an event about a new and innovative methodology that, in my view, could revolutionize the engineering of complex systems. Preparing for the event meant creating in-depth expert content and developing targeted marketing communications. I assigned myself the task of delivering the…
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Fuel Your Innovation: The Rebel’s Manifesto
Innovation is not an automated, neat, step-by-step process. Being innovative requires a different mental mode. You need space to be inspired, investigate, discover, experiment, and sometimes accidentally fall into a good idea. The old saying still holds true: if you want to discover something new, you have to do something unexpected. That sounds useful, but…
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What is Slow Management?
Henry Mintzberg: “I’m not a human resource, I’m a human being!” Slow Management is a reaction to the cold, Anglo-Saxon management style, aimed at maximizing shareholder profit, supported by model-driven optimization, output maximization, cost-cutting, and short-term goals. Slow management advocates a new form of management that emphasizes quality, job satisfaction, trust, creativity, and authenticity. Slow…