Coopetition - Cooperation - Collaboration

I always liked - and still like - to built. Concepts, things, teams. Especially teams.  Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash Growing a team out of a group of individuals is the baseline to make concepts come true and build things beyond my own skills. When I started leading teams, I was young, with no leadership experience and without any  leadership training.  I asked myself - how would I like my manager to be from a behavioral context? What would I find supportive?  And then implemented this concept step by step. Just to figure out - wait, this is not suiting everyone - I was overly demanding to some and overly managing to others. It was all just based upon my very own demands. So step by step, discussion after discussion, feedback after feedback I developed my style (and over the years found parts of it in leadership theories which are linked below).  I am still grateful for my very first team of highly-skilled senior engineers, some double my age and all way beyond my own technical s

During the past year, in the middle of a worldwide health and economic crisis, the hashtag #weareinthistogether went viral for a while. It was used in a wide spread of industries and also covered my “home industry”  – aviation. The feeling of #weareinthistogether let to a new social helpfulness   between individuals and companies which empowered and inspired creative solutions. The purpose to assist, help and to   provide safety and support as far as possible to the people around us – it kept us going. Moving forward and to fight our own uncertainties. But over time I can’t help to recognize the hashtag misused to cover the sales approach under the impression of unity. So what really counts to keep the positive spirit alive for collaborative approaches? For those who know me, it is no secret that I always have been a believer in networks, cooperation and combining strengths of individuals and companies. No matter if locally or globally, within single industries or e

I am working in cross-culture and functional diversed environments for quite a while. To master the challenge of "translation" between different types of individuals - extroverts & introverts, techies and sales, experts and generalist, blue collar and white collar etc. - was always my highest motivation to plan, moderate and run joint workshops Soon I discovered "Liberating Structures" (by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless) as extremely valuable methods to unleash the entire potential of diverse groups . (Further information in Links below) No matter the groups were in a phase of ideation, exploring best practises, analyzing test phases or in their regular strategy review - I always found simple to use methods and created strings which - beside an experienced moderator - only need post-its, markers and some space to divide larger groups . The efficiency of the methology works great in face-to-face settings. And as my team mostly were spread around the globe

The following best practices assume that the VR Collaboration platform and hardware is already selected. 1) Onboard new users To meet in Virtual Reality is a brand-new and uncommon way of communication. Before calling into the VR Room - make sure all participants know what to expect and have at least experienced the VR Room once before. Ideally, all users have pre-set devices in their hands. Upfront of the first VR workshop, invite new users e.g. personally or into a simple video conference to explain: purpose of VR collaboration, known advantages and limits, basic usage of the headset, basic usage of the tool, ideal surrounding / space. Jointly enter the VR Room then and guide with simple instructions to use mandatory functions like moving around, writing, sticky notes or switching rooms (whatever is used in your later workshop) Photo taken in GLUE / Lake Cubic space 2) Define meeting / workshop rules Just as EVERY other form of meeting or workshop, define rules which every participan

There is no doubt Virtual Reality got another big boost during lock down and in the current uncertain pandemic situation. Schools and universities had to adapt quickly to remote learning activities. While remote teaching is mainly based upon video conferencing, streaming video and school community software – both commercial or governmental – the virtual reality aspects are still quietly unknown and unused .  Beside, professional educational VR content and the necessary equipment is costly and therewith not  accessible to everyone . Of course  VR Gear in combination with a modern smartphone is the easiest way to get in touch with this new technology either by 360 videos or simple learning applications. (Photo by stem.T4L on Unsplash ) Together with my  test candidates – being 10 and 13 – we experienced a lot the past months from using Google Expedition for tours as well as VR learning apps suitable for smartphone devices up to content designed for the Oculus Quest. As low as the

For most of us Virtual Reality (VR) is still nothing more than a buzzword, a trend maybe in the gaming scene and - depending on the industry we are working in - we might have the luck to already discover some stunning applications used along the value chain of e.g. in manufacturing or engineering. Still, the great break-through is to come. VR stand-alone headsets are available for about 2 years and meanwhile cost not even 50% of the price of the latest wanna-have-smartphone . You do neither need an additional laptop or PC nor any know-how other than finding the power button and follow instructions to connect to your Wi-Fi. In fact, it is as easy as using a smartphone. Nonetheless, it is not a common tool by now. Since the COVID19 lock-down and related travel restrictions, the use-cases around VR get discussed more publicly which gives a nice push to the topic. As what we don't know about we don't consider valuable . But step-by-step the broader visibility in common me