SYNNECTA Blog
SYNNECTA Blog
Agile leadership: factors of success
The last years have seen radical change to the environment in which businesses have had to operate for success. The field is increasingly grasped by VUCA – volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Digitalization, globalization and growth of networking...
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Mental Change? Agile organizations need new »identities«
On the agile triangle (methods, structure, culture), one of the most difficult aspect remains that of cultural change; that is neither new nor surprising. What we call culture is a combination of many factors that cannot be grasped by causal thought and are therefore...
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Agile organizations and their growing pains
The group was silent. They stayed silent, even as the inviting manger tried to send an optimistic and constructive message. Questions were ignored or answered with vague and irrelevant responses. Although the conversation livened up a little in smaller groups, it...
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Five Stars
Together with the following endorsement of one of our trainings we were asked, what is the difference between a good leadership-training and a five-star training? The answer is relatively simply – don't elaborate on one of the uncountable leadership theories but give...
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Sprint Workshops: an agile alternative to traditional team workshops
As organizations are growing increasingly sensitive to agility, we gain new ground for experiments. This blog text will introduce a sprint workshop format, which has evolved from such an experiment and has yielded good results in several projects. I developed the...
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A plea for learning by experience in group dynamics and against the over-methodization of agile procedures
Among the employees and managers we meet who work in agile environments, more and more have recently asked us how to deal with dominant informal leaders. Both sociometry and group dynamics know informal leadership as a key phenomenon: it is a frequent cause of a range...
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Agile Teams & Collaboration/Conflicts
Does »Agility« and »Controlling« fit together? On the ICV ControllingBlog Hans-Peter Sander, Head of the ICV Team PR/New Media, tells about his Agile Culture Coach training that he completed in five modules in 2017 at SYNNECTA. Today: »Agile Teams and Collaboration«...
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Agility needs Diversity
Agility is the answer enterprises have found to a changed world and to a changed context of doing business. Society, markets and the competitive landscape have changed to possess a greater degree of contingency - in the phrasing of companies today, this is known as...
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Agile Methods and Scrum
Does »Agility« and »Controlling« fit together? The big Munich »Controller Congress« had the title »Agile Controlling in the digital reality – managing upheavals successfully?«. I received a fantastic offer: Deep immersion into the subject during a professional...
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Why agility and diversity belong together
»Not yet an answer« Consider a group of people. They are all different, not the same, but they have one thing in common: they work together. They were told that work these days needs agility, and diversity. Everyone nodded in agreement. All of them have the same...
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»The tale of one who set out to learn agility«
»Agility« and »management control« – that's a match! Even this year's large Munich »Controller Congress« agreed when they titled the event »Agile controlling in digital reality: Managing upheavals successfully«, didn't they? Or is it not a match after all, as some...
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Anxiety and Trust
A process of change can take on many guises. It can be a major crisis or a great opportunity. Yet every single process of change involves two decisive components: Anxiety and Trust. There is no certainty in life. It is never there, but its absence is most apparent in...
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SYNNECTA Werkhaus – Introduction
Looking up at a starry sky, we might have a sense of sublime peace and magnitude or hear the music of the spheres. They are ways to look or hear into the sky; images we create for ourselves. Heinrich Hertz, as a hardcore natural scientist, noted that we create images...
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Review of the SYNNECTA round table »Resilience and healthy company culture«
Who is responsible for employee health? What are the health effects of flexible working environments? How do companies develop a culture of health awareness? HR representatives from a range of organisations and fields, businesspeople and health representatives came...
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Why dynamic skills are becoming so important now
The demands on organisations are growing steadily, while the private and business world is becoming more complex and increasingly less predictable. As the recent past has clearly shown, we are challenged daily by issues which are always good for surprises: not only...
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»The World in Upheaval« – Book launch at the Mercator Foundation Berlin
The book »Anders wirtschaften – Integrale Impulse für eine plurale Ökomomie« (Economising Differently – Integral Impulses for a Plural Ecomomy) provides an approach to achieve a systemic understanding of corporate organisation and leadership. On Tuesday,...
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Industry 4.0
It is currently the main economic issue, and there is hardly any topic whereby the impact on industry and society is discussed so controversially. When it comes to the question of how digitalisation changes the working world, different opinions determine the public...
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Agile Talent Management (II): New Formats and Interventions
I described the fundamental aspects of agile talent management in my last blog post on the topic of talent management: a development-guided notion of talent, talent enabling, self-organization and a supportive talent culture. Building on that, I will now propose...
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Agile Talent Management (I): What is talent management in a situation of constant change?
The form of talent management I witness in many organizations is maintained via talent identification and process management. Yet, these inflexible models are rarely able to permit the flexibility that is required in complex, agile environments. If talent management...
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Strategic Simulation Game – SYNNECTA Global Logistics
This is a game of six stations with set game boards and role ascriptions, thirty-five players, a range of supply concepts, several thousand Lego bricks, a great number of containers, lorries and ships. It is the goal of this game of quick rounds to produce eight Lego...
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Pathfinder 2016 – Leading the Future – Berlin, May 1, 2016
SYNNECTA and the Pathfinders almost have a tradition by now! We met once again this year in Berlin on May 1st with CEOs of leading companies, inspiring speakers and about 800 talents from Allianz, Daimler, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Deloitte and Techniker Krankenkasse....
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Age!
»A society that cannot bear old age will be destroyed by its own selfishness.« Willy Brandt How old are you? When I was six, I thought I was old - I was, after all, about to start school. When I was eighteen, I did not feel like an adult. And now? I feel young,...
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Supervisions: Visiting places of modern and hyper-modern art
In Berlin, people are queueing up to see an exhibition comparing expressionist and impressionist painting. It is a very regulated experience of art: this is well established, known art. There will not be any exceeding challenges, irritations or surprises. Here, on the...
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Sophia 2015 – agile takte/agile beats
Opening Night - many people, cultural sites and temples of dining, good food, various contacts, lively conversations, an entertaining evening - content. Day One - arrival at Praterinsel, surprisingly different location, irritation, demolition style, no doors, graffiti...
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»If music be the food of love«
»If music be the food of love, play on!« (William Shakespeare) The Sophia workshop is important to us. It is a symbol of creativity, sociability and enjoyment, of shared education. Education, the essence of enlightenment. This year, Sophia took place in spaces that...
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Dimensions of Agility
»Agility« has become a key term for anyone keen to show that they are »ahead of the times«. Yet, at the same time, use of the word often elicits negative reactions and rejection. Beyond showmanship and buzzword bingo, however, the term hides valuable notions and...
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Cultural sensitivity allows a more effective Change Management: organizational culture as a field of discourses in tension
Cultural anthropologists have addressed the cultural aspects of organizations and companies since the 1920s, beginning with the Hawthorne Experiments. Now, economists and management have come to recognize that organizational culture is a resource for economic success...
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»Empower and trust your people and you will be positively surprised!« – Example of a bottom-up-process
Imagine you are an employee in a medium-sized business with a history. You are well connected within your organization, are considered creative or you are committed – ideally you are even all three of those things. You are still several levels from the top of the...
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Conformity, obedience and submission
Companies are well structured, designed and rule driven. Compliance everywhere. They go for total transparency. Big Data, smart Data and the new technologies are great opportunities and at the same time a big threat. A workforce driven to conformity is helpful, if...
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Irreparability in Business: Doing your best without being perfect
How you are, how the world is – this is the irreparable. (Giorgio Agamben) In his small, but philosophically very dense booklet The Coming Community, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben (also see the German blog entry on state of emergency) elevated the irreparable to...
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