six wishes for 2024 (6/6): truth

One of my highlights of 20231 was an open air live concert by Cat Stevens / Yusuf at Stadtpark Hamburg. After the concert, my son and I played many of his songs for a couple of weeks, and one whose lyrics stuck with me was “In the end” where each verse starts with: “You can’t bargain with the truth”2. Of course not, we’ll all say and nod, it’s the truth. But then, being truthful: We all cover small blunders with pretty little lies; we all package unpleasant feedback in ornate narrations; we all push the big inconvenient truths of sickness, old age, death, or climate collapse to the margins of our minds. All these non-truths helps us function in the world, and we rightly call them smart, kind, or practical. But the truth within doesn’t go away – just like in that other famous song fragment: There is a truth in everything, that’s how the light gets in3.

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six wishes for 2024 (5/6): emotional literacy

One of the hardest tasks in my consulting work1 is the assessment of the emotional landscape in a given room at a given time. It’s always a mixed bag: Firstly, my own emotions, secondly, others’ emotions, thirdly, emotions arising from the interaction, and fourthly, leftover emotions lingering in the space. There’s the pride I experience when a chosen method works like expected, there’s the passion a client brings about growing their business, or their envy of a competitor’s recent marketing success, there’s (almost always) the greed to get more done than can possibly be squeezed into the allotted workshop time, and there’s (quite often) some unused anger littering the workshop room’s ugly carpet. Seeing, sorting, and purposefully including (or excluding) these emotions is heavy lifting, over and over again.

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six wishes for 2024 (4/6): action & reaction

In the musical ‘Hamilton’1, when prearing for the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson twice refers to the third Newtonian law: “Every action has its equal opposite reaction”2. In the context of the election, this points to the emerging two-party system of the United States. In the context of the ongoing rivalry between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, it prepares the audience for the escalation of their conflict, ending in the fatal duel on July 11, 1804. In the context of the inner struggles of the musical’s characters, it reflects on the bitter fact that those who take sides, by that very act, always also create enemies.

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six wishes for 2024 (3/6): authority

As a consultant1, I’m used to people asking me for my view, opinion, or advice. At the same time, I’m painfully aware that on most issues I’m commenting on, I’m not an authority. My clients usually are better experts in their fields of business, have a more comprehensive perspective on their goals and targets, and know their employees, suppliers, customers, and other interested parties much more deeply than I ever will. Still, they engage me to help them solve their problems, because they seek out my authority not in the “what”, but in the “how”. When working with them, I recommend the best paths and methods to solve their specific problems – all the time keeping in mind that it’s their problems, not mine. Therefore, when the collaboration is going smoothly, they fully own their “what” while taking my guidance on the “how”.

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six wishes for 2024 (2/6): solidarity

In the story of Billy Elliot1, the miner’s son who takes an interest in classical ballet and – despite his fathers initial resistance – ends up successfully auditioning for the Royal Ballet School2, there’s a scene where Billy almost gives up on his auditioning plan because of the family’s lack of funds. For a moment, Billy’s father considers breaking the miners’ strike, but then a much bigger solution emerges: All miners join forces and give whatever little money they have in order to finance Billy’s audition. In this magical moment, solidarity – the miners’ credo from the first act – and individuality – Billy’s dream of becoming a classical ballet dancer – merge into one.

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six wishes for 2024 (1/6): routine

Every morning and every evening, I brush my teeth1. Being honest with myself, this is the only daily routine that I truly, consistenly follow each and every single day of my life. Whenever I read about highly successful CEOs who get up at 3:12am every morning to do 108 minutes of vipassana meditation, followed by an hour of swimming at triathletic performance levels, topped with a thorough runthrough of the major news channels from all five continents, and garnished with a regionally sourced, vegan breakfast in the loving company of their seven teenage children and caring husband2, I feel like a sleazy sluggard.

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#standwithpeace

I abhor violence, and I hate war. When I grew up, my parents – who had been small kids in the final years of World War II – taught me never to point anything remotely weaponlike at any sentient being, not even a blade of grass at an ant, and not even in jest. The aftermath of the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, the terrors of the Gulf Wars, and the everlooming threat of the Cold War spinning out of control made the reality of war a constant painful presence in my childhood and youth. Starting on the day when Irak first fired Scud missiles on Israel in early 1991, for a couple of weeks, I lived in stark naked fear of a new world war exploding in our faces. Until today, I cringe at pictures of soldiers, tanks, bombs, or blood. “Nie wieder Krieg”, as in Käthe Kollwitz’s placard from 1924 in this post’s header, is one of the very few rally cries I’ll follow anywhere, anytime.

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wahlgedanken: fünf zukunftsfragen

In 44 Tagen wird in Deutschland ein neuer Bundestag gewählt1. Seit Ende Juni liegen – endlich – die Wahlprogramme aller größeren Parteien vor2. Eigentlich hätte ich erwartet, dass spätestens seit diesem Zeitpunkt eine öffentliche Debatte über die Ziele und Inhalte dieser Programme in Gang kommt. Das aber war bisher (von einzelnen Ausnahmen abgesehen3) nicht der Fall.

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wahlgedanken: wider die schlechtmacherei

In 126 Tagen wird in Deutschland ein neuer Bundestag gewählt1. Wie vor jeder Wahl werde ich in den nächsten Wochen und Monaten Wahlprogramme lesen und mir meine Gedanken zu den Ideen und Profilen der Spitzenkandidat:innen der Parteien und zu denen meiner Wahlkreiskandidat:innen machen. Irgendwann werde ich dann entscheiden, welche Kreuze ich in welchen Kästchen auf welchen Wahlzetteln machen will.

In diesem Jahr werde ich einige meiner Gedanken hier auf dem Blog teilen – nicht um den einen oder die andere zu einer bestimmten Wahlentscheidung zu bewegen, sondern um einen Beitrag dazu zu leisten, dass möglichst viele von uns möglichst reflektierte Wahlentscheidungen treffen2.

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corona: die komfortzonenfalle

Am gestrigen Mittwoch haben die Bundeskanzlerin und die Ministerpräsident*innen der Bundesländer wieder einmal darüber beraten, wie mit der “Lage” in Deutschland in Zeiten der Pandemie umzugehen sei. “Wir brauchen noch einmal eine Kraftanstrengung”, wird die Bundeskanzlerin zitiert1. In der konkreten Ausgestaltung fühlt sich die “Kraftanstregung” dann allerdings eher matt an: Statt wie bisher zehn dürfen sich im öffentlichen Raum zukünftig nur noch fünf Personen aus zwei Haushalten treffen – dafür zählen Kinder aber nicht mit. Die Maskenpflicht gilt nicht nur in Geschäften, sondern auch davor, außerdem auch in Unternehmen – es sei denn, man sitzt am eigenen Arbeitsplatz. Gleichzeitig bleiben Schulen und Kitas grundsätzlich geöffnet – aber ab 200 Neuinfektionen pro 100.000 Einwohner soll jeweils regional über alternative Modelle nachgedacht werden. Und schließlich: Über Weihnachten gelten Ausnahmen von den Regeln, denn dann dürfen sich bis zu zehn Erwachsene (plus Kinder) um jeweils einen Weihnachtsbaum versammeln.

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