OKR, Kanban, Scrum, Design Thinking, Management 3.0, Lean Management…the list of tools and concepts around agile leadership is long and somehow it seems that everybody is talking about it. Thinking that “We should also deal with that right now” seems self-evident. But what does agile leadership actually mean? And is the implementation of agile methods in the own organization really reasonable?
It already exists for more than 100 years: the history of transfer research. Nevertheless, there is an enormous research-practice-gap. With an average implementation rate of 20%, companies spend a lot of money and time on development measures that are not very effective. In her brand new book, Ina Weinbauer-Heidel brings all the important findings on transfer research to the point and makes them practically accessible with the 12 levers of transfer effectiveness.
Design Thinking was founded in America and now often sounds like a wonderful IT-Start-Up fairy tale: managers are sitting in a play corner and play with building bricks and developers visit their customers directly and design new products together with them. This way the company develops incomparably innovative products and earns a lot of money as well. We asked the Design Thinking trainer Ursula Weixlbaumer-Norz: What is Design Thinking actually and how does a company profit from it?
Ursula Weixlbaumer-Norz: Design Thinking originally comes from America but is nowadays established in Europe as well. Together with the d.school in Stanford, the HPI School in Potsdam plays a pioneering role in the development and dissemination of Design Thinking.
The benefits of the concept are explained quite easily: the designers of the IDEO innovation agency developed Design Thinking as a method for solving complex problems in modern times. First of all they explained and illustrated the innovation process to make it more understandable and learnable. This is one main characteristic of Design Thinking. All in all Design Thinking is an innovation process with 6 different levels. Each level includes different methods, which can be selected according to the specific challenge and the problem-solving competence of the participating leaders and teams. The concept works across all industries and business sectors.
Only in the first moment – but if managers and companies are ready to use and to exploit its full potential, it can be much more than that. Therefore I would like to quote the HPI school: “What was first developed in Stanford as an innovation method for products and services, turned out to be much more than this. It is a new way to see people in relation to work, to think about the concept of work and to ask how we want to live, learn and work in the 21st century. The aim of Design Thinking is to provide new and surprising forms of a creative collaboration. We-intelligence is the new slogan and collaboration becomes the basis for a new work-awareness*.” (*Translation of the original quotation in German)
Design Thinking – a new design process consisting of 6 levels
Design Thinking is often named together with agile management methods, “Lean Start-Up” or “Scrum”. As already mentioned, the special feature is that it is not only a technique, but also a whole new kind of collaboration where you can work with flexible rooms and especially profit from interdisciplinarity. At a current customer project which I am doing as a MDI trainer, the participants of the Design Thinking workshop were not only the employees and leaders of the client, but according to the concept of Design Thinking also entrepreneurs, start-ups, students and experts from other companies. They all contributed actively on different challenges – it was incredible to see what it triggered in the participants.
As a way of thinking, Design Thinking contributes to the solution of complex problems in all areas and can be applied to a variety of questions – not just for the development of new products and services but also for the improvement of internal processes and services.
I am an entrepreneur myself for a long time and a former start-up. And also before that I have already been working in a very agile and international working environment. That is the reason why I am always looking for new innovative methods for myself but especially for all the leaders I meet in my workshops. And I am convinced that Design Thinking can help leaders and teams to deal with complex problems in a strategic and structured way.
The method suits especially leaders who have to deal with complex issues. I am teaching Design Thinking at MDI as a tool for those leaders. And one thing I am very happy about at the moment: the HPI School just published a study on the effectiveness of Design Thinking. A large majority of the respondents (71 percent) say that Design Thinking has improved the working culture, especially in the team. Innovative processes have become much more efficient for many users (69 percent) and the involvement of users or consumers is more frequent (48 percent). Cost savings (18 percent) or profit growth (29 percent) were less important. “It is, of course, difficult to measure the exact and direct financial value of Design Thinking. However, the responses show that business processes and customer experiences are sustainably improved which increases the profitability in the long term*” said Jan Schmiedgen, one of the three authors of the study. (*Translation of original quotation in German)
MDI trainer Ursula Weixlbaumer-Norz answered our questions about Design Thinking. She is working together with MDI Management Development International as an international Management and Leadership trainer for many years.
Since 2016 she improves herself within agile Leadership at IDEO, Strategyzer/Business Model Canvas and the HPI School of Design Thinking. Since 2017 she is offering workshops on Design Thinking, some of them especially designed for leaders.
Mimic resonance means to recognize mimic signals, to intepret them correctly and to deal with them appropriatly. As a powerful leadership tool it opens an even bigger power in matters of interculturalism. To get an idea about your own ability to read facial expressions we prepared a little self-test for you.
Emotionally intelligent leadership isn’t only a topic that is pretty trendy at the moment. It’s a topic that strikes all of us. But how can you, as a leader, recognize and handle emotions? And what do terms such as emotional intelligence and resilience actually mean?
The ongoing internationalisation of the economy – first and foremost conditioned by technological progress – entails the necessity of international leadership development. Well trained leaders and managers are a crucial competitive factor on the global market. It’s possible to copy technologies but never company and leadership cultures or the people living them. In order to not only survive on the global market but to create competitive advantages, to grow and to master even complex challenges, there are some important points to consider.
They are the last link in an often very long chain of conception, arrangements and measures for the perfect design and organization of a leadership development program: trainers! They interact directly with the participants of a program and are responsible for anchoring of content and initiation of behavioral change. If they are located all over the world, a well-grounded train the trainer process is indispensable for the success of big international programs. We explain four practical measures for your successful train the trainer process.
Day in and out the following question bothers us: How can we ensure that learned training content is really applied in practice, leading to sustainable change of behavior? Today we’d like to show you the three most effective approaches we got to know during past years and which have proven themselves as really effective. Here we go with your power package for maximum training transfer.
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Wide beaches, hot rhythms, soccer and the world-wide famous carnival – Brazil is known to be loud, colorful and charmingly chaotic. Silke Körner, L&D consultant, lived there for some years and reveals in this post how she experiences leadership development and training in Brazil and how digitalization and leadership 4.0 are influencing the country.
Based on the Commitment Formula and on how commitment comes about, this video gets into detail and practice. Presenting the Commitment Game Board and how it works, Gunther Fürstberger offers a practical all-purpose tool for lateral leaders helping to evaluate planned projects and to lead them to success – step by step.