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My generation is very good at demanding change. As long as the change is for someone else. Germany needs reform. More competitiveness. More willingness to face reality. I agree. But touch our pensions, privileges or expectations, and suddenly change starts to feel unfair. My generation has plenty to say about the comfort zones of younger […]

I would never hurt an animal. I believed that for most of my life. I also ate them. I loved dogs, cats, horses. I would have been horrified to see one frightened, confined or hurt. At the same time, I ate animals whose capacity for fear, pain and stress is not fundamentally different. Psychology calls […]

We have never talked more about mental health. Yet sometimes it feels as if we have never considered ourselves more psychologically unwell. Burnout. Depression. ADHD. Anxiety. Trauma. Something important has changed. Much of it is progress. But I am no longer convinced that all of it is. We have become much better at recognizing psychological […]

I have promoted people beyond their capabilities. I have continued working with executive teams when I should have said much earlier: this is going nowhere. I have coached people whom I believed genuinely wanted to change, only to realize that I had confused their ability to talk intelligently about development with their willingness to develop. […]

A tree. Vineyards. A village in the distance. Nothing extraordinary. I like that. Most of my life looks rather different. I travel the world, coach executives, facilitate workshops, write, build, train, make plans. My calendar is rarely empty, and I actually like it that way. I like intensity. I like creating things and moving things […]

For a long time, I lived in two worlds. In one, I built a business: growth, ambition, getting things done. In the other, I meditated, went on retreats and questioned who this “I” actually was. The worlds felt utterly different. But I entered both as the achiever. In business, I wanted more success. In meditation, […]

“What if my best people simply leave?” A few days ago, I was coaching the head of a country organization. She leads a commercially driven business with ambitious people who want to serve customers, grow the business and get things done. But too often, headquarters makes their lives harder: bureaucracy, poor processes, slow decisions, functions […]

My sense of purpose has changed profoundly over the years. Earlier this week, I met someone who reminded me where its real power lies. I was in the Swiss Alps for an offsite with a group of executives. After a hike, we went for dinner at a small mountain hotel, and I got talking to […]

I used to think the most important job of a leader was making good decisions. I no longer think that is enough. The older I get, and the longer I work with people at the top, the more skeptical I become of a certain kind of leadership: intelligent, decisive, convinced of its own analysis, yet […]

There is a kind of calm I no longer trust. I encounter it regularly in executive rooms. Someone gets challenged hard and remains perfectly composed. The voice stays level. The argument remains rational. What looks like calm is often something else: Enormous inner pressure with very good manners. Senior executives can become exceptionally good at […]

I am still remarkably capable of turning another human being into an idiot. Someone says something that triggers me. Someone behaves badly. Someone holds a political position I find hard to comprehend. Within seconds, my mind can produce a convincing case for why the problem is them. Almost thirty years of meditation haven’t changed that […]

When it comes to ambition, I increasingly see two camps at war with each other. I encounter both in the executive world. They tell themselves very different stories, and each seems convinced the other has got it badly wrong. I find both of them rather strange. One treats striving almost as a psychological defect. Slow […]

I rarely write about politics. Deliberately. But last Sunday’s election in Saxony-Anhalt has stayed with me: 43.8% for the AfD, more than twice its 2021 result, with record turnout. You can have strong views about the AfD. I do. But this is no longer adequately explained as protest. Many voters increasingly believe this party can […]

Living amidst the vineyards of Southern Palatinate has taught me something about ambition: pushing for more can produce less of what matters. Harvest is in full swing, earlier than ever this year. Some of Germany’s best winemakers live close by, and over the past four years I have gotten to know a few quite well. […]

Right now, I am watching highly successful executives struggle badly with leading through a downward cycle. It is alarming to see what this does to entire organizations. Focus disappears. Everything becomes urgent. Initiatives, task forces and reporting multiply. Organizations start running around like headless chickens. What is needed is almost the opposite: a few brutal […]