determination

Seven Life Lessons Learned from Writing a Book

Joerg Kuehn · Dec 13, 2023 · Leave a Comment

In December 2021, it all sounded so straightforward. Combine 60+ existing newsletters into a little book and self-publish it in English and German. Little did I know what it would really take to put these two books together. But finally, both are published. So I thought it would be a good time to step back and reflect on what I learned along the tough journey. Here are my top seven insights:

1. Listen to the inner voice and know the WHY

At the start, I just had this thought … more of a vague feeling … about what I wanted to write, and so my inner voice told me to create little thumbnails (LINK) as shown below. From there, a flow emerged. And so, in January 2022, the writing journey began, guided by my inner voice. I made good progress, and gradually it became clear why I was writing. It made me reflect on my own journey. At times this felt therapeutic, making me very grateful for the support I received and how my life has changed. It became clear that my WHY was not to write a New York Times best seller. My WHY was to document my walk through life, capturing its learnings and thanking the many good people who have supported me. Becoming clear about the WHY was a huge help later in the process. More on that below.

The Power Of Creative Problem-Solving

Joerg Kuehn · Jul 26, 2023 · Leave a Comment

It’s 1.30pm on March 30th, 1983 when Holger Bethke and his friend Michael Becker arrive at a particular corner in Schmollerstraße in East Berlin. The house they are looking for is right beside the “death strip” … the area surrounding the Berlin wall (s.above).

Disguised as craftsmen in blue work suits, they carefully open the locked doors with a picklock, making as little noise as possible. Once they are in, they hide in the attic for nearly twelve hours, eating sandwiches, drinking schnapps, and smoking cigarettes. Their plan to escape across the Berlin-Wall is highly risky, daring and dangerous. But, if it works, it is also a compelling tale of innovation … pure genius really.

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What really matters to you?

Joerg Kuehn · Jul 4, 2023 · Leave a Comment

When I worked as Supply Chain Director in Procter & Gamble, every year we completed a loss analysis. To do that, we picked a specific skin-care product and leveraged a tool called value-stream-mapping to map out the whole supply chain for each of the components and ingredients on a large white-board. The captured flow could lead back more than 12 months, when some of the raw materials were prefabricated.

Then, we looked at all the steps in the supply chain which actually generated value. For example, when we mixed the ingredients, filled the jar, put a label on, and added a cap to close the jar. You can imagine the actual value-creation-time was only a few minutes, whereas there were weeks and months lost in waiting, transportation, as well as other non-value-added movements.

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Getting A Difficult Message Across

Joerg Kuehn · May 31, 2023 · Leave a Comment

You may remember the newsletter about a client of mine who worked through a highly emotional situation with “the dictator.” Only a short while later, I encountered another client with an even trickier situation.

Chris is a calm and friendly 35-year-old manager, who struck me from the beginning as someone who was very kind. In a “fast-track” career, he had risen rapidly through the ranks of a medium-sized Swedish consumer electronics company. Based in the UK, he was now leading its global supply chain operations.

Chris absolutely loved his job. He viewed it “like a hobby” where he enthusiastically “created top-notch service solutions” for his clients. His passion for the job had him working 60-hour weeks for the last eight years. By his own admission, he’d been close to burn out two times and was currently doing double duty… handling two important job assignments within the company.

It presented a massive challenge.

Chris was not getting along well with his interim boss, the Managing Director of UK operations. “He attacked me personally” Chris said. The strained relationship created an unprecedented level of emotional turmoil, anger, and frustration in Chris.

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What does life expect from you?

Joerg Kuehn · Mar 29, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Nine months after he had married his wife in 1942, the Austrian psychiatrist Victor Frankl and his family were captured by the Nazis and transported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto – a waystation en route to the extermination camps. They were forced to abort their unborn child, and Frankl’s father died only months later of starvation and pneumonia.

In 1944, together with his wife and 1,500 other inmates, Frankl was placed on a train. They assumed they’d be transported to one of the Nazi armament factories to be used as forced labour. After days cooped up in the windowless wagon, one of the inmates glanced at a signpost outside. What he read out made the desperate passengers shiver with fear. “Auschwitz!,” he screamed in disbelief.

Separated from his wife upon arrival, Frankl was a man without any connection to his former life.

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