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Verzichte im Jahr 2024 darauf!

Joerg Kuehn · Jan 30, 2024 · Leave a Comment

Am 11. April 1983 machte sich Dave mit seiner Band auf den Weg, um in New York ihr Debütalbum aufzunehmen. Dave, ein hochbegabter Gitarrist, Sänger und Songwriter, war seit zwei Jahren als Leadgitarrist in der Band. Doch starker Alkoholkonsum und daraus resultierende Streitigkeiten hatten längst überhandgenommen, und so beschlossen die anderen drei Mitglieder, ihn aus der Band zu werfen. Sie packten seine Ausrüstung zusammen, fuhren ihn zum Port Authority Bus Terminal und setzten ihn in einen Greyhound-Bus nach Los Angeles.

Am Boden zerstört und kochend vor Wut, entfernte sich Dave immer weiter von seinem Traum, Kopf einer erfolgreichen Heavy Metal Band zu werden. In diesen dunklen Stunden schwor er Rache. Er würde eine Band zusammenstellen, die besser und größer werden würde als seine vorherige. Sie würde erfolgreichere Tourneen in ausverkauften Hallen organisieren und mehr Platten verkaufen, als sich seine früheren Bandkollegen jemals erträumen könnten. [Read more…] about Verzichte im Jahr 2024 darauf!

What is Your next SPRINT?

Joerg Kuehn · Aug 30, 2023 · Leave a Comment

In autumn 2007, while working as Supply Chain Director with Procter & Gamble, I applied internally for a job, which sounded interesting … and daunting. The role would be to lead the integration of the Wella business in Asia by harmonising all 1,500 employees onto P&G contracts and moving Wella’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system onto the P&G SAP platform. The job was far too big for me at that stage.

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.

[Read more…] about Getting A Difficult Message Across

How to manage highly emotional encounters?

Joerg Kuehn · Feb 22, 2023 · 4 Comments

As part of my psychotherapist qualification, I recently worked with a client who struggled with severe anxiety. It was challenging, and it took several sessions for the client to open up about what was going on.

It was about a relationship. A working relationship.

Alice (name & background changed for confidentiality reasons) was leading a small team of consultants in a high-pressure corporate environment. Juggling the demanding requests of her clients and managing her team was tough. But her key struggle was the relationship she suffered through with a senior peer in a supporting function.

Alice described that person as an “aggressive dictator,” who was 10 years older and fighting “tooth and nail” over everything. This made it impossible for Alice to establish a collaborative relationship. She dreaded every encounter with the “dictator.” Several days before their next meeting, she could feel her stomach churn and she would endure sleepless nights.

The meetings were tense. Conversations were difficult… until at one point it came to a head. In front of the whole team, the smouldering conflict between the two leaders exploded. Both started throwing accusations. The “dictator” began to raise her voice and, with cutting, machine-gun like remarks, she systematically dismantled Alice. Feeling embarrassed, incapable, small and stupid, Alice shrank further and further to the point where she could not handle it. Close to tears, she dropped out of the video call. It was a disaster.

Is it a threat or a challenge to you?

Joerg Kuehn · Feb 22, 2022 · Leave a Comment

‘‘The test you will take today is designed to help us identify people who are exceptionally weak in their problem-solving reasoning abilities. Your performance on this test will not be scored like most normal tests, but rather will be classified as either above or below a predetermined cut-off score. If you score below that cut-off, this suggests that you are exceptionally weak —in other words, well below average in your problem-solving reasoning abilities. Thus, this test and the scoring method used are designed only to separate those who are especially weak from everyone else.”

This is how Dr. Chalabajev and her team introduced the test to participants of group 1 in their study about how people deal with performance anxiety. Group 2 was introduced differently, with the underlined words replaced as follows: weak by strong and below by above. The intention was to trigger fear in group 1 making participants feeling under threat, by being at risk of getting classified as “especially weak”, whereas help group 2 to identify the test as a challenge where they could potentially be identified as “especially strong” problem solvers with not much else to lose. In scientific terms group 1 was targeted to become “goal-avoidant” and group 2 “goal-approaching.”

The study results* are in my point of view mind boggling:

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