THE GREAT SABBATICAL IS HERE — BUT HOW TO MAKE IT WORK?
A Passionate Plaidoyer For Our “Right to Retire” and Reinvent Ourselves Every 10 years
“The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.” - Mark Twain
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HIERARCHY MUST DIE!! KILL THE EGOS! Really?! I Beg To Differ
It seems that many of our current conversations about organizational and individual #transformation and #leadership have started to take undue and dangerous shortcuts to purport simplistic slogans and recipes, rather than promote deeper inquiry...
THE LEADER WHO POINTED A FINGER…
I will argue that Leadership is not about the leader, nor his ladder, nor the new direction, nor the mindset, and not even about “bringing your people with you” to embrace the new (your!) course. It’s not even about the narrative itself: it’s about what is invisible in the picture. Good leadership is about transforming an organisational capacity “to become” its own best future.In other words, and to stay with the image, it is mostly about the “pointing of the finger”...
The Case For “PSYCHOLOGICAL UNSAFETY”?
From Psychological Safety and Radical Candour to Radical Development
Why do we have psychological risks in the workplace in the first place? Most of the psychological risk exists simply because organisation are not an interaction between robots, but an encounter between human beings. Risk is there because employees are not just resources to be molded and disciplined, but subjects of action and responsibility. So, why do we need safety? Here things get interesting.
The Fatal Flaw of STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM
The problem with STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM remains, in my interpretation, primarily ontological.
What does that mean? It means that when we “see the world” as a fragmented array of constituents who lay normative claims on the economy, or an Organisation, or the State, we quickly forget that such a perspective is necessarily incomplete.
What does that mean? It means that when we “see the world” as a fragmented array of constituents who lay normative claims on the economy, or an Organisation, or the State, we quickly forget that such a perspective is necessarily incomplete.
OUR IMMORAL OBSESSION WITH “AUTHENTICITY” AND THE PERILS OF SELF-ACTUALISATION
In this ever more uncertain and dangerous world, where traditional values and communities are being eroded, and external change is constant… or so the story went… we can only truly rely upon ourselves. Hence, to master the rugged seas of postmodern anxiety and realise “our best self” we have to embark on a quest for authenticity. Successful living means to connect to our very “essence” and live in accordance with our “soul”. Of course, most of this is fiction…
Homo Economicus is Dead — Long Live Homo Cooperativus!
We have looked everywhere — the infamous ‘homo economicus’ has gone missing like Ötzi the Iceman! This abstract model of men who act and decide solely based on rational calculation of benefits and costs, and who are exclusively guided by self-interest, or even greed and guile, exists mostly in the heads of economists (who, by the way, are 80% male!) and corporate finance departments...
WHY ARE GOOD LEADERS CONSTANTLY HITTING THE WALL… when their organisations are not ready for change
Have you ever noticed that those few managers and leaders who earnestly seek to develop themselves at some stage get frustrated, give up and leave? In spite of everybody crying out for “agile” and “empowering” and “responsible” leaders? I will suggest the challenge is systemic: the maturity of an organisation can never transcend the maturity of their leaders… and its teams.
How Economic Science Lost Its Heart and Soul (…and What We Can Do About It)
Imagine a society where people interact with trust, solidarity and fraternity. Where welfare is not measured in terms of GDP, but lived in terms of public happiness. Where the economy is virtuous and markets aim at shared prosperity through mutual exchange and generous reciprocity. Where organisations are, first and foremost, positive agents of societal change — creating communities, not commodities. And where work is centred on the integral development of each person, not solely on products…
Stop the Corporate Crooks… Now!
Our corporate world seems to have gone mad as a hatter! Newspaper around the globe are chock-full of distressing stories — featuring corporate managers as greedy tycoons, opportunistic gamblers, eccentric narcissists or hubristic superstars, busily designing billionaire-only resorts on planet Mars. And every day some CEO somewhere makes the headlines for getting away with phenomenal bonuses in spite of miserable performance...
Pluralists of all Countries, Unite!
Once upon a time, around 1989, the righteous cavaliers of capitalism trounced the evil communist forces and freed the beautiful Princess of Liberty! “Mankind had reached perfection, thanks to the invisible hand and relentless greed”. Henceforth, neocapitalism ruled with precious splendour and all people shall be living (read: consuming) as mini capitalists happily ever after… WRRRRRRRRONG!!
Entrepreneur: 1 — Manager: 0?
“Management is not about managing people, but about helping people become entrepreneurs”. Is that true? And whilst compelling, what exactly does this mean? With all the hype about entrepreneurship it might indeed come as a surprise that the role of “entrepreneurs” has been far from unequivocal during the last two centuries...
Wannabe CEO? You’d Better Be Good.
My message to anyone who wants to be a CEO or business leader is: there is a difference between change and adaptiveness. And between being adaptive and being good. And you’d better understand that.
From homo liber to homo idioticus — why Freedom must serve, not rule
Undoubtedly, Freedom is a precious gift. Yet, at the same time we must not reify freedom. Especially libertarians have a tendency to worship individual freedom above all else.
We Don’t Need Another Hero
The truth is: what we lack is not CEOs — we have plenty. What we lack is true leadership — people who have wisdom, maturity and moral character to enable our organisations to innovate and thrive, on behalf of and embedded in the ecosystem.
Nomination: Top 40 HR Thinkers (and, no, we do not believe in ratings and rankings!)
18 mutige Managerinnen und Manager, 10 Spitzenforscherinnen und -forscher, 12 einflussreiche Beraterinnen und Berater: Wie wählte das Personalmagazin die 40 führenden HR-Köpfe 2021 aus? Ein Blick auf die Arbeit der Redaktion und die Erkenntnisse aus dem Auswahlprozess.
„We need to start the transformation with ourselves“
Interview New Work, Agile, Teal – there are many initiatives for a new future of work. Otti Vogt, until recently COO and Chief Transformation Officer C&G at ING, and Prof. Dr. Antoinette Weibel from the University of St. Gallen explain in this interview why these have not yet achieved broad transformational power and how things could be improved.
A Timely Laloux Retrospective: Why Teal is Wrong! (And Why You Should Care)
Since the publication of Frederic Laloux's Reinventing Organizations in 2014, "Teal" has become a hopeful utopia for its passionate followers in the global future-of-work community. Seven years later many find their dreams shattered, as the book’s revolutionary vision rests on patchy premises.
Beyond Agile — How to Craft Better Organisations?
Transcript of my marginally updated presentation on the evolution of Agile learning organisations, with more details on Performance Management and OKRs — supporting a stimulating dialogue and knowledge exchange with the executive Leaders of a world-leading agile engineering and technology company
LETTING GO OF LEADERSHIP – HOW IS THE CONCEPT OF LEADERSHIP THE PROBLEM?
By Otti Vogt (Part of a reflection on System Psychodynamics for INSEAD) and originally published on medium.com/@otti.vogt
The Urgent Case for A Global Leadership Iconoclasm
The Urgent Case for A Global Leadership Iconoclasm
TALKIN’ ABOUT A FIFTH REVOLUTION - TOWARD A LIVING ORGANISATION PARADIGM
By Otti Vogt, originally delivered at the first annual Teal Around the World online conference July 2020.
Uniting Leaders to Craft the Organizations of the Future
Uniting Leaders to Craft the Organizations of the Future
Fighting Covid-19: Prime time for heroic leadership? A battle of Agile vs Resilience.
Let me be clear: we are all afraid. Yet, fear shall never come in the way of courageously doing what is right. Let us not speak of darker days: let us speak of sterner days. This is the hour to walk together on a journey from fear and isolation to greater humanity and deeper healing, to make sure we come out of the crisis more resilient and more united, and certainly a bit wiser about what truly matters in life.
„The dark side of OKRs and why we should care“
Antoinette has written a blog on OKRs to show how even modern performance management can lead to dehumanization. In a nutshell: individual level OKRs prevent reflection and incubation plus when pitched overambitious (as suggested) can be linked to gaming and unethical behavior. But even OKRs on the collective level need to be designed carefully as competition between teams can also undermine the contribution to the common good.
The Hidden Costs of Incentive Pay
In a well-read publication Antoinette together with Bård Kuvaas, Robert Buch, Anders Dysvik and Christina G.L. have shown based on three studies that extrinsic motivation (made salient through incentive pay) is negatively related to work performance and commitment but positively to burnout and work-family conflict.
Big Brother in Companies
In a wrap-up of her big (and quite frigthening) research project Antoinette explains the pittfalls of the rising datafication in companies.
The Challenges of Algorithm-Based HR Decision-Making for Personal Integrity?
Together with her co-authors and project partners Antoinette identifies an important challenge arising from the efficiency-driven logic of algorithm-based HR decision-making, namely that it may shift the delicate balance between employees’ personal integrity and compliance more in the direction of compliance. The authors suggest that critical data literacy, ethical awareness, the use of participatory design methods, and private regulatory regimes within civil society can help overcome these challenges.
Antoinette Weibel
IWER-HSG University of St. Gallen
where to find me
You can reach me on LinkedIn where I am very active and love to have conversations. For more formal requests you can also find me on the homepage of the Institute for Work and Employment Research.
available for
I am willing to support non-commercial pro-bono initiatives related to our project. In addtion I am also available for talks on trust and other topics related to this project for commercial initiatives in which case the interested organization would have to co-sponsor the phd who is working together with us on this project.
Otti Vogt
Responsible Leadership on youtube
Management for Radicals with Michele Zanini
where to find me
You can reach me on LinkedIn for any requests and conversations.
In addition, you will find all my official recordings on youtube and my public speaking engagements on thinkers360.
available for
I am currently on executive sabbatical until end 2021 and willing to support non-commercial "pro bono" initiatives related to our project.
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