Re-authoring Brands from Within
The watch’s suicide

As a young adult, having grown up in Germany, I felt slightly rebellious against the habit to wear a watch on the left arm. This ‘mainstream rule’ reminded me of the negative aspects of time, its rigidity, constraining my free spirit in its creative flow. For many years, I lived well without any watch on my arm.

A sunny and for Hamburg extremely warm May evening, in the charming Foodeventclub setting, we explore the companionship of food and story with around 30 guests, all of us, entrepreneurs, consultants, managers and artists in different areas of life.

Magic this period, coming from one year, going into another one. Be-longing is a picture I painted walking from 2016 into 2017. Surprise, surprise, the topic persists in 2018 and wants to be further explored. This year I listened to Brené Brown’s last book Braving the wilderness, The quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone.

BeyondStorytelling, 8./9. Juni in Hamburg

In der narrativen Arbeit liegt viel Gestaltungskraft. Erich Kästner sagte, es ist nie zu spät für eine glückliche Kindheit. Genauso wie wir unsere Vergangenheit unterschiedlich erzählen und damit auch wahrnehmen können, liegt es an uns ein inspirierendes Zukunftsbild zu schaffen – ein visionärer Zustand, zu dem wir uns als Person oder aber auch Organisation hin-entwickeln können.

In Vorbereitung auf unsere erste BeyondStorytelling Konferenz letztes Jahr im Mai in Heidelberg, haben wir uns natürlich auch die Frage nach dem bestmöglichen Ergebnis gestellt.

How to use dialogue, tension and conflict as a key for creative, collective growth
Creativity, innovation and transformation are phenomenas – we aim for – in each form of organization. In fact, they emerge out of diversity in groups. Just that, quite often, we fear the ‚difference’ rather than feeling attracted by it. Why?

One tough moment for me last year (as probably for many of us) was the morning after the American elections. I normally not easily loose ’emotional self control’, but this morning I started crying and shouting around. As some of you may know I love stories and I also love to intensively work with people and organizations on their ‘true’ stories. I just could not believe that such a fear making, flat, populistic Trump Story could have sincerely succeeded … after the first shock I concluded that more than ever I want to support delicate, authentic and especially inspiring stories to get LOUD.

Today, with technologies, markets and values in a rapid and dynamic shift, the organizational field needs the capability to continuously initiate and inspire transformation processes.

Organizations need to adapt. Employees want a purposeful work environment. Brands look for new ways to engage their customers. Leaders want to inspire and invite their employees to address the challenges ahead. We need new ways to co-create our futures and breathe new life into our organizations, brands and teams.

StoryWork – mit narrativer Intelligenz Unternehmens- und Führungskultur transformieren

Kennen Sie den ‚Blank’ Moment?

 Backstage … ich habe einige Minuten bevor die Vorstellung beginnt. Viele Menschen wünschen mir Glück. Sie klopfen mir auf die Schulter mit den Worten: Du wirst großartig sein. Sie meinen es gut. In mir wächst die Verzweiflung.

Let’s presume … we come to the world as a white paper and over time we become a thick book of stories. There are different ways to deal with all this narrative material, we can feel victim or creator of our stories. As the persian poet Hafiz said The words we speak, make the house we live.If we explore our narrative material, go beyond all stories, we will find a basic pattern, an essence – a personal myth.