Oliver: You could compare it to a football team. As a management consultant and trainer, I am, so to speak, the coach who leads the team on the pitch to success. My goal is to support companies in achieving their goals and improving their performance. A major topic here is digitalization, and for me that often starts with the little things. Before you jump in with an interjection about those little things, I’ll explain and stick with the football analogy: In the past, coaches stood on the sidelines with magnetic boards or a notepad and pen - today they do it with a tablet in hand.

It is usually about change. How do you help companies implement this change?

Oliver: I mainly look at how they communicate today and then provide ideas for communicating in a more modern and fresh way.

Can you be a bit more specific?

Oliver: Emails, SMS, social media - we are flooded with it. To generate attention at all today, we need punchy ideas, something a little off the mainstream path. I’ll give you an example. I was tasked with creating a newsletter for a large telecommunications company. You can do it by the book - but you want the thing to be read. So I came up with doing the newsletter in the style of the Harry Potter “Daily Prophet” - with moving images. And before you ask: It was and still is very well received.

That does indeed sound like a different approach. Do you have another example?

Oliver: Sure. A client was looking for a way to attract attention in a special way at a trade fair. He didn’t want to simply send people around to hand out his flyers. So I took pictures of his company and embedded each one with buttons behind which different information about the company appeared - from business metrics to the product line. Then employees approached people with a tablet in hand, and they could discover the company in a playful way.

Unconventional - and creative! How else would you describe your approach?

Oliver: If you’re expecting a bunch of Anglicisms now: none. My approach is this: I gather information about the company that wants to use our services or needs our support. I speak with a great many people in that company to get a feel for its culture. After these conversations, I define challenges - and then develop solutions. Then I present the solutions, get the go-ahead from management, and implement them. You don’t have to make anything more complicated than it is.

Do you remember a situation where things got bumpy?

Oliver: I do - what consultant wouldn’t know such a situation? For example, I once had a project for an IT manufacturer. The team was spread across Germany, and the employees’ levels of knowledge and know-how varied greatly. The company wanted to turn its employees into a team with one direction - and pursue it together. So yes, that was definitely challenging.

What did you do?

Oliver: I ran a two-day workshop three times and coached the people. In the end, all employees gave their commitment, and even enthusiastically, because everyone had recognized the goal - and understood the path to get there.

So communication and collaboration play an important role in management?

Oliver: Collaboration and communication are crucial. A team can only be successful if everyone on the team communicates with one another - and the core team is at the same level of knowledge - supports each other, and clearly defines their goals. You also need constructive feedback again and again, otherwise you stew in your own juice.

Is there one tip you would give companies?

Oliver: It is important to establish a positive and constructive culture of dialogue and feedback. To stay with the football analogy: things can naturally get a bit rough there, and people sometimes snap at, complain about, and whistle at each other. That is not really how people should interact in a company, but clear feedback is important. However, as I said, it should be constructive and not insulting, and it should aim to improve the team and its performance, not to denounce someone just because you need to stroke your own ego or play the “I’m so important” card. Open communication and an atmosphere of trust are the key to initiating change and growing continuously.

That sounds nice in theory - but in reality, mistakes happen too...

Oliver: Yes, mistakes happen and are generally not pleasant. But they are part of the learning process. And that is why it is important to learn from mistakes and use them as an opportunity for improvement. As a management consultant and trainer, I encourage companies to establish a culture of mistakes in which employees can talk openly about their mistakes without fear of negative consequences.Many companies have fortunately already recognized how important this is: for example, I was project manager for establishing such an error culture at a globally operating company. It launched a project for this, rented a large hotel, invited 500 participants, and scheduled six two-day workshops because it absolutely wanted to significantly improve the company’s error culture. I managed it, and the whole thing was truly a great success. In that company, in any case, no one is afraid anymore of getting in trouble with the boss if they made a mistake. After the two days, everyone had internalized one of my favorite guiding principles: Making a mistake is okay. But making the same mistake twice? Not really.