Lake Wobegon Effect & Change

The name might sound strange, but I’m sure you have come across this effect many times in your daily private and business life: Lake Wobegon Effect (in social psychology also called illusory superiority). It describes the human tendency to overestimate one’s own abilities and achievements in relation to others. Among many others, it has been… Read More »

Stimulating the thirst for change

I felt inspired this week by an opinion piece written by Jan C. Weilbacher in this month’s issue of Changement (German only) and want to share these insights. In his article, Jan tries to encourage the transfer of learnings and best practices from marketing to change management. To underpin this he differentiates the dark side… Read More »

Communicating change – who should (and who shouldn’t)

Communicating change is true teamwork. Changing routines – sometimes even beliefs and mindsets – is not an easy (t)ask, and it takes constant communication, education, and leadership to make it happen. I keep emphasizing that all organizational change is nothing less but the sum of many small and individual changes. And convincing an individual to… Read More »

50 Reasons Why We Cannot Change

I recently stumbled across the story of E.F. Borisch. He was a product manager for Milwaukee Gear Company – a middle-size gearbox manufacturer in the US. Apparently frustrated with the level of progress in his own company, he sat down and wrote the article Fifty Reasons Why We Cannot Change which was published in the… Read More »

What do we need for good change management? Well, good change!

I have come across many situations where people put the blame for a failing change project or at least the difficulties in implementing the change to a lack of change management. Of course, change management is a complex undertaking. It requires an in-depth analysis and understanding of the stakeholders. It requires sensitive and strategic communications,… Read More »

Goodbye for 6 months – see you back in May 2019!

As my family and I are moving back from Laos to Germany, we have decided for a slight detour – taking 6months off to travel Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Thus it will be quiet here on the Corporate Communicator for quite some time. But I should be back with new insights an inspirations in… Read More »