The Crazy Idea - Collective MindEyes

People often call me the "Crazy Guy" as I seem to mess around
lots of diverse and not connected (looking) fields.

Not too many ask me what is driving me, though;-(

If they would they would hear a short answer:

"Because I love to learn and connect the findings into co-create better solutions together with people"

It is fun to do it (learning:-)) and yet our education systems in the world don't

foster that curiousity and so the workplace doesn't as well.

People who have new ideas on how things could be resolved (in

a sustainable way) will -at least in the present system we are in-

always be on the edge as there ideas and spoken word seem too

crazy.

We should narrow the forces of creativity together and co-create

in working thoroughly together (across education, cultural and 

language barriers).

What needs a city be to be your most beloved one to live and work in?

Mine is definitely Dresden and this is the place where in the 

future to come creative and visionary minds find, work and live together.

There will be events coming soon, so keep yourself informed through

LockSchuppen.

LockSchuppen in Action and dreaming of the FUTURE:-)

When are you coming to LockSchuppen?

Yours,

Ralf

PS.: What does your dream city location look like?

What is catching my interest?

Hello everybody,

As you may have noticed by now I am writing about quite diverse-looking topics (that in my head all combine into a larger frame/context).

The following topics are triggering my interest in order to weave a solid carpet for future vision:

System Dynamics, Lean Thinking, Goleman, SemperoperBallett, Jay W. Forrester, Dennis Meadows, Dana Meadows, Sustainability Institute, IDEO, BMW, #mcdd11, Innovation, Edgar Schein, John D. Sterman, Overburden, Firefighting, Organizational Culture, SemperOper, Industrial Heritage, UrbanSplash, Team Academy, Team Lea(r)ning Experience, Dresden, Leadership, Abundance, Management, Theory U, Facilitation, Deutsche Bahn, ID-Ideal, Tipping Point, SoL, Singularity, networking, knowledge worker, sharing, process improvement, camellias, outside-the-box, Shigeo Shingo, Jim Womack, HTW Dresden, Ultimate Frisbee, Systems Thinking, Macintosh, Emotional Intelligence, Process Consulting, Otto Scharmer, SLUB, Genius Hellerau, MIT Sloan, Twitter, LockSchuppen, Synchronicity, RayKurzweil,  Nanotechnology .....

What does it take to start something great?

"All it takes is one person, and another, and another - to start a movement"

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Which movement have you started? A Football League, a school, a hiking group, ....?

Stuck or unstuck in the UNEXPECTED - That is the Question

"Stuck in Mumbay Traffic" via Flickr by kent21

Stepping into the UNEXPECTED learning from within.

Often we have the notion that we can plan everything in advance and then -like lightning- it strucks us when things turn into another direction, meetings go sour, our boss isn't listening, the clients refuses to take our offer.

What do you prefer in such situations? How do you tackle the UNEXPECTED?

A Trip Around the World and .....?

before and while doing so learn to help client

organizations for sustainably coping with com-

plex and dynamic challenges?

Team Academy in Jyväskylä has a similar slogan

"...learn some marketing on the way".

If you are interested to join the learning community,

then send me a note stating answers to the following:

Where have I been?

Where am I now?

Where am I going?

How do I get there?

How do I know that I have reached my goals?

Team Academy Dresden - the future begins today

See you around if the above appeals to you.

Best regards

Ralf

PS.: The base will be Dresden and yet there is already a net-

work of Team Academies, Team Factories, in Spain, Nether-

lands, France, Finland (the starting point 16 years ago).

Please give me a notice if you would like to join, even though

you are not based in Dresden - we will make the undoable reality

Reframing the problem in order to make the change

An hour ago I had an inspiring conversation with a professor at the HTW Dresden (FH), there I have studied Business Administration some 12 years ago, on how get an team entrepreneurial project (Team Academy Dresden) going.

It quickly became obvious that changing in the present system makes it necessary to get the interest of larger bodies of people. Acting on the project idea, it is rather easy to find like-minded people, who are on the same or similar thinking track.

What this phase is lacking is the spreading the idea into the outer world where people think in traditional ways (not to say that they are bad, just different!).

Stepping with a new and innovative idea makes the feel uneasy because the newness obviously shakes present things and makes the former stability people feel in the present system decrease. This will end in forces that are against any change (that comes from the outside, by the changers).

So doing something present better seems natural, and yet this will bring up major forces that will hinder the change.

It is like a new company in a present market, that steps in with a new product. The other agents (companies) wouldn't like to see a newcomer coming into their turf and there will be quite some feedback (lower prices, different strategy, etc.).

Just imagine reframing the problem of potential clients, focus on a market that hasn't been covered yet due to high transaction costs, low networks, ....

Seth Godin has a truthful post lately.

Reframing the problem through challenging the assumptions presently on the table - how does that change our actions in life?

...live to your greatest dreams:-)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbour.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.

- Mark Twain

Finishing off this year - the seed for the years to come:-)

It has been a while since my last post and quite a few things have happened, besides the fact that I have moved back to Dresden, the city of my forefathers (at least when you see that people are writing your last name correctly in general!) and my wildest dreams. Dresden has been on the far eastern part of Germany and during the GDR times  they depended just on the GDR media as the antennas couldn't get West-German television. Scarcity is always a source for creativity (as Toyota has shown us in the beginning of their success story some decades ago - and now in all this turmoil in the economic world again).

What else has happened:

- end of November a 3rd  edition of LTT (used to stand for Lean Thinkers Treffen; now: Lea(r)n Through Teams would be more appropriate) took place where 20 people learned in openspace format about how they could bring even more value to their organizations

- Otto Scharmer's Presencing Institute has started a community group on the use of Theory U in large scale and substancial change

- the term at WPI and my studies in System Dynamics are over for a while, not without connecting theory with reality. Real projects is where we learn most, especially when we are part of it. The group "System Dynamics - practical usage for businesses" is slowly taking action in the real world and still it is a challenge to engage key stakeholders.

- a week ago I started off into entrepreneurship (working on building that single entrepreneurship into team entrepreneurship through the establishment of TEAM ACADEMY in Dresden)

- Twitter followers are stepping into my footsteps daily in increasing numbers (I wonder why? What makes my person or posts interesting?)

- and best of all Pamela Paquin-Hall (who asked me, "Aren't you coming to Oman to the 3rd SoL Global Forum?"), Charles van der Haegen (who told me about the "Visit to the Penguins in Finland in August", which I actually followed:-)), SoL, Team Academy in Jyväskylä (Finland) with their yellow folks of Monkey Business, Peter Senge's workshop on "Foundation for Leadership" last March, my dear friend, thought challenger and invitor to Twitter Marigo Raftoupulos and the terrific 3rd SoL Global Forum in Oman in April 2008 with Alfred Hanner have done the real difference:-)

- not to forget a personal short conversation with our plant manager, Peter Claussen, during the week of starting production of the BMW Series 3 back in May 2005 at the new BMW Plant Leipzig. During that conversation he told me, "If you ever have a question on things you don't get an answer, don't hesitate to ask me!" (I still remember that quite well, as I have heard too often quite the contrary from my direct bosses:-(). This has been the real start into a journey that is ever since ongoing - with some ditches and some highs already and I guess that is the way life is going (in all aspects;-)).

- .....the real inspiration for taking the action in  my own hands (even though people around me always whisper, "Don't dare that! Stick to a large company! Play it save! Let your boss decide!") was and is still Jay W. Forrester, whom I admire for his thoughfulness and constant learning mode (unbelieavable at the age of 90!). I talked to him in person last year at John Sterman's workshop "Business Dynamics" and during the 25th International System Dynamics Conference in Boston and he is still of power most people in my age are already lacking (at least that is what I sense).

Taking action (small size) in all of these above initiated other interesting things that have evolved already (and will in the future):

- Genius Hellerau, worldcafés on the question "How can we initiate and foster the change in the region around Dresden?"

- personal connection with Jens Voigt (member of Genius Hellerau) and the ideas on how to make patents and intellectual property valuable to society and community (as well as profitable for organizations)

- Iiro Kohleimanen, Head of International Affairs at Team Academy, with whom I visited a conference on logistics innovations (and how the Team Academy approach could be useful - it would and will be exceptionally useful for innovations and yet the present structure of the system has to change, or we are the change;-)) and who visited the September Worldcafé at Genius Hellerau (really great stuff:-)) with me together (wearing T-shirts that say, "Innovate or Die").

- presentation of Team Academy (almost a surprise elevator pitch, and thanks to some training provided by James Parsons, CEO of ICC Language School in Leipzig not really a problem, rather a chance for additional learning;-)) at a meeting of International Friends of Dresden and inviting (Heikki Toivanan, coach at Team Academy) , Marjaliisa Hentila, Head of the Finland Institute Germany, to Team Academy 

- Fruitful and interesting conversations with Jens Bemme, who has initiated that the SLUB (the university library in Dresden) has and will open on Sundays in the future - a terrific action (initiated by only 3 people in 2002 who took the first step of the change!)

Best of all: small interventions and actions that reach my conscious mind and eye ever intrigue me to new action towards the larger whole:-)

@GuyKawasaki (that's his Twitter name) has some great thoughts on how to do revolutions in today's world and I guess some of us are already taken the lead.

All the best for the New Year and the times to come (well beyond just that year)

Ralf

PS.: I have to thank my parents wholeheartly, as they enabled all the things in the past, fostering my curiousity and inquiry in unresolved things that have led to the present journey. Even though one sometimes think that parents are opposing your desires - this is quite not so. The contrary is true because just by that tense conversations you get a sense what it is like in the real world and what your true aspirations in life are:-))

PPS.: I should not forget to thank all the other contributors like Kai, Paul H., Paul B., Dirk, Laura, Don, Sandra, Claudia, Antje (my sister), Maria (a friend and former colleague who asked me one day "Why don't you do a PhD? You really have the assets for that!"), Ville, Tatu, Henna (from the Monkey Business Guys, whith whom I spoke during the Oman trip and learned more about the crazy Team Academy;-)), ..... and all the others:-)

CO2 reduction - it is all about saving resources.

When do You start? How is your company doing it?

Have you heard of the Toyota Way?

It is easier than you think and value is still higher than

presently delivered:-)

Celebrate Your Amateurness

Sounds stupid, as we are driven by perfection and 0-defects, or? 

And yet learning comes from making mistakes, just remember 

when YOU as a kid flew on your knees or off the bike. Have you 

given up?

"I am best at what I can't do.

It has become my ability to feel strong and confident in these sit-

uations. I feel free to move, to listen to my heart, to learn, to act even

if that means I will make mistakes.

If you want a creative life, do what you can't and experience the 

beauty of the mistakes you make."

Quoted in A Whole New Mind, Daniel H. Pink and originally by Marcel Wanders (www.marcelwanders.com)

We definitely have to allow doing mistakes in order to learn for that world that will ever

be increasing complex in the future.