Board Impulse Thoughts (BIT) – A little BIT for everybody

54th Board Impulse Thoughts with Martin Knobbe and his views and assessments of the upcoming and last 12 months

1. Which were your biggest learnings over the past 12 months?

One of my biggest and most impressive learnings was, that significant parts of the German economy  had been able to unleash tremendous additional power/ unlocked potential.

From a leadership perspective it only required explicit control to a quite limited extend. Important to mention, that the part of the organization under consideration did already prove a serious/ sufficient level of seniority in the past.

On the one hand, the development and communication of guiding principles ,that may only be valid temporarily, has increasingly proven to be essential in a volatile world. On the other hand micromanagement, which failed to achieve the desired effects even before the pandemic in most aspects, has become more and more ineffective and demotivating for key employees.  

In this context and with regards to the years ahead, it is essential to maintain or increase the assumption of personal responsibility. This clearly does not solely represent a leadership task ("tone from the top“). Nevertheless, answers with regards to the execution of a broad role model function within the whole organization are sometimes hard to find. Nevertheless, this remains essential, e.g. with regards to the appearance oft he so-called „quiet quitting“-phenomenon.

No matter how a solid solution in the context of supporting personal responsibility will look like: it will vary over time. Especially the second half of he pandemic crises taught me one thing. Whoever - as an organization and/or individual - begins to increase control will struggle to retain or acquire key employees!

2. What is the main challenge that we will face with focus in the working environment within the next years from a non-technical point of view?

War of aggression, inflation, energy shortages and availability problems will further increase uncertainty and complexity in working life. In my view, further improving the way we deal with complexity will play a key role in this context. Among other things, complexity stands for the surprise inherent within a system or problem. The relationship between cause and effect is multi-causal and can often only be determined in retrospect. Optimal solutions for a complex setting  often only emerge with a time lag.

In this context we have to ask ourselves: do we want to continue to live with agonizingly long process durations and ponderous innovation cycles in the future? If not, the decision-making dynamics that are currently seen have to increase. 

 To see adequate business progress in a VUCA-world we need to face:

• It is helpful to have an open mindset for the temporary tolerance of intermediate solutions.
• In the mid term, complexity can only be overcome by broadly anchoring an agility mindset.
• An organizational corset needs to better coexist with agile ways of thinking and working.

3. What are your observations on executives over the last 12 months, did they change their habits and attitudes?

The initial mindset of executives willing to obtaining a diverse „organizational health assessments“ seems to improve recognizable. Advice is sought more widely (e.g., reversed mentoring). Subsequently, this change leads to positive adjustments of perspectives and approaches from a company's overall point of view. In this context, permeability within the organization remains one important success factor.

However, considerable disparities within and between different industries and corporate cultures will stay.

4. What do you expect from 2023?

 We still have to deal with an ongoing  modus of multiple crises and huge, increasing challenges in talent recruitment. However, advantages can be found and further developed in every crisis: „Crisis is a productive state. You simply have to remove its aftertaste of catastrophe.“ (Max Frisch)

To support this valid view and to change visible paralysis into productivity, corporate visions or at least positive corporate narratives are still needed and have to be further developed and challenged within a continuous cycle. Taking into account the complexity inherent in crises, a tolerance of iterative solution development („driving on sight“) certainly has an additional supporting effect on handling of crises.

Having qualified with a university degree in business administration from the University of Münster Martin (46) started a journey twenty years ago, which led him to a senior financial expert role with sound (leadership) experience within the financial services/ insurance industry.

 During his career with different financial institutions he collected experiences in national/international financial accounting, management reporting and process management. Moreover, Martin collected a solid record of national/ international accounting standard implementation, project management and process-/ IT system improvement. Throughout this time, he was successfully focusing on  improving his qualifications in optimizing and scaling organizations, staff development and leadership.