The Lack of Openness – or: With blinders into the abyss

Phew - Normal people at last

"Energy transition far too expensive", "The Heating-ban-law", "Combustion engine phase-out looming", "Combating migration" - these or similar headlines are the clickbait-driven headlines in the German media these days. You almost get the impression that someone is trying to shake the public awake from a slumber of utopian dreams - finally an end to exaggerated fantasies about the pace of expansion of renewable energies, multi-cultural fantasies, far too rapid transformations - and not forgetting the most important topic of all: finally an end to the gender gaga, after all, gendering ultimately threatens our Germanic language, which has been handed down for thousands of years and has always remained unchanged - the downfall of the West....

At least that's how it feels - "normal people at last". It was probably all just a brief flash of progressive ideas - but of course completely utopian, so back to the tried and tested, back to normality. After all, none of this works.

But is that really the case? Would that be the right thing to do? And if so, is this development the same everywhere - or just here in grumpy Germany?

And: What does this have to do with you? What does all this have to do with corporate management?

Don't worry - I'll get to that later on 😉 

The Web Summit in Lisbon

I recently had the great pleasure of attending the Web Summit in Lisbon. So I flew (unfortunately there was no even nearly feasible train connection) from the cold, pessimistic Germany of the apparently inevitable recession to the warm, growing Portugal - already very excited about this wonderful congress with over 70,000 participants, which I had already heard so much about. I was primarily interested in the format, content and specialist presentations, as well as actively representing a robotics start-up from Münsterland, which was able to present itself at this very successful conference. "Where the future goes to be born" was the promising claim of the Web Summit.

I’d liked to had taken this opportunity to describe the wonderful Web Summit in more detail and report on the experiences and specialist presentations, as well as learning from discussions with potential investors - but that would miss the point - perhaps another time.

Culture shock for the Münsterlander

But what I actually found in Lisbon was much more than just the world's largest tech conference with world-class speakers. What I actually found was a completely different world to the one I had come from.

Although Lisbon is relatively small with around 500,000 inhabitants, it seemed big to me in a strange way – extremely cosmopolitan. More modern than Berlin, more diverse than New York - the culture there hit me with a tremendous force. 

You could argue that the metropolitan region of Lisbon has almost 3 million inhabitants - well, that explains why developments in Lisbon radiate very effectively throughout the country, but not why this unique impression is created. My personal impression in Lisbon - supported by fellow travellers and people who know Lisbon - is one of confidence, positivism, constructivism, openness, trust in future developments, togetherness, joie de vivre and enjoyment of the present and the future. For a German from Münsterland like me, against the backdrop of at least 50 years of economic decline, this is strong stuff. The Portuguese have every reason to moan more than we Germans do every day, given the crises of recent decades and the current very low average salary against the backdrop of European price levels. There will be many reasons for the courage, hope and optimism of the Portuguese - probably very complex correlations that I cannot go into here. 

However, I would like to share some impressions as to why I think this might be the case.

A plan is worth nothing until you implement it!

Right from the opening keynote, I realised the connection between innovation and confidence, which is used more effectively in Portugal than in almost any other country. 

After the professional and excellent keynote speech by the new Web Summit CEO Katherine Maher, the Mayor of Lisbon Carlos Moedas and the Portuguese Minister of Economy António Costa Silva spoke. They spoke about tasks and hurdles to be overcome - but also about StartUpPortugal.com, a state-initiated non-profit organisation that has managed to make tech and innovation a relevant (>1% GDP) and decisive pillar of future developments.  The results were impressive. They reported 54 tech start-ups in this hub, among others, as well as 12 (!) unicorns that Lisbon has created in this way. 12, in words: twelve.

That's more Unicorns than Spain, Italy and Greece have produced in total and these 12 Unicorns alone have created over ten thousand new jobs in Lisbon. Bamm!

If I hadn't been sitting down, I would have had to sit down first.

Before starting my trip, I knew about the supposed innovative spirit and love of technology of the Portuguese and remembered the anecdote in which Vorwerk was able to export more Thermomixes to Portugal than Apple iPads simply because they advertised the Thermomix in Portugal as a kitchen robot - but what I heard here broke my usual standards.

Against the backdrop of Lisbon's radiance in the country, against the backdrop of the importance of the Lisbon metropolitan region for the whole country, it was suddenly clear what is currently happening there.

Nothing less than a tech revolution is happening there right now. The country is developing into a European centre for tech and innovation, which of course has a lot to do with capital flows and investments. Drawing confidence from this is actually a matter of course.

It was precisely the idea of this mode of action that fascinated me:

"If you have problems and challenges, be creative and work on innovations. Plan something. And make! Do it! And then do something with it."

That's exactly what happened here - and that's exactly what leads from a bad situation to a better one. And from this better situation, a path then leads to an even better situation.

That's how it works - and that's how you go about it - with a good idea, a plan and, above all, by: Make!

Because a plan is literally worth nothing until you implement it!

The Portuguese had and still have a plan and are implementing it - it can be that simple.

But where do the many talents, the many people who help to implement this plan come from? - This question was still on my mind that same day. 

Unique welcoming culture

On the way back to the hotel on the underground, a hypothesis came to my mind based on the observation that I had never seen multiculturalism like this anywhere else on the planet, not even in New York. People from the most diverse nations crowded together in the underground - and this was not only due to the fact that the conference was taking place - the conference participants were easily recognisable by their coloured wristbands - no, the structure of Lisbon's inhabitants was characterised by an unmistakable cultural diversity. Younger and apparently from all parts of the world.

Research on the relevant websites of StartUpPortugal.com and the city of Lisbon supports my hypothesis:

Portugal is courting immigrants from all over the world. A unique welcoming culture characterises the communication. The city of Lisbon, for example, advertises its great interculturality and cultural diversity. Everyone is welcome here and should help to work towards a better society. Integration programmes are set up and implemented. There is a great deal of openness here.

This was also an outstanding and very pleasant observation during my trip. While we were still there, it was reported in the media that the proportion of renewable energies in Portugal during the week of the Web Summit was 100%. In November. 100%. So Portugal is not only working on an innovative high-tech economy, but also consistently on the energy transition with the goal of 100% renewables.  Portugal scores 7:3

A look at my Twitter / X-Timeline brought me right back down to earth when I read the headlines about the German discussions on limiting migration and the spread of false, non-fact-based news about the supposed impossibility of the energy transition in Germany.

A summary of what I had experienced so far:

• Innovativeness: Portugal: 1, Germany: 0 *

• Willingness to transform: Portugal: 1, Germany: 0

• Welcoming culture:  Portugal: 1, Germany: 0

• Interculturality and cultural diversity: Portugal: 1, Germany: 0

• Existence of plans: Portugal: 1, Germany: 0

• Implementation of plans (Make): Portugal: 1, Germany: 0

• Confidence: Portugal: 1, Germany: 0

• Scepticism towards new ideas and blocking of necessary transformations Portugal: 0, Germany: 1

• Pessimism and hopelessness: Portugal: 0, Germany: 1

• Recession: Portugal: 0, Germany: 1
  

I started my return flight with a bad feeling on departure, having to go back to wet, cold, grumpy and hopeless Germany.

But none of this is possible...

It will be clear to every reader that the attitude and signals emanating from the public debate in Germany will certainly not contribute to solving problems. 

On the contrary: discussions that supposedly only ever come to the conclusion that plans cannot succeed only lead to one thing: The failure of the plans. If it is always pointed out that there are no possible solutions and that everything is just fantasy, then this will lead to a situation where no solutions are actually realised, where we never get anywhere, where we keep blocking each other - and we are currently in this downward spiral in Germany. 

In my opinion, we are even in a self-inflicted recession.  

By blocking, talking about or ignoring possible solutions, we in Germany are heading towards economic decline - with blinkers on into the abyss.

It doesn't help to bash the current government or blame past governments - we simply have to stop badmouth solutions and take action. Into the make. 

The pressure to transform is increasing and, interestingly, experts from the scientific community are very much in agreement on what needs to be done in many areas. The solutions already are there. They just need to be decided and pursued, which would lead to clear impetus and framework conditions, which in turn would lead to corresponding investment in the private sector.

Other nations started long ago and are currently leaving Germany increasingly behind in the necessary transformations - completely unnecessarily. But let's leave it at that - we "normal citizens" will not be able to change the social and economic level without further ado. But we can learn from it. And the best news is that we can all make a positive contribution to changing the mechanism starting from small scale.

I admit that the derivation and presentation of the "great downward spiral in Germany" is somewhat abbreviated - on the other hand, the length of the text is certainly a bit of a strain on readers: 

Let's move on to the personal and corporate level:

"So what does this have to do with me personally, or with my company?"

Well - a lot. There are exciting parallels here on so many levels that you can learn from - I will only pick out a few - many things will have already become completely clear to the inclined reader when transferring the social phenomenon to the company level in the mind's eye.

If I want to face challenges and solve problems, then I need people who are capable of doing so. I need open and creative people. People who don't always do everything the same way, but who break new ground and come up with new ideas. 

Scientific studies show very clearly that companies with a diverse workforce are more successful.

This is because the very factors that favour innovation, namely greater creativity through different perspectives, are strengthened by (cultural) diversity. Diversity in a company is best achieved through an open corporate culture. Just as the city of Lisbon exemplifies on another level.

If we look at it the other way round, it is actually obvious: a company that wants to solve problems caused by a change in the markets or by a compulsion to change the business model should not go into the tunnel, put on blinders and only do what "worked before", dismiss the young "wild" employees or incapacitate them (by not listening) and leave the problem-solving exclusively to the old hands. Nobody will seriously see this as a solution. I personally don't know of any example of such a company strategy ever had worked. 

If I want to change a company, I need the creativity of people who think differently and a wide range of ideas in order to find and develop the best plan. And not only that:

The managing director, CEO, board member or whatever has to let go and really allow the solution options to be equally valid. The solutions found must also be given a serious chance. Both the corporate welcome culture, which should lead to more diversity and therefore diversity of thought, and the approach of really listening, allowing and letting go are characterised by OPENNESS.

Openness to new approaches. Openness to new business models. Openness to initially seemingly crazy or mad ideas. ...

In this context, a nice quote comes to mind that I can finally use as advice for founders, managing directors and CEOs - a quote from Frank Zappa, one of my favourite musicians and a successful and creative composer and artist: „A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”

There's only MAKE.

In addition to the two levels mentioned above, there is another level: the implementation level, the doing - or as I like to call it based on my favourite quote (I'll come back to this later): the make. However, there is a lot to consider in this supposedly simple part. It's not enough to simply say: "Great - it's decided, now do it." 

On the one hand, you have to have real makers in the company - which brings us back to the point of welcoming culture / openness in order to get the best and most suitable employees. On the other hand, a corporate culture must also allow doing. It must be good to act and implement things. Action must be rewarded within the company, e.g. through recognition. This leads to great motivation in implementation. And:

Never ever  should doing, acting, making be penalised. Not even for mistakes. Once you have been punished for your actions, you will never again freely press ahead and offer to implement them. A company is therefore well advised to have a distinct error culture. Mistakes must be allowed to happen. You learn from mistakes. If you hadn't made the mistake, you wouldn't know how to do it better. Unfortunately, this is pretty much the exact opposite of the error culture practised in Germany and in many German companies.

At the level of politics and the economy as a whole, for example: " Hah - look - he was WRONG. Haha - he made a mistake. Unacceptable - resign - immediately!" Or "OMG - what did she say? That's totally wrong - how can you make a mistake in such a high office? Does she have no idea? Resign!". 

In many companies, of course, not every mistake leads to dismissal. No - it's much more subtile. "I don't know, can we trust A with the project? She made a mistake last time. B is much more down-to-earth and doesn't have the freshest ideas - but she's never made a mistake." 

Such a culture leads indirectly to mediocrity. The "down-to-earth ideas" and hybrid approaches (note: always the worst of both worlds) prevail for fear of failure or at least because mistakes are avoided, come what may.

Such a corporate culture will only produce mediocrity and mediocrity does not usually lead to success on the market. 

I would also like to use a quote - my favourite quote - for these connections - for the effect of a constructive and motivating error culture - which most of my former employees could probably no longer hear 😉:

"Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail. There's only MAKE." 

The quote comes from the "Rules for students, teachers, and life" by Corita Kent, a nun, artist, teacher and philosopher, popularised by John Cage, another outstanding composer and artist, and states - in a very abbreviated form - that making must take centre stage and mistakes do not exist. This is the only way to progress and improve - by learning from supposed mistakes. 

And now – what does this all mean?

To summarise, Portugal's success in producing unicorns and establishing itself as a tech location, as well as in the energy transition, is probably influenced by many factors - in my opinion, the openness to interculturality and diversity, as well as the "make" factor. 

Applied to the corporate world, the factors of openness and make are, in my eyes, critical to success. If a company has or creates such a culture, it will develop better, be more innovative and resilient and ultimately more successful. 

And let's be honest:Who wants to work in a company that isn't open and doesn't allow anything, with a poor or lacking error culture - except the boss 😉...

Although - personally, I wouldn't even want to work there as a boss.  How do you see this? 

I've had a lot of experience in the field in my professional past - especially very positive experiences in applying openness and focussing on the "make" - if you need support, advice or action: 

I'd be happy to do so 😉

* Please don't confuse this with the number of patents registered: patents are NOT innovations, but rather the commercialisation of ideas are - but that would be a topic for another blog post...