Reflective management

Radical changes in companies and organisations often lead to areas of tension between the parties involved.

  • A listed company acquires a large competitor, which needs to be integrated quickly and smoothly with high stakeholder pressure.
  • After two decades with the founder as manager, a family business wants to define the succession arrangement. Neither the family nor the business has any experience of this process.
  • As part of an internationalisation strategy, the management of an industrial company is faced with the challenge of developing its own dealings with foreign cultures a way that ensures that good cooperation is possible in day-to-day business and that the huge increase in the complexity of the value chain can be managed effectively.

In scenarios such as these, good management at the top level makes a big difference. In the sensitive phase, when the familiar is open to question and new procedures have not yet taken effect, carefully considered decisions and mindful, reflective management are decisive for future business success. In family businesses, this is also true for the positive future of the family. Misunderstandings between the parties involved and mistakes in management – often made unwittingly and without any ill intent – can, on the other hand, lead to serious conflicts when the pressure to implement changes is high.

For me as a consultant and coach, the importance of good management is what unites the outlined transition processes, which at first glance appear very different. As a personal reflection partner, I support the managers and entrepreneurs responsible. One of my clients called my work a “space for clarity”. Particularly under high pressure, leaders need space to reflect on their management work and adapt to new situations.

As a result of decades of international work in management teams and supervisory bodies in enterprises and NGOs, I offer comprehensive experience and in-depth insight into the working-life realities of managers and management teams. Clients with strategic management responsibility appreciate this experience-based awareness of reality.

Clients from family businesses see my many years as a partner in my own family’s business as useful and rewarding. Since then, I have closely analysed – in theory and practice – the interaction between the systems of “family” and “business”, something which becomes particular apparent in issues relating to personnel.

My experience is combined with a broad range of academic qualifications in business and psychological subjects, which I have gained at internationally renowned institutions, including the University of Witten/Herdecke, the SGMI Management Institute St. Gallen and INSEAD.

Expertise and experience give my clients multi-disciplinary access to solutions for actively dealing with the decisive factors influencing the quality of personal management work and the work of management boards.

I work with management teams and individual managers who through their own management behaviour want to make a positive contribution to the development of the people and organisations entrusted to them.