We use cultural science approaches and methods to help people and organizations achieve their goals.
Our clients rely on our particular perspective on which problems are worth tackling and which are not. In particular, we persistently point out that real cultural change requires staying power.
On this page we provide insights into our work. We present significant issues and approaches and shed light on the cultural studies methods and insights that guide our thinking. And we question historically evolved and seemingly self-evident assumptions about the nature and functioning of human systems.
Sometimes the problem to be solved is neither simple nor solvable with certainty, but at least clearly outlined. As was the case on April 13, 1970, when James Lovell announced that a life-threatening accident had occurred aboard Apollo 13. But that is not always the case.
The prisoners in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, for example, have no possibility of direct contact with an outside world. They do not even know about it. They only see moving shadows on a cave wall, which they believe to be reality. They even develop a science of the shadows, researching their laws and trying to derive predictions from them. If a prisoner would leave the cave, he could recognize the reality construction as such. And after the first shock and a time of getting used to it, he would either have no desire to return to the shadow world, or he would probably be laughed at there for his knowledge and opinions acquired outside the cave.
Companies that were successful in the past with their products using their management tools and processes, but are now slowly but steadily losing market share, are experiencing this: It is not clearly recognizable in which situation they are and which problem exactly has to be solved. And in many cases, direct contact with customers and their needs has been lost.
When we are called in to implement OKR, Scum, or other agile ways of working to help a company become more agile in response to the market and increase its customer centricity, a phenomenon similar to Plato's Allegory of the Cave often occurs. Insights coming from outside the company are not immediately met with enthusiasm by everyone. However, customer centricity and speed to market do not come for free in a VUCA world. They need to be developed, shaped and constantly renewed.
In this complex challenge, we use cultural science methods to help understand the problem situation and identify and pursue possible solutions. And in most cases, the individually suitable solution that is developed in this joint creative process proves to be more complex than a standard tool or a new software tool.
After a few days, NASA engineers together with the crew of Apollo 13 had also found an individual and creative solution (including a sock), so that all astronauts returned home to their families in good health on April 17, 1970.
When the captain on the high seas is surprised by a storm with his crew, everyone's well-being depends on them doing their job well and giving their best. If they do not, the causes and also the consequences can be manifold.
When we are hired to help, we usually get to see what appears at first glance to be a spotlessly clean ship in port. Our approach is therefore to look behind the scenes and understand what is actually going on. Often we find a colorful and quite contradictory mixture of habits, rituals and rules, but also expectations, disappointments and much more, which has built up over several years. Nevertheless, there is often a pronounced desire on the ship to remain in calm waters and to remedy the situation quickly with a fresh coat of paint or new technology.
Our task now is to find the right balance here. The lesson from our experience with such cases is that cosmetics will not solve the actual problems. They can only be solved if the ship's crew gets to the real problems, finds the causes and fixes them. We have never seen this happen within a single workshop. So far, no one put all the problems on the table right at the first meeting. Even management training alone rarely leads to the desired solution to the complex situation. Instead, a continuous process of iterative uncovering, processing and solving as well as long-term stabilization of what has been achieved has proven its worth.
However, this requires that the crew and captain want to pull together, that they want to get involved in the journey, and that each individual is willing to change. Just as the sea around us is always on the move. So that in the end the entire crew can enjoy lying down in the wind at full speed.
Of course, no one wants that. Therefore, the broom comes regularly and sweeps out the old dust. But not in all structures this is natural or child's play.
For example, in hierarchical and especially patriarchal organizations, the workforce is accustomed to tight management with regular "announcements". Employees in such companies try to avoid making mistakes. Personal initiative, trial and error, or even self-organization are rather foreign to them. At the same time, such proactive attitudes and skills cannot be prescribed. That would initially be the reflex of such a culture. New employees, who are supposed to bring in a breath of fresh air and much-needed innovation, often don't get along with the existing culture. They find their expectations disappointed and are easily repelled by the "immune system" of the organization. This can quickly lead to a breakup.
In our practice, we experience that many companies react at the latest when they can no longer find employees in the already tight labor market.
But how does the necessary change become a success? We see companies swapping their old offices for chic working environments. Is that enough to make them attractive to employees again and to attract new staff? Probably not. A sofa corner and a foosball table alone do not make for an innovative or even agile corporate culture.
Here, too, real beauty comes from within. Real employer attractiveness needs to be developed and lived. To a large extent, it lives in the enthusiasm of a company's people for what they create together, as well as in the forms of collaboration. In this development, we support organizations in the introduction of modern agile forms of work and the transformation of corporate culture. We coach managers in expanding their self-reflection as well as in creating decision-making freedom for employees. We support teams and employees in learning processes such as taking on real responsibility and consistent results orientation.
This will then really sweep out the dust, even without a new table soccer.
The invention of usable steam engines in the 18th century was a major turning point in the history of mankind and labor. Machines with a power far exceeding the muscular strength of man or animal performed more and more the hard work. Even more so, after the development of the self-excited generator by Werner von Siemens in 1866 and the subsequent triumph of electricity at the beginning of the 20th century, muscle power began to rapidly lose importance. This happened gradually, but without interruption.
With the development of powerful computing machines, we have reached the next technological stage, this time allowing us to increasingly replace the power of the mind. Many companies are already using artificial intelligence (AI) in pilot applications.
Now, specialists in the field of artificial intelligence and data science are just as rare as IT experts in general. Waiting for graduates from all relevant professions to leave universities with sufficient AI skills is no more an option than hoping that the job market for IT experts will turn around.
It is therefore a matter of building up competencies within the company itself. Here, we provide support in determining the necessary AI competencies on the basis of the company's strategic goals and comparing them with the current situation in order to develop appropriate AI training concepts.
Like our ancestors 150 years ago, we are once again at the beginning of a radical transformation of the way we live and work. In 1997, Clayton Christensen discussed how disruptive market changes destroy existing business models if they are too slow to adapt, and how at the same time they offer great opportunities for new market players and products.
Today, we again have the opportunity and task to shape the radical change currently underway and to use it to the benefit of us all.
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