Have you ever thought about a disruptive, out-of-the-comfort zone leadership training for business managers that besides challenging your managers could also being the starting point to connect social and future business activities?

I have experienced many leadership trainings in the last years. On different topics and with teachers who tried their best. I have seen a lot of theoretical models and received a lot of paper. Unfortunately, after the training the folder with the paper somehow got lost or disappeared in a shelter. No doubt, I have learned also about leadership and leading skills. But,…

But something was always missing 

“What’s,” I asked mystlf, “the ‘tangible’ impact about all these theoretical trainings? What do I really get out of it – for me as a person, as a leader, for the company?” I asked myself if I could remember any specific, changing element, something that led to an action that changed me, made me and my colleagues think differently, made me do my daily job out of a different perspective, brought change and innovation to the projects we were launching and the way on how we thought business and leadership… 

Be the change you want to see in the world

Three years back I changed my responsibilities within the company – from running Internet strategies on a global level to run social entrepreneurial programs, worldwide.. I had the chance to stay a lot of time in rural and tribal India to understand the people’s reality, to learn from the social sector, to think about how to combine unusual sectors, people who normally would never collaborate, sectors which in the past did work in silos. 

You want to be innovative and think business differently?

Listen to the people and interact.  Don’t think, but do-out-of-the-box. 

I got a chance to think and act in a total different, not just “Think-out-of-the-box”, but “Do-Out-of-the-box” way.  By setting up community-based  activities together with social players,  by linking social activities to social entrepreneurial thinking and people who really had started social enterprises and by building a holistic network across many sectors. 

It was and it is simply magic. 

There are so many things happening I could never have even dreamed of just sitting in a meeting room in a nice Corporate surrounding although staying with excellent trainers. We started one year ago an onsite  leadership program for the company. To bring more managers to this experience. The impact? It’s about change and different thinking, about creating not a one person change, but a movement of changemakers and connecting them to empower the change. The people who participated are real ambassadors and changemakers when they go back in the offices. 

This leadership experience is alive, also in those who joined the one week program a year ago. 

The costs? Not more than for leadership trainings as usual. The learning effect and impact? Well, read the story in our Corporate Annual Report as one of the five top stories. 

Related material 

Annual report 2016