To continuously improve on our operating system @Haufe-umantis, we started a weekly hifi process (Happiness, Input, Feedback, Improvement).

Attached, you will find the presentation given at our strategy meeting to explain and initialize the process.

Ever wondered why Warner, Sony or Universal were not able to invent Spotify? Why Encyclopedia Americana or Britannica were not able to invent Wikipedia? Why Yahoo was not able to invent Google? And Google not able to invent Facebook? And Facebook not able to invent WhatsApp? Or why big taxi corporations were not able to invent Uber? And why big financial institutions will not be able to invent their future?

The most common answer is wrong

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It’s not about transferring Peter F. Drucker’s concepts to the future. The future is what Peter F. Drucker already meant.

The term «2.0» first became famous with «web 2.0». It was perceived as a completely new way of using the web. However in its essence web 2.0 is nothing else than the late breakthrough of the original ideas of the web. This happens likewise to the ideas, concepts and methods of Peter F. Drucker. 

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Lot of people question the very idea of direct democracy. The dysfunction of the democratic decision making processes in the western world seems to prove them right. And to ask all people to vote on ever more complicated or delicate issues seems ill advised. To make a good case for this thinking they often hint at two decisions of the Swiss people in the recent past: the vote to curb immigration and the vote to ban minarets. Direct democracy seems to be prone to populism and group egoism. The relevant question, however, is whether there are better alternatives we know. And whether the results of direct democracy are not superior to all other models.

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Vision becomes reality: Executive Board and management call democratic election to choose new CEO; Hermann Arnold retains active role

St. Gallen / Freiburg, June 5, 2013 – The Executive Board and management at Haufe Group member company Haufe-umantis AG in St. Gallen have called on their employees to elect a successor to founder and chief executive Hermann Arnold. Marc Stoffel, head of sales and marketing, won an overwhelming vote of confidence and was elected as new chief executive. Mr. Stoffel took up his post as of June 1 and now heads the specialist in Talent Management solutions as it embarks on its next growth phase. Hermann Arnold will play an active role as chair of the Executive Board and remains in charge of product development. The object of the reshuffle is to add fresh, positive momentum to the development of Haufe-umantis.

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Nowadays you are followed by dozens of cameras even in such private places like churches, wellness areas or toilets. And we think, these pics (and films) should not be shared online. That we have a right to our privacy. But that was true only for a very short period in the existence of humankind. Read More

Estimates show that about 27% of Medicare’s annual $327 billion budget ($88 billion) goes to care for patients in their final year of life. (Source) If we would count the final years of live, this number would increase to more than one third (if not almost half) of all expenses. Read More

A really great day for me today. Success has plenty of mothers and fathers and I feel thankful for all of them and humbled to be part of such a great venture and thrilled for the promising future journey.
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The financial industry pays in average twice the salaries than «normal» industries and employs in average twice as many highly educated people from all disciplines. Instead of inventing new sources of energy or more energy efficient machines and cars; instead of developing new and affordable drugs to cure cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases; instead of eliminating famine, illiteracy or oppression of people; instead of fixing our societies problems and designing new ways to organise economy, education, immigration, retirement, politics, social welfare, tax or legal systems; instead of solving all these and many more urgent problems, our smartest guys spend their brainpower to invent highly sophisticated financial instruments to trick the highly complex regulatory systems to maximise obscene short term profits for their financial industry with highly damaging consequences in the mid and long term.

What went wrong?

It is instructive to look at the development of salaries and educational levels in the financial industry compared to other industries during the last hundred years. The time before the Great Depression starting with the stock market crash, which was caused mainly by overleveraged lending to normal people to buy inflated stocks (sounds familiar?), salaries and the relative educational level in the financial industry soared to unsustainable highs. Read More