About Marcus Pietrzak

Marcus Pietrzak is Management Development Leader CEE and Senior Organization Leadership Consultant at IBM. - He works with all management levels in his organisation, and helps them to find new approaches towards their personal leadership philosophy and change. His personal and professional interests include organisational psychology, adult education, management & organisational development and management innovation. "When connecting the dots of my career, I realized that developing people in each stage of their leadership career has always been at the core of what I've been doing. From studies to research, from workshops to coaching, from assessment to training: identifying and shaping the very best of the leadership capabilities within my clients, has always received my undivided attention and formed my mantra: the success of the people who look for our support and guidance - this will always be the ultimate measure of our success in leadership development." - (mp)

Trust

“The willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the positive expectation of the other party.”

Mayer, Davis, Schoorman (1995): An integrative model of organizational trust. Journal of Academy of Management Review, 20: 709-734.

What will you keep doing next year?

Have you made up your new year resolutions for next year yet?

If not, then hurry up, there are just a few hours left! – Think of all the things that you did not achieve this year, and for sure will make better next year. – Don’t leave out any of your characteristics, behaviours, habits that you learned to hate about yourself last year! Ensure you remember everyting you did not achieve this year, like doing more sports, eating healthy, loosing weight, spending more time with you kids and being a spouse! – When you are truly honest to yourself, you will conlclude: You really need to change yourself next year!”

Do you feel energized for a change now?

I just came across the status message on a different social network, where an old friend asked: “What would you like to do differently next year?”

All right, I know well that my friend is in the people-business of personnel development, helping companies and individuals change the way they want to be, and he is doing that well. – However, I was left wondering: why do most people focus primarily on things they think they need to change, instead of starting with the things they wish to keep doing in the next year?

Have you ever looked at all those things over the past 365 days, that actually did work well? Did you recognize your little habits, spleens and characteristics that made you different from all the other people around you? Did you ever look at them as welcomed part of your personality? Have you ever appreciated the things that worked for you, because you did it in your own, unique way?

What was the last time you gave yourself a clap on your shoulder?

In case you cannot remember the last time you felt proud about yourself – why not try things differently today? Why not start from what worked well, formulating a resolution about what you will keep doing next year?

If you truly want to change, you need to know what will remain!

Start with identifying your smaller and larger achievements. Embrace your milestones, that mark up what went well for you last year, because you did it your way. Make sense out of your decisions, which you took because in that particular moment, it was the right time, right place and the right people … or simply because nothing else was an option. Enjoy the feeling of having made progress in your life, because finally you made it to this New Year mainly by your own strength.

Think of the explorer on his expedition, the mountaineer on his Himalaya challenge: just as they all start their journey from a base camp that gives them home and strength, it is your personal choice, if you start into the new year from your points of failure, or if you start from your personal base camp of strength.

Sail on into a Happy New Year 2011 !

– Marcus Pietrzak

Things we remember

Abraham Lincoln once said: “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

And Mindbox says: “In the end, it’s not the presents you brought home or the wealth you made. It’s the time that you spent with your kids, what they will remember hereafter.”

So go ahead, spend some wonderful days in the holy season with your beloved ones, whoever they are to you, and share the greatest gift with them … your time.

Merry Christmas & Peace to your world !

*  *☆      *   ☆   *  ☆ *  *☆   *  ☆        ☆   *  ☆
☆   *  ☆   A very Merry Christmas*  ☆ *  *
* ☆*    *  *   * ☆**  *   * ☆*  * ☆*    *
*  *☆     *  and peace and contentment to your world *  *  *  *   *

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*  * and a Happy New Year 2011 ! *  * *  *  * *
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Truth is the invention of a liar

“Truth is the invention of a liar.” – Heinz von Foerster clearly stated, that truth has the character of a chameleon, “it takes on whatever color the user wants it to have.” It separates people who are right, and those who are not right. It is the basis for making the other person be ‘wrong’. Or in other words, you make the other person a liar…

As a result, would we not live much better without the concept of ‘truth’?

Reference: Heinz von Foerster, Bernhard Pörksen: Understanding Systems, Conversations on Epistemology and Ethics [2002]