REINTRODUCING THE HUMAN BEING

Management author and leadership expert Dr. Reinhard K. Sprenger discusses leadership in a digital era, acting responsibly, and the invigorating power of conflicts.
Interview by Kathrin Meister.

Picture © Robin Sprenger

Mr Sprenger, you really are a man of many talents: the most popular business writer in Germany, a successful management consultant and leadership expert, speaker, coach, philosopher and musician. How do you fit it all in?

Reinhard Sprenger: It’s actually not that difficult. Many of the things you’ve mentioned are related, after all. Aside from that, I’m what you’d call a “happy workaholic”. Many years ago, I decided to focus on the things that I really want to do, with little compromise. It means that I do whatever my energy is naturally channelled towards, things that feel exciting, new ideas and such like. The translation of the Christian “Lord’s Prayer” that talks about God giving us our daily bread is far too narrow an interpretation. It isn’t really talking about bread from the baker – it’s about a daily dose of inspiration and personal expansion. When I live like that, I don’t watch the clock, and I don’t fantasise about alternatives. Someone sitting at their desk dreaming about Hawaii is neither at their desk, nor in Hawaii.

But some things must still get short-changed, don’t they?

Reinhard Sprenger: Of course. Whenever you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else. Sometimes it can have a negative impact on a friendship, or hobbies, or my family. But I accept that, because you really can’t have everything, and some things are more important to me than others. That is why the idea of a balanced lifestyle is unrealistic – even though many people dream about it. Our lives are always unbalanced. Balancing is necessary but balance itself is an illusion.

The Financial Times once described you as “the management philosopher with the sharpest tongue”. Your often revolutionary theses are based on a very libertarian view of humanity. What are the cornerstone characteristics of this “fundamental humanism”, as you call it?

Reinhard Sprenger: Anyone who considers the things I say and write to be revolutionary is making more of a statement about themselves than about me. That label really goes to show how extreme the collective illusion has become at this point. There is hardly any area of business management that doesn’t have foregone conclusions about what can be said and what must be done. That hypnosis mostly relates to beliefs about humanity; it is based on certain fundamental anthropological premises. Businesses are not prepared to view their employees as free beings. They don’t see them as adults who can take personal responsibility, but rather as children who need to be raised, guided, motivated, and even provided with therapy. By the way, that’s true to the exact extent that they claim the opposite to be true. Sometimes this stance is also the result of the latest management gimmicks; sometimes it is due to a lack of thought or clarity. But it has consequences. Unclear thinking leads to unclear speech, which in turn leads to unclear action.

What are the benefits of acting responsibly, and how can people learn to do so?

Reinhard Sprenger: Businesses can no longer outperform the competition with a corporate culture of “yes-men”, simply following the herd or “top-down management”. That’s why we need to encourage more individual initiative and entrepreneurial spirit throughout the entire company. This also benefits the individual. I am convinced that the ability to act responsibly is the best skill that can be shared in the world. Everyone has a real chance to assume personal responsibility, to treat themselves with respect, to be committed and to fulfil their own potential as a means of actualising their freedom. We must create conditions in which this potential can be fully realised.

Which specific conditions are you thinking of there?

Reinhard Sprenger: First of all, insight – insight into the benefits of thinking and acting in an entrepreneurial way, especially in the peripheral parts of the company. And then necessity – that is, economic necessity. There must be an urgent need to “emerge” from the old way of doing things. Lofty goals won’t be enough. Thirdly, decluttering rather than repairing! In management, new things are always being added to the pile. It’s rare for someone to say: “We won’t do that anymore.” But you have to give one thing up in order to start doing something else. You need to stop doing things that have become part of a stale routine over the last several decades. Inflexible targets, for example, or endless planning rituals. Moving things aside that are just there to distract us from our customers allows us to breathe more easily again.

In your book “Radikal digital” (Radically Digital), you somewhat provocatively call for the “reintroduction of the human being” in business as a response to digitalisation. What exactly does that mean?

Reinhard Sprenger: Digitalisation is only a technological revolution at the surface level. In reality, it is a social upheaval. The more digital companies become, the more important people become. It sounds like a paradox, but it isn’t at all. At its core, digitalisation doesn’t mean a technological revolution, especially not the “might of the machine” or the “authority of the algorithm”. It means focusing on the essential things that only human beings can do. In this sense, the digital transformation is not in its essence a purely technological revolution. It is a cultural revolution. And it involves crucial processes in companies, for example shifting from “me” to “we”, from “avoiding mistakes” to “trying it out” and from “motivating” to “motivation”.

You say that an ideological return to the three factors of “customers”, “collaboration” and “creativity” has the power to radically transform businesses. Can you give us a little insight into your thesis?

Reinhard Sprenger: The Cs you mention used to be part of business, but the modern organisational process has crowded them out. Once upon a time, customers were the driving force behind the business. Then companies grew larger, and focused more and more on themselves. The decades of appeals for companies to be more “customer oriented” are proof of that. But now, the time has once again come to consider the entire company from the customer’s perspective. To enter into co-evolution with the customer. To stop thinking about the company from the inside out, and start thinking about it from the outside in. The organisational process has also weakened collaboration within the company – in favour of specialisation, expertise and coordination. Managers divided up tasks and then pieced them back together again. But now digitalisation demands entirely new forms of collaboration between employees – across hierarchies, across business functions, across departments. Even across companies. That’s why it is important not to think of companies as an arena for coordination, but to think of them – once again, and more than ever – as an arena for collaboration. Collaboration must be prioritised at all levels. And this also includes the awkward conversations about working from home.

That still leaves creativity.

Reinhard Sprenger: Creativity has been the greatest victim of the efficiency paradigm. It became more and more alien to businesses, which is why it was then outsourced to special institutions, like universities, laboratories and start-ups. But businesses can’t afford to do that anymore. It is ideas that will determine who wins in the battle for the future – because technology cannot create ideas. Ideas create technology.

You define employee motivation as an “activated willingness to perform”. How can a company best encourage this willingness to perform in its employees?

Reinhard Sprenger: To put it into a simple formula, I would say: (1) Find the right people, (2) challenge them, (3) talk with them frequently, (4) trust them, (5) pay them well and fairly and (6) get out of the way.

Would you like to elaborate on that last point?

Reinhard Sprenger: As I see it, the only legitimate goal of management is for people to manage themselves. Wouldn’t it be a good thing if employees didn’t just use their hands to help the company survive, but their heads and hearts too? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if employees worried about the fate of the company as a whole, and not just about their own job or their next promotion? If they sought to improve business processes that don’t even fall within their own remit? If they could drive innovation without waiting for instructions? Wouldn’t it be amazing to know that all the employees are with your customers – and not at the head office? Wouldn’t it be helpful to have experts who take responsibility for themselves, who develop new ideas and who coordinate and integrate their activities? In short: wouldn’t it be fantastic if you didn’t have to pay for management? Of course that sounds illusory right now. But if companies took just a few steps in that direction, they wouldn’t need to worry about employee motivation or the company’s future viability. The real purpose of management is less about teaching and much more about raising people up. About encouraging others to reach their full potential. At some point in our lives, we all need someone to say: “I believe in you!”

Your last book is titled “Magie des Konflikts” (The Magic of Conflict). In it you suggest that we should “replace ‘conflict resolution’ with ‘conflict as a solution’”. How can the magical power of conflict be used constructively – in the workplace and in our private lives?

Reinhard Sprenger: We owe all of our abilities and all of our skills to situations that pushed us to our limits – that is, obstacles and problems. They challenge us and allow us to grow. It starts in childhood. A strong sense of self, for example, can only develop through conflict – i.e., becoming independent from our parents. This harnesses power – power that we need to grow. Conflict is also decisive in romantic relationships; in the same way that architecture is not defined by the spaces, but rather by the edges, corners and transitions. Relationships are strengthened by conflict, and conflict has a stabilising effect on the rules of partnerships. Those who have never experienced or had to overcome a conflict in their relationship will remain susceptible to shocks and uncertainties. Smooth-running daily routines aren’t the proving grounds for “perfect couples” – disputes are. After a dispute is when they know: we got through that together and were able to look each other in the eye again at the end of it.

But in business, people tend to avoid conflict. You want everyone to pull together.

Reinhard Sprenger: If you view conflict within the company as a catalyst for development and growth then you are pulling together. Conflicts are an impetus for change. They are like a flashing warning light: something needs to happen here! This is especially important for the future viability of the company. Only conflict can release us from the shackles of past success. We all know that success gives us a kind of “learning disability”. Every innovation, every moment of progress is the result of a conflict. Or, let’s take collaboration within the company as an example. Conflict makes collaboration smarter and gives it greater substance. Conflicts reveal the true complexity of situations, which would otherwise go unnoticed. This happens when we see the world from another person’s point of view; when we are truly interested. Conflict lets us find out what the other person really wants. I will never learn more about another person and what is important to him than when he starts an argument for that reason! So conflicts are productive in the best sense of the word. For a company, they are like rain for the fields – they are the lifeblood of a team that will stand the test of time.

While we’re talking about conflicts: what really makes you mad?

Reinhard Sprenger: I don’t have to think about that one very long. The fact that moralising supersedes all other values. That no society in history has ever lived with such a highly developed sense of guilt. That dim-witted social therapists constantly attack every hint of individuality, demanding “You must change your life!” That tiny minority groups are destroying our everyday language. That some cliques of activists have successfully shaken justice to its foundations through forced, morally based rule-breaking. That an entire society has been kidnapped and dragged around by its guilty conscience like a bull by its nose ring.

You are considered one of the most important economic visionaries and Germany’s most prominent management consultant. Does that ever put you under pressure?

Reinhard Sprenger: No. It has not and it does not. And anyway, I’m just riding along slowly into the sunset. Before long, the time will come when you will forget everything and everyone will forget you. Besides, drawing constant comparisons is bad for the soul. And for financial success. I was never really interested in my competition, I just wanted to forge my own path. Jeff Bezos once said that we shouldn’t obsess about the competition, but rather focus on the customer. Because your competition doesn’t give you money – the customer does.

What motivates Reinhard Sprenger, the human being, in these times of enormous global challenges?

Reinhard Sprenger: The thing you actually left out in the “fit it all in” question at the beginning: my children. I would like to be optimistic about their futures but, unfortunately, I’m not. I see that democracy, above all, is on the retreat around the world, and that we are naively squandering our freedom. Our emotional freedom, as well. To me, stopping this development is “time well wasted”.

In this interview with Reinhard Sprenger we have used “he/him” as the default pronouns at his request. It goes without saying that all genders are intended equally.

RADIKAL DIGITAL

Weil der Mensch den Unterschied
macht – 111 Führungsrezepte
ISBN: 978-3-421-04809-7

MAGIE DES KONFLIKTS

Warum ihn jeder braucht und
wie er uns weiterbringt
ISBN: 978-3-421-04854-7