Born to German parents in London and then living in South Korea, New Zealand, Germany, Pakistan, Australia, India and Laos, I learnt at an early age how to deal with different people, cultures, and organisations productively and happily. In times of ever quicker globalisation, this is a valuable asset which I incorporate in various ways in my work with different clients. An important aspect of this is my cultural mix of German thoroughness and Anglo-Saxon pragmatism.
Be it individuals, teams, or organisations: in each case in-depth knowledge and broad empathy is needed to generate results. I bring to bear this approach and positive attitude in all missions I am entrusted to carry out, be it in coaching, communication, teambuilding, leadership, change management, intercultural training or other topics of human resource and organizational development.
Following broad academic studies in sociology, economics, political science, communication, and pedagogy, I undertook further training in project management, facilitation, coaching, and intercultural communication. On top of this I did Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, Eastern European as well as American Studies and have in-depth knowledge of many other regions on our planet. As an add-on, I completed postgraduate studies in human resource and organisational development as well as in Systemic Management.
My first magic word (and that of the European Union) is: lifelong learning. And the second is: think global, act local. By now I have successfully worked and lived in about fifty countries and organisations.
Michael has helped many leaders and teams unblock their resources and discover new attitudinal frameworks and systemically-inspired techniques of leading and collaborating with prime productivity and satisfaction.
Speaking is not listening, working together needs coherence, managing diversity and cultural differences is a complicated ballgame. And people need to experience learning instead of just being lectured at: moving people ahead on all of this with different skill sets has been a core job for Michael for many years.
Managing multiple levels of complexity and evaluating an array of different outcomes has been a strong focus of Michael's work.
Michael has private-sector experience with both multinationals (Siemens, Philips, TUI) and SMEs. He has also done a lot of work in the development sector (World Bank, GIZ, MacArthur Foundation, United Nations, Aga Khan Foundation etc).