Treasure 78 – Digital leader, OKR, Pay

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Have you ever wondered what makes a digital leader? Harald Schirmer, who I’ve been following on Twitter for a long time and who was already in one of my first treasures, explains it in Nugget #1. You only have to split the term into its two parts. A good leader has nothing to do with digital at first, but must be able to deal with people. Today you often need people all over the world for complex projects, they are available at different times and you are not the “boss” of these people. So digital skills are extremely helpful. Unfortunately, this is still very uncommon today. How many of the leaders in your organization use social media and alternative forms of communication? I often hear this is only for generation Facebook. The example in the article proves how much more effective a blog can be than email. At this point I would like to thank my colleague Benjamin Wölfel, who pointed me back to Harald Schirmer’s collection of articles.
What makes a leader a “digital” leader? (3 min, text)

A digital leader is obviously Benjamin Grimm from adidas. In the talk with Digitale Leute he explains how they use OKRs at adidas. I think the idea of a marketplace for goals is cool. Now you might think, we’re going to align on targets too. But this often happens via the traditional hierarchy and goals are “rolled out” from top to bottom. If the people themselves develop and take responsibility for their goals there’s no lack of motivation (see Dan Pinks Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose). It is also helpful to learn how Benajim Grimm initiated the change process with the management team. But see yourself in Nugget #2 (33 min, video, german):

https://youtu.be/kh4mVYnEfzY


When it comes to goals, it also comes down to achieving them. And in many companies the achievement of goals also determines the salary. Keyword: Pay for performance. With examples where the coupling of target achievement and individual performance bonuses harms the company more than it helps, I could fill an entire blog series. The agency Wigwam from Berlin has a radically different approach to the topic of compensation. In Nugget #3 they describe their sometimes painful way on their journey to fair compensation. Likely this can’t be translated as is into each enterprise. The discussion on the topic would be already worth a try. In many places this is still the elephant in the room. What is it like for you? Do you think your salary is fair? Is the profit distributed together? Let me know your comments, also by personal message if you want.
A review of the Wigwam’sche Odyssee approximately around the dear money. (10 min, text, German)

That’s it for this week. After some people asked me for a way to subscribe to the treasures, I will finally implement a mailing list for this blog this weekend. So stay tuned!