Is Excel harmful? Does it need a women’s quota? How do you make decisions? A colourful treasure with words, sounds and pictures provides answers and suggestions.
Nugget #1 is about a disease. Is your company also infected? Tobias W. Goers diagnosed it in medium sized companies. But I also know it from large corporations. This is the Excel dilemma. Excel is the Swiss army knife for pretty much every question in the company. There is hardly a problem that cannot be solved with Excel. Only a few consider the disadvantages that cost companies a lot of money. It is almost impossible for several people to work on it at the same time. The user interface is modest. Just think of complex worksheets, where columns are hidden and panes are frozen to achieve at least a minimum of clarity. Tobias W. Goers has once opened the bill for the topic of time recording. Why is Excel so widespread? Because the tool is there anyway? With the increasing number of software-as-a-service solutions this is not really an argument. Because everyone knows it and can use it? Maybe so. In any case, it hinders much potential for digitization. What do you think? Are you an Excel lover or an Excel critic? (6 min, text, German)
Nugget #2 is for the ears. Dr. Katarzyna Mol-Wolf meets interesting people in the podcast of the women’s magazine EMOTION, especially women. In episode 26, Dorothee Bär is guest, Minister of State for Digitization, and gives interesting insights into the everyday life of a minister. I like the transparency she also demonstrates on Instagram. I started to ponder her statement on the topic of women’s quotas. I am very ambivalent about this solution. Women are often unnecessarily devalued as a result. “You only got the position because you’re a woman.” However, I agree with Dorothee Bär that there are quotas in many other areas and that this ensures different perspectives. Here I fully agree. I am a great advocate of diverse and heterogeneous teams. So why don’t we talk about the different perspectives we need instead of quotas? Why do we want a woman on the board? Because we want someone with an eye for reconciling career and family? Because we expect more empathy? Should we perhaps also have a trainee on the Executive Board? Do you know any examples of board members who are nominated this way? (41 min, audio, German)
Different perspectives are also required for decisions. Nugget #3, a beautiful video of the School of Life, shows five perspectives that help us make decisions: the enemy, death, gut feeling, courage and caution. Next week I’ll have a lunch and learn about decisions and the video will definitely get a place. How do you actually make decisions? Quickly and from the gut or carefully with many numbers, data and facts? Alone or by consensus? Did you learn to make decisions at some point, maybe even did a training course? (6 min, video, English)