Yonder Discourse E-Book

Kim Impala

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 108

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Over the course of a year, we follow the protagonist through the working world of a large corporation from different perspectives. Its characteristic challenges - an excessive workload and drastic power structures - unfold in the course of the narrative into a socio-psychological odyssey through hope, anger and passion. Initially eager and mobilized by a high degree of identification with the corporate world, the protagonist successfully climbs the career ladder. But the absurd internal pressure becomes unbearable, and he is increasingly broken by his boss's aggression and the tangled web of corporate entanglements. Outraged, the once so committed man finally turns away and begins his concentrated discourse. An ode to healthy corporate culture with painfully comprehensible insights into the opposite.

Leseprobe

FEBRUARY

ME

Looking ahead. Diffuse images want to open up, but they are never true. If I had been able to comprehend the heroically explosive path I was supposed to take, who knows if I would have taken it.

He led me through human thickets, over scaled peaks, into craters of power. My journey was full of conquering, learning, growing, until a personality had matured out of me that surprised myself to become.

For a decade, I took the foundations of goal-oriented work with me from the corporate gears, and over the next decade a palace was built in a different environment, confidently and boldly springing from my strength. The human being at the center of sharp observation taught me mindfulness and concentration, accompanied my competent creation of structures and helped me to personal triumph.

Looking ahead, none of this was clear to me.

First I had to tackle the work in the Group, take on the Sisyphean campaign against an invincible machine, put up with defeats, assert myself in the system, grow, toughen up, defy subjugation.

I spent a long time on the sidelines, in draughty airlock corridors, in pack dens full of roaring and in colorful maneges.

It would take a while for all of this to make more sense and for me to realize that every experience was part of my maturation. Growing out of a clumsy search, out of a lost perspective, out of the harsh spray of life, finding my way out of the labyrinth of shadow worlds was my will, tugging at me. To get to the place where an untamed shudder gave way to unbridled joy.

A joy in being, in achieving, in clarifying encrypted codes.

THEY

Managing projects means making countless decisions. From the gut, from reason. A healthy sense of the facts, of people, of priorities is sufficient as a basis. Commitment is required, a great deal of it, no project succeeds without a strong tendency to roll everything down, to want to be consistent and persistent!

Managing projects means surrendering, oh yes, surrendering, getting involved. Setting actions, assessing the right sequence, looking after the team and enabling maximum transparency. This cannot be learned in any school, in any intensive program, if you lack the ability to see all the steps, to abstract from the distant goal and to draw the right conclusions. Every project brings incentive, brings a sense of achievement, brings strife, brings conflict, brings an overlapping of events, in every project lies hell, but also stunning success. Go for it and do it, think five times and approach people, form the team and talk to them, tackle it together, step by step, and work your way through it like moles through the humus in the field. Dig tunnels, learn to fly, animate your chest with the glory of the next milestone you are aiming for - and reach it, that stone, because it will lie heavy in your stomach until it is properly stored to create a funda ment for the subsequent throw. The goal is distant and glows and throbs, sometimes disappearing and reappearing somewhere else, like a mirage in the office jungle book. A project shapes and takes and gives and, above all, challenges you to finally stand up boldly with teeth and hands and flashes of inspiration. In its manifold ambivalence, it is tempting to be tackled in order to be reflected as a reward from heaven, as salvation, as a shower of gold in the end. Anyone who has mastered a project knows what it feels like to achieve, to struggle and struggle through, and the agony of success.

Managing projects means having to know what needs to be done, means rounding up everyone who can contribute, having them on board and keeping them awake. Care and worry lines and sometimes a free laugh, a wormy approach and a correction marathon, a hurdle race in the gauntlet, no, a relay race with deadlines that are too difficult, wanting to collapse and shocked breathing, standing up again and looking around with a clear gaze, pulling oneself together fiercely, wanting to and conducting with a strong will until the mighty chord sounds resoundingly after all.

Managing projects means wanting to live, it also means wanting to give up your life in between, it means surviving to the end, when the project can finally, finally, finally be successfully completed. But woe betide you when the winds shift and often enough you start all over again. Managing projects means hardly following a straight path.

Be masters at turning corners and maintain your courage.

Then perhaps a project will succeed after all - in the end.

HE

You sit in front of him and listen to his monologue as he withdraws your high-potential status. You don't bat an eyelid and certainly don't flinch, you don't say anything. Confused by your silence, he continues to express his disappointment: About your inability, your supposed failure, even if he doesn't say it in that form. You got the best out of your team in the autumn, you encouraged and motivated them to deliver a great performance despite bottlenecks everywhere and at all times, despite a huge surplus of tasks - but they or you are not given recognition, but devaluation and this harsh verdict: "It wasn't enough." And you know why: Your unwieldy attitude over these last few months, your immeasurable struggle for humanity and against every mental lash, your stubborn rebellion and resistance that has fanned your boss's resentment into flames, your sky-scraping inner conflict of wanting to stand up to management versus being a fair leader to your team - all of this has dragged you down into a personal abyss, which your manager now mocks and punishes with demotion instead of once, just once!, to look for the reasons in himself.

You sit upright in front of him and have to silently endure how he imperiously denies you this informal rank of high potential. But nothing stirs inside you - no disappointment, no anger, no indignation, no sadness - nothing. There is a great emptiness inside you. Your inner mouth remains open. You shake your head uncomprehendingly at this turn of events. Perhaps: From a career perspective, this setback is probably not unfair at all, because in a company like this, you can only be considered worthy of promotion if you look forward and know how to arrogantly shake off such sentimental gestures as standing up for a team. But you definitely don't want to do that and you couldn't. Your vision of leadership is completely different to theirs, it is characterized by a benevolent, positive attitude that you live by, that you stand up for, that you believe is right, that makes you authentic and successful.

But it will be a long time before you realize that a career in this company is almost impossible for you for this very reason. Because of your high standards of human values, you cannot accept from the outset what is demanded of a manager at a higher level.

When your boss withdraws this promising status from you and removes your name from the career ladder list, you don't yet know that months later you will decide to resign anyway, in secret, silently and rigidly. You still have no idea of your future path. But now you are relaxed, calm, resigned, but surprisingly composed. You say nothing. Nothing at all, you say. No, nothing. Not long ago, you would have rebelled at such a condescending assessment, at suddenly no longer being appreciated despite your brilliant work. You would have discussed, argued and completely exhausted yourself in an argument with your boss, unwilling to accept this injustice. Now you are completely calm, even feel superior and look down on your boss from the inside. You feel superior to his judgment, because: What does he know about you? He's not even able to look at your successes or even acknowledge them positively. You no longer care about his distorted judgment, today it bounces off you completely. What do you care about high potential if he's always hiding your light under a bushel anyway? You let him talk, show yourself compliant and don't say a single word. He is irritated and perhaps suddenly in doubt. But of course there's no going back.

WE

Give me the chance to understand: Where is the limit, what is still possible?

New demands. Does that mean changing the focus? Means prioritizing, means everything new.

But in addition? In addition? Already eleven hours in, not just me, but her too.

Key people who are always burdened with new things. Who can't hand over anything, to whom?

Give me the chance to understand: Where is the limit, what is still possible?

Creates pressure. Too much pressure. Even more pressure.

Pressure becomes overload, becomes anxiety, becomes drowsiness, becomes despondency, becomes aggression, becomes disappointment, becomes demotivation, becomes lethargy, becomes inner resignation.

Give them the limit where it ends!

MARCH

ME

There was a time, just a few months, when everything was perfect. I felt so exhilarated, so full of bursting energy! My team had doubled in size, my responsibilities had been greatly expanded and I had earned my boss's trust. For a handful of months, I moved through the office with joy, inspired by the spirit of my career and dancing towards my future. Everything was perfect, in fact: I had made it, my goal had been achieved.

The hardships of my younger years were compensated for, long years of dogged concentration were rewarded. Rewarded by a job that completely met my expectations. A boss who let me work and challenged me, a group of thirty-three employees who placed their trust in me and faithfully showed their commitment. I felt like a prince! Despite the hard work, because it never stopped. I relentlessly ran forward, established processes and took care, took care, took care, of everything, of everyone, at all costs. I led my team with the utmost dedication, with the utmost humility, because I was convinced through and through: they were my reward! It was worth challenging myself for them, they are my vocation, my success and my happiness. At that time, the joy of leadership work surpassed everything, even what my private life offered me during this phase.

And so it was that I blossomed into top form, investing all my time and energy in managing my department. To live my conviction, which filled me with strength, which lifted my work to new heights, a gain, a miraculous chain reaction of team spirit and motivation. My instinct gave birth to a spine- strengthening realization and made me immensely happy: I am a good leader and have finally made my dream come true.

THEY

"Being able to make a difference" - what is at the heart of this urge? There are those who like to do routine work, who want to be told exactly what to do, what the concrete result should be. These people feel little need to "make things happen". They feel satisfied whether they are given the opportunity to act independently or not.

And then there are the others who want to get involved and shape things. Creative people who think in a networked way, interested people who blossom when a bold step is needed. These are the people who can "make a difference" if they can, that is, if the environment lets them.

The commitment of the latter bears fruit and overflows in an organization whose culture allows for personal creativity and free will. The same commitment is locked up and breaks down in a rigid structure where management does not signal any need or time to listen to the ingenious ideas of individual minds, let alone include them in decision-making processes. The same committed person, sometimes deployed here and sometimes there, blanches at the weary powerlessness of being a mere sidekick, or blossoms at a challenge that he is highly motivated to steer.

What is the difference? What makes it different?

Let's start by imagining ourselves in an international corporation: a person who wants to make a difference will very soon bite the hook that promises a career. What this dynamic employee hopes for is more and more room for maneuver as he climbs the ladder. He gives his best, gets more and more involved, delivers top performance, invests all his energy, all his time, he gives his life for it. And always with the goal: to gain more influence, make more decisions and then be able to achieve even more. He doesn't know that this expectation is a misconception, not yet, nobody tells him. Because those who once "called the shots" and broke through the restrictive doors to the top are forced to remain silent in favor of their hard-won position. Their own drive has long since evaporated, as they are being ground down "at the top" in the cogwheels of the system, now starving for the illusion of the naïve, the still committed, whose efforts they have long known how to skillfully use as a comforting plaster on the burning wound of their imprisonment.