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Knigge wrote a traditional code of etiquette for Germans in the time of enlightenment. His famous and influential description of society and literary works, as well as his role as leader among those who undermined the freemasons by following Weishaupt’s “Illuminati” are legendary.

I would wish to see an “Email Knigge” that works according to the laws of ethical correctness. After having studied “Knigge”, however, it gets clear that the name cannot be used any more. We must find another name for the 21st century.

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The following questions have been on my mind for some time now:

Does an enterprise work more like a biological system, or is it more like a technical machine? What influence do managers actually have? Do leaders qualify by their superior intelligence and extra knowledge? Or is their influence on teams more caused by, perhaps even unconscious, emotional factors?
The central question we might ask is:

Are good decisions really based on a dominant logic?

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Ganesha vor der Flachbaugruppe

In remote India, in a small village far from the great mega cities of the subcontinent, there live two “scallywags”. They want to outwit the wise village guru. So they come up with a secret scheme.

They will go to the guru together. Before going, they will catch a small bird. One of them will hide the bird behind his back, the other will say:

Most honourable and wise guru! My friend is hiding a bird behind his back. Can you tell us if this bird is dead or alive?

If the wise guru says “dead”, the boy will set the bird free and let it fly away. If he says “alive”, the boy will wring the neck of the bird and show the dead animal to the guru. The guru has not a chance.

The plan is put to practice. The two scallywags see the guru and act according to plan.

The wise guru looks them in the eyes. After a suitable pause, he says:

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The idea of originality is dead. It has been dead since the German Romanticists.
 Even exceptional achievements of the human intellect can be traced back to forerunners. Mind you, they do not get worse by this, but they are no longer original in the sense of the genius metaphor.

However, new ideas and solutions are always an option. Incidentally, they are just a function of time and effort. Talent is of secondary importance.

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Siemens pays slush money. Telekom listens in. Käßmann drives a Phaeton.
They do the right thing. They are being efficient.

There is hardly a doubt about the definition of justice and morals. Not for managers. As a general rule, they know pretty well what is expected of them in our democratic society.

The problem for them is more how to behave morally and not feel stupid.

In a world determined by efficiency where those who behave ethically are often at a disadvantage, it gets harder and harder to be ethical.

Siemens acts efficiently (“doing the right thing”), in that such a huge, old enterprise 
cannot compete on the market without paying slush money.

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„Open Worlds“ is what our IF forum of the year 2010 will be about. That is why we chose OPEN2010 as headline and tag. We plan to invite three women as speakers. All of them are quite familiar with science, business and society.

As our first guest, on Tuesday, March, 2nd, 2010, we will welcome Frau Professor Dr. Kathrin M. Möslein in the office building of InterFace AG at Unterhaching.

She will start with a presentation on:

Open Innovation – On the Way to a Take-Part Science!

Open Innovation describes innovative processes that do not end at the borderlines of enterprises or innovation departments. Instead, they include agents independent from their institutional affiliation as fathers of ideas, developers of concepts, or appliers of innovations when it comes to the realization of said innovations.

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