Leadership in cross-cultural contexts (Part I)

Almost a year ago I have taken on my first formal leadership role as team lead. I have had experience from informal leadership roles (project leader, central function position) in cross-cultural contexts and some theoretical knowledge on cross-cultural management. Now I was curious about the concept of leadership in cross-cultural settings and enrolled in a university course on that topic. This is part one of a series of three (find post II here and post III here) posts describing my main learnings from the course.

Neuroscience through the eyes of a newbie

I did it again. After 6 ECTS in a summer school course covering the brain & behavior, I took a 15 ECTS distance course covering neuroscience basics. Along the way, I documented insights which challenged my knowledge and practice in human resource management and beyond. This post consists of three parts: first, I shared the most insightful questions and answers from my course, second, you will find some of my general reflections and finally, you can find a section with recommended further resources. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: As a neuroscience professional you might find these basics mundane and simplified, if even incorrect. In case of the latter, please reach out and support me in my learning process.

Effective ways of reducing the number of competent (international) HR applicants (Swedish edition)

Feel free to copy this job posting blue-print for your next HR-professional opening for a Swedish company. You will greatly reduce the number of applications from competent (international) candidates and in addition severely harm your employer brand. All translations my work, originals taken from real job descriptions.

• Du har en PA-utbildning och minst tre års erfarenhet av brett HR-arbete med HR-frågor. (= You have a ”PA”-qualification and a minimum of three years of experience from broad HR-work with HR questions.) [1]
• Erfarenhet av att arbeta i process med ARUBA (= Experience from working according to ARUBA) [2]
• Vidare är du en street-smart person. (=Besides that, you are a street-smart person.) [3]
• Du älskar att vara spindeln i nätet. (= You love to be the spider in the web.) [4]
• A sense of humour is greatly appreciated [5]
• Swedish and English mandatory [6]

2018: Knowledge & research, agility and neuroscience

Already in 2016 I reviewed my digital year that passed and now I am expanding this review beyond digital resources to my most valuable resources 2018 which helped me advance professionally and personally. Don’t have much time? These are the essentials of what I write about in this blog post:

• Knowledge & Resarch
  • Aså Wikforss’ work, especially her book “Alternativa fakta”
  • Research Digest by the British Psychological Society
  • German journal Personal Quarterly
• Agility
  • Personal Quarterly 03/2018 
• Neuroscience
  • “Brain & Behavior” by Bob Garrett and Gerald Hough
  • “In your own image” by George Zarkadakis
  • Documentary “My Love Affair with the Brain”
  • Episode 13 of the Psych Crunch podcast

Digitalization is not about changing employees’ behaviours

Does technology determine how we work or should we determine how we want to work with technology? Maybe it’s a combination of both, a symbiotic relationship? Recently, digital behaviour change has been in focus of human resource professional discussions. HR is supposed to drive and support this behaviour change to fully embrace a company’s digitalization journey. “[…] Implementing a digital solution is one thing, to change people’s behaviour to use and like the solution is another.”, wrote an HR professional in a social media feed.

Here’s a balancing perspective.

You don’t have to network during network events

I love to get some inspiration from a range of events, be it presentations, seminars or network meetings. Most of them come with a mingle-part in the beginning, in the end or both. I have always felt the pressure to make meaningful contacts during those mingles. Until I realized that sometimes it can be as meaningful to sit out the contact phase and be for yourself a bit.

Three common missconcepions about German dual corporate studies (“Duales Studium”)

In a increasingly global world with applicants from all over the world, understanding international degrees becomes more and more important. Applying abroad with a German dual corporate Bachelor degree (“Duales Studium”) made me aware that what is regarded as competitive study program in one country might not be seen as such in another. Here are three common misconceptions I faced during my application processes.

Updating my UX & HCI skill set

During my Master studies I particularly enjoyed learning about digital tools for learning and communication. This was tighlty connected to research methods, and how to investigate digital learning environments with respect to their effectiveness. Now, some years later, I lead and consult projects about exactly this: developing tools which support employees in their learning and development process. I felt that it was time to update my user experience and human-computer interface knowledge and skills to become even better in my role and to have a stronger impact on the project results. That’s why I enrolled in Human-Computer Interaction as a freestanding course at Uppsala University. It was a project-based distance course, where I was able to work on my own desgin project throughout the course. I admit that I am not a born designer, but it was a valuable learning experience which inspired me both from a content and a methodical perspective.

EdTech Sweden – en konferens i tweets

Idag var det dags för en av Sveriges mest intressanta konferenser om lärande och teknologi. EdTech Sweden i Stockholm.

Jag jobbar med att definiera en genomtänkt utbildingsstrategi på ett företag. Så det här har varit ett bra tillfälle att ta in lite inspiration, knyta kontakter och få konkreta rådslag. Läs mer nedan där jag även har sammanfattat mina key takeaways med hjälp av mina och andras kloka Twitter tweets.

21 blog posts in 21 days

One day I listened to an episode of Framgångspodden (I think it was episode 124) and host Alexander Pärleros said something about habits. He stated that, to make something a habit, you would need to to it for 21 days in a row. In that moment, I did not really care if that was true or not. But I cared about my blog. In fact, I wanted to delete it. When I logged in, I found too many good drafts to waste. So I decided to give it one last try: Blog for 21 days in a row and see how it goes. Here is how it went.