Last week I had the opportunity hearing a superb and inspiring talk by Mark Gallagher, a former Formula 1 manager. If you ever have the opportunity listening to Mark, I strongly recommend to not miss it! Mark is fantastic in showing the importance of integrated teams and their impact on motivation, quality, if not championship (in its best and true meaning) by telling real-life stories from F1. Not this general “team is important”-blablabla on how it should be in theory. But truly experienced reality in an environment where competition and need for safety & quality converge at high speed. One of his narratives had been about Dave, the bus driver. To make a long story short, on that particular day the team won the race because of Dave. How? Well, Mark is much better than me in very lively telling the whole story in every amusing detail. But at least I dare to sketch the scene where in an extremely challenging situation for the team, where there had been uncertainties about the best race strategy due to very changeable weather conditions … Finally, the team lead buckled, adjusted the race strategy based on Dave’s report, as a result of that the race was won, and today most F1 teams have their “Daves” out in the fields during a race. This is a real-life story about being team by including everybody and gaining lived commitment … and win. This is also a real-life story about a “silly idea” becoming innovation. But first of all, for me this is an amazing story about courage. So, what do I learn from Dave, and by the way from may others who made a change in history? If you are deeply convinced that something is going to make a difference … keep your tail up, fight for it, make it happen! Neither the pleasers nor the skeptics are making a team the winner. The Daves…

Recently, an esteemed colleague was thanking me for “courageous openness” with a previous email by me. I have been very happy about this feedback. But I was also asking myself: is it really courageous to address important issues by mail … if there also had been opportunities to speak? Honestly spoken, talking would have been courageous, face to face, eye in eye, vouching for my words. Writing email is…

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” Elbert…

Well … honestly spoken … I appreciate myself. Not always. But again and again. And I admit to enjoying it. I appreciate myself for minor and major achievements. Every time something worked as planned. Every time I kept milestones and budget … or even overachieved. Then, I am as pleased as Punch, deeply proud of myself, and I inwardly tell myself: “Well done, Christian!” No, I do not miss appreciation by others. Most of the time I have been very fortunate having fellows and leaders, who acknowledged and esteemed my contribution … and myself. Hence, I always felt privileged. I never took it as granted, and I know that many others have to go without appreciation by others. But especially then it is even more important to honor yourself, to self-appreciate your performance. For me, the joy about my own success goes along with self-respect; the value I give myself. Frankly spoken, for quite a long time I thought that it would be absolutely common being pleased about own successes. A natural element of intrinsic motivation. Praise has been proven to be the best motivator. By praising myself I motivate myself. And that is how it also always felt for me. And over the years it carried me through various difficult situations. Meanwhile I have learned that self-appreciation is by far common and generally understood. From time to time I meet people having a serious problem with appreciating themselves, appreciating their own performance. But I think we agree that most successes are earned through hard work and are not to be taken as granted. For that reason, it should be well justified being proud of any single success. Not the narcissistic, foppish type of self-praise … but the well-deserved inward self-appreciation for a real performance. No pride which is exaggerating the own person. But joy because you successfully delivered. If I do not appreciate myself and my achievements … why should others…

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees. Michel de…

I developed and provided a medical education program on MF-CTCL disease, supporting the launch of a new treatment product for the rare dermato-oncological disease. The program includes … CLIENT:Actelion Specialty Care Global Business Unit(as an Actelion employee and team member)PROJECT TIME FRAME: February – May…