Blinkist CEO Holger Seim: “To create a fantastic work culture, discourage political, ego-driven behavior”

Discourage political, ego-driven behavior: Ensure that everyone puts the team’s purpose before their individual success. There are not many things that are as energy-draining as company politics — once someone starts to act egotistically, it triggers others to follow. One small way we try and foster this culture is, for example, in how we set up our office. The co-founders don’t sit alone in glass offices peering out at the team. We sit together with the team. This is an attempt to get rid of the “founder ego”, which is a good place to start!

As a part of my series about how leaders can create a “fantastic work culture”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Holger Seim, CEO and co-founder of Blinkist. Holger founded this company back in 2012 in Berlin to solve a growing issue he’d been facing since leaving school by creating a micro-learning app and platform that condenses non-fiction titles into 15-minute…