No egos, no agendas, no bullshit — Discussing a different kind of leadership

I had the pleasure of being invited to the Fifteen Seconds Festival in Graz this year. The Fifteen Seconds Festival is a 2 day conference for “curious minds challenging the status quo”, meaning a total of 100 speakers and 4000 participants were invited to share their ideas, discuss and get inspired about topics related to economy, innovation and creativity.

What was special about this conference was its motto: “no egos, no agendas, no bullshit”: The atmosphere was very open and innovative — definitely an environment to foster ideas in and to connect and network with like-minded people.

Next to speakers from Stanford University, Facebook, Spotify, Google, Procter & Gamble and many more, I was invited to speak about my own experiences and insights from my career as an SAP Design leader. Based on my work in Strategic Design Services and at the SAP AppHaus Network, SAP’s customer-facing co-innovation space, I chose the topic of new leadership styles. How can we humanize leadership using Design Thinking principles?

The talk itself was a new and interesting experience for me. The 200 people that attended live were all wearing headphones to listen to me. Similar like silent party clubbing with head phones. I just had to take this great selfie with them!

After the 40 minutes talk, the floor was opened for a lively discussion with the audience. It was great to hear questions and get input from the conference participants — I can honestly say, I had a blast!

You can see the full 40 minutes talk here: Youtube Video.

If you are interested in the slides, check: Slideshare