INKOVEMA Podcast „Well through time“
#232 GddZ
Conflict in the world of work
How it became what it is. The religious roots of our modern understanding of work.
In conversation with Prof Peter Nieschmidt.
Prof Dr Peter Nieschmidt has been Professor of Political Science since 1976 and was Professor of Political Science at Munich University of Applied Sciences. He was co-founder and later head of the planning group of the Bundeswehr University in Munich and Scientific Director at the Social Science Institute of the Bundeswehr. For more than 30 years, he made a name for himself with his extraordinary lectures and management seminars in numerous companies and has been giving lectures and management seminars in companies, institutions and universities since 1976. The professor emeritus still regularly gives guest lectures at universities such as the University of St. Gallen, RWTH Aachen and Chemnitz University of Technology and is a sought-after leadership expert and keynote speaker who specialises in topics such as leadership, work and leadership issues and the social transformation of work.
Small series: Fields of mediation
Three ways to open up the world
Theoria, praxis and poiesis
The three realms of reality that Peter Nieschmidt talks about in the podcast go back to Aristotle and describe fundamental ways in which humans understand the world
Theory (Theoria)
The area of theoretical knowledge and contemplation. This is about pure understanding and recognising the world as it is. Theoria aims for truth and encompasses sciences such as mathematics, physics and metaphysics.
It is purposeless and is pursued for its own sake.
Practice
Practice is the area of ethical and political action.
Practice refers to human action in community, i.e. the initiation of social realities. It encompasses morality, politics and interpersonal relationships.
The goal is the good life (eudaimonia) both for the individual and for the community.
The practice is an end in itself - the action itself is the goal.
Poiesis
Poiesis is the area of manufacture and production. This is about the creative production of something, be it in craftsmanship, art or technology.
Poiesis has a middle purpose - it serves the creation of a product outside of the action itself.
This tripartite division shows different approaches to reality: through cognition (theoria), through ethical action (praxis) and through creation (poiesis). Each area has its own logic and justification for understanding human existence.
Contents
Chapter:
0:11 – Introduction to the world of work
13:00 – Protestantism and capitalism
15:30 – The role of the manager
16:05 – Employee identity and motivation
18:13 – Change and adaptation in the world of work
19:32 – Challenges of modern leadership
29:21 – Conflicts in the world of work
41:32 – Social interactions and conflicts
48:34 – Perception and social reality
1:02:01 – Phenomenology in leadership
1:14:45 – The path to phenomenological perception
Summary of content
In this episode, we look at a key area of conflict that affects everyone: the world of work. Our interviewee is Prof. Dr Peter Nieschmidt, an accomplished expert in the field of work organisation and history. Together, we analyse how complex and challenging the world of work is and how it has evolved over time.
We start with the question of where the roots of our current work culture lie. Nieschmidt takes us through the historical dimensions and emphasises the crucial role of social interaction and trust, which were once essential for working relationships. The upheavals in the world of work in recent decades have also changed the potential for conflict. Whereas we used to work in highly hierarchical structures in which the endeavour often took place in isolation, today there is a growing expectation of personal responsibility and the integration of all employees in decision-making processes.
Nieschmidt reflects on his own experiences as a young graduate in the traditional Siemens world of the 1960s. The hierarchical structures he encountered back then are hard to imagine today. He describes how jobs were pre-structured and how there was little room for individual development. He points out that the adherence to outdated structures in many organisations has led to an internecine struggle between tradition and innovation.
The conversation will focus on the different traditions of understanding work. We examine the influence of religious roots on modern work culture and the shift from a Catholic-influenced approach based on trust-based interaction to a more profit-oriented, Protestant understanding of work. Here, Nieschmidt recognises the challenges that arise for managers, especially in times of rapid change and an uncertain working environment.
Nieschmidt's approach to the question of the authenticity of leadership is particularly interesting. He argues that genuine leadership strength is not only based on formal authority, but also on the ability to shape social realities. This requires a deep understanding of the individual backgrounds of employees and their social contexts. The dialogue about the perception of work and leadership is repeatedly linked to the question of how we can build trust and create the space for personal development.
Finally, the central idea that "good leadership" can be learnt is critically examined. Nieschmidt emphasises that leadership is shaped not only by theoretical knowledge, but also by practical experience and continuous learning. A successful leadership style requires empathy, dedication and the willingness to deeply understand and promote social dynamics.
This podcast is an invitation to scrutinise our own perception of work and management structures and to redefine our own role in these contexts. It is a necessary step towards recognising and resolving conflicts that we encounter in everyday life and that can affect our organisations to the core.
Complete transcription
[0:02]Welcome to the podcast Gut durch die Zeit, the podcast about mediation,
[0:11]
Introduction to the world of work
[0:07]Conflict coaching and organisational consulting, a podcast by INKOVEMA. I'm Sascha Weigel and I'd like to welcome you to a new episode. And today's episode is about an area of conflict that is very important for everyone, namely the world of work. The world of work is diverse and one of our biggest spheres of activity and also the area in which we come into contact with the most diverse people and is therefore ideally suited to living out, revitalising and working on potential conflicts in social coexistence and also leading to good endings. And to understand the world of work, you have to look at where it comes from. And that is one of the core messages of my guest today, whom I have invited to join me. I would like to welcome Prof Dr Peter Nieschmidt to my podcast studio today. Hello Mr Nieschmidt. Hello Mr Weigel, thank you for inviting me. I am very pleased to be here and hope that we can have a good discussion. Yes, me too, because it's also something special for me to be here at the Baumwollspinnerei in Leipzig to conduct the interview for a podcast.
[1:27]I can count the 230 episodes on my hand by now and I am therefore glad that you accepted the invitation and even came to Leipzig, here on the site of the cotton mill, which already has a high symbolic value for working worlds, for new working worlds, for lost working worlds. Working environments and the conflicts that go hand in hand with them. Before we delve deeper into this, perhaps a few words about you and how you came to focus specifically on the world of work and the social interaction that is necessary and also possible there. Yes, that wasn't my original intention when I started out as a student, to find my way around the world better and perhaps fulfil a role at some point. I am a trained philosopher with a certain theological background. That means I don't understand anything about anything, but I know that. That's already an advantage over specialised academics.
[2:36]I entered the world of work because I didn't take to the streets in 1968 with my later left-liberal colleagues to change society, but I wanted to get to know it first and joined Siemens as a 30-year-old to familiarise myself with the world of work. Many large student movements, the masses, were intent on changing it.
[3:04]That's where I got to know the world of work, a world of work that no longer exists today. The problems you had to deal with back then have become completely different. The areas in this big company, Siemens, where I worked for two and a half years, I learnt that it was better not to work for Siemens, but for Siemens and that it was more lucrative. In short, that said something about what kind of working environment it was. It was pre-structured down to the last pencil sharpener. Incidentally, this world of work no longer exists. The area that didn't want to change at all.
[3:42]That was originally the dairy cow of the company, namely the N communications technology division, but I was later allowed to accompany it as a consultant, but they didn't want to change and the last remnants were then sold off to BenQ, Nokia and whoever else at the end of the 90s, beginning of the noughties. It no longer exists at all. The other divisions changed a lot, had different structures and offered employees different working environments, which is why they are still not only there today, but also very successful. In this respect, I know a bit about the world of work and we can talk to each other. Perhaps we can also start there when you say that this was Siemens' dairy cow, i.e. a very traditional division that earned good money. And you said it didn't want to change.
[4:35]How did you come to have to do that? It's common practice today. And it was probably a monstrosity back then. It was outrageous in the 90s. It was called change management back then. But they didn't want to move away from their organisational form either. In other words, a deeply tiered hierarchy. Incidentally, the division had a total of around 70,000 employees. If you joined there as a young graduate from the TU, you needed two years to familiarise yourself with the company. All valuable working time that was only needed for orientation. So that can't go well. Yes, and even to today's ears it sounds like a faraway country that you join an organisation and are first put in the spectator's seat and told to pay close attention to how things work here. You can forget everything you know and not even open your ears and then you can really get involved in two years' time. Nobody can afford that nowadays.
[5:36]Perhaps we'll stay exactly from this involved perspective before we take a look at it from above. Where did such a self-image come from that you believed you could stay like this and continue in such a deeply structured organisation?
[5:58]That has its role models. Such deeply tiered organisations and hierarchies don't just come from anywhere. It has a lot to do with the three traditions of understanding labour, which we deal with more unconsciously than consciously, but which were once very, very real and which still have their effects today. And there are the traditional and relatively stable forms of organisation for work, I like to call it the Catholic concept of work, i.e. a concept of work based on the Ora et Labora of the Benedictine monks, so I go back to the 13th century, according to which work is very much interaction, trustworthy interaction. Otherwise, agriculture, where 95 per cent of people worked in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, would have been inconceivable and impossible. Interaction - successful interaction, trustworthy interaction - was a firm basis, a fundamental matter of course, a prerequisite for the world of work.
[7:10]Which, however, continues to recede in its significance over the following centuries, let's put it that way. Because something new comes along. With the Reformation, with the emergence of the cities, a whole new world of labour was created. The working world of crafts, trade, commerce and administration. Completely new work processes such as planning and customer-orientation gain in importance. The universities rise. So scholars, too, who then determine the work. Yes, scholars who think about work, perhaps even something like, well, spectacle lenses and optics were invented and then the first small craft businesses and one day factories emerged. That didn't exist at all in the early Middle Ages, in the High Middle Ages.
[8:05]Perhaps this idea is also used, so social interaction was a matter of course and was probably not yet functionalised in the way it is today. Today, everything revolves around interactions that are supposed to be successful. People learn messages. But back then, that was a human, not least a masterly skill. A master craftsman who couldn't manage apprentices would eventually go out of business. There was one who simply no longer existed. So in other words, I'll come back to this in more detail later, the creation, the preparation, the production, you might say, but it's not actually the production of social reality. That was a core task, that was a masterly task.
[8:53]That wasn't social skills. In other words, do you think that was already an aspect back then, that it wasn't expertise that led to success, but social skills? No, that was certainly not yet recognised. Especially as something new was emerging in the cities, namely the manufacture of unique new products. It started with goldsmithing. And in shoes and wheelwork, etc.
[9:22]The benchmark for the work is therefore the highest level of quality. And that characterises the master craftsman. I can rely on masterful work. The customer relationship also plays a role. But the more extreme the masterly performance is, the more of an oddball it can be. Then, if I have any apprentices at all, I leave it to the master craftswoman here. In short, the emphasis is shifting away from social interaction towards the production of unique and reliable quality. This is the German tradition of master craftsmen that goes back to the 19th century.
[10:03]But then we are no longer alone in the Catholic-influenced understanding of work. No, it is precisely in the Lutheran-Protestant area. There in the cities, which are more orientated towards Protestantism, more towards the Reformation, that's where it arises. Where work, certainly not for the first time, is given a very special charge. That was the path, now my own personal path to religious redemption or to God. Yes, in any case, it is initially a very practical and pragmatic way of securing your livelihood. But it is also the case that a master must not and does not want to disgrace himself in front of the customer, nor does he want to disgrace himself in front of God. He has been commissioned to be a master craftsman here. Being a master craftsman was not just a professional qualification, it was a way of life.
[10:54]I had to explain this to some young assistants in my mid-career years when I told them that being a professor is a way of life. That means you have to be there for your students' needs at the weekend. You can't leave a message on your answering machine, my office hours start again at 11 a.m. on Monday. If they get stuck in their work or perhaps even have a personal, difficult problem, who should they turn to? The parents may not understand him at all, not at all. Then you have to be there for them. In other words, there is no separation of workplace and living space, private space, but I am a professor everywhere and at all times or I am a master craftsman everywhere. It's a form of existence. And therefore a high degree of identification. Right, right. And that's where something changes with Calvinism, with a religious split, but it already happened with Calvin at the time of the Reformation, a tremendous appreciation of labour for its output, for its profit. And he has a very, how shall I put it, highly complicated relationship to profits. At one point, Calvin defines profit as the Lord's blessing on the labour of my hands. A tremendous increase in meaning and legitimisation for profit. This is the basis of the moral legitimisation of capitalist profits. Ah, okay.
[12:19]And profit means success? Profit is based on success and can be expressed in monetary terms, which I can collect and must not use up immediately, but rather utilise again in order to receive the next blessing from the Lord, so to speak. In other words, I invest in order to make further profits by producing products that others use, that others want to buy, and I can rightfully collect the added value that is created in the process from the entrepreneur.
[13:00]
Protestantism and capitalism
[13:00]Two representatives from Protestantism, so to speak, or I don't know, does Calvin still belong to Protestantism? Yes, yes, yes, that's possible. That's what Werner Plumpe called Janus-facedness in capitalism. On the one hand, it was a project of the little man who, for the first time, was involved in investments. It was the entrepreneur's project, but the little man was involved and suddenly got a completely different position. But you didn't become an entrepreneur because you were an aristocrat or because you were a cleric, so to speak, but because you were a citizen, because you were now courageous. Because you wanted to have civic freedom, because you wanted to start a business that you had perhaps only just thought of yourself or that you had taken over. There was fierce resistance from the individual guilds, for example the shoemakers or the leather processors, who didn't like it when entrepreneurs, who perhaps hadn't necessarily learnt the trade, hired a few skilled workers and then produced much more cheaply. There are some good historical examples. The people of Cologne excluded these new entrepreneurs because they made cheaper shoes than the master craftsmen in Cologne.
[14:07]And then we have this part in it, so to speak, but also this often criticised and rightly so, simply defining profit as success. And no longer quality, no longer the circumstances, so to speak, which in today's world of work is again being tried to incorporate, that not only profit is decisive, but also how it comes about and whether it takes place on the backs of those in need. This is a new addition. Originally, in so-called Manchester liberalism, this was not a question at all, not a problem. The workers were shamelessly exploited. You couldn't justify that with Lothrop, you had to use Kalwin. No, you have to justify it with Kalwin. And then counter-movements immediately emerged at the socio-political level, either as communism or socialism or as something even closer to the workplace in the form of trade unions and works councils. They are then also in a position to reach out to the employer or his managers with arguments and say, "If you don't want them, you can't do it.
[15:18]If you let a worker work themselves sick, you won't benefit in the long term. So you're not supposed to play social helper or Caritas here,
[15:30]
The role of the manager
[15:25]but please treat your people in such a way that they will still be able to work well in three years' time. And then we have, so to speak, if we look back over the centuries and actually take the religiously influenced understanding or understanding of work, then we have, so to speak, all the currents or many currents that are also being discussed today in the world of work, conflicts are being fought out and where the understanding of work as such is being fought over, so to speak. So what is good work or what should work be like so that we can recognise this in its roots and germs over the centuries. Yes, you can.
[16:05]
Employee identity and motivation
[16:06]And it's a good thing that a manager should at least have this in mind if they want to lead and not just be a supervisor who is in charge of workers or employees or service providers in order to supervise or control them or whatever. Leading is something completely different. Leading is ultimately about ensuring that my employees can develop, that my employees work not because they have to work to ensure their survival, but because they want to work. Because their highly personal process of self-valorisation, self-development, the development of self-esteem.
[16:50]Only then will I actually be able to achieve leadership in the working environment I have created. Then I have employees who want to work and not who have to work. Yes, that is also a goal of many organisations, to have this identity or not only this motivation among employees, but also to have an identity, identification with the workplace, with the employer, with the organisation and therefore with the work. It gives me a sense of value, so that it is a place where I can develop.
[17:28]Then it doesn't seem to me to be a completely modern phenomenon, but something that has been the case for a long time, that labour has this significance. Yes, take the excellent craftsman's workshop in a city like Augsburg or Nuremberg, which was part of the Lutheran tradition, so to speak, where even a scrawny business had a large workshop or the large silversmiths and goldsmiths in Augsburg, where you could work there, become a journeyman or chief journeyman. Or if you were very lucky, the master died and the master's wife took the best journeyman as her husband.
[18:13]
Change and adaptation in the world of work
[18:14]Because this is due to the high level of quality, originality, uniqueness and distinctiveness of the products I have made, in other words, my work. That's how I see myself. And there is only one person I have to answer to. That is God and I want that directly. This completely calls into question the Catholic Church and its hierarchy. I want to have a direct relationship with God.
[18:45]While Catholics in traditional forms of faith, especially if they live in the village and work in agriculture, the path to God is incredibly long. It first goes via the priest and then at some point via the bishop and then via the cardinal and then perhaps to the Pope, but I don't even get there. The relationship between the individual and God is made direct here. Yes, this loss of authority or the threat of it back then seems to me to have a parallel today, where it is more strongly emphasised than in systemic organisational consulting that you should be careful not to demand too much identity or identification, which many companies do with purpose and new work ideas, that employees are at their best when they identify with it.
[19:32]
Challenges of modern leadership
[19:33]Because the problem is that they are then used for change management when times change, and they change very quickly these days.
[19:41]Then they don't simply join in. And this was illustrated by the stonemason who is helping to build the church and says, "I'm not just cutting stones, I'm helping to build the church," that you can't just let them build a cowshed in the next project. He won't be able to do that. That's no longer in his level range. It seems to me that there is a parallel here, that if you load the work with personality development foundations in such a way that you then realise the functionality of arrangements, that today's work is different to yesterday's, that it no longer works so easily. Would you agree that this can also be a weak point for today's working world if I have such highly motivated employees and have to say to them, sorry, but the world looks different today?
[20:45]The world in general will not demand this, but it will go back to something very specific, namely because the customer wants this and that or wants this and that and that is much easier to produce and no longer needs our entire personality requirement, so to speak, or identity. The management task here is to involve the employee in the overall task to such an extent that he can understand it, that he can comprehend it, that he can say, if we are only working on something of the very highest quality, whether it's a software programme or a complicated product or service, I don't know.
[21:31]That the order situation is such that it only feeds half the company at best. But others have opened up, which only we can actually do in this form, but which basically underchallenges the individual, now highly qualified colleagues. If I involve them in the entrepreneurial task, they realise that very quickly. We can't pay their salaries for the next three or four months if we don't do this job, even if it's a bit more boring than what we've had so far. So I have no choice but to include my qualified employees in my overall responsibility today. In other words, if the ship sinks, we won't benefit at all if we've all had our salaries, but then unfortunately we'll sink.
[22:17]I've experienced this from time to time in conflicts in the world of work, and it's a hotly contested field of interpretation. How bad is it? Right now, if you look at the automotive industry over the last 10 or 20 years, some … have dismissed it as a disaster maker and it won't be that bad and it can't be that disruptive. Others have taken a very sober view that this really is such a change. So a lot of negotiation processes will be necessary. They are increasing, very, very, very enormously. I think that's also a logic that's understandable when you have so many employees with developed personalities that you can't just push back and forth and in and out as functionaries. I have to include them in my task, then you also realise that you have to do that. And at that point, so to speak, in the practical discussion, personality development in the sense of, you're an employee with your own responsibility, you have an employment contract and it can be terminated and that's why I'm terminating it and that's nothing morally reprehensible, was then suddenly turned against him, so to speak.
[23:42]So this bond of trust, even in difficult times, we will stay in the same boat as long as we can sail it. This has then turned into discussions and also astonishment, such as, well, we have a contract and it stipulates working hours from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and if a cancellation is legal, then you don't need to get upset about it. That's the difficult balancing act and also the contradiction between security on the one hand and freedom on the other. People were never safer than in old feudal relationships, where the feudal lord determined the entire lives of his servants and maidservants, including their leisure time. At least they could be sure who was to blame if they were beaten. But they were safe in return. And the development was, and it took a very long time, basically only in the 19th century, that these people were released into freedom, so to speak. They were now free to work wherever they wanted, as wage labourers.
[24:50]Unfortunately, there was too much of it, so the supply of labour was greater than the demand for labour, which is why wages were so poor. City air makes you free, day labourers were in the city. Yes, and the day labourer had gained freedom but lost security. The old struggle between wanting more freedom and wanting more security. Incidentally, that characterises political life today just as much. Incidentally, just to digress for a moment, America is made up of, or descended from, people who chose freedom over security. They went on the ships, starting with the Mayflower, … and so on, in order to be able to work freely… And where they didn't like it, they went somewhere else. But they no longer had any security. And the thought occurred to me earlier and I didn't quite dare to ask, but now the question fits again, because they call the Americans, or the Puritans and whoever, so to speak, were the first to choose this path to freedom, which was initially really associated with danger. And it was not just an adventure, but really a suicide mission. They probably had Calvin in their pockets rather than Luther. Yes, yes.
[26:10]Because Luther remained in the old order as far as politics were concerned. He only reformed the hierarchy of the church, but not that of the princes. He remained quite Pauline, if you like. That is written in Paul's letters, Jesus never said that. But Paul says that all authority is from God beforehand. I don't know that either. Romans 13, 1 following. That is Lutheranism. This is not so pronounced in Calvin, but we also determine it ourselves, the president. That means that they also understood a different kind of capitalism and capitalist growth in the 20th century than Rhenish capitalism, for example. Yes, which was always more of a social capitalism. There was always a great deal of social responsibility, if you like.
[26:56]Houses for his employees, Leverkusen and so on. It all has the same social traditions, America doesn't have that. The status of trade unions in America is much more difficult, it's a state of struggle. Yes, although, not to put too fine a point on it, they have this strong patronage, these philanthropists, and how is that to be categorised, that the successful people there, and above all the economically successful, feel obliged to be philanthropically active, although I can see that there is a difference to what a Rhineland company has here. Yes, you can see the difference very clearly. For the American entrepreneur, this is, if you like, a golden sign on his gate. He also promotes this and that. The Rhinelander doesn't have to have that. But he promotes his employees, he doesn't let them go under.
[28:01]But he also has a stronger hand on the parts. He doesn't just build houses. Basically, he remains a bit of a landlord. He is responsible for his people, but they also provide him with the best possible and responsible work. In America, it's always more of a business. That's why, when I'm very successful, right up to Bill Gates, I support HIV foundations, but not my employees. Yes, the Rhinelander distributes it more as security for his retirement or whatever.
[28:34]It was out of this tradition that Bismarck created his social legislation, accident insurance, old-age insurance, that something was set in motion that Rhineland capitalism had basically already done before. Yes, old traditions were broken up, but new ties were created. So it's not as if they were allowed to build their little houses somewhere. They had to build them on the factory site. Yes, that remained the case. Siemens was founded in 1848. In 1849, there was already a social fund for people who had been injured at work or whatever, and the company took more care of them. And it was also a huge problem back then. Yes, of course it was.
[29:21]
Conflicts in the world of work
[29:21]Perhaps that is a good point, because that is how we have prepared the field in today's world of work. To look and say that we have the same tendencies in the controversial issues that exist. For example, attendance at work or what is good work in general.
[29:41]And we have these different approaches. I tend to come from an acute conflict situation and then there are conflicts in my work. You tend to come from leadership, from the topic of leadership and look at what is good leadership or what leadership must do. And if social interaction is the common field, then dealing with conflict potential is obvious in leadership. Yes, it is indeed a central leadership task.
[30:13]And I have also spent 30 or 40 years in management training, management seminars and discussion groups. We quickly realised that we had to fall back on something that might seem too far-fetched at first glance, namely ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and its classification and emphasis. I am talking about Aristotle's concept of science, which has three approaches to reality. Firstly, theory, theoretical knowledge, theoretical certainties. Secondly, practice, practical approaches to reality, whether this is more technical or more social, it doesn't matter. And thirdly, a poietic approach. Poietin means producing, making, fabricating, manufacturing, repairing. In other words, what concerns our concrete, primarily manual working world. For him, these are the three most important areas of reality into which people work, which they want to scrutinise, in which they want to gain knowledge. Perhaps before you go any further.
[31:31]Because I don't think it's immediately obvious today when it comes to the question of theory or practice, where the difference is between practice and poetic poetry, because this making, fabricating, producing is often equated with practice. Exactly, this is something that is completely blurred in the modern European tradition. Basically, the concept of practice is taken and applied to the field of poesis. So someone who can repair their own car is a practitioner. He has a practical knack, let's say. No, nothing at all. He has a poetic one. Practice is something completely different. And what is practice? Practice is evoking, initiating, enabling, setting things in motion, not making, being made in the field of craftsmanship, influencing, i.e. much softer concepts of social realities that don't exist without me.
[32:28]This is the practice. That is practice. That sounds very poetic, but it's not poetry. It's that, in inverted commas, making is not actually making, but evoking, enabling, setting in motion social realities, social realities, for example moods or feeling good. And when I say, people, come on, let's go and eat, I'll buy you a meal and we'll just spend an hour feeling good, then I've created a social reality. And that's a very practical approach, isn't it? Acting in a very practical way, exactly. That's different to if I had fabricated something or something. Especially as I have to make sure that it suits everyone I've invited. Or maybe one of them would actually prefer to go home or something else. So I have to take a lot of things into account when I organise practice. I'll come to that in a moment, because I need a different way of perceiving people and employees. Can I give you a good example? Because yesterday, a manager who had just joined a small company as a start-up entrepreneur called me as managing director.
[33:37]I need support here now, I don't know exactly what to do, but I've already done a lot. And he has technicians, he has administrative staff and he has scientists in different professions in the organisation who… only talk badly about each other and no longer work together. And his idea, which he wanted to secure or have confirmed, was that I had to bring them together. I have to do something so that they can inform each other again about what they're doing. They know, they reproach each other, I don't know what you do all day, probably just hanging around or just doing nonsense. And they actually have to before they start working together again.
[34:23]They have to be brought into a dialogue, they have to inform each other again, they have to exchange ideas. And that's what they say, that's practice and that's leadership. Yes, yes. By the way, just where you use the term, no, digression, inform, a very nice word, a very vivid word. I have to mould something into someone else. Inform, yes. Firstly, I need to know whether it's even possible to mould or shape what I want to convey. And can it even be moulded into him, into the other person I want to inform? That's not an easy process. Nowadays, we can throw up to 100, 150, 200, possibly 1000 pieces of information at each other. This no longer has anything to do with information at all.
[35:10]So today, dealing with information has almost become a technique. And information used to be a process, I first had to understand a lot about the other person so that they could really take in what I wanted to tell them. I can't give someone who's in fear a factual task, they're not listening at all, they're busy with something completely different. And this kind of informing is basically practice in the best sense of ancient Greek, ancient Roman philosophy. It is the shaping of practice. And at this point....
[35:49]Are we almost like the gods? Because they don't do anything else either. They influence people's destinies by actively bringing something into the world that is then there and that you have to deal with or through which you are saved or embedded or confronted in the worst possible way. In other words, initiating social realities. Please understand social very broadly and comprehensively, not as a social welfare office. Yes, interpersonal action. But human interaction.
[36:23]And that is actually, you could almost say, a royal business. Whether an evening at my home is a success or not depends very much on my creative skills. For example, whether I serve them a good meal, whether I put out a quality wine or just something to drink, whether I put out a snack or have prepared something so that they not only enjoy the food, but also feel honoured. These are all actions on my part that make the evening, that make the evening what it is. Which, by the way, can be totally ruined by someone who comes in by chance and doesn't belong there at all. Greek mythology has wonderful examples of this. Zeus wanted to organise another big party, but only had twelve golden plates and 13 were supposed to come. And then they said that the goddess of discord, Eris, shouldn't be invited. Of course she realises that there's an invitation. What does she do? She drops by and, God knows, stays true to her name, throws an apple on the table and says, "The most beautiful" and leaves. And of course the goddesses are already arguing about who is the most beautiful.
[37:39]Can they come to an agreement and remain three? Athena, Artemis and Aphrodite. And the gods can't agree on which of them is the most beautiful. And then they have to seek out a man who, as they think, will decide for them independently and neutrally, go to Paris, a king's son from Troy, son of Priam, and say, you decide. And he chooses Aphrodite, the goddess of love. And she promises him the most beautiful woman in the world. Athens had promised wisdom. The father wasn't so interested in all that, but the most beautiful woman in the world. Unfortunately, she was married. Helena was married to a Greek king. So you have to be stolen first. And that's the beginning of the Trojan War. It's a social act, she comes along, throws an apple on the table and says it's the best. There are causalities that we no longer have in mind. That's how you can have arguments. All probabilities of social practice.
[38:40]You can see what a tremendous amount of creative potential there is in your own ability to act. As I said, I'm coming back to our working world. My employees feel good or just do what they have to do or are confronted with a bad mood. My God, it's my job to do that. If I add something quickly. In seminars, I often recorded what a poor manager has to do when he has ten employees. Then I drew a triangle with my line manager at the top, my arm, who is always poor, by the way. Yes, he's always poor. He got there without anyone having prepared him for what he had to do. Because these ten people, the first two are good professionals and are best suited to each other professionally, but they can't get along, they're always fighting. The next two love each other, which by the way is not a management problem. The line manager doesn't mind at all, but the others do. Why? Because they are so happy. They come into work on Monday mornings and are happy. The others are Friday, they are decent people.
[39:46]Conflicts arise from this. Catholic people are happy on Fridays. For example. But Lutherans are happy on Mondays. He likes to go in because he wants to be successful. The next one is someone who tends to saw at his chair. He's good, but you have to dampen him down a bit. Someone might say, hit him on the head, then his arrow will point downwards and no longer upwards. Wrong. That could be junior managers, I have to deal with them differently. Besides, I've already got the one with the arrow pointing downwards. He's offended.
[40:14]At the beginning he was good and performed well, suddenly he's offended. What's behind this? Possibly an only child who was always spoilt at home, was always the best, had everything thrown at him.
[40:26]He expects the same from me. He wasn't in different circumstances. He expects me to come round every ten minutes and say, 'Gosh, you've produced something again. You can't do that, because you don't do that with the others either. And so there are ten completely different types, that's how the companies are. Yes, but that's also the task. That is the task. He is in charge, has the responsibility and, on top of that, he is also expected to perform a certain service and task. They preside over and are responsible for a social interaction process that consumes at least 30 per cent of the mental and emotional energy that my employees have. 30 per cent of their mental and emotional energy is used up in this mess of interaction. And he has to make a few small management mistakes, then that's 35 or maybe even 50 per cent. If job insecurity is added to that, it's already 50 per cent or even a few more. And he hasn't learnt that at all. But that is the shaping of social reality. In short, a practitioner is now
[41:32]
Social interactions and conflicts
[41:30]someone who understands practice. Yes, and here we are right in the middle of the current world of work, which is also confirmed time and again in surveys: conflicts are the topic par excellence. Yes, yes.
[41:47]To put it a little more mildly, the social interactions that keep people busy are often issues of conflict and potential for conflict, and if you're not careful, they escalate and become not just a management issue, but an organisational problem. And sometimes people think, excuse me for interrupting, sometimes people think that organisational techniques are the best way to get to grips with such problems. No, it can be done with action competence, with practical action competence, not with a bit of tweaking of organisational screws. Sometimes it's enough for me to say that I simply have to sort them out. If they only communicate via the screen three times a day, that's okay, because both of them are excellent, ideally suited to this task. But don't put them together, they'll be bickering all day.
[42:41]And what I want to get at, so to speak, is the question, because for all good advice, for all good ideas, we find examples where we say, yes, that worked and we find counter-examples where it didn't work. We find studies for every direction, for every approach, and it seems to be an impenetrable field, where only people like me, you, external consultants can come and say that good advice is expensive. Yes, it is. Do you think it's a solvable issue in the sense of where there is good leadership? So is it something you can say that good leadership would be successful in any organisation? Or is it a concept that is as specific in practice as the people on the ground are and you can't just prepare for it, so you can study leadership now, you can learn it, but... you can't study it. You can only take note, learn. You can listen to stories. But Aristotle has a very nice sentence in the Necomachian Ethics. If you want to learn to play the guitar.
[44:03]Then it's not enough if you sit in front of the guitar for hours and look at it and understand down to the last detail how it's built, how it's made, what the sound is like. No, you have to practise, practise. And that's exactly how it is in practice. And that's why it's a correct realisation to say that your interaction space must be error-friendly. That doesn't mean you can make the same mistake seven times. After the second time, you have to have learnt that it can't happen to me again. But I have to allow mistakes, otherwise I won't try again. That's what makes leadership in administration so difficult. Because in administration, superiors don't have much room for manoeuvre. They have legal principles, they have procedural guidelines, they have so many specifications, they are constrained by so much that they don't have any room for manoeuvre for new social realities that they would like to initiate. It is forbidden. Administration has to function. And that's why everything takes a little longer. And the most important thing for you to become something in administration, the most important goal for you, or your most important maxim, is not to make any mistakes. No entry in the file. But you won't become an entrepreneur that way.
[45:19]Error prevention is the most important management. And I think that's also a point. In this tight corset, because I experience it in practice, there are highly creative people who still look to see where the corset is flexible, where there are still gaps. These are not the disruptive changes, but the feasibility and enabling of small, but important points for the people they reach. I would say that if you have someone like that, they are a passionate leader. This is someone who sees everywhere that you can shape something, that you can create a new reality that is then there.
[46:09]No one can take it away. And that can also be incredibly satisfying for you. The highest praise I can have on my gravestone is when a few people write on it that without Peter Nischmidt I wouldn't have become this or that. Then I have lived a meaningful life. Not how much money I earned. That's irrelevant. We others have much, much, much, much more anyway. But some things. I recognised students who were actually only mediocre. But I recognised that they enjoyed teaching. Today he earns more money than my colleagues as a speaker. I recognised that correctly, recognising talent and turning it into what the gods used to do. That is tremendous empowerment. I come back to this point again, that leadership is only learnt, or above all, or as a question mark, in and through practice. And I cannot avoid the fact that when I say yes to leadership, I also say yes to conflicts that affect me. And I can't get out of them and before I know it, I'm part of them. Because I'm the point of contact for dissatisfaction, for shortcomings, for all sorts of things that don't work in the organisation.
[47:31]And it could tempt me to say, well, you have to learn leadership again and again and when you enter another organisation, you start from scratch again. And yet, I believe there is this, I have gained experience in leadership and I know how to lead. Where would you say that's not true because a different organisation requires a different kind of leadership, where there is no experience yet? If I now take a very strong culture, different organisations, start-ups, a few highly motivated people who would prefer to work 27 hours a week and then a corporation or administration, i.e. a large organisation, where you know, okay, I have a functional role and before I know it, I'm shown my limits. Especially when I'm in another box in terms of organisational logic or just informing myself. Yes.
[48:34]
Perception and social reality
[48:34]Inform me, exactly.
[48:50]Otherwise everything would go haywire. If a medium-sized company did that, it would go bankrupt in no time. It lives from the fact that everyone informs each other. Listen, there's something really bad going on here, it could affect your business. He says, thanks for the information. But if everything is pre-regulated, which is also why they are in decline, by the way, because they have to break themselves down more and more or fillet themselves or however they want to express it, into smaller units of action, as if they were small companies, as if they were medium-sized companies. Where the main innovation comes from, by the way, is not from the big players. Germany is the world market leader in many small ones. Go and have a look in the Sauerland. Am I allowed to name names so easily? Yes, as long as it doesn't cause any damage, so to speak. That's nothing bad at all. The Mennekes company, they make plugs. They were the best plug makers in the world. Plugs for? For all sorts of things that they want to plug into the wall here, but also for electric cars, for example. I'm exaggerating now, I don't have the exact figures in my head. So if they produced 100,000 against 100 to VW and 990,000 to China, they were that early, had their nose to the grindstone and knew what had to be done.
[50:19]Germany was one of the places where most drones and drone start-ups were invented. But Airbus wasn't interested and the other big players who could have made military business out of it or whatever. But that was partly from decommissioned or retired senior officers. I thought, thought about it, I had my own relatives, I had a case like that. None of them recovered their development costs or their travelling expenses. And when it suddenly became interesting for Airbus, they took it over. They were literally ahead of their time. Yes, yes, yes. You have to say that, unfortunately. Basically, this is again the result of good management horizons that did this. They were all people who thought beyond their areas and areas of responsibility. And that only comes from good leadership. Which brings me back to the topic of…
[51:14]It's a debate, not only among consultants, but also in science and among managers. Is leadership a competence that I can take with me? Is it a professional, professionalisable competence that is independent of the organisation? And the opposite position, I would almost say, is a bit like what I hear from you. It's so strongly linked to the social interactions of the actual people on site that I can say to a certain extent that if I change my organisation now and take over a team somewhere else, I'm effectively starting from scratch with the team. But I have already experienced how I react to such demands. Not just with me, but also with others who were different to me. So in short, you come from a military leadership where a lot is pre-structured, a lot is clear. The hierarchy is clear, you don't have to prove it every morning, it's simply established. If you go into a large corporation as such.
[52:19]They do it easily. It's more difficult in a medium-sized company because you have to constantly look beyond your own area because it could affect the other company. By the way, if I say, let him fall flat on his face, in a small or medium-sized company it will ultimately affect me too. If the business suffers considerable damage as a result, then my job is also affected. So I do it out of self-interest. You don't have to worry about that in the Group. No, not at all. But the crucial thing about leadership is that if you can lead well in a military organisation, you can do the same in any administration. The work processes are different there. Not in a foundation. If he suddenly moves to a large foundation or a medium-sized company or a church aid organisation.
[53:11]He can do this with the knowledge he has gained from experience, which is limited. But the fact that he has influenced and controlled social interaction processes so far is something he has learnt, and that is one last topic that I think belongs here in this context: he has learnt to look. He has learnt to look. Throughout our training, especially in the scientific and technical field, we are all very good analysts. Analytics comes from the Greek word for analyses, which means to break down. We break something down into its individual factors and the more precisely and accurately I do this, the more I can say which factor has this effect and the same pattern applies everywhere, namely cause and effect. The cause has the effect and if it's there, then it's like this. And I can somehow determine the structure. Exactly. And a completely different way of looking at things, which in my opinion is a direct part of being a good manager, is phenomenology. What does that mean?
[54:17]An epistemological strand, if you like, from antiquity to the present day, but it has actually become narrower and narrower because the results are not so precise. What is phenomenology? Phenomenology is the attempt to understand the object of knowledge in its basic structure, in its essence, whatever we want to call it, in its entirety. Not just by breaking down and dissecting its individual factors. Whereby we know in the back of our minds that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The phenomenologists know that. The natural scientists say yes. The analysts say nonsense, now you're starting to go crazy. It can never be more than the factors. Or we haven't recognised one factor yet and now I'm going in search of who it is. At best, we are ready to make the statement.
[55:10]Phenomenology tries to see the object of knowledge, now comes the central concept, in the horizons. In which the object of knowledge is, which influence it, which perhaps even sometimes condition or constitute it, i.e. are very strong, or parts of it. Okay, so they don't say that I have an object in front of me and it can be analysed as if in a laboratory, but that it has a context itself. It has a context itself, it even comes from many contexts. I can now examine the stone to see what it is made of, but the stone has lived through a history and I would analyse it. Incidentally, its beauty is not mentioned at all. But it may have somewhere. But let's take it to employees. If I don't at least have an idea of my employee's career, was he a good student, was he an easy-going student, did he enjoy learning, did he prefer to learn together with others or alone?
[56:13]Is he married, is he not married? Does he have children, does he not have children? How did he grow up? Is he an only child or is he a family child? What role did kinship play? This isn't snooping around in the employee's private life, but an attempt to ask a bit about the horizons that have shaped him, that have made him the person sitting opposite me now. Because then I know a bit more, how does he feel about money? Is it there for him to make something possible or is it a value in itself? And how does he feel about technology? Does it appeal to him to repair his car himself or what is no longer possible today? But that used to be an important qualification. Sorry, I'm always digressing, it's related to my age. The GDR had the terrible history of '89: men around 45, 50, 55 who were able to cope with the system and not only did they cope, but if the neighbour had to build a wall, you couldn't, you never got hold of things. But he had relationships, he had connections, he had obligations. That's where you got the stones from. So-called bend-over economy.
[57:25]Marvellous. And he managed it and everyone admired him for it. And now comes the turning point. Yes, sorry, you can get all that at the DIY store. Then you go to Obi, that's where you get it. You also need coal, nothing else. My stepfather bought the hardware shop empty when it was selling out. Kilos of moulded metal in nails and hinges.
[57:53]The experience was that it wouldn't be there tomorrow. Yes, exactly. And all these qualifications have disappeared from one day to the next. That's terrible. Incidentally, that was never considered in the West.
[58:06]Probably not in terms of impact. Yes, because they were competent people and from now on they're no longer attracted to it, because now you just need money and the shops are all there where you can get it all. Back to phenomenology. Phenomenology, the first attempt at employees. Because, of course, it's also an issue for me as a former.
[58:32]East socialised. Of course, there were also those who saw the opportunities and were finally able to seize them. Of course, yes. And were finally able to realise their skills. Yes, absolutely. But that's an important point. I have to look at both of them, by the way. I would have organised the one who did it all, even though the system was actually against it. A wall was never supposed to be built anywhere individually. Nobody had it that way. Yes.
[59:00]Like this. If someone can do that, I can create so many other things from this expertise. It's never been looked at either. What kind of terrible experience is that for someone, let's say, in their 50s? They come from the West, young people, we'll take them, but what do we want with them here? They didn't realise in any way what potential they actually had. Incidentally, not least in the sense that he was always able to look properly, and that brings me back to phenomenology. He was able to look properly, what can he do, what can he do, what can I do with him, I can only deal with him in this way, with better only in writing, I call the other one, the other one I have to walk past the door with a bottle and two glasses and then it's settled after ten minutes, yes, then he says, sure, I'll do it for you, yes, like that. And this right way of looking, recognising the other person in their reality and from their reality and then acting correctly in a targeted way, that is phenomenology-based action, that is damn competent action. Husserl was the originator of this idea with the concept of first perceiving the other person's object of knowledge in its horizons.
[1:00:19]I would say that's a very time-consuming process. No, it's an elaborate process. And I can't just get started, so to speak. No, no. If I look at the management, then we have, so to speak, a very presupposition-rich action that often contradicts the requirements of the organisation. At least at first, second and often third glance. Because he first has to get his working group, his team, his project or whatever, to realise its potential. And only when they have succeeded in doing this can they fulfil their task properly from an entrepreneurial perspective. The entrepreneur could say that what you are actually doing is worthwhile. He might go with them and say, without going to the beer garden three times, nothing will work, I have to get the group first. Yes, it's more time-consuming, it also costs money, the afternoons. He can't always say, as a supervisor, I'll pay for everything myself. He doesn't earn that much money either.
[1:01:27]Supervisors must have a pot from which they can pay for such things. The creation of social realities that otherwise don't exist and that they don't do on their own. I have to draw attention to a point that naturally comes to mind in my work as a mediator, because I have a very special setting, if I just take that, a mediation setting, even in organisations, where there may be a hierarchy in the room, but they have their functional roles,
[1:02:01]
Phenomenology in leadership
[1:01:56]but the way of working is very much tailored to the personalities. And then, at best, there are well-developed personalities in all functional positions in a conflict situation, all of whom have also revitalised their own responsibility, claim it and are also addressed in this way. When it comes to the topic of leadership, I often experience this fixation or focussing of the manager, who then says, what else am I supposed to do? Why should I deal with him in beer things? He gets his salary. He must already be motivated. And if not, then that's his own issue.
[1:02:39]So how do you manage to say yes as a manager, I have to do this work that is rich in prerequisites and explore the social fabric phenomenologically, explore it, work with it and at the same time I must not feel solely responsible if someone says no and doesn't do their job. I think that's not just a tightrope walk, but a walk in the dark forest. Yes, and then dancing at the same time.
[1:03:13]And write a report. This is a report Indeed, as there aren't that many real managers, they don't grow on trees any more. That's why there are superiors. That's a nice differentiation. Yes, they set them, they get their instructions, their tasks, and then they carry them out. But you can manage a department in the city administration in this way, but in the handling of questionnaires or something. But in a company, they can't manage a... That doesn't even work in the city administration anymore. And not even there anymore. Not even there anymore, they have to scramble. Keyword Generation Z.
[1:03:59]They expect something different from work today. They arrive with life-work balance and whatnot. There's actually something else behind it, namely the desire to be recognised as the person you are and who wants to do this job and who perhaps also wants to develop within it. The central concept here, and the German language is wonderful here, is perception. If I don't perceive the other person, they don't exist at all. Not only are we all socially constituted, but ultimately we all only live by being perceived in social fields. If you are no longer recognised, you are a very poor person. A four-year-old who is not noticed will break windows if necessary and then the police will come. Then he will be noticed again.
[1:04:45]I've also heard of those times. Yes, well, that was back in my youth. Today, the police have other things too. But I want to make the point, because it's often mentioned, especially by the younger generation, that work-life balance is the first thing they say. The point of contention that I often hear in conflicts, when people talk about the generation, is that these points come up very quickly and make it clear that they are not useful. We were still really disciplined back then. But in the conflict situation, which then becomes really dramatic, there are such differences as the learning biography of the superior, the embarrassment when reciting poetry at school. The horror scenario where our older generations know exactly what it's all about. You were sent to the front of the class and then you stood there with your head bowed and stammered something. And if you were cool about it, at least you still had friends during the interval. But everyone was embarrassed. Yes, but the teacher who did that was stupid. But well, they were often like that back then. The Waldorf school, I always say Waldoofen, but that's meant in a friendly way, they had to recite from the second class onwards. Yes, and to the point, that's right.
[1:06:10]We are, so to speak, dealing with the expectation among managers to first see how things work here. And then, when you've learnt, I'll ask you. Don't answer until I've asked you. And there are young people coming into the company who expect and think that this is the norm. When can I give my first presentation here in the meeting? Why wouldn't I be asked here?
[1:06:37]It's not that they think they're insane. That's not the point at all, they're just used to talking and being asked questions. To express themselves. They learn to express themselves in kindergarten, not just in Waldhof now, but also in the morning circle. Thank goodness somewhere else. And ultimately, what lies behind this is the immense need to be recognised, because only then am I able to take this into account. The more I do this with young children and also with the proviso that just because you're there doesn't mean you're worth everything. He also has to produce something. And that's the other side of recognising the social fabric. In the case of detention, we said first look, first realise what's happening. Yes. And now with them, let's say, produce. Give them perception and give them the chance to be recognised. And as I said, it doesn't come for free. Just because they're there doesn't mean they're valuable.
[1:07:42]Incidentally, we all act like this instinctively. Once a baby is three or four months old, when it's not even a toddler, you can see it in every baby when it realises that its mum is happy when it laughs. From then on, they start to laugh. I know I'll get the response. For nothing, only for Stalin there is nothing.
[1:08:07]That comes later. I have a three-year-old, so I'm happy when he's asleep. That's all he wants. But that's the crucial thing. This process of perception and making perception possible when I enable my employees to be perceived. For example, that I teach them this or that. I have a training programme, which was adult education for us. So they could then become adult education centre directors. But you have to be able to teach first. But they can give you tips on how to do it and what you need to look out for. And that you have to look at your participants. As if they were there on their own. So keep looking at individuals. Once they've done that, they suddenly have the room. What does that mean? There were 20, 25 of them. I booked the courses, but they had to teach.
[1:09:01]And then suddenly they were who. And they didn't. And they also learnt that the more closely I listen to them by looking at them or talking to them during the break or whatever, the better they listen to me. In other words, I've tried to teach them to create social realities. They all depend on you. You made them. They are then there. They are also just there, you are challenged again. Then they say, we want them again. Yes, or them. Speak phenomenology. And here I would like to make another brief point, which I also notice among colleagues and with mediators. And unfortunately we are in a profession that hardly observes each other. And we basically don't know very well how others work. It's different with footballers and with teachers or something like that you can… Great game in that respect, the football game. I'm constantly being lobbied by you people… Absolutely. It's a highly social activity these days. And professionals don't earn so much money for nothing, it has to be said. It's just hard training and not even on the ball. And that would also be a parallel. It doesn't always help just to do that. Both the football coach and the conductor are parallel. If the conductor only sees himself, he will never become a rannous orchestra. Yes, exactly.
[1:10:25]Leadership work, i.e. to the team, when I join as a manager or when I have been promoted from the team to become a manager for the team, how I then approach and how conflict counsellors or mediators approach conflicts. And I also notice that there are some who take a very analytical approach and love concepts and models that allow them to analyse things in order to form a picture that can be substantiated in detail and, at best, in a mathematical, numerical way. And then there are those who behave more like they are on a walk in the woods, exploring this unknown place. And where I would assume they are more phenomenologically motivated, looking for something that cannot be counted, that cannot be measured and yet can still be perceived. Not exact. The exact does not play a role in phenomenology, but rather grasping, understanding. Incidentally, it's nice when the hand comes into play. In other words, it's not just an act of thinking. Small children touch everything. Grasping comes from grasping.
[1:11:47]And when they have nothing more to grasp, that's why the mobile phone is for children in their youth, it's access to a two-dimensional world.
[1:11:58]Three-dimensional. But I have it in my hands in the three-dimensional world. Or what do you mean by that? No, I mean that they should be sent into social realities as much as possible or to do handicrafts, modelling, building, so that they move in three dimensions. That not only the senses of sight and hearing are still needed, at most in front of the TV, I say, or in front of the PC or mobile phone, but that touch, taste and smell are also involved. Fruit is now bought by sight and not by taste, it's madness. What a constriction that is. But the eye is involved. They say mine has never eaten.
[1:12:41]But my tongue is still quite good. I don't buy too much and I don't drink too much. That the taste buds are all preserved. But I pick up on the point about the mobile phone, because of course as a team member I can see that he's typing on his mobile phone again and not talking to me when I'm already so reflective that I'm angry about it. I could just say he's lazy and not doing his job. And I don't really realise that he wants to talk to me. But when I ask him what he's doing on his mobile phone, it's very often the case that he's in social interactions with people who are important to him. Would you say that this … outweighs the lack of social interaction with people present or that something is lost? That's more a question of politeness. Or that I then give the other person information about myself, who I'm basically disregarding right now, because I have a lot to say to the man I'm dealing with. If he then also says, because you've just said that or they've just said that, that's just another one. The same guilt. But it doesn't feel so bad anymore. Which isn't wrong at all. He didn't lie to you about it.
[1:13:59]After all, smartphones and the internet enable social interaction. Exactly. So I don't reject it out of hand. I'm neither an ideologue nor a dogmatist. But I have to use it in such a way that it is always socially acceptable. That I basically take him into my office, do something quickly on my mobile phone, take him in and say, it's not least because you've been so effective with me, I have to tell him immediately. Because he's waiting to hear something like that. Then I have him fully involved. And he's confirmed that he's said something important. My God, next time he asks me, do you have your mobile phone with you?
[1:14:45]
The path to phenomenological perception
[1:14:41]I have to get that far. That's the art of action we're talking about. And therefore practice. So practice and that requires phenomenology.
[1:14:51]We have to get to the end. You have given me signs. I would like to finish by making it a little clearer what phenomenology can achieve and that it is a way of practising. We had the example of the guitar earlier. I don't learn to play by looking at the guitar, but by practising, practising, practising. The same applies to phenomenological perception. If I have it at my disposal, then I see things that others don't see. The greatest phenomenologist of the 20th century is not a philosopher, but a poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. In his famous Ding poems, which we all somehow learnt about at school, we learnt that things not only have a front side, but also an inside, a back side, perhaps even a story that is important.
[1:15:42]It has horizons that allow you to recognise more about this thing. We are not concerned here with things, but with people. And here, too, Rilke proves to be an incredibly sensitive phenomenologist. The first poem is about a king who comes to the throne as a 16-year-old, Charles V, in whose kingdom the sun never set. He comes to the throne as a 16-year-old and is, of course, scrutinised, of all things, stalked by the old men in the Crown Council. They want to take advantage of him, they want to instrumentalise him, but they are not really looking. And that's what the poem is about, the king. The king is 16 years old, 16 years old and already the state.
[1:16:33]As if from an ambush, he looks past the old men from the wheel into the hall and somewhere else and perhaps only feels the cold chain from the fleece on his long, narrow, hard chin. The death sentence in front of him remains long without a name. And they think how he agonises. They would know, if they knew him well enough, that he only counts slowly to seventy when he signs it.
[1:17:00]The old men have got it all wrong. There is no sentimental young man sitting there who is afraid to sign his first death warrant. There's someone sitting there who's fooling them. And they all misjudge him. The boy was cut from a completely different cloth. But when they realised that, it was too late. He had them in the palm of his hand, but they never had him in theirs. You just have to look properly. But they didn't. But he did all the more. He even more so. He had 16 years. Yes, like that. And how do you learn that now? Hm. Another poem of his, the one about Frederick II, the greatest Schlaufer emperor for me, around 1300. Not Barbarossa, but the great astonishment of the world. Yes, that's right. And he's writing a book.
[1:17:53]I notice one Commonality between us both. About the Art with Birds to hunt. And it has he natural not itself written, he has it dictated. But Why could he the write? This Book has, the gives it By the way otherwise not more in the occidental History, 700 years scientific Validity. From 1250, there is it written, until 1950 gives it nothing about Falcons, what not in the Book already inside would stand. Then first comes Conrad Lorenz there here and speaks with the Geese and what white I not. Exactly, the is one the most significant Textbooks at all. Yes, the is magnificent. Of which trades this Poem natural with the Vocabulary the Falkenerei. It is from the Brew up, the Speech pull up, the Bottom cap on the Head, that the Bird immobilised is. It is from the bold princely Tract the Speech, so from the Book, what there written becomes, the Erte, when he Niko exercises. But it is the Speech from the Brew up, had I already. So it are some Falconer vocabulary in the process, but the is one the same. But it goes at what other. Why and whence these accurate, profound, even not only analytical and analytical gained Realisation about these Birds and like one with them Hunt must, had. Already the first Line is the whole Poem worth.
[1:19:15]Falcon stain. Emperor be means much survive with Secret deed. When the Chancellor at night the Tower entered, found he him of the high Feather game bold princely Tract in the united Writer's tale. Because he had in the remote Saale itself all night long and many Male the still unusual Animal worn, when it foreign was, new and brewed. And he had itself then never shied away from, Plans, which in him jumped up or tender Memories deep, deep inner Ringing, to despise, at of the anxious young Falcons will, whose Blood and Worries to realise, he itself not issued. In favour was he also like lifted along, when the Bird, the the Gents praise, shiny from the Hand thrown, top in the compassionate Spring morning like a Angels on the Heron came across. In Lectures says I it like this, mine Ladies and Gentlemen, so developed and promotes one not only young Falcons.
[1:20:14]And cheaper, whose Blood and Worries to realise, who itself not issued, cheaper get them it not. Lead needs one Passion, otherwise do you the not. And a last Poem, the one here through practised Take a look also what learn can. The Doge in Venice, painted is it here a Picture, what Rilke before Eyes has. The Doge Loredan from Bellini, painted 1509. Yes, constitutional had the one whole difficult Task. He shall Venice always more powerful make, but the Venetian Patricianism, the Signoria, had natural Bange, that them coup could. And like this, like the the the Medici in Florence made had, like the the Sforza in Milan made had, in Genoa di Doria. You had him converted. The could never alone with foreign Envoys talk. Could Yes what instigate. The was always under Observation, always. With this Doge would have them itself the save can, the was none Putschist. The wanted not alone made. Titian has other painted, Dogen, the so before itself ins Tablecloth reach. So there do you better with much Attention around it. But with the Loredan from Bellini painted, when them it See can, can it also whole light google, there See them a Face mastered. A Republicans through and through.
[1:21:42]In the Width looking, but before Eyes having, that one not with all all everything make can, that one there very exactly select must, that one Power of judgement have must. And the learns one tedious and slowly, all the reflects itself in the Face. Listen You the Poem. Strangers Envoy saw, like them stingy with him and all, what he did. Whilst them him to his Size irritated, converted them the golden Dogat with Scouts and Restrict always more, anxious, that not the Power them raids, the them in him, so like one Lions holds, cautious approached. But he, in the Protection his half imposed senses, was whose not aware and held not within, larger to become. What the Signature in his Interior to conquer believed, conquered he itself. In his aged Main ward it defeated. His Face showed hurt. Grandiose this Conclusion, only four Words. His Face showed hurt. The is none Putschist, the is a last great, more responsible Doge from Venice. Man can in Faces read learn. And from 30 are we for our Face all itself responsible. Should a make, the Dad and Mum genetic, but then make we it itself. And the can one learn. The must one but practise.
[1:23:06]Now have I You everything said, what I white. Many Thanks to. Mr Nieschmidt, many Thanks to, that You to this Conversation ready were, that You to Leipzig come are and here in the Podcast with me to Guided tours and conflicts, Handling with Conflict potentials spoken have and the Working world in their History outlined have. Many Thanks to. I may me thank you. I am very with pleasure come and I hope, that the perhaps even one Series of talks becomes. I come with pleasure again and maintain me with pleasure again with You.
Leave A Comment