A short story about myself (in Deutsch)
I started my sabbatical in January of this year. The duration is not fixed yet; I think the time doing “nothing” could be one year, maybe half a year or two years. All began last year when I started reflecting my personal situation and decided to “letting go”. At the end of 2007 I left the ICG Infora Consulting Group (a company with 40 consultants focusing on change management and process consulting in Austria, Hungary and Germany - www.icg.eu.com) where I had been a senior consultant for 18 years and one of the partners. Now I am in the “neutral zone”, in a kind of in between, with all the pleasures, all uncertainties and all the fears. The idea doing nothing, having no business appointments and travelling just to have time to meet people was and is fascinating for me. To spend more time as usual for common things as holding contact to friends, surfing in the net, reading newspapers, blogs and books, talking with people, doing yoga, hearing music and spending more time with my 12 years old son is a new experience for me.
In the last years of my business career my work was focused on Process Consulting, Organizational Development, Leadership Training and Coaching. My special interest was working with chief executives and management groups to help them supporting their employees successfully and to guide their companies in changing and uncertain times.
My first step into this new world was a trip to Australia (Brisbane) to visit a good friend (a medical professor at the University of Queensland). I had 6 weeks for travelling around, thinking, reading, doing yoga, and among other things having discussions about new dermatological services and launching them in Europe.
The next big step will be a 5 week learning trip to the states. At the end of March, I will start with a Human Resource conference in Boston, and then I will attend an Organizational Development study week at the Columbia University/New York. After one week in Chicago I will join the Organizational Design Forum in Philadelphia. The last stop is Vancouver, where I will be at the BC HRMA Annual Conference, a Canadian conference with the focus on – Lead Yourself, Lead others and Lead the Business.
My goals for the next months are meeting people to discus new trends in organizational development, leadership, coaching and other consulting and business topics, to improve my English and to be open for new and crazy ideas. Beside this, I will look at myself from a new point of view without being in a hurry and driven from daily business routines. In that process a hope to get new sights of life and helpful suggestions for my future work.