Leadership Lab Sylt - Innovative leadership concepts in a special environment

In April 2024, the Leadership Lab Sylt entered its 13th round. Oliver Pauli and Uwe Rotermund have been organising this extraordinary training format with around 20 managers from all sectors and company sizes since 2010. What always unites the group is their curiosity about innovative leadership approaches and the joy of learning and honest dialogue with managers from other companies.
The Leadership Lab Sylt delivers four days full of inspiration, discussions and insights with a special mix of business, exercise, encounters, nature and enjoyment, so that what has been learned can be emotionally anchored and thus become more effective.

Find out below what was on the agenda at this year's Leadership Lab Sylt.

Improvisation as a management approach

Accepting the unexpected as an invitation is an extremely useful and promising attitude both on the improv stage and in day-to-day management. The core principles of improvisation theatre "Say yes, and ...", "Make the other person great", "Rescue is mandatory" and "The scene comes first" also help in business. The participants in the Leadership Lab were able to experience this not only theoretically, but also through many entertaining practical exercises.

Recognising the values and motives of managers with Profile Dynamics®

The values and motives-based analysis method Profile Dynamics® provides insight into people's personal value systems. It shows how these value systems affect team and organisational culture and provides leaders with tools to work with individuals and teams to improve the organisation. In the Leadership Lab, we gave the participating managers an initial insight into the methodology so that they can delve deeper into this effective system at home if required.

Promotion of a balanced culture of trust and performance

Which attitude is more promising? "First of all, it must be clear what expectations I have of the employee's performance - then trust can gradually build up if the performance is right" or "We have to give employees a leap of faith - then the performance usually comes all by itself". Is it trust or performance expectation that counts? We discussed this question together from various perspectives and developed specific management recommendations.

"Attitude decides" with Martin Permantier

This is the title of the book by bestselling business author Martin Permantier, which describes how attitudes shape our world view and influence our thoughts, feelings and actions. Martin Permantier was a guest and source of inspiration for the Leadership Lab in 2024, where he presented the model of the six attitudes (self-orientated/impulsive, community-oriented/conformist, rationalist/functional, self-determined/sovereign, relativising/individualistic, systemic/autonomous), which explains how we interpret the world according to our inner attitude and construct our reality from this. At the same time, the model describes and opens up development opportunities for people, organisations and society. The various aspects were made tangible in small group exercises.  

Leadership promises - how they are developed and kept

Defining management principles is easy. However, monitoring compliance with them is not. In the Leadership Lab, useful leadership principles were formulated in various ways in small groups and then ways were sought to anchor them in the organisation in a binding and effective manner, so that principles ultimately become promises that can be demanded.

Paths to personal transformation and overcoming hurdles

In a second workshop, Martin Permantier used the six attitudes from the first workshop to explain how people can personally transform themselves to a higher level of maturity and grow in the process. However, the workshop also focussed on how to deal with obstacles and forces of inertia. These were identified in small groups and initial ways of overcoming them were sought.  

Barcamp challenges from the participating managers

One of the traditions of the Leadership Lab Sylt is to integrate contributions from participants and current challenges in the spirit of a barcamp. The possible contributions are presented at the beginning of the Leadership Lab, "pitched" and then "voted". This year, the following three "challenges" were selected for later processing in a workshop:

1. Back to the office instead of home office? Pros and cons of quota regulations          
2. Dealing with subjectively overloaded or unmotivated teams.
3. The expectations of GenZ and how to meet them.

These three topics were explored from many perspectives using the participants' collective leadership experience and peer case counselling. For the managers who had put these topics on the agenda, as well as for all other participants, some valuable ideas emerged that can be put into context at home and thus lead to a helpful solution.

The island of Sylt as a playing field

The challenging tour topics were framed by a special programme that was supported by the island as a medium and resonating body. The programme included:

-       Creative round of introductions with mutual profiles
-     Windy bike tour to the northernmost point of Germany
-       Living room concert and business dinner at Kaamps7
-      Cutter trip around the Ellenbogen with the Greet Palucca
-       Beach walk with wind and sea from Rantum to the Sansibar
-      Business dinner in the Sansibar
-       Dancing and Singing cooking event with Sandro Pape from Genussmanufaktur
-      Small participant quiz
-      Production of a documentary film by Leadership Lab Sylt 2024

The combination of business topics and the island experience provide the Leadership Lab Sylt with exceptionally good laboratory conditions for expanding leadership skills and extending the network of experts.

Summary

The organisers Oliver Pauli and Uwe Rotermund are happy that everything went very well again and that the participants were able to take away a lot for their increasingly demanding management work. In the final participant survey, the event was given an overall rating of 4.5 out of a possible 5.0 points. All managers rated the event as very good or good. Here are some quotes from the participants:  

"The ideal opportunity for inspiring dialogue and networking with like-minded people"

"A lab to better understand yourself, your teams and your organisation"

"An absolutely high-calibre event with interesting insights and insights"

"Honest and professional impulses in a great setting"

"A unique format that combines current business topics with networking and nature experiences"

"A fantastic mix of listening, participation, laughter and lots of sparkling moments - for managers who want to develop themselves and their employees!"

"You are surprised and inspired anew every time."

"I am very grateful to have been able to exchange ideas with this exclusive group of managers and to have developed personally as a result. There were very exciting topics from our everyday lives and it was all the more interesting to develop joint solutions."

"The Leadership Lab Sylt is a great format for thinking outside the box, networking with exciting people and working on your own and company topics."

"Once again, I'm taking away lots of great inspiration and approaches for me personally and for company management. Thank you for the great exchange!"