My working method - bringing things together

As part of the transformation of Burda Procurement, I have been designing and supporting the central personnel development program "PROactive" as a consultant and lead trainer for over three years. While change projects often focus on strategies, systems, processes and structures, I - together with the management team and my network partner h&z Unternehmensberatung - put people at the center from the very beginning - "First Who then What". Our central question was: How can we take the entire team and stakeholders on a learning journey, implant the change in the DNA of a procurement department and anchor it in the mindset of the employees?

We succeeded - at least if the feedback from employees and stakeholders within Hubert Burda Media, but also from the jury of the BME Innovation Award, is to be believed.

1. development of the PROactive program

PROactive is not a normal training program, but from day 1 of the almost three-year journey, it aimed to anchor the change in the minds of the employees. From the outset, it was deliberately designed as an agile concept, with consulting impulses and offers for org development to ensure that a learning culture could emerge and the right mindset could develop among employees.

The development program designed together with the Burda Procurement management team gave the team orientation in the change process and at the same time empowered it to become the driving force and guarantor of the learning culture and its own claim to excellence.

2. Creating a learning culture

As a framework, an interlinked programme was needed which, in addition to the necessary development of the purchasing department itself (function, organization and systems), concentrated primarily on the development and training of the team, with the focus of the coaching being on strengthening personal and social skills.

The team was to be given the space and input to develop into a team with a design and consulting mindset. The focus of the coaching was on strengthening personal and social skills in order to achieve real action competence on this basis with the help of targeted development of methodological and professional skills.

3. the ′puzzle′ of more than 30 training and support formats

However, the real innovation of the program lies in the mix of formats and events that go beyond the six training sessions. In addition to more traditional management and team development modules, impulses from experts and consultants, workshops and personal coaching, over 30 training and support formats have been developed over the course of the program.

Driven by the team, they are the actual formula for successful change. The formats are supplemented by a large number of intelligently selected leadership impulses and management tools, without compromising the basic DNA of the programme, which is predominantly based on self-organization.

4. consistent stakeholder management

Consistent customer focus has been a core topic for purchasing from the very beginning. This becomes clear in unusual formats "How to negotiate even better": there are many training courses with this title on the market. But which purchasing department offers one of its core competencies to its customers as a training course? An unusual idea, you might think. What better way to convince them than to experience for themselves in a training course how well the buyers have mastered negotiating? So good that you can learn something from them. Or so good that you can leave it entirely up to them.

In the PROactive training courses, the six customer-oriented roles of purchasing were trained, developed and refined in order to ensure the necessary flexibility of action required by the customer by applying agile methods (function & organization). In dry runs, the buyers practise their "appearance" or the moderation of customer meetings before negotiations and optimize content and expression by means of peer consulting.

5. support for the two-year change journey

When establishing the learning culture, equal weight was given to interpersonal "mindset excellence" and professional "procurement excellence". Only by dovetailing the focus on people and attitude with the focus on structure and processes was it possible to achieve change at this speed.

Under the motto "First Who, then What", the change journey began with the right team and the right structure, supplemented by selective recruiting with a clear guideline: "Hire for attitude - train for skill". As a result, strategic HR and change management not only became a leadership task for purchasing management, but PROactive became the actual driver of change with its training, team development and coaching modules.

6. result³ = Purchasing is relevant again

The management created successful change management. It combined necessary changes in behavior with changes in content via innovative communication and interaction formats with qualification programs and unusual formats for cross-functional collaboration. This created sustainable motivation that is visible, measurable and tangible - purchasing is relevant again in the Burda Group.

PROactive is not an off-the-shelf consulting or org development product - this confirms my philosophy: it is a successful combination of different, specially developed training, team development and coaching formats that are interlinked like a puzzle. Transformation is based on the human factor, because it starts with people and their mindset.

For further information on my working methods and services, please contact me by phone or e-mail. Or arrange a personal appointment.