Impulses for organisations – Part 14

In the digital world, inspiring people continue to provide valuable impulses for collaboration within and between organisations. In this fourteenth part of the series, I would like to share some of these ideas with you. This time it is about self-directed work, hierarchy, power and leadership, and useful alternatives to PowerPoint.

Let’s get started with exciting new impulses!

Maik Pfingsten¹:

7 tips for mastering your time without planning the whole day

Time is the most valuable asset. But let’s be honest: time management tools and to-do lists often only help to a limited extent when your calendar is exploding.

My 7 practical tips that will help you immediately to work independently again.

👉 1. Use the golden 4%

According to Pareto, 4% of your tasks bring 60% of your success. Rigorously delete tasks that do not lead directly to your goal.

👉 2. ‘No’ is your best friend

Protect your time – it is your most important resource. Consistently say no to anything that distracts you from your goals.

👉 3. Use deadlines as a turbo

Tasks take the time you give them. Set yourself challenging deadlines to ensure that tasks don’t take longer than necessary.

👉 4. Better finished than perfect

Perfectionism is the enemy of delivering a result. Set yourself a limit on how long you work on a task for.

👉 5. Start with small steps

The first step is often the hardest. Start with a mini-task that only takes 5 minutes.

👉 6. Throw out distractions

Concentration is the key to working faster. Consistently switch off all audible and visual notifications.

👉 7. Small steps are not a betrayal of your goal

Small steps lead to big successes. Every morning, set yourself ONE goal that you absolutely want to achieve that day.

Conclusion:

You don’t need fancy tools or schedules that are timed down to the minute. What you need is clarity, focus and the willingness to let go of the unimportant things.

Try one of these tips today – and feel free to give me feedback on what helped you the most!

Stephanie Borgert²:

‘Get rid of the hierarchy and everything will be fine!’ No way!

I often come across this rather naive idea in agile teams: ‘We’ll flatten the hierarchy, work together as equals and thus reduce the abuse of power.’

The underlying desire is to reduce or redistribute the supposedly problematic hierarchy and its intimidating power. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that.

In one of my books, I call the ambivalent way we deal with power ‘power hysteria’. As a concept, power usually has negative connotations and is immediately associated with the abuse of power. And another aspect is just as striking: people seem to think only of formal power, that is, the idea that power belongs to a person and can be used and abused by that person as they see fit. Even though I have already written about this, some additional aspects will be highlighted here.

Power is an essential topic that comes up at some point in every team. This is because no two team members are the same. Where people work together, power relations always arise. This can easily be observed in discussions, when tasks are distributed, when decisions are made and in many other situations. Without power, no team would get by and would get stuck in the attempt at egalitarianism.

In sober terms, power can be understood as an instrument of order in social systems. It is an aspect of every social relationship. How it is dealt with is therefore a question that always arises and to which there are team-specific answers.

One possibility is that a single person acquires power (which also only works in correlation with the other people). We usually call this leadership, and a hierarchy arises. This is, of course, not automatically identical with the formal hierarchy of the organisation.

A second possibility is that the question of power is resolved by standardisation. This is a distribution of power among several people. In real life, mixed forms almost always exist.

Formal power, formulated via the formal hierarchy, reduces complexity for everyone involved, because it specifies who determines, decides and which explicit norms apply.

We are always dealing with an institutionalised power imbalance, there are managers, the formal hierarchy and explicit norms. They are present in every team, even if it wants to be seen as self-determined or equal. Being aware of this opaque complexity is an important step towards self-organisation. It is and remains a balancing act between leadership and standardisation, which is better not to remain a blind spot.

Forget PowerPoint

Tired of spending hours creating presentations?

Here are 13 AI websites that let you create stunning presentations in just 60 seconds! ⤵️

1️⃣ SlidesAI
Google Slides add-on that lets you generate presentations directly from text.
👉 To the tool → https://www.slidesai.io/de

2️⃣ Canva
A versatile design tool with an AI-powered presentation generator. Choose from ready-made templates and drag and drop content.
👉 To the tool → https://www.canva.com

3️⃣ DeckRobot
Designs hundreds of PowerPoint slides in seconds – no more hours of formatting.
👉 To the tool → https://www.deckrobot.com/

4️⃣ Prezi
Use AI to create unique, zoomable presentations that stand out from traditional slides.
👉 To the tool → https://prezi.com/

5️⃣ Storydoc
AI tool that turns static slides into interactive presentations and brings your content to life.
👉 To the tool → https://www.storydoc.com/

6️⃣ Visme
With AI suggestions for layouts, animations and graphics, you can make your presentations appealing and professional.
👉 To the tool → https://www.visme.co/de/

7️⃣ Pitch
Fast and collaborative presentation creator for teams that focuses on results.
👉 To the tool → https://pitch.com/

8️⃣ Presentify
A streamlined AI tool to quickly and easily create visually appealing slides and present remotely.
👉 To the tool → https://presentifyapp.com/

9️⃣ Zoho Show
Cloud-based tool with AI design enhancements and seamless collaboration features.
👉 To the tool → https://www.zoho.com/de/show/

🔟 SlideSpeak
Automatically generate presentations from your texts – simple and efficient.
👉 To the tool → https://slidespeak.co/

1️⃣1️⃣ Gamma
An AI chatbot that lets you automatically create presentations from chat inputs or texts.
👉 To the tool → https://gamma.app

1️⃣2️⃣ Dectopus AI
One of the leading AI-driven presentation generators that automates everything.
👉 To the tool → https://www.decktopus.com/

1️⃣3️⃣ PitchGrade
Provides you with real-time feedback and suggestions for improving the content and style of your presentation.
👉 To the tool → https://pitchgrade.com/

Impulses and questions

Three topics, three experts, three impulses. How can you use the time factor as sensibly and easily as possible? What is behind the effort to reduce hierarchies and why does this fall short? And what alternatives to PowerPoint are there and when does it actually make sense to switch to which alternative?

Questions upon questions. Perhaps you have some of your own; great! Then Part 14 of ‘Impulse for Organisations’ has achieved its goal again.

Notes:

[1] Maik Pfingsten is an expert in productized services. Productised services are standardised services that are sold like products, with clearly defined parameters and prices. Information about Maik Pfingsten can be found in his LinkedIn profile, the impulse can be found here in the original on LinkedIn.

Maik Pfingsten has also published a post in the t2informatik Blog: In 14 days to the customer specification.

[2] Stephanie Borgert deals with the management of complexity and essential aspects such as leadership, management, communication, mindfulness and systemic. You can find information about Stephanie Borgert in her LinkedIn profile, the impulse can be found here in the original on LinkedIn.

Stephanie Borgert has published several articles in the t2informatik Blog – for example, Change resistance in a team or ‘We need training!’ or Power and self-exploitation.

[3] Niklas Volland supports individuals and companies in using the transformative power of AI in a targeted, practical way and within the framework of realistically feasible possibilities. You can find information about Niklas Volland in his LinkedIn profile, the impulse can be found here in the original on LinkedIn.

Niklas Volland has published an article in the t2informatik Blog: From the idea to the prototype.

If you like the article or want to discuss it, please feel free to share it with your network.

Here you will find a selection of other impulses in the t2informatik Blog: