Latest Posts

The Pace of Presence

The Pace of Presence

Published by Trotzendorff

In Octo­ber last year, when my Achilles ten­don had final­ly made its opin­ion known, I found myself in a park in Cologne. I was­n’t run­ning. I was jog­ging, slow­ly, with my eyes cov­ered and one hand light­ly rest­ing on the arm of some­one guid­ing me. We were part of a work­shop for sight­ed run­ning guides—learn­ing how to help blind and visu­al­ly impaired run­ners move safe­ly, con­fi­dent­ly, freely. It was hum­bling. I was there to learn how to guide. But at that moment, I need­ed guid­ance myself. Read More

The «Real Men» Dilemma: Why Leaders Struggle to Say «I Don’t Know»

Published by Trotzendorff

Lead­er­ship has long been entwined with tra­di­tion­al mas­cu­line norms. The ide­al leader is often seen as deci­sive, strong, in con­trol, and emo­tion­al­ly sto­ic – traits stereo­typ­i­cal­ly cod­ed as male. In fact, clas­sic research found peo­ple implic­it­ly asso­ciate lead­er­ship with being male («think man­ag­er, think male»). Many orga­ni­za­tions still oper­ate like a «mas­culin­i­ty con­test» cul­ture. Some core unwrit­ten rules of this old-school mas­cu­line code include: Read More

Inequality is a Choice—And We Keep Making the Wrong One

Published by Trotzendorff

In three weeks, Ger­many will vote. When I decide where to place my vote, one thing mat­ters most: Which par­ty rep­re­sents a vision of soci­ety that acknowl­edges a fun­da­men­tal truth—who we become is large­ly shaped by cir­cum­stances beyond our con­trol. Our intel­li­gence, resilience, and tal­ents may feel per­son­al, but they are, to a sig­nif­i­cant extent, the result of fac­tors we nev­er chose: our genet­ics, the qual­i­ty of our edu­ca­tion, the finan­cial secu­ri­ty of our par­ents, the coun­try we were born in. Even our abil­i­ty to work hard and per­se­vere is shaped by ear­ly child­hood expe­ri­ences and social con­di­tion­ing. Read More

Lessons from Trial and Error: Building a Better Team Culture

Published by Trotzendorff

Lead­er­ship is a jour­ney of tri­al and error. Over the years, I’ve exper­i­ment­ed with count­less ideas to make work bet­ter for my team. Many didn’t work—and that’s okay. But today, I want to share three things that did. These small adjust­ments might not seem rev­o­lu­tion­ary, but they’ve stood the test of time. And they have made a dif­fer­ence. Read More

Marije Kruis, founder of the "Spot the Dot" initiative, captured in black and white.

«A simple act can save your life»

Published by Trotzendorff

Skin can­cer is an under­rat­ed but life-threat­en­ing dan­ger that can hit anyone—no mat­ter your age, gen­der, or skin col­or. As some­one at risk, I’m espe­cial­ly com­mit­ted to rais­ing aware­ness about this dis­ease. That’s why I’ve been sup­port­ing the «Spot the Dot» ini­tia­tive for a while now. It shines a light on skin can­cer through events, col­lab­o­ra­tions, or exhi­bi­tions. I recent­ly talked with Mar­i­je, the founder of Spot the Dot, about her per­son­al expe­ri­ence with skin can­cer, the chal­lenges she faced start­ing the ini­tia­tive, cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences in how skin can­cer is per­ceived, and the cre­ative ways she’s bring­ing atten­tion to the issue. Our con­ver­sa­tion high­lights just how cru­cial it is to take skin can­cer seri­ous­ly and how we can all play a part in pre­ven­tion. Read More