Episode 6: Digital Transformation and Preparation for the “Future of Work”

00:00:00: [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03: Welcome to From Campus to Cyber, the official podcast

00:00:16: of the German University of Digital Science,

00:00:19: hosted by Professor Dr. Mike Rietresen,

00:00:22: co-founder of the German UDS.

00:00:24: This is your digital gateway to the future of education.

00:00:29: In a world where education and technology are merging,

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00:00:39: without boundaries.

00:00:41: With every episode, we bring you to the latest developments,

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00:01:32: [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:01:34: So today, we are diving into digital transformation

00:01:48: with a very special guest, Dr. Georg Luscher.

00:01:51: Welcome, Georg.

00:01:53: Thank you for having me, Mike.

00:01:55: Dr. Georg Luscher works as a senior researcher

00:01:57: at the Institute of Organization, Strategy, and People

00:02:00: at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich.

00:02:03: How long did you work there?

00:02:05: 12 years now.

00:02:06: Oh, it was a long time.

00:02:07: Long time.

00:02:08: Yeah.

00:02:09: His research focuses on particular innovations

00:02:12: in management and work driven by digital transformations.

00:02:16: In today's episode, we want to discuss about digital transformation

00:02:20: and the world of work, importance of digital education,

00:02:24: and preparation for the future of work.

00:02:28: Transfer science to practices is also a very important point

00:02:32: in your work.

00:02:33: I just read something about that, so that we just

00:02:36: will bring it together at the end and talk

00:02:39: and discuss about that.

00:02:41: Yes, Georg, welcome again.

00:02:43: Before we delve into the topics, I

00:02:46: would like to give you the chance to give us

00:02:50: a brief overview about your academic and also

00:02:53: about your non-academic highlights.

00:02:57: So thank you very much for having me here in this podcast.

00:03:00: And I'm really happy to discuss this very interesting topic

00:03:04: with you today.

00:03:05: So my interest in digital transformation

00:03:07: and the digital world of work started about 10 years ago.

00:03:13: I worked as an audit assistant at Deloitte,

00:03:16: one of the big four companies.

00:03:18: And when I started working there, we had a good software system.

00:03:23: But they introduced a new program.

00:03:26: It was much more usable.

00:03:30: We used more data.

00:03:32: Some steps for work were automated.

00:03:35: And automatically, our roles were changing.

00:03:39: So I had some bad luck because I wanted

00:03:42: to make this software implementation

00:03:44: to the center of my PhD work.

00:03:48: And I couldn't do it because for some data confidence,

00:03:51: then tell the reasons the company didn't agree on it.

00:03:55: However, my interest was sparked.

00:03:57: And I did a PhD on conflicting goals

00:04:01: with between management and professional roles in audit

00:04:04: firms.

00:04:05: But after my PhD, I started in my postdoc years

00:04:09: to dive deeper into the way HR analytics is changing,

00:04:13: for example, the way HR professionals work.

00:04:16: And I was interested in agility, the way

00:04:20: that digital transformation is changing the structures

00:04:24: in our organizations.

00:04:26: And that's part of my research journey.

00:04:29: And I think that's a very good fit for our podcast here

00:04:32: and for the topics that we want to discuss.

00:04:35: It's interesting, Georg, because I

00:04:38: think it's a hard cut between working as a consultant

00:04:41: and then working as a scientific researcher.

00:04:44: Yes, indeed it was.

00:04:46: So I think one interesting thing when

00:04:50: you work in audit firms or in consulting firms more generally

00:04:53: is that you get to know firms from a top view.

00:04:58: Because you are not doing the day-to-day work,

00:05:00: you are always discussing with executives management.

00:05:05: So it's a really interesting part.

00:05:07: And when you change to academia, you

00:05:11: have to adapt to a completely new way of working.

00:05:16: You have more time, definitely more time

00:05:18: than when you are working as a consultant.

00:05:21: You have different partners to discuss your research.

00:05:26: There are the conferences.

00:05:28: There are the papers that you have

00:05:29: to write for academic journals.

00:05:32: However, I think the way I do research,

00:05:35: I'm a most qualitative researcher,

00:05:39: is similar to things audit assistants or consultants do.

00:05:43: I go out to companies.

00:05:46: I interview people.

00:05:47: I participate in meetings.

00:05:50: I try to observe what they are doing.

00:05:52: And I try to understand what the key roles or the key drivers

00:05:59: of changes are in the firms.

00:06:02: And I'm really interested in engaging in real-world research,

00:06:07: talking to people, understanding complex problems,

00:06:10: helping them to solve these problems

00:06:12: by finding mechanisms that help other firms

00:06:17: to cope with similar problems.

00:06:18: So I think there is some continuity in my CV

00:06:23: and in the topics that I'm working on.

00:06:26: OK, OK.

00:06:26: Pointed out a keyword that's a new work.

00:06:29: So what happens in the education system

00:06:32: is that the university is also a transformation process.

00:06:35: So I think you are working at a more traditional-oriented

00:06:39: university, I think so.

00:06:41: And now you are here at the German University of Literature

00:06:44: Science.

00:06:45: So what is for you the evolution of the system

00:06:49: and the needs for innovative approaches at universities?

00:06:54: Yeah, I think so.

00:06:57: I think one core element of our universities

00:07:00: is that they are actually hugely successful institutions.

00:07:04: I mean, the universities, they are quite old.

00:07:07: They exist since medieval ages.

00:07:09: And in their core, there's innovation.

00:07:12: They have to be innovative.

00:07:13: I mean, when you think back in the 13th century,

00:07:16: when the first universities emerged,

00:07:19: we didn't even have a lot of books.

00:07:21: And the lecture was like the core of transferring knowledge

00:07:25: to people and helping people to succeed in the world.

00:07:30: And now we have one of the biggest changes ever

00:07:35: in our university system is digital transformation,

00:07:38: but not only digital transformation,

00:07:40: but LLMs, for example, AI, that's changing the way we produce

00:07:45: knowledge, we evaluate well knowledge.

00:07:47: That's a huge challenge for traditional universities.

00:07:53: So that's like the first part of my answer.

00:07:55: And the second part of my answer is

00:07:57: that very traditional universities or classical

00:08:00: universities, which are working in certain locations,

00:08:04: they often have a very regional focus

00:08:06: or an institutional focus to certain organizations.

00:08:09: You mentioned my current employer.

00:08:11: They are working for-- they are more or less working

00:08:14: for the Bundeswehr, the German Armed Forces.

00:08:17: And they have to prepare the students for their future roles.

00:08:22: But they have a lot of legacy systems.

00:08:27: So they have to deal with some requirements that

00:08:32: are specific to these institutions.

00:08:35: And other universities have to deal with requirements

00:08:39: that are quite specific for a region.

00:08:40: So they adapt to these specific things.

00:08:44: And one of the challenges is after having adapted

00:08:48: to the requirements, you have a certain past dependence season.

00:08:51: It's quite difficult to change the things.

00:08:53: And I think that's one of the core problems

00:08:55: of the traditional universities, that they

00:08:59: are quite successful or have been quite successful.

00:09:02: Now these new technologies emerge.

00:09:05: You have new profiles for the professionals

00:09:09: in your universities.

00:09:11: You need to adapt your career systems to accommodate

00:09:15: these profiles.

00:09:16: But they can't adapt so fast.

00:09:18: And on the other hand, there are a lot of new universities

00:09:22: like the German University of Digital Sciences.

00:09:25: And they can use a greenfield approach.

00:09:28: They don't have these past dependencies.

00:09:30: They can reimagine the education system.

00:09:34: And you told me before our conversation here

00:09:38: that, for example, you were creating avatars for the professors.

00:09:43: And things like these things are very fascinating.

00:09:49: And they can help to promote a completely new way

00:09:53: of education.

00:09:54: For example, I can imagine that some of the avatars,

00:09:56: combined with AI, large language models,

00:10:01: you can develop a form of one-to-one coaching,

00:10:05: one-to-one learning that isn't possible

00:10:07: in a traditional university where you have people doing

00:10:13: classical lectures.

00:10:14: So with the avatars, you can go back to perhaps even

00:10:17: this medieval idea of a master in pupil

00:10:21: and have this one-on-one discussions

00:10:23: and have much more customized learning experience

00:10:27: for students.

00:10:28: And that's a possibility that the traditional universities

00:10:33: often financed by the state and regulated by the states

00:10:37: really have problems with dealing.

00:10:41: Yeah.

00:10:41: That's one point of this transformation

00:10:44: was that the other side of the matter is the students.

00:10:47: So can you give me a short overview

00:10:51: about the new digital competences the students need?

00:10:57: I think, first of all, one thing that we have to understand

00:10:59: is that there's a completely new space emerging now.

00:11:03: We have the digital realm, the digital world.

00:11:08: And this digital world is meshed up with our real world.

00:11:14: And one thing is that this digital world is like a frontier.

00:11:21: You know, we have to settle it.

00:11:23: We have to find new ways of dealing with the requirements,

00:11:27: challenges that happen in there.

00:11:31: So I think that's the first idea that you have to have,

00:11:34: that there's a new space emerging.

00:11:37: And I think a lot of traditional skills,

00:11:40: like coping with problems, problem solving, creativity,

00:11:48: skills like complex problem solving or skills

00:11:53: like summarizing complex topics are still important.

00:11:58: But on the other hand, you have to, as a student,

00:12:03: you have to learn the skill of switching between worlds,

00:12:07: being on the one hand in the virtual world,

00:12:09: on the other hand in the physical world,

00:12:12: and combining both worlds in a positive way.

00:12:15: For example, if you think about hybrid work,

00:12:18: I think it will be normal that there is a hybrid setting

00:12:23: for all work systems, but not only hybrid in the sense

00:12:26: of online versus offline, someone from another place

00:12:31: meeting you via a web interface.

00:12:35: But there will be, apart will be avatars being in the meeting.

00:12:40: There will be AI agents doing work on,

00:12:45: and you are interacting with AI agents.

00:12:47: Then there will be colleagues from everywhere in the world.

00:12:51: So you will have not only a virtual team,

00:12:53: but a virtual international team, multicultural team.

00:12:56: And these are all things that you

00:12:58: have to train in the university or to think about it

00:13:03: and to experience in your education

00:13:07: so that you can adapt fastly in firms.

00:13:12: And I think that's the next skill.

00:13:14: You have to have a growth mindset, to constantly learn,

00:13:21: and to be open to experiment with new things.

00:13:23: And I think that's one thing that students

00:13:25: have to have in the modern world and in these challenging times.

00:13:31: Yeah, then we come to the next point.

00:13:32: It is after finishing their study programs,

00:13:36: they are just, the next step is done working in the company.

00:13:40: So what does that mean, this digital transformation

00:13:43: for the changing landscape of the working areas?

00:13:49: And what does it mean for the organization of companies?

00:13:54: Yeah, I think that's a huge question.

00:13:57: And I think there's a lot of--

00:13:59: Yeah, and I think a lot of companies

00:14:02: are actually struggling with this question.

00:14:05: I mean, you know, and I think it depends on industries too.

00:14:08: But overall, I do think that for companies, again,

00:14:14: it's a new space.

00:14:15: And if you think about marketing,

00:14:17: marketing is a very classical function in firms.

00:14:22: 30 years ago, you used newspapers,

00:14:25: you used physical things to market.

00:14:28: Now you have the internet, you have Google Ads and things

00:14:30: like that.

00:14:30: So you have to adapt to this new space with new practices.

00:14:34: You have to adapt your current business functions

00:14:37: to the digital world.

00:14:40: So some people are arguing you need digital HR,

00:14:43: you need digital strategy and things like that.

00:14:46: I'm a bit critical about saying that something

00:14:49: has to be digital plus because it's going to be new normal.

00:14:53: So we don't need the digital as an adjective

00:14:57: for the functions.

00:14:59: But one thing that's very important

00:15:01: is that firms have to understand that it is more or less

00:15:05: affecting everything.

00:15:06: It's affecting their customers.

00:15:09: It's affecting the whole business environment,

00:15:12: their infrastructures, the digital infrastructures,

00:15:17: but also their physical infrastructures.

00:15:21: It affects the way they manage.

00:15:25: They have to adapt much faster.

00:15:29: When we think about AI, it will affect

00:15:32: the way they coordinate the firms.

00:15:34: Perhaps we will need less middle managers

00:15:37: because we have algorithmic management.

00:15:39: Some firms are critical, others are already adapting,

00:15:42: depending on their view of digitalization

00:15:45: as an opportunity or as a threat.

00:15:48: Then we have this augmentation automation paradox

00:15:52: where people on the one hand will have enhanced skills due to,

00:15:57: let's say, AI, but there are other things like exoskeletons

00:16:00: that help us to move things that we couldn't move before.

00:16:10: And there are some other aspects.

00:16:13: And finally, I think the business models can change too.

00:16:17: So you have a quite huge possibility

00:16:20: of developing new business models.

00:16:23: You have new customers.

00:16:25: You can transfer a part of your operations

00:16:27: to the digital world and generate new revenues.

00:16:31: So you have this whole transformation.

00:16:33: And you will have new digital innovations

00:16:37: in organizational forms, in the infrastructures you use,

00:16:41: in the templates you use.

00:16:43: And therefore, you will have a completely new

00:16:46: digital infrastructure for doing business.

00:16:49: So I think that's one of the key points

00:16:51: in digital transformation to adapt to this new world

00:16:54: and this innovative forms.

00:16:56: - Okay, sounds theoretical, easy.

00:17:00: But if you just talk to some CEOs

00:17:02: of smaller middle companies,

00:17:04: they always told us it's not so easy to handle.

00:17:07: So what is the main challenge for these companies

00:17:13: taking this to start this digital transformation

00:17:16: with all these new tools and so on?

00:17:19: What do you think?

00:17:20: - I do think that part of it is that our mindsets

00:17:25: are not adapted to digital transformation.

00:17:27: So I think perhaps in Germany, more than in other countries,

00:17:32: there is, people are quite critical

00:17:34: about digital transformation and the data

00:17:37: that is generated through digital transformation

00:17:40: and this transparency that is generated.

00:17:43: So I think a lot of people have some concerns about

00:17:47: technology in general and digital technology in special.

00:17:52: I think that's the first thing.

00:17:54: People have to understand that digital transformation, digital technology is an opportunity.

00:18:01: There are threats and you should mitigate them, but first it's an opportunity.

00:18:06: If you have understood that and you are more or less adapting your strategy

00:18:12: to this opportunity, you have to start and adapt structures, systems and processes.

00:18:21: And then it's more or less a normal change process.

00:18:25: There will be people who are reluctant to change.

00:18:29: You have to take them, you have to show them the benefits,

00:18:32: you have to teach them the practices that are bound to digital tools.

00:18:39: I mean, that's one thing that I'm always observing that people are sometimes not developing

00:18:47: their human resources enough when there is such a huge change like digitalization.

00:18:52: So these are things that they have to do.

00:18:55: So first of all, having the mindset, setting a new strategy and then implementing it

00:19:01: in the systems and the processes so that you have an operational excellence in it.

00:19:05: And I think that's the toughest part.

00:19:07: I think that academia can't answer how to do it like a checklist.

00:19:14: But it can tell you, have the right mindset, try to develop your people to the new strategy

00:19:20: so that there is a fit between the capabilities of your people

00:19:23: and the requirements of the new technologies, the new strategies

00:19:28: and then try to get an operational excellence into your organization.

00:19:33: How could a company just organize this educational system behind that?

00:19:39: So for example, life long learning is a keyword and also knowledge management.

00:19:45: Do you have an idea how a company just can integrate this in the typical business plan

00:19:52: so that they're a value chain?

00:19:55: Yeah, I think that's a really important topic and a really interesting topic too

00:19:59: because organizations or companies have to be open to new knowledge in general.

00:20:05: So they have not only to learn, not only their employees have to learn

00:20:10: but the organization and its capabilities has to learn during this process.

00:20:15: And I think on the one hand, you have to help your employees in finding the right programs

00:20:26: or defining some skill sets that they need.

00:20:29: So you have to think about it.

00:20:31: And then you have to send them on the one hand to external education providers.

00:20:36: I do think that learning in a classical educational system and classical classroom learning

00:20:44: helps for getting the right concepts.

00:20:47: Then there is the possibility to cooperate with other firms

00:20:51: and learn from these other firms and have mixed teams.

00:20:54: You can use freelancers, gig workers, integrate them in your teams

00:20:58: and have mixed teams so that your employees learn from them

00:21:03: and then they can incorporate it in the organization.

00:21:07: On the other hand, on the organizational level, I do think that sometimes

00:21:12: it makes sense to buy some capabilities.

00:21:15: So you have to think about other things that we can't learn

00:21:18: or it's too expensive to learn and we have to buy it.

00:21:21: And you have to open yourself up to ecosystems.

00:21:26: I mentioned gig work, there are a lot of platforms with gig workers

00:21:32: and you have to think, where can I open up my organizational boundaries

00:21:37: and reap the benefits of, I don't know, people or organizations

00:21:42: who have already done this and integrated it into your own knowledge structures.

00:21:47: And I think that's quite difficult.

00:21:50: You have to balance this exploration, exploiting the benefits of digital transformation.

00:22:01: That's one thing that people have to do.

00:22:03: Gjörg, that leads us to the next topic.

00:22:06: You were an expert because you did a lot of research

00:22:09: about the transfer from scientific to the practice

00:22:14: and so what are the main challenges in this transfer process?

00:22:19: I do think there are some challenges that are normally not addressed.

00:22:28: For example, one thing is that we think always about this transfer topic.

00:22:33: It's like the knowledge is there and you only have to pick it and then you have it.

00:22:39: And that's not the way knowledge works.

00:22:42: So in an abstract way, everybody of us can learn something by heart

00:22:47: but it doesn't mean that you can execute it

00:22:49: or that you have the skill to do it in the real world or apply it in the real world.

00:22:54: So I think one thing that a knowledge transfer is a real challenge is

00:23:01: how can people use knowledge in their practice, in their context?

00:23:09: Which parts of the knowledge they have acquired somewhere,

00:23:14: they have to adapt to the specific practices, to the specific cultural understandings

00:23:21: in their organizations and how can they make this knowledge fruitful

00:23:29: in this specific context?

00:23:32: That's the first boundary and I think that's one of the problems

00:23:35: and I think that some companies think we can just send our people to a classroom

00:23:40: and then they have learned everything but that's not the way learning works in that knowledge works.

00:23:45: And the second thing in the scientific and practice collaboration is

00:23:50: that I think there's not a lot of knowledge out there in science and in academia

00:23:56: but practice still has to be curious enough to go to the academics, to go to universities

00:24:07: and ask them for help because I think one of the topics sometimes is that

00:24:13: practitioners always think academic knowledge is not that useful for them

00:24:17: because academic knowledge is quite abstract and things like that

00:24:22: and I think that's a way, Bert, that's still a challenge to communicate

00:24:29: between these two different societal systems.

00:24:33: And I think one of the best things to transfer knowledge are actually the lecturers

00:24:40: are actually our students because they have the newest knowledge

00:24:43: and we should bring them to the practice and have the practitioners engage with our students.

00:24:51: So that's an interesting point for the next question.

00:24:55: What can we as a scientific area learn from the practice?

00:25:01: I do think a lot. I'm a management scholar and I'm interested in practice

00:25:08: and I do think that on the one hand we have our theoretical concepts, our theoretical ideas

00:25:15: we are discussing highly sophisticated things in our management journals

00:25:21: but on the other hand innovation or context problems are first solved in practice

00:25:30: because people have to solve these problems.

00:25:33: They have to recombine knowledge, they have recombined practices, they have to recombine

00:25:39: or use technologies in a way that they are successful as a firm.

00:25:44: So not all firms are successful but there are some good examples, cases

00:25:50: who can show us how to solve certain problems.

00:25:55: Just like the idea of grand challenges or there are some problems in coordination

00:26:02: and there are firms or in digital transformation and their firms were already solved.

00:26:08: For example, Netflix was known as a DVD rental firm

00:26:12: and now it's a hugely successful streaming company.

00:26:16: So they were very bold in changing the business model.

00:26:20: We can learn a lot from such forerunners and we can dive deeper, especially in qualitative research.

00:26:30: We can do case studies, in-depth case studies, interview the CEOs, interview employees

00:26:36: and how they did this and I think that's one thing that we can learn from real world examples.

00:26:41: And we can use real world data to solve other questions.

00:26:46: One idea of the German University of Digital Science is a strong collaboration

00:26:53: and models with companies.

00:26:56: So do we have an idea or maybe you have an advice for the university

00:27:01: how this can work, how can we optimize this collaboration?

00:27:08: I think there are a lot of possibilities to collaborate.

00:27:12: So one of the classical examples would be for example real world case studies

00:27:23: where companies come to the German University of Digital Science

00:27:27: and you have challenges for the students and students and companies interact on these challenges.

00:27:34: So this would be a benefit for us, we have the students engaging with practitioners

00:27:40: and it would be a benefit for the companies.

00:27:43: Another example would be for joint PhD programs.

00:27:47: I do think so. This is another possibility for practice and science exchange and knowledge transfer

00:27:57: that you can come to universities, talk about a joint PhD program or sponsoring a PhD

00:28:06: and you have the PhD working, the doctoral student working in the company and at the university

00:28:13: and you automatically have some transfer of knowledge that's bound to this person.

00:28:20: I think that's one other possibility.

00:28:23: And the third possibility is that the companies can or the companies and the university

00:28:30: can interact regularly.

00:28:32: You can have dialogues or have classical meetings where you have a steering group or advisory boards

00:28:43: but I think some conferences may work quite well.

00:28:47: We're professors organizing a lineup of practitioners and scholars

00:28:54: for a very interesting topic, a fashionable topic in this moment

00:29:00: and people are meeting here and discussing openly.

00:29:03: And I think one thing that you showed me in this house when we were doing the tour is

00:29:08: and I think that's one good thing, it's an open house.

00:29:11: So people can come here, they can be part of the experience of the German University of Digital Sciences

00:29:18: and meet us and we are there, we are happy to discuss with them challenges they have as companies.

00:29:25: We can make new contacts and I think that's a very good part of interacting with practice.

00:29:35: There is one challenge in university or similar to companies.

00:29:41: It's a challenge about homework and working in the office.

00:29:50: So nobody has a solution for that but what do you think is the right way or is there no right way

00:29:58: to use your advice taking this different part because it's for every employee important

00:30:07: and also planning rooms and also what do you think?

00:30:13: So that's a really good question and it's probably the holy grail of human resource management

00:30:19: and research right now on organizational behavior.

00:30:23: And again I think it depends, so that's an answer that I often give, it depends.

00:30:31: It depends on the circumstances, it depends on the company, it depends on the culture.

00:30:35: For example if you think about a classical company where you have production.

00:30:42: In the production side you can't do work from home, you only have the possibility to work at the production line.

00:30:50: In this case the question wouldn't be asked but when we discuss about offices and office workers

00:30:57: you have to think about the right balance and there are some companies who are working completely remotely

00:31:04: and are completely successful so they don't even need an office space.

00:31:09: Probably they need some space for their servers and for some other things but more or less they don't need office space.

00:31:16: But these are mostly very modern companies, the software business, fully digital, already born as digital firms.

00:31:25: Then there are other companies, they have a lot of legacy systems, they have huge offices

00:31:32: and they have to think about the right mixture.

00:31:35: For example in some roles it makes sense that people can work remotely, fully remote.

00:31:41: In other roles it doesn't make sense so they have to decide the right mixture for the different roles

00:31:48: and for the company as a whole because sometimes it's a question of justice too.

00:31:53: So I think that's one thing, it depends.

00:31:56: Then you have the full range of models.

00:31:59: So you have some companies who have remote work and working from home for certain departments and roles.

00:32:07: Then you have classical two or three days in the office, then you have office first or hybrid first.

00:32:14: So you have the full spectrum.

00:32:16: But what we see in our research is that actually productivity doesn't change from hybrid or remote work.

00:32:26: People are still productive.

00:32:28: We don't know the long term effects if an organization and its culture is changing from a traditional way at a certain place to this hybrid and remote work.

00:32:42: I'm doing some work as a doctoral student on the effects on creativity.

00:32:49: We do not know a lot about the effects of creativity, the effects of hybrid work or remote work and creativity in the long term.

00:32:58: In short term it always works quite well.

00:33:01: We know it from the corona pandemic.

00:33:03: But what will happen in the long term with the capabilities, the interactions, the coordination.

00:33:08: I think that's some fascinating stuff that for example we can explore in research and that has a lot of benefits for companies.

00:33:15: Gjörg, did I remember that you are interested in sports?

00:33:19: Not really.

00:33:21: Because very often the people just told me that there is a strong relationship, especially talking about team building and other things.

00:33:34: Do you think there is a relationship between sports and leadership?

00:33:39: Yeah, I think that's another topic.

00:33:43: I'm personally not a sports person.

00:33:45: I'm not sporty.

00:33:47: But I think that topic exists.

00:33:51: For example we know a lot of leadership research is actually done with sport teams because we have a lot of data on sport teams.

00:33:58: There is so much data out on soccer players, on football players and the way the teams are interacting.

00:34:07: I do think that a part of beyond research we can learn a lot about success and failure from sport teams and the coaches of sport teams.

00:34:22: Because they are more or less navigating this complex world of success and failure.

00:34:28: They have the tensions that every team has.

00:34:32: I think we can definitely learn a lot from sport teams for leadership.

00:34:37: And definitely learn a lot for structuring our teamwork and for effective teams.

00:34:44: Gjörg, did you miss any question or any topic during our short journey about new work and digital transformation?

00:34:55: No, I really like the conversation and I'm looking forward to continue it here at the German University of Digital Science.

00:35:01: We will do that Gjörg.

00:35:03: That was not the last podcast episode with you.

00:35:06: It was a great pleasure talking to you and discussing with you these very important topics, especially for the companies and the educational system and universities.

00:35:18: Thank you very much Gjörg.

00:35:20: Thank you for having me.

00:35:22: [Music]