Get happy with Tesafilm (Scotch-Tape)

Recently, my colleagues asked me to give a speech about: 

“First class leadership development programs at DT that deal with the challenges of the digital transformation that impact our business, society and our lives add value to our corporate strategy and support us becoming the Leading European Telco.”

But when people tell me: You should or must, then, inside, I already know: I won't. So I brought something else along: Tesafilm (Scotch-Tape). Because I believe there is nothing more you need for a happy life and a successful career.

So, what is the advantage of Tesafilm. It can be used in many ways:

• To professionally repair a chip in your new Tesla.
• To take finger prints and figure out who is stealing food from the fridge in your shared office kitchen.
• To note data when you don't have a USB-stick. But an experimental laboratory at hand.
• Unroll it to produce Xrays in a vacuum.

Above and beyond all of these practical advantages, Tesafilm has achieved something that very few products achieve. In Germany it has gone from being a brand name to a generic term. We say "Tesafilm". But what we mean is "adhesive tape."

There are many different views about what an original is. I, as a CEO for example, would expect my colleagues to be successful in their business. Family members (who are even more important) probably expect time for them instead of spending time in the office.

So: Everyone is loaded with a lot of expectations from many different people. Or – so to say– stakeholders. How do you cope with that?

Keep going

My suggestion is that everyone has to find a way to be his or her own original. You should not try to be someone you are not. Instead it’s all about living your own live. And anyone who wants to be his or her own original has to do one thing above all else: Get going.

This is easy to say but sometimes hard to do. Especially in the era of digitization. Many of us are used to the fact that the world has been mapped out for them. By KPIs. By financial planning. By business plans. But somehow this does not work that well at times - when we have to deal with changes in the business environment that we are not used to. What makes this so hard is that we are all constantly wandering in the unknown. The future isn't set out clearly before us. The future is hidden behind a thick wall of fog. You can almost make out a few images through the haze. In my business you have an idea of what might be awaiting. Something like 5G. VR, AR, AI and robotics. Some things seem close enough to touch. But the future only reveals itself fully when we are in it and it has long since become the present.

The past, of course, stretches all the way back to the horizon. It is clearly and unambiguously behind us. Its panorama invites us to lengthy reflection. And because our memories only store the unique and the special while forgetting the gray daily grind, we behold the past with pure wonder. And so we look back smiling and wistfully and think nostalgically: It was beautiful. The good old days! Everything used to be better.

Timidity is the greater risk

Why go on into the unknown? Particularly because the prophets of doom in politics and the media would have you believe we are already teetering on the brink. Any step bears the risk to fallover it. Why should I cannibaliz my own business with something new? Why try something new and risk to fail? Why dive into a sea without even knowing if I can swim in there?

And I have one simple answer to that: Because in reality, timidity is the greater risk. The truth is, so far, there has been a brighter future behind almost every wall of fog, as you can read here. Staying put isn't worth it. Looking back should not encourage us to dwell in the past. Instead, it should give us reassurance.

How to we now develop the skill-set we need to keep going? When I thought about this question, two quotes came into my mind. The first comes (of course) from Goethe:

"The best education for a clever person is found in travel."

Five years ago, before I became CEO, I went back to school. At Stanford. And I studied innovation. How new things come about. One thing I found out is that most modern innovations are re-combinations. They are mergers of existing component parts.

• The iPhone: touch display technology, sensors, batteries, mobile Internet. All of these parts already existed. But Apple brought them together and created something brand new.
• Or take Uber: drivers, taxis, the smartphone, the cloud. Nothing new. But it was Uber that transformed these ingredients into modern mobility.
• And: Tesafilm! Plastic had already been invented. So had rubber glue. The secret was putting them together and – above all - developing the dispenser.

But what is clear: the more curious we are, the more we “travel”, the more we discover and understand. And in so doing we expand our tool kit of components. That we can use for future re-combinations and innovations.

The second quote comes from Seneca.

"Begin at once to live. And count each separate day as a separate life."

And he's right. Life is like a roll of Tesafilm. Little by little we unroll it. But we can't see the end. What's left could be long. Or short. I see this as an encouragement to be pro-active. No one should be told to be too young or inexperienced to reach a certain goal. In reality, experience teaches us the opposite. I think it is a interesting finding that especially young people are very successful in doing things “now”. Maybe because they worry less. Maybe because they are more independent. But maybe also because they have a clear vision, no fear, no frustration and the will to shape their lives and the lives of others. And because they are curious and have no fear to question authority.

• Mark Zuckerberg was 20 when he founded Facebook.
• Einstein was 26 when he published his theory of relativity.
• Mozart was also 26 when he composed the Entführung aus dem Serail.
• And a young man called Hugo Kirchberg was only 25 when he made Tesafilm a best seller.

I think all of these figures were, in their own way, their own original. But they also had things in common: Discipline. Dedication. The will to continue and keep going.

Of course, all of these people had something else, too. We call it genius. And maybe coincidence. Good luck.

We are all planets

Before I close, I simply must clear up one potential misunderstanding. Because when I say: be your own original, that does not mean that you should be selfish and ego-centric. That you build your own personal brand without paying attention to the world around you. 

People see themselves as the sun. We think the world moves around us. That's because we are so attached to: Our perceptions, our feelings and our needs. They are central to us. While other people's feelings just spin around us. In reality we are all just normal planets. Spinning around with each other. In an endless universe that has no true center.

All of this can quickly lead to frustration. Sometimes we don’t understand why others do not see things the way we do. And they get on our nerves, because they are always getting in the way of our convictions, emotions and needs. Take rush hour traffic, for example. We feel stuck in the traffic jam. In reality, we are the traffic jam.

You could attempt to become your own original in opposition to the rest of the universe. But I doubt you would be successful. And if you were: It would be very lonely. Life is easier if you accept that other people also have their own interests and needs. That they are not pursuing them to be mean. That they are not “wrong”. But that they are simply in a different seat. And that, from their seat, the view is different. So just think of Tesafilm: it doesn't divide things. It joins them. It brings them together. And it is very transparent. (David Foster Wallace has explained that wonderfully in "This Is Water".)

Stay happy as a person

And there is one more point. Being an original does not mean that you all have to be the next Mark Zuckerberg. Or Hugo Kirchberg. Or the next CEO. In fact, it's highly unlikely to happen. That's not down to you alone. It has to do with circumstances and coincidence. And luck.

But that's not what is important. But what an original does is: It recognizes their potential. And makes use of it. Originals develop what is inside of them. They level themselves up. That means:

• Take your own path. Don’t get distracted by negativity, frustration, gossip and politics.
• Stay curious. Travel the world. Try lots of new things and stuff your backpacks with experiences that you can combine in many new ways. This is important for future innovations.
• Stay hungry. Don’t let anyone tell you“we always did it that way”. Never let anyone tell you “this will never work”. Even though you fail many times: Keep going!
• Be disciplined. Don’t  give up. Practice, learn, work and remain strong.
• Pay attention to others. Seek out and build communities.

Actually, it all comes down to one thing:

Stay happy as a person. Be an original. And I wish everyone of you that, whatever life will throw at you, you always have your Tesafilm to fix it.