Foreword by Gerald Hüther

It has now spread: In the course of their lives, everyone has acquired specific skills, collected certain experiences, and acquired specific knowledge in certain fields. All that makes a person who he is. But during his or her life, he or she still has the possibility to learn something new, to acquire new knowledge and new skills, and to make new experiences. So it's possible throughout a lifetime to evolve and to grow beyond oneself. This potential is created in the internal organization of the brain from the outset. No one can fully develop all of his potential, but everyone has, no matter how old he or she is, the possibility to use this potential to acquire new knowledge and to acquire new skills. Nobody can force him, but only invite, encourage, and inspire him.
However, many leaders have a problem with this, not only at school, during training, or at the university, but also in businesses and organisations. That is why so much of what students, apprentices, or employees know, and therefore can apply, stays far below the possibilities. The teachers in the schools, the instructors in the companies, and the professors at the universities can live with this. The continued existence of their institutions is not jeopardised. However, businesses and companies work differently. They cannot survive in the market, and they can go bankrupt if their employees do not want to evolve. It is no longer sufficient if, every now and then, someone will tackle issues, think along, and take responsibility. Companies today, especially in our culture, need employees who want to get involved and for whom it is a pleasure to explore what else could be improved.
In principle, companies and organisations do not work much differently than a brain. They also have a potential that is greater than expressed in their balance sheets. In principle, a lot more can be achieved, however, not by applying more pressure or even better control. With these measures, short-term successes can be reached. In the long term, this strategy undermines the commitment and willingness of the staff to develop their potential they possess within. As a result, they will only do what they need to and what they are paid for, and that's not enough for the long-term success of a company.
So the question is whether and how it could be better. It is this question I have been exploring with Sebastian Purps-Pardigol for several years. Not in theory, but in practice. We have been looking specifically for companies that, somehow, managed to do it, in which leaders successfully invited their employees, encouraged and inspired them to unfold the scale of their potential. Where employees have found their pleasure for thinking independently, rediscovered their joy for joint creation, and cheerfully participated in a much different way, growing beyond themselves.
We both had experienced how hard it was to describe the important elements of implementing new findings in lectures and workshops. All these theoretical considerations don't gain sufficient persuasive power, until they can be made verifiable, tangible, and comprehensible through practical examples. That's why we have been searching for such practical examples of successful cultural change processes in organisations and companies for several years. We did not want to use the organisations advised by us as case studies to avoid a subjective coloration and distortion. So we had to be attentive and to find companies that appeared to be appropriate to us. Sebastian Purps-Pardigol has spent a lot of time with the companies in question to talk to business leaders, managers, and employees. On the homepage, [...] we presented a selection of practical examples, and I am happy and grateful that Sebastian has put together the findings and insights of recent years and provided them to our dear readers in this book. In this book, he describes the mystery of how such a change of previo