Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: Can you think without learning — or learn without thinking? Dr. Yasemin Yazan, Marc, Jürgen, Sebastian and Sabine trace “learning is the food for the memory that thinking accesses” through change-management failures, the amygdala’s veto power over pure reason, and a striking real-world case of how “guardrails” quietly shaped who gets to lead…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning I wish you. Today we talk about thinking and learning. How do thinking and learning relate to each other is the question we want to engage with. We’ve already picked up one thing or another in recent days. Today it’s again about actually going into more depth, picking up certain aspects again anew, looking further into the depths, and maybe also picking up further aspects we haven’t focused on so strongly yet. So you’re all warmly invited today to simply join again, with various impulses, gladly also practical examples that might fit the topic. And to open this reflection room here together, and think in various directions together, to secure insights accordingly against the background of a reflection. Yes, and again briefly the note, we’re recording again today too, the entire time, and the whole thing also gets published later, so if you join, you’re automatically agreeing to that. Then we have three small room rules, a profile picture where you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in the bio. And anyone who’d like to stay anonymous, or can’t speak right now, can of course also use the chat. And somehow there seems to be a new function on Clubhouse. I don’t know how it is for you, but for me every time someone now comes into the room, there’s a signal tone I can hear. Well, exciting what Clubhouse comes up with right now. Okay, then I’ll mute myself briefly and just see who’d like to open the round with me this morning. Good morning, dear Marc, what do you say to that?
Good morning, I have to apologize in advance, because I’m opening a really, really small bracket to deviate from the room, to still stay on topic though, and specifically, I’ll just start with a quote that dear Jürgen always says, I am the spirit that always denies. And why we do these rooms, simply, it became clear to me again this morning, that learning, learning has something to do with the learned thing, we fall back on our experience after all. And my topic, quite briefly, is this questioning. And we’ll all agree, I’ll just say that now, that’s also a framing, education is important. Education is important, we don’t need to discuss that, learning belongs to education too. But what this checking does, that we also arrive at new insights with the learned or the newly learned. In the past it was said in China, and that’s now my topic, in China the parents will certainly also have told their children, listen boy, education is important. If you have a good education and a good training, then you also have a good job. And a good job means a good life. Everyone will underline that. Now it’s so in China, so currently just now, 12 million young people leave the universities per year. They have good degrees, and I read a report last week from someone incredibly — this woman was in the USA and did a master’s in mathematics, I wouldn’t even get the assistant position, and then also a bachelor’s in economics, and now went back to her country, and they offer her a job in the countryside, doing, I don’t know what they have there, I’ll say like asparagus picking or potato planting with us, and the president then says, that’s important too, we have a large population that needs to be fed, and if there are no jobs in the cities despite good training, despite learning, despite education, they currently have so many overqualified people, and there just aren’t jobs there. And this questioning — that’s why this topic, it has nothing to do with our today’s topic now, but questioning again and again, education is important, I underline that 100 percent, I wouldn’t budge a meter from that. Education is important in the context of what parents said, equal education, equal good job, equal good life. That seems to be changing right now, nobody knows for how long, and the headline for this whole topic is that learning used to be a promise of prosperity. So learning, we all knew, if we’ve learned and have good training and a good job, that simply enables a nicer life. And this promise of prosperity isn’t given anymore now, nobody knows for how long, and that’s why these topics — and now I come back to our topic of thinking and learning — are so important, because this asking and questioning, also questioning the learned thing, because learned knowledge does get stored. But for me the biggest challenge is always to ask whether the learned knowledge is even current at all, and whether I can still pass on the learned knowledge I fall back on — those are also my experiences — with a good conscience today to my children, to my partner, or to my friends.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. And in this context of course the question also arises, on one hand, what is learning at all, and on the other hand, when we don’t learn certain things in isolation, but always with certain connections again, for example in connection with what you just picked up as examples, those are certain contexts in which we also learn. That means, if the context changes, what actually happens with the learned thing? That’s the question in this context. And so I find it really, really exciting to pick that up too. And yes, and especially this aspect, you said education is important. And everyone would nod along to that first. The examples you brought relate especially to the aspect of qualification too, so also things like attending school, doing training, etc. And here we’d maybe already have the first differentiation we can open up too. And especially with all the changes, also with the speed, with the new technologies and so on, we can also pick up this aspect of education a bit more too. Though I think we also have a separate room for that. But I’d have to check again, I don’t know it by heart right now. Yes, maybe first that much to the first points you brought in. Maybe you’d like to add here again, dear Marc.
Yes, I’ll try it like this. We’re just — can you hear me? Thumbs up, we’re just — my, my earphones, they’ve decoupled. I’m speaking like this now.
Very well even.
Okay, wonderful. Sorry for this brief topic deviation. It just keeps becoming clear to me that this overarching topic is so important. And for me it’s always so, or for me it was so in school — I’ll tell you why that is. I understand now, I’ll also get right to your headline, thinking and learning, or what makes up this learning process. I’ve just found for myself that I was a really, really bad student, and for me it wasn’t lack of intelligence, so it wasn’t a lack of intelligence. I simply saw no need to learn. I always wanted to become an entrepreneur and manager. And for me it was a waste of time. My parents despaired — in school, 90 percent of the subjects weren’t important to me. Today I see that differently. Today I learn because it interests me. Today I have fun with knowledge. Today I really have incredible joy solving things, and find them totally exciting. The starting point that didn’t work for me was when teachers said — I didn’t see, for example, why should I go to art class? It’s completely crap whether I can paint a house or not, I want to be a manager, and I’m also not interested in biology, I wanted to go into the textile industry. And I’m also not interested in certain other subjects. I picked my subjects like mathematics and German and English, which I really need as an entrepreneur. That made sense. Today I’d love to, if there’s a time machine, go back, because the schoolbooks today are so great. I see why you need chemistry, how exciting that is. I understand that I wouldn’t have a phone without mathematics. This joy of learning, this enthusiasm, that’s what I lacked. I was still in the old system, and right now I’m learning, exactly, I’m learning and reading the book “The New Learning Means Understanding” by Henning Beck, because I want to specifically exchange on this topic, because my partner works in the school system, because I find it totally exciting when I meet people, no matter what they do professionally, but if someone tells me with enthusiasm why they’re a gardener and how great it is to watch a tree grow and what you have to do, then I find that so exciting. Not because I need it, but because my interest is awakened. And that’s for me, on the topic of how do we learn — if we have interest, so if we have intrinsic motivation and are really interested in topics, then I’ve observed about myself that I’m really, really quickly able to learn, and also retain things, because they interest me.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And we seem to have triggered something somehow. Jürgen and Sebastian have also joined, let’s bring them in directly. Jürgen, a very good morning.
A very good morning, dear Yasemin. Hello, Marc and Sebastian and everyone else in the room. I unfortunately missed quite a bit due to bad connection. And sorry if I first ask a question as an initial, or also with regard to understanding. Did I correctly catch in fragments that in your opening one of your questions was, how do learning and thinking relate to each other? And what I consciously caught was your initial, becoming clear about what learning actually concerns. I see a thumbs up now, so I understood that correctly. And if I may go into your first point, a first initial, how do thinking and learning relate to each other, then I say, it depends on how we define it. And then we’re at your second point, what is learning? And then it’s necessary, in my view too, for your first question, how do they relate, to recapitulate the second terms again, what we understand under thinking in our common understanding. And I’ll go ahead, I repeat myself, I know, but it’s really such a complex topic. I’ll go ahead with my own definition with regard to a potential connection. Well aware that I’m accepting certain imprecisions with that. But I say, learning is the food for the memory, which the thinking accesses. And maybe it’s then initial that we become clear again about the definition of what we understand under thinking and under learning, to then verify or falsify this statement. Thank you first of all.
Yes wonderful. Thank you so, so much. And then let’s also bring in Sebastian, and then we can gladly make cross-connections too. A very good morning, dear Sebastian.
Good morning to the group. I haven’t been here for a while, because I was in a learning process the last few weeks and months. So this topic is really always present for me. But I don’t see it as poetically as Jürgen just did, I see it rather, I’ll say now, career-oriented. So yes, if you want to become a manager and get ahead, you naturally have to learn a lot too. You can of course also learn it through doing, or through many mistakes. But I’m actually someone who, I’ll say now, at the age of between 16 and 20, did discover a certain interest in further education, that you get further by continuously learning, implementing that, so to speak, and also thinking about where you actually want to go, which steps you have to take. That’s of course a longer process than just doing, learning from it, and then thinking about what mistakes you made. You can go both directions. And with me now, in my new corporate change, or also, I’ll say now, into the management role, I also consider, do I first do something and then learn and then think about what mistakes I made, or do I think a bit more about it first, which is also a bit like a design thinking process, or where that comes from, then learn what’s necessary and then implement it and then do the feedback loops. So for me that’s really a continuous process happening right now, and of course things like, what’s my next further education I’m initiating, where I invest, which then sometimes costs 2, 3, 4, 5 thousand euros. There I think very precisely about how I position that monetarily to develop myself further. So I go in both directions. First think, then learn, then do. Or sometimes, when time gets tight, then I have to do quickly, then I learn from the mistakes, and then I tell myself, you should have thought about that before you started. So I know both ways. So yes, maybe you can do something with that.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And Marc, I’d like to ask you first now too, whether you’d like to add to that.
Gladly. Yes, I’m also going back now, again fully 100 percent, to the topic. Sorry dear Jürgen for the deviation. Yes, thinking, I read the text “thinking and learning” and thought about it. I think we can think without learning. I can think about things, but not learn from it. The difference, to answer the question for myself, the difference between thinking and learning, these two terms are connected with each other. I can think and learn. I can learn, of course I need thinking for that, those are similar processes. But I can also think about things and reflect and not learn anything from it. Depending, my example just now, how much I’m interested in something, whether I see the need myself to absorb information. The essential difference for me, and I’m no expert, this is knowledge I’ve read, and Yasemin knows much, much better than me there, because I can’t prove that scientifically. For me it’s just clear and conclusive, if I understand information that goes beyond mere knowledge and gets anchored deeper and stays in my knowledge store, then I speak of learning, then it gets even deeper im… yes, imprinted or stored in my knowledge store. But with thinking that doesn’t have to be the case. That would be, for me, the biggest difference between thinking and learning. Deepens existing knowledge, stores that. And can also be retrieved when needed. And the discussion — that’s why I made a wide detour — the discussion we’re having, dear Sebastian, that’s now taking place, to what extent is knowledge today — that’ll change our society — to what extent is knowledge and learning still necessary today? How will learning change in the future? Because on knowledge — that was my point, also in school — on knowledge, if I want to have knowledge, I can access it. I don’t need it in my head. Knowledge is available every second, 24 hours, almost all knowledge is retrievable. Only if I don’t understand it, and that became clear to me, if I haven’t learned it, that means, if I only store knowledge but can’t apply it, then it’s useless knowledge. And that’s, I think, maybe Yasemin can say something about that, where teaching, or where the learning and thinking methods differ today. Pure knowledge doesn’t yet enable me to apply the learned thing. And that’s why I liked, this book appealed to me by its title so much. The new learning has understood. I learned many things in school too, to be able to retrieve them. Then gave the right answer. I didn’t understand them.
Yes, thank you so, so much. Then I’ll bring in Sabine now too, and then I’ll bring in a few impulses. And then let’s gladly also see what that might set in motion again as impulses, so to speak, for thoughts. Sabine, a very good morning.
A very good morning to the group. Yes, I don’t know now whether I’m on the wrong track, but I’ll just say it now. So I have to say, when I think, I also learn. The question is only whether I store it permanently. But doesn’t that come more, in the end, from the fact that I repeat it more often and thereby get permanently filed? And isn’t that a bit like the old rote learning? So if I memorize something by heart, then I have to repeat it five times, and then I know it. But I’ve also already learned a bit, if I repeat it once. And so I’m of the opinion that every time I think, I also learn something. The question is whether it’s already permanently programmed in, or whether I still have to repeat it a few more times. But maybe I’m also wrong. I’m just curious what you think.
Yes, thank you so, so much. Yes, let’s briefly pick up again, on one hand for reminder, these memory stores, and on the other hand maybe also bring the term neuroplasticity into the room again. We’d talked on one hand about the various memory stores. That means, when we absorb stimuli from outside, then the whole thing gets converted relatively quickly, so to speak, into electrical signals, basically, which get conducted through the brain, and various memory stores get passed through in the process. And already the first store, the ultra-short-term memory, decides whether it’s exciting, new, interesting, or whatever, by comparing it, and whether this information gets passed on, so to speak, or blocked. If it gets passed on, it then comes into the working memory, and later gladly also into the long-term memory for permanent storage. And the essential thing here is, learning basically takes place when the whole thing gets stored in long-term memory. Because here a structural change actually takes place. And there we’re at the term neuroplasticity. That means, the influences that act on us from outside, so to speak, then functions, the structure of the brain change with the help of new
connections of synapses. That means, the neural network that’s originally there can on one hand grow, on the other hand it can establish new connections. That leads to us being able to remember certain things too. Those can be quite different things, ranging from a dance choreography to a new language, to no idea. And so I think these terms are important to pick up here again. And interestingly we’d also already talked in some rooms about how changes always go hand in hand with learning processes too. And it’s really quite exciting that a structural change actually does take place in long-term memory, at the moment where that gets stored in long-term memory. And we’d talked about that, briefly again for reminder, that if I don’t do anything with it within 24 hours, then this structural change gets broken down again too. That means, especially if I, for example, learn a new language, or pursue a new hobby, or similar, or maybe just attended a further education, where I have the feeling, I got a lot of new aha-effects and so on, but then go into everyday life and do nothing with it, then it also starts to slowly break down again. And regarding repetition, we’d said that it’s not at all about — to maintain this structural change and ensure it doesn’t get broken down again — it’s not about repeating everything in detail again or similar, but it’s enough to activate the neural network, by, for example, picking up a quote from the further education again. Or maybe I’ve memorized a poem and can repeat, for example, a stanza or similar, which leads to the entire neural network in this context getting set in motion again too, and accordingly ensuring the strands don’t get shortened. Maybe that as an impulse, to just see where you’d like to add again, and then merge that with thinking again too. Jürgen, gladly.
Yes, my heartfelt thanks, dear Yasemin, to you, that you’ve made the two terms, and now a third, so clear to us again. I’ll repeat my opening statement again, learning is the food for the memory that thinking accesses. We basically have a triumvirate on the meta level, and that makes me very glad. As a further initial, let me maybe try again to set a position, that I say, what’s the resultant quantity? Maybe we then get to the differences, and also to this question Sabine already addressed, can I think without learning? Vice versa can I learn without thinking? I, for myself, define learning by the purpose, the purpose of learning, to be able to apply this learning’s use, the resultant quantity, in a situation. And specifically in a situation, in a changed behavior. I know that’s the typical view of behaviorists. But I’m still convinced that most behavior changes we make in our lives are based on learning processes. The focus for me, or the importance, the frequency of the term learning, quite generalized, is for me still the potential to adapt my behavior, to change my behavior, or to adjust a very specific behavior through very specific learning processes. Thinking has, for me, a different purpose. That doesn’t aim at my behavior, but aims at my insight, and is thus for me an essential basis, a basis with regard to methodology, to be able to learn. These two differences are, for me, the essential ones that now basically provoke the discussion of the question. Can one work with the other, do both have to go together, or can each basically stand alone for itself? Thanks for listening.
Yes, thank you so, so much. That raises another question for me too, because you just said insight. If we look at change projects, for example, in companies, then there’s — on one hand there’s an IBM study, according to which 80 percent of change projects, so to speak, fail, because for example the readiness or similar. But if you look at the top list of change measures, the top 3 hit list, what gets done there? First, command from above, second, the appeal to insight, and third is the info via mail or email, that happens, so the type of communication. Then especially this aspect, the appeal to insight, and many nod along to that too, so to speak, that it’s necessary to change one thing or another. But it still doesn’t lead to the behavior actually being changed. And there are various findings from neuroscience, so to speak. And specifically, methods fail because they primarily address the prefrontal cortex, so reason and understanding. But change processes can only be successfully implemented if the limbic system, and here especially the amygdala as the center of the emotional evaluation system, also gives its okay. And that keeps asking the following questions, so that’s like the eternal toddler that, with everything that happens, asks the question, what’s in it for me, what use is it to me, why me and not the others, why now and not later, and so on. That means, especially this emotional aspect plays a really, really important role in this context too, and not just reason, to actually bring about behavior changes.
Would you like to add to that again, dear Jürgen?
Yes, I’d have — I have to bite my own tongue — I shouldn’t have used the word insight, dear Yasemin, you’re completely right, I’d have something to say about that too, also especially from the professional context and my experiential areas. I should have called that knowledge instead, so that thinking, through active engagement with terms and thoughts, leads us to generate new insights, not insight. And to your remarks, especially with regard to change processes in companies, I have to say, I’ve always seen this appeal to insight as an extremely aggressive behavior of a self-appointed — sorry if I’m now interpreting it quite clearly — namely, an insight I have to gain myself, and an insight is generated especially from my knowledge, and that’s why I’m really biting my tongue now that I said insight earlier and not knowledge. So an insight, everyone can, in my view, my personal opinion, have for themselves. Demanding an insight is basically this demand to put oneself on the level of a person’s knowledge state, to thereby become equal to their insight. And if a manager stands up and says, we need a change in this company, a change process that leads to increased effectiveness or whatever, and appeals to insight, then that is — I’ll repeat myself now — for me an overreaching behavior, I can’t qualify it otherwise. Thank you.
Yes, thank you so, so much. How is it for Marc and Sabine, would you like to add here or there too? Gladly, Marc.
I’d first like to thank you again for your professional remarks, dear Yasemin, and also your aspect of emotionality, and as I said, through emotionality always asking what’s in it for me, and I’d like to go back a really, really small step. So I wrote down for myself after your remarks, dear Yasemin, I have knowledge, and then slash slash thinking, slash slash learning, in connection with storing and then applying. And I tried, then always an example, you know, I always need an example so I can learn that. Knowledge is, for example, the information — if I want to throw a party today and Yasemin says to me, I say, Yasemin, I’m having a barbecue today. Then Yasemin says, hmm Marc, it’s going to rain today though. Then I think about it, based on the experience I’ve already stored before, and know, because I’ve stored it, if it rains, it gets wet. I already had that knowledge. I had already learned that before. And now it comes down to whether I apply it and whether I implement the knowledge and say, okay, with the knowledge Yasemin gave me and with thinking about it and the knowledge that you get wet when it rains, that this can’t be good for my barbecue party, can I then decide, does it happen, and if it happens, what alternatives are there, can I cover my balcony, or do I do the party inside. And that’s just so exciting, that we always fall back on experiences or on learned things that are deeply rooted within us. Possibly I also make a decision from the gut. But I — this explanation you also gave earlier, the question Sabine had, can you think without learning? Yes, because the knowledge I have, if it’s not useful for me, if there’s nothing in it for me, and if I also think, this knowledge gives me something, then I haven’t learned. Then it’s just knowledge that disappears again within a few seconds. And a second example for that is, if the road is icy. I’m still a total young guy. The road is icy, completely frozen over. And someone comes toward me and says, Marc, in your place I’d take my hands out of my pockets, because if you slip, you could really fall hard on your nose. Then I think, what does he want from me? I’m a totally cool guy, I always walk with my hands in my pockets. If I slip just once and really fall on my face, I’ve probably learned so much in a split second that I never, never in my life want to walk across the street on ice with my hands in my pockets again. That again to your topic, knowledge, thinking, learning, and storing.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much, and especially the examples you picked up are really exciting with regard to the question too. That means, basically we’ve stored certain things that we possibly stored in the course of a learning process, but if we then retrieve them in concrete situations, as stored knowledge, for example to solve problems, that means we’re thinking again, but not necessarily that we’re learning again, but it can also simply be a retrieval of the stored knowledge, without a learning process necessarily having to take place again. And we can gladly check that together again, because the examples you just brought in would now just be good examples to support this thesis. And we can gladly check that together again. Sabine, I saw you also wanted to add something. And then we can gladly make cross-connections again too.
Yes, I’m thinking a lot right now and also trying to learn something. And specifically it’s a bit — I understood Marc’s examples. Those were also understandable for me. But what happens now, if I approach Jürgen’s change processes and have a group there, then I can… I’ll learn, all of them only, if they’re on the same track. Because they then have to think about their knowledge… so, they have to think, they have to gather an insight from that. Or insight, or whatever. And then they’ve learned that this change process is the right one, and go along with it. Is that the reason why change processes often fail, that the thinking doesn’t get converted into learning? Would anyone like to address that? Marc, gladly.
I also have to — that’s a really exciting question you had, dear Sabine. I’m thinking of China again, to what extent must, and I do want to provoke this too, maybe direct the question to Jürgen — do my employees even have to learn at all if I’m the boss, or a dictator, you don’t need to learn there, then you do what I command, otherwise you’re gone, then they learn automatically. They don’t need to have this insight. Based on violence, based on power — we already had this topic before, thinking and learning, dear Yasemin, thank you — through the exertion of power, of course, that’s not my way, that also doesn’t correspond to my values, I just want to say it. There are simply states and governments that function through the exercise of power. Nobody needs to learn there. You do what I say, and that’s the end of it. Whether you learn or understand is completely irrelevant to me. You’ll learn later, once I’ve locked you up. And we now live, thank god, in Germany. There everyone has to understand it. There everyone has to become insightful. And the question is always, to get to the action with the learning, whether this insight belongs to the learning. Because many people do, and maybe also something, based on this exercise of power, this violence. Not because they’re insightful, but simply because the other person is stronger.
Well, the important aspect is basically whether insight is part of it or not. So insight can well be part of it, but it mustn’t just be directed at insight, so to speak, but specifically the amygdala, as the center of the emotional evaluation system, has to give its okay. And when — and that means, expressed relatively simply, that the questions we ask ourselves there, what do I get out of it and so on, could be answered very simply with, basically everything has to be nicer, better, and bigger, in quotation marks. And that’s, for example, also what marketing uses, so to speak, that usually, when advertising or such is made, or just look at, for example, food or such, what effort gets put in, so to speak, to address this emotional area — the burgers aren’t shown as they look originally, so to speak, but they get prettied up with all sorts of means and other things, to really activate this emotional center accordingly here too. That means, we eat the burger even though we might know that it’s actually “unhealthy.” That means, understanding or insight alone isn’t effective here at this point, but this emotional area plays a really big role in this context. Otherwise we could also — you know this with New Year’s resolutions, often it’s New Year’s resolutions where people say, starting next year that’ll be different, plan all sorts of things. But the behavior change then fails along the way. Maybe there’s a sprint the first few weeks and after that it either gets forgotten again, or you don’t keep it up, whatever the background reasons then are. And that’s why there are so many methods, for example, where you try, for example, to make the attractiveness clear again, to look at it. Or also all these questions from various contexts, further-education contexts. You have to know your why, so you can, so to speak, take the hurdles, so that especially in difficult times, you also have this feeling of knowing what you’re actually doing it for. And so not just the knowledge per se, but the emotions behind it are also switched on, the motive is also there. Marc, Jürgen, Sabine, can you do something with that? First Marc, then Jürgen gladly.
Yasemin, I hug you as so often. “What’s in it for me?” I had forgotten that. What do I get out of it? With food… that always comes back to that. With food, what I get out of it, sugar is a reward system after all. If I know that a burger is unhealthy, but also know how delicious it tastes, then I decide emotionally that this reward, this sugar, is better for me than the health of my body. That’s an unconscious, fast decision. And if I also know that running is totally healthy for me, because I’m doing something for my body, but if I also know that sitting and lying on the sofa is also relaxation and does me good, because I have memories there, then running isn’t so important to me in that moment. Then I’ve decided for myself that resting is worth more to me than health. And becoming clear about that, that’s always the central point to discuss. This “what’s in it for me,” this point, what’s really important to me, what do I really want? We can only ever ask ourselves this question, only we can, and in that case my health — that’s then the hard and sad answer — is less important to me than the reward system, both with the burger. Sugar is delicious after all, a whole industry lives off that, and also with running, everyone knows movement is important, but if I decide for the chair, or for the sofa, so decide to lie on the sofa, then resting is more important to me. Well knowing that I’ve read exactly that too, that movement is actually good for my body.
Yes, and we can also dock back into the brain here again. We’d also already talked about the fact that we already have a lot of energy consumption alone in the resting state, so to speak, so about 20 percent, and the brain, so to speak, also doesn’t want to spend that much energy. And staying on the couch is, for example, then in the sense of energy saving, so not wanting to spend more energy, also a factor that plays a role here, why the couch appears much more attractive at first, and other levers are needed that contribute to getting into this overcoming, possibly, to then still do a round of sport, get movement, or whatever.
Jürgen.
Yes, sorry if I now turn the wheel back a bit, but after Marc asked me a provocative question, I don’t want to leave it standing in the room, and want to answer it. And specifically, in connection, if I understood correctly, he said, if I have a boss who exercises his position of power, do I then even need employees who learn at all. And there I say, especially for me it’s prototypical, this position of power and exercise of power, for learning. Because the employee basically has, on the meta level, two different behavior options, namely they stay in the company or they leave it, and no matter what they do, whichever solution they choose, that’s for me a typical learning process that determines the behavior based on an initial, an information, or also a stimulus that was brought to them, which then, via a learning process, determines, I decide
to stay or I decide to leave. I stay because it’s survival-necessary for me, or on the other hand for other reasons. I definitely wanted to have answered that from my view, from my perspective. Thank you.
Yes gladly, Marc.
Yes, we see what we want to see, dear Jürgen. You’re 100 percent right, just like me too. I’m not speaking, and that was, if you see how information gets lost. In democracy, I speak once, I compared democracy in Germany to how companies function, and the second example was politics and China, and of course you can decide not to be of my opinion. You can also decide to leave, only then you’ll get expelled from my party and end up in prison, and then your brain also asks itself again, what’s in it for me? Do I want to be banished, or do I want to keep living like this? You have the free choice, and I decide for you as head of state where you’ll end up. You always have the free decision. If you want to spend the rest of your life in a gulag and in prison, have fun. And as an entrepreneur in Germany, here it’s thank god different, and that’s why I’m grateful, really grateful, to be allowed to live in this country. I just wanted to say, these comparisons we draw on are always universally valid for a person’s behavior, how people get steered, how people behave, and always coming back to the question, what’s in it for me? What’s in it for me? In Germany I go, then the boss should see who does the work. Completely clear. But there are sometimes situations where someone else decides too, or I decide that I also go in a certain direction, but that then also has consequences to bear, and we always come back to, what’s in it for me, what’s better for me.
Yes, and above all I think the example isn’t so far-fetched at all. It sounds so drastic, in quotation marks, when we then talk about China or such. But basically we also have similar conditions, partly also in Germany in companies. So of course differently strongly pronounced, but ultimately we also have here again and again the situation that certain things get dictated from above. We have different leaders who deal with power differently, live out their role as a leader differently, and accordingly always have guardrails too, within which we move, so to speak. And it’s quite often the case that even though, for example, there’s also great dissatisfaction — there I’d see the essential difference — in China it’s maybe such that, though I theoretically also have the option to stay or go, but would it really be so much better for me in another company? That remains to be seen, because there I possibly don’t have quite as much choice regarding that, while in Germany we might actually be able to find companies where the guardrails are set differently, set differently. And I’m very careful in the formulations chosen, because I find that even in Germany, even though it appears so liberal in many places, precisely in these very hierarchical structures in many companies, still, even though they partly make a great effort, there really are challenges present. And that doesn’t even have anything to do with them not striving to change that, but that they really hit challenges here, so to speak, and that doesn’t always function so well in implementation. But here the employee then does have, let’s say, the option to change companies then too, and actually find, in quotation marks, something more fitting, better for them elsewhere, whatever that may be. But there are very many people who also remain in dissatisfaction here again, in quotation marks, and don’t take their feet in hand to actually switch. Here there are certainly also differences again, if we look, generation-specific, how are we socialized and so on. That’s changing right now with the younger up-and-coming generation, so to speak. There the behavior that comes to light is already quite different now. But overall we can hold onto this, first of all here, that also a certain dissatisfaction, so to speak, doesn’t necessarily — and there we’re back at energy-saving and so on and so forth, comfort zone, that’s such a known term used in this context — that it doesn’t necessarily lead to me actually going into changes, because of course aspects like security, the need for security etc. also take effect at this point. And there you see again how complex these topics ultimately are. That means, it’s not individual influencing factors, but quite different factors come together, which ultimately, viewed in sum, lead for the individual to whether, on one hand, learning takes place, whether changes get initiated, and so on and so forth. And now I’d like to ask again, dear Sabine, has your question from earlier been sufficiently answered, or would you like to add here again too?
Yasemin, you just spoke straight from my soul with your summary. Yes, I do try to go the path with you, and that’s already a bit illuminating for me too. I just ask myself, how does it look now in reality, and there’s what you just said — if I look at such a startup today, the paths often separate after a while, because according to your process now, to say, people think, people learn, and they see that doesn’t fit together, so our paths separate. But if I now think back to my corporate world, that partly doesn’t work at all there, because they could of course say, I think and I learn and this isn’t for me and I’m leaving. Only then I go from A to B, and B is basically not much different from A. So I sometimes try to switch off learning for myself and actually only think within the given process, which of course is probably the topic you just presented, that on the 15th the money’s in the account, gives me my security, but maybe not necessarily the contentment. Is that right?
Basically yes. And what becomes clear is that these decisions ultimately get made against the background of various considerations. And ultimately, especially what you also said, so especially for example corporate world, yes, then I possibly have different structures elsewhere in a company. But ultimately those are again hierarchical structures too. That means, it can well be that there are differing cultures. But ultimately that doesn’t necessarily mean that I then necessarily enjoy all freedoms in the corporate world. And if I’ve already changed jobs multiple times and realized for myself that it’s still similar, just turned left or right on the little screws, then of course the question also arises, and then we’re now in the consideration, so to speak, I’ve basically gone through a learning process that contributed to insights, to then also answer the question, how do I deal with that now? And then we’re also back again at the aspect of adaptability, that means, what do I do now, so to speak, so that I’m still doing well in this situation, and that I don’t constantly switch from one company to the next in search of something I possibly won’t find in that form anyway. So there are various considerations that ultimately take place, and again against the background of the experience I’ve gathered and the learning processes that preceded it. And the more different the learning processes that were gone through, the more different the behavior can also turn out, for example. So that means, the learning processes that get gone through, they dock, so the insights from that, they dock again and again at various points too. And depending on which prior experiences I’ve made and how this overall construct of my neural network is knitted together, how I’m socialized, which culture I come from, which family I grew up in, accordingly, so to speak, the behavior is then ultimately also aligned. And behavior can mean action, but behavior can also mean “I stay.” And that’s something that’s then relatively difficult to judge from outside. That means, if we, for example, want to initiate changes, we can — and there we’re now at the lever “input” — we can then put something in. But we don’t know now how the neural network is that’s stored and filed in the background, and where that will now exactly dock, whether it arrives or doesn’t arrive, or what happens with it then, and see it again in the behavior quantity, so to speak, as a result, whether something happened or not, whether we have the feeling something happened or not. And then we can check again and can say, okay, we’re allowed to change the input quantity again, in the hope that we then achieve a different result in the output quantity, and thereby pick up various parameters from brain research, so to speak, where we know these are possible approaches that go, in quotation marks, in the desired or right direction. But we can’t plan to the end that if I put in A, B will definitely come out, and that’s the goal. But we have — and there people also often speak of a black box — we have a black box we can’t look into, and accordingly the result also isn’t always plannable. But we still have various aspects from brain research we can pick up. And that’s, for example, this aspect of emotionality in this context. That means, if I manage to move someone emotionally — and that usually happens by me presenting certain things, for example, as nicer, better, and bigger — then the probability also increases that my counterpart docks and comes along at this point too, so to speak. Marc, Jürgen, Sabine, would you like to add there again? Sabine and then Marc gladly.
Yes, what results from that for me is, isn’t it easier for some people, in the sense of contentment and security, to switch off thinking and learning at certain points and just live their life, which especially docks now with jobs in the corporate world, but maybe also often docks with today’s politics. That I just go my way, and say, not necessarily consciously, probably, after what we’ve now discussed, also often unconsciously, so to speak, taking the path of least resistance. And that’s then not coupled with thinking and learning. A bit provocative, but maybe I’ll still get an answer.
Yes, well, that’s indeed conceivable too as a result, so to speak, of prior learning processes that took place. And if I, for example, have the feeling it doesn’t help anyway, or if I’ve learned that, so to speak, in the past. Or that maybe, even, if I break out or somehow change something, that it might come with pain. And yes, so it can also be, for example, a pain avoidance, not changing the job, not going to a new employer. And I’d also like to emphasize again here, that we’re also relatively quickly in the evaluations there too. There are indeed people who are simply content with what they have, and that’s just as legitimate as with the other person who possibly strives for more and therefore decides, maybe if they don’t get a promotion or similar, to change companies. And another person decides that maybe work isn’t the point of life at all, but simply to earn money and have a nice life elsewhere, so to speak, so for example doing nice things privately, and that’s indeed just as legitimate too, because often in these discussions this evaluation is present, as if one thing is good and the other somehow bad. Interesting from a company perspective, though, if we now look at this aspect of change again, so to speak. What can I do, or how can I look, to involve and bring along as many employees as possible in this necessary change process at many points, so that, so to speak, no resistance arises here, for example, or the challenging situation is when not even resistance arises, because for example the credibility gets doubted, because the employees, for example, have already been in a company so long that they know it gets turned once left and once right every few years, so that they, so to speak, when new information comes and a direction gets dictated, don’t even bother anymore, because they say, it’ll pass again anyway, in a few years it’ll be the other way around again. And that of course, viewed from another perspective, presents companies with a challenge. But for the affected person, for the individual, that doesn’t necessarily have to be worse for them. Marc, you also wanted to add something.
Oh, great. What a wonderful room. Dear Sabine, answer to you. Again, I come back. “What’s in it for me” — Yasemin just explained that. The brain needs a lot of energy if it wants to go a different path. If I’m the type who wants it more comfortable and quieter, “what’s in it for me,” then I do that, then I just go with the crowd. And a room we’ve also had before, pioneering spirit, there are also people who decide, I’ll do it again, and I just spontaneously thought of Edison, who also tried a thousand times to invent the light bulb, and 999 times — the percentage might not be right, it’s just about the story — 999 times it didn’t work. Then still, my last point, falling back on learned things, out of the box. I’d like to thank you, Yasemin, for a word that’s anchored itself unchangeably for the rest of my life in my head this year, burned itself in. You used the word guardrails, which I find great. In connection, it immediately clicks for me to guardrail, bracket open, thinking out of the box, bracket open change. And now one last point, I found this incredibly exciting. I heard yesterday a report about a woman who was head of a plant manager in East Germany, in an automobile plant. I think she’s the only plant manager in an automobile plant, and there was a study — I’d never thought about that before — why we have so few East Germans in leadership positions. That was actually irrelevant to me. I never considered where leadership comes from, where leadership comes from in our leadership levels in Germany. That comes from what Yasemin explained to me with the guardrails, learned, so the Western, what we’ve learned, what Western leaders learned by being abroad and so on and so on, they didn’t do that back then. They didn’t have the opportunity to go abroad, and if a board, and if the board or whoever decides new leadership positions in companies in Germany, then they fall back on learned things, and if Marc was in New York and America and had good experiences, then Marc’s successor probably also won’t have been in New York or in Barcelona, and by falling back on learned things, the positions get filled again with people who learned the same as me, because what Marc learned was good, that’s led to a good result to this day. And that’s the reason why, that was the explanation for it, after a study, why leaders, so really, really minimal, so not even in double digits in German companies, consist of West Germans and not East Germans. And then we’re back at guardrails and out-of-the-box thinkers. Thanks for listening and a really great day to you all.
Yes, thank you so, so much. Jürgen, if you’d like, you can add again too, or if you’d not like to bring in another contribution, then gladly the closing word, so to speak, for today. And then I don’t know, Marc, you’ve already said goodbye now, whether you’d like to say a closing word too, and then gladly Sabine, Jürgen too.
Yes, I’ll get right to the closing word, and thank you as always for your contributions, for the manifold initials you set for this topic, which is certainly really difficult to channel by dimension. And yes, I wish you a nice day and look forward to the continuation of this topic. Thank you.
Yes wonderful, thank you, Marc. Thanks again, my closing word is thanks again for the word guardrail. I also hope I find the courage for myself, it’s not always so easy to be able to leave my own guardrails. Thank you, Sabine.
Yes, I also found it very interesting. Now I also know that I can just think and don’t necessarily have to learn. But I’ve also understood that it’s good if I also convert the thinking into learning, which of course has to have a certain importance for me. Also the topic of leaving the comfort zone isn’t a new topic, but you can’t hear it often enough. I wish you a nice day. Take care.
Yes wonderful, dear ones. Thank you so, so much. And in the chat I just saw again that Ismail also picked up the sentence again from Jürgen, “learning is the food for the memory,” which thinking accesses. So maybe bring that in here again too. I found it totally exciting. It’s of course a topic that has an enormous complexity, not so easy to channel, as Jürgen already said. So I found the contributions that came together now really, really exciting too, with various impulses, with various answers and thoughts we brought in. We can leave that standing for now. Tomorrow we continue with thinking blocks. What are thinking blocks, their effects, and what helps, is the question we want to engage with tomorrow. So I’m looking forward to simply continuing together with you, and seeing what intermediate insights we can derive for ourselves tomorrow. In this sense, I wish you well, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Thank you so much, dear ones. Bye.
