“When I received the invitation to write down my ARGO story, I had to laugh because a few funny and quirky moments immediately came to mind: the change project at Austrian Technik where I ended up in the pool, the first Abel WS with participants in a celebratory mood, the Forstinger groups, and also a participant from a Prinzhorn group who gave me a self-painted picture on the last day (it’s still hanging in my home office) — but you only wanted ONE story!

As part of a change project for the company Möller, now part of the energy management company Eaton, I spent one week at a time in Shanghai during my early years as a trainer, working with Möller’s Chinese partners to reflect on and develop ideas for a new quality of collaboration… cultural reflection in English, without backup — exciting work!

After two workshops, the Asian participants had built up enough trust in me to tell me about a rather significant translation error: “Cultural Change” had been translated into Mandarin as “Cultural Revolution.”

Suddenly, I understood why the participants had initially been so hesitant to engage with the project! To avoid further misunderstandings, I conducted the following workshops together with a Chinese trainer acting as an interpreter — and learned a great deal about the connection between language, history, and cultural sensitivity.

Trust continued to grow, the project turned out to be highly successful, and “We keep power under control” became part of Möller’s brand identity.”

On board ARGO, the rule is: Courage earns respect. Mistakes happen — what matters is how you deal with them!