Congratulations on the publication of your book! Is that the first book you wrote? 

Yes, this is the first. But there may be more!

In short, what is the book ‘’The Visible Mission’’ about? 

The Visible Mission guides the reader through a simple process to create a visible mission for the organization. It brings all the critical parts needed to succeed together in one place. Imagine having a Mission Control center, with four walls, where you have the vision (where are we going, and how far are we?), the business blueprint and competitive landscape (think MRI of your business, and Radar of your environment), the “create customer” (who are they, and do we create awesome solutions to their problems), and finally “build team” (what team, tools, and processes do I need to succeed with my customers).

It is meant to be an immersive and immediate environment where the organization can know, analyze, plan, track execution, and adjust when reality shows itself different than the assumptions.

Who is your target audience and why should they read your book? 

The target audience is small and medium enterprise CEOs and executives. This approach shows that strategic management is neither rocket science (it is simple and you likely doing a lot of it already), neither is it voodoo (it is not some pie-in-the-sky theoretical construct – there are real benefits in knowing what is going on in and around your organization).

The chances of a business surviving past 10 years are about 30%. It is very challenging, even though many of the ultimate causes of failure are preventable. For example, nor realizing that there was no market, ignoring our clients, etc.

The Visible Mission gives you as business leader, a framework, guides, and tools to improve your chances significantly. SME leaders typically have other training and skills than strategic management – I believe that, given the right tools and guidance, this is something that can be done effectively, and it is a lot of fun!

In addition, the visibility, the tangibility of this approach gives the leaders a great opportunity to communicate the vision, and the purpose of what the team are doing. Team members know why they show up every day, and they can be inspired, and inspire others.

How was the collaboration with Digital Innovation AG and did you collaborate with other experts?

As I mentioned before, I am very fortunate to have worked with several very capable people, at Northwestern Mutual, at Harley Davidson, with some academics, and then of course corporate and business leaders. In addition, The Visible Mission brings together world-class tools developed in Europe and North America. This is an example of standing on the shoulders of several giants.

With regards to Digital Innovation AG, by the time our paths crossed, the book was written already. However, when I shared the work with Christian Blümlein, CEO at Digital Innovation AG, and with Niek de Visscher, CEO at DI Blue, they both indicated that this is how they are working with their clients.

I guess one could look at the book as a formalizing of the structures and processes to what was happening, and it therefore became a very natural and comfortable fit! It also then allows us, in the larger Digital Innovation family to refine and improve the approach, always learning new, never accepting that “now we know”.

The Visible Mission also fits in very nicely in the larger portfolio of offerings at DI, especially with the Digital Transformation team.

In some ways, the most important collaboration is that we are using the framework and process as it is described in the book. We are not only saying this is a great tool for others to use, we use it because we get significant value from practicing what we preach.

In your book you are providing tools and frameworks for strategic planning and decision making, what separates what you are providing from what is already available on the market? 

As mentioned before, The Visible Mission brings together world-class tools, all in one related structure. This is the one thing that makes it different – it ultimately is a tool to synthesize the critical elements to succeed. The visibility and the immediacy of the information (we use visualized models as much as possible) allows the participants to synthesize but also the identify inconsistencies in your environment.

For example, if your vision says something, then your products and value propositions should support that. If not, you immediately start seeing this.

Of course, this is initially uncomfortable, but the great news is that once you start addressing this, you are setting yourself and your organization up to truly start working together as a team.

The other difference in with The Visible Mission is that it does not allow you to create a plan, which goes into a slide deck, which eventually goes to slide-deck heaven somewhere in the cloud. No, The Visible Mission is the tool with which you plan, where your plan is made visible, and where the plan is monitored, and adapted.

The Visible Mission is also fundamentally practical. There is very little theory in the book. We want this to be usable, to be applicable, to be valuable.

What did you learn personally as well as professionally throughout the process of writing and publishing your book? 
This is a great question!
When in our final year of high school, we as students were forced to teach each other physics and chemistry. We learned very quickly that to explain something to someone else, you really need to understand it. There was no faking it!
During the writing (and testing!) of the book, I discovered several blind spots in my original approach. I could not fake it. I had to figure it out. That also meant that I had to go back a few times and very humbly reconsider what I had done.
Finally, I also learned that to write a book is not about inspiration. It is primarily done by showing up every day, sit yourself down, develop a plan, a structure, and then work through that plan. And yet, there were several times where the inspiration really showed up. I think of inspiration as being like the really cool people that only shows up when the party is really going.

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