As for the key issue of digital transformation , he says : “ This is a question of both challenge and opportunity . If I think back to 2017 , some of our board members returned from the World Economic Forum energised and excited that all the technical systems we needed for our digital transformation already existed . Great , but that was never really the limiting factor .

“ The thing people always want to know is what the Siemens master plan is . And that was the big challenge . At that time , I thought maybe it was impossible to define what our plan was .”

But then , he says , a trainee approached him and suggested they take a different tack – that instead of having a top-down

approach that might take years to implement , the company could make turn the process around , making it bottom-up . “ And that ’ s exactly what we did ,” says Staubitzer .

Over time Staubitzer has evolved his own approach to working smarter .

“ A lot of people work like hell everyday , but what ’ s their impact ? If you always think about the impact you have on an organisation , you ’ re much more valuable .

“ And of course , nobody ’ s perfect , because we ’ re all human , and we all say we can take on all of these tasks , when in reality that ’ s absolutely not true .

“ Again , for me it ’ s about this bottom-up approach building on one another ’ s perceptions and creating added value . And if people are self-motivated , selforganised , then they are motivated to work towards the next level .”

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