Pretty much all my life, I have been intrigued by the combination of hard work and tremendous fun, that leads to high performance and satisfaction – could be in sports, in the arts, at work. More than a decade ago I came up with “ludens faber”, based on the Latin: homo ludens – the playful, creative, artistic human being; homo faber – the hard-working, disciplined, output-oriented one. It’s this combined perspective I often choose to look at the world around me – and that fuels my energy.

Over the last 2-3 years I’ve been approached several times to write or co-author a book about my work, about what has worked and to pass it on to a larger audience of peers, change agents, managers, students. I was intrigued, loved the thought (and the feedback, of course), but writing a book, isn’t the right thing for this. I want to take it step-by-step, see what direction it takes. Also, it’s easier to fit in next to other things I do. So, here’s my go at it with a blog.

I am an engineer with a business degree. I’ve lead and sponsored multi-million dollar projects, lead cultural transformation programs, and learned to draw and visualize at a late age – because it is much more effective in the management board, when you draw a nice pig with its young ones to raise attention for continuous improvement. I find inspiration in agile principles and lean thinking, I prefer implementing 3 things versus planning 100’s, I love to work with a northern star, I love discipline and the arts, I love raising children, I love leaving my tracks, achieve something new, great results. I love to give a new method a try. If it works, I want it to spread; create pull for it. What drives me is when I get you rosy cheeks and a sparkle in your eyes!

For a bit more than the last decade I have worked at Swisscom in different positions. So, most experience comes from trial and hands-on implementation at just this one company – and from my private projects. Of course, I am looking across the fence to exchange with peers, experts, students and universities. When it comes to Lean Leadership, Design Thinking, Human Centered Design, Product Marketing and Continuous Improvement, I’ve taught and trained hundreds of colleagues and together we’ve been able to culturally transform large parts of an organization, implement thousands of ideas. We’ve saved millions and gained extra time and space to use our time wiser.

This is my personal blog, but you’ll be reading a lot from my experiences at work. That’s ok with Swisscom. It’s like going to a conference to share what we’ve done, in order to trigger conversations and exchange. So, please share your thoughts when you read my posts. I’d love to hear from your perspective: experiences or questions!

I’ll try to stick to a loose, but bigger plan to connect my posts. Instead of writing that book. Sort of working up the last years as basis, without just shooting forward into one single topic. I keep a backlog for that. So, you see what I have in mind, and you can add suggestions. Also, I will rather write and post, and improve later – than work on over-perfection before I post. Also, I like reading business books, but do not intend to quote every single one in my posts, nor give an abstract. Others do that better.

Now, let me get started with that backlog! Looking forward to sharing with you.

Lars Diener-Kimmich
– January 2014, Switzerland.

– update – update – update – update – update – update

I first intended to re-write all of the above. But decided to add this part instead. After all you can’t re-write the past, really.

In January 2015 I founded my own company – and now I took the opportunity to write a post about it. Again, I am interested in sharing my experiences so far, as it might be interesting for some of you. Swing by Scandinavia. LUDENSFABER GmbH. to find out more.

Or come visit my business website: www.ludensfaber.com

But as I plan to write regularly, again, on my blog – as my personal reflection playground, please come back to visit. You can even sign up (at the bottom of every page.) Just type in your email, and we’re on the roll together!

Lars Diener-Kimmich
– March 2015, Switzerland.