116. How To Enrich The World With Collective And Artificial Intelligence with Michael Hengl

Our guest on the podcast today is Michael Hengl the founding president of 1492. He started his career as an international ski racer and became an entrepreneur at 19. As a senior director, he drove a global transformation initiative based on collective intelligence methods that achieved 100% annual performance improvement and an impressive €3 billion in added value. His contribution to Daimler Leadership 2020 was recognized as exemplary by Harvard Business Manager and received the German HR Excellence Award 2018 for outstanding change management achievements.

In today’s conversation, Michael shared his profound understanding of the importance of mental readiness and coordination. Drawing from his experiences in skiing and entrepreneurship, he emphasized how mental readiness, skill, and muscle coordination are crucial for achieving greatness in any endeavor. Beyond his personal experiences, Michael delved into his extensive research on coordination in large corporations and society. He shed light on the correlation between coordination problems, such as the wealth gap and societal issues, and the solutions that can be found through collective intelligence.

A key takeaway is the importance of collective identification in communication and engagement. Michael highlighted research that showed how engagement levels in large corporations are alarmingly low, indicating a lack of collective identification. He emphasized the role of leadership in establishing emotional engagement, which is essential for effective communication. He also touched upon the role of AI and machine learning in achieving collective intelligence. We discussed the potential disruption of the consulting industry and the impact of AI-driven decision-making processes and predicted a future where organizations operate on a peer-to-peer basis, with everyone contributing to decision-making processes and value creators being rewarded. So interesting!

Key Takeaways

• Uncovering the essence of collective intelligence and its relationship with coordination performance
• Addressing coordination problems in closing the gap between rich and poor and tackling societal issues
• Leadership's role in establishing collective identification and emotional engagement
• Immune system of organizations and its impact on communication and problem-solving
• How AI-enabled learning helps us to learn from mistakes and improve our leadership

Memorable Quote

“Groups are very smart in handling uncertainty, otherwise we would not have survived the last 12000 years. We are extremely good at being anti-fragile, not just robust or sustainable, we become much better. The more challenges we have the more we pay attention and figure out new ideas.”—Michael Hengl

Episode Resources:

• Michael's Website
• Michael’s Linkedin
• Michael’s TEDx talk
• SacredChangemakers.com
• Our Sacred Community
• Jayne’s Website (for coaching + soul business academy)
• Jayne Warrilow on Linkedin

Thank you to our...