F.A.C.E. the Challenge!

For companies today, it's a matter of managing multiple change processes in parallel: A reorientation of the value chain, production adaptation, updated brand platforms, organizational development, and all this in the face of global competition, digitalization fears, and a glaring shortage of skilled workers. And then there's the current Corona pandemic ...

Anyone who wants to be and remain successful therefore needs an entrepreneurial willpower of steel. This is the only way to define what the company really wants to achieve, how it wants to position itself, with whom and how it intends to grow. The key question remains: How can decisions made be transformed into actions and a new structure and culture be sustainably anchored in the everyday lives of managers and employees?

Willpower as a core competence

In my experience, willpower is the true key skill for successfully turning goals into reality. I see life as a long chain of challenges - both private and professional. Too often we pursue goals from other people or goals that no longer suit us. And even when we have identified the right goal for us, we almost always struggle to put it into practice. We want to give up when we are confronted with big obstacles, we fear defeat when our plans don't work out. But: Only if we find the will to continue even in difficult times, we will be on the side of the winners in the end. Only if we keep getting up again and again - even though we've already been counted out - will we achieve lasting success.

F.A.C.E. the Challenge

Over the course of my career as a professional athlete, I've developed a personal philosophy that has helped me strengthen my own willpower and motivate me to perform at my best time and time again. When I fought my last fight against Anthony Joshua in London in 2017, I already had Klitschko Ventures founded and firmly planned to make this personal philosophy accessible to others.

Together with Tatjana Kiel, who heads Klitschko Ventures as CEO, and our team, I have developed a method we call "F.A.C.E. the Challenge". It is a bridge for overcoming challenges in the entrepreneurial as well as in the personal environment and is based on the four core skills "Focus", "Agility", "Coordination" and "Endurance".

Focus - the ability to concentrate - always begins with a simple question: "What do I want?" Based on this self-reflection, agility follows: "How do I do it?", especially when well-trodden paths suddenly lie buried and detours are necessary. Then comes coordination: "With whom am I going on the journey - and with what?" ... and finally comes the supreme discipline: stamina.

The book to the article

How do we manage to implement plans on a daily basis? How can we learn to stick to it? What and who do we need to do this? All these questions led the champion Dr. Wladimir Klitschko, together with Tatjana Kiel, to develop a method with which they support people in overcoming their challenges in everyday life. For more than five years they have been working successfully with F.A.C.E. the Challenge with individuals, in teams and in organizations. Now they have written a book about their method.

m&k: Ms. Kiel, if you had to summarize in a nutshell what Klitschko Ventures does - what would you say?

Tatjana Kiel: We do quite a lot - that's why it's hard to put it very succinctly. (laughs) But I can try: Klitschko Ventures supports companies, teams and individuals in strategic planning and operational implementation of transformation by providing consulting and training services. Together with our partners, we define fields of intervention and smoothly transfer our programs and activations into their everyday work.

That means you scale the F.A.C.E. method according to the customers' needs?

Absolutely. You know: Not always when someone contacts us, it is about overall corporate transformation projects on all management levels. Our method can therefore be applied as one-to-one coaching or in a team camp, among other things.

But now in the Corona era it has certainly become more difficult to hold such events - although the demand must have increased significantly?

Corona is both a catastrophe and a catalyst: A digital program is currently being implemented with excellent mentors who manage to bring all participants remotely into the energy of implementation - through coaching as well as sports sessions and networking evenings. Getting into the feel, experiencing F.A.C.E., that is also possible digitally.

The principle of duality plays a central role: the will is strengthened both mentally and physically with our method. Because I am convinced that body and mind are inseparably interrelated. Just as a boxer must concentrate before the fight in order to be able to call up all his skills in the ring, the same applies in all other areas of life: only with an ideal inner climate can a permanent and above all proactive change in consciousness and behavior be achieved.

Challenge management instead of change management

Why is the emphasis on a "proactive" attitude so important? It's because the will to change things leads us to action - not merely reaction. Change management, so often cited as outdated, thus becomes modern challenge management. Today, change processes are multidimensional and permanent. Corona only gives us a glimpse of the challenges the future holds in store,

I am convinced that a large number of people increasingly think in terms of problems. Especially at the moment, when life is dominated by uncertainty. But with a passive, fearful way of thinking, these people block their own actions. As a champion, I have learned that seeing problems, or even fearing them, is useless. Accepting challenges in a sporting way: That makes the important difference.

In a world that is spinning faster and faster and becoming more and more complex and diverse, it is no longer enough to simply adapt to different circumstances. Digitization and globalization are advancing inexorably and bring new challenges every day. Making conscious decisions and actively shaping life instead of letting circumstances push you into a decision is the decisive path to sustainable success.

Aligning organization and employees

In our work with DAX companies such as Telekom and SAP, we notice one thing again and again: In every form of challenge management, it is essential that the individual challenges, but also the wishes and needs of the employees, are aligned with the challenges of the organization.

Just as I have previously emphasized the harmonization of body and mind, we are also looking at two sides of the same coin: one cannot be had without the other, but out of alignment and the exploration of synergies often come unexpected, creative solutions and opportunities for New Business.