The penguin
Before you think, “Die haben einen Vogel! (They are crazy!)”, please let us introduce Charly, our soft spot for penguins and our enthusiasm for Mr. Hirschhausen’s “Penguin Principle”.
How it all began
Several years ago (we can’t remember exactly on which occasion), Dr. Hirschhausen‘s “Penguin Principle” crossed our path – or rather, our screen. In around three and a half minutes, he describes so much of what is important to us in a very entertaining way that we have passed on this message in many training sessions. If you haven’t seen the video yet, we recommend that you do so now (the video is in German with English subtitles).
The one with the penguins
In 2014, we had the pleasure of presenting a Pecha Kucha at the OOP conference in Munich. Don’t you know it, either? A Pecha Kucha is a form of presentation in which 20 PPT slides are shown for precisely 20 seconds each. So you have exactly 6 minutes and 40 seconds to get to the heart of a message. Very exciting – and not at all easy to prepare. Veronika wrote a 20-verse poem about solution-focused work for this event: “Hokuspokus Lösungsfokus”. Ralph created the slides and found – you guessed it – many Penguin pictures to illustrate our point! Since then, we have been “the ones with the penguins”. You can also watch the video for “Hokuspokus Lösungsfokus” right here (in German).
Close-up experience
In the meantime, we have learned a lot about these animals and have already had some close-up experiences: Ralph was pinched in the calf by a penguin himself at a zoo in the south of England, and Veronika was s*** on the shoe by a second penguin shortly afterwards. Well, let’s not go there.
Charly
Our friends stock us up with penguin figures of all sizes and materials. And we love it.
By the way, our most adored penguin is Charly. Veronika gave him to Ralph for his birthday, and since then, he has accompanied us to many conferences and training sessions. He is “the third man”* at sinnvollFÜHREN if you like. And we think he’s photogenic too.
* “The Third Man” is a famous movie filmed in Vienna after the Second World War—it is well worth watching.
Since May 2018, we have sponsored the rockhopper penguins at Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna.
