• 05/08/2020

"Isolation creates inspiration"

LIQUI MOLY Managing Director Ernst Prost about taking good decisions.

Dear fellow thinkers and co-creators,

If you want to think through something very important really thoroughly, you do this in a retreat. A retreat sounds like a monastery or hermitage. It fits... closed and isolated, it is easier to think clearly rather than surrounded by and hustle and bustle of this world. Distance helps in contemplating and isolation brings inspiration... Quarantine also sounds a bit like retreat or like contemplation - mindfulness, reflection and contemplation can never hurt, certainly not now.

"I don't know where my head is at". - Also not a desirable state, especially if you have to make clear and courageous decisions. It can help to go up the hill and take the commanders vantage point from time to time to analyze precisely where you stand, how the battle is going and how you can win it. "There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers". This sentence is from Napoleon. To lead is to take point. "Wirtschafts Woche" ran a story about me called "The Honor of the front grunt". I really like it, without honor you are not a good leader and without selflessness on the front line you are not a good comrade. Especially in times of crisis, friendship and comradeship, care and collegiality are just as important as planning, strategy and tactics. What good is the best plan down from the hill if the team doesn't go along with it? Let me tell you something: I am so impressed by the way we as a team show what we can do and what we have in store in this crisis. I am incredibly grateful for this experience. It is simply wonderful and yet it's just a game. A game like Monopoly - only with real money. And it is precisely because we approach it relaxed, easy and with a lot of fun that we will win this game. You can't win a game if you are dogged, stubborn, fearful and shaky, and certainly not if - like now - it's all or nothing... Better to get a grip than to panic! I firmly believe that even the biggest problems are best solved with playful ease - together and with humor. So inspiration is necessary, but transpiration must also be :-).... in the ratio of one to ten probably lies the secret of success. Clever & hardworking...

The combination does it - creativity & hard work. That's why WE are successful - and always in a good mood. :-):-)

Yours

Ernst Prost