As an organisational developer and process consultant, empathetic neutrality, adjusting to a team’s pace and the ability to change one’s perspective are part of basic skill set: You keep your own opinion to yourself, you do not pull on the growing blades of grass and you step into the shoes of the other person to experience their problem as a challenge of your own. In theory, this makes a lot of sense, in practice as well and yet, there are moments when you think: if someone does not finally speak up, I am going to start screaming.

Who still remembers Bobby McFerrin’s catchy tune “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, which was played nonstop on the radio, at least during my childhood and teenage years? In the meantime, happiness research has become an integral part of positive psychology, aiming to discover what it takes to live a happy life. Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research is particularly noteworthy in this regard: She interviewed identical twins who were separated at birth and later reunited, in order to determine the genetic influence on feelings of happiness. The resulting findings are fascinating.

First impressions count – as a job applicant at an interview, just as much as when meeting the team for the first time as a new manager. The choice of croissants suddenly becomes the subject of intense consideration, so that any gluten intolerances or team-specific bakery preferences can be considered.

But: The first impression is just the beginning of Tuckman's team phases of forming, storming, norming and the desired performing. Large German companies such as Bosch and Daimler there-fore consciously invest time in the onboarding process for new managers. Transition workshops with the team and transition coaching with their own line managers are designed to ensure a smooth start in the new role, and the time investment pays off.

The start of a new year motivates us to think about what is really important to us and what we still want to achieve. The fact that the number of resignations rises from January onwards is an indication of the big decisions that can be made during the festive season. However, it is usually smaller plans that emerge. Surveys confirm that around 60% of Swiss people make New Year's resolutions on New Year's Eve. However, sticking to them and putting them into practice is often difficult once you're back to your everyday routine.

Moments of gratitude – throughout the year or especially at Thanksgiving in the USA or at the end of the year in Switzerland – are doing good things for us. What self-help books call “practising gratitude” is described as “counting your blessings” by the English. It refers to the attitude of focusing on what is there, on what is going well. This does not mean denying or ignoring the difficulties. But gratitude for the good things creates the energy and confidence to deal with life’s challenges, too. Research about resilience and happiness has investigated the effect of gratitude, with some exciting insights.

While enthusiasm for the job, commitment to the team and the company as well as contentment about success are desired or even demanded, anger, rage, sadness or helplessness remain unwelcome guests in a professional context. However, as Laloux describes in his book Reinventing Organisations, if you want employees who invest themselves in the company with their minds and hearts, the darker side of emotions cannot be cut away or suppressed. Everything is needed, and studies show that companies with a healthy conflict culture are more innovative and therefore more profitable.

Teams and managers come to me with such requests and ask for feedback training: “We want to give each other regular feedback, learn from each other and evolve.” There is often a difference in understanding what feedback is, and when clarifying the request for support, I ask whether feedback is understood as an information on something that I may not yet be aware of (blind spot), or whether it is more about offering criticism with an included desire for behavioural change. Once the understanding of the term has been clarified, the focus of the ‘training’ quickly becomes clearer, and it is usually less about how to give feedback but about building motivation to do so.

If one has never experienced team development and the associated added value of it, it can remain unclear when a team needs such a team-out. However, the experiences associated with team development are not always positive, as my own first experience many years ago shows: the external facilitator had not been informed about the team-internal conflicts, the day’s agenda was as a consequence chosen inappropriately, the tensions exploded an hour before the end of the day, and on the same evening the team leader resigned.

Maybe that is why it is important to me to repeatedly explain what good team development can be, as I hear too often from teams that a day ended in tears, that individuals felt exposed, or that team dynamics were even worse afterwards. Yet, with the right set-up and the appropriate methods, great things can be achieved.

I remember this statement and the exercise that went as if it was yesterday. 2016 in Berlin on a gloomy Friday afternoon during my training as a change process facilitator. We were given the task of choosing a question that was currently on our minds. To then go outside. To completely clear our minds and connect with the world. “Flirt with the world, and the world will flirt with you!” was the invitation. I do not remember the question I chose, nor do I remember my attempts to flirt with the world. But the subsequent debriefing and the comment made by a fellow participant “When an ambulance passes me on the way to a workshop, I know that today I have to be careful” is still with me today.

"It should be possible to use a few questions to find out where a team's strengths lie and where the areas for development are!" A participant in the ETH leadership seminar asked me this in a slightly demanding tone. I thought for a moment and replied: "There are various questionnaires and models for teams and team dynamics, but they each focus on one aspect of a team. As far as I know, there is no collection of questions that looks at a team as a whole. But something like that can be developed.".

A little Heidi Klum feeling: an impressive CV and the skills required for the next step in your career. An assessment center as a stopover to achieve this goal. Me as a coach at my side, helping with the preparation and suddenly feeling a little bit like Heidi Klum sending her models onto the catwalk.

Can you kiss the frog prince? This question stuck with me and I still differentiate between HR and organizational development based on this logic today. While HR development is about helping employees realize their potential and turning them into princesses, organizational development is about a system that cannot be kissed.

This feedback pleased me particularly, as I feel the same way since the change into my current role but also because the starting point for the coaching regarding a professional reorientation had not been the easiest: a position that had been achieved through a lot of effort and personal investment, with the prospect of a next career step. Further education in a field that did not immediately promise career change opportunities combined with the desire for more meaning and fulfilment at work.