How to develop a digital mindset with Julian Knorr
#045 Let’s take a deep dive into the topic of digital mindset.
In this episode, I’m talking to Julian Knorr about digital mindset and how to analyze and develop it. We take a look at the “mindset navigator” he invented with his company ONESTOPTRANSFORMATION AG. He explains how it works and the different ways to use it.
Of course, we set in relation to BPM in general and for a specific business process in particular. Julian also has an offer for the New Process Community.
Today’s Guest:
Julian Knorr
Julian is Founder and CEO of ONESTOPTRANSFORMATION AG. He founded ONESTOPTRANSFORMATION AG in 2018. They focus on analyzing and developing a Digital Mindset and the competencies you’ll need for the future.
He also gives lectures on digital mindset at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
In addition, Julian is host of the Mindset Coffee Podcast since 2020.
He studied Business Administration at Otto-Friedrich-University of Bamberg and holds a Bachelor’s and a Master of Science degree.
You’ll learn:
- What a digital mindset is
- How to analyze and develop a digital mindset
- How to leverage this for BPM in general or for your specific business process in particular
- How to test Julian’s Mindset Navigator
- What he offers to the New Process Community to develop the mindset of your own process community
Resources
- Julian Knorr’s LinkedIn Profile
- onestoptransformation’s LinkedIn Profile
- onestoptransformation.com
- AI Tool: Visla
- Mindset Coffee Podcast
Get notified about new episodes:
Transcript
Please note that the transcript was generated automatically and only slightly adjusted. It does not claim to be a perfect transcription.
Mirko00:19
Yeah, welcome to episode 45 of the New Process Podcast. Today, it’s all about how to develop the digital mindset. Therefore, I’m talking to Julian Knorr. Julian is founder and CEO of OneStopTransformation. He founded the company in 2018. They focus on analyzing and developing a digital mindset and the competencies you’ll need for the future. He also gives lectures on digital mindset at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and on agile methods at Campus M21. In addition, julian is the of the Mindset Coffee Podcast since 2020. He studied business administration at Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg and holds a bachelor’s and a master’s of science degree. In this episode, you’ll learn what a digital mindset is, how to analyze and develop a digital mindset, how you can leverage this for BPM in general or for your specific business process in particular, and you can learn how to test Julian’s mindset navigator and what he offers to the new process community to develop the mindset of your own process community. So enjoy the interview with Julian Knorr.
Mirko01:42
Yeah, welcome to New Process Podcast, Julian. I’m super excited to have you here today to learn more about digital mindset, so welcome, Julian.
Julian01:50
Thanks for having me looking forward to our conversation.
Mirko01:53
Yeah, me too. Me too, definitely. And, as always, let’s start with a check-in. So what do you prefer in an aircraft aisle or window?
Julian01:59
seat? Definitely window seat, since I really enjoy the views out of the airplane.
Mirko02:06
That’s pretty good. And what is your favorite airport?
Julian02:09
Actually it’s Miami, since I really like the atmosphere down there, because as soon as you leave the airplane, you’re kind of on a tropical island, although you’re still in the States.
Mirko02:22
That’s true. I think I’ve been there last March so about a year ago on a vacation with the family and that was a cool trip. Whenever we have a small image frame downstairs and whenever we pass this and see pictures from that vacation, all the family members say, oh, we want to go there again and that was Miami.
Julian02:43
Yeah, that’s true, and this is exactly the feeling I always get when I arrive there.
Mirko02:49
Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. Damn, I know we’re doing this podcast here today. Once I thought about having a podcast while I was in Miami, but we postponed the recording that time, so I can just pretend that I’m in Miami. Oh, thanks for this good feeling to start off the podcast. So final check-in question what was the best process you have ever experienced?
Julian03:11
Well, actually the best process, and I don’t say this because you worked previously for Lufthansa, but just because it’s true. So last year I had the honor to fly to Tokyo with Lufthansa and the whole service and the whole process, from checking in to leaving the airplane in the end, was just outstanding. And I don’t know what this had to do with the destination of Japan, but it was just another experience than any other flight I experienced so far and the process was so seamless and that’s what I liked about. So, really, from boarding to the takeoff to the landing, everything was. It felt like everyone on the plane had a clear plan of what comes next and they told us that we were discovering a typhoon in Tokyo. But they kept us updated over the whole 14 and a half hours during the whole flight and this was just really the perfect plane experience and the perfect process experience.
Mirko04:15
Okay, that’s super cool and I know there are a lot of former Lufthansa colleagues listening to this podcast and maybe also some of them are responsible for processes related to what you just said, so they are really pushing forward process excellence there with Pro-X. Shout out to the colleagues there. That’s great to hear. Thank you for this example, and how would you describe your relationship to processes in general?
Julian04:42
Well, to be honest, I’m not the biggest process guy. I’m more like this entrepreneurial guy, so trying to do what’s right and not just to stick by the process but just hey, what is the customer need now? And then trying to solve it in some ways. But, as I found in my company like six years ago, back then it was just me, myself and I, so there was no need for big processes. But now, since we grew bigger, I feel that we need more processes and we’re still on our way to set up good working processes. And what I really dislike about processes is if they become too heavy and they feel like chains on everyone so that you are not flexible anymore. So that’s why I’m still discovering my perfect way of creating processes in our company.
Mirko05:39
Wow, that’s super interesting, because one of the so-called new process principles is also to provide flexibility to the people, to trust the people working in the processes so that, hopefully, the processes are not too heavy for them and forcing them into boundaries, but to give them flexibility, for example. So that’s the idea there. Maybe we should have a talk on that later as well, to see how we can implement a human-centric BPM framework at your company. But Before we do that, let’s talk about what you are doing. So you developed a tool which is called Mindset Navigator. Can you explain this Maybe not just for me, but maybe for my eight-year-old daughter what that is really about? What is a Mindset Navigator? What are you doing?
Julian06:30
there? Yes, so basically, to put it in simple words, it’s like Google Maps for future competencies. So what Google Maps does is you type in your preferred destination. Let’s say you want to travel to London, and then Google Maps does not calculate your route to London instantly, but first analyzes what your current location is. So I’m sitting in Nuremberg right now, and then Google Maps would calculate the route from Nuremberg to London, and this ensures that I will definitely come to my destination.
07:07
What we do is the same for future competencies, so we give employees the possibility to analyze their own future competencies and then to create the perfect route or calculate the perfect route to their desired destination when it comes to their future competencies, and this ensures a seamless learning experience and an individualized and tailored learning experience. The crazy thing is, this should be like the standard for every company, because if you don’t have the location analysis from the very beginning on, each and everyone in the company will get the same route towards a destination, no matter where they start, and this makes no sense when it comes to Google Maps. Nor does this make sense when it comes to learning. Yeah, definitely.
Mirko08:01
This is super easy to understand. That’s important to first analyze where you are as an individual with your skills right now, and then what’s the core philosophy of your approach. To get me to my destination or to whatever destination the company has in mind, I should go to what we do is we use so-called micro-learning.
Julian08:23
So, after your analysis, which is always scientific, valid, you get a learning path consisting out of little videos, podcasts, texts, all just between three and 10 minutes long, and they are building your individualized learning path and they are always adapting to your user behavior. So you have a highly adaptive learning experience. And why do we believe in these so-called micro-learnings? Because our day-to-day work is super flexible. We’re working location-independent, we’re working time-independent, so why should learning not be location and time-independent? That’s why we use this micro-learning approach. For example, you’re on your route to the office on a Monday morning and you have five minutes in the car, so why not listen to a podcast which is suitable to your learning approach? Or you’re on a run on a Thursday night, so why not listen to another podcast which is, let’s say, eight minutes long? So you can squeeze in the learning into your daily schedule. And this is a learning on the go which we create. And in the end, this is the only chance to have to start a real lifelong learning.
Mirko09:39
Mm-hmm. Okay, and I’m just wondering how does it look like? So there is a tool where you analyze the digital mindset of the people. Is that how it looks like? And then there is another part where you get all these learning bits and pieces to listen to or to work through or so, basically, as a user, you get your credentials, you log into our platform.
Julian10:02
It’s a browser based, so no installation needed. It’s also for multi-device, or you can use whatever device you want to have, and after the login process, you start with the analysis. This takes around 10 minutes. Then you get your digital mindset results, or you can even choose to further analyze yourself when it comes to digital literacy or AI competencies or even leadership competencies, and you get your results in an interactive dashboard with little videos, texts and after you familiarized yourself with your results, you just hit start learning and then your individualized learning path is created in the same platform and is your personal learning companion for the next year, and after one year you do the analysis again and you get an adjusted learning path again.
Mirko10:55
Okay, that’s interesting Cool. Thanks for these insights. I just wondered how do you determine the destination of my journey? So is this something which the company sets as the target destination for each and every person, or is there a standard just defined by you, or how does this?
Julian11:14
look like. So both ways you just mentioned are possible. So, first of all, the standard, which is like the plug and play version, means that your destination, or your learning target, is to move you a little bit more towards the transformational pole of your digital mindset. I know this sounds complicated, so let me give you some more insights. So digital mindset is defined by six different so-called personality dimensions, such as customer centricity, openness and agility, or an open dealing with failure, and each of these dimensions have so-called opposite poles. So, for example, openness and agility versus persistence and persistence, in this particular example, is the traditional pole and openness and agility is the transformational pole. And in our standard version, your learning target is to go more towards openness and agility. So let’s say, if you’re still pretty persistent, your goal is to move a little bit closer to openness and agility. If you’re already pretty open and agile, then your goal is to become even more open and agile.
12:33
So this is the standard way. The second possible way and approach to set the destination is company specific. So your company says hey, for us customer centricity is super important and productivity and entrepreneurial action orientation is super important. So we focus on these two dimensions and we create a target profile and then everyone should be trained to come closer to this target profile. Or step number three we go more into detail and we do not have one specific company, specific destination, but for each job family we have separate destinations. So for the controlling department we have another destination, then for sales, then for design and so on.
Mirko13:18
Okay, yeah, that sounds super fascinating. So what was your favorite project so far?
Julian13:25
Actually it’s pretty tough to pick one favorite project because we had so many different interesting projects. So I’m still super proud that we had the chance already back in 2019 to adjust our tool for Lufthansa and to roll it out globally. So this was definitely one of the highlight projects so far. But another project I would like to mention is one from a regional bank in Germany, or a banking chain in Germany, where we adjusted our tool for the leaders in the organization towards their leadership principles and then we created specific learning content for their leadership principles. So all employees had access to our regular tool and all leaders had also access to the regular tool, with the addition of leadership principle specific content. This was pretty fascinating to see how our approach is pretty adaptable to existing competence frameworks or leadership frameworks.
Mirko14:33
Okay, that’s fascinating. As I already said, a number of our listeners out there are responsible for business processes or even for the whole BPM system in their organization right and digitalization, automating processes or even applying AI as one of the high topics right now is definitely one of the biggest challenges that they have on their list. So what can our listeners learn from your work in general, from these learnings regarding transformation?
Julian15:04
So as soon as you start creating or designing a process, you always have to think from your user standpoint. So who will then lift the process in the end? And just imagine you have a company with 1,000 people living the process after you designed it. Each and every one of these employees have a different starting point in their adoption rate of new processes. When it comes to AI and you include, for example, ai in your process, as you just mentioned, not everyone of your targeted employees have the same affinity towards AI, so not everyone will adopt to this AI-based process in the same way.
15:54
So it could be a huge help for you to understand hey, who is already pretty open for AI who has a knowledge in AI technology and who has already a good knowledge of AI ethics, and with this knowledge, you can then adjust your rollout plan. For example, you start with the ones who are pretty open for new AI technology in order to create some ambassadors for the new process, because they are more likely to adopt this new process, because they are more open to it, and then you roll it out to the other employees, and this could be pretty helpful in order to make rollouts more successful and to make rollouts more smooth.
Mirko16:38
Okay, can you be more specific with regards to how to do it? Let’s imagine I’m accountable for purchasing process of an organization, right, and I have a process community. Let’s talk about two different setups Community of just 20 people working in my process, maybe at two or three different locations. Or the other extreme would be about 1,000 people working in my purchasing process globally at a number of locations. How would you recommend to approach them with the digital mindset navigator to identify where they are? How could this look like in practice?
Julian17:16
So, basically, it doesn’t matter whether you just have a group of 20 people or a larger group of 1,000 people globally. So I would start with a kickoff, which is a 30-minute online call in order to explain why we use the mindset navigator, what is the benefit and why mindset is super success, critical for the future development of the process, but also of the company, and then each and everyone will get access to the tool. We’ll just spend 10 minutes in the tool to analyze their own mindset and then you, as the process owner, you have the ability or you have access to a so-called analytics dashboard in order to make data analysis, for example, when it comes to the larger group, in which country you have which mindset, and when it comes to the mindset dimensions, in which country you have which customers’ interest, but also in which department, and then you can see who is super open and agile, for example. And then you target these groups first in order to make them your ambassadors for the rollout. Mm-hmm.
Mirko18:29
Okay, yeah, that’s good. Thank you for this example. And now let’s imagine I’m convinced that what you just told is something which is super interesting for my community. How can we try it out? For sure, I can approach you, but then can I test the tool or what is the pricing model behind Sure?
Julian18:48
So first of all you could approach me, or you just visit one-stop-transformationcom, and there we have a free trial period. So you have a little call with one of my colleagues and he or she will walk you through the platform real quick and then you can try it out for yourself for 30 days. And now already a little teaser. In the summertime this year we will also approach the B2C market, so then each and everyone can just use the platform for oneself, no matter whether you’re part of a company or not.
Mirko19:22
Okay, cool, that’s interesting, and can you at least tell us a little bit about the price level?
Julian19:29
Sure, it doesn’t have to be so. It’s a monthly subscription model and you pay per user, so you pay per employee per month. We have three different packages. So we have the basic, we have the premium and we have the leadership package, and the differences between the packages are the focus areas. So the basic package has mindset and has the mindset analysis plus the mindset development. The premium package has mindset analysis, digital literacy analysis, ai, competency analysis, plus the particular learning offerings and development part, and leadership has exactly the same what I just mentioned plus the leadership analysis plus leadership learning offerings, and it starts by 29 euros per user per month. So in the end, if you calculate it for one year, it’s less than one euro per day for an individualized learning.
Mirko20:26
Okay, wow, and what the people get is really learning platform with all the content you need to get the knowledge to improve your skills right.
Julian20:36
Right. So from the analysis to learning offerings, to reflection questions, to learning nuggets of the week, to a continuous communication, to separate communication regarding how to learn, because this is also a pretty big topic in companies. That self-learning was kind of unlearned during the last decades and we want to change this again so that each and everyone is able to self-learn again.
Mirko21:07
Yeah, that’s cool. So important question is there is special offer for the new process community to test the mindset navigator?
Julian21:16
Yes, actually. So the special offer is what I can offer you. If you say that you come from our podcast, you can test it out for two months without any costs.
Mirko21:28
Wow, that’s cool. Yeah, that’s a longer time frame to get familiar with the tool. Thank you very much for this offer. That’s cool, perfect, so, applying your overall experience to rethinking processes, what are your top three recommendations to get to a more human-centric BPM approach and to inspire people for processes, First of all, how do I create a human-centric process?
Julian21:54
This is something I had to learn during the last six years that not every idea I, as the founder, had was the best idea for a process. So really talk to your employees, talk to your target group and ask them what could improve their lives and their day-to-day work. And it doesn’t matter what your thoughts are, just ask your employees and ask your team. The second one is give processes enough time to evolve. So, at least from my experience, the first draft of a process will not be the best, but try it out and learn from it and do regular check-ins. We just had it this week, to be honest, where we want to test a new automation tool and we already have one, let’s say, semi-automation tool for one particular process step. Now we discovered this fully automation tool. Now we said, okay, we make a three-step approach.
22:59
First one is to try out the new one. Second step is then to see what the differences are compared to our semi-automated tool. And then the third one is to see whether the surplus of the full automation is from any, or has any, added value to our process or not. And then we decide and not just, hey, this is cool and we could just implement it. Of course we could, but in the end, does it have any value? And this already leads to my third, or third of the top three tips and experience I discovered in the last years when it comes to processes. Each process needs to have an added value. As soon as there is no added value, just cut this process and don’t do it anymore.
Mirko23:46
Yeah, absolutely, that’s so true, Cool. I love your recommendations and I’m really curious to wrap it up we learned a lot about digital mindset here. What is your key message to our listeners with regards to rethinking processes?
Julian24:02
So my key message when it comes to processes is basically the same as when it comes to transformation and working in a company overall, mindset is way more important than technology. I always like to talk about the so-called iceberg of transformation, and for me, this could also be the iceberg of processes. So everything what is visible about an iceberg, so the things which are on top are always just the smaller part of the whole iceberg, and this is, for me, always the technology. But the things which are not visible, this is the human part of it. And so here we come to mindset, and this is the foundation of the technology. So as soon as you don’t have the right mindset, even the best technology will not improve your business. So start with developing the mindset and then adjust the technology afterwards. So mindset is more important than technology.
Mirko25:06
Cool. I love this analogy. That’s cool, Julian. Thank you very much for this recommendation. Where can our listeners learn more about your activities and learn more about your tool?
Julian25:18
So basically the best two addresses are our website onesoptransformationcom and, second of all, just follow either our company on LinkedIn or just follow my profile on LinkedIn. I post always some pretty interesting stuff around digital mindset, digital transformation and competency development.
Mirko25:39
Okay, and I have one more question when is the company called One Stop Transformation?
Julian25:43
Yes, so there’s a little story behind it and I’m glad that you asked, mirko. So when I was working in the US for quite some time and came back back in 2017, and originally I had the plan to start working in a huge consultancy and I had several job interviews and in the end, I got frustrated how the interviews went and thought, hey, why do they always focus on certificates and not on mindset? So this was really the origin, and since I always had these consultancy glasses on, I thought, hey, another problem is that most of the consultancies just come into companies, create cool projects, create cool PowerPoint presentations and then they leave again. So then you do not have what I used to learn in the US a so-called one stop shopping experience and so I combined transformation with one stop shopping and, in the end, one stop transformation evolved from it.
Mirko26:49
Okay, that’s interesting. Thanks for this backstory of the company. Cool, that’s interesting, and I’m always asking my s for their recommendation which topic, which method, tool or expert I should have a closer look on to get new ideas on how to rethink processes. So do you have a recommendation for me as well as for the whole new process community?
Julian27:17
Yes, I do so, since the last 18 months were kind of AI overall, I would recommend to put the focus a little bit more on practical AI tools which could be implemented easily. So not the super sophisticated AI tools, but like the day-to-day AI tools, because we at One Sub-Transformation use nowadays a lot of different small AI tools which help us a lot in the long run. And here I would suggest Niklas Volland. He’s from a company which supports other companies in implementing AI tools in their day-to-day work. They evolve from a classical software agency towards this AI-focused software agency.
Mirko28:08
Okay, and I’m just curious, but can you give an example of an AI tool you are using in your daily business to make your life easier?
Julian28:17
Sure. So, for example, when it comes to our postings on social media with our company side, there’s a fully automated process from drafting the idea to creating the text, to optimizing the text and then to creating the right visual for the posting and then to post it. So this is a fully automated process there, but not just with one tool. So it’s not just JetGPT, but there are several tools. Another tool I’d like to mention when it comes to AI, which just fascinates me at the moment, is a JetGPT plugin which creates little videos out of your prompt and you tell the tool which kind of video type you would like to have. So in the end, you’re still the owner of the content or of the idea behind the content, but the whole content production is fully automatic.
Mirko29:12
Okay, Well, that’s fascinating. And what’s the name of the plugin? It’s called Vistla, so, like the dog breed. Okay, that’s interesting. So I’m already looking forward to the new process conference which takes place in April. I’m not sure if we already talked about that. It’s in Lufthansa Zeeheim I know you’ve been there before A nice place with delicious food, and we invited to the conference JetGPT expert and we’ll have a 90-minute session to explore how to apply AI to processes, and I already had brief preparation calls with him and I’m looking forward for more preparation calls to dive deeper into that, to learn more.
29:57
And I’m so curious because that’s for sure a hype topic AI at the moment. But especially we as process guys, we have to look deeper into that to understand how to apply that to processes, to help our people out there being responsible for business process and so on. So thank you for your tips and tricks here and that’s super cool. I love to learn more on that and to apply that for sure, Cool. Yeah, I’m not sure if you mentioned, if you realized that we already landed this episode, but before we leave the aircraft, is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners? That will miss something.
Julian30:38
Well, in the end, what I would like to share is always stay curious for the next technological developments. And again, this has nothing to do with a tech savviness, but it has more to do with a mindset. And I’m super convinced that if you stay curious and you stay open to new developments, your own employability will always be on top, and so we will never, ever have any problem with adopting to new processes or technologies.
Mirko31:08
That’s cool. Thank you. And finally, how would you describe your flight experience with just three words?
Julian31:15
Smooth. That’s a tough one, to be honest, just with three words. So, to be honest, it was smooth, it was process-wise, it was pretty smooth. It was smooth from our conversation. So this is definitely the first word. Second one is informative, since I learned more about processes and it was also reflective, since your questions kind of pushed me out of my comfort zone in order to think more about my own process understanding.
Mirko31:49
Yeah, that’s cool. We definitely have to talk about the process in your company later on, so for me it was definitely inspiring. So thank you very much, julian, for all these insights. I’m really looking forward to look deeper into the mindset navigator and so on. So thank you very much, have a great day Bye-bye. Thanks for having me.
Mirko32:14
Wow, that was an interesting perspective on processes. It perfectly fits to the new process principle to foster the development of the people working in and on the process. So if you want to move your process community towards digital transformation, for example, I think it’s a super cool idea to use the Mindset Navigator to learn more about how to do this and, yeah, to train and to enable your people for digital transformation. So I’m a huge fan of this analytical approach and already played around with the Mindset Navigator myself. So please make use of Julian’s offer and test the Mindset Navigator too. And, as he said, you can approach Julian via LinkedIn to get the extra month for free. You’ll find all the links in the show notes of this episode. Julian and I also agreed upon sharing more about how to analyze and develop a digital Mindset on New Process Pro in the future. So if you aren’t a member yet, you can join the community for free by going to newprocesslabcom.
Yeah, what is coming up next? If everything goes as planned, you can expect a very special episode in two weeks time in which I’m going to talk to a who has had a significant influence on my personal development and on my new process journey. I’m really looking forward to this conversation, which I’ll be even record in person this time. So stay tuned, but for now, thank you very much for listening. Have a great day. Bye, bye and auf Wiedersehen.
Mirko34:07
Before you leave, we are slowly approaching the second birthday of the New Process Podcast and I’d like to ask you for your feedback. So what do you like about the podcast? What would you like to see changed? I’m really interested in learning more from you and making the New Process Podcast even better. For you To give me feedback, just go to newprocesslabcom. It’ll only take a few minutes to answer four simple questions, but it would mean a lot to me. So thank you very much for supporting me. Just go to newprocesslabcom. Thank you very much. Bye, bye.
