Why you should keep an Open Mind

?Keep an open mind!“

This was the key advice for building a successful career shared by some of our CFOs & finance talents during our DHL Global Forwarding Global Finance call earlier this week.

I did have the privilege to discuss the career paths, ingredients for success and learnings of what shaped their inspiring careers with my amazing colleagues Anna Kovacs, Blessy Roji, Nico Tan, Alban Biebuyck, Thorsten Schilling & Ishan Singh.

We discussed many aspects, for example of how ?CFOs act as the bridge to the business“ and that ?trust is the glue keeping everything together“ - but in the end, keeping an open mind was identified by all the panelists as the key success factor which helped all of them to build and grow their careers.

After the session, I took some time to reflect on my own career journey and how I got to where I am today. I came to the same conclusion, an open mindset which includes the willingness to explore new things, asking a lot of questions and taking on new challenges helped me to become who I am today.

Whilst reflecting, I remembered how I grew up in a little village in South West Germany, the area is called ?Schwaben“ - people there are hard working & smart, they always find solutions for any challenge. But they can appear narrow minded for outsiders - so looking back it was important for my personal development to leave home at an early age.

Luckily, when I had finished my civil service at the age of 20, the ZVS, an institution which was allocating students to universities in Germany back then, sent me to a town called Freiberg in East Germany for my economic studies. It was rather far away from home, at least 500kms were a long distance for me back then, and with fellow students from all parts of Germany who were in a similar position, I had to settle into a new environment, connect to new people, make friends and figure out how things work at an University. Whilst I wasn't thrilled at all when I first learned about my place at the university of Freiberg, looking back today, I did have a great time and I wouldn't want to miss a single day.

After completing my studies, I moved to Switzerland and experienced a very international & wealthy city in which everything works as clockwork and people don't appreciate any form of chaos or surprising events. Again, a completely different world to what I had seen in my home village or during my studies in Sachsen, yet, I had a great time in one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I got to explore so far.

After having worked by then in consulting and in the FMCG industry, my wife and I decided to move closer to family for personal reasons - and I finally joined Deutsche Post DHL in Bonn, Germany in spring 2008. Since joining the group, I have worked in 3 divisions across 3 continents, in Bonn, in London, in Johannesburg and now in Dubai and I truly appreciate the variety of opportunities we are offering to all our employees. If I wouldn't have been open to explore new roles, new divisions, new challenges and working with new colleagues & teams, I would have a missed a lot - from a career but also personal point of view.

When I accepted the role as CFO for Sub-Saharan Africa for example, I had never set a foot into Africa - yet, I would still consider this as my best career decision and what I have seen and learned by asking lots of questions and travelling to many countries across Africa and the Middle East is simply invaluable.

Whenever I start a new role or project, I will ask a lot of open questions. My driver is to truly understand the situation, the processes and the people involved. I have often been sitting in meetings where I asked questions which appeared "stupid" and everyone assumed everyone else would know - quiet often it turned out then no one in the room really knew in detail so I would encourage everyone to never shy away from asking the questions which are on your mind.It is clear that you will only succeed in your career if you are skilled, if you work hard and if you treat everyone one around you (without exceptions!) in a respectful way. However, the key ingredient for a successful career in my opinion is to keep an open mind, i.e. being ready to explore new things, asking all the required questions and forming your assessments based on facts you collected rather than opinions you and the people around you had from the beginning. And don't say "No" too fast, just because something is outside your usual comfort zone. Take a night to sleep over it and discuss with people you trust and who can challenge you by asking difficult questions, you can still say no but perhaps you were about to miss an amazing opportunity.

What do you think? Please let me know and share your experience.