A Viennese Symphony of Excellence

Right from the beginning of the 2018 EFQM Forum it was highlighted that “Excellence” is a matter of succeeding through the talent of people and creating a culture of excellence. After a short introduction and welcome session by EFQM and hosting national partner Quality Austria, the audience was faced with the future requirements of employers through a short video. In collaboration with the nationa EFQM partners, young talents of the next generation where questioned about how they would describe a good employer and about their expectations towards professional life.

The Conductor’s Perspective

Raphael von Hoensbroech demonstrated in his interactive presentation how to “conduct” leadership towards excellence. The live session was a great opportunity to get the feel of how leaders are expected to provide a vision, an idea, being responsible for the performance of a team – without actually contributing operatively to the outcome. Conductors are leading highly talented experts with skills, they don’t have themselves – so what is their actual contribution to add value?

In this open workshop with the forum audience and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra von Hoensbroech literally translated what it takes to guide the desire of musicians (employees) to play as a team – eventually succeeding in making music out of notes. Members of the audience were actively included and got the opportunity to encounter leadership from the conductor’s perspective through trial and error – a truly great experience.

Winners Symphony & Afternoon Keynotes

After a networking lunch break with opportunities to reflect on the morning session with other attendees, the afternoon was dedicated to find out more about the excxellent approaches of last year’s Award Winners. Representatives of the Global Excellence Award Winner 2017, BOSCH Blaichach and Prize Winners Glasgow Housing Association and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority presented their success stories in terms of Business Excellence.

Inspiring keynotes from “New Leadership Expert and Executive Coach” Nicole Brandes, “Robopsychology Professor” Martina Mara and Sarah Bernuit, “Vice President and European Leader Digital Strategy &iX” at IBM let the audience gain deeper insight of future opportunities in the wake of technological progress and digitalization.

Quality Austria summarized the highlights of this great first day in a short video clip as a short inspirational snapshot for those interested and  a memorable recollection to those who attended:

   © qualityaustria

EFQM Global Excellence Award goes to Austria

A grand celebration dinner marked the beginning of the EFQM Global Excellence Award Ceremony 2018 in the evenening of the first day. Eight high performing organisation were nominated for the Award, two of them – Infineon AG and VAMED-KMB – coming from Austria.

What a joy when EFQM announced that the Jury decided this year to give the highest recognition, the EFQM Excellence Award to Infineon Technologies Austria AG. In addition other organisations were highly commended for their outstanding performance and recognised as Prize Winners – VAMED-KMB as second Austrian finalist received two prizes. (Award & Prize Winners 2018)

Interactive Workshop Streams on Second Day

On the second day of the EFQM Forum interactive workshops were held in four streams. The visitors split up into smaller groups focusing in different topics. Attendees got the opportunity to experience the Vienna Concert Hall behind the scenes or contribute to the future EFQM Model 2020 which will be released at the next Forum in Finland. At FunderMax, Austrias Business Excellence Award Winner 2018, visitors were able to experience this role model for joint management responsibility and positive performance culture. Once again digitization was core topic of the fourth stream hosted by Siemens: In direct dialogue with the management boards of Siemens and Infineon attendees were able to discuss and find out how excellent organisation use digitalisation to support their workforce.

Closing Session at the Vienna Concert Hall

At noon everyone was welcomed back at the Vienna Concert Hall, were the closing session not only summarized the different workshops but would also reveal breaking news from EFQM. Léon Tossaint informed the audience that he will retire from his position as CEO and introduced his appointed successor Russel Longmuir. And also Dr. Andreas Wendt, Chairman of the EFQM Board of Directors has decided to step down due to the fact that he has been appointed as a Member of the Board of BMW. Paul Little has been unanimously chosen as the new Chairman of the Board of directors.

Visit the EFQM-Website for an introduction interview with Russell Longmuir,  new Chief Executive Officer at EFQM.