Challenge Management: What Managers Can Learn from the Top Athlete

Like no other professional athlete, Dr. Wladimir Klitschko took care of his career outside the world of competitive sports while he still was an active boxer. He founded K2 Promotions, the KLITSCHKO Foundation, and the KLITSCHKO Management Group. In 2016 he even created a degree program at the prestigious University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, in which he teaches the basics of Self- and Challenge Management. KLITSCHKO Ventures, the holding company in which all his business activities are incorporated, followed.Dr. Wladimir Klitschko knows that a professional athlete has many skills from which the world of business can profi t. It is his special talent to regard problems as challenges and accept them as a part of life. In this book, he fi nally explains how he does it. Now it"s your turn to use his methods to make your business succeed, to master your personal challenges, and to take charge of your work and life!"There are some people in this world who simplyare fantastic role models. They are people who are consistent and have great power of persuasion; people who are persistent and become successful because of this. This is the kind of person I consider Wladimir Klitschko to be."Bill McDermott, SAP SE CEOContentWelcome, Tatjana Kiel 7Foreword, Bill McDermott: Fight, Fall, and Rise 9What a Fight! 13Part IChallenges Are the Air that We Breathe1. How It All Began 172. Ergo sum: I Know Who I Am 313. I Am not a Dummy, I Can Walk by Myself 614. Knowledge Grows if We Share It 78Part IIMy Twelve Ways to Respond to ChallengesWay 1: Enabling and Using Coopetition 95Way 2: Thinking Progressively and Acting Courageously 97Way 3: Learning from Defeats to Create New Potential 99Way 4: Making Use of Your Successes and Letting Others Partake in Them 101Way 5: Planning Long-Term and Continuously Demonstrating Performance 103Way 6: Using Rest Periods to Reflect 105Way 7: Focusing on the Essentials 107Way 8: Trusting Your Own Competences 109Way 9: Identifying Potential and Harnessing It 111Way 10: Explosively Releasing Top Performance 113Way 11: Creating Organizational Structures 115Way 12: Knowing and Using Your Opponent"s Strengths and Weaknesses 117Part IIIHow Experts Use Challenge Management PracticallyWay 1: Coopetition, Frank Dopheide 121Way 2: Progressivity, Alyssa Jade McDonald-Bärtl 127Way 3: Defeats, Rolf Schumann 134Way 4: Successes, Ibrahim Evsan 141Way 5: Planning and Performance, Christian Seifert 147Way 6: Reflection, Miriam Goos 154Way 7: Essentials, Jens Schmelzle 160Way 8: Competences, Jean-Remy von Matt 166Way 9: Potential, Leopold Hoesch 172Way 10: Top Performance, Mathias Ulmann 179Way 11: Organizational Structures, Astrid Schulte 185Way 12: Strengths and Weaknesses, Torsten Bittlingmaier 192Epilogue, Arnold Schwarzenegger:Don"t Listen to the Naysayers! 199Acknowledgments 203Index 205Dr. Wladimir Klitschko is a former boxer who achieved worldwide fame as world heavyweight champion, having gained the IBF, IBO, WBO and WBA titles. Having earned a degree in Philosophy and a PhD in sports science, he is a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen as well as a successful entrepreneur. Stefanie Bilen is a journalist and author. She has worked for magazines and newspapers such as Handelsblatt, the Harvard Business Manager and the Wall Street Journal. She holds a degree in Business Studies and studied Business Journalism at the Georg-von-Holtzbrinck School for Business Journalists. She enjoys sailing and running but is yet to try boxing.