In 2015, we set out on our journey to create a completely new way of learning and teaching for the 21st century. We wanted to create a school that we would have loved to go to. Our school educates Digital Change Makers from all industries, all ages and different backgrounds in an 18-months program called Digital Transformation Manager. The classes only consist of 25 participants and the school offers in-class workshops in eight modules and practical challenges instead of tests and grades. The curriculum is based on curated learning, peer-to-peer learning, mastery-based learning and learning true self-organization. The program focuses on MINDSET, SKILLS, NETWORK and BALANCE.

People called us crazy for founding our school as a couple with three children, and a school that did not have any reputation or tradition. But we were unbelievably passionate about creating Germany’s first Academy for Digital Transformation. Five years later, we have worked together with an invaluable network of more than 100 graduates, more than 100 trainers, hundreds of companies and thousands of participants in our company programs. This has shown us that it is always worth believing in your vision. We have had the great honor to learn tremendously over the past five years from all the people we have worked with. We are the biggest learners of our own school if you like.

The year 2020 with all its tremendous changes and challenges was an occasion for us to reflect on everything we have learnt so far. What are our goals for our life as well as  for our school? How can we contribute to the future of learning? Recently, we were asked in an interview why we are changing a winning horse. Why are we rebuilding our school completely? The honest answer is that we can only do things that we are 100 percent convinced of. We were the first to create an academy for Digital Transformation because we believe that this is the way to do it. Now we are the first to build the SHIFTSHAPE CLUB, a learning club for the 21st century, providing INSPIRATION, COMMUNITY, ACCOUNTABILITY, CONTINUITY and a SAFE PLACE – because we firmly believe that this is the way to do it.

Values

Our SHIFTSCHOOL is built on five core values. They are the foundation of everything we do, every decision that we make and how we work together with people and companies. These five values help us keep ourselves accountable for creating the world we want to live in. We believe that for shaping the 21st century we need

WHY? Because only if we have a common understanding on the direction that we want to take, and only if our VISION is clear to everyone, people will follow and dare to experiment to make the vision happen. In other words, it is especially important to be stubborn on vision but flexible on details. The next thing we need on our way is TRUST. Only if we can relate to the vision and trust each other, we will be willing to open up and to fight for the best ideas.

We need DIVERSITY of people and of opinions to find the best ideas that will shape the world and create new things. We will all be committed and take RESPONSIBILITY for making the vision happen only if we have fought over different views and thoughts and we as a community, team or family came up with the best idea in the end. Last but not least, we have to show in our BEHAVIOR that we take accountability for our actions in making things work and we must act as role models ourselves.