Karim Benammar
Dr. Karim Benammar (1966) is a philosopher specialising in transformative thinking and gives lectures and workshops to companies and organisations worldwide. He studied philosophy in England, America, and Japan, taught at the University of Kobe, and was a lecturer at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. He is the author of Abundance (2005), Reflection Tools (2006), Reframing – The art of thinking differently (2012), and Thinking about money and value (2013).
- Recording: Yes
- Language: English, Dutch
- Duration: 45 min / 15 min
Reframing
Are you able to challenge your own assumptions? Sometimes a radically different view can offer new possibilities and insights. For example, can you always rely on data? Do we really need to produce this report? Is the customer always right? Is input really the same as output? Is this model the only way to make things work in our company/industry? All our socio-economic systems are based on assumptions. In this interactive session, Karim teaches your team to look at issues differently in order to come up with completely new solutions.
During the expert session, Karim Benammar encourages open-mindedness and exploration of new ideas through interactive activities and discussions. Participants engage in reflecting on their assumptions, considering extreme opposites, and collaborating using the Mentimeter app to share thoughts and learn from one another. Throughout the session, Karim emphasizes the importance of challenging deeply-held beliefs and adapting to new perspectives for personal and professional growth.
- Reframing Old Assumptions: Recognizing and challenging outdated assumptions is crucial for adapting to new realities and driving innovation. Consider the extreme opposite of an assumption to generate unconventional ideas.
- Embracing Multiple Perspectives: Valuing various viewpoints, even contradictory ones, leads to more effective problem-solving and fosters creativity within organizations. Look for inspiration in individuals who challenged fundamental assumptions and brought about change.
- Subtracting Solutions and Empowering Teams: Sometimes, the key to solving problems lies in removing elements rather than adding them. Effectively delegating responsibilities and trusting team members can lead to increased productivity and innovation.
Karim Benammar, an experienced telecom sector professional and philosopher, begins his expert session by emphasizing how our assumptions about the world shape our perspectives, using the example of outdated maps that can lead to misconceptions. He encourages participants to recognize these biases and adapt to new ways of thinking, highlighting his background in philosophy and telecom as an intersection between technological advancements and business models.
Karim continues the conversation by discussing how shifting perspectives can impact various aspects of life, including nutrition and health. He uses the analogy of the solar system to illustrate how paradigms, or ways of looking at the world, undergo significant transformations. Participants are encouraged to reflect on their personal and professional assumptions and share them in the chat box for group discussion.
Embracing a wide range of perspectives is emphasized by Karim as crucial for effective leadership. He shares examples from sports and technology, where individuals challenged fundamental assumptions to bring about significant change. Benammar encourages embracing multiple sets of glasses when approaching problems, even if they seem contradictory or unconventional.
Karim also discusses the importance of considering subtracting solutions instead of only adding them when facing problems. He highlights research revealing that people often add more elements to solve issues while there are equally effective solutions by removing something. The role of a team leader is emphasized, with encouragement to delegate tasks and trust team members to take on more responsibility.
Karim concludes by sharing insights on problem-solving and productivity, asserting that while busy people may appear committed and driven, they don't always have the best solutions. Contrarily, lazy individuals, who might seem less engaged, often come up with innovative and effective ideas. He encourages everyone to reflect on this notion.
How are we going to shape the world of tomorrow? How will we change the world, or improve it? We are usually engaged as individuals, but it is precisely as an organisation, team, or profession that we have a huge opportunity to make a difference at scale.
In this interactive session, we will use a global challenge as a case-study to explore different strategies to maximise our impact. We will then design concrete steps to turn our ambitions into reality. As they say, the best way to predict the future is to create it.
The climate crisis is the first truly global challenge for humanity. Our solution is mostly focused on doing less: fly less, eat less meat, use less energy. This will buy us some extra time, but it will not get us there. It’s not about doing less of the bad things, but about doing more good things. We need to radically reshape our world, become 'greenhouse gas emission negative' or, with a better word, climate positive. We make choices as individuals, but it is precisely as organisations or professions that we can truly achieve impact at scale. In this interactive session, discover how you can become climate-positive, and how humanity can thrive on a thriving planet by living fully.
- Great session. Really good to have a new insights that help both on a professional and personal level. Would be wonderful to have these kind of sessions more often. Like once a quarter or even once a month.
- Food for thought. Didn't have any expectations actually, but turned out to be very inspiring.
- I'm happy you're doing these kinds of initiatives again. I feel like there were more interesting things happening during the pandemic times that was insightful and bringing the employees together than now. Although we're free to go out, we connect less.
- Very nice session, practical and useful. Excellent speaker.
- Really amazing!
- Very good speaker and format.
- Fantastic session and good applicable methods to embed into my daily work..
- Thank you for this interesting opportunity. Very professionally performed. Will surely take another opportunity to step in again.
- Really wonderful session. Learned a lot from this session. Examples were really nice. It helped in understanding the context quickly.
- Really Interesting. Dr. Karim carried the momentum from 1st minute to last minute. Changed my view on seeing the issues.
- Very interesting, very professional and easy to follow.
- A great session!
- It was a fantastic session very informative. The speak was really interesting and kept me engaged for the whole hour.
- It was my first 'Get inspired' session. Pleasantly surprised. Looking forward to more. Good pace, liked the interaction.
- Fantastic session and good applicable methods to embed into my daily work.
- Opened my mind, mainly on the assumptions... it's so very true. thanks!
- It was a great lecture I would appreciate to have another session with Karim discussing more about practical and creative thinking.
- A great and inspirational session. Precise to the points, interactive and practical.
- Very interesting! Asks for more.
- Very inspiring ! I loved it.
- I wish we could go into more details but I guess we would need much longer than 1 hour for that!
- This was the best session by far! I loved it! (and I'm a Beta person).
- Very good session to reflect about our behavior / way of working with assumptions.
- Thanks for this new perspective for the whole company.
- Eye opener.