Christa Muth

Christa Muth (2011)

Christa Muth (born November 24, 1949 in Rheydt ) is a German systemic, professor of management and business consultant. Muth became known for her commitment to the non-material factors for success in organizations and companies.

In the academic field, Muth developed a master's degree in "Human Systems Engineering" (MAS - Master of Advanced Studies) at the HES-SO (Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse occidentale) and the ZHAW (Zurich University of Applied Sciences). After handing over the management of studies to her successors, she developed a new area of ​​interest on the subject of “social innovation”. Muth spent most of her life in Switzerland.

Life

Youth and education

Muth was born in Rheydt as Christoph Muth into a strictly Protestant textile industrial family. Out of religious conviction, the grandfather had avoided any contact with the NSDAP, which caused a number of difficulties for the family in the Third Reich. After the war, however, this paid off, among other things because the Allies valued working with people who had opposed Nazism. In 1960, however, when it became clear that the German textile industry had little chance of competing with the Asian competition, Muth's mother, who was actually chosen to succeed her father, left the company. She married in Switzerland and moved to Lausanne with her second husband . The silk weaving mill was then shut down and liquidated. Muth consequently attended French-speaking schools and later did her Abitur in Ticino in Italian in Bellinzona . She then studied economic history and sociology at the University of Geneva , where she maintained a lively exchange with leading intellectuals such as Edgar Morin , Jean Ziegler , Jean Piaget and Paolo Freire . Muth did her dissertation in 1991 on the Swiss campus of La Jolla University, San Diego, where she attended lectures with Paul Watzlawick and Henri Laborit . Her thesis “Success and Marketing of Private Universities” dealt with the very topical issue of the reorganization of the academic sector in Switzerland at the time (introduction of universities of applied sciences, emergence of private universities, reorganization of research and services at universities).

Professional experience in the context of the 68s

Although Muth was active in the 1968 movement , she advocated a politically liberal direction: alternative companies seemed to her to make more sense than violent confrontation with the system. In their opinion, such companies had the advantage of providing a deeper insight into realities and practical constraints as they faced the management. From here she wanted to create alternatives instead of limiting herself to condemning the system. She took part in the development of several alternative companies, but always under the conditions of self-administration , sustainability and with the aim of creating meaningful jobs for those who otherwise were in conflict with the dominant values ​​of society. Despite these values, Muth was sharply criticized for her management style, which was viewed by a number of contemporaries as pseudo-democratic and authoritarian. Some of these companies have survived to this day (2012). The best known is probably “Voyages APN” in Geneva, originally an alternative travel agency and bus company in the legal form of a cooperative. Muth founded and managed this company from 1975 to 1981. Ten years after its departure it was renamed a GmbH, private property and capitalism found their way.

Management and strategy concepts

From 1982 Muth oriented himself around: Management consulting in the areas of technology exploitation, succession planning, M&A, and later in organizational development. In the following 20 years she worked for companies and public organizations of all sizes, sometimes at the highest hierarchical level. Often it was about mandates that were associated with great risks, sometimes it was about the survival of the organization. In doing so, she has mostly chosen solutions based on the "soft factors" that influenced people and organizational culture in such a way that the necessary efficiency was restored. This method has mostly proven to be the right one in comparison with exclusively "hard" interventions. Muth has worked for large companies in Switzerland and Europe such as UBS, Swiss Re, CS, Swisscom, et Electrolux.

Muth was strongly influenced by systems scientists such as Frederic Vester , James Grier Miller , Paul D. MacLean (theory of the "Triune Brain"), Viktor Frankl ( existential analysis ) and vom "Happiness researcher" Mihály Csíkszentmihályi influenced.

In her role as a thought leader and project manager in the development of the Leonardo 3.4.5 method, Muth condensed these concepts into a “toolbox” for organizational and management development, with the aim of making managers and employees aware of their own thinking style and better handling of complexity to enable. This method was developed as a Eureka project with the participation of companies and universities in Switzerland, England, Italy, Germany and France. From 2003 to 2009 Muth was chairwoman of an industrial association (Association of the Swiss Printing Industry). During this time she campaigned for the introduction of sustainability and accompanied the reorientation of this industry with analyzes and concepts. During its chairmanship, this association became a leader in the field of industrial sustainability (climate-neutral printing), whereby the use of certificates was dispensed with as far as possible and energy and environmental optimization were given priority.

Contributions to the changes in the Swiss higher education system

From 1993 Muth was appointed as a consultant at esig + (Swiss Engineering School for Printing and Packaging) in Lausanne. The semi-privately run school wanted to be the first to achieve quality certification according to ISO 9001 at university level. This required a radical change in organizational culture and teaching methods. Muth's findings on learning biology, derived from neurosciences , and her experience in systemic organizational development came exactly right in this process. During the certification, esig + became the model case on the basis of which the working group around Prof. Rolf Dubs , in his role as mentor of the Swiss government for higher education, derived the strategy for the development of the universities of applied sciences. For this purpose, Muth was invited to contribute her future visions for teaching and higher education. As an informal member of the school management, she participated in the entire development process and worked to ensure that social skills and contextual knowledge were included in the teaching programs and also in the relationships between teachers and students. Some innovations in the higher education sector that are common today (e.g. the possibility of dissertations in groups) were implemented by Muth.

In 2000, esig + was merged with the University of Economics and Engineering of the Canton of Vaud (HEIG-VD) and has since been continued as the Comem + (Communications Engineering Management) department. That is why the school management commissioned Muth to make the knowledge that was used in the restructuring of the organizational culture of esig + conveyable in a Master of Advanced Studies (MAS).

Human Systems Engineering (HSE)

As part of this contract, Muth developed the first concept for human systems engineering in 1999 and later formed the core team with Prof. Marie-France Bourdais that supervised the first course (2002) and developed the concept further. Since then, HSE has had a positive echo in the business and financial press. From 2008, HSE was enriched with specialization courses. Muth led HSE until she changed her gender in 2008.

Gender change

According to her own statements, Muth had been aware of her transsexuality since childhood. She had tried to change sex several times without success. Rigid morals in her environment, shame, fear and gloomy job prospects had prevented her coming out . In 1981 she lived four months as a woman, but gave up because she thought her passing was insufficient. In addition, there were no medical-psychological services for transsexuality available at the time. It was not until 25 years later, at the age of 57, that Muth realized, on the occasion of a serious illness, that she had to face her fate. In the meantime, an active transgender community had formed on the Internet that provided information and contacts to specialized doctors.

It was a year from the decision to the sex reassignment surgery in Bangkok; only then did Muth come out professionally and socially. This only took place four months later, as she was teaching and fulfilling her professional obligations during this time. She then changed her social and legal gender in public and with the support of her employer, her colleagues, students, customers and friends. Until then she had published and taught under the names Christophe Muth, Christoph Muth and Chris Muth - mainly in French, but also in German and English - on the topics of management and strategy.

Since then she has been actively involved in transgender issues and is an active member of the Transgender Network Switzerland (TGNS) .

Social innovation

After changing sex, Muth has increasingly dealt with the topic of social innovation. Her thesis on this is that ideas for solving social problems are rejected or forgotten out of a conservative mindset. For this reason she developed the initiative of the "Houses of ..."; The idea behind this is to show the history of the problem, solutions of the past and solutions of the future for every social problem topic in a house, whereby the visitors are to be included in a process of collective intelligence and, in turn, are to contribute to the solutions. For this reason Muth was invited to join the board of the [Projet 2020] of Alliance F , the umbrella organization of Swiss women's organizations.

In the field of economic innovation, Muth has presented her three theses in numerous articles and in a booklet together with Raffaella Dorier:

• All industries and companies that meet the three conditions (large sales, knowledge secured in universities, know-how secured in quality systems) will flag out to emerging countries.
• The future of the industrialized world depends on innovation and the ability to deal with complexity.
• Deglobalization is sure to come, but it depends on the ability of entire industries to introduce sustainability in production and to enforce the relevant rules as a legal norm.

Muth currently teaches and researches these topics at HEIG-VD and advises companies and politicians.

Private life

Muth was married and is the parent of a daughter. Today she lives as a single in Yverdon-les-Bains in the canton of Vaud .

documentary

During her sex change process, Muth was followed with the camera for a year by Laurence Périgaud, an anthropologist from the University of Neuchâtel . This resulted in the documentary film In a year about Christa - becoming a woman at sixty, which was presented at the international documentary film festival Visions du réel in Nyon (Switzerland) in April 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ^ F. Vester: Exit future. Heyne, 1990.
2. ^ JG Miller: Living Systems. McGraw-Hill, 1978.
3. ↑ V.Frankl: Man in search of meaning. Klett, 1972.
4. ↑ M. Csikszentmihalyi: Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper and Row, 1990.
5. ↑ Eureka project ( memento of the original from March 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ C. Muth: Does globalization mean war against the Swiss printing industry? In print market, 2004.
7. ↑ C. Muth: The graphics industry must become more agile - this also applies to its associations. In Viscom magazine, 2006.
8. ↑ C. Muth: A future for the Swiss printing industry. In print market, 2006.
9. ↑ C. Muth: The next scene of rapid changes. In Druckmarkt, No. 33 and 34/2007.
10. ↑ C. Muth: The certain unease in education also affects the graphics industry. in print market, 2008.
11. ^ C. Muth: Printing Industry and Publishing 3.0: Disharmonies in Music of the Future. In Publisher - Swiss specialist magazine for publishing and digital printing, 2009.
12. ↑ E. Bloch: Entreprises: gros protentiels pour les biens intangibles. In AGEFI, July 4, 2005.
13. ^ G. Baillod: Le secret des processus humains. In Bilan, 1-2005.
14. ↑ ZB: C. Muth: The health insurance as a cost driver. In general practitioner practice, 2010.
15. ↑ www.transgender-network.ch , accessed July 13, 2012.
16. ^ R. Dorier, C. Muth: Comment utiliser la complexité - Outils, attitudes et compétences à développer. jobindex media ag, 2010.
17. ↑ www.entreiletailes.com , accessed July 13, 2012.