Sleepwalker

When I send an email in San Francisco, I get an answer within 48 hours at the latest. If it takes 72 hours, it comes with a big apology.

In Austria and Germany, the opposite often happens. Often no answer at all. Or only after the fifth follow-up.

It doesn't end with email. I've seen founders here raise ten million in a matter of days. In Austria, that's almost impossible. And if it happens at all, it takes months.

And it's not just startups. When I visit manufacturing companies here, they decide on the spot.

In Europe, when we want to start a project, we form a steering committee. We draft a roadmap. Then another roadmap. And then the big question: Who is responsible?

Between you and the person who decides, there are gatekeepers. People whose job seems to be standing in between.

I know this world well. For years, I sat in those steering committees myself. At Infineon, at the Federation of Austrian Industries. I drafted some of those roadmaps.

Here, the paths are short. Sometimes it feels like you could email Jensen Huang directly.

Why is that?

It's not a lack of intelligence. And it's not laziness.

Decisions come with responsibility. With accountability. When you decide, you're exposed. You might be wrong. Not deciding is more comfortable. It feels less risky.

Here, people take risks. They decide fast and simply try things. In Europe, we call our hesitation alignment. Or due diligence. Most of the time, it's fear dressed up as process.

And there's something else. We're doing too well. We've settled into our comfort zone, and we haven't felt the urgency yet. We may be about to lose the prosperity we spent seventy years building. And we're walking toward it like sleepwalkers: eyes open, moving forward, not awake.

But this is not a story about Europe being slow.

Of course I know European companies that are fast. Most of them are owner-led family businesses. They have skin in the game. It's their company. Their money. Their name, often in the third or fourth generation. They know that the only real danger is standing still.

Not all of them are like that. But where the owner is also the CEO and carries the responsibility personally, I've seen the greatest speed of all.

So the problem isn't Europe. It's responsibility spread so thin that nobody holds it anymore.

Why does this matter now? Because technology has never moved this fast. And here, you can see it on the street.

Look at self-driving cars. For years, European carmakers tried. Volkswagen put billions into Argo AI, until it was shut down in 2022. Meanwhile in San Francisco, cars with nobody behind the wheel have been part of everyday life for years now.

And it's not only the giants. I keep meeting founders who build a first working product in a few days. In many European companies, that would still be in the planning phase.

And yet in much of our industry, we still produce the way we did a hundred years ago. Sometimes inefficiently. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes with loops that add nothing.

That will cost us dearly. Our energy costs are high. Our labor costs are high. If we don't become faster, more efficient and better, we will simply lose to China and India.

Technology alone won't save us. It takes people.

Owners sometimes ask me over dinner: "Werner, I know we're too slow. What should I do?"

My answer is always the same: Only hire people with accountability. People with skin in the game. And then give them the right to decide. Including the right to be wrong.

Skin in the game means you carry the consequences of your own decisions. With your money, your reputation, your name. Accountability means you don't just do a task. You answer for the result.

People like that don't need a steering committee.

They decide.

Werner

Autor: Werner Sattlegger, Foudner Art of Life

Autor: Werner Sattlegger
Founder & CEO Art of Life

Experte für digitale Entwicklungsprozesse, wo er europäische mittelständische Familien- und Industrie-unternehmen von der Komfort- in die Lernzone bringt. Leidenschaftlich gerne verbindet er Menschen und Unternehmen, liebt die Unsicherheit und das Unbekannte, vor allem bewegt ihn die Lust am Gestalten und an Entwicklung.