How to understand micropolitics and power games in academia

Mini-Workshop: Mastering Power Games & Micropolitics in Academia

Power dynamics and micropolitics are key factors influencing career progression in academia and business. Have you ever felt sidelined in meetings, struggled to navigate unspoken rules, or seen others advance despite less expertise?

This interactive mini-workshop deciphers hidden power structures, exposes common traps, and provides practical strategies to assert yourself effectively.

Participants will:
✅ Recognize career obstacles and micropolitical challenges
✅ Understand essentials of power and status games
✅ Gain strategies to be heard and acknowledged in academic and professional settings

Topics include:
🔹 Power dynamics in hierarchical organizations
🔹 Decoding verbal and non-verbal cues in daily power games
🔹 How to establish visibility and assertiveness in meetings and negotiations

Sibyl Schädeli is an experienced executive and career coach specializing in leadership, power dynamics, and women's career advancement. With over 25 years in HR management, process optimization, and organizational strategy, she has held senior roles at the University Hospital Basel and the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. As the founder of Boutique Academy, she empowers women in leadership through coaching, workshops, and consulting. Drawing from her extensive experience in academic and corporate environments, she provides deep insights into organizational power structures, micropolitics, and the hidden mechanisms that shape career trajectories, particularly in academia.

Trainer:        Sibyl Schädeli
Target Group:  all postdocs
                         (Priority is given to postdocs with a  DESY contract)
Date:                September 3, 2025
Time  :             16:30 -18:30
Please register here!

Mastering Your Career as a Postdoc (2/3): Use Feedback and Effective Meetings to Improve Productivity and Trust

What you will learn:

• Feedback and its impact

• 3 steps to valuable feedback

• Why meetings matter

• Making smart use of meeting formats

Feedback and meetings are your basic tools to build relationships, for management and

communication. In this interactive workshop, you will learn how to use feedback effectively

and make meetings more productive. Through hands-on exercises, experience sharing, and

concrete methods, you will develop strategies to avoid common communication pitfalls in

academia and elsewhere.

The workshop includes lunch and one optional confidential coaching session within the three modules for individual challenges with one of the two trainers.

Trainers:          Andrea Pargätzi and Verena Riedinger
                         senior business coaches in academia and beyond
Target Group:  all postdocs
                         (Priority is given to postdocs with a  DESY contract)
Date:                04. September 2025
Time:              11:00 - 16:00 Uhr
Maximum:       12 participants

Sign up here!

All modules can be booked independently of each other.

How to improve your meetings

'Networking For Introverts Or People, Who Do Not Really Like To Network' (HH-Campus)

Join our expert trainer, Dr. Sylvia Löhken for an interactive, online workshop on how to network.

The importance of networking for one's career is undeniable. But how do you feel when you think about "networking"? Some people find this very easy and others do not. How do you develop an authentic professional network?

• Focus on professional visibility in the scientific field
• Work with concrete case studies
• Learn to network in your own comfortable way
• Develop authentic connections

A short questionnaire will precede the workshop, in order to customize your personal learning. The workshop offers orientation, examples, and strategies – as well as the mantra that there are always several ways to achieve your goals.

Trainer:                   Dr. Sylvia Löhken, coach and trainer, published
                                author in the field of introvert and extrovert
                                personalities. For more info, please check out this
                                website:
                                https://www.intros-extros.com/ueber-uns/referenzen

            
Target group:        All Postdocs (Priority is given to postdocs with a DESY Contract)
Dates:                   25.09.2025 - HH-Campus, Building 7 EG / Room SR7a

Times:                    9:00 - 17:00 Uhr
Maximum:             12 participants

Please register here!