Interview: Burkhard List

These seven questions to b allow an insight to managing director, business partner, husband and father Burkhard List.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
“I love to contribute my methodical skills to my projects. I am most passionate when I have enough space to realise what I have planned – that’s when I feel completely wrapped up in my work.”

What do you need to work successfully?
“For me, two components are essential: Freedom and mutual trust when realising project goals.”

How do you cope with situations that seem impossible to solve?
“These are the challenges I am passionate about. I normally take these on by analysing the situation intensively and even visualising it. In difficult situations, I take small steps to reach the goal and I also rely on input from outside. Sometimes it is necessary to make a compromise. But giving up will never be an option for me.”

What brings energy to your work and your life?
“I am especially motivated when I work together with people that have the same drive to change something. We pull together to achieve our goals. But when you have to do a lot of persuading in the first place and are always faced with obstacles, then energy flows to the wrong channels. This makes a positive development quite difficult.”

What dos b&mi stand for?
“For simple solutions, or in other words: for the ingenuity of simplicity. Still, this does not necessarily mean that the simplest solution is the best, or that we settle for the solution that seems to be the simplest at first.”

What did you learn quickly in your life and kept on with it – without putting much effort in?
“Cooking. I only learned it when I got into a relationship with my wife – now I get quite good results without much of a challenge.”

What are the three things in your life that you are most grateful for?
“That’s easy: My wife and my two children.”