Wilhelm Haller

Wilhelm (Willi) Haller (1935-2004) was a South German business and Social Entrepreneur who paved the way for the realization of flexible working hours. (Manager Magazine)

The idea was born while he was working as an apprentice in a medium size company called Hengstler making electromechanical counters. It was while building the market awareness for flexible working hours concepts that the phrase 'I laik Gleitzeit' was coined and used as an advertising slogan. Later he went on to found the company called [http://www.interflex.de/ Interflex] which became the leading player in this market. Willi incorporated the company on the basis of progressive management ideas, worker motivation being a central theme. A third of profits was to be distributed to capital, employees and charities respectively.

Willi later went on to initiate a number of other socially oriented projects, including the [http://www.lebenshaus-trossingen.de/ Lebenshaus] and the [http://www.nudelhaus.com/ Nudelhaus] .He was the author of a number of books in German covering a wide range of topics from business, economics and theology.He was also chairman of executive council of the Mondcivitan Republic and a friend of Hugh J. Schonfield, who had a great influence on his life. He translated some of Schonfield's books into German including the famous bestseller 'The Passover Plot'.

He also acted as consultant to trade unions and social services as well as being a sought after guest speaker at universities and management seminars.Although a radical thinker, he was a strong influence on even leaders in high management not only because of his pragmatic style of argumentation and extremely charismatic personality but because of the logical construction of his argumentation.

A disciple of Martin Buber, the depth of his theological thinking is apparent in the following translated extract from 'Das dunkle Feuer':

"We overlook, and too often suppress, the fact that salvation is actually to be discovered in the shadows. As in the conversion of seed to fruit, to use one of Jesus' examples, the darkness of the earth and its apparent destruction is decisive so salvation apparently grows mainly from a suffering experience within oneself and the environment. But this has nothing to do with the asceticism or self-affliction which makes us pull a face and adorn a bitter countenance but rather with a way to freedom; releasing man, creeping on all fours in internal and external dependency, to the glorious freedom of the Children of God and the making of us as upright human beings. This way leads to the wilderness, down into hell, into the caverns, into the dark lap of Mother Earth, where wheat corn dies and from which only thus fruit can be born."

Willi's ideas have continued to bear fruit after his death and the International Leadership and Business Society was founded to honor his ideals, including the humanization of work.

Bibliography

*"Die heilsame Alternative", Wuppertal, Erstauflage 1989
*"Ohne Macht und Mandat", Wuppertal, 1992
*"Flexible Arbeitszeit", München, 1992
*"Flexible Arbeitszeiten im stationären Pflegedienst", Radolfzell, Erstauflage 1993
*"Das dunkle Feuer", Oberursel, 1994
*"Die Zinspeitsche", St. Georgen: Angela Hackbarth Verlag, o.J., 1994