McKinsey’s infamous stat haunts every executive: 70% of all change management efforts fail. Despite decades of expertise, this number seems frozen in time. Why?
In the 35th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I sat down with a true transformation veteran, Rupert Brown, author of the eye-opening book, ‘Lost in Transformation’.
Rupert is an experienced Chief People Officer and change management specialist with deep expertise in M&A, digital transformation, and turnarounds, having advised giants like Procter & Gamble and Maersk.
This wasn’t just a discussion of tactics; it was a candid, emotionally intelligent discussion on how Transformations can be handled better.
Tune in to learn about:
Why Transformation projects continue to fail
The difference between Change and Transformation
The Bad Reputation of the word ‘Transformation’
Why we still struggle with Change Management
In-Groups and Out-Groups in Change Management Processes
Chief Acceleration Officers
Trust is Energy
Crises as Catalysts for Change
The impact of our Permacrisis on Change Management
Behavioral Skills to cope with the BANI world’
Change Management and AI
If you’re leading a transformation—or struggling to survive one—you can’t afford to miss this. Rupert delivers the hard truths and the practical guidance needed to shift from ‘being Lost’ to becoming ‘the Leader of change’.
► You can watch or listen to a podcast with our conversation on:
‘Guys, I will always have your back’, she said when she became our leader … until she did not.
We all know the stories about how notorious dictators like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein, not only ruled their countries with an iron fist, but had an inner circle of followers that were on the one hand attracted to them and craving for their approval, and on the other hand continuously on their toes, out of fear of falling out of favor and being ‘purged’ as a result. A contemporary example of such a dictator is Kim Jong Un.
Nowadays, we would say these dictators had a ‘dark triad’.
We are always informed by our intuition when it comes to making decisions. More often than not our intuition is ‘right’, but there are also situations when we should definitely not rely on our intuition.
Being able to determine when to use our intuition and when not, often means the difference between our success and failure.
In my second interview with Professor Eugene Sadler-Smith for the Leadership 2.0 Podcast, we discussed the role of intuition in decision-making processes.
During our conversation, we touched on the following topics:
Many people in the workplace wrestle with combining their ethical and spiritual convictions on the one hand, with what they feel is required of them to progress their careers, or simply to stay in their roles, on the other.
For people who want to address this tension, ‘Heroic Leadership – Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World’ by Chris Lowney. ‘ will be a great read!
Chris Lowney, is a one-time Jesuit seminarian, who currently chairs the board of CommonSpirit Health, America’s largest not-for-profit healthcare system with 140 hospitals and more than 150,000 employees. Previously, he served as a Managing Director of J.P. Morgan & Co. in Tokyo, Singapore, London and New York.
In the 28th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I interview Chris Lowney about Heroic Leadership. During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:
Most of us are acutely aware of the gap between how organizations aspire to operate and the everyday reality of working within them.
This discrepancy often has a negative impact on the motivation and well-being of employees, ranging from a decrease in employee engagement, to mental health issues,
In her book ‘Badly Behaved People’, my fellow executive coach Zena Everett describes a number of real-world cases about how this discrepancy can manifest itself, and, perhaps more importantly, how we can address them
What I particularly like about about this book is how Zena makes complex psychological concepts (for instance, Transactional Analysis) accessible without oversimplifying them, and demonstrates how they can be applied in the workplace.
In our conversation about her book, Zena and I discussed the following topics:
🎙️ Even though we have a vast array of change management theories and methodologies at our disposal (John Kotter, Kurt Lewin, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, William Bridges, ADKAR, etc.), it still proves to be very hard for us as leaders and consultants to implement real, sustainable change (transformation).
🚫 The harsh reality is that most change projects fail (the famous 70% of McKinsey), or end with a superficial victory declaration, after which the organization often falls back to ‘the way we DID things here’.
⁉️ ‘Why is that?’ That very question drove Daniël Wolfs, experienced change consultant and co-founder of The Change Studio (Netherlands), to write his thought-provoking book ‘De Veranderfilosoof’ (The Change Philosopher) on how we can approach transformation in a deeper, more human, and more sustainable way.’
► In our conversation about this book, we discussed the following topics:
Most leaders leave the composition and agendas of their leadership teams to chance. This is a waste of time, energy, and focus.
Almost all senior leaders choose the members of their leadership teams almost by default: all their direct reports, as well as a selection of participants from staffing and back-office roles ‘in the matrix’ (Finance, HR, IT, Regulatory, Affairs, Communications, Quality Assurance, etc.).
The advantages of composing leadership teams in this way are that:
✅ Representatives of all functions are aware of every topic that is discussed (information and awareness)
✅ Participants from staffing and back-office functions feel they (and their functions) are taken seriously as true ‘business partners’
✅ The leader avoids difficult discussions about the composition of their leadership team
Although this sounds great, this typically results in:
Earlier this week, one of the most important business books on the Future of Work was published by Harvard Business Review Press: ‘Employment Is Dead: How Disruptive Technologies Are Revolutionizing the Way We Work’ by Deborah Perry Piscione and Josh Drean.
The central theme of this book is that traditional employment models are becoming outdated due to the evolving needs and expectations of the modern workforce, in combination with, and enabled by, disruptive technologies.
This will lead to the end of the traditional employment model, as well as the traditional form of companies, as we know them today.
Monday, just hours before the book was released, I had the chance to interview Deborah Perry Piscione for my Leadership 2.0 Podcast.
► In our conversation, we touched on the following topics:
The image of the banking industry has been severely tarnished by the financial crisis (2007-2008), which led to increasing regulatory and compliance demands. At the same time, the industry is experiencing emerging competition from FinTechs, evolving business models, and disruptive technologies.
In light of these challenges, I recently spoke with Ralph Hamers, to explore his views on what effective leadership in the banking sector entails.
In our conversation, we touched on the following topics:
It is tempting for CEOs to try to appease their shareholders by reducing corporate overhead costs. It seems to be the corporate equivalent of a ‘Get Out of Jail Free card’ in Monopoly: it is free and can get a CEO out of a tricky situation.
The reason is that everyone loves the notion of lowering corporate overhead costs, and especially reducing the number of people in corporate roles.
Whereas the supervisory board occasionally might call for caution, you will never hear shareholders or analysts complain and Business Unit leaders usually love the perspective of lower corporate charges and more independence. Most often, corporate functions cannot count on a lot of sympathy from the rest of the workforce either. They are seen as overpaid ‘bureaucrats’, ‘paper pushers’, and ‘PowerPoint wizards’ in ‘back-office’ roles.
Reducing overhead is also not very difficult. Usually, there are plenty of young runners-up in large organizations dying to prove themselves to corporate leaders. If not, consulting firms are happy to line up for beauty parades to show off their capabilities in this area.
It is also not that hard – at least, I have never seen a corporate cost savings initiative not achieving its short-term financial objectives.
So eliminating or reducing these corporate functions is a great idea, right?
Unfortunately, it depends…
Eliminating or reducing corporate functions poses risks for CEOs in three areas:
There are some companies I deeply admire, and On, the Swiss sports and apparel brand is definitely one of them! Not only do they make amazing products and have an extremely powerful brand, they also have a unique company culture.
For this reason, I was thrilled to sit down with Alessandra Del Pino, Head of Engagement & Talent Growth at On, to discuss the company culture of On, or, as Alessandra describes it, their ‘secret sauce’.
During our conversation, we covered the following topics:
‘Everyone who wins nowadays is challenging the Shareholder Value Maximization doctrine’
This is just one of the powerful and thought-provoking statements Professor Michael Pirson (Fordham University – Gabelli School of Business) made when I interviewed him about ‘Humanistic Management’.
In the last decades, the shortcomings of the neo-liberal economic order in our society have become clearer than ever (e.g. the credit crunch, climate change, and wars). An increasing number of people want to move away from a system that commoditizes human beings, and the natural environment in which they live.
They seek, amongst others, dignity, a sense of purpose, and attention to well-being, instead of material prosperity only.
Humanistic Management is a relatively young academic movement that seeks to create a more balanced relationship between those things that can be exchanged on markets and those that are not but make life worthwhile.
Michael Pirson is an active member of this movement, and in this episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I discuss with him
1️⃣ What Humanistic Management is 2️⃣ How Michael discovered Humanistic Management 3️⃣ What we as mankind can learn from the Covid 19 Pandemic 4️⃣ Measuring Wealth versus Wellbeing 5️⃣ Will Shareholder Value (Economistic Management) not always prevail? 6️⃣ Is Humanistic Management industry agnostic? 7️⃣ Resources on Humanistic Management 8️⃣ Final Thoughts
👇 You can watch or listen to this podcast episode on
‘A transformational read that every leader of today needs’.
These were the words Head Judge, Jacq Burns used when she announced that ‘Leader As Healer’, written by Nicholas Janni was selected as the overall winner for the 2023 Business Book Awards.
In his book, Nicolas Janni argues that we need a new leadership model to address the challenges our society faces.
Our current leadership model is one where we see great leaders as warriors ‘on the battlefield of relentless competition’, who drive action, pursue instrumental (shareholder value related) goals, and maintain transactional relationships.
Instead, Nicholas Janni pleads for leaders who are empathetic, intuitive, present, skilled in mindfulness and deep listening, and who can inspire colleagues to engage and collaborate.
In this episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I discuss with Nicholas:
I recently heard an HR leader proudly explain her rigorous selection process for a basic leadership program aimed at newly appointed people leaders. She first pre-selected potential participants based on their performance ratings, then personally interviewed all the top performers. Those who passed were sent by her for a final interview with a senior business leader, and only the successful candidates were allowed to attend the training.
While I appreciated her personal involvement and the engagement of the business leader in the selection process, I do not think this is the right approach.
Twenty years ago, in 2004, Shell was hit by the reserves scandal. In the midst of this crisis, the board asked Jeroen van der Veer to become CEO and navigate the company out of this crisis. Recently Jeroen wrote a book titled ‘Van A near B – Lessen in leiderschap’ (‘From A to B – Lessons in Leadership’), in which he reflects on these, and other experiences during his long career (which also included for instance being the chairman of the supervisory board of ING during the financial crisis).
In this episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I discuss with Jeroen:
‘I defy anybody to be energized by most appraisal systems I have seen in my career’ – Sally Bibb
As HR professionals and line managers (present company included!), we tend to take the strengths of our staff for granted and focus most of our attention on their ‘development areas’ (a euphemism for weaknesses).
The question is, however, how effective this is, and which business opportunities we miss, by following this approach.
Sally Bibb, partner at PA Consulting, leader and author in the field of strengths-based approaches to people and organisations, proposes a radically different approach and advocates focusing on strengths instead of weaknesses.
To find out what Strength Management is, and how we can implement it, I interviewed her for my Leadership 2.0 podcast.
During our conversation, Sally and I discussed the following topics:
0️⃣1️⃣ What Strength Management is
0️⃣2️⃣ How Sally became interested in the topic
0️⃣3️⃣ Is Strength Management incompatible with a Growth Mindset?
0️⃣4️⃣ Why most HR professionals remain focused on Development Areas
0️⃣5️⃣ Implementing Strength Management in HR Processes
0️⃣6️⃣ How can appraisals be improved?
0️⃣7️⃣ Is strength management a generational phenomenon?
0️⃣8️⃣ Will AI support Strength Management?
0️⃣9️⃣ Issues Sally is asked to address by her clients
➡️ No time to watch or listen to podcast now? Here is a short summary of our conversation ⤵
Dirk Verburg: I was classically trained as a line manager to focus on development areas to create “all-round” people. What are the advantages of focusing on a person’s strengths instead?
Sally Bibb: A strength is something you are naturally drawn to, that energizes you, and that you’re good at. Twenty years of neurobiological evidence shows that when people use their strengths, they are happier, more resilient, and perform better. Football managers, for example, know each player’s strengths and don’t try to make them all-rounders. While a team can be good at everything, an individual cannot. Focusing on strengths is not about ignoring weaknesses, but about intentionally using what you’re great at. Spending too much time on things you’re not good at will cause your motivation to drop, and your performance will be good at best—not great.
Dirk Verburg: Where does your personal interest in strengths come from? Did you have an experience that inspired you to focus on this topic?
Sally Bibb: My interest stems from an early experience in my career. I was promoted from a job I loved, which involved crewing ships, to one that required doing research for trade union negotiations. I was good at the first job because it leveraged my strengths in connecting with people and problem-solving. The second job, however, was a poor fit. I felt a loss of confidence and didn’t understand why until years later at a conference. A Harvard professor spoke about the emerging field of positive psychology and focusing on what’s right with people. That was a lightbulb moment for me. I realized there was nothing wrong with me; I was just a square peg in a round hole. This experience inspired me to study what makes great salespeople so successful, which was my first foray into applying strengths to the workplace.
Dirk Verburg: How do you see the relationship between strengths management and the desire to adopt a “growth mindset”? Are they contradictory, or do they strengthen each other?
Sally Bibb: I think they are highly complementary. A growth mindset—the belief that you can learn and grow—is important whether you are playing to your strengths or working on something you’re not good at. The growth mindset is not about being good at everything, but about being open to learning. For example, I worked with an executive who had never been in an innovative environment before. By having a growth mindset, he discovered a new strength in “joining the dots” and making connections. Had he not been open to this, he might have boxed himself in, assuming he wasn’t an innovative person. A growth mindset helps you discover new strengths and apply existing ones to new challenges.
Dirk Verburg: Why do you think many people in HR and talent management still focus so much on areas of development, even though the thinking has moved on?
Sally Bibb: I think a lot of it is organizational inertia. Organizations tend to do what they’ve always done, like using traditional competency frameworks and appraisal systems, even when they know these systems don’t energize people or get the best results. The organizations I work with that adopt a strengths-based approach do so because they want different outcomes, like improved performance and morale. Adopting this approach is a gradual process that requires a leader with a clear focus and determination to change things. I hope that in the next ten years, a strengths-based approach will be the norm, with new generations of leaders recognizing the benefits of this way of thinking.
Dirk Verburg: How would you practically conduct a strengths-based interview?
Sally Bibb: First, you have to know what strengths are needed for the role. For example, we studied the strengths of exemplary midwives in charge of labor wards. We found that the best ones share certain strengths beyond their clinical competencies, like a strong sense of doing the right thing. In a strengths-based interview, you ask candidates about those specific strengths. For example, “Tell me about a time when you had to ensure the right thing was done.” If it is a genuine strength, you can see their face light up and they can easily provide examples. In contrast, if you don’t know what “great” looks like for that role, a strengths interview is difficult to do effectively. The key is to match the candidate’s natural inclinations with the specific strengths that you know are critical for success in that job.
Dirk Verburg: What can we do to make classic performance interviews more meaningful by applying a strengths-based approach?
Sally Bibb: A strengths-based performance discussion should be an ongoing conversation throughout the year, not just a one-off event. It should focus on three things: the strengths you’re using regularly, the strengths you have that you might not be using, and the “weaknesses that matter”—the ones that are really getting in your way. Instead of criticizing, you can have a collaborative conversation about how to mitigate those weaknesses. This could involve using your strengths to compensate, getting help from colleagues, or finding ways to avoid the task altogether. This approach makes people feel relaxed and authentic because they don’t have to pretend to be perfect. The conversation becomes focused on potential and how to make the person even better at what they already do well.
Dirk Verburg: I have the impression that focusing on strengths comes more naturally to younger generations than to baby boomers or millennials. Would you agree with that observation?
Sally Bibb: That’s an interesting observation, and I’m not aware of any specific research on it. However, people in their 20s and 30s were raised in an era of “positive parenting” and a greater focus on self-esteem. They are often less modest and more willing to talk about their strengths. In contrast, older generations can be more modest. This is also culturally influenced. In the United States, people are generally more comfortable discussing their strengths, whereas in the UK and Switzerland, modesty can be a national sport. I see modesty as being a bit overrated, as not talking about your strengths can inhibit your ability to serve others and be overlooked for opportunities.
Dirk Verburg: You work with very big clients. What are the starting points for you in those conversations when a client wants to think about a strengths-based approach?
Sally Bibb: Clients rarely ask for a strengths-based approach directly. They come with business problems like: “We need to improve our performance,” “We need to improve our safety,” or “We need to improve staff morale and engagement.” These are the real-world problems that a strengths-based approach can solve. When clients see the impact of this approach, they like it because it connects with people and makes common sense. It’s not just a psychometric tool; it translates into hard returns and measurable outcomes. The private equity sector, for example, has been a leader in this thinking because they know that having the right combination of strengths in a leadership team is critical to a successful investment.
Dirk Verburg: We’ve discussed a lot of elements around strengths. Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you would like to mention?
Sally Bibb: There’s just one thing that’s very dear to my heart. From women in prison to senior executives, people often don’t really know their strengths or their value. The strengths-based approach makes people feel good about themselves and the contribution they make. This is the best starting point for helping people realize their potential. If we could bring this thinking into the public and political arena, there would be less burnout, less imposter syndrome, and more satisfaction and engagement at work. It’s a win-win-win for individuals, employers, and society as a whole.
▶ About Sally Bibb
She started her career working for BT International and then moved into an international role at The Economist Group before founding the strengths consultancy Engaging Minds in 2012. In 2021, she joined PA Consulting as a partner to advance her vision of bringing strengths to many more employers worldwide.
In this role, she leads strengths-based organizational change work in Europe, the USA, and Asia, and has built a track record of achieving transformational results for a number of high-profile clients in both the private, as well as in the public sector.
Sally has an MSc in organizational change from the University of Surrey and has (co-)authored eight books. A full list can be found here: https://sallybibb.com/my-books/
She is a fellow of the RSA (Royal Society of Arts) and a member of the steering committee of The Daedalus Trust, a charity founded by Lord David Owen to promote research into hubris syndrome in business.
‘We live in a world of organizations – and we do not understand them’
This is one of the statements Henry Mintzberg, one of the leading thinkers in the field of Management, made when I interviewed him for my Leadership 2.0 Podcast about his latest book ‘Understanding Organizations…Finally’.
During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:
0️⃣1️⃣ The importance for organizations to get their structure ‘right’ 0️⃣2️⃣ The evolvement of Henry’s thinking about organizations 0️⃣3️⃣ ‘Every (organization) form contains the seeds of its own destruction’ 0️⃣4️⃣ ‘Emergent structures’ versus large-scale reorganizations 0️⃣5️⃣ The fit between the leader and the structure of the organization 0️⃣6️⃣ The structures of Apple and Tesla and the personalities of their founders 0️⃣7️⃣ The complementary role of conflict and culture in organizations 0️⃣8️⃣ The relationship between the structure and the culture of an organization 0️⃣9️⃣ The gap between formulators and implementers of corporate strategies 1️⃣0️⃣ The interest in structuring organizations in academia and business
You can watch or listen to this podcast episode on:
We are always informed by our intuition when it comes to making decisions. More often than not our intuition is ‘right’, but there are also situations when we should definitely not rely on our intuition.
Being able to determine when to use our intuition and when not, often means the difference between our success and failure.
In my second interview with Professor Eugene Sadler-Smith for the Leadership 2.0 Podcast, we discussed the role of intuition in decision-making processes.
During our conversation, we touched on the following topics:
0️⃣1️⃣ What intuition is and what it is not 0️⃣2️⃣ The two types of intuition 0️⃣3️⃣ Adopting an Ambidextrous Mindset 0️⃣4️⃣ How to take important decisions in business 0️⃣5️⃣ Carl Jung and Intuition 0️⃣6️⃣ Why the intuitive mind is a slow learner 0️⃣7️⃣ Values and ethics in decision-making processes 0️⃣8️⃣ Final Thoughts – AI and intuition
You can watch or listen to this podcast episode on:
Scenario thinking enables organizations to establish possible visions of the future in the form of scenarios.
These scenarios enable decision-makers to think through the different ways in which the environment of their organizations could evolve, based on different sets of assumptions. It enables leaders to ‘think through ‘a wide range of what if questions’: ‘What if the dollar…’, ‘What if China…’, ‘What if scientific developments make it possible in the near future to…’, etc. This enables them to mentally prepare themselves for possible ‘Black Swans’, and review the ability of their organization to cope with, or, iedeally, benefit from these.
One of the companies that is best known for its scenario-thinking activity is Shell. For decades, Shell’s scenarios have supported the decision-making of Shell leaders, academics, governments, and businesses.
Jeremy Bentham led this activity in Shell between 2006 and his retirement in 2022 as Shell Scenarios & strategy Leader and VP Global Business Environment. In this episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I am interviewing Jeremy Bentham about scenario thinking and leadership.
During our conversation, Jeremy and I discussed the following topics:
Karl Marx famously said, ‘A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism’. Nowadays we can say ‘A specter is haunting the business world – the specter of AI’.
Everyone seems to be riding on the AI bandwagon nowadays, and, as a result, many business leaders are suffering from corporate FOMO.
One thing is clear though, all business leaders need to reflect on the impact AI will have on their organizations. Too many organizations have disappeared because of technological disruptions, including the likes of Kodak, Polaroid, DEC, Motorola, Blackberry, SUN Microsystems, and Blockbuster, to name a few.
Of course, it is tempting to have an intellectual debate about which technologies are disruptive and which ones are not. This is especially the case if technologies are built on other technologies (which is almost often the case). Without the transistor, the modern computer would not have existed, does that mean that microchips are not disruptive?
For this reason, I like this definition in Investopedia:
A disruptive technology is an innovation that significantly alters the way that consumers, industries, or businesses operate. A disruptive technology sweeps away the systems or habits it replaces because it has attributes that are recognizably superior.
Based on this definition, I think AI definitely qualifies as a disruptive technology.
When it comes to dealing with disruptive technologies, business leaders need to ask themselves four questions:
The World Health Organization estimates that 12 billion working days are lost every year due to depression and anxiety. This costs $1 trillion in lost productivity.
McKinsey research showed that ‘60 % of employees have experienced at least one mental-health challenge at some point in their lives’. According to the same study ‘Failing to address the effects of mental health and well-being challenges is a missed opportunity for employers’.
Employees dealing with mental health issues are 4x more likely to say they intend to leave, 3x more likely to report low job satisfaction, 3x more likely to experience toxic workplace behavior, and 2x more likely to report low engagement.
At the same time, classic Employee Assistance Programs do not seem to work…
Vlad Gheorghiu experienced mental health issues firsthand, whilst working for McKinsey.
This experience inspired him to design solutions. First for McKinsey, and later by co-finding a start-up company called Kyan Health.
In my conversation with Vlad, we covered the following topics:
1️⃣ Vlad’s background
2️⃣ Vlad’s engagement with mental health
3️⃣ The gap in the workplace between the mental health support employees need and receive
4️⃣ The concept of Kyan Health
5️⃣ Measuring impact
6️⃣ Creating a start-up company: Three Dos
7️⃣ Creating a start-up company: Three Dont’s
8️⃣ Vlad’s role models as an entrepreneur
If you are interested, you can watch our conversation on YouTube.
The vast majority of global companies have regional leadership teams. These teams are often uncomfortably situated between the corporate executive team, and their own national (sales) organizations(s).
They usually have a tough job.
Typical challenges for regional leadership teams
Regional leadership teams often find themselves being caught in a sandwich.
On the one hand, they are being kept responsible for realizing the revenue and profit targets for their geographic area (’their’ business), whilst also ensuring ‘compliance’ in all relevant areas.
Everyone is an expert in Leadership Development, or at least has an opinion about it.
However, if that is the case, why do global organizations spend more than $60 billion every year on leadership development programs, but is it so hard to ensure the ROI of these programs?
To find the answer to this question, I decided to interview Ayse Yemiscigil for my Podcast Leadership 2.0.
Ayse Yemiscigil is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business and a Research Affiliate with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University.
In February 2023, she, Dana Born, and Horace Ling, published an article for HBR.org of the Harvard Business Review titled: ‘What Makes Leadership Development Programs Succeed?’
During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:
Steve Jobs said focusing “means saying no to the hundred other good ideas.”
Focusing is not something that comes naturally to me. Personally, I see opportunities everywhere around me, have a better eye for the upsides than for the downsides of these opportunities, and am blessed (cursed?) with a healthy degree of FOMO…
Therefore, I decided to make focusing my new-year resolution for 2023.
For starters, I ordered five popular books of experts in the area of personal productivity in general, and more specifically on focusing.
In this post, I will share my takeaways from their books. One word of warning: these are my personal takeaways – no mini-reviews! If you are looking for these, I highly recommend you to look them up on goodreads.com.
Current thinking in Psychology is that there are five dimensions we can use to describe the most important personality dimensions. Dr. Ralph Piedmont discovered the 6th one: ‘the Numinous’.
The five-factor model of personality (FFM) is a set of five broad trait dimensions or domains, often referred to as the “Big Five”: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism (sometimes named by its polar opposite, Emotional Stability), and Openness to Experience (sometimes named Intellect). The Big Five/FFM was developed to represent as much of the variability in individuals’ personalities as possible, using only a small set of trait dimensions. Many personality psychologists agree that its five domains capture the most important, basic individual differences in personality traits and that many alternative trait models can be conceptualized in terms of the Big Five/FFM structure (www.oxfordbibliographies.com).
‘The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology’.
With this quote from Edward O. Wilson 1929 Matt Nixon answered my question if our requirements about leadership have changed in the last decades.
Matt Nixon has more than 30 years of experience as a management consultant and HR executive, working with CEOs and senior leaders around the world. An Oxford classics graduate, he was a partner in Towers Perrin in Chicago and London, and subsequently held the positions of Global Head of Organization Effectiveness for Royal Dutch Shell, and Managing Director, Group Head of Talent for Barclays, before returning to the consulting industry.
Nowadays Matt works as a partner in a specialized consulting boutique where he coaches and advises CEOs and other senior leaders during career transitions and other periods of change and transition.
Matt has written and taught extensively on hubris in executives.
During our conversation, Matt and I discussed the following topics:
reflect on their own role and behaviors to prevent self-fulfilling prophecies,
release control if they want to make things happen, and
consider creating ‘a sense of belonging’ instead of ‘burning platforms’
if they want to implement deep and sustainable behavioral change in their organizations…
These were just some of the topics I discussed with the management consultant and change management guru (although he would reject that classification!) Arend Ardon.
Arend wrote a number of bestsellers in the area of change management and leadership, and is the co-founder and co-owner of the Change Studio, a consultancy firm specializing in change management and leadership.
During our conversation, Arend and I discussed the following topics:
Recently I had a conversation with Saskia Schepers about her book on Neurodiversity in the workplace with the title ‘Als alle breinen werken – Waarom ruimte voor neurodiversiteit op het werk goed is voor iedereen’ (‘When all brains are switched on – Why space for neurodiversity in the workplace benefits everyone’).
Around 80% of mankind is neurotypical, and 20% is neurodivergent. We tend to ‘equip’ people in the latter category with labels like ADD, DHD, bipolar, autistic, etc.
Most leaders find it hard to integrate neurodivergent people in their teams.
The reason is that most of us have preconceived ideas about the way people in the workplace should behave. For instance, we expect people to like attending and participating in meetings, do their work in teams, be productive in open-plan offices, and socialize with their colleagues after work.
People who do not fit this mold are seen as bad ‘team players’, and are often criticized for this behavior, e.g. during annual performance review meetings.
The book almost immediately reached the number 1 position in the Dutch bestseller list of management books, was quickly sold out, and is now in its third printed edition.
An English translation is in the making and will be published in 2024.
During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:
Our society is more complex than ever. For the first time since WWII two nations find themselves at war on the European continent. At the same time our economy is slowing down, inflation is on the rise, whilst technological developments in the AI space are more unpredictable than ever, and we are still trying to find out if these will be our friend or foe…
In times like these ethics, and a sense of purpose are more important than ever. Therefore I was glad to have the opportunity to have a conversation on these topics with John Hollwitz.
John Hollwitz is a University Professor of psychology and rhetoric. Before coming to Fordham, he was the A.F. Jacobson Professor of Communications at Creighton University and dean of arts and sciences at Loyola College in Maryland. He also has been the vice president of academic affairs at Fordham.
Our interview was focused on the why and how of corporate ethics. During our conversation, we discussed, amongst others, the following topics:
Our expectations of leaders and ideas about leadership have changed dramatically in the last couple of years.
Recently I was introduced to Sophia Town, Ph.D. , an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Gabelli School of Business of Fordham University, who is at the forefront of academic research in this area.
In the classroom, Professor Town’s curriculum is guided by the question: “How can we develop compassionate leaders in service of a flourishing world?”
SophiaTown leads Fordham’s Human Flourishing Project (FHFP), a mixed-methods, interdisciplinary research lab that explores behavioral, psychological, communicative, and spiritual development in business education. Related to this project, Dr. Town serves as a Research Affiliate and Advisory Board Member for the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University.
During our conversation, we discussed, amongst others, the following topics:
I am a big fan of the work of Carl Jung, and in my opinion the business world could really benefit from his insights. Therefore, I was pleased to have the opportunity to have a conversation with Murray Stein about applying Jungian Analytical Psychology in the workplace.
Murray Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D.), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich (Diploma). He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and President of The International School of Analytical Psychology (ISAP)in Zurich (2008-2012).
He published tens of books about Carl Jung and analytical psychology, including for instance ‘Jung’s Treatment of Christianity’ and ‘Jung’s Map of the Soul’.
The focus of our conversation was a book Murray edited with John Hollwitz called ‘The Psyche at work – Workplace Applications of Jungian Analytical Psychology’.
For those who have never experienced it firsthand, or witnessed it from nearby, scientific research has shown that work can be a considerable source of stress.
This stress can manifest itself in the form of emotions (e.g. anxiety and depression), cognitive performance (e.g. in decision-making), negative behaviors (e.g. unhealthy eating habits, alcohol and drug abuse, aggression), and physical symptoms (e.g. high blood pressure, neck-, head- and shoulder pain).
Not only does stress have a negative impact on individual employees, absenteeism and low engagement for instance can seriously impact the performance of their organizations as well.
Resilience training
The popularity of resilience training in the workplace has dramatically increased in the last couple of years (particularly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic), and there is evidence that, if done in the right format, this training can help individuals in certain target groups to deal with stress.
Positioning
The problem is that resilience training is almost always only a part of the solution, and that is almost meaningless if offered in isolation to mitigate work-related stress.
Last week I attended an interesting Webinar from Gartner about change fatigue.
According to data collected by Gartner, change fatigue is quickly becoming the number 1 priority for most HR organizations in 2023.
The reason is that the number of change initiatives in organizations is increasing exponentially; simultaneously, the enthusiasm of the workforce to embrace, or at least support these changes, is plummeting.
As a result, many organizations are currently looking for resources to address this, for instance in the form of change management methodologies (e.g. ADKAR), or by asking for support from specialized consulting boutiques.
The why of change
However, as valuable as these resources might be, it is important not to jump to the ‘how’, without paying attention to the ‘why’, the ‘what’ and ‘the team’.
In my personal experience, most people do not resist change if they understand the ‘why’, the ‘what’, and if they recognize ‘the team’.
One of the big temptations we as leaders face is our urge to add value to the work of our staff. Typically, we add this value in the form of change or additional requests.
There are three reasons why adding value is tempting for us:
Accountability – We are accountable for the work of our staff. If something goes wrong, we as leaders suffer the consequences (‘It happened on your watch’)
Know-how – We know it better than our staff. Seriously. That is most often the reason why we were appointed
We like it – As leaders it is often tempting to take a break from the daily grind of budgets and office politics, to dive back into the content we love(d) so much (‘Let me show you how it is done’)
As with every temptation in life, we need to fight this one as well. There are fivereasons for this:
Everyone who ever worked in a large organization, can probably relate to at least one of the following examples of conflicts that regularly occur in organizations:
A sales leader wants to close a deal with a low margin to meet her targets and to safeguard the relationship with the customer. The product manager does not want to sign off on the deal, because she wants to protect the margin of the product in the longer term
A business leader wants to hire a star performer working for another company, and is prepared to pay her more than the maximum of the corporate salary band for these types of roles. The HR Business Partner tries to prevent this because he does not want to create a precedent that can create upward pressure on the salary costs of the company
The head of a shared service department wants to hire an independent contractor for a project for USD 1.200 a day. The Purchasing department forces him to work with a consultant from a well-established firm on the preferred supplier list, for a fee rate that is 3 times as high as the one of the independent contractor
These, and other types of conflicts, seem to be an inevitable part of life in large organizations. The question is: why we have those types of conflicts, and if and how we can prevent them?
What do the notorious former marketing director of American Apparel, Ryan Holiday, and renowned Dutch reformed theologian Bram van de Beek have in common? They both have written a book about the danger of egocentricity.
Social media…are not to blame
Social media offers endless possibilities to promote ourselves and serve as outlets for our vanity. It enables us to humble brag about our professional achievements on LinkedIn, share evidence of our successful ‘friends & family’ life on Facebook, and demonstrate our cutting-edge lifestyle on Instagram.
However, looking at our current society and world history, it seems we as human beings always have been prone to self-centeredness and self-promotion. Social media therefore merely enables us to express something that is already deeply rooted in us.
In all walks of life, there are people who have deeply held convictions about how the world works, and act accordingly. The business world is no exception.
Examples I encountered during my career were business leaders that held and acted according to the following convictions:
The only way you gain respect by ‘the business’ as a staff department, is by reducing your headcount to the absolute minimum
Partnering with other vendors to deliver an integrated solution for clients is unnecessarily complex and has a negative impact on the margin
Teams perform at their best if the annual bonus of individual members is linked to individual financial targets
Customizing services for individual clients equals to sub-optimization
Strong convictions usually stem from the successes they brought us in the past. They also tend to become stronger over time: every time we successfully act in accordance with one of our convictions, our inclination to use it in similar situations increases.
Strong convictions offer several advantages
Strong convictions help us to make sense of the world around us and to simplify our decision-making processes. They save us time and effort. When we are confronted with an issue on which we have a strong conviction, our mental muscle memory immediately kicks in to prescribe the decision we need to take.
Another advantage of strong convictions is the potential it offers to persuade others. Because we feel strongly about a topic and have an active ‘personal repository’ of evidence (previous cases in which a particular course of action worked for us), we can speak convincingly to others about it.
In the last three decades, the business world has become more complex than ever before. This complexity is mainly driven by two factors:
Globalization – Never before in the history of mankind have materials, capital and people moved faster and more freely across our planet
Technology – The amount of data we have at our disposal for decision-making is dramatically increasing each year, and AI is providing us with the tools to do this faster and more effective than ever.
As a result, our world has become more interconnected and interdependent than ever. A case in point are the supply chain issues businesses experienced in the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This interconnectedness and interdependence has huge implications for the way organizations need to operate, both externally as well as internally.
Ethics deal with what makes something morally right or wrong.
Almost any sizeable company nowadays has a code of ethics. The main catalysts for these were the corporate scandals in the early 2000s (Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, and others). Also, in the last couple of years having a sense of purpose has become pretty much en vogue.
As a result, every year millions of employees now dutifully complete e-learning modules and sign declarations (‘To the best of my knowledge…’).
If you think about this on a philosophical level, it is actually quite sad. Apparently, companies need to invest millions of dollars each year because a shared understanding of what is morally right or wrong to do on behalf of the company, is not a given.
Obviously, from a pragmatic point of view, companies have no choice but to invest in this type of training. First of all, it helps individuals to avoid taking decisions that can create reputational and compliance-related problems for the company. The second reason is the need to demonstrate institutional compliance to governments, regulatory bodies and other stakeholders.
When I had just been appointed in my first proper line management role, I decided to organize an offsite with my team. The purpose of this offsite was to finalize the development of a number of HR policies and processes.
Around 11 o’clock in the first morning, in a characterless conference room in the basement of the conference center, we completed our first round of brainstorming. When the time came to write up the output of our first session in a flow chart format, I said I wanted to use a specific methodology I had used as a management consultant, and would be happy to do the write-up.
One of my direct reports looked disappointed, because she wanted to create the flowcharts herself, but a colleague of hers consoled her, and said: ‘Sure, if Dirk knows how to do it and has a strong passion for it, why do we not let him do so?’ The others agreed, and they left the room to leave me to it.
I spend the next 1.5 hours working on my own in the aforementioned characterless conference room in the basement. When I was ready I went upstairs to look for my team. I found them on the terrace, enjoying the sun, cappuccinos, orange juice, and each other’s company.
Fortunately enough they thought my work was ok…
Do it yourself?
A lot of leaders frequently want to do the work of their direct reports. They have a variety of reasons for this, including
Three things to avoid if you want to make sure people understand you
‘This is a very noisy world, so we have to be very clear what we want them to know about us’
Steve Jobs
In 1920 Vladimir Lenin already recognized the power of controlling the printing press. A century later, in today’s social media world, the real battle ground is our everyday language.
Language is the ultimate tool to inspire people to take action. Unfortunately, we frequently squander its impact by making three mistakes:
In short, self management simply means ‘no bosses’. That’s it (Geoff Roberts)
Thinking back on your highschool school days, do you remember the popular child with its entourage deciding which music, movies and influences were in, or out; whose parties everyone wanted to be invited to? Did you also have a bully at school who terrorized the schoolyard with his accomplices, when no supervising adults were around? Perhaps you also remember the importance of being ‘befriended’ with children in the class whose parents had a swimming pool; and I am sure you also had someone in class whose homework you and everybody else wanted to copy.
YouTube
I thought the concept of self-managing teams had already died a well deserved death, until I recently saw a clip on YouTube. The clip advocates the concept of self-managing teams by comparing the productivity of self-managing teams with the traffic flow through a roundabout. Different scenarios are compared to ensure the most effective flow to cross an intersection: with or without human supervision, with traffic lights and finally with the creation of a roundabout. Spoiler alert: the roundabout wins. Moral of the story is that in the absence of central control participants will self-regulate the responsibility to cross the intersection, and that by doing so productivity and safety will increase.
I am stunned by the enthusiasm for this clip, because I think the parallel between teamwork and crossing an intersection is incredibly weak. I would even go so far as to say it is non-existent.
I spent a significant part of my working life developing leaders in organizations. What strikes me is that during COVID-19 the demand for this type of work has not decreased; if anything, the demand for leadership development has increased. That is remarkable. During the financial crisis in 2007-2008, for instance, most companies tried to save money, and one of the first things they considered was decreasing the out-of-pocket costs associated with these, and other kind of developmental activities.
Recently I was asked why companies continue to invest in the quality of their leadership at all levels of the organizations, despite the economic uncertainty they are facing.
In my opinion, the reason is that companies have come to realize the growing importance of the quality of leadership at all levels of the organization. I believe that this is a good thing, especially because leadership roles have become more demanding in the last couple of decades, not only for senior leaders, but also for first, and second-level leaders in organizations.
2021 will be a very interesting year! If all prognoses are correct, sometime in the next six months we should have developed a grip on COVID19.
For 2021, I foresee three trends in the workplace. Although none of these trends is initiated by COVID19, the pandemic will definitely act as a catalyst.
The most important part of leadership is making decisions. Decisions about products and markets to invest in, people to hire and to promote, IT-systems to select, to continue or terminate projects plagued by setbacks, mergers & acquisitions, etc. These decisions determine the success or failure of organizations, projects and individuals.
Ever since my graduation in the field of Sociology, I have always been very interested in the topic of decision making in organizations. At university, I loved the lectures of Professor Lawler about concepts like bounded rationality. I also loved reading books on this topic, including ‘Essence of Decision’ (about decision making in the Kennedy administration during the Cuban missile crisis) and Barbara W. Tuchman’s classic ‘March of Folly’.
Do we really need another book on this topic?
Against this background, I was a bit concerned when my friend and former PA Consulting Group colleague Wim van Hennekeler, told me that he was writing a book about decision making. This was mainly due to my concern about whether he could possibly add value to the vast body of work that was already published on this topic.
Time-efficient alternatives for reading business books
During my years in college, one of the first rap songs that became extremely popular was ‘Paid in full’ from Eric B & Rakim in the Coldcut mix. Its signature ingredients contained the soundbite ‘Pump up the volume’.
‘Pump up the volume’ also was the phrase that resounded in my head when I recently read ‘Rebel Talent – Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life’, a bestseller written by Francesca Gino, a well-known Harvard Business School professor. The entire book is based on a single concept that could easily have been explained on one single page.
Instead, the author used more than 230 pages, which cost me the better part of a Sunday to read…
Why I like reading business books
I like reading business books for four reasons:
To satisfy my intellectual curiosity
To help me to make sense of what I personally observe about the way organizations ‘work’ (or not!)
To enhance my skills
To keep me ‘current’
Why I am often disappointed after reading them
However, more often than not, I feel reading them is not the most efficient use of my time. The reason why is that (like the example mentioned at the beginning of this post), business books often try to expand ideas and concepts that could be explained in a couple of pages to the size of a book. This almost always means they need to cross the magical border of 200 pages.
I think this phenomenon is caused by the fact that business books mean ‘business’. Although it is not easy to gain insight into the market for business books, creatively extrapolating existing statistics indicate that each year more than tens of millions of business books are sold across the world. Therefore, the market for business books might be around one billion dollar. NB: This estimate excludes the sales of textbooks for higher education.
A couple of days ago my bible app opened with this verse of the day: ‘To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice’ (Proverbs 21:3).
This text reminded me of the way some companies deal with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Rather than doing the right thing, they do the wrong thing and compensate for this by deploying CSR initiatives. There is even a special term describing this phenomenon: ‘Greenwashing’. In this context, it is no wonder that two professors from IMD (a leading Swiss Business School) published an article in 2018 with the provocative title: ‘Why nobody takes corporate social responsibility seriously’.
I always felt a deep respect for people who take personal risks in daring to confront oppression in a peaceful manner. Names like Mahatma Gandhi, Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov spring to mind.
This Easter I especially think of German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), who was executed 75 years ago because of his active resistance against the German Nazi regime at that time.
Let me start with a confession:I never liked receiving negative feedback, and have spent the largest part of my professional life ignoring it.
I found ignoring negative (or perhaps I should euphemistically say ‘corrective’) feedback to be quite easy. Depending on the situation, I either did not take the person who gave me feedback seriously (‘that is rich – from him?’), comforted myself that the feedback concerned only a minor issue in the grand scheme of my behavior (and that other aspects of my behavior would compensate this), or convinced myself that the person giving me feedback did not understand the context in which I acted the way I did or said the things I said.
It was not until I hit a serious roadblock in my career, that I started to see the fact that systematically ignoring feedback was not necessarily a great idea.
Employee engagement is a topic close to my heart. In the past two decades I have designed, managed and implemented the findings of engagement surveys multiple times, and also managed to write an article with my point of view on how to make them ‘work’.
Given my interest in this topic, I was very pleased to receive a copy of ‘The Art of Employee Engagement’ by Marijn Faassen. I read it in one go, because I found it a fascinating read, for a number of reasons:
Dirk Verburg 