June 17, 2025 • 21 mins
Motivating people is a wish which almost any leader has. Unfortunately, leaders are often unaware of which methods work. Seeking solutions, they approach unsubstantiated, pseudoscientific or even esoteric methods. One of these cases now happened at Deutsche Bahn, Germany's main train and logistics organisation. The press immediately reacted negatively to the matter. Which approaches work, and how can you motivate the teams in your organisation?
Niels Brabandt discusses the issue in this week's podcast.
Host: Niels Brabandt / NB@NB-Networks.com
Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nielsbrabandt/
Leadership Letter: https://expert.nb-networks.com/
Website: https://expert.nb-networks.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Niels Brabandt (00:02):
Let's say you want to motivate your team and that's a reasonable wish.
However, there are different ways how to accomplish this.
And the problem is that many, many ways connected to motivation are deeply rooted in esotericism and pseudoscience.
And I am in New York City right now.
Before that I was in Washington D.C. for world pride.
It's Pride Month right now in New York City and a German company made it on international tv. Congratulations for that.
(00:27):
Unfortunately they went on international TV in the worst possible possible way.
I will show you what they did in a minute.
It's all about motivation and first of course I can understand that you have a wish to motivate teams.
I'm not talking down on the idea that you want to have a any kind of approach which is efficient but also effective.
(00:47):
And of course you want to go different ways and maybe new ways.
However, science leads the way. Very important here.
I'm going to quote a press article, always the disclaimer for people who are now watching me
on YouTube and of course also welcome to anyone listening on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
To me, everything I show here is under fair use, fair dealing in the US and the UK and it's
(01:08):
the so called quoting right in Germany if you're listening from these places.
So when it comes to motivation, when it comes to motivation we have a certain case and it's
the case of a raja large organisation.
Of course you can always have small businesses where people either have no clue, no information
or they are just ignorant and then things go wrong.
And the smaller the organisation, the more things can go wrong very very quickly.
(01:30):
However, in large organisations, stock exchange organisations, organisations that are very close,
extremely close due to the infrastructure role, very close to politics, you have lots of control
mechanisms that things do not go wrong, especially as you often deal with taxpayers money.
The case we are talking about here is the case of Deutsche Bahn.
(01:51):
Deutsche Bahn is the German train company.
And the German train company had the idea of motivating their leaders.
They're going through quite some dramatic changes after they haven't invested properly and then work for decades.
They are now facing massive delays, customer dissatisfaction left, right and centre.
They are basically all over the place, just not where they should be.
(02:12):
And what they did was they had the leaders meeting all cool here. These meetings work.
There's scientific evidence that these focused meetings work very well when they are conducted well.
And then they had a speaker on stage and that speaker did a haka.
If you now say, isn't that what the New Zealand rugby players Do. Yes, it is.
It is something which is deeply rooted, deeply rooted in Maori culture.
(02:38):
And when you now have a question mark where you think I can't just connect the dots between
Maori culture and Germany and yeah, here you are, neither can I.
It went viral on social media for a very simple reason.
They had a so called German hacker training.
And by the way, press picked this up, Business Insider did an article on that, the German hacker trainer.
(02:59):
And thank you very much for the people who helped me here with research as well.
I of course then did the research and check is there any kind of licencing system or anything similar?
There is no licencing system to become a haka trainer.
It's a non protected term from a German legal point of view.
So theoretically anyone can call them that way.
(03:19):
However, it is so deeply rooted in Maori culture that you need to have some sort of ignorance
to call yourself, especially as a non Maori person, call yourself a haka trainer, doing hakka
from stage and by the way, not even doing the original one, but you are, you are then implementing
(03:41):
the mantra of Deutsche Bahn punctuality and reliability into the, into the haka.
I really struggled to put this into, into right words because it is so unbelievably wrong.
Of course, immediately negative criticism followed.
Deutsche Bahn had the goal here that they wanted to implement a certain mantra of becoming better
(04:03):
with their leaders and that when you, when you do it this way.
And by the way, I also thank you very much for the New Zealand embassy who was available on the phone here.
They were not aware of any kind of system that you can become a haka trainer.
And they confirmed it's deeply rooted in Maori culture.
It's not something you use.
(04:23):
And by the way, when you saw the New Zealand football players doing the haka, the All Blacks,
that's how the, the sorry, rugby players, the All Blacks, that's how they are called.
This kind of haka is from the Nagati Toa.
It's a tribe deeply rooted in Maori culture and it is protected.
You cannot just use it.
(04:44):
You have to ask for permission.
And by the way, especially when people say, oh, it's, it's a war cry. No it's not.
It can be a war cry but it's also used for example for greeting guests or during funerals.
It's often also used or for example, honouring people who contribute something to society, outstanding
(05:05):
deliveries that happen towards Maori culture or society.
It's also a form of protest or a form of grief.
It's not just a war cry.
And it is especially not, it is especially not some funny thing that you do at a corporate event
because you want to do something new.
So we now had this hackathon person there, we did haka.
And you know, just imagine sitting there and thinking you can use German language, German language to do a haka.
(05:34):
How wrong on culture can you be?
And besides that, and of course, any culture can do whatever they want in a belief system, because
cultural aspects are often based on belief systems.
But when you want to motivate teams, motivation is based on science, proof and evidence.
And what Deutsche Bahn did here was not only culturally, culturally completely unacceptable.
(05:55):
And there, there needs to be an apology for this, and I doubt that there will be one, because
when you think this was bad, it's not the end of the story, because press picked it up and it
went worse from there for Deutsche Bahn, when you are now here sitting and say, okay, look,
I am, I'm responsible and accountable for motivating people and I do not want to fall for the
trap of this Eros esoteric kind of stuff.
(06:18):
Esotericism can be spotted very quickly.
It always starts with, there is zero scientific evidence.
People claim that they have something, some secret, and they claim to have it without delivering any proof.
I give you a very simple example.
If you, for example, want to educate leaders and you have leadership seminars, workshops, coachings,
there is scientific evidence that this works, which is why we do it for centuries.
(06:43):
We have schools for hundreds of years because the system of school works.
Of course, it needs to be updated every once in a while to stick to new methods which are also scientifically proven.
No scientific evidence, no proof for the method.
However, you often have maximum ego, people who are very convinced telling you, oh, people will
be so motivated, everything will be ingrained in them.
(07:05):
We just push it into them, we push it down their throat.
They will be so motivated.
You haven't seen anything like that.
And this kind of motivation is just putting people under fire, putting them under pressure,
almost like you're putting them under electricity with extra power.
This usually lasts about three days maximum.
And then you're exactly where you were before with absolutely no scientific or sustainable effect.
(07:30):
And by the way, it's quite easy to spot that.
I mean, you don't have to be too smart to spot a German hacker trainer.
So it's not a good idea.
In addition to that, often people have no education on the matter.
And again, I want to tell you, education does not necessarily need to be an academic degree.
However, you need the scientific proof.
When you want to talk about Leadership, you need some bits of scientific education.
(07:54):
If you do not have that, you are not qualified to do that.
Only having the experience as a leader is not enough.
Because what you will do is you say, hey, I did this.
So you do the same and you get the same result.
And that is as far from reality as it could be.
When you think that a privileged white man and a non privileged black woman do the same and
(08:17):
get the same results, you really need help. Then you really need.
When you really think, same action, same results, you really haven't understood the most basic
things that we are talking about here.
So first you have no education, no proof, and then you have no method. They have no methodology.
They simply say, put me on a stage and I just take it from there.
So there is no proof that what they do actually works.
(08:40):
And proof, by the way, is peer reviewed proof, scientific proof, not some testimonial where
someone said, oh, I felt so empowered afterwards. That's just anecdotal.
Anecdotal evidence is no evidence, which is why it's called anecdotal.
When someone says, I watched the Fantastic Four movie and after that I won the lottery.
(09:00):
You could of course derive watching the Fantastic Four makes you win the lottery, but it doesn't obviously anecdotal pseudo proof.
The third aspect here is often they have maximum claims and these maximum claims often come
along with, oh, I achieve absolutely anything in no time.
Which is why they often charge massive amount of money.
(09:21):
Often it's, it's with emotional blackmail.
Often people take different aspect.
They, they, they do what is called appropriation.
They pick from certain cultures and they simply take it out of context and use it for their own profit.
So they say, oh, going to teach you how to lead like a Maya.
And then I, you, you will find your animal of power, your, your spirit animal and your power animal, all of that.
(09:45):
And of course all these cultures in their belief systems can do what they like.
That is why we have culture.
However, cultural belief systems do not equal scientific evidence.
Emotional blackmail, by the way, often includes as soon as you step aside and say, I'm not going
to do that, people will say no.
Well, you're not in line, are you?
(10:06):
I mean, as a leader, you should be in line.
Otherwise we have to rethink.
If you have a career in this organisation and most likely you won't.
And also I have to say, when people knew what was happening there.
So let's assume you're standing there at Deutsche Bahn and when you do not know what a haka
is and you just see this happening and you just play along. Not great.
Also, when you are a leader, I expect you to have international experience because otherwise
(10:29):
you will have young people who have more international experience than you at the age of 25,
which doesn't make leadership easier for you.
So when you stand there and you don't know what a haka is, let's just take it off the box as
you didn't know any better.
However, when you know what a haka is and when you have international experience and when you
have international experience, you know what a haka is and how deeply ingrained in Maori culture
(10:50):
it is and you still play along, then you are equally guilty on the matter.
What you need to do in these cases, step aside and say, this is unacceptable.
I am not going to do this.
And by the way, I already told you, it actually gets worse from here because the result of that,
of course after press picked it up, it got massively worse from there because what you could
(11:13):
have now first, of course you have.
When this goes viral on social media, you have a reputation damage and you have to take care of that. Communication is key here.
If the Deutsche Bahn simply had said, look, we just looked at the video and we read your article
and I think you are right, we did a wrong decision here.
We are extremely sorry, very sorry for what we did.
It was inappropriate, it was unacceptable, it was a wrong decision.
(11:34):
We learn from it and we will get better in the future.
The discussion ends within 30 seconds because people say, hey, it's a learning organisation, they actually change things.
However, that's not what happened.
What happened was after press asked them, what is that that you did there?
They said, and I quote, after a long day full of work, it was a unit of movement which anyone had great fun with.
(12:05):
Okay, listen, let's just imagine you're sitting in Germany and you think, oh, let's take this
bit of Maori culture which is delivered across cultures for centuries, for probably thousands of years.
Let's take this bit of Maori culture, put it into German language with a no proof or any claim,
(12:29):
hakka trainer, whatever that might be and then we take this as a unit of movement, bit of an
exercise moment because it's so much fun.
So we take one of the most important cultural aspects of Maori culture to make it a bit of an
exercise moment, bit of corporate aerobic to have some fun. Let that sink in. Let that sink in. When you see.
(13:00):
And by the way, this is the official statement.
This is the official statement.
After press asked what happened here, they said, yeah, it was a bit of, bit of movement, bit
of exercise after a long day, getting people up, bit of movement to have some fun.
And then of course they claimed that people had lots of fun.
And there's no proof for that either.
So I couldn't think of a statement which could be worse.
(13:23):
You couldn't mess this up more if you tried it deliberately.
And by the way, the next aspect, besides the reputation damage and the communication mess that
we have here, the next aspect is spending.
When you go through massive change and you tell people all the time, there's no money here,
there's no money there, there's no money for you, no money for you, and no money for this project
(13:46):
and no money for that training or education.
Oh, by the way, we have this money for this haka trainer. No problem.
You lose any kind of credibility immediately, obviously.
So be very aware that as soon as you spend that money, anyone who then turns up with, oh, I saw the hacker trainer.
So my budget needs are xyz, you can only say yes.
(14:08):
That is, as soon as you say no, they say you had money for the hacker trainer.
And then immediately you lose credibility when you say, yeah, no for you.
Because you know, hacker trainers, no, no chance to make this worse even if you tried.
It is a complete mess of a stock exchange listed company with lots of mechanisms of control
(14:29):
and every single one of them failed.
And by the way, it is a crystal clear, a crystal clear moment of cultural appropriation.
You take culture from a different place, you commoditize it, you translate it to your need and
you do it for your own profit.
That is the definition of cultural appropriation.
(14:50):
You do not want to learn from cultures, you simply want to use them without permit, by the way, without any permit given.
And you do so because you think that's appropriate.
And of course, what do you think employees think of their leaders when they see them online,
standing there doing a haka on Deutsche Bahn mantras, on the German train system, mantras.
(15:14):
What do you think the effect of that is?
Do you think that people now say, oh, amazing leaders, that's really leadership, isn't it?
People will most likely think quite the opposite.
Social legitimation of Euro leaders will be gone in an instant if you do not clear the mess
that you have left so far. Deutsche Bahn.
And by the way, perfect timing for all of this. Perfect timing.
(15:36):
It's pride month, you know, where you always claim to be so diverse and equity and inclusion
and we have to be culturally careful and we have to be all.
So we really have to Be careful with what we do and respect cultures and whatnot.
And then, hey, let's do haka for corporate exercise and a bit of fun.
What a mess. And of course, if someone now wonders, how can we do it better?
(15:58):
Because on this podcast, in this video cast, we always focus on how can we do it better. It's quite simple.
You just take the middle part that we have here and you turn it around.
You just do the opposite.
When you want to have proper leadership development, first, there must be scientific evidence.
Second, maximum ego, no chance.
You need someone who puts themselves in the service of the people listening to them.
(16:19):
It's not about the person in front of the group, it is about the group, obviously.
And by the way, anything that is delivered there, then of course needs to be lived by.
When you have someone who delivers a leadership speech and then your board says, yeah, no, that's way too much effort.
Yeah, we are not going to do that.
And then this whole change in the AI and be an example.
(16:41):
No, no, we just stick to Commander Obey, that's. That's just cheaper.
So everything that is delivered there needs to be lived by.
Otherwise you, of course have no point in actually putting people there.
People simply say, oh, you tick the box and nothing will happen again.
Of course, the person standing in front of the group needs to have proper education.
Doesn't need to be a degree, but scientific proof, which, for example, can be done via certificates
(17:04):
from EDX or Coursera, can be delivered.
No educational proof, no chance this person is going anywhere.
They need to show how they want to do it. So what's the methodology?
And they need to have proof that what they do actually works.
As soon as anyone makes any maximum claims, any kind of emotional blackmail, oh, if you don't
do this, you're one of the limited people, you have to think outside the box, but you fail to
(17:27):
do so, you're just harming yourself.
If anyone does anything like that, run, run quickly and as soon as they pick anything from other
cultures, without being from that culture, without having any clue of what they're doing there, run as well.
So you need scientific evidence, no ego, but service idea, you need proper educational proof,
methodology and proof that things actually work.
(17:49):
And then you will have an excellent leadership meeting and you will have excellent results for
your leaders, which they can immediately put into practise in their own department.
And I wish you all the best implementing that in your organisation.
And when you now say that sounds quite complicated, yes, it is not easy because otherwise we
(18:09):
wouldn't have any challenges in, in this area if you like to have any kind of chat or any kind
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(18:30):
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(18:52):
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(19:13):
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(19:37):
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(20:01):
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(20:21):
And by the way of course you can follow me on social media, LinkedIn.
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(20:43):
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(21:05):
And at the end of this podcast and at the end of this video cast, there's only one thing left for me to say.
Thank you very much for your time.
Let's say you want to motivate your team and that's a reasonable wish.
However, there are different ways how to accomplish this.
And the problem is that many, many ways connected to motivation are deeply rooted in esotericism and pseudoscience.
And I am in New York City right now.
Before that I was in Washington D.C. for world pride.
It's Pride Month right now in New York City and a German company made it on international tv. Congratulations for that.
(00:27):
Unfortunately they went on international TV in the worst possible possible way.
I will show you what they did in a minute.
It's all about motivation and first of course I can understand that you have a wish to motivate teams.
I'm not talking down on the idea that you want to have a any kind of approach which is efficient but also effective.
(00:47):
And of course you want to go different ways and maybe new ways.
However, science leads the way. Very important here.
I'm going to quote a press article, always the disclaimer for people who are now watching me
on YouTube and of course also welcome to anyone listening on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
To me, everything I show here is under fair use, fair dealing in the US and the UK and it's
(01:08):
the so called quoting right in Germany if you're listening from these places.
So when it comes to motivation, when it comes to motivation we have a certain case and it's
the case of a raja large organisation.
Of course you can always have small businesses where people either have no clue, no information
or they are just ignorant and then things go wrong.
And the smaller the organisation, the more things can go wrong very very quickly.
(01:30):
However, in large organisations, stock exchange organisations, organisations that are very close,
extremely close due to the infrastructure role, very close to politics, you have lots of control
mechanisms that things do not go wrong, especially as you often deal with taxpayers money.
The case we are talking about here is the case of Deutsche Bahn.
(01:51):
Deutsche Bahn is the German train company.
And the German train company had the idea of motivating their leaders.
They're going through quite some dramatic changes after they haven't invested properly and then work for decades.
They are now facing massive delays, customer dissatisfaction left, right and centre.
They are basically all over the place, just not where they should be.
(02:12):
And what they did was they had the leaders meeting all cool here. These meetings work.
There's scientific evidence that these focused meetings work very well when they are conducted well.
And then they had a speaker on stage and that speaker did a haka.
If you now say, isn't that what the New Zealand rugby players Do. Yes, it is.
It is something which is deeply rooted, deeply rooted in Maori culture.
(02:38):
And when you now have a question mark where you think I can't just connect the dots between
Maori culture and Germany and yeah, here you are, neither can I.
It went viral on social media for a very simple reason.
They had a so called German hacker training.
And by the way, press picked this up, Business Insider did an article on that, the German hacker trainer.
(02:59):
And thank you very much for the people who helped me here with research as well.
I of course then did the research and check is there any kind of licencing system or anything similar?
There is no licencing system to become a haka trainer.
It's a non protected term from a German legal point of view.
So theoretically anyone can call them that way.
(03:19):
However, it is so deeply rooted in Maori culture that you need to have some sort of ignorance
to call yourself, especially as a non Maori person, call yourself a haka trainer, doing hakka
from stage and by the way, not even doing the original one, but you are, you are then implementing
(03:41):
the mantra of Deutsche Bahn punctuality and reliability into the, into the haka.
I really struggled to put this into, into right words because it is so unbelievably wrong.
Of course, immediately negative criticism followed.
Deutsche Bahn had the goal here that they wanted to implement a certain mantra of becoming better
(04:03):
with their leaders and that when you, when you do it this way.
And by the way, I also thank you very much for the New Zealand embassy who was available on the phone here.
They were not aware of any kind of system that you can become a haka trainer.
And they confirmed it's deeply rooted in Maori culture.
It's not something you use.
(04:23):
And by the way, when you saw the New Zealand football players doing the haka, the All Blacks,
that's how the, the sorry, rugby players, the All Blacks, that's how they are called.
This kind of haka is from the Nagati Toa.
It's a tribe deeply rooted in Maori culture and it is protected.
You cannot just use it.
(04:44):
You have to ask for permission.
And by the way, especially when people say, oh, it's, it's a war cry. No it's not.
It can be a war cry but it's also used for example for greeting guests or during funerals.
It's often also used or for example, honouring people who contribute something to society, outstanding
(05:05):
deliveries that happen towards Maori culture or society.
It's also a form of protest or a form of grief.
It's not just a war cry.
And it is especially not, it is especially not some funny thing that you do at a corporate event
because you want to do something new.
So we now had this hackathon person there, we did haka.
And you know, just imagine sitting there and thinking you can use German language, German language to do a haka.
(05:34):
How wrong on culture can you be?
And besides that, and of course, any culture can do whatever they want in a belief system, because
cultural aspects are often based on belief systems.
But when you want to motivate teams, motivation is based on science, proof and evidence.
And what Deutsche Bahn did here was not only culturally, culturally completely unacceptable.
(05:55):
And there, there needs to be an apology for this, and I doubt that there will be one, because
when you think this was bad, it's not the end of the story, because press picked it up and it
went worse from there for Deutsche Bahn, when you are now here sitting and say, okay, look,
I am, I'm responsible and accountable for motivating people and I do not want to fall for the
trap of this Eros esoteric kind of stuff.
(06:18):
Esotericism can be spotted very quickly.
It always starts with, there is zero scientific evidence.
People claim that they have something, some secret, and they claim to have it without delivering any proof.
I give you a very simple example.
If you, for example, want to educate leaders and you have leadership seminars, workshops, coachings,
there is scientific evidence that this works, which is why we do it for centuries.
(06:43):
We have schools for hundreds of years because the system of school works.
Of course, it needs to be updated every once in a while to stick to new methods which are also scientifically proven.
No scientific evidence, no proof for the method.
However, you often have maximum ego, people who are very convinced telling you, oh, people will
be so motivated, everything will be ingrained in them.
(07:05):
We just push it into them, we push it down their throat.
They will be so motivated.
You haven't seen anything like that.
And this kind of motivation is just putting people under fire, putting them under pressure,
almost like you're putting them under electricity with extra power.
This usually lasts about three days maximum.
And then you're exactly where you were before with absolutely no scientific or sustainable effect.
(07:30):
And by the way, it's quite easy to spot that.
I mean, you don't have to be too smart to spot a German hacker trainer.
So it's not a good idea.
In addition to that, often people have no education on the matter.
And again, I want to tell you, education does not necessarily need to be an academic degree.
However, you need the scientific proof.
When you want to talk about Leadership, you need some bits of scientific education.
(07:54):
If you do not have that, you are not qualified to do that.
Only having the experience as a leader is not enough.
Because what you will do is you say, hey, I did this.
So you do the same and you get the same result.
And that is as far from reality as it could be.
When you think that a privileged white man and a non privileged black woman do the same and
(08:17):
get the same results, you really need help. Then you really need.
When you really think, same action, same results, you really haven't understood the most basic
things that we are talking about here.
So first you have no education, no proof, and then you have no method. They have no methodology.
They simply say, put me on a stage and I just take it from there.
So there is no proof that what they do actually works.
(08:40):
And proof, by the way, is peer reviewed proof, scientific proof, not some testimonial where
someone said, oh, I felt so empowered afterwards. That's just anecdotal.
Anecdotal evidence is no evidence, which is why it's called anecdotal.
When someone says, I watched the Fantastic Four movie and after that I won the lottery.
(09:00):
You could of course derive watching the Fantastic Four makes you win the lottery, but it doesn't obviously anecdotal pseudo proof.
The third aspect here is often they have maximum claims and these maximum claims often come
along with, oh, I achieve absolutely anything in no time.
Which is why they often charge massive amount of money.
(09:21):
Often it's, it's with emotional blackmail.
Often people take different aspect.
They, they, they do what is called appropriation.
They pick from certain cultures and they simply take it out of context and use it for their own profit.
So they say, oh, going to teach you how to lead like a Maya.
And then I, you, you will find your animal of power, your, your spirit animal and your power animal, all of that.
(09:45):
And of course all these cultures in their belief systems can do what they like.
That is why we have culture.
However, cultural belief systems do not equal scientific evidence.
Emotional blackmail, by the way, often includes as soon as you step aside and say, I'm not going
to do that, people will say no.
Well, you're not in line, are you?
(10:06):
I mean, as a leader, you should be in line.
Otherwise we have to rethink.
If you have a career in this organisation and most likely you won't.
And also I have to say, when people knew what was happening there.
So let's assume you're standing there at Deutsche Bahn and when you do not know what a haka
is and you just see this happening and you just play along. Not great.
Also, when you are a leader, I expect you to have international experience because otherwise
(10:29):
you will have young people who have more international experience than you at the age of 25,
which doesn't make leadership easier for you.
So when you stand there and you don't know what a haka is, let's just take it off the box as
you didn't know any better.
However, when you know what a haka is and when you have international experience and when you
have international experience, you know what a haka is and how deeply ingrained in Maori culture
(10:50):
it is and you still play along, then you are equally guilty on the matter.
What you need to do in these cases, step aside and say, this is unacceptable.
I am not going to do this.
And by the way, I already told you, it actually gets worse from here because the result of that,
of course after press picked it up, it got massively worse from there because what you could
(11:13):
have now first, of course you have.
When this goes viral on social media, you have a reputation damage and you have to take care of that. Communication is key here.
If the Deutsche Bahn simply had said, look, we just looked at the video and we read your article
and I think you are right, we did a wrong decision here.
We are extremely sorry, very sorry for what we did.
It was inappropriate, it was unacceptable, it was a wrong decision.
(11:34):
We learn from it and we will get better in the future.
The discussion ends within 30 seconds because people say, hey, it's a learning organisation, they actually change things.
However, that's not what happened.
What happened was after press asked them, what is that that you did there?
They said, and I quote, after a long day full of work, it was a unit of movement which anyone had great fun with.
(12:05):
Okay, listen, let's just imagine you're sitting in Germany and you think, oh, let's take this
bit of Maori culture which is delivered across cultures for centuries, for probably thousands of years.
Let's take this bit of Maori culture, put it into German language with a no proof or any claim,
(12:29):
hakka trainer, whatever that might be and then we take this as a unit of movement, bit of an
exercise moment because it's so much fun.
So we take one of the most important cultural aspects of Maori culture to make it a bit of an
exercise moment, bit of corporate aerobic to have some fun. Let that sink in. Let that sink in. When you see.
(13:00):
And by the way, this is the official statement.
This is the official statement.
After press asked what happened here, they said, yeah, it was a bit of, bit of movement, bit
of exercise after a long day, getting people up, bit of movement to have some fun.
And then of course they claimed that people had lots of fun.
And there's no proof for that either.
So I couldn't think of a statement which could be worse.
(13:23):
You couldn't mess this up more if you tried it deliberately.
And by the way, the next aspect, besides the reputation damage and the communication mess that
we have here, the next aspect is spending.
When you go through massive change and you tell people all the time, there's no money here,
there's no money there, there's no money for you, no money for you, and no money for this project
(13:46):
and no money for that training or education.
Oh, by the way, we have this money for this haka trainer. No problem.
You lose any kind of credibility immediately, obviously.
So be very aware that as soon as you spend that money, anyone who then turns up with, oh, I saw the hacker trainer.
So my budget needs are xyz, you can only say yes.
(14:08):
That is, as soon as you say no, they say you had money for the hacker trainer.
And then immediately you lose credibility when you say, yeah, no for you.
Because you know, hacker trainers, no, no chance to make this worse even if you tried.
It is a complete mess of a stock exchange listed company with lots of mechanisms of control
(14:29):
and every single one of them failed.
And by the way, it is a crystal clear, a crystal clear moment of cultural appropriation.
You take culture from a different place, you commoditize it, you translate it to your need and
you do it for your own profit.
That is the definition of cultural appropriation.
(14:50):
You do not want to learn from cultures, you simply want to use them without permit, by the way, without any permit given.
And you do so because you think that's appropriate.
And of course, what do you think employees think of their leaders when they see them online,
standing there doing a haka on Deutsche Bahn mantras, on the German train system, mantras.
(15:14):
What do you think the effect of that is?
Do you think that people now say, oh, amazing leaders, that's really leadership, isn't it?
People will most likely think quite the opposite.
Social legitimation of Euro leaders will be gone in an instant if you do not clear the mess
that you have left so far. Deutsche Bahn.
And by the way, perfect timing for all of this. Perfect timing.
(15:36):
It's pride month, you know, where you always claim to be so diverse and equity and inclusion
and we have to be culturally careful and we have to be all.
So we really have to Be careful with what we do and respect cultures and whatnot.
And then, hey, let's do haka for corporate exercise and a bit of fun.
What a mess. And of course, if someone now wonders, how can we do it better?
(15:58):
Because on this podcast, in this video cast, we always focus on how can we do it better. It's quite simple.
You just take the middle part that we have here and you turn it around.
You just do the opposite.
When you want to have proper leadership development, first, there must be scientific evidence.
Second, maximum ego, no chance.
You need someone who puts themselves in the service of the people listening to them.
(16:19):
It's not about the person in front of the group, it is about the group, obviously.
And by the way, anything that is delivered there, then of course needs to be lived by.
When you have someone who delivers a leadership speech and then your board says, yeah, no, that's way too much effort.
Yeah, we are not going to do that.
And then this whole change in the AI and be an example.
(16:41):
No, no, we just stick to Commander Obey, that's. That's just cheaper.
So everything that is delivered there needs to be lived by.
Otherwise you, of course have no point in actually putting people there.
People simply say, oh, you tick the box and nothing will happen again.
Of course, the person standing in front of the group needs to have proper education.
Doesn't need to be a degree, but scientific proof, which, for example, can be done via certificates
(17:04):
from EDX or Coursera, can be delivered.
No educational proof, no chance this person is going anywhere.
They need to show how they want to do it. So what's the methodology?
And they need to have proof that what they do actually works.
As soon as anyone makes any maximum claims, any kind of emotional blackmail, oh, if you don't
do this, you're one of the limited people, you have to think outside the box, but you fail to
(17:27):
do so, you're just harming yourself.
If anyone does anything like that, run, run quickly and as soon as they pick anything from other
cultures, without being from that culture, without having any clue of what they're doing there, run as well.
So you need scientific evidence, no ego, but service idea, you need proper educational proof,
methodology and proof that things actually work.
(17:49):
And then you will have an excellent leadership meeting and you will have excellent results for
your leaders, which they can immediately put into practise in their own department.
And I wish you all the best implementing that in your organisation.
And when you now say that sounds quite complicated, yes, it is not easy because otherwise we
(18:09):
wouldn't have any challenges in, in this area if you like to have any kind of chat or any kind
of questions, anything that is open, unclear, anything where you like to chat me up with, anything
you want to clarify, just yeah, drop me an email.
By the way, if you're now listening to me or seeing me on YouTube, feel free to leave a like
here, subscribe the channel please also tick the little bell so you don't miss future episodes.
(18:30):
Feel free to make a comment here.
Also feel free to review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and recommend this video cast and podcast
to your friends, family, colleagues.
Post it on social media anywhere you like.
And by the way, one aspect which we only have on YouTube are our daily leadership tips.
Always referring to something that happened in real world practise and then making a comment
if it's good or not so Great.
(18:52):
And these YouTube shorts are available on YouTube.
You have one leadership tip per day minimum.
Sometimes more, but usually one leadership tip per day.
You can of course also follow us and follow me on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
Feel free to leave five stars there.
Thank you very much for doing so.
And yeah, feel free also to go to my website, NB Networks Biz and then you find even more resources.
(19:13):
Of course when you say like to discuss something but not via comment section on YouTube, feel
free to drop me an email nb-networks.com and then you can ask me anything.
You can of course say hey, I have something very specific.
I need a trainer, a coach, a consultant, I need a speaker for a conference or a project manager, interim manager, anything.
We can talk about that or you can just ask me questions and then we will take it from there.
(19:37):
Of course when you now look for live sessions, we have them as well.
When you go to expert.nb-networks.com then you can put your email address in there.
We only have one email every week that you will receive every Wednesday morning.
It's 100% content ad free guarantee. Very important here.
And as soon as you receive that you get full access to all the articles I have. So.
(20:01):
So no paywall, no nothing.
Full access to all the podcasts.
By the way, articles and podcasts, more than 400 in German and English.
Meanwhile, so quite a number of articles as a resource.
And also in the leadership letter you find the date, the time and the access link to join the live sessions.
I'm looking forward to seeing you there.
However, the most important aspect.
(20:21):
And by the way of course you can follow me on social media, LinkedIn.
I am very present of course also on Instagram, Facebook and the YouTube channel.
Thank you very much for following me on my channels here.
The most important aspect is always the last one.
Apply, apply, apply what you heard in this podcast or videocast because only when you apply
what you heard, you will see the positive change in the, in your organisation.
(20:43):
That's the positive change you obviously want to see because otherwise you wouldn't sit here
for 20 minutes listening to me.
I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback and I'm also looking forward that you are going
to put all of this in your organisation into rebuild practise.
If you have anything you'd like to chat about, drop me a message on any kind of these communication channels.
I'm answering every single message within 24 hours or less.
So I'm looking forward to hearing you, hearing from you there.
(21:05):
And at the end of this podcast and at the end of this video cast, there's only one thing left for me to say.
Thank you very much for your time.
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