June 17, 2025 • 49 mins
“I realised, I'm just an arrogant tw@t that believes I know how to do things, but actually other people know how to do things as well, maybe even much better than I do. And that many solutions are based on context, on history, on future, on vision, on motivation, on setups, on ability, on all kinds of things. So there's no one solution to a problem. There are many, many solutions to a problem.”
Andreas Moellmann
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- How different cultures approach change and innovation
- Why companies get stuck repeating past successes
- The horse race illusion of believing you have a winning method
- The innovator's dilemma between milking existing profitable models versus investing in new technologies
- The gap between developing solutions and getting organisations to accept and implement them
- How company size, systems, and hierarchies impact flexibility and innovation capacity
Key links
- Andreas Moellmann on LinkedIn
- Books: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Dentsu
- Publicis
- DDB
- Saatchi & Saatchi
- Sapient
- Derren Brown on horse racing
About our guest
Andreas helps brands and businesses get future-ready. A seasoned brand and marketing strategist with over 30 years experience in transformative roles from strategic planner to Chief Experience Officer at network agencies (Publicis, BBDO, DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi) and digital agencies (SapientNitro, Isobar) in Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. His experience stretches from automotive, FMCG, consumer electronics and telecommunications to banking and insurance where he worked on Berliner Bank and Gothaer Versicherungen.
Andreas’ focus lies in connecting brand and marketing thinking with technology to help brands and businesses succeed. His work has been recognised at global, European, and local effectiveness awards, as well as creative competitions such as Cannes. He serves as a judge at the APAC Effectiveness award and local competitions in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Pakistan.
Today, Andreas provides his experience as an independent brand and marketing consultant across APAC. He currently lives in Bangkok.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is an Intrapreneuship Coach, Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.
For weekly updates and to hear about the latest episodes, please subscribe to The Company Road Podcast at https://companyroad.co/podcast/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Hudson (00:06):
Hi there and welcome back to the Company Road
Podcast.
My name's Chris, and I'm reallythrilled to be speaking with
Andreas Moellmann, a brandmarketing leader and a
strategist who spent over 30years helping organizations,
helping brands and businessesget future ready.
And he's a seasoned brand andmarketing strategist, and so
he's been working in this fieldfor over 30 years in
transformative roles fromstrategic planner to chief
(00:27):
experience officer, and a lot ofthe big network agencies.
So you're thinking Publicis,BBDO, DDB, Saatchi and Saatchi,
as well as digital agencies.
Sapient Nitro, Isobar, and he'salso worked across a number of
cities.
So Berlin, London.
Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai,and Tokyo, and yeah, he's got a
huge amount of experience.
It stretches from automotive,FMCG, consumer electronics,
(00:50):
telecommunications to banking,insurance.
He worked in Berliner Bank andyeah, a number of different
places and I.
He's worked across all thesecities.
He's got a fascinatingperspective on why corporations
move slowly, which is what Iwanna get into today.
Why people move and jump intoaction instead of thinking
things through and how AI isreally changing the way that we
(01:10):
understand problems,particularly today.
It feels like a really relevanttopic.
So if you're someone who'strying to drive change in your
organization, today'sconversation is gonna hit
differently and it's gonna be areally interesting one to get
into.
Andreas a huge welcome to theshow.
Andreas Moellmann (01:22):
Thanks So.
So for having me, always awesometo be here and very much to our
conversation.
Chris Hudson (01:29):
Thanks, Andreas.
And yeah, you've worked in allthese places.
Berlin, Hong, London, Hong Kong,Shanghai.
Now you're in Bangkok.
And yeah.
I just wanna ask you maybe ageneral opening question, which
is around what patterns are youseeing and how different
corporate cultures in some ofthose places approach change?
And why do some people resistchange more than others?
Do you think?
That's a really open question.
Andreas Moellmann (01:49):
Yeah, that's a open question and a very big
question.
I guess we can spend our podcaston this topic and probably.
Chris Hudson (01:56):
You talk and I'll just go.
Andreas Moellmann (01:57):
I think the best way actually is like over
25 years ago, almost 30 yearsago, when I moved away from
Germany to Hong Kong, and thatwas my first stint outside,
outside Germany and outsideEurope.
And I remember as a verypersonal story, I remember that
I had a discussion with my wifeabout.
Washing the clothes because inHong Kong the washing machines
(02:20):
are different.
They wash with cold water andthey move very slowly from
Germany.
We have Miele and we have likebig, massive, gigantic metal
built washing machines that havehot water.
And I said, oh, the clothescannot get clean like this.
That's possible.
We need a new washing machine.
So of course we used the washingmachine that was there and the
clothes were fine, is a verylittle anecdote.
(02:43):
Helped me, not just this, butbeing outside Germany, being
outside Europe, being adifferent culture.
That helped me to see that thereare many ways how to solve
problems, not just the ones thatI'm used to.
And I think ever since I'mfascinated by how people solve
problems back then, I realized,okay, so I'm just a arrogant
(03:04):
twat.
That believes I know how to dothings, but actually other
people know how to do things aswell, maybe even much better
than I do.
And that many solutions arebased on context, on history, on
future, on vision, onmotivation, on setups, on
ability, on all kinds of things,right?
So there's now one solution to aproblem.
There are many solutions to aproblem, and my job as a
(03:27):
strategist is.
To help find solutions that workbetter than, let's say the
average solution.
And for me, since then, I'vebeen on this journey to
understand how to solve problemsand how actually help companies
to solve their problems.
I like to solve.
And I think a lot of businessproblems, I actually.
(03:47):
Down to marketing, and I definemarketing very wide.
If a CEO is not good inexpressing his vision to his
employees, and therefore theydon't know really what to do,
that is for me marketing.
That is managing the market,managing everyone inside and
outside in order to know whythis company is doing what is
doing, and most importantly, howto do it better.
(04:10):
In this sense, I think a lot ofissues that business have goes
down to my broader definition ofmarketing, and I like to use my
experience in order to helpsolve their business problem
through marketing and ideallywith solutions that work better
than the average.
A long answer to your question,and again, but we said already
in the beginning, we could spenda lot of time on this.
(04:31):
I think a lot of.
Companies, their biggestchallenges is that particularly
have a little bit larger, thatthey had a streak of success.
Those people who are responsiblefor the success or actually
benefit from the success, theyprobably believe they have
worked out a way on how tomaintain their success because
they have a certain trajectory,right?
(04:51):
A repeat.
The things that.
I've been doing in the past, andthat worked and I tried out for
a long time to get it work.
It didn't work, and now itworks.
So now I have to basically milkthe cow and do more of it
because that is finally the wayof how to be successful.
And I think I'm an entrepreneurmyself.
I'm working as a consultant onmy own, and I'm doing the same.
I'm trying to figure out, haveto do it right, and once I
(05:13):
figure out, then I will be veryhappy and I will just continue
repeating it.
The fallacy potentially here is.
That even though you figure outor you believe you have figured
out why you're successful, thatmight change.
And just because you've beensuccessful once or twice or
three times or five or 10 times,it doesn't mean that you were su
successful 11 times.
It doesn't mean that youactually have figured out that
(05:35):
there even is a certain.
Method that leads to success.
There is, I think there's a,maybe you've heard about Derren
Brown.
Derren Brown, yeah.
I, Derren Brown.
Yeah.
Illusionist and Awesome.
He brings, brings togetherhypnosis, illusion, mental, he's
also called, I think he callshimself a mentor.
It's one episode where it'scalled the horse race and.
(05:59):
He's calling this woman, Ibelieve, and said randomly he
doesn't know her, and he callsher and said, Hey, on Saturday
there is a horse race bet onhorse number two.
I give you money, I give you 50bucks.
Take the 50 bucks and put onhorse number two.
Right?
And she wins, right?
So next weekend he calls heragain and said, look, I have the
next horse, right?
(06:19):
It's number five.
And she wins, right?
And she, he does it 3, 4, 5times, right?
And she wins.
She wins.
And then he calls her and said,okay, look, I have another
horse, but this time I want totell you my method.
So bring all your money.
Bring all the money that youget.
We meet at the races.
I bet.
I take the money, I bet on thehorse.
And while the race is going, Itell you how my method works,
(06:42):
right?
Okay.
She says she's excited.
She gets my, I think she gets20,000 pounds a loan from her
parents or something.
So it brings all the money thatshe has, Debbie, the horses, she
ends over the money and he goesaway, puts it on a be right,
comes back and say, okay, nowthe race starts now.
Now he's explaining all the.
Six months ago, I called 20,000people and I told them, bet on
(07:06):
horse number one, horse numbertwo, horse number three, and
horse number four.
And I gave them all some money,right?
And then there was a bunch ofthem, 5,000 people they won,
right?
Because they bet on the risehorse.
So I caught the 5,000 people.
For the next race.
And I told them that on horsenumber 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
And then there were a thousandpeople who won.
Right?
So you are the one who wentactually through all the six
(07:29):
kind of phases of winning andlosing.
And you are the only one out ofthe 20,000 people who actually
won all, all these six.
And I have no idea which horseis gonna win.
And she's a bit disbelieving.
And then basically the horse isnot winning, but he's coming
back and saying, oh look, I.
I didn't bet on any horse,here's your money, don't worry
(07:50):
about it.
He said, look, the reason why Idid this is that people think
because they're successful, theythink they have a method, they
think they have an advantageover others.
But the reality is this is likea system and it's like you might
be the one that wins, right?
And you might be the one thatwins again and again.
You're just like the lady in thehorse races.
At some point you won't win.
(08:10):
And it's just luck because youcan try hard and it's good to
try, and the more you try, themore chances of success you
have.
But that is chances of success.
That is not creating success.
This is not you in charge ofwhat's happening, right?
A large part of this is actuallybeing sensitive to what's
happening and adjusting tochange all the time, and
actually taking in and tryingand learning from it in order to
(08:33):
adjust of what's happeningrather than believing.
You are successful.
So again, long story coming backto your original question.
I think a lot of companies,because it's hard to be
successful, once they foundsuccess, they stick to their
methods of success and itcarries and it has a certain
trajectory because there was areason why.
It was sticking in the firstplace and the other things
(08:54):
before, not right.
But then I think the challengeis to realize, oh, but things
are constantly changing.
So what stuck now might notstick tomorrow, might change.
Might not change.
So I need to maintain thisflexibility.
I need to be able to constantlyadjust my methods, my learning,
my way of looking at the world,my way of how do I actually
contribute to the, I thinkthat's where I think a lot of
(09:18):
challenges are wherever you go,really, and I've been in many
different places, many differentcultures, and it's just human
nature.
It's human nature to somewhatstick to the things that make
you feel good and believe thestory that you're telling about
yourself, that you're successfuland you correct it, and that you
just.
Continue running it, and fromthis moment on, you're just
(09:39):
trying to maintain that storybecause you were waiting and
hoping for the story for such along time that finally, when you
find it, you just wanna stick toit.
You don't wanna question it justin the moment when you just feel
you're successful and saying,oh, maybe it wasn't me, or maybe
it was something different.
So I think this kind of.
View and realization, thisperspective and this openness to
(10:02):
not attribute success to me ormyself or my methods, but
actually being open to realize,yeah, I tried and this one it
stick, but I.
I don't know how long.
I don't know why, really.
I just go with it and I won't bedisappointed when it doesn't
work because I want to do thenext thing.
I want to learn more.
Chris Hudson (10:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there are lots of thingswithin that story that I find
interesting and I feel like I.
In the story of either you beingin control or not being in
control because it's down toluck.
The common ground might bearound tenacity and
perseverance, and that could bea unifying theme because if you
are determined to make itsucceed, then in the end, most
(10:42):
people would think you wouldsucceed, particularly in a
business sense.
'cause you, you've got thetenacity to see it through.
A lot of people don't get tothat point, and that's why
entrepreneurship is so, ispracticed and conceived in lots
of different ways, obviously,and people get as far as they
can and then they may take acorner or they might stop,
right?
The same thing happens withintrapreneurship, like within an
organization and this podcastabout intrapreneurship.
(11:03):
People are getting as far asthey can.
But if they hit the wall or ifthey come and go up against
obstacles, then they're mostlikely to either change their
tactic, stop.
So yeah, it is an interestingone about how much control you
feel you have personally overthe situation versus what might
be influenced by others or evenjust down to pure luck.
'cause you were putting it justbefore.
Andreas Moellmann (11:22):
I think there are many stories I, I don't
know, it might be.
More of an urban myth, but yeah,you might remember in the
eighties there was this bigbattle.
You might not remember.
I'm not sure whether ourlisteners remember in the
eighties and when there was abig fight between, I think it
was video 2000 VHS, and.
(11:43):
Yeah, and so which was the fightwas, which becomes the
prevalent, dominating videoformat and globally, and
apparently the reason why VHSworked, so the best quality, I
think was, I think video.
That's
Chris Hudson (11:56):
why all the ad agents using,
Andreas Moellmann (11:59):
and, but, and so VHS was an inferior
technology and quality, but.
The VVHS was, I don't knowanymore who was responsible for
which format, but apparently,and again, I don't know whether
it's an urban myth, VHS was theonly format that allowed porn,
whereas all the other twoformats did not allow and did
(12:20):
not collaborate with pornproducers.
And apparently that content,that was the main driver.
For the success of the videoformat.
So it wasn't the quality, itwasn't the technology, it was
the content, which nowadays, ifyou tell the story, you would
say, yeah, of course the contentrules, everything is content.
You have great content things.
(12:40):
It's not the platform, it's thecontent that actually makes the
platform successful.
But back then, I think that wasa very new thing.
I think here, who would, inhindsight, you can explain and
say, yeah, of course content.
But in that situation, I don'tthink anyone would've for been
able to foresee that something.
And again, it doesn't matterwhether the story is true or
(13:02):
not.
What matters is that this is acommon kind of process of
business thinking.
You develop a piece oftechnology, so you focus on the
qualities and the benefits ofthis technology, but you're
probably not focusing on thecontent that actually makes
this.
Technology actually valuable forpeople, right?
Because they're actually notlooking so much for the quality
(13:22):
and for the pixels.
They're looking for what isactually, what can actually
watch with that, right?
I think for me, that's also agood example how.
Anyway, it's a bit of the blackswan thing, right?
You don't know what you don'tknow, and therefore you don't
know where it's coming from.
Now you can learn from the pastand you can say, let's also put
this on the checklist that we'resure that we actually cover
this.
(13:43):
But there might be somethingoutside your real or perception
outside of what you define yourcategory is about that actually
defines whether your category orwhatever you're doing in the
category is successful or not.
And I think that's why one.
That that is, I think a bigbarrier when it comes to change
for companies is to be able tolook outside their reals of what
(14:05):
they think, defining theindustry, being open-minded in
terms of, and getting people inthat have no idea about whether
they're smart people, but whohave a wide perspective of the
world and, and can then lookinside your industry and say,
and other industries that mightbe interesting or what about
this, or what about that?
So you keep going in terms ofhow can I evolve this, that,
(14:25):
that you not, that you're notget stuck into something.
The automotive industrybasically.
The European and US automotiveindustry, they just got stuck
with, uh, combustibles.
Right.
And even though Tesla showedthem the way forward, they
ignored it.
Even though the EU said, you,you're not supposed to sell
combustibles in now six yearsanymore.
(14:48):
They still.
Could not put enough sufficienteffort into EVs and got
basically pushed aside by theChinese.
I, I remember I was working forMercedes-Benz back then, was one
of my clients.
Yeah.
And I, I, I, you know, it, itdidn't take.
Ev serious because for themthere were no cars.
(15:09):
It, they didn't smell like cars.
They didn't feel like cars.
They're just different.
There's no cars.
But that happens if you have alot of, of automotive nerds
working in your company becausethey are there for this specific
reason.
They're looking inwards andthey're specialists for this,
and they're super good at this.
They can't look beyond thatbecause they're not interested
in looking beyond, they'reinterested in this thing.
(15:30):
That's why they're specialists,right?
Chris Hudson (15:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (15:33):
Yeah.
So I think you can find a lot ofthese examples.
I work for a lot of, quite someautomotive brands.
I.
I was never really interested incars, to be honest.
I was always interested in whyother people are interested in
cars because that's what I wannaunderstand.
I wanna understand why they arefeeling so strongly about it,
(15:53):
whereas I don't really feel muchabout it.
That's just a thing for me thatgets me from A to B.
And some are nicer and some arenot.
And some are luxury and so arenot.
Fundamentally, it's not my thingand in a way because it's not my
thing, but I'm interested in whyit's other people's thing that
allows me, I believe, to seethings that other people
(16:13):
wouldn't see because they justwouldn't look at it.
They just wouldn't be interestedin that they, they're either in
it or they're not, and they'rein it.
Then they're just feel, yeah, ofcourse it is in it because I'm
in it, so we're all in it.
But they all then see just thething that makes them being in
it.
They don't see anything outsideor what might change.
The thing that they.
Chris Hudson (16:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I like that point.
It really lands us into thatsituation of people's
self-worth, really within anorganization and their feeling
of capacity, capability, skill,pride in their work obviously,
and willingness for change is,can be quite deeply rooted in
something that.
Somebody feels incrediblypleased with the work that
they've done so far, but theywouldn't necessarily change it
(16:55):
completely and start making EVs,so you and I wouldn't do that in
our line of work either.
Probably.
We might try, but I thinkthere's interesting dynamics
there where organizations arewritten in how they operate.
Efficiencies with productivityin mind and systemic constructs
that has to be set up for it tobecome profitable.
But that becomes, its veryconstraint because everything is
(17:17):
then written in that footprint.
Your job description for yournext hire will be written in the
way that is built around therole that already exists, and
how are we gonna start assessingpeople for the lateral thinking
and how much is too much andwhat's comfortable and what's
not comfortable.
How do we kind of design forthis maneuverability, do you
think, in the organizationalsense?
Andreas Moellmann (17:35):
Yeah, I think you mentioned it.
There's a certain fairness inparticular larger companies and
corporations not being soflexible, agile and dynamic.
And the fairness I see is ifthere wouldn't be, so if large
corporations will be veryflexible and agile and dynamic,
(17:57):
there wouldn't be any point forstartups to do their job because
they would do the job right.
And that's that fairness.
I, I believe, also explain to acertain extent, first of all, I
think with quantity changes,quality.
So if you up to a certain point,the nature of what it is that
you're doing will have tochange.
(18:17):
It's just the way things are.
If you build a hangar forairplanes, large enough.
Then it will develop its ownweather.
And so it's naturally that withquantity, the quality is
changing to a certain extent.
I think a lot of companies areaware of it, which means to
some, to larger, some to not tosmaller extent.
(18:37):
They focus on their culture,they focus on their ways of
doing things in order topreserve their culture, which
also makes sense.
Like you say, okay, we believeit's our culture that actually
allows us to get here.
We need to produce Google andour Amazon.
We believe we need to replicatethis and preserve this, but
again, also by.
That approach, you narrow itdown.
(18:59):
So you believe you have found away of success that leads you
there.
So you preserve that way ofsuccess.
And in some cases, this worksagain, as is the horse race
model.
Of course, there are certainaspects that.
It attracts certain caliber oftalent, having certain
environments that are betterthan in comparison to other
(19:20):
companies.
So there are certain benefitsthat probably propagate
innovation and progress and soon, but still, if you have a
certain size, you will have to,whether you want it or not.
Bring in certain systems and bybringing in defining certain
systems, that means you lockyourself down.
You cannot shift anymore as fastas you want because that is a
(19:41):
contradiction in terms.
So you cannot have systems thatbe flexible because you cannot
have a flexible system.
So either as a system or not asystem, either as a way of
working or not.
So there is a NPS.
You can try, but you gain some,you lose some, and that maybe is
the other thing.
What's your focus in terms ofgaining and losing, right?
If you want to milk the cowmore, you make your systems more
(20:03):
rigid.
If you want to still leave someflexibility, you make the system
a little bit more vague, maybeit may becomes more guard rails
in the system.
But again.
There will be limitations, and Ithink this is somewhat fair and
only makes sense.
I think one way to howcorporations can avoid that is
in a way very simply by notbecoming big.
(20:26):
Now there are ways of notbecoming big, if you wish, for
example, by structuring yourcompany in little independent
units and building incubators.
Phillips, for example, set up alot of, is one of the largest
research institutes in Europe.
And they had this whole systemof open innovation.
So they said the campus is open.
(20:47):
Any company can come here andset up an office because we want
to work with others together.
We want that influence andresearch and having a water
cooler conversation where twopeople meet that never would met
and they said, Hey, I have this,and hey, you have that and why
don't we do this together?
So you can set up something.
But then you set up a systemthat.
Prevents you from being big ifyou wish.
(21:07):
So you trying to offset becominga corporation, you prevent to
become a corporation.
I think that is a good way ofmaintaining a certain
open-mindedness and beinginfluenced with ideas.
But that's not enough.
I think I.
It's not enough because forexample, jumping a little bit
here, if I look at Japan, Ithink the Japanese are very
(21:29):
innovative.
They have, and I think part ofthe reason, I believe is because
of the rigid social structures.
So people look for outlets andso they trying to find solutions
for just about everything.
If you go to a Daiso Daiso islike a Japanese store.
Chris Hudson (21:46):
Yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (21:47):
Uh uh.
You find in Japan you canbasically.
Maintain your entire life justat Daiso, you don't need
anything else.
And everything just costs ahundred y what is that now?
60 cents or something like this.
And do you find solutions forjust about everything?
They still have ca cassettesfor, yeah.
Yeah.
I think you can still buy themand Daiso you can still buy if
(22:08):
you need it.
Chris Hudson (22:09):
Yeah, yeah,
Andreas Moellmann (22:10):
exactly.
So they still have these kind ofthings.
So I think you, you wouldn'teven know where to get them
today.
So.
Again, solutions for just abouteverything.
And when you go into a er, youactually discover how many
things in your life need fixing.
You didn't know because youhaven't thought that this is a
problem, but once you walkthrough a er, you f, oh, there's
(22:31):
a solution for a problem that Ididn't know that I have, or
maybe I should try that.
Chris Hudson (22:35):
That's what IKEA did as well.
There are plenty of retailersdoing that all the time, and
that's the magic of walkingthrough a store and picking up.
The amount of.
Andreas Moellmann (22:46):
Japanese business culture and actually
where Japan is as an economy, ona global scale, you don't see
much innovation.
You don't see much.
You saw a lot of, in thenineties, eighties, nineties,
Japan was super innovative, verypowerful.
And then the bubble bursts.
And I think once the bubblebursts, Japanese business
leaders said, okay, we have topreserve the status quo.
Now.
We don't wanna sink any deeper.
(23:08):
Our job now is just to maintainthings as they are.
And that's, that's what we do,and that's what they're doing
today.
This is nice saying that.
Japan has been in the year 2000for the last 40 years, and I
think this describes itperfectly.
They were so well ahead and nowthey're so far behind now, it
doesn't seem, they're far behindeverything.
Functions is awesome.
(23:28):
It's really great.
Everything is working'causeDaiso fixes everything.
Um, yes, but, but again, on theglobal level, they, they're just
not, there's not much innovationcoming through from Japan.
And I think one reason is thatthere's lots of innovation in
Japan, but it doesn't bubble up.
To the surface, the systems thatthey have in place, the way that
they work, the way they evaluateideas and so on, prevents them
(23:52):
to actually having innovationcoming through the world stage.
Again, I'm generalizing and, andstereotyping.
You will find Japanese companieswho are not like this, no
question, but by and large as aneconomy at think, that's my
perception, that one reason whythere is innovation.
It's just not coming up.
I.
So this is another thing that,that I think it's a very big
(24:15):
challenge for organizations ishow to enable, you mentioned
earlier intrapreneurs, right?
How to enable intrapreneurs toactually do their job, because
CEOs often have a good idea ofwhat's required, but they're
solve for the company toprogress and evolve.
But they're often so fardetached from the real work and
(24:36):
there's so many hierarchies,particular with large, larger
corporations that the layersthat are there, that vision,
that requests is just notfiltering through.
You know what basically ends upwithin the system is maintenance
prevention, status preservation.
It's, I think, is this, how do.
(24:58):
This is again, a very bigchallenge for larger
organizations and somewhat afair one.
How do you stop to reward peoplefrom preserving the status quo?
And that question is already acontradiction in terms because
if I want to make money and Ihave a successful.
IE myself with good margins,business model.
(25:21):
Why would I not want to preservethe status quo?
Mercedes and many other globalcar makers, they make money with
combustibles and they make verygood money.
Mercedes has record sales incombustibles, not in, yeah.
Why would they divest?
Why would they actually, howcould they tell their own people
to say, Hey, you do a great job.
We're selling talk, but we don'twanna sell that stuff anymore
(25:42):
because that's not our future.
We know what the future is.
And now it's laid out.
We have written it.
We're a mobility company, nowwe're not of our cars anymore.
And they say.
Are you kidding me?
I I just, the record says youjust as ragged profits and you
just wanna ditch that.
So it's, that is a dilemma, Ithink in tech is called the
innovator's dilemma.
One, when do you actually diveston your legacy technology and
(26:05):
when do you start investingfully into the new technology,
into your innovations?
So a Tesla doesn't have theseproblems because they don't have
legacy right there.
There's nothing to, there's nostatus quo tool.
To preserve.
They can just fully, and theyknow they have to fully commit
to the new thing and thatbecomes their advantage.
Now.
They have other problems tosolve, no question.
(26:26):
But there's the upside.
The upside is finding somethingthat works through this kind of
rigging with reality of thethings that don't work, and
finally have something that doeswork and then boom.
Right?
Chris Hudson (26:38):
Yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (26:39):
And I think this, this shifting of
perspective, I think that is thebiggest challenge for a
corporation to get done becauseif shareholders want their
money, and if the CEO said, ah,we forget about this
combustibles now we are fully,we're committed to EVs, we ditch
this.
Now we're not just EVs, we onlymake mobility.
Now we're getting into bicyclesand we're getting into change
(27:01):
and we actually developingecosystems around mobility and
so on.
And so we say, okay, fire thisguy, hire the previous CEO who
was running the show perfectly,and we make shit loads of money,
right.
Chris Hudson (27:13):
Is what happens.
This is what happens.
It's the same with government,which changes every few years as
well.
Companies are trying to alignwith what conditions are there
and what presents, and unlessthere's a higher level order of
influence that comes in andthere's an agenda for climate
change and sustainability andthe.
There are other things that doplay a role in some of those
decisions as well, but it feelslike organizations would just be
(27:34):
milking the cow as you wereputting it just before.
I did see a product strategymodel from, I think it was like
Elon Musk before he wentunpopular.
This was going back 10 years orsomething.
I.
It was juxtaposing the standardprogression of a product into
market from one iteration to abetter version, to a better
version.
That was just going up the scalelike that, and the Elon Musk
(27:55):
model was basically tocircumnavigate that pivot at the
start and then just get to ahigher level outcome without any
of those incremental stepsessentially.
I think you may have seen themodel, but yeah, it's within
everyone's day-to-day role as anIntrapreneur, how do we make
that possible?
Because not that you wantemulate Elon Musk in, in.
Everything, it feels like there.
(28:15):
There've gotta be some sidesteps here for the bigger step
to be made.
Otherwise it's all gonna beincremental and constrained and,
and not innovative.
So what do you think?
Andreas Moellmann (28:24):
Yeah, I have a few thoughts on this.
Very different ones.
I think maybe one way.
I think the first thing thatcomes to my mind is actually
humbleness, developing morehumbleness to where you are,
wherever you are, because.
Uh, unless you are in, in, Idon't know, in a prison or
(28:44):
something, you know, I'llprobably doing okay.
You might not do as, as well asyou want to, as you envisioned
it or whatever, but you'reprobably doing okay.
Right?
And so humbleness in terms of.
Gratefulness for where you areright now, and that where you
are right now isn't really justyour doing, it's mostly the
(29:06):
doing of other people becausethe other people that allowed
you to be there, that supportedyou, that enabled you, yeah.
That, that gave youopportunities that I don't know
fed you so.
There is no one person who makessuccess.
That's impossible.
It's a huge group of people whomake success and who one who
represents it is just that.
(29:28):
It's the person who representsit.
Now, if that person was a verysmart person and had chairs and
blah, blah, blah, that might bealso a very rich person.
But fundamentally, it's all theother people that actually made
it happen in some way.
So their humbleness in terms ofrecognizing where you are today.
It's actually a blessing andthere's no guarantee that you
(29:49):
will be there tomorrow as well.
Right now if you're tomorrow notthere, of course you want to,
you wanna strive that mostpeople want, right?
That's absolutely fine.
We should strive because it'slife is short and we want to
experience things and we want toexperience particular our own
talents and so on.
So by any means, strive, try,but don't set your expectations
(30:10):
too high and be disappointed ifthings are not working because
that's just not helping it.
It won't get you in any betterplace.
So that's why in, in a nutshell,humbleness, I think is a very
good prerequisite in order tobring in new things, be it
change, be it innovation, be itprogress, whatever.
(30:31):
Can I ask on that point
Chris Hudson (30:32):
just quickly address, have you seen that
manifest really well in in anyof the cultures that you've been
working?
Have you seen it in play outwithin organizations
successfully in some way?
Andreas Moellmann (30:42):
No, I, that's a good, a great question.
I've seen the opposite.
Most of my time I've beenworking in ad agencies and ad
agencies, I.
The opposite.
Yeah, they maybe less so today,to be honest, but particular I
think 20 years ago, a successfulagency was driven by.
Gigantic egos.
(31:03):
Yeah.
Um, because people who areegocentric are great in selling
stuff because they want thefeedback.
They don't even care about thesell.
They care about being great andbeing seen by others being
great.
Yeah.
It has worked so well in the olddays of advertising particular
to have great egos.
Making great things, of course,to the detriment of anyone else
(31:24):
because everyone else is just a,just a slave to the big ego to
make shit happen.
And with this whole notion ofkind of greatness and magic came
this whole idea, we can solveeverything.
We're just, we're just geniusesand that just don't see it.
And that that came together withthis.
Complete ignorance of reality,like business reality, just, we
(31:48):
just, great.
All we need is a great pitch anda great idea, and then we're
just fucking great
Chris Hudson (31:52):
a piece of paper.
Few pens, we'll fix it.
We'll work it out.
Yeah,
Andreas Moellmann (31:55):
exactly.
We'll, yeah, exactly right.
Yeah.
And this, if you see this todayis like with a little bit more
experience and a bit distance aswell, you see how this, how huge
the disconnect is of agenciesand their clients.
How often.
Agency, the agency world and theclient world marketing client
(32:16):
agency world, they're basicallynever overlap.
There is nothing that theyactually do together, apart from
doing some ads.
Chris Hudson (32:24):
So I think there was some lunch in the middle
part, I think.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Our season lunch in the middle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (32:30):
The publications are different.
Awards are different, meetingsare different.
They're all in different worlds.
And the trouble is that'stotally fine for the client
because they have the money.
But for us as service providers,it's really surprising how
little we actually play in theworld of our clients, given that
(32:51):
our job is to help them and tobe successful and to work for
them.
And I think this leads to bethis level of, unfortunately.
I work with more, yeah, digitalagencies, particular, those that
are more, can I say platformoriented?
My impression was they're justmuch more down to earth.
They're just more.
(33:13):
Problem solutions focus, they,because there is a mix of
technology and engagement thatneeds to happen in order to make
a platform work.
So I think in a way, maybe tomore generalize it, I think the
closer businesses to theirpeople, actually to the
(33:33):
customers, I think the morehumble they become, the more
real also they become becausethey, if you focus on.
On, on the person that youactually work for.
I think you are much, you'remuch better in picking up what
your role is and in, in, in agood way and also in a bad way
in terms of, in more realisticway, not in some kind of hairy
fairy fancy I in illusionaryway.
(33:56):
Yeah.
I'm reminded on, I once, when Iwas living in Hamburg, we had
this bakery.
The corner.
And in this bakery there waswoman working, selling bread.
And when you came to So weird,but I still remember this very
vividly when you.
Entered the store and wanted tobuy bread.
(34:17):
She said, hello, how are you?
This great.
How can I have it to her?
She gave you the sense that shewas just waiting for you to
enter the shop and buy somethingand she has, she owed happiness
to, to basically sell you somebread and it was just such a
pleasure.
Sister, you, I love to go thereand buy bread.
No, I just said the bread was.
(34:38):
Pretty okay.
It was not great, but pretty.
Okay.
But I to go there, not for thebread.
I go, I went there.
I need bread.
I need bread, right?
I need decent bread.
Was decent bread, but I love togo there just for the
interaction with her.
She was just awesome.
Chris Hudson (34:52):
Yeah.
You were the first one there.
You were the first one there at4:00 AM when the bakery opened
and you got the welcome and thenthey got the bread.
They opened up pretty earlythough.
Bakeries.
Yes,
Andreas Moellmann (35:04):
but you get good bread and I'm a sucker for
good bread.
Unfortunately, she got me there.
But no, she got me for theservice.
She got me for actually givingme the sense that she cared
about me very simply.
And I.
I dunno, my, my sense was sheenjoyed her job, whether she
really did, I don't know.
But at least it came across likethis.
I think maybe there's, the otherthing is also basic.
(35:26):
If you enjoy what you're doing,you're usually good at it,
right?
Because you enjoy what you'redoing.
So I think.
Being Sure.
Am I doing, am I, do I like whatI'm doing?
And if I don't like what I'mdoing, how can I put myself into
a position to, to what I'mdoing?
What needs to change?
Because if I like what I'mdoing, I will be doing better
stuff.
(35:47):
Right?
And I think organizations whoallow that to happen and maybe
even.
Who foster it, who support it,who, who basically help people
to get there.
I think that's probablyenvironment who perform better
in the long run, simply becausethey're more, you have people
who are actually motivated inwhat they're doing.
Chris Hudson (36:09):
Yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (36:10):
Another thought that on this topic, how
do you get there is to maybethink and be more mindful about
yourself, be more mindful about.
Why you think, what you think,question yourself, not, not in
a, oh, am I right?
Am I wrong way?
(36:30):
This is not about uncertainty.
It's not about buildinginsecurity into yourself.
It's more about, oh, how did Iderive to that opinion?
Is there a bias or fallacy thatI've been doing?
Is there another way to thinkabout this?
The washing machine is there.
Is there a different way ofwashing cloths?
And I still get to a greatresult, right?
(36:51):
I think being exposed for me,being exposed to different
cultures, being thrown intodifferent situations.
Like when we moved to Japanseven years ago, that was, I
don't speak Japanese.
I had some dealings withJapanese companies before I
worked for Den, indirectly, butout of Europe, I never lived
there.
So being thrown into thisculture and trying to work out
(37:14):
things, that's just awesome.
I love that.
I love to.
So just like, how do I do this?
How do they do that?
Why do they do it the way theydo it?
And because I feel this is whereI can learn, where I can enrich
my horizon, where I can also, I.
Question myself of how do Ibelieve things should be in
(37:36):
order to work and how they couldbe, for example.
Right?
And it's in a way, it's theharder way.
Maybe there's another way oflooking at it.
Try to avoid the easy route ifyou can, because the harder
route.
It's not necessarily the betterroute in terms of the result,
but, and it's probably the routethat that takes more energy,
more efforts and so on, but it'sthe learning on the way that
(37:58):
probably are the most valuableones.
And that might get you actuallyto, to a better result.
I, I think for me it's not evenderiving, just getting the
better solution is the processof deriving there.
That is actually so interestingbecause if you don't, if you
don't learn on the process, youjust.
(38:19):
You just have a genie.
You can say, oh, he has a bettersolution.
And then I think this is, maybewe can talk about this later
about ai.
That's the danger that I see inthat if you just have a genie,
just say, oh, here's a bettersolution.
I say, oh yeah, that's a bettersolution.
But you never really understoodwhy that is a better solution.
You have not, there was no needto go through process of develop
that solution to, to comprehendwhat the solution is in any way,
(38:42):
doing better or not, or middoing or whatever.
So you just accept it as thebetter solution.
You're not learning, which meansnext time when you have a
problem, you can't apply yourlearning because you haven't
learned anything.
So you, you don't become abetter problem solver.
You just stay on the level.
Wherever you are, you, so you'renot improving it.
And that's seeing andunderstanding.
(39:04):
Being interested in the problemin order to develop a solution,
being honest to yourself andalso to your colleagues and also
to your company about what isreally the problem here.
I think that is one of thebiggest challenges, that being
simply honest about what's theproblem here.
I often have the sense that, andI'm contradicting myself a
(39:24):
little bit, but.
Seeing the problem isn't reallyso difficult for an outsider
because an outsider just looksat it and say, ah, okay, you
guys not talking to each other.
Why?
Why don't you just talk to eachother?
Then that seems to be theproblem.
But then that's not really theproblem, that actually just the
symptom, because the problem is.
(39:46):
Personalities, his structures,his responsibilities is maybe
deeply ingrained into theorganization so you can easily
get the solution, right?
Yeah.
You got the C talk thatsolution, but what's the
problem?
That is really the often theharder of it and actually
solving that.
It's a bit like I just startedto re reread the Hitchhiker's
(40:07):
guy through the galaxy.
Coming to coming up with 42 isactually.
It is not, if you have moreexperience and you're
interested, it is actually notso difficult.
Right?
It's, it's going back to whatthe question was.
What, how does that originate?
How do you actually implementthat solution into the
environment that actuallycreated that problem?
(40:30):
I think that's often where thework is and, and that's also how
I feel as a strategist is comingup with a strategy in itself is
often.
Is maximum half the work, theother half of the work is
actually helping other people toaccept that strategy as the
right way to go, right?
(40:50):
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
And then, and maybe there's evenmore than 50%, and maybe, I
think because as things aregetting more and more complex,
you gotta onboard more people.
More departments have to see.
How to interpret it.
So it is doing this work onactually helping other people to
see things the way you see it,and that they actually.
(41:12):
Absorb and internalize yourpoint of view, your way of
solving the problem as their wayof solving the problem.
And I think that is often,that's easier in, in smaller
environment and startups where,where everyone is just looking
for solutions and everyone isjust craving for, let's just
try.
But in.
Established corporations wheredivisions are and departments
(41:35):
are involved, or departmentshave to have certain
responsibilities, who havecertain KPIs to fulfill that,
that might be a much, muchbigger challenge.
So I think there are, maybe towrap this up, there are two
perspectives broadly, I thinkone is your own internal
perspectives, how you can seethings, how you can see
yourself, how you can see yourrole and your capabilities, and.
(41:58):
Your shortcomings.
And I think the more you getaware of your shortcomings, the
better you can work on them andactually become better in what
you're doing.
And the other thing is theorganization that you deal with,
the challenges that organizationhas and yeah, and how you
actually can engage theirorganization in helping them to
overcome their problems in orderto actually realize the
(42:20):
solutions that seem to be maybeeasy for you, but very difficult
and hard for them.
Chris Hudson (42:26):
Yeah, very nicely put.
I think there's, particularly inthe second area, and AI is maybe
clouding this area a little bittoo because it's not so much the
problem space that is beingexplored.
It is more solution orientatedand it's a bias towards doing,
over understanding the stepsthat would lead to the solution,
as you were saying.
So.
If it can be done in fiveseconds as opposed to five weeks
(42:47):
or five months, then people aregonna try it just to see, oh,
I'm a little bit curious.
I'm gonna see what it says.
I'll pop it in and and see whatcomes out.
So I, yeah, I wonder how muchappetite there, there still will
be for understanding the problemspace and also.
Not the problem space for inrelation to the solution.
Maybe it's a custom problem orthe solution that you're trying
to create, but also the problemspace that sits within the
(43:09):
organization and is, it'sembedded and it's ingrained
within that culture and reallyknowing if I've got this
solution, then how would itsuccessfully roll out?
Interested to hear yourthoughts.
Maybe finally as we wrap thisup, just around the strategy and
what makes strategy work and howto bring about that, that
feeling of, yeah, we're all inthis together and the
strategies.
Strategy's gonna be great andit's, it's being lived and
(43:32):
breathed by other people otherthan you or I, because people
are on board with it.
So what do you think works?
Andreas Moellmann (43:38):
Yeah, good question.
If only I would know.
Chris Hudson (43:42):
Still finding out.
Andreas Moellmann (43:43):
So I, so I worked in, I would say in, in in
markets where strategy is, andstrategic planning is highly
regarded in the uk and I workedin markets where I think there's
no.
Comprehension really whatstrategic planning is.
And that for me would probablybe Japan of all places.
And then there are a lot ofmarkets in between.
(44:04):
Germany, weirdly, particularlywhen it comes to marketing, is
actually not very strong in mypoint of view.
And I was pondering about whythat is.
I think one reason is thatGermans.
German culture is very engineerdriven.
They love, and this is similarto the Japanese way because they
just love to touch things andstrategy is difficult to touch.
(44:27):
Yeah, it's, it's somethingintangible, virtual,
theoretical, and.
If there would be a nice way tomake this practical, I think
certainly Germany and probablyalso Japan would have much
better access to it.
But Germany and Japan deal verydifferently with this dilemma.
But I can come to this in asecond.
I think the, first of all, Ifear that strategy is very hard.
(44:52):
To understand.
Everyone has their owndefinition of what that actually
is.
And so have I have my owndefinition?
I thought you might, and my, my,my definition is try to make it
as simple as possible is tobasically solving a problem,
right?
That's the strategy.
It's a way of how to solve aproblem.
And the problem for me issomething where you hear and you
want to be there.
So if you want just A to B, sostrategy for me is a way of
(45:15):
getting from A, which is yourcurrent situation to B, which is
a future situation, right?
Usually there's something.
That prevents that to happenbecause otherwise it would
already be and B, but this iswhy you're an A.
And so strategy is a way of howto get to overcome whatever
prevents you from getting from Ato B.
And a good strategy for me isdoing this particularly well.
(45:37):
A particularly well means besttime, less resource, cheaper,
faster, easier, whatever.
Right?
For me, in a nutshell, is goodstrategy.
That seems sounds easy, but onceyou drill deeper, it becomes
actually.
Everyone would probably, if yougo in a business environment,
everyone would say, do you havea strategy?
You say, of course I have astrategy.
(45:57):
Do you need a strategy?
You say, yeah, of course we needa strategy, but then they
wouldn't really know what thatis.
And for me it's finding a way ofgetting from A to B and then
having A and b.
Fairly well defined asobjectives, measure objectives,
and then actually here itbecomes debatable.
(46:18):
Strategy is, for me, a way ofworking.
So you have a team actuallyagree and line up to go from A
to B, right?
And determine what their role isin order to get from A to B
according to the strategy thatyou have agreed.
Sounds easy, but I think inreality it's really not because,
(46:41):
and that goes back to largerorganizations, particular, but
also individuals.
Everyone has their ownobjectives.
Everyone has their own metrics.
Everyone has their own, maybeeven contractually defined, uh,
KPIs in order to get theirbonuses and so on and so on.
So if the team is not aligned.
That they're here and A, andthey want to get to B and that
(47:02):
this is the way how to getthere, then the strategy is not
going to work out because theywill all try to get from A to B
in their own terms.
And and, and maybe they evendefine B as C or D and E rather
than b.
I think that is fundamentally abig challenge in Japan, for
example.
My experience was this doesn'twork very well because the way
(47:25):
Japanese businesses makedecisions is based on
relationships.
Japanese businesses want tomaintain their relationship.
They don't want, they wannamaintain the status quo and
therefore the relationship.
And so when they see.
They're in front of a decision.
They're asking themselves howwould that impact our
relationships with theinfrastructure that we are
having?
(47:45):
And if it has an impact, that'snot a good decision.
It might be a good way fromgetting for A to B, so it might
be great strategy, but itendangers my relationships and
therefore I'm not going thisway, which means relationships
are much more important.
Achieving objectives in Japan ismy overall learning, and that
makes it so hard to workstrategically in Japan.
(48:07):
So I think that is, and.
That class a certain, inparticular in Asia Pacific.
My impression is stillbusinesses are very tactical
rather than strategically, sothey're looking into shorter
midterm results and, and, andfocusing, particularly now it
seems to be everyone is again,scared of recession.
We've been scared of recessionfor, I don't know, three years
(48:29):
now, and still not here.
Everyone's waiting.
When is it?
Finally happened.
I think that would be a bigrelief if that finally
recession, so we can be donewith it, but it's just not
happening.
Businesses are preparing.
There's again, this maintainingthe status quo rather than, and
actually having short-termincremental gains rather than
(48:52):
doing strategic leaps into thefuture or building something for
a long-term future.
'cause they wouldn't really knowwhether the CMO is still there
in three years time.
So this is short term, quicksuccess in order to have
something to show.
I think that is one of theissues when it comes to
strategies and how strategyactually.
Works or doesn't work within theregion.
Chris Hudson (49:13):
Yeah.
Great.
Thanks so much.
If people wanna get in touchwith you, ask a question, have a
chat, what's the best way toreach you?
Andreas Moellmann (49:19):
My best way is probably LinkedIn.
Yeah.
I'm not so much on social media.
My only poison is Reddit, butI'm not on Facebook and Reddit
love, I must say.
But yeah, I think when it comesto business, LinkedIn is
probably the best way.
Chris Hudson (49:32):
Yeah.
Great.
Thank you very much for theconversation, Andreas.
It's really appreciated youcoming onto the show and, and
sharing your views from all thecountries you've lived in.
And yeah, hopefully get a chanceto talk again soon.
And yeah, if you haven't metAndreas, then feel free to get
in touch with him as well.
So thanks everyone, and we'llleave it there.
Hi there and welcome back to the Company Road
Podcast.
My name's Chris, and I'm reallythrilled to be speaking with
Andreas Moellmann, a brandmarketing leader and a
strategist who spent over 30years helping organizations,
helping brands and businessesget future ready.
And he's a seasoned brand andmarketing strategist, and so
he's been working in this fieldfor over 30 years in
transformative roles fromstrategic planner to chief
(00:27):
experience officer, and a lot ofthe big network agencies.
So you're thinking Publicis,BBDO, DDB, Saatchi and Saatchi,
as well as digital agencies.
Sapient Nitro, Isobar, and he'salso worked across a number of
cities.
So Berlin, London.
Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai,and Tokyo, and yeah, he's got a
huge amount of experience.
It stretches from automotive,FMCG, consumer electronics,
(00:50):
telecommunications to banking,insurance.
He worked in Berliner Bank andyeah, a number of different
places and I.
He's worked across all thesecities.
He's got a fascinatingperspective on why corporations
move slowly, which is what Iwanna get into today.
Why people move and jump intoaction instead of thinking
things through and how AI isreally changing the way that we
(01:10):
understand problems,particularly today.
It feels like a really relevanttopic.
So if you're someone who'strying to drive change in your
organization, today'sconversation is gonna hit
differently and it's gonna be areally interesting one to get
into.
Andreas a huge welcome to theshow.
Andreas Moellmann (01:22):
Thanks So.
So for having me, always awesometo be here and very much to our
conversation.
Chris Hudson (01:29):
Thanks, Andreas.
And yeah, you've worked in allthese places.
Berlin, Hong, London, Hong Kong,Shanghai.
Now you're in Bangkok.
And yeah.
I just wanna ask you maybe ageneral opening question, which
is around what patterns are youseeing and how different
corporate cultures in some ofthose places approach change?
And why do some people resistchange more than others?
Do you think?
That's a really open question.
Andreas Moellmann (01:49):
Yeah, that's a open question and a very big
question.
I guess we can spend our podcaston this topic and probably.
Chris Hudson (01:56):
You talk and I'll just go.
Andreas Moellmann (01:57):
I think the best way actually is like over
25 years ago, almost 30 yearsago, when I moved away from
Germany to Hong Kong, and thatwas my first stint outside,
outside Germany and outsideEurope.
And I remember as a verypersonal story, I remember that
I had a discussion with my wifeabout.
Washing the clothes because inHong Kong the washing machines
(02:20):
are different.
They wash with cold water andthey move very slowly from
Germany.
We have Miele and we have likebig, massive, gigantic metal
built washing machines that havehot water.
And I said, oh, the clothescannot get clean like this.
That's possible.
We need a new washing machine.
So of course we used the washingmachine that was there and the
clothes were fine, is a verylittle anecdote.
(02:43):
Helped me, not just this, butbeing outside Germany, being
outside Europe, being adifferent culture.
That helped me to see that thereare many ways how to solve
problems, not just the ones thatI'm used to.
And I think ever since I'mfascinated by how people solve
problems back then, I realized,okay, so I'm just a arrogant
(03:04):
twat.
That believes I know how to dothings, but actually other
people know how to do things aswell, maybe even much better
than I do.
And that many solutions arebased on context, on history, on
future, on vision, onmotivation, on setups, on
ability, on all kinds of things,right?
So there's now one solution to aproblem.
There are many solutions to aproblem, and my job as a
(03:27):
strategist is.
To help find solutions that workbetter than, let's say the
average solution.
And for me, since then, I'vebeen on this journey to
understand how to solve problemsand how actually help companies
to solve their problems.
I like to solve.
And I think a lot of businessproblems, I actually.
(03:47):
Down to marketing, and I definemarketing very wide.
If a CEO is not good inexpressing his vision to his
employees, and therefore theydon't know really what to do,
that is for me marketing.
That is managing the market,managing everyone inside and
outside in order to know whythis company is doing what is
doing, and most importantly, howto do it better.
(04:10):
In this sense, I think a lot ofissues that business have goes
down to my broader definition ofmarketing, and I like to use my
experience in order to helpsolve their business problem
through marketing and ideallywith solutions that work better
than the average.
A long answer to your question,and again, but we said already
in the beginning, we could spenda lot of time on this.
(04:31):
I think a lot of.
Companies, their biggestchallenges is that particularly
have a little bit larger, thatthey had a streak of success.
Those people who are responsiblefor the success or actually
benefit from the success, theyprobably believe they have
worked out a way on how tomaintain their success because
they have a certain trajectory,right?
(04:51):
A repeat.
The things that.
I've been doing in the past, andthat worked and I tried out for
a long time to get it work.
It didn't work, and now itworks.
So now I have to basically milkthe cow and do more of it
because that is finally the wayof how to be successful.
And I think I'm an entrepreneurmyself.
I'm working as a consultant onmy own, and I'm doing the same.
I'm trying to figure out, haveto do it right, and once I
(05:13):
figure out, then I will be veryhappy and I will just continue
repeating it.
The fallacy potentially here is.
That even though you figure outor you believe you have figured
out why you're successful, thatmight change.
And just because you've beensuccessful once or twice or
three times or five or 10 times,it doesn't mean that you were su
successful 11 times.
It doesn't mean that youactually have figured out that
(05:35):
there even is a certain.
Method that leads to success.
There is, I think there's a,maybe you've heard about Derren
Brown.
Derren Brown, yeah.
I, Derren Brown.
Yeah.
Illusionist and Awesome.
He brings, brings togetherhypnosis, illusion, mental, he's
also called, I think he callshimself a mentor.
It's one episode where it'scalled the horse race and.
(05:59):
He's calling this woman, Ibelieve, and said randomly he
doesn't know her, and he callsher and said, Hey, on Saturday
there is a horse race bet onhorse number two.
I give you money, I give you 50bucks.
Take the 50 bucks and put onhorse number two.
Right?
And she wins, right?
So next weekend he calls heragain and said, look, I have the
next horse, right?
(06:19):
It's number five.
And she wins, right?
And she, he does it 3, 4, 5times, right?
And she wins.
She wins.
And then he calls her and said,okay, look, I have another
horse, but this time I want totell you my method.
So bring all your money.
Bring all the money that youget.
We meet at the races.
I bet.
I take the money, I bet on thehorse.
And while the race is going, Itell you how my method works,
(06:42):
right?
Okay.
She says she's excited.
She gets my, I think she gets20,000 pounds a loan from her
parents or something.
So it brings all the money thatshe has, Debbie, the horses, she
ends over the money and he goesaway, puts it on a be right,
comes back and say, okay, nowthe race starts now.
Now he's explaining all the.
Six months ago, I called 20,000people and I told them, bet on
(07:06):
horse number one, horse numbertwo, horse number three, and
horse number four.
And I gave them all some money,right?
And then there was a bunch ofthem, 5,000 people they won,
right?
Because they bet on the risehorse.
So I caught the 5,000 people.
For the next race.
And I told them that on horsenumber 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
And then there were a thousandpeople who won.
Right?
So you are the one who wentactually through all the six
(07:29):
kind of phases of winning andlosing.
And you are the only one out ofthe 20,000 people who actually
won all, all these six.
And I have no idea which horseis gonna win.
And she's a bit disbelieving.
And then basically the horse isnot winning, but he's coming
back and saying, oh look, I.
I didn't bet on any horse,here's your money, don't worry
(07:50):
about it.
He said, look, the reason why Idid this is that people think
because they're successful, theythink they have a method, they
think they have an advantageover others.
But the reality is this is likea system and it's like you might
be the one that wins, right?
And you might be the one thatwins again and again.
You're just like the lady in thehorse races.
At some point you won't win.
(08:10):
And it's just luck because youcan try hard and it's good to
try, and the more you try, themore chances of success you
have.
But that is chances of success.
That is not creating success.
This is not you in charge ofwhat's happening, right?
A large part of this is actuallybeing sensitive to what's
happening and adjusting tochange all the time, and
actually taking in and tryingand learning from it in order to
(08:33):
adjust of what's happeningrather than believing.
You are successful.
So again, long story coming backto your original question.
I think a lot of companies,because it's hard to be
successful, once they foundsuccess, they stick to their
methods of success and itcarries and it has a certain
trajectory because there was areason why.
It was sticking in the firstplace and the other things
(08:54):
before, not right.
But then I think the challengeis to realize, oh, but things
are constantly changing.
So what stuck now might notstick tomorrow, might change.
Might not change.
So I need to maintain thisflexibility.
I need to be able to constantlyadjust my methods, my learning,
my way of looking at the world,my way of how do I actually
contribute to the, I thinkthat's where I think a lot of
(09:18):
challenges are wherever you go,really, and I've been in many
different places, many differentcultures, and it's just human
nature.
It's human nature to somewhatstick to the things that make
you feel good and believe thestory that you're telling about
yourself, that you're successfuland you correct it, and that you
just.
Continue running it, and fromthis moment on, you're just
(09:39):
trying to maintain that storybecause you were waiting and
hoping for the story for such along time that finally, when you
find it, you just wanna stick toit.
You don't wanna question it justin the moment when you just feel
you're successful and saying,oh, maybe it wasn't me, or maybe
it was something different.
So I think this kind of.
View and realization, thisperspective and this openness to
(10:02):
not attribute success to me ormyself or my methods, but
actually being open to realize,yeah, I tried and this one it
stick, but I.
I don't know how long.
I don't know why, really.
I just go with it and I won't bedisappointed when it doesn't
work because I want to do thenext thing.
I want to learn more.
Chris Hudson (10:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there are lots of thingswithin that story that I find
interesting and I feel like I.
In the story of either you beingin control or not being in
control because it's down toluck.
The common ground might bearound tenacity and
perseverance, and that could bea unifying theme because if you
are determined to make itsucceed, then in the end, most
(10:42):
people would think you wouldsucceed, particularly in a
business sense.
'cause you, you've got thetenacity to see it through.
A lot of people don't get tothat point, and that's why
entrepreneurship is so, ispracticed and conceived in lots
of different ways, obviously,and people get as far as they
can and then they may take acorner or they might stop,
right?
The same thing happens withintrapreneurship, like within an
organization and this podcastabout intrapreneurship.
(11:03):
People are getting as far asthey can.
But if they hit the wall or ifthey come and go up against
obstacles, then they're mostlikely to either change their
tactic, stop.
So yeah, it is an interestingone about how much control you
feel you have personally overthe situation versus what might
be influenced by others or evenjust down to pure luck.
'cause you were putting it justbefore.
Andreas Moellmann (11:22):
I think there are many stories I, I don't
know, it might be.
More of an urban myth, but yeah,you might remember in the
eighties there was this bigbattle.
You might not remember.
I'm not sure whether ourlisteners remember in the
eighties and when there was abig fight between, I think it
was video 2000 VHS, and.
(11:43):
Yeah, and so which was the fightwas, which becomes the
prevalent, dominating videoformat and globally, and
apparently the reason why VHSworked, so the best quality, I
think was, I think video.
That's
Chris Hudson (11:56):
why all the ad agents using,
Andreas Moellmann (11:59):
and, but, and so VHS was an inferior
technology and quality, but.
The VVHS was, I don't knowanymore who was responsible for
which format, but apparently,and again, I don't know whether
it's an urban myth, VHS was theonly format that allowed porn,
whereas all the other twoformats did not allow and did
(12:20):
not collaborate with pornproducers.
And apparently that content,that was the main driver.
For the success of the videoformat.
So it wasn't the quality, itwasn't the technology, it was
the content, which nowadays, ifyou tell the story, you would
say, yeah, of course the contentrules, everything is content.
You have great content things.
(12:40):
It's not the platform, it's thecontent that actually makes the
platform successful.
But back then, I think that wasa very new thing.
I think here, who would, inhindsight, you can explain and
say, yeah, of course content.
But in that situation, I don'tthink anyone would've for been
able to foresee that something.
And again, it doesn't matterwhether the story is true or
(13:02):
not.
What matters is that this is acommon kind of process of
business thinking.
You develop a piece oftechnology, so you focus on the
qualities and the benefits ofthis technology, but you're
probably not focusing on thecontent that actually makes
this.
Technology actually valuable forpeople, right?
Because they're actually notlooking so much for the quality
(13:22):
and for the pixels.
They're looking for what isactually, what can actually
watch with that, right?
I think for me, that's also agood example how.
Anyway, it's a bit of the blackswan thing, right?
You don't know what you don'tknow, and therefore you don't
know where it's coming from.
Now you can learn from the pastand you can say, let's also put
this on the checklist that we'resure that we actually cover
this.
(13:43):
But there might be somethingoutside your real or perception
outside of what you define yourcategory is about that actually
defines whether your category orwhatever you're doing in the
category is successful or not.
And I think that's why one.
That that is, I think a bigbarrier when it comes to change
for companies is to be able tolook outside their reals of what
(14:05):
they think, defining theindustry, being open-minded in
terms of, and getting people inthat have no idea about whether
they're smart people, but whohave a wide perspective of the
world and, and can then lookinside your industry and say,
and other industries that mightbe interesting or what about
this, or what about that?
So you keep going in terms ofhow can I evolve this, that,
(14:25):
that you not, that you're notget stuck into something.
The automotive industrybasically.
The European and US automotiveindustry, they just got stuck
with, uh, combustibles.
Right.
And even though Tesla showedthem the way forward, they
ignored it.
Even though the EU said, you,you're not supposed to sell
combustibles in now six yearsanymore.
(14:48):
They still.
Could not put enough sufficienteffort into EVs and got
basically pushed aside by theChinese.
I, I remember I was working forMercedes-Benz back then, was one
of my clients.
Yeah.
And I, I, I, you know, it, itdidn't take.
Ev serious because for themthere were no cars.
(15:09):
It, they didn't smell like cars.
They didn't feel like cars.
They're just different.
There's no cars.
But that happens if you have alot of, of automotive nerds
working in your company becausethey are there for this specific
reason.
They're looking inwards andthey're specialists for this,
and they're super good at this.
They can't look beyond thatbecause they're not interested
in looking beyond, they'reinterested in this thing.
(15:30):
That's why they're specialists,right?
Chris Hudson (15:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (15:33):
Yeah.
So I think you can find a lot ofthese examples.
I work for a lot of, quite someautomotive brands.
I.
I was never really interested incars, to be honest.
I was always interested in whyother people are interested in
cars because that's what I wannaunderstand.
I wanna understand why they arefeeling so strongly about it,
(15:53):
whereas I don't really feel muchabout it.
That's just a thing for me thatgets me from A to B.
And some are nicer and some arenot.
And some are luxury and so arenot.
Fundamentally, it's not my thingand in a way because it's not my
thing, but I'm interested in whyit's other people's thing that
allows me, I believe, to seethings that other people
(16:13):
wouldn't see because they justwouldn't look at it.
They just wouldn't be interestedin that they, they're either in
it or they're not, and they'rein it.
Then they're just feel, yeah, ofcourse it is in it because I'm
in it, so we're all in it.
But they all then see just thething that makes them being in
it.
They don't see anything outsideor what might change.
The thing that they.
Chris Hudson (16:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I like that point.
It really lands us into thatsituation of people's
self-worth, really within anorganization and their feeling
of capacity, capability, skill,pride in their work obviously,
and willingness for change is,can be quite deeply rooted in
something that.
Somebody feels incrediblypleased with the work that
they've done so far, but theywouldn't necessarily change it
(16:55):
completely and start making EVs,so you and I wouldn't do that in
our line of work either.
Probably.
We might try, but I thinkthere's interesting dynamics
there where organizations arewritten in how they operate.
Efficiencies with productivityin mind and systemic constructs
that has to be set up for it tobecome profitable.
But that becomes, its veryconstraint because everything is
(17:17):
then written in that footprint.
Your job description for yournext hire will be written in the
way that is built around therole that already exists, and
how are we gonna start assessingpeople for the lateral thinking
and how much is too much andwhat's comfortable and what's
not comfortable.
How do we kind of design forthis maneuverability, do you
think, in the organizationalsense?
Andreas Moellmann (17:35):
Yeah, I think you mentioned it.
There's a certain fairness inparticular larger companies and
corporations not being soflexible, agile and dynamic.
And the fairness I see is ifthere wouldn't be, so if large
corporations will be veryflexible and agile and dynamic,
(17:57):
there wouldn't be any point forstartups to do their job because
they would do the job right.
And that's that fairness.
I, I believe, also explain to acertain extent, first of all, I
think with quantity changes,quality.
So if you up to a certain point,the nature of what it is that
you're doing will have tochange.
(18:17):
It's just the way things are.
If you build a hangar forairplanes, large enough.
Then it will develop its ownweather.
And so it's naturally that withquantity, the quality is
changing to a certain extent.
I think a lot of companies areaware of it, which means to
some, to larger, some to not tosmaller extent.
(18:37):
They focus on their culture,they focus on their ways of
doing things in order topreserve their culture, which
also makes sense.
Like you say, okay, we believeit's our culture that actually
allows us to get here.
We need to produce Google andour Amazon.
We believe we need to replicatethis and preserve this, but
again, also by.
That approach, you narrow itdown.
(18:59):
So you believe you have found away of success that leads you
there.
So you preserve that way ofsuccess.
And in some cases, this worksagain, as is the horse race
model.
Of course, there are certainaspects that.
It attracts certain caliber oftalent, having certain
environments that are betterthan in comparison to other
(19:20):
companies.
So there are certain benefitsthat probably propagate
innovation and progress and soon, but still, if you have a
certain size, you will have to,whether you want it or not.
Bring in certain systems and bybringing in defining certain
systems, that means you lockyourself down.
You cannot shift anymore as fastas you want because that is a
(19:41):
contradiction in terms.
So you cannot have systems thatbe flexible because you cannot
have a flexible system.
So either as a system or not asystem, either as a way of
working or not.
So there is a NPS.
You can try, but you gain some,you lose some, and that maybe is
the other thing.
What's your focus in terms ofgaining and losing, right?
If you want to milk the cowmore, you make your systems more
(20:03):
rigid.
If you want to still leave someflexibility, you make the system
a little bit more vague, maybeit may becomes more guard rails
in the system.
But again.
There will be limitations, and Ithink this is somewhat fair and
only makes sense.
I think one way to howcorporations can avoid that is
in a way very simply by notbecoming big.
(20:26):
Now there are ways of notbecoming big, if you wish, for
example, by structuring yourcompany in little independent
units and building incubators.
Phillips, for example, set up alot of, is one of the largest
research institutes in Europe.
And they had this whole systemof open innovation.
So they said the campus is open.
(20:47):
Any company can come here andset up an office because we want
to work with others together.
We want that influence andresearch and having a water
cooler conversation where twopeople meet that never would met
and they said, Hey, I have this,and hey, you have that and why
don't we do this together?
So you can set up something.
But then you set up a systemthat.
Prevents you from being big ifyou wish.
(21:07):
So you trying to offset becominga corporation, you prevent to
become a corporation.
I think that is a good way ofmaintaining a certain
open-mindedness and beinginfluenced with ideas.
But that's not enough.
I think I.
It's not enough because forexample, jumping a little bit
here, if I look at Japan, Ithink the Japanese are very
(21:29):
innovative.
They have, and I think part ofthe reason, I believe is because
of the rigid social structures.
So people look for outlets andso they trying to find solutions
for just about everything.
If you go to a Daiso Daiso islike a Japanese store.
Chris Hudson (21:46):
Yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (21:47):
Uh uh.
You find in Japan you canbasically.
Maintain your entire life justat Daiso, you don't need
anything else.
And everything just costs ahundred y what is that now?
60 cents or something like this.
And do you find solutions forjust about everything?
They still have ca cassettesfor, yeah.
Yeah.
I think you can still buy themand Daiso you can still buy if
(22:08):
you need it.
Chris Hudson (22:09):
Yeah, yeah,
Andreas Moellmann (22:10):
exactly.
So they still have these kind ofthings.
So I think you, you wouldn'teven know where to get them
today.
So.
Again, solutions for just abouteverything.
And when you go into a er, youactually discover how many
things in your life need fixing.
You didn't know because youhaven't thought that this is a
problem, but once you walkthrough a er, you f, oh, there's
(22:31):
a solution for a problem that Ididn't know that I have, or
maybe I should try that.
Chris Hudson (22:35):
That's what IKEA did as well.
There are plenty of retailersdoing that all the time, and
that's the magic of walkingthrough a store and picking up.
The amount of.
Andreas Moellmann (22:46):
Japanese business culture and actually
where Japan is as an economy, ona global scale, you don't see
much innovation.
You don't see much.
You saw a lot of, in thenineties, eighties, nineties,
Japan was super innovative, verypowerful.
And then the bubble bursts.
And I think once the bubblebursts, Japanese business
leaders said, okay, we have topreserve the status quo.
Now.
We don't wanna sink any deeper.
(23:08):
Our job now is just to maintainthings as they are.
And that's, that's what we do,and that's what they're doing
today.
This is nice saying that.
Japan has been in the year 2000for the last 40 years, and I
think this describes itperfectly.
They were so well ahead and nowthey're so far behind now, it
doesn't seem, they're far behindeverything.
Functions is awesome.
(23:28):
It's really great.
Everything is working'causeDaiso fixes everything.
Um, yes, but, but again, on theglobal level, they, they're just
not, there's not much innovationcoming through from Japan.
And I think one reason is thatthere's lots of innovation in
Japan, but it doesn't bubble up.
To the surface, the systems thatthey have in place, the way that
they work, the way they evaluateideas and so on, prevents them
(23:52):
to actually having innovationcoming through the world stage.
Again, I'm generalizing and, andstereotyping.
You will find Japanese companieswho are not like this, no
question, but by and large as aneconomy at think, that's my
perception, that one reason whythere is innovation.
It's just not coming up.
I.
So this is another thing that,that I think it's a very big
(24:15):
challenge for organizations ishow to enable, you mentioned
earlier intrapreneurs, right?
How to enable intrapreneurs toactually do their job, because
CEOs often have a good idea ofwhat's required, but they're
solve for the company toprogress and evolve.
But they're often so fardetached from the real work and
(24:36):
there's so many hierarchies,particular with large, larger
corporations that the layersthat are there, that vision,
that requests is just notfiltering through.
You know what basically ends upwithin the system is maintenance
prevention, status preservation.
It's, I think, is this, how do.
(24:58):
This is again, a very bigchallenge for larger
organizations and somewhat afair one.
How do you stop to reward peoplefrom preserving the status quo?
And that question is already acontradiction in terms because
if I want to make money and Ihave a successful.
IE myself with good margins,business model.
(25:21):
Why would I not want to preservethe status quo?
Mercedes and many other globalcar makers, they make money with
combustibles and they make verygood money.
Mercedes has record sales incombustibles, not in, yeah.
Why would they divest?
Why would they actually, howcould they tell their own people
to say, Hey, you do a great job.
We're selling talk, but we don'twanna sell that stuff anymore
(25:42):
because that's not our future.
We know what the future is.
And now it's laid out.
We have written it.
We're a mobility company, nowwe're not of our cars anymore.
And they say.
Are you kidding me?
I I just, the record says youjust as ragged profits and you
just wanna ditch that.
So it's, that is a dilemma, Ithink in tech is called the
innovator's dilemma.
One, when do you actually diveston your legacy technology and
(26:05):
when do you start investingfully into the new technology,
into your innovations?
So a Tesla doesn't have theseproblems because they don't have
legacy right there.
There's nothing to, there's nostatus quo tool.
To preserve.
They can just fully, and theyknow they have to fully commit
to the new thing and thatbecomes their advantage.
Now.
They have other problems tosolve, no question.
(26:26):
But there's the upside.
The upside is finding somethingthat works through this kind of
rigging with reality of thethings that don't work, and
finally have something that doeswork and then boom.
Right?
Chris Hudson (26:38):
Yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (26:39):
And I think this, this shifting of
perspective, I think that is thebiggest challenge for a
corporation to get done becauseif shareholders want their
money, and if the CEO said, ah,we forget about this
combustibles now we are fully,we're committed to EVs, we ditch
this.
Now we're not just EVs, we onlymake mobility.
Now we're getting into bicyclesand we're getting into change
(27:01):
and we actually developingecosystems around mobility and
so on.
And so we say, okay, fire thisguy, hire the previous CEO who
was running the show perfectly,and we make shit loads of money,
right.
Chris Hudson (27:13):
Is what happens.
This is what happens.
It's the same with government,which changes every few years as
well.
Companies are trying to alignwith what conditions are there
and what presents, and unlessthere's a higher level order of
influence that comes in andthere's an agenda for climate
change and sustainability andthe.
There are other things that doplay a role in some of those
decisions as well, but it feelslike organizations would just be
(27:34):
milking the cow as you wereputting it just before.
I did see a product strategymodel from, I think it was like
Elon Musk before he wentunpopular.
This was going back 10 years orsomething.
I.
It was juxtaposing the standardprogression of a product into
market from one iteration to abetter version, to a better
version.
That was just going up the scalelike that, and the Elon Musk
(27:55):
model was basically tocircumnavigate that pivot at the
start and then just get to ahigher level outcome without any
of those incremental stepsessentially.
I think you may have seen themodel, but yeah, it's within
everyone's day-to-day role as anIntrapreneur, how do we make
that possible?
Because not that you wantemulate Elon Musk in, in.
Everything, it feels like there.
(28:15):
There've gotta be some sidesteps here for the bigger step
to be made.
Otherwise it's all gonna beincremental and constrained and,
and not innovative.
So what do you think?
Andreas Moellmann (28:24):
Yeah, I have a few thoughts on this.
Very different ones.
I think maybe one way.
I think the first thing thatcomes to my mind is actually
humbleness, developing morehumbleness to where you are,
wherever you are, because.
Uh, unless you are in, in, Idon't know, in a prison or
(28:44):
something, you know, I'llprobably doing okay.
You might not do as, as well asyou want to, as you envisioned
it or whatever, but you'reprobably doing okay.
Right?
And so humbleness in terms of.
Gratefulness for where you areright now, and that where you
are right now isn't really justyour doing, it's mostly the
(29:06):
doing of other people becausethe other people that allowed
you to be there, that supportedyou, that enabled you, yeah.
That, that gave youopportunities that I don't know
fed you so.
There is no one person who makessuccess.
That's impossible.
It's a huge group of people whomake success and who one who
represents it is just that.
(29:28):
It's the person who representsit.
Now, if that person was a verysmart person and had chairs and
blah, blah, blah, that might bealso a very rich person.
But fundamentally, it's all theother people that actually made
it happen in some way.
So their humbleness in terms ofrecognizing where you are today.
It's actually a blessing andthere's no guarantee that you
(29:49):
will be there tomorrow as well.
Right now if you're tomorrow notthere, of course you want to,
you wanna strive that mostpeople want, right?
That's absolutely fine.
We should strive because it'slife is short and we want to
experience things and we want toexperience particular our own
talents and so on.
So by any means, strive, try,but don't set your expectations
(30:10):
too high and be disappointed ifthings are not working because
that's just not helping it.
It won't get you in any betterplace.
So that's why in, in a nutshell,humbleness, I think is a very
good prerequisite in order tobring in new things, be it
change, be it innovation, be itprogress, whatever.
(30:31):
Can I ask on that point
Chris Hudson (30:32):
just quickly address, have you seen that
manifest really well in in anyof the cultures that you've been
working?
Have you seen it in play outwithin organizations
successfully in some way?
Andreas Moellmann (30:42):
No, I, that's a good, a great question.
I've seen the opposite.
Most of my time I've beenworking in ad agencies and ad
agencies, I.
The opposite.
Yeah, they maybe less so today,to be honest, but particular I
think 20 years ago, a successfulagency was driven by.
Gigantic egos.
(31:03):
Yeah.
Um, because people who areegocentric are great in selling
stuff because they want thefeedback.
They don't even care about thesell.
They care about being great andbeing seen by others being
great.
Yeah.
It has worked so well in the olddays of advertising particular
to have great egos.
Making great things, of course,to the detriment of anyone else
(31:24):
because everyone else is just a,just a slave to the big ego to
make shit happen.
And with this whole notion ofkind of greatness and magic came
this whole idea, we can solveeverything.
We're just, we're just geniusesand that just don't see it.
And that that came together withthis.
Complete ignorance of reality,like business reality, just, we
(31:48):
just, great.
All we need is a great pitch anda great idea, and then we're
just fucking great
Chris Hudson (31:52):
a piece of paper.
Few pens, we'll fix it.
We'll work it out.
Yeah,
Andreas Moellmann (31:55):
exactly.
We'll, yeah, exactly right.
Yeah.
And this, if you see this todayis like with a little bit more
experience and a bit distance aswell, you see how this, how huge
the disconnect is of agenciesand their clients.
How often.
Agency, the agency world and theclient world marketing client
(32:16):
agency world, they're basicallynever overlap.
There is nothing that theyactually do together, apart from
doing some ads.
Chris Hudson (32:24):
So I think there was some lunch in the middle
part, I think.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Our season lunch in the middle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (32:30):
The publications are different.
Awards are different, meetingsare different.
They're all in different worlds.
And the trouble is that'stotally fine for the client
because they have the money.
But for us as service providers,it's really surprising how
little we actually play in theworld of our clients, given that
(32:51):
our job is to help them and tobe successful and to work for
them.
And I think this leads to bethis level of, unfortunately.
I work with more, yeah, digitalagencies, particular, those that
are more, can I say platformoriented?
My impression was they're justmuch more down to earth.
They're just more.
(33:13):
Problem solutions focus, they,because there is a mix of
technology and engagement thatneeds to happen in order to make
a platform work.
So I think in a way, maybe tomore generalize it, I think the
closer businesses to theirpeople, actually to the
(33:33):
customers, I think the morehumble they become, the more
real also they become becausethey, if you focus on.
On, on the person that youactually work for.
I think you are much, you'remuch better in picking up what
your role is and in, in, in agood way and also in a bad way
in terms of, in more realisticway, not in some kind of hairy
fairy fancy I in illusionaryway.
(33:56):
Yeah.
I'm reminded on, I once, when Iwas living in Hamburg, we had
this bakery.
The corner.
And in this bakery there waswoman working, selling bread.
And when you came to So weird,but I still remember this very
vividly when you.
Entered the store and wanted tobuy bread.
(34:17):
She said, hello, how are you?
This great.
How can I have it to her?
She gave you the sense that shewas just waiting for you to
enter the shop and buy somethingand she has, she owed happiness
to, to basically sell you somebread and it was just such a
pleasure.
Sister, you, I love to go thereand buy bread.
No, I just said the bread was.
(34:38):
Pretty okay.
It was not great, but pretty.
Okay.
But I to go there, not for thebread.
I go, I went there.
I need bread.
I need bread, right?
I need decent bread.
Was decent bread, but I love togo there just for the
interaction with her.
She was just awesome.
Chris Hudson (34:52):
Yeah.
You were the first one there.
You were the first one there at4:00 AM when the bakery opened
and you got the welcome and thenthey got the bread.
They opened up pretty earlythough.
Bakeries.
Yes,
Andreas Moellmann (35:04):
but you get good bread and I'm a sucker for
good bread.
Unfortunately, she got me there.
But no, she got me for theservice.
She got me for actually givingme the sense that she cared
about me very simply.
And I.
I dunno, my, my sense was sheenjoyed her job, whether she
really did, I don't know.
But at least it came across likethis.
I think maybe there's, the otherthing is also basic.
(35:26):
If you enjoy what you're doing,you're usually good at it,
right?
Because you enjoy what you'redoing.
So I think.
Being Sure.
Am I doing, am I, do I like whatI'm doing?
And if I don't like what I'mdoing, how can I put myself into
a position to, to what I'mdoing?
What needs to change?
Because if I like what I'mdoing, I will be doing better
stuff.
(35:47):
Right?
And I think organizations whoallow that to happen and maybe
even.
Who foster it, who support it,who, who basically help people
to get there.
I think that's probablyenvironment who perform better
in the long run, simply becausethey're more, you have people
who are actually motivated inwhat they're doing.
Chris Hudson (36:09):
Yeah.
Andreas Moellmann (36:10):
Another thought that on this topic, how
do you get there is to maybethink and be more mindful about
yourself, be more mindful about.
Why you think, what you think,question yourself, not, not in
a, oh, am I right?
Am I wrong way?
(36:30):
This is not about uncertainty.
It's not about buildinginsecurity into yourself.
It's more about, oh, how did Iderive to that opinion?
Is there a bias or fallacy thatI've been doing?
Is there another way to thinkabout this?
The washing machine is there.
Is there a different way ofwashing cloths?
And I still get to a greatresult, right?
(36:51):
I think being exposed for me,being exposed to different
cultures, being thrown intodifferent situations.
Like when we moved to Japanseven years ago, that was, I
don't speak Japanese.
I had some dealings withJapanese companies before I
worked for Den, indirectly, butout of Europe, I never lived
there.
So being thrown into thisculture and trying to work out
(37:14):
things, that's just awesome.
I love that.
I love to.
So just like, how do I do this?
How do they do that?
Why do they do it the way theydo it?
And because I feel this is whereI can learn, where I can enrich
my horizon, where I can also, I.
Question myself of how do Ibelieve things should be in
(37:36):
order to work and how they couldbe, for example.
Right?
And it's in a way, it's theharder way.
Maybe there's another way oflooking at it.
Try to avoid the easy route ifyou can, because the harder
route.
It's not necessarily the betterroute in terms of the result,
but, and it's probably the routethat that takes more energy,
more efforts and so on, but it'sthe learning on the way that
(37:58):
probably are the most valuableones.
And that might get you actuallyto, to a better result.
I, I think for me it's not evenderiving, just getting the
better solution is the processof deriving there.
That is actually so interestingbecause if you don't, if you
don't learn on the process, youjust.
(38:19):
You just have a genie.
You can say, oh, he has a bettersolution.
And then I think this is, maybewe can talk about this later
about ai.
That's the danger that I see inthat if you just have a genie,
just say, oh, here's a bettersolution.
I say, oh yeah, that's a bettersolution.
But you never really understoodwhy that is a better solution.
You have not, there was no needto go through process of develop
that solution to, to comprehendwhat the solution is in any way,
(38:42):
doing better or not, or middoing or whatever.
So you just accept it as thebetter solution.
You're not learning, which meansnext time when you have a
problem, you can't apply yourlearning because you haven't
learned anything.
So you, you don't become abetter problem solver.
You just stay on the level.
Wherever you are, you, so you'renot improving it.
And that's seeing andunderstanding.
(39:04):
Being interested in the problemin order to develop a solution,
being honest to yourself andalso to your colleagues and also
to your company about what isreally the problem here.
I think that is one of thebiggest challenges, that being
simply honest about what's theproblem here.
I often have the sense that, andI'm contradicting myself a
(39:24):
little bit, but.
Seeing the problem isn't reallyso difficult for an outsider
because an outsider just looksat it and say, ah, okay, you
guys not talking to each other.
Why?
Why don't you just talk to eachother?
Then that seems to be theproblem.
But then that's not really theproblem, that actually just the
symptom, because the problem is.
(39:46):
Personalities, his structures,his responsibilities is maybe
deeply ingrained into theorganization so you can easily
get the solution, right?
Yeah.
You got the C talk thatsolution, but what's the
problem?
That is really the often theharder of it and actually
solving that.
It's a bit like I just startedto re reread the Hitchhiker's
(40:07):
guy through the galaxy.
Coming to coming up with 42 isactually.
It is not, if you have moreexperience and you're
interested, it is actually notso difficult.
Right?
It's, it's going back to whatthe question was.
What, how does that originate?
How do you actually implementthat solution into the
environment that actuallycreated that problem?
(40:30):
I think that's often where thework is and, and that's also how
I feel as a strategist is comingup with a strategy in itself is
often.
Is maximum half the work, theother half of the work is
actually helping other people toaccept that strategy as the
right way to go, right?
(40:50):
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
And then, and maybe there's evenmore than 50%, and maybe, I
think because as things aregetting more and more complex,
you gotta onboard more people.
More departments have to see.
How to interpret it.
So it is doing this work onactually helping other people to
see things the way you see it,and that they actually.
(41:12):
Absorb and internalize yourpoint of view, your way of
solving the problem as their wayof solving the problem.
And I think that is often,that's easier in, in smaller
environment and startups where,where everyone is just looking
for solutions and everyone isjust craving for, let's just
try.
But in.
Established corporations wheredivisions are and departments
(41:35):
are involved, or departmentshave to have certain
responsibilities, who havecertain KPIs to fulfill that,
that might be a much, muchbigger challenge.
So I think there are, maybe towrap this up, there are two
perspectives broadly, I thinkone is your own internal
perspectives, how you can seethings, how you can see
yourself, how you can see yourrole and your capabilities, and.
(41:58):
Your shortcomings.
And I think the more you getaware of your shortcomings, the
better you can work on them andactually become better in what
you're doing.
And the other thing is theorganization that you deal with,
the challenges that organizationhas and yeah, and how you
actually can engage theirorganization in helping them to
overcome their problems in orderto actually realize the
(42:20):
solutions that seem to be maybeeasy for you, but very difficult
and hard for them.
Chris Hudson (42:26):
Yeah, very nicely put.
I think there's, particularly inthe second area, and AI is maybe
clouding this area a little bittoo because it's not so much the
problem space that is beingexplored.
It is more solution orientatedand it's a bias towards doing,
over understanding the stepsthat would lead to the solution,
as you were saying.
So.
If it can be done in fiveseconds as opposed to five weeks
(42:47):
or five months, then people aregonna try it just to see, oh,
I'm a little bit curious.
I'm gonna see what it says.
I'll pop it in and and see whatcomes out.
So I, yeah, I wonder how muchappetite there, there still will
be for understanding the problemspace and also.
Not the problem space for inrelation to the solution.
Maybe it's a custom problem orthe solution that you're trying
to create, but also the problemspace that sits within the
(43:09):
organization and is, it'sembedded and it's ingrained
within that culture and reallyknowing if I've got this
solution, then how would itsuccessfully roll out?
Interested to hear yourthoughts.
Maybe finally as we wrap thisup, just around the strategy and
what makes strategy work and howto bring about that, that
feeling of, yeah, we're all inthis together and the
strategies.
Strategy's gonna be great andit's, it's being lived and
(43:32):
breathed by other people otherthan you or I, because people
are on board with it.
So what do you think works?
Andreas Moellmann (43:38):
Yeah, good question.
If only I would know.
Chris Hudson (43:42):
Still finding out.
Andreas Moellmann (43:43):
So I, so I worked in, I would say in, in in
markets where strategy is, andstrategic planning is highly
regarded in the uk and I workedin markets where I think there's
no.
Comprehension really whatstrategic planning is.
And that for me would probablybe Japan of all places.
And then there are a lot ofmarkets in between.
(44:04):
Germany, weirdly, particularlywhen it comes to marketing, is
actually not very strong in mypoint of view.
And I was pondering about whythat is.
I think one reason is thatGermans.
German culture is very engineerdriven.
They love, and this is similarto the Japanese way because they
just love to touch things andstrategy is difficult to touch.
(44:27):
Yeah, it's, it's somethingintangible, virtual,
theoretical, and.
If there would be a nice way tomake this practical, I think
certainly Germany and probablyalso Japan would have much
better access to it.
But Germany and Japan deal verydifferently with this dilemma.
But I can come to this in asecond.
I think the, first of all, Ifear that strategy is very hard.
(44:52):
To understand.
Everyone has their owndefinition of what that actually
is.
And so have I have my owndefinition?
I thought you might, and my, my,my definition is try to make it
as simple as possible is tobasically solving a problem,
right?
That's the strategy.
It's a way of how to solve aproblem.
And the problem for me issomething where you hear and you
want to be there.
So if you want just A to B, sostrategy for me is a way of
(45:15):
getting from A, which is yourcurrent situation to B, which is
a future situation, right?
Usually there's something.
That prevents that to happenbecause otherwise it would
already be and B, but this iswhy you're an A.
And so strategy is a way of howto get to overcome whatever
prevents you from getting from Ato B.
And a good strategy for me isdoing this particularly well.
(45:37):
A particularly well means besttime, less resource, cheaper,
faster, easier, whatever.
Right?
For me, in a nutshell, is goodstrategy.
That seems sounds easy, but onceyou drill deeper, it becomes
actually.
Everyone would probably, if yougo in a business environment,
everyone would say, do you havea strategy?
You say, of course I have astrategy.
(45:57):
Do you need a strategy?
You say, yeah, of course we needa strategy, but then they
wouldn't really know what thatis.
And for me it's finding a way ofgetting from A to B and then
having A and b.
Fairly well defined asobjectives, measure objectives,
and then actually here itbecomes debatable.
(46:18):
Strategy is, for me, a way ofworking.
So you have a team actuallyagree and line up to go from A
to B, right?
And determine what their role isin order to get from A to B
according to the strategy thatyou have agreed.
Sounds easy, but I think inreality it's really not because,
(46:41):
and that goes back to largerorganizations, particular, but
also individuals.
Everyone has their ownobjectives.
Everyone has their own metrics.
Everyone has their own, maybeeven contractually defined, uh,
KPIs in order to get theirbonuses and so on and so on.
So if the team is not aligned.
That they're here and A, andthey want to get to B and that
(47:02):
this is the way how to getthere, then the strategy is not
going to work out because theywill all try to get from A to B
in their own terms.
And and, and maybe they evendefine B as C or D and E rather
than b.
I think that is fundamentally abig challenge in Japan, for
example.
My experience was this doesn'twork very well because the way
(47:25):
Japanese businesses makedecisions is based on
relationships.
Japanese businesses want tomaintain their relationship.
They don't want, they wannamaintain the status quo and
therefore the relationship.
And so when they see.
They're in front of a decision.
They're asking themselves howwould that impact our
relationships with theinfrastructure that we are
having?
(47:45):
And if it has an impact, that'snot a good decision.
It might be a good way fromgetting for A to B, so it might
be great strategy, but itendangers my relationships and
therefore I'm not going thisway, which means relationships
are much more important.
Achieving objectives in Japan ismy overall learning, and that
makes it so hard to workstrategically in Japan.
(48:07):
So I think that is, and.
That class a certain, inparticular in Asia Pacific.
My impression is stillbusinesses are very tactical
rather than strategically, sothey're looking into shorter
midterm results and, and, andfocusing, particularly now it
seems to be everyone is again,scared of recession.
We've been scared of recessionfor, I don't know, three years
(48:29):
now, and still not here.
Everyone's waiting.
When is it?
Finally happened.
I think that would be a bigrelief if that finally
recession, so we can be donewith it, but it's just not
happening.
Businesses are preparing.
There's again, this maintainingthe status quo rather than, and
actually having short-termincremental gains rather than
(48:52):
doing strategic leaps into thefuture or building something for
a long-term future.
'cause they wouldn't really knowwhether the CMO is still there
in three years time.
So this is short term, quicksuccess in order to have
something to show.
I think that is one of theissues when it comes to
strategies and how strategyactually.
Works or doesn't work within theregion.
Chris Hudson (49:13):
Yeah.
Great.
Thanks so much.
If people wanna get in touchwith you, ask a question, have a
chat, what's the best way toreach you?
Andreas Moellmann (49:19):
My best way is probably LinkedIn.
Yeah.
I'm not so much on social media.
My only poison is Reddit, butI'm not on Facebook and Reddit
love, I must say.
But yeah, I think when it comesto business, LinkedIn is
probably the best way.
Chris Hudson (49:32):
Yeah.
Great.
Thank you very much for theconversation, Andreas.
It's really appreciated youcoming onto the show and, and
sharing your views from all thecountries you've lived in.
And yeah, hopefully get a chanceto talk again soon.
And yeah, if you haven't metAndreas, then feel free to get
in touch with him as well.
So thanks everyone, and we'llleave it there.
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