November 20, 2024 • 47 mins
Discover the keys to modern leadership with Jurriaan, a Dutch organizational change expert who transformed his IT background into a mission to revolutionize management. Jurriaan shares strategies for fostering high-autonomy, high-effectiveness teams while leveraging the Netherlands’ linguistic strengths to excel internationally. Learn how his journey shaped his approach to consulting, speaking, and co-authoring "Formula X," creating a powerful synergy that builds trust and accelerates business growth.
In this episode, Jurriaan dives into the art of authentic leadership, exploring the impact of storytelling, modeling behaviors, and fostering psychological safety. Gain actionable insights on overcoming organizational inertia, enhancing decision-making, and transforming meeting cultures. Whether you're an aspiring leader or a seasoned executive, this conversation equips you with tools to drive meaningful change and forge stronger connections through effective communication and LinkedIn outreach.
NOTABLE QUOTES
"In the consulting work..., being able to stand on stage and share new ideas to a larger audience is a really important skill to have." – Jurriaan
"If you're starting out and you want to become a speaker, I would recommend to do it at least 10 or 20 times without asking for a fee, just to get the reps in and to build your skill." – Jurriaan
"There's so many consultancies out there... and the only way to stand out is to have videos, to have a book potentially, so you can become a little bit more famous, and you can get unexpected reach from that." – Jurriaan
"It was actually the speaking gig that helped me get that book out of the door." – Jurriaan
"If you're a positional leader and you're unable to create any followers, you're not leading anyone." – Jurriaan
"[Organizational change] starts by modeling the behavior and doing the change yourself before forcing others to change " – Jurriaan
"If we want to start creating change, we need to start actually doing the work before we actually start talking about it. Our actions speak a lot louder than our words ever will." – Philip
"You can always transform how your team works, or your department works within that bigger picture." – Jurriaan
"It's really about building the capability to continuously find problems and improve them." – Jurriaan
"You build a movement by inviting people, not forcing people to join you." – Jurriaan
"The places where people are willing to change are often on the edge of the organization." – Jurriaan
"Go out there and make that change by being the one to lead it first walking the walk and not just talking the talk." – Philip
RESOURCES
Jurriaan
Website: https://www.jurriaankamer.com
Book: Unblock: https://a.co/d/fOWt6gO
Book: Formula X: https://a.co/d/cODNSsZ
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jurriaankamer
Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's going on, guys ?
Welcome back to another episodeof the Speaking Sessions
podcast.
I've got Jurjen here and he isa Dutch organizational change
expert focused on applyingmodern methods to unblock
organizations and improve theiroutcomes.
He helps leaders make moreimpact by eliminating
(00:21):
ineffective strategy, pointlessmeetings we all love meetings
bureaucratic structures and slowdecision-making.
He has been in and around themost radical and adaptive
organizations globally,including ones without managers
and high levels of autonomy,which that sounds very exciting.
(00:41):
But we're going to get in andtalk about organizational
leadership.
We're going to talk about hisjourney becoming a leadership.
We're going to talk about hisjourney becoming a speaker.
We're going to talk about hisbook as well and really how
that's helped him become a morerenowned speaker and be able to
get on more stages.
But before we get into all that, yurian, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Thank you.
Thanks so much for having me,Philip.
I'm really excited, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'm excited as well.
I know you've been waitinglonger than me.
I've had to reschedule on youseveral times with Hurricane
Helene, some escalation meetingscoming up, all this stuff.
But I appreciate yourflexibility there and grace as
well to be able to change thingsup.
But we're finally here.
Hit record as soon as we could,because we want to make sure
(01:22):
that nothing else gets in theway of getting this recorded.
Yeah, exactly, you never know,so let's dive into the journey,
and everybody's got a veryunique story, their journey, how
they kind of got to wherethey're at, but especially your
speaker journey.
But we love to hear about theorganizational side also.
But talk to us about yourjourney and then we'll start
unpacking after that to reallybring some value in here to the
(01:46):
audience.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, I started out as an IT nerd being obsessed
with technology.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I'm an engineer right here, so we're right there in
the nerd levels, yeah so I wasall into that for a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
But I was able to get roles into managing IT
departments and managing largeamounts of software development
teams and figuring out how theywork together and that made me
super interested.
More, actually, that made memore interested in the human
side of things and so humanproblems instead of computer
problems.
And, yeah, I started to workmore into modern management
(02:24):
techniques and trying to figureout how that all works.
I wasn't really impressed withthe typical, more hierarchical
structures that I encounteredwhen I was working in companies,
so I thought there must be abetter way.
There must be a way where wecan have groups of people work
together with high levels ofautonomy and get them to work
(02:45):
together.
So, yeah, I started takinginterim roles and then, over
time, built a consultancycompany to help leaders achieve
their goals better.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And so is this a global company now, or is this
just more Netherlands based,because I know that's where
you're based out of?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, I mean I'm based in the Netherlands, but we
have clients all across theworld.
We work a lot withmultinationals actually, so it's
fun to be able to work acrossdifferent boundaries and work
within all sorts of cultures.
And yeah, just it makes it moreexciting for me.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, and does the Netherlands?
Do they speak multiplelanguages.
Usually most European countriesare their native language in
English, but they speak multiplelanguages.
I mean, usually most Europeancountries are their native
language in English, but isthere multiple?
I can't think of that.
There's a country I thinkSwitzerland and Northern Italy.
They have like four or fivedifferent languages.
It seems like everybody speaksthere.
Is that kind of same thing withthe Netherlands, or is that
(03:39):
just basically Dutch and English?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh, we do have Fries, which is a separate, separate
language, uh, in the North ofthe country.
Um, but um, it's not.
It's not that complicated.
It's not like you're in Belgiumwhere half of the population
only speaks Dutch and half ofthe population only speaks
French, which is kind ofchallenging.
Uh, no, it's, it's, it's Dutch.
But like, honestly, we were,we're grow up, grew up here with
(04:03):
really good English education.
So if you're a foreigner goingto visit Holland or you're going
to work here, it's actuallypretty hard to learn Dutch
because everybody immediatelyswitches to English the moment
they discover that you're notnative Dutch.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Oh man, that's funny.
I've been to Germany a fewtimes and it seems like they
don't want to switch Right right.
Funny, and I've been to germanya few times and it seems like
they don't want to switch rightright.
So if you can learn a littlebit easier, for sure that will
be tough if you move there, butI'm sure people as, if you move
there, okay, we can, we canswitch back to dutch and
everything like help you learn,but yeah, yeah, yeah that would
definitely make it challenging.
(04:39):
Everybody's ready just to startspeaking english?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
yeah, I mean.
I mean, we are a trader company, so we have a history of
trading businesses all acrossthe world, from the Netherlands.
So, yeah, we're very open toswitching our language and
making it easier for somebody totalk to us.
Right, and it has helped us.
The capability of doing thatallowed me and my colleagues to
(05:05):
work everywhere because, youknow, english is the main
language in most places, so thathelps, yeah, yeah, then I mean,
I'm barely picking up an accentfrom you.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I probably have more of an accent than you do, but
you know there's not really alot of that accent there where
some of these other countriesthat English is a second
language, that's.
There's a lot of an accentthere, I guess, unfortunately,
especially from a businessperspective.
So that for sure would help youguys out in the Netherlands and
everything, be able to be moreglobal and everything.
(05:33):
So it's really awesome thatyou've got this company that's
global, and so how has thecompany side and the speaking
kind of paired together?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
side and the speaking , kind of paired together.
Yeah, so so I did a lot ofresearch about how companies
like Spotify and Google andFacebook were able to innovate
this quickly and get softwareout of the door.
That was just amazing people,and I wanted to spread that word
.
Uh, you know, send, give peoplean impression of what I've
learned.
Um, first I did that throughwriting, so I read, write, wrote
several blogs that were wellread and well shared.
First I did that throughwriting, so I wrote several
blogs that were well-read andwell-shared.
(06:07):
And then I really wanted to geton stage somewhere to talk about
it, and I saw a conference inLondon that I really liked, but
I couldn't afford the ticketprice.
Honestly, I was just startingout and I was like this is a
very, very expensive ticket tobuy, but I love to be there to
listen also to the otherspeakers and talk to people.
So instead of buying a ticket,I decided to just send the
(06:28):
organizers a pitch for my speechand it's like well, I have this
story to share, would you likeit?
Luckily, they said yes and thenI said oh, wow, that means I
have to build a speech fromscratch.
I hadn't been on stage before.
So I was like, okay, now I getthis gig, how do I do it?
So the first thing I did, Irehearsed a lot of times in
(06:52):
front of a camera, in front ofother people, really trying to
practice, practice, practice andto get to a first level that I
was comfortable doing it.
And then when I hit the stage, Ithink it went well.
It was my first big thing, um,and that that allowed me to uh,
to connect with more people andto grow our business, because we
got some clients in the roomthat were interested and you
(07:14):
know, I think I think that's thesnowball effect the moment you
are on stage, more uh, you, youget a big, bigger reach, a
bigger audience and uh, you,bigger reach, a bigger audience,
and that really helps.
There was a pivotal moment themoment somebody recorded my
video in high quality at one ofthe conferences I was speaking
at and the moment I publishedthat, that really helped getting
(07:35):
even more speaking gigs,because if you're hiring a
speaker, you want to figure outis this the speaker for me?
I'm taking a risk here becauseI'm hiring a speaker but I don't
know this person.
So the speaker videos that I hadover time really kind of
exponentially grew the interest,and that all feeds into each
other, because the moment you'reon stage you might get more
(07:58):
interest for consultancies butalso in the consulting work
itself.
Being able to stand on stageand share new ideas to a larger
audience is a really importantskill to have, because when
you're doing change managementconsulting that I do, part of
that is sharing completely newideas that people haven't heard
(08:18):
before and getting theminterested and curious about
what it could mean for them.
So yeah, it's a skill that it'sa double-edged sword, I would
say.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, yeah, I like that.
So I definitely want to go downthis route of how you
communicate these new ideas,because I think that's something
very important for all of us tolearn about Before we go into
that.
I really, really want todissect this whole idea because
I really believe there's a lotof power, and that's what I'm
(08:51):
starting to use with a newbusiness endeavor that I have
with virtual assistants isleveraging my skills of speaking
to speak about how delegationall this stuff to then get more
business from that.
But I would love to hear howyou're going and speaking on
these stages.
Well, first of all, I want toacknowledge that it's awesome
that you actually just pitchyourself and then had to figure
it out along the way.
Total entrepreneur right there,Just figure it out as you go,
(09:12):
but then you start actuallyyou're leveraging these speaking
opportunities.
It sounds like to really buildup your business.
So talk to us about that,because I think a lot of times
when we think about speaking, wethink about getting paid to
speak, and there's really kindof two ways to get paid to speak
.
Either you get a speaker's feeor you get to sell on that
backend, and even then I like tosay, there's a third one, which
(09:36):
is you don't sell a product orservice on the backend, you more
just provide so much value.
You get credibility, and thenpeople come to you afterwards
and say, hey, I saw you on thestage, would love to talk to you
about your business, and youreally just provide a value.
So it's really to me that thirdway you can make that money is
through building that personalbrand and building you as an
expert.
(09:56):
So talk to us about that, howthe speaking has really
developed and grown yourbusiness on that side.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, you're totally right.
I think those things are reallytrue.
When I started out, I was notexpected to charge any money for
the things I was doing, so Idid, and I know.
If you're starting out and youwant to become a speaker, I
would recommend to do it atleast 10 or 20 times without
asking for a fee, just to getthe reps in and to build your
skill, because if something isnot, you know if it's not a paid
(10:27):
engagement, the stakes are alsolower.
Like it's okay, like people are, you're just there as an expert
sharing your ideas.
You can be really vulnerableand just asking for feedback
right after you delivered yourspeech, from the conference
organizer, from people in theaudience.
I think it's just reallyhelpful to start out that way.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And actually let me interrupt you.
So I should ask this beforegoing into how you're building
your business.
So you mentioned about the 10to 20, do them free.
And you mentioned some abouthaving like the videos and
getting that, and it's kind oflike because, like this,
basically you've been on morestages, people are seeing it
through, like the videos andstuff like that highlight reels
that you were able to then geton more stages, so like really
was a snowball effect.
Talk to us about that realquick.
Like what, what made you decideto do that?
(11:11):
And what are some of thosethings that we could do to make
sure we're presented as, oh,we're always we're speaking on a
bunch of stages and stuff likethat, so we can get more stages?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, I think as a, as a speaker, you have to figure
out what your, what your angleis or what your story is, the
thing that you are reallypassionate about talking to.
That also is valuable for anumber of audiences and you know
that.
That that should be the core,the core thing for me.
That over time became the, the,the overlap between Formula One
, motor racing and business,which is something I stumbled
(11:43):
into, and I can talk about howthat happened.
But that became my signaturespeech and when I was getting
more inquiries and I became moreconfident about how that story
actually was good enough andvaluable, at one point I asked
I'd love to come to yourconference and you don't need to
pay me for it, but I would lovefor you to produce a
(12:04):
professional video.
Right, you know, could youorganize or get a camera crew
there and create a professionaledit of it, and so I can put it
on YouTube?
And sometimes a conference hasthat already in their package.
But I was just very explicitthat that was a condition for me
to come over and the helpfulthing about that video is that,
(12:27):
like I said, like then, um,somebody looks it up, they can,
they can find it, they can, theycan, they can hire you, um, at
a certain point in time, becausethe speech became good.
After all those reps and afterthose feedbacks, after that
feedback and stuff, I basicallywas in a situation that every
time I was on stage, at leastone other speaking gig came out
of it.
So you know, you have a even ifit's just a 30 or 40 people
(12:51):
audience, um, literally for formonths and months, every time I
did that, uh, at least one otherpaid engagement came out of
that and that kind of snowballed.
So that that's kind of the,that's the, that's where you
want to get to, uh, at thatstage, and that really helped I
like that.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
yeah, so really, obviously you were on the stages
and then, yeah, instead of inlieu of a speaker's fee or
getting paid to speak, you knowyou were like, hey, I'll do it
for free, just bring in somebodyto do video, which really
benefited them, because theyprobably already wanted to do
the video anyways and now theyjust had an additional reason to
do that or they probablyalready had somebody there.
(13:28):
So now they save the speakerfee by now giving you some of
that video directly, obviouslyfor your speech and everything
so awesome.
So I appreciate you gettinginterrupted to share that
portion.
Now, how has the speaking,besides obviously getting more
paid gigs, helped the businessside out?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, so it's really a triad of things.
So it's the consulting business, so the engagements we do with
clients, longer term engagements, it's speaking and it's the
books.
It's a combination of thosethree things that are really
important to market ourselves.
There's so many consultanciesout there, thousands and
(14:08):
thousands of them, especiallysmaller ones like us and the
only way to stand out is to havethose things, to have videos,
to have a book potentially, soyou can become a little bit more
famous and you can get reachunexpected reach from that.
(14:29):
But we got speaking gigs from orlike consulting gigs from, just
somebody either watching thespeaker video or somebody
picking up the book or both, andthen you know having both, both
a book and a video, and they'relike Hmm, I trust these people,
I really liked them, and thatthose are the easiest sales
conversations because peoplealready know what you're up to,
people already trust the message, they believe in it.
You don't need to convince themof anything.
(14:50):
The only thing you need tofigure out is when to start and
how much to charge.
So that really helps and thathas consistently helped us get
business.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Wow, so many things really unpacked there.
I want to hear about this bookfor sure, but having those
unique things for sure, likeyou're speaking, so people
really get to know you, becauseif you're speaking for anything
more than a minute, you can'tput up that much of a front for
that long, especially whenyou're being truly genuine,
truly being yourself, so you'reable to do that.
(15:20):
But you're also able to speakand educate people and so really
show that knowledge.
But then that book as well Imean it's something that's on
paper.
Now, depending on how you wrotethe book, I can get to know you
and who you are.
So now I'm building this know,like and trust even more with
you.
But then now I've learnedsomething from you and now I
want to be able to work with you.
I know that you know thatinformation because you wrote
(15:43):
the book, you've spoken on it.
So like two great ways toreally build up that business
and really get that know, likeand trust before they even come
to you.
It's like you said when thatsales conversation happens.
It's basically like, okay, areyou ready to start?
Cool, let's go Like you're notin there, really sell them at
that point and everything.
But talk to me about this bookis I'm sure that relates to what
you're speaking about and thebusiness as well correct?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.
Just to touch back on yourpoint first is like imagine the
alternative, which is like hey,we are looking for somebody to
help us.
We've asked four consultanciesto give us some ideas.
Could you create an SW and gothrough our procurement process?
And that's completely cutthrough to words.
Hey, we love what you do.
(16:26):
I want you let's figure out howto start and what the charge
and what the terms andconditions are.
So just to give you thatcontrast of how some
consultancies and I've beenthere at that place I was super
happy to get an inquiry, butthen I had to figure out.
I had to jump through fourother hoops and discovered that
there were three othercompetitors pitching for the
same thing.
So yeah, it's much harder, it'sjust harder.
(16:46):
So that helps.
It opens a lot of doors.
To go back to your questionabout the book, funny enough it
was speaking that got me towrite the book.
I always had an ambition towrite a book, but I wasn't
really intentional about it.
It was never the right time, orit's also one of those skills
that you have to learn how to doand uh, and and and uh.
You have to stumble into theright moment.
(17:07):
Basically what happened.
I was asked to come and, uh,join a group of executives, um,
that were going to visit the RedBull Racing Formula One factory
and they were asking me to do aspeech on the evening before
the session.
So it's like a warmup thing forthe first night and I said,
well, I can come over, but I'mgoing to do two things.
(17:28):
First, I would love well, firstof all, one condition is that I
also get to visit the factorylike the others like to go
behind the scenes of thatFormula One team, because I
really was interested in how itall works from the inside.
And secondly, I would love totry to create a different
version of my speech that isfully Formula One focused,
because I didn't have that atthe time and they said yes.
So, basically, the eveningbefore I started talking about
(17:51):
my basically my desk research ofeverything I could find about
potential examples of how F1teams worked and what I noticed
in my research.
So I wasn't there to convincethem of anything, I was just
sharing what I thought wasinteresting when I was looking
at it through the organizationallens.
And the next day I got tovalidate or invalidate some of
(18:11):
the things that I was speakingabout before and that actually
snowballed into that Formula Onespeech.
That just became the signaturething time my co-author reached
out to me and he's a famousbusiness book writer in the
Netherlands and he says well,I'm writing my next book and
(18:32):
it's going to be aboutorganizational speed and about
accelerating organizations.
The world of Formula One isbecoming bigger here because we
have our Dutch driver.
The Dutch Grand Prix is comingback.
Would you like me to let's talkabout that?
And then we decided to to writethe book together, and the rest
is history.
Um, so it was actually thespeaking gig that helped me get
that book out of the door.
And from that book, um, people,people just started buying a
(18:56):
whole boxes of books the momentI did a speech.
So, like, that's the other goodthing about having a book If
you are on stage, uh, you can,can say you know what I'm on
stage, would you like to have abook for every participant?
And then you're able to kind ofamplify that snowball effect.
So that's my first book.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
That was five years ago now, that's awesome, and has
that book also helped you withgetting more speaking
engagements too?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
yeah, exactly yeah, like I said before, the moment,
the book, the book has reachedpeople in unexpected places.
Uh, I mean, I, I sometimes geta get increased from South
Africa or from from Indianapolis.
You know somebody is doing aracing, racing focused event in
in, uh, close to the you knowIndianapolis motor speedway
where the Indy 500 is done.
(19:40):
And they, they found me I don'tknow how, but by typing in
Formula One, racing acceleration, business organizations.
And it also helps with SEO.
If you have a book out there,google amplifies those keywords.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, for sure, that's awesome.
So talk to me more about the.
I guess, where is that book atfirst of all?
Or is it on Amazon and stufflike that?
Oh yeah, it's on Amazon, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Formula X.
It's called.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It's a business fable .
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So for those of you so maybe familiar with Patrick
Lencioni he's a business bookwriter who uses fables like the
five dysfunctions of a team is agood one, and I was inspired by
that format.
So it's literally 80% of thebook is a story, a fiction story
, about a leader that is tryingto accelerate how their
(20:30):
organization works.
It's a kitchen factory, forsome reason, and he gets
inspired by the world of motorracing and how they organize
behind the scenes, and so that'sthe first book, and there's a
small theory chapter in the back.
My second book is a lot morepractical and it just came out.
(20:53):
It's titled unblock, clear theway for results and develop a
thriving organization.
It's also on amazon and, um,yeah, it is.
Uh, it's a practical book forleaders that want to um, you
know, get better results byunblocking their organization in
in lots of different areasawesome and that's a perfect
segue.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
where I wanted us to go next was really talking about
that organizational leadershipand I guess, before we kind of
really get into organizationalleadership I mean I love
leadership talk about that.
How has being better atspeaking helped you with
building out your business andhow do you think it can help
other leaders with being abetter leader by being a better
(21:31):
speaker?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
yeah, I think.
I think leadership, um, is allabout uh, my true leadership is
all about finding followers.
You know you can be a leader on, on paper, you know because you
are appointed to a very nicejob title, maybe a C-level title
somewhere.
That is positional leadership.
But real leadership is you'reable to create followers,
(21:55):
meaning that if you're apositional leader and you're
unable to create any followers,you're not leading anyone.
It's, it's, it's just you.
You know, using your power toget somewhere, um, which which
is not what you want.
So the the, the two, but to getsomewhere which is not what you
want.
So, but to get followers, youneed to articulate where you
want your organization to go andit really helps if you're able
(22:16):
to deliver that messagecohesively, passionately, using
storytelling, using all sorts oftechniques that we learn as
public speakers.
So I think public speakingskills for leaders are really
essential to be able to get anorganization or a large group of
people to follow you and to gointo a certain direction.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And what are some of those like key things that you
found like being if you can onlypick like one or two part of
like public speaking skills?
What are some things that youthink that leaders should focus
on and improve those things tobe better ish overall as a
leader?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I mean, storytelling is a big part of it.
You know, are you able to, toconnect the dots for the
audience through storytelling,through, you know, finding
interesting metaphors orinteresting examples and, uh,
you know, engaging the audienceby, by using and building a
cohesive and interesting storyto listen to.
And the other one is aboutdelivery.
(23:14):
Are you comfortable being onstage?
Are you comfortable inprojecting confidence into the
room?
Are you comfortable doing thatdozens of times rather than are
you going to be nervous, or areyou terrible at speaking
publicly?
I mean, the opposite is, youcan imagine, really it doesn't
(23:35):
help.
So, yeah, that's one part.
I would also say that publicspeaking is important.
However, I'm also doing a lotof workshop design and how do
you engage with a large group ofpeople in organizational change
, and that is not only aboutspeaking.
Speaking is a very importantcomponent of it.
So you set facilitatingconversations in the room rather
(24:12):
than death by powerpoint, whichyou all well, we also see a lot
.
So, um, yeah, so it's acontrast, it's an additional
skill that it's not.
It's not directly publicspeaking related, but it does
create a lot more impact yeah,yeah, completely agree there.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And so now with the organizational leadership, what
you teach on and the thingsyou're trying to change, I mean,
most people really love goingto pointless meetings.
They love the bureaucracy andthey love not making decisions.
Having a meeting about ameeting to finally have a
decision made, those are thegreat things that we love within
the corporate environments, andyou're trying to do the
(24:48):
complete opposite.
You're trying to get rid of allthese things, these safeguards,
if you will, and these sacredthings, almost, it seems like,
especially in these bigcorporations.
So, first of all, how are yougoing about creating these
changes?
And then I want to talk aboutactually how you go about
delivering this message, because, whether it is organizational
(25:09):
leadership, leadership ingeneral or just trying to have a
conversation and make a change,whether it's the whole company
or an individual, how you speakto somebody is such an important
thing.
So I want to end up diving intothat, but I would love to hear
more from this organizationalleadership side of things.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, I think it's funny that you say that there's
a sign behind me that kind ofcaptures everything, which is I
tried to be innovative once butI got stuck in meetings.
So it's this feeling of youreally want to achieve something
but you just can't becauseyou're drowning in a swamp of
inertia.
In my book I also use themetaphor of swimming in peanut
(25:51):
butter.
It's like this feeling ofeverything is just sluggish and
slow and it's just super, superslow and frustrating.
And so we work a lot withleaders that are ambitious and
they have a certain place theywant to go, a certain place they
want to get to, or a certainnew strategy they want to roll
out, or a new product launchthey want to go, a certain place
they want to get to, or acertain new strategy they want
to roll out, or a new productlaunch they want to do.
And they acknowledge that theway their organization functions
(26:13):
is not helping them.
So, to start with, that isteaching leaders and leadership
teams how to work differentlythemselves.
So it starts by modeling thebehavior and doing the change
yourself before forcing othersto change, because that won't
work right.
Um, I found a quote in theresearch for my book which is
like people uh, people followyour feet and not your lips,
(26:38):
right?
They pay attention to where yougo, what you do, rather than
what you talk about.
You know, there's a lot ofleaders out there, unfortunately
, uh, that that just talk about,talk about, talk to talk, but
don't walk to talk, right?
So that's what we want to do.
So we work with leadership teamsto look at their work practices
, meaning what is the area wherethis leadership team is blocked
(26:58):
?
It could be a mix of analysis,paralysis, trying to make
perfect decisions, whichunderneath that is a fear of
failure, and underneath thatcould be psychological safety or
other things.
And we teach them how to digout of those holes by creating
safe spaces for reflection andimprovement and building that
(27:20):
into the meeting cadences of theteam, by teaching
decision-making practices.
That allows you to make complexdecisions quickly without
sacrificing quality and speed,and I can dive into what those
things are, but it's reallyabout modeling the behavior you
want to see, and the momentyou've kind of done that and
you've discovered with your teamwhat the benefits are, then you
(27:42):
can start inspiring others todo it well as well, and that
goes, that goes into thedelivery and the and the
messaging, like, if you, as aleader, can authentically say,
like I've tried this and itreally works for us, I would
love to invite you to try thisthing as well.
I would love to invite you to um, you know, uh, take decisions
um, um, faster, um, I reallywould like to invite you to
(28:05):
decline more meetings or to torevisit your own, revisit your
own goals and see if thisframework can help you, because
I've tried it and it works forme.
That just creates morefollowers.
Because it's authentic, it'sbecause it's true, rather than
the dynamic that we sometimessee, where leaders are almost
coming from frustration and thisparent-child dynamic, like I
(28:29):
know what is good for you andyou should change.
That is a typical way ofcommunicating in a hierarchical
organization that createsresistance.
So, yeah, it's all aboutgetting that right.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Oh man, yes, so true, and I've seen that I heard
somebody talking about.
They had a manager one time thatthe company had core values
plastered on the wall and theywere trying to talk about that
and I don't remember the exactstory or situation of why they
brought up core values and themanager told them those are just
(28:59):
words on the wall, that's whatHR put up.
But that's exactly what'shappening, especially in these
big companies, these oldbureaucraticratic companies, is
that they just have lip service.
At the end of the day, theydon't really believe in what it
is that they're doing.
Or there's changes that comebecause HR tells them that hey,
we're going to make this change,and it really kind of becomes
(29:20):
this flavor of a month thing.
Really want something to change.
Like you said, the leader hasto start doing that, whether
it's the actual title leader orsomebody.
They have to start doing that.
And I like how you said youknow, watch your shoes, not was
your lips, or lips and not yourlips because, yeah, the lip
service, what we're saying andwhat we're doing are completely
(29:42):
different things.
And then you also mentionedabout the results.
Like hey, I've done this, thisis what's happening, and I
noticed in business, when I'mtalking more about the results,
or like, hey, here's what I'mdoing, then somebody else is
like, oh, they're going tobelieve that more because I'm
doing that already.
And it's like I'm telling youto do this, I'm coaching you to
do this, but I'm also doing it.
(30:03):
So it's not like, hey, you know, you should, you should go on a
diet and start only eatingchicken and rice.
That'll help you lose weight.
But then I'm over here going andgetting a burger and a shake
and all these things.
Like well, like that doesn'tmatch up.
So when you match up, like whatyou're doing and what you're
saying match up, then it's like,ok, I'm going to believe that
and even if maybe it's not 100percent right, but at least okay
(30:25):
, I believe it, you actually aredoing it.
I'll start doing it as well.
So I think it's an importantthing for us as, as leaders and
as individuals.
If we want to start creatingchange, we need to start
actually doing the work beforewe actually start talking about
it is yeah, our actions speak alot louder than our words ever
will.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I mean, yeah, exactly .
And like, um, I'm alwayssurprised that some executive
teams are frustrated about themeeting culture and seeing that
everybody's in meetings all day,like, and we don't, we're not
productive enough.
But then if you look at theircalendars, they are going to be
in meetings 120% of the time.
Like, how do you, how do youmodel?
(31:05):
How can you model what you wantto see?
Right, and it's really aboutlooking yourself in the mirror.
And there was one executive teamthat we worked with that
completely um, got rid of thatproblem by by, you know,
canceling all recurring meetingsin their schedules.
Like it was a whole, wholeexecutive team of of eight
people that were like we are notgoing to do any of those
meetings anymore, at least for amonth.
(31:27):
It's an experiment that we'regoing to do.
For four weeks, we're going tocancel all recurring meetings
and, as an alternative of that,we will be here sitting at our
desks and we are available everyMonday.
So if you just want to go andhave a call, if you want to talk
to us, just come to us and talk, but don't schedule a meeting,
don't pull us into theserecurring things.
And that really, really helpedthem get out of that trap and
(31:50):
they rebuilt some of themeetings that they really missed
into their calendars.
But the meeting load really wentdown by 70% and it just made it
more easy, like at the moment.
Leaders have more headspace tothink about what's going on and
to sit back and reflect.
You know, every meeting is anopportunity to say well, you
know what, I already trust you,you don't need me here, you know
(32:11):
what to do.
If you need any information,you can ask me, but but I, you
can make the decision Like, Idon't need to.
It's a.
It's also an opportunity togive someone else the decision,
the right to make a decisionexplicitly.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, and and that's such an important thing there to
allow the other people to makethat decision there and,
depending on the leadership Ithink it's really the maturity
of that leader they allow theautonomy of their people because
they're typically, if you willthe worker, be the one that's
you can't make a decision.
You need me to make thatdecision for you.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
So it's like here.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
let me put it on this little plate for you, tell you
exactly what you need to know,so you can then say, yep, good
to go, but that's all.
So why do we need to do that?
Let you be more strategic.
Let you work on these otherthings rather than that and I've
seen managers as well, ormanagement teams, where, hey, we
need to align, so I need you topresent on what it is you're
(33:14):
working on, a status update,whatever it is so we can go to
this other management teamthat's in another department to
talk and literally go over thesame thing.
But that way we're in alignmentbeforehand.
And I get if you want to do likea one-on-one, but like, why do
we need to have thiscontinuously recurring thing
where we literally present onthe same thing twice, especially
(33:35):
the person that's actually theone doing the work?
Now we have to go to twomeetings and then they're also
going to two meetings, obviouslyto talk about the same thing.
But now we just brought in abigger group the second time.
It is crazy.
And how how big was thatcompany that you you mentioned
about?
They reduced 70 of theirmeetings.
I'm curious on that.
How how large was that companyoverall?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
yeah, there were about 500 people.
Okay, yeah, so it's not like itwas 10 people no, it was you
know it's a sizable company.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It's also not 500,000 .
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Exactly, yeah, no but like, even even a 500,000
company is, it can be cut intogroups of 500 or groups of 100.
So so it's like, it's like youcan.
That's also a thing I encourageleaders to do.
Like, yes, there might bethings that you are dependent on
in other departments and otherexecutives that don't get it,
but you can always transform howyour team works or your
department works within thatbigger picture.
(34:28):
If you are able to show therest of the organization that
your place is a great place towork and it delivers, people are
engaged, people are highlyautonomous and highly aligned,
then you become an attractor andpeople are saying, well, take
notice, like I've been, I'vebeen helping departments like
that and where, where.
(34:49):
When people from otherdepartments came over, they were
like Hmm, this and people areso engaged here, like what's
going on?
Like there's something aboutthe buzz in this room, there's
something special here, and um,and then they were like I want
that for my team as well, youknow.
Then then the change starts togrow.
Um, so that goes back tomodeling.
Modeling it, trying it firstbefore either being frustrated
(35:10):
that others don't do it ortrying to convince the rest of
the world of something that'sstill just a theory.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, and what have you found to be the most
effective ways to get people tostart trying to implement this
change from your perspective?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, that's a very broad question, but I think,
yeah, I mean, it's all about.
It's all about addressing realworld problems.
So often there's consultanciesout there that that sell you a
framework or a step-by-step planor a recipe, that that you know
that that they've buy provensolutions and frameworks with
(35:51):
certifications, because the riskof buying something because
other people are buying it too,so it must be good.
But the reality is thatorganizational change is complex
and what works for one companyisn't guaranteed to work at
another company, isn'tguaranteed to work at another
company.
So you have to acknowledge thatcomplexity and it's much better
(36:11):
to look at lots of differentoptions and just take whatever
you think is useful for yourchallenge and put some
boundaries around that.
If you want to change howdecisions are made, well, try it
in one team, adopt amethodology that you've seen
that you're inspired by.
Try it for a few weeks, run anexperiment, measure if it works.
If it doesn't work, acknowledgethat it didn't work and you
(36:35):
adjust and you find somethingelse.
So it's really about buildingthe capability to continuously
find problems and improve them.
It's all about the skill ofworking on the system as a
leader rather than in the system.
I sometimes use the metaphor ofswitching from being the
traffic cop or the trafficcontroller on the intersection,
directing all the trafficindividually when the traffic
(36:56):
lights are off, to becoming thisroad designer or an architect
of how the organizationfunctions, so that when the work
happens, it naturally flows andit doesn't require you in every
step.
So it's teaching leaders how tobe organization designers,
basically, and getting them tosee how things can be different
and also to teach how they canbe different.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, you kind of led into my next question there a
little bit.
I was going to ask, like how doyou start to implement this and
everything?
And you mentioned about likekind of like one department and
everything.
Are there any like other tips?
Because sometimes it comes tomind for me is maybe getting a
couple advocates on your team,like people that you know, like
(37:38):
whether it be like other seniormanagement or other leadership
to come in like, hey, I reallywant to try this thing, I need
your help supporting this andreally pushing this, so to speak
, into the company to reallymake it happen.
So it's not just you as thebusiness owner, you as the top
dog, so to speak.
That's saying, hey, I want tostart doing this.
And then, yes, you mentionedabout living it out, which I
think is the most importantthing.
You've got to be living it outfirst and doing it.
(38:00):
You can't just say, hey, dothis, and then expect people to
do it for at least not for toolong.
So do you recommend gettingkind of advocates for this
change as well?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Yeah, and it's all about building a movement, and
you build a movement by invitingpeople, not forcing people to
join you.
So that's again aboutleadership and followership.
The best way to get started islike hey, we have this radical
way of making decisions faster,we are willing to cut this
bureaucratic process and we havesome alternative ideas of how
(38:30):
we can go faster.
Is there anyone here who wantsto try that?
Is there a team or a group ofpeople that are excited about
that?
And usually there's alwaysmaybe 10% of people that will
raise their hand and say yes, ofcourse, because they are just
really open to innovating howthey work and they are the front
runners.
They'll be in the front ofstage and start there.
(38:52):
So don't focus on the peoplewho are resisting, don't focus
on the majority.
Don't immediately try toconvince the majority of it, but
just start running experimentswith a group of enthusiastic
teams and people that arewilling to do it, and then, when
you've proven with them that itactually works, then the
movement can grow organically.
You can invite more and moreteams to do it.
(39:13):
It's also all aboutacknowledging localized problems
.
So if you, for example, bringin a new decision-making
framework, some teams don't haveproblems with decision-making,
so don't force them to gothrough the workshop and learn
about it.
You know really only match thatwith teams that are struggling
(39:35):
with that.
So it's really about buildingthe Lego pieces and the puzzle
pieces and figuring out whatmatches and what doesn't.
And then you know most of thetime, transparency is a big part
of these kinds of movements.
In most new work, modern workpractices, transparency is a big
principle.
These kinds of movements.
In most new work, modern workpractices, transparency is a big
principle.
So also be transparent aboutthat.
Like, take any moment when youhave maybe an all-hands meeting
(39:56):
to go on stage and say you knowwhat this change is really
important to me.
I'm encouraging more people todo it now.
I'm giving some stage time tosome of the teams that have been
pioneering this.
Not everything went well.
I'm just going to betransparent about everything
that went wrong.
I'm also going to betransparent about how hard it is
for me as a leader, so that youcreate this safe space for
(40:17):
people like oh, this is actuallyhonest and this is real, rather
than highly polishedcommunication lines that go
through the communicationdepartments, right?
So I see so many leadersaddressing their own people as
if they are on a public investorday.
You know where, where, whereevery word is weighed and
polished and changed and they'realmost talking through a
(40:38):
teleprompter.
You know I can understand whyyou would do that in a public
forum if you're a publiclylisted company.
But you know, in your owninternal department you can be
you, you can be real and that'syou.
And if you don't, if you're, ifyou're not, that people will
notice immediately.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yeah, yeah for sure, and so obviously as the
companies get bigger, they'rekind of more separated,
different departments.
From your experience, whatdepartments do you feel like?
I mean, if you could thinkmaybe you probably don't have
the actual data on this, but doyou feel like give that most
resistance to making these kindof organizational type changes?
(41:13):
What have you found?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, that's a really good one.
It's funny that I don't havelike I don't have quantitative
research based on experience.
But I've always been surprisedby the fact that HR is often
tasked with doing things on theorganizational culture side but
(41:37):
is often completely drowning inprocedures, in legislation, in
filling all the forms, makingsure we tick all the boxes,
getting out the salary checks,like all those things.
Like hr is is a is a lot moreoperational than strategic.
They're often not a um, a fullpartner at the c-suite table.
(41:58):
Uh, there's almost like anoperations department that uh
that they run um so, so, andthat means that hr in itself,
the people that work there, likeI'm a really positive way.
I really believe that thepeople there are very people
focused and want to do the bestthing, but they're just
completely stuck in theseprocedures.
(42:18):
So it's a bit of a tragic storythat HR often is not the first
but the last to transform, andthat's sad and that's sad.
The places where people arewilling to change are often on
the edge of the organization,where there's something new,
there's really a new innovationand there's just a really
painful business case that theold way of working won't get you
(42:41):
a positive result.
So every time there's a like,it's almost like a crisis crisis
management, like we work with apharmaceutical company that we
heard when they built the COVIDvaccines.
They were able to completelyignore all the old bureaucracy
that they usually had when theyhave to bring out a new product.
(43:01):
They could just get the expertsin the room and go super fast
and really clear the way fordelivering them because of the
urgency of the products thatthey needed to do.
And the moment the COVID crisiswas over, the pandemic was over
, they actually slowly went backto old ways, but the people
(43:24):
resisted.
They were like no, I'm notgoing to go through this
bureaucratic form because wehave just proven that we can do
without this thing, so can wejust get rid of it instead?
So yeah, it's often the placeswhere there's either a shock to
the system or a competitorthat's doing something crazy and
you really need to move fast,where there's more willingness
to change.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah, and I kind of laugh when you talk about the HR
side, but it makes sense as thesame tag.
Yeah, and I kind of laugh whenyou talk about the HR side, but
it makes sense as the same tagis like HR is the one quote,
unquote, shoving this downeverybody else's throat to make
the change.
But it's just like us in ourbusiness when we're stuck in the
business, we know we need to beworking on it, be more
strategic and focus on doingthese other things, but we're
fighting fires and we'reconstantly in that.
(44:06):
So we don't actually make thatchange, even though we know we
should and we should be doingthis other thing.
And it's the same thing with HR.
Like you said, they're veryoperational.
There's so many other thingsgoing on and I think that's a
lot of times why changes don'thappen within companies, big or
small, whatever you know, medium, whatever size they are because
there's too many small firesthat need to get taken out.
(44:27):
Because there's too many smallfires that need to get taken out
and it's easy, just to focus onthat versus going at 30,000
foot view and thinking morestrategically.
And okay, what do I need tostart doing to be where I want
to go, versus I'm here in thismoment and I need to focus on
this and finish this out and,you know, fix this.
And that's unfortunately, Ithink, why HR just from my
(44:48):
perspective as well why HR tendsto be that last one.
Not that they don't want tochange, but they're more in the
business rather than working.
You know, working in it versuson it.
And so they're trying to rollout this program.
So it's again they're workingin it, trying to make this
program happen, but then there'snobody because that's it's
supposed to be them.
So it's kind of thatself-development thing.
(45:09):
I can give better advice ongirls to my friend than I could
for myself when I was dating.
Same thing with HR.
I can give advice better tothose outside of the department
than in the department, becausenow I have to reflect on myself
and actually make that changemyself.
And so I can definitely see howagain, I know you didn't have
the quantifiable data, but Icould definitely see where hr
(45:33):
would be, the the last one kindof make the change or has the
most resistance because they'restuck doing the work and in the
business, so to speak, and that,but that's not unique to hr.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I think there's a lot of departments out there that
never evaluate.
They never.
They never evaluate is whatwe're doing, the right thing to
do?
Is it smart how we're, how weare working together and our
work and our consulting work?
And also in the new book I havea lot of advice on how do you
build in reflection andimprovement rhythms into your
(46:04):
organizational way of working,because if you only you know
it's the it's James Clear, Ithink had this famous graph If
you go 1% better every day, atthe end of the year you're 37
times better than you werewithout doing that right.
It's like working smarter, notharder.
But it's difficult to carve outthe time, but we really
encourage teams to, every fourto six weeks, you know, put
(46:28):
something on the calendar.
It's a non-negotiable hour ofsitting down and talking with
each other about you know what,what is going really well for us
, but also what, what can weimprove and what should we
improve and what are someimprovements actions we can take
for the next six weeks and thisbuilding in this rhythm of of
improvement and and and gettingstronger should allow.
Should you know the ROI of thatmeeting should be very high if
(46:51):
you build up the capability todo that.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, completely agree there, and this has been a
great conversation you're in.
If people want to get to knowyou, we'll have all the links in
the show notes.
But where's like your favoritespot to hang out on social media
or the best spot that peoplecan really reach you at to get
to know more about you?
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Yeah, I'm most active on LinkedIn, so just type in my
name and you'll find me there.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Awesome.
Well, jurjen, thanks again forcoming on the podcast.
I appreciate it and this wasjust an awesome conversation to
be able to talk about differentthings speaking leadership,
organizational leadership, allthat good stuff.
But I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
I enjoyed it too.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
All right, everybody have a great one and y'all go
out there and make that changeby being the one to lead it
first walking the walk and notjust talking the talk.
Yeah.
What's going on, guys ?
Welcome back to another episodeof the Speaking Sessions
podcast.
I've got Jurjen here and he isa Dutch organizational change
expert focused on applyingmodern methods to unblock
organizations and improve theiroutcomes.
He helps leaders make moreimpact by eliminating
(00:21):
ineffective strategy, pointlessmeetings we all love meetings
bureaucratic structures and slowdecision-making.
He has been in and around themost radical and adaptive
organizations globally,including ones without managers
and high levels of autonomy,which that sounds very exciting.
(00:41):
But we're going to get in andtalk about organizational
leadership.
We're going to talk about hisjourney becoming a leadership.
We're going to talk about hisjourney becoming a speaker.
We're going to talk about hisbook as well and really how
that's helped him become a morerenowned speaker and be able to
get on more stages.
But before we get into all that, yurian, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Thank you.
Thanks so much for having me,Philip.
I'm really excited, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'm excited as well.
I know you've been waitinglonger than me.
I've had to reschedule on youseveral times with Hurricane
Helene, some escalation meetingscoming up, all this stuff.
But I appreciate yourflexibility there and grace as
well to be able to change thingsup.
But we're finally here.
Hit record as soon as we could,because we want to make sure
(01:22):
that nothing else gets in theway of getting this recorded.
Yeah, exactly, you never know,so let's dive into the journey,
and everybody's got a veryunique story, their journey, how
they kind of got to wherethey're at, but especially your
speaker journey.
But we love to hear about theorganizational side also.
But talk to us about yourjourney and then we'll start
unpacking after that to reallybring some value in here to the
(01:46):
audience.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, I started out as an IT nerd being obsessed
with technology.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I'm an engineer right here, so we're right there in
the nerd levels, yeah so I wasall into that for a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
But I was able to get roles into managing IT
departments and managing largeamounts of software development
teams and figuring out how theywork together and that made me
super interested.
More, actually, that made memore interested in the human
side of things and so humanproblems instead of computer
problems.
And, yeah, I started to workmore into modern management
(02:24):
techniques and trying to figureout how that all works.
I wasn't really impressed withthe typical, more hierarchical
structures that I encounteredwhen I was working in companies,
so I thought there must be abetter way.
There must be a way where wecan have groups of people work
together with high levels ofautonomy and get them to work
(02:45):
together.
So, yeah, I started takinginterim roles and then, over
time, built a consultancycompany to help leaders achieve
their goals better.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And so is this a global company now, or is this
just more Netherlands based,because I know that's where
you're based out of?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, I mean I'm based in the Netherlands, but we
have clients all across theworld.
We work a lot withmultinationals actually, so it's
fun to be able to work acrossdifferent boundaries and work
within all sorts of cultures.
And yeah, just it makes it moreexciting for me.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, and does the Netherlands?
Do they speak multiplelanguages.
Usually most European countriesare their native language in
English, but they speak multiplelanguages.
I mean, usually most Europeancountries are their native
language in English, but isthere multiple?
I can't think of that.
There's a country I thinkSwitzerland and Northern Italy.
They have like four or fivedifferent languages.
It seems like everybody speaksthere.
Is that kind of same thing withthe Netherlands, or is that
(03:39):
just basically Dutch and English?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh, we do have Fries, which is a separate, separate
language, uh, in the North ofthe country.
Um, but um, it's not.
It's not that complicated.
It's not like you're in Belgiumwhere half of the population
only speaks Dutch and half ofthe population only speaks
French, which is kind ofchallenging.
Uh, no, it's, it's, it's Dutch.
But like, honestly, we were,we're grow up, grew up here with
(04:03):
really good English education.
So if you're a foreigner goingto visit Holland or you're going
to work here, it's actuallypretty hard to learn Dutch
because everybody immediatelyswitches to English the moment
they discover that you're notnative Dutch.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Oh man, that's funny.
I've been to Germany a fewtimes and it seems like they
don't want to switch Right right.
Funny, and I've been to germanya few times and it seems like
they don't want to switch rightright.
So if you can learn a littlebit easier, for sure that will
be tough if you move there, butI'm sure people as, if you move
there, okay, we can, we canswitch back to dutch and
everything like help you learn,but yeah, yeah, yeah that would
definitely make it challenging.
(04:39):
Everybody's ready just to startspeaking english?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
yeah, I mean.
I mean, we are a trader company, so we have a history of
trading businesses all acrossthe world, from the Netherlands.
So, yeah, we're very open toswitching our language and
making it easier for somebody totalk to us.
Right, and it has helped us.
The capability of doing thatallowed me and my colleagues to
(05:05):
work everywhere because, youknow, english is the main
language in most places, so thathelps, yeah, yeah, then I mean,
I'm barely picking up an accentfrom you.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I probably have more of an accent than you do, but
you know there's not really alot of that accent there where
some of these other countriesthat English is a second
language, that's.
There's a lot of an accentthere, I guess, unfortunately,
especially from a businessperspective.
So that for sure would help youguys out in the Netherlands and
everything, be able to be moreglobal and everything.
(05:33):
So it's really awesome thatyou've got this company that's
global, and so how has thecompany side and the speaking
kind of paired together?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
side and the speaking , kind of paired together.
Yeah, so so I did a lot ofresearch about how companies
like Spotify and Google andFacebook were able to innovate
this quickly and get softwareout of the door.
That was just amazing people,and I wanted to spread that word
.
Uh, you know, send, give peoplean impression of what I've
learned.
Um, first I did that throughwriting, so I read, write, wrote
several blogs that were wellread and well shared.
First I did that throughwriting, so I wrote several
blogs that were well-read andwell-shared.
(06:07):
And then I really wanted to geton stage somewhere to talk about
it, and I saw a conference inLondon that I really liked, but
I couldn't afford the ticketprice.
Honestly, I was just startingout and I was like this is a
very, very expensive ticket tobuy, but I love to be there to
listen also to the otherspeakers and talk to people.
So instead of buying a ticket,I decided to just send the
(06:28):
organizers a pitch for my speechand it's like well, I have this
story to share, would you likeit?
Luckily, they said yes and thenI said oh, wow, that means I
have to build a speech fromscratch.
I hadn't been on stage before.
So I was like, okay, now I getthis gig, how do I do it?
So the first thing I did, Irehearsed a lot of times in
(06:52):
front of a camera, in front ofother people, really trying to
practice, practice, practice andto get to a first level that I
was comfortable doing it.
And then when I hit the stage, Ithink it went well.
It was my first big thing, um,and that that allowed me to uh,
to connect with more people andto grow our business, because we
got some clients in the roomthat were interested and you
(07:14):
know, I think I think that's thesnowball effect the moment you
are on stage, more uh, you, youget a big, bigger reach, a
bigger audience and uh, you,bigger reach, a bigger audience,
and that really helps.
There was a pivotal moment themoment somebody recorded my
video in high quality at one ofthe conferences I was speaking
at and the moment I publishedthat, that really helped getting
(07:35):
even more speaking gigs,because if you're hiring a
speaker, you want to figure outis this the speaker for me?
I'm taking a risk here becauseI'm hiring a speaker but I don't
know this person.
So the speaker videos that I hadover time really kind of
exponentially grew the interest,and that all feeds into each
other, because the moment you'reon stage you might get more
(07:58):
interest for consultancies butalso in the consulting work
itself.
Being able to stand on stageand share new ideas to a larger
audience is a really importantskill to have, because when
you're doing change managementconsulting that I do, part of
that is sharing completely newideas that people haven't heard
(08:18):
before and getting theminterested and curious about
what it could mean for them.
So yeah, it's a skill that it'sa double-edged sword, I would
say.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, yeah, I like that.
So I definitely want to go downthis route of how you
communicate these new ideas,because I think that's something
very important for all of us tolearn about Before we go into
that.
I really, really want todissect this whole idea because
I really believe there's a lotof power, and that's what I'm
(08:51):
starting to use with a newbusiness endeavor that I have
with virtual assistants isleveraging my skills of speaking
to speak about how delegationall this stuff to then get more
business from that.
But I would love to hear howyou're going and speaking on
these stages.
Well, first of all, I want toacknowledge that it's awesome
that you actually just pitchyourself and then had to figure
it out along the way.
Total entrepreneur right there,Just figure it out as you go,
(09:12):
but then you start actuallyyou're leveraging these speaking
opportunities.
It sounds like to really buildup your business.
So talk to us about that,because I think a lot of times
when we think about speaking, wethink about getting paid to
speak, and there's really kindof two ways to get paid to speak
.
Either you get a speaker's feeor you get to sell on that
backend, and even then I like tosay, there's a third one, which
(09:36):
is you don't sell a product orservice on the backend, you more
just provide so much value.
You get credibility, and thenpeople come to you afterwards
and say, hey, I saw you on thestage, would love to talk to you
about your business, and youreally just provide a value.
So it's really to me that thirdway you can make that money is
through building that personalbrand and building you as an
expert.
(09:56):
So talk to us about that, howthe speaking has really
developed and grown yourbusiness on that side.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, you're totally right.
I think those things are reallytrue.
When I started out, I was notexpected to charge any money for
the things I was doing, so Idid, and I know.
If you're starting out and youwant to become a speaker, I
would recommend to do it atleast 10 or 20 times without
asking for a fee, just to getthe reps in and to build your
skill, because if something isnot, you know if it's not a paid
(10:27):
engagement, the stakes are alsolower.
Like it's okay, like people are, you're just there as an expert
sharing your ideas.
You can be really vulnerableand just asking for feedback
right after you delivered yourspeech, from the conference
organizer, from people in theaudience.
I think it's just reallyhelpful to start out that way.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And actually let me interrupt you.
So I should ask this beforegoing into how you're building
your business.
So you mentioned about the 10to 20, do them free.
And you mentioned some abouthaving like the videos and
getting that, and it's kind oflike because, like this,
basically you've been on morestages, people are seeing it
through, like the videos andstuff like that highlight reels
that you were able to then geton more stages, so like really
was a snowball effect.
Talk to us about that realquick.
Like what, what made you decideto do that?
(11:11):
And what are some of thosethings that we could do to make
sure we're presented as, oh,we're always we're speaking on a
bunch of stages and stuff likethat, so we can get more stages?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, I think as a, as a speaker, you have to figure
out what your, what your angleis or what your story is, the
thing that you are reallypassionate about talking to.
That also is valuable for anumber of audiences and you know
that.
That that should be the core,the core thing for me.
That over time became the, the,the overlap between Formula One
, motor racing and business,which is something I stumbled
(11:43):
into, and I can talk about howthat happened.
But that became my signaturespeech and when I was getting
more inquiries and I became moreconfident about how that story
actually was good enough andvaluable, at one point I asked
I'd love to come to yourconference and you don't need to
pay me for it, but I would lovefor you to produce a
(12:04):
professional video.
Right, you know, could youorganize or get a camera crew
there and create a professionaledit of it, and so I can put it
on YouTube?
And sometimes a conference hasthat already in their package.
But I was just very explicitthat that was a condition for me
to come over and the helpfulthing about that video is that,
(12:27):
like I said, like then, um,somebody looks it up, they can,
they can find it, they can, theycan, they can hire you, um, at
a certain point in time, becausethe speech became good.
After all those reps and afterthose feedbacks, after that
feedback and stuff, I basicallywas in a situation that every
time I was on stage, at leastone other speaking gig came out
of it.
So you know, you have a even ifit's just a 30 or 40 people
(12:51):
audience, um, literally for formonths and months, every time I
did that, uh, at least one otherpaid engagement came out of
that and that kind of snowballed.
So that that's kind of the,that's the, that's where you
want to get to, uh, at thatstage, and that really helped I
like that.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
yeah, so really, obviously you were on the stages
and then, yeah, instead of inlieu of a speaker's fee or
getting paid to speak, you knowyou were like, hey, I'll do it
for free, just bring in somebodyto do video, which really
benefited them, because theyprobably already wanted to do
the video anyways and now theyjust had an additional reason to
do that or they probablyalready had somebody there.
(13:28):
So now they save the speakerfee by now giving you some of
that video directly, obviouslyfor your speech and everything
so awesome.
So I appreciate you gettinginterrupted to share that
portion.
Now, how has the speaking,besides obviously getting more
paid gigs, helped the businessside out?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, so it's really a triad of things.
So it's the consulting business, so the engagements we do with
clients, longer term engagements, it's speaking and it's the
books.
It's a combination of thosethree things that are really
important to market ourselves.
There's so many consultanciesout there, thousands and
(14:08):
thousands of them, especiallysmaller ones like us and the
only way to stand out is to havethose things, to have videos,
to have a book potentially, soyou can become a little bit more
famous and you can get reachunexpected reach from that.
(14:29):
But we got speaking gigs from orlike consulting gigs from, just
somebody either watching thespeaker video or somebody
picking up the book or both, andthen you know having both, both
a book and a video, and they'relike Hmm, I trust these people,
I really liked them, and thatthose are the easiest sales
conversations because peoplealready know what you're up to,
people already trust the message, they believe in it.
You don't need to convince themof anything.
(14:50):
The only thing you need tofigure out is when to start and
how much to charge.
So that really helps and thathas consistently helped us get
business.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Wow, so many things really unpacked there.
I want to hear about this bookfor sure, but having those
unique things for sure, likeyou're speaking, so people
really get to know you, becauseif you're speaking for anything
more than a minute, you can'tput up that much of a front for
that long, especially whenyou're being truly genuine,
truly being yourself, so you'reable to do that.
(15:20):
But you're also able to speakand educate people and so really
show that knowledge.
But then that book as well Imean it's something that's on
paper.
Now, depending on how you wrotethe book, I can get to know you
and who you are.
So now I'm building this know,like and trust even more with
you.
But then now I've learnedsomething from you and now I
want to be able to work with you.
I know that you know thatinformation because you wrote
(15:43):
the book, you've spoken on it.
So like two great ways toreally build up that business
and really get that know, likeand trust before they even come
to you.
It's like you said when thatsales conversation happens.
It's basically like, okay, areyou ready to start?
Cool, let's go Like you're notin there, really sell them at
that point and everything.
But talk to me about this bookis I'm sure that relates to what
you're speaking about and thebusiness as well correct?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.
Just to touch back on yourpoint first is like imagine the
alternative, which is like hey,we are looking for somebody to
help us.
We've asked four consultanciesto give us some ideas.
Could you create an SW and gothrough our procurement process?
And that's completely cutthrough to words.
Hey, we love what you do.
(16:26):
I want you let's figure out howto start and what the charge
and what the terms andconditions are.
So just to give you thatcontrast of how some
consultancies and I've beenthere at that place I was super
happy to get an inquiry, butthen I had to figure out.
I had to jump through fourother hoops and discovered that
there were three othercompetitors pitching for the
same thing.
So yeah, it's much harder, it'sjust harder.
(16:46):
So that helps.
It opens a lot of doors.
To go back to your questionabout the book, funny enough it
was speaking that got me towrite the book.
I always had an ambition towrite a book, but I wasn't
really intentional about it.
It was never the right time, orit's also one of those skills
that you have to learn how to doand uh, and and and uh.
You have to stumble into theright moment.
(17:07):
Basically what happened.
I was asked to come and, uh,join a group of executives, um,
that were going to visit the RedBull Racing Formula One factory
and they were asking me to do aspeech on the evening before
the session.
So it's like a warmup thing forthe first night and I said,
well, I can come over, but I'mgoing to do two things.
(17:28):
First, I would love well, firstof all, one condition is that I
also get to visit the factorylike the others like to go
behind the scenes of thatFormula One team, because I
really was interested in how itall works from the inside.
And secondly, I would love totry to create a different
version of my speech that isfully Formula One focused,
because I didn't have that atthe time and they said yes.
So, basically, the eveningbefore I started talking about
(17:51):
my basically my desk research ofeverything I could find about
potential examples of how F1teams worked and what I noticed
in my research.
So I wasn't there to convincethem of anything, I was just
sharing what I thought wasinteresting when I was looking
at it through the organizationallens.
And the next day I got tovalidate or invalidate some of
(18:11):
the things that I was speakingabout before and that actually
snowballed into that Formula Onespeech.
That just became the signaturething time my co-author reached
out to me and he's a famousbusiness book writer in the
Netherlands and he says well,I'm writing my next book and
(18:32):
it's going to be aboutorganizational speed and about
accelerating organizations.
The world of Formula One isbecoming bigger here because we
have our Dutch driver.
The Dutch Grand Prix is comingback.
Would you like me to let's talkabout that?
And then we decided to to writethe book together, and the rest
is history.
Um, so it was actually thespeaking gig that helped me get
that book out of the door.
And from that book, um, people,people just started buying a
(18:56):
whole boxes of books the momentI did a speech.
So, like, that's the other goodthing about having a book If
you are on stage, uh, you can,can say you know what I'm on
stage, would you like to have abook for every participant?
And then you're able to kind ofamplify that snowball effect.
So that's my first book.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
That was five years ago now, that's awesome, and has
that book also helped you withgetting more speaking
engagements too?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
yeah, exactly yeah, like I said before, the moment,
the book, the book has reachedpeople in unexpected places.
Uh, I mean, I, I sometimes geta get increased from South
Africa or from from Indianapolis.
You know somebody is doing aracing, racing focused event in
in, uh, close to the you knowIndianapolis motor speedway
where the Indy 500 is done.
(19:40):
And they, they found me I don'tknow how, but by typing in
Formula One, racing acceleration, business organizations.
And it also helps with SEO.
If you have a book out there,google amplifies those keywords.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, for sure, that's awesome.
So talk to me more about the.
I guess, where is that book atfirst of all?
Or is it on Amazon and stufflike that?
Oh yeah, it's on Amazon, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Formula X.
It's called.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It's a business fable .
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So for those of you so maybe familiar with Patrick
Lencioni he's a business bookwriter who uses fables like the
five dysfunctions of a team is agood one, and I was inspired by
that format.
So it's literally 80% of thebook is a story, a fiction story
, about a leader that is tryingto accelerate how their
(20:30):
organization works.
It's a kitchen factory, forsome reason, and he gets
inspired by the world of motorracing and how they organize
behind the scenes, and so that'sthe first book, and there's a
small theory chapter in the back.
My second book is a lot morepractical and it just came out.
(20:53):
It's titled unblock, clear theway for results and develop a
thriving organization.
It's also on amazon and, um,yeah, it is.
Uh, it's a practical book forleaders that want to um, you
know, get better results byunblocking their organization in
in lots of different areasawesome and that's a perfect
segue.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
where I wanted us to go next was really talking about
that organizational leadershipand I guess, before we kind of
really get into organizationalleadership I mean I love
leadership talk about that.
How has being better atspeaking helped you with
building out your business andhow do you think it can help
other leaders with being abetter leader by being a better
(21:31):
speaker?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
yeah, I think.
I think leadership, um, is allabout uh, my true leadership is
all about finding followers.
You know you can be a leader on, on paper, you know because you
are appointed to a very nicejob title, maybe a C-level title
somewhere.
That is positional leadership.
But real leadership is you'reable to create followers,
(21:55):
meaning that if you're apositional leader and you're
unable to create any followers,you're not leading anyone.
It's, it's, it's just you.
You know, using your power toget somewhere, um, which which
is not what you want.
So the the, the two, but to getsomewhere which is not what you
want.
So, but to get followers, youneed to articulate where you
want your organization to go andit really helps if you're able
(22:16):
to deliver that messagecohesively, passionately, using
storytelling, using all sorts oftechniques that we learn as
public speakers.
So I think public speakingskills for leaders are really
essential to be able to get anorganization or a large group of
people to follow you and to gointo a certain direction.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And what are some of those like key things that you
found like being if you can onlypick like one or two part of
like public speaking skills?
What are some things that youthink that leaders should focus
on and improve those things tobe better ish overall as a
leader?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I mean, storytelling is a big part of it.
You know, are you able to, toconnect the dots for the
audience through storytelling,through, you know, finding
interesting metaphors orinteresting examples and, uh,
you know, engaging the audienceby, by using and building a
cohesive and interesting storyto listen to.
And the other one is aboutdelivery.
(23:14):
Are you comfortable being onstage?
Are you comfortable inprojecting confidence into the
room?
Are you comfortable doing thatdozens of times rather than are
you going to be nervous, or areyou terrible at speaking
publicly?
I mean, the opposite is, youcan imagine, really it doesn't
(23:35):
help.
So, yeah, that's one part.
I would also say that publicspeaking is important.
However, I'm also doing a lotof workshop design and how do
you engage with a large group ofpeople in organizational change
, and that is not only aboutspeaking.
Speaking is a very importantcomponent of it.
So you set facilitatingconversations in the room rather
(24:12):
than death by powerpoint, whichyou all well, we also see a lot
.
So, um, yeah, so it's acontrast, it's an additional
skill that it's not.
It's not directly publicspeaking related, but it does
create a lot more impact yeah,yeah, completely agree there.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And so now with the organizational leadership, what
you teach on and the thingsyou're trying to change, I mean,
most people really love goingto pointless meetings.
They love the bureaucracy andthey love not making decisions.
Having a meeting about ameeting to finally have a
decision made, those are thegreat things that we love within
the corporate environments, andyou're trying to do the
(24:48):
complete opposite.
You're trying to get rid of allthese things, these safeguards,
if you will, and these sacredthings, almost, it seems like,
especially in these bigcorporations.
So, first of all, how are yougoing about creating these
changes?
And then I want to talk aboutactually how you go about
delivering this message, because, whether it is organizational
(25:09):
leadership, leadership ingeneral or just trying to have a
conversation and make a change,whether it's the whole company
or an individual, how you speakto somebody is such an important
thing.
So I want to end up diving intothat, but I would love to hear
more from this organizationalleadership side of things.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, I think it's funny that you say that there's
a sign behind me that kind ofcaptures everything, which is I
tried to be innovative once butI got stuck in meetings.
So it's this feeling of youreally want to achieve something
but you just can't becauseyou're drowning in a swamp of
inertia.
In my book I also use themetaphor of swimming in peanut
(25:51):
butter.
It's like this feeling ofeverything is just sluggish and
slow and it's just super, superslow and frustrating.
And so we work a lot withleaders that are ambitious and
they have a certain place theywant to go, a certain place they
want to get to, or a certainnew strategy they want to roll
out, or a new product launchthey want to go, a certain place
they want to get to, or acertain new strategy they want
to roll out, or a new productlaunch they want to do.
And they acknowledge that theway their organization functions
(26:13):
is not helping them.
So, to start with, that isteaching leaders and leadership
teams how to work differentlythemselves.
So it starts by modeling thebehavior and doing the change
yourself before forcing othersto change, because that won't
work right.
Um, I found a quote in theresearch for my book which is
like people uh, people followyour feet and not your lips,
(26:38):
right?
They pay attention to where yougo, what you do, rather than
what you talk about.
You know, there's a lot ofleaders out there, unfortunately
, uh, that that just talk about,talk about, talk to talk, but
don't walk to talk, right?
So that's what we want to do.
So we work with leadership teamsto look at their work practices
, meaning what is the area wherethis leadership team is blocked
(26:58):
?
It could be a mix of analysis,paralysis, trying to make
perfect decisions, whichunderneath that is a fear of
failure, and underneath thatcould be psychological safety or
other things.
And we teach them how to digout of those holes by creating
safe spaces for reflection andimprovement and building that
(27:20):
into the meeting cadences of theteam, by teaching
decision-making practices.
That allows you to make complexdecisions quickly without
sacrificing quality and speed,and I can dive into what those
things are, but it's reallyabout modeling the behavior you
want to see, and the momentyou've kind of done that and
you've discovered with your teamwhat the benefits are, then you
(27:42):
can start inspiring others todo it well as well, and that
goes, that goes into thedelivery and the and the
messaging, like, if you, as aleader, can authentically say,
like I've tried this and itreally works for us, I would
love to invite you to try thisthing as well.
I would love to invite you to um, you know, uh, take decisions
um, um, faster, um, I reallywould like to invite you to
(28:05):
decline more meetings or to torevisit your own, revisit your
own goals and see if thisframework can help you, because
I've tried it and it works forme.
That just creates morefollowers.
Because it's authentic, it'sbecause it's true, rather than
the dynamic that we sometimessee, where leaders are almost
coming from frustration and thisparent-child dynamic, like I
(28:29):
know what is good for you andyou should change.
That is a typical way ofcommunicating in a hierarchical
organization that createsresistance.
So, yeah, it's all aboutgetting that right.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Oh man, yes, so true, and I've seen that I heard
somebody talking about.
They had a manager one time thatthe company had core values
plastered on the wall and theywere trying to talk about that
and I don't remember the exactstory or situation of why they
brought up core values and themanager told them those are just
(28:59):
words on the wall, that's whatHR put up.
But that's exactly what'shappening, especially in these
big companies, these oldbureaucraticratic companies, is
that they just have lip service.
At the end of the day, theydon't really believe in what it
is that they're doing.
Or there's changes that comebecause HR tells them that hey,
we're going to make this change,and it really kind of becomes
(29:20):
this flavor of a month thing.
Really want something to change.
Like you said, the leader hasto start doing that, whether
it's the actual title leader orsomebody.
They have to start doing that.
And I like how you said youknow, watch your shoes, not was
your lips, or lips and not yourlips because, yeah, the lip
service, what we're saying andwhat we're doing are completely
(29:42):
different things.
And then you also mentionedabout the results.
Like hey, I've done this, thisis what's happening, and I
noticed in business, when I'mtalking more about the results,
or like, hey, here's what I'mdoing, then somebody else is
like, oh, they're going tobelieve that more because I'm
doing that already.
And it's like I'm telling youto do this, I'm coaching you to
do this, but I'm also doing it.
(30:03):
So it's not like, hey, you know, you should, you should go on a
diet and start only eatingchicken and rice.
That'll help you lose weight.
But then I'm over here going andgetting a burger and a shake
and all these things.
Like well, like that doesn'tmatch up.
So when you match up, like whatyou're doing and what you're
saying match up, then it's like,ok, I'm going to believe that
and even if maybe it's not 100percent right, but at least okay
(30:25):
, I believe it, you actually aredoing it.
I'll start doing it as well.
So I think it's an importantthing for us as, as leaders and
as individuals.
If we want to start creatingchange, we need to start
actually doing the work beforewe actually start talking about
it is yeah, our actions speak alot louder than our words ever
will.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I mean, yeah, exactly .
And like, um, I'm alwayssurprised that some executive
teams are frustrated about themeeting culture and seeing that
everybody's in meetings all day,like, and we don't, we're not
productive enough.
But then if you look at theircalendars, they are going to be
in meetings 120% of the time.
Like, how do you, how do youmodel?
(31:05):
How can you model what you wantto see?
Right, and it's really aboutlooking yourself in the mirror.
And there was one executive teamthat we worked with that
completely um, got rid of thatproblem by by, you know,
canceling all recurring meetingsin their schedules.
Like it was a whole, wholeexecutive team of of eight
people that were like we are notgoing to do any of those
meetings anymore, at least for amonth.
(31:27):
It's an experiment that we'regoing to do.
For four weeks, we're going tocancel all recurring meetings
and, as an alternative of that,we will be here sitting at our
desks and we are available everyMonday.
So if you just want to go andhave a call, if you want to talk
to us, just come to us and talk, but don't schedule a meeting,
don't pull us into theserecurring things.
And that really, really helpedthem get out of that trap and
(31:50):
they rebuilt some of themeetings that they really missed
into their calendars.
But the meeting load really wentdown by 70% and it just made it
more easy, like at the moment.
Leaders have more headspace tothink about what's going on and
to sit back and reflect.
You know, every meeting is anopportunity to say well, you
know what, I already trust you,you don't need me here, you know
(32:11):
what to do.
If you need any information,you can ask me, but but I, you
can make the decision Like, Idon't need to.
It's a.
It's also an opportunity togive someone else the decision,
the right to make a decisionexplicitly.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, and and that's such an important thing there to
allow the other people to makethat decision there and,
depending on the leadership Ithink it's really the maturity
of that leader they allow theautonomy of their people because
they're typically, if you willthe worker, be the one that's
you can't make a decision.
You need me to make thatdecision for you.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
So it's like here.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
let me put it on this little plate for you, tell you
exactly what you need to know,so you can then say, yep, good
to go, but that's all.
So why do we need to do that?
Let you be more strategic.
Let you work on these otherthings rather than that and I've
seen managers as well, ormanagement teams, where, hey, we
need to align, so I need you topresent on what it is you're
(33:14):
working on, a status update,whatever it is so we can go to
this other management teamthat's in another department to
talk and literally go over thesame thing.
But that way we're in alignmentbeforehand.
And I get if you want to do likea one-on-one, but like, why do
we need to have thiscontinuously recurring thing
where we literally present onthe same thing twice, especially
(33:35):
the person that's actually theone doing the work?
Now we have to go to twomeetings and then they're also
going to two meetings, obviouslyto talk about the same thing.
But now we just brought in abigger group the second time.
It is crazy.
And how how big was thatcompany that you you mentioned
about?
They reduced 70 of theirmeetings.
I'm curious on that.
How how large was that companyoverall?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
yeah, there were about 500 people.
Okay, yeah, so it's not like itwas 10 people no, it was you
know it's a sizable company.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It's also not 500,000 .
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Exactly, yeah, no but like, even even a 500,000
company is, it can be cut intogroups of 500 or groups of 100.
So so it's like, it's like youcan.
That's also a thing I encourageleaders to do.
Like, yes, there might bethings that you are dependent on
in other departments and otherexecutives that don't get it,
but you can always transform howyour team works or your
department works within thatbigger picture.
(34:28):
If you are able to show therest of the organization that
your place is a great place towork and it delivers, people are
engaged, people are highlyautonomous and highly aligned,
then you become an attractor andpeople are saying, well, take
notice, like I've been, I'vebeen helping departments like
that and where, where.
(34:49):
When people from otherdepartments came over, they were
like Hmm, this and people areso engaged here, like what's
going on?
Like there's something aboutthe buzz in this room, there's
something special here, and um,and then they were like I want
that for my team as well, youknow.
Then then the change starts togrow.
Um, so that goes back tomodeling.
Modeling it, trying it firstbefore either being frustrated
(35:10):
that others don't do it ortrying to convince the rest of
the world of something that'sstill just a theory.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, and what have you found to be the most
effective ways to get people tostart trying to implement this
change from your perspective?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, that's a very broad question, but I think,
yeah, I mean, it's all about.
It's all about addressing realworld problems.
So often there's consultanciesout there that that sell you a
framework or a step-by-step planor a recipe, that that you know
that that they've buy provensolutions and frameworks with
(35:51):
certifications, because the riskof buying something because
other people are buying it too,so it must be good.
But the reality is thatorganizational change is complex
and what works for one companyisn't guaranteed to work at
another company, isn'tguaranteed to work at another
company.
So you have to acknowledge thatcomplexity and it's much better
(36:11):
to look at lots of differentoptions and just take whatever
you think is useful for yourchallenge and put some
boundaries around that.
If you want to change howdecisions are made, well, try it
in one team, adopt amethodology that you've seen
that you're inspired by.
Try it for a few weeks, run anexperiment, measure if it works.
If it doesn't work, acknowledgethat it didn't work and you
(36:35):
adjust and you find somethingelse.
So it's really about buildingthe capability to continuously
find problems and improve them.
It's all about the skill ofworking on the system as a
leader rather than in the system.
I sometimes use the metaphor ofswitching from being the
traffic cop or the trafficcontroller on the intersection,
directing all the trafficindividually when the traffic
(36:56):
lights are off, to becoming thisroad designer or an architect
of how the organizationfunctions, so that when the work
happens, it naturally flows andit doesn't require you in every
step.
So it's teaching leaders how tobe organization designers,
basically, and getting them tosee how things can be different
and also to teach how they canbe different.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, you kind of led into my next question there a
little bit.
I was going to ask, like how doyou start to implement this and
everything?
And you mentioned about likekind of like one department and
everything.
Are there any like other tips?
Because sometimes it comes tomind for me is maybe getting a
couple advocates on your team,like people that you know, like
(37:38):
whether it be like other seniormanagement or other leadership
to come in like, hey, I reallywant to try this thing, I need
your help supporting this andreally pushing this, so to speak
, into the company to reallymake it happen.
So it's not just you as thebusiness owner, you as the top
dog, so to speak.
That's saying, hey, I want tostart doing this.
And then, yes, you mentionedabout living it out, which I
think is the most importantthing.
You've got to be living it outfirst and doing it.
(38:00):
You can't just say, hey, dothis, and then expect people to
do it for at least not for toolong.
So do you recommend gettingkind of advocates for this
change as well?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Yeah, and it's all about building a movement, and
you build a movement by invitingpeople, not forcing people to
join you.
So that's again aboutleadership and followership.
The best way to get started islike hey, we have this radical
way of making decisions faster,we are willing to cut this
bureaucratic process and we havesome alternative ideas of how
(38:30):
we can go faster.
Is there anyone here who wantsto try that?
Is there a team or a group ofpeople that are excited about
that?
And usually there's alwaysmaybe 10% of people that will
raise their hand and say yes, ofcourse, because they are just
really open to innovating howthey work and they are the front
runners.
They'll be in the front ofstage and start there.
(38:52):
So don't focus on the peoplewho are resisting, don't focus
on the majority.
Don't immediately try toconvince the majority of it, but
just start running experimentswith a group of enthusiastic
teams and people that arewilling to do it, and then, when
you've proven with them that itactually works, then the
movement can grow organically.
You can invite more and moreteams to do it.
(39:13):
It's also all aboutacknowledging localized problems
.
So if you, for example, bringin a new decision-making
framework, some teams don't haveproblems with decision-making,
so don't force them to gothrough the workshop and learn
about it.
You know really only match thatwith teams that are struggling
(39:35):
with that.
So it's really about buildingthe Lego pieces and the puzzle
pieces and figuring out whatmatches and what doesn't.
And then you know most of thetime, transparency is a big part
of these kinds of movements.
In most new work, modern workpractices, transparency is a big
principle.
These kinds of movements.
In most new work, modern workpractices, transparency is a big
principle.
So also be transparent aboutthat.
Like, take any moment when youhave maybe an all-hands meeting
(39:56):
to go on stage and say you knowwhat this change is really
important to me.
I'm encouraging more people todo it now.
I'm giving some stage time tosome of the teams that have been
pioneering this.
Not everything went well.
I'm just going to betransparent about everything
that went wrong.
I'm also going to betransparent about how hard it is
for me as a leader, so that youcreate this safe space for
(40:17):
people like oh, this is actuallyhonest and this is real, rather
than highly polishedcommunication lines that go
through the communicationdepartments, right?
So I see so many leadersaddressing their own people as
if they are on a public investorday.
You know where, where, whereevery word is weighed and
polished and changed and they'realmost talking through a
(40:38):
teleprompter.
You know I can understand whyyou would do that in a public
forum if you're a publiclylisted company.
But you know, in your owninternal department you can be
you, you can be real and that'syou.
And if you don't, if you're, ifyou're not, that people will
notice immediately.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yeah, yeah for sure, and so obviously as the
companies get bigger, they'rekind of more separated,
different departments.
From your experience, whatdepartments do you feel like?
I mean, if you could thinkmaybe you probably don't have
the actual data on this, but doyou feel like give that most
resistance to making these kindof organizational type changes?
(41:13):
What have you found?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, that's a really good one.
It's funny that I don't havelike I don't have quantitative
research based on experience.
But I've always been surprisedby the fact that HR is often
tasked with doing things on theorganizational culture side but
(41:37):
is often completely drowning inprocedures, in legislation, in
filling all the forms, makingsure we tick all the boxes,
getting out the salary checks,like all those things.
Like hr is is a is a lot moreoperational than strategic.
They're often not a um, a fullpartner at the c-suite table.
(41:58):
Uh, there's almost like anoperations department that uh
that they run um so, so, andthat means that hr in itself,
the people that work there, likeI'm a really positive way.
I really believe that thepeople there are very people
focused and want to do the bestthing, but they're just
completely stuck in theseprocedures.
(42:18):
So it's a bit of a tragic storythat HR often is not the first
but the last to transform, andthat's sad and that's sad.
The places where people arewilling to change are often on
the edge of the organization,where there's something new,
there's really a new innovationand there's just a really
painful business case that theold way of working won't get you
(42:41):
a positive result.
So every time there's a like,it's almost like a crisis crisis
management, like we work with apharmaceutical company that we
heard when they built the COVIDvaccines.
They were able to completelyignore all the old bureaucracy
that they usually had when theyhave to bring out a new product.
(43:01):
They could just get the expertsin the room and go super fast
and really clear the way fordelivering them because of the
urgency of the products thatthey needed to do.
And the moment the COVID crisiswas over, the pandemic was over
, they actually slowly went backto old ways, but the people
(43:24):
resisted.
They were like no, I'm notgoing to go through this
bureaucratic form because wehave just proven that we can do
without this thing, so can wejust get rid of it instead?
So yeah, it's often the placeswhere there's either a shock to
the system or a competitorthat's doing something crazy and
you really need to move fast,where there's more willingness
to change.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah, and I kind of laugh when you talk about the HR
side, but it makes sense as thesame tag.
Yeah, and I kind of laugh whenyou talk about the HR side, but
it makes sense as the same tagis like HR is the one quote,
unquote, shoving this downeverybody else's throat to make
the change.
But it's just like us in ourbusiness when we're stuck in the
business, we know we need to beworking on it, be more
strategic and focus on doingthese other things, but we're
fighting fires and we'reconstantly in that.
(44:06):
So we don't actually make thatchange, even though we know we
should and we should be doingthis other thing.
And it's the same thing with HR.
Like you said, they're veryoperational.
There's so many other thingsgoing on and I think that's a
lot of times why changes don'thappen within companies, big or
small, whatever you know, medium, whatever size they are because
there's too many small firesthat need to get taken out.
(44:27):
Because there's too many smallfires that need to get taken out
and it's easy, just to focus onthat versus going at 30,000
foot view and thinking morestrategically.
And okay, what do I need tostart doing to be where I want
to go, versus I'm here in thismoment and I need to focus on
this and finish this out and,you know, fix this.
And that's unfortunately, Ithink, why HR just from my
(44:48):
perspective as well why HR tendsto be that last one.
Not that they don't want tochange, but they're more in the
business rather than working.
You know, working in it versuson it.
And so they're trying to rollout this program.
So it's again they're workingin it, trying to make this
program happen, but then there'snobody because that's it's
supposed to be them.
So it's kind of thatself-development thing.
(45:09):
I can give better advice ongirls to my friend than I could
for myself when I was dating.
Same thing with HR.
I can give advice better tothose outside of the department
than in the department, becausenow I have to reflect on myself
and actually make that changemyself.
And so I can definitely see howagain, I know you didn't have
the quantifiable data, but Icould definitely see where hr
(45:33):
would be, the the last one kindof make the change or has the
most resistance because they'restuck doing the work and in the
business, so to speak, and that,but that's not unique to hr.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I think there's a lot of departments out there that
never evaluate.
They never.
They never evaluate is whatwe're doing, the right thing to
do?
Is it smart how we're, how weare working together and our
work and our consulting work?
And also in the new book I havea lot of advice on how do you
build in reflection andimprovement rhythms into your
(46:04):
organizational way of working,because if you only you know
it's the it's James Clear, Ithink had this famous graph If
you go 1% better every day, atthe end of the year you're 37
times better than you werewithout doing that right.
It's like working smarter, notharder.
But it's difficult to carve outthe time, but we really
encourage teams to, every fourto six weeks, you know, put
(46:28):
something on the calendar.
It's a non-negotiable hour ofsitting down and talking with
each other about you know what,what is going really well for us
, but also what, what can weimprove and what should we
improve and what are someimprovements actions we can take
for the next six weeks and thisbuilding in this rhythm of of
improvement and and and gettingstronger should allow.
Should you know the ROI of thatmeeting should be very high if
(46:51):
you build up the capability todo that.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, completely agree there, and this has been a
great conversation you're in.
If people want to get to knowyou, we'll have all the links in
the show notes.
But where's like your favoritespot to hang out on social media
or the best spot that peoplecan really reach you at to get
to know more about you?
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Yeah, I'm most active on LinkedIn, so just type in my
name and you'll find me there.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Awesome.
Well, jurjen, thanks again forcoming on the podcast.
I appreciate it and this wasjust an awesome conversation to
be able to talk about differentthings speaking leadership,
organizational leadership, allthat good stuff.
But I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
I enjoyed it too.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
All right, everybody have a great one and y'all go
out there and make that changeby being the one to lead it
first walking the walk and notjust talking the talk.
Yeah.
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