In our high-speed business world, leadership only works when values are lived and breathed, both by the managers and within the companies themselves. Performance, deadlines, taking time out - and what purpose has to do with it: all of this was discussed by Stefanie Kuhnhen, Chief Strategist at Serviceplan and founder of start-up kokoro, whose app helps companies to improve their team performance, and Frank Behrendt, book author, podcaster and Senior Advisor at Serviceplan.
KLAUS WEISE: KLAUS WEISE: Digitalisation is stepping up the pace for us workers. In theory, this means that we are more productive and efficient. In practice, however, there is often little evidence of improved efficiency – for either start-ups or major corporations. What is going wrong here?
FRANK BEHRENDT: I am constantly horrified by how much valuable time is wasted by inefficient meetings. At a rough estimate, I would say that half of all calls and meetings don’t achieve very much. This goes for both video calls – which are very popular at the moment – and conventional in-person meetings. Just imagine being able to save this time through better project management, structured meetings and a results-oriented culture! You could reinvest all that wasted time in inspiration, future projects or leisure time. That would be a win-win situation for everyone.
Stefanie, I’m hearing a lot of complaints from exhausted and overworked employees who can barely cope with the pressure and pace dictated by digitalisation. How does an app aiming to boost team performance fit into this time?
STEFANIE KUHNHEN: Perfectly! (laughing) Our app is a tool that enables people working in companies to help themselves independently and in real time. It allows teams to actively shape their joint success so that they can take on more responsibility themselves and be less dependent on management. This is because success also means striking a healthy balance between work and recuperation and between being managed and managing yourself.
Teams that boost their performance by organising themselves better sound almost too good to be true. How does that work exactly?
SK: With kokoro, the teams take note of key early indicators and learn to steer – and also to steer in the opposite direction at the right time. They learn to manage the three most important influencing factors: remaining in flow together, having a sense of belonging and feeling psychologically secure. As we know today, you don’t need much more to work very effectively and successfully together. By focusing on these main soft team factors, it is possible to actively counter fatigue and overwork. The basic premise remains based on mutual trust: we relinquish control and trust in our colleagues’ ability to motivate themselves, then we can finally strike a healthy balance between sprints and rest.
What is more important when it comes to improving team performance – more sprints or more rest?
SK: Just like top athletes, long-lasting team success needs both: phases in which you are firing on all cylinders but also carefully planned times of rest in between so you can recuperate and recharge your batteries for the next sprint.
Frank, you’re a big fan of working from home and wrote in your book ‘Von Kindern lernen’ (Learning From Children) that you learn more from your youngest daughter Holly than you would in any business seminar. Does spending more time working from home lead to greater relaxation and satisfaction?
FB: As I see it, the key lies in making the opportunities for people working in a company more flexible and individualised. I love working from home because it’s the best way for me to manage my family life and to share home responsibilities with my wife so that we both have the time and space we need to devote to our respective jobs and careers. Some people like going into the office because they need lots of contact with others. That’s the way I used to be before I had a family. Today, I love listening to my youngest daughter – she keeps me up to speed on everything that’s happening in the fast-moving digital world. This also comes in useful for my work in the agency. Come to think of it, Holly should get a fee as a trend scout!
Stefanie, the name of the company that you co-founded, kokoro, is Japanese and unites the notions of heart, mind and spirit. Will employers have to pay a lot more attention to the wellbeing of their teams in future – and in a more holistic way – if they want to avoid overloading them?
SK: Absolutely, I can’t recommend that enough. The times in which you have to leave your private self at the door every morning when you step into the office are finally over. We need people’s full creativity – which means allowing them to embrace their full selves in the office. This is why it’s a good idea for us employers to hire people with ‘dual personalities’, who have a lot of interests and skills that they can bring to the table. And we need to give them the space to do this as well. If one of my team wants to hone her skills as a photographer, that will also benefit me as an employer – which is why it makes sense to give her the time she needs to develop these skills. And not just after a 12-hour shift!
Is there a formula that employers can use to encourage more creativity and inspiration?
SK: Employees in professions in which new things need to be developed need the time and space to think – and there will be plenty of these in the decades to come because almost all systems need to be reinvented. Maybe also a healthy body which, as we all know, houses a healthy mind. This involves more than offering company yoga courses on the rooftop terrace or a few massages. That is a major misunderstanding – and a widespread one. In the future, the key will be to see, understand and respect employees as complex human beings rather than treating them as machines. This includes keeping them healthy, giving them thinking space and allowing them more freedom to shape their day. I have often observed that the most disruptive ideas that we develop as part of strategy processes come from people who have just had a stimulating experience in a completely different field or who have been soaking up inspiration outside the office. From a purely personal perspective, I can also say that I have my best ideas when I’m out running or walking in the great outdoors, but hardly ever when I’m at my desk. This is because these are moments in which new cross-connections – syntheses in our heads – take place. And we will need more of these in the future: having the space to think smarter rather than work harder.
We used to have enough time to bring strategies and concepts to fruition – today, everything needs to be ready instantly. I get the feeling that top management is extremely driven and all too often passes this stress directly on to its teams. Do you see any escape from this turbo hamster wheel?
SK: My impression is that, because we now have lots more marketing channels but pretty much the same marketing budget, there isn’t enough time for anything, let alone strategy and concept development. This is because, to an increasing extent, the focus is on the tactical, the delivery – and the growing marketing machine needs to be fed. As a manager, I try to broach this issue with customers again and again and to paint a realistic picture of what is possible and what isn’t. And, together with my colleagues, to bring structure and calm into the process. Usually, you also gain some time when you consciously opt for co-creation with customers rather than jumping head-first into a frenetic collaboration. Quickly knocking up a concept or putting forward a half-baked strategy isn’t going to help anyone. Above all, we’re usually dealing with well established brands and companies so it would be unwise to rush things at the wrong stage. My experience has been that you can win over customers with a sound analysis, in-depth market research findings and a collaborative strategy process that has been well thought through and that is transparent enough to keep customers in the picture at all times. You need time for this. And you can get this time with a convincing attitude and high empathy to get customers on board and, in turn, to ensure the best possible result. To achieve this, you need to establish successful customer or partner relationships. And to talk not just about efficiency but about future viability as well. That is feasible. But many people aren’t aware of this or don’t think it’s an option for service providers.
What would your advice be to managers who are under massive performance pressure themselves?
SK: In keeping with the spirit of kokoro, simply to stop the hamster wheel. Create blocks of time for yourself every day – fixed slots that you choose for yourself and keep free. Set an example for your team with this and advise them to do likewise. These phases of self-determination lead to freedom and flow. And it doesn’t matter what you do during these blocks: whether you concentrate on focused work or go for a walk by the river. Both of these can help to counter the hectic pace and the pressure – especially because you can decide on it for yourself. And this once again calls for an outlook where you defend this freedom and these possibilities. Which leads me to the conclusion that inner resilience is absolutely essential these days. It is the tool you need to actively and resolutely counter the hectic pace with something effective.
Frank, people who follow you on social media must have the impression that you take breaks with your dog or to sit in the sun every single day. Is that just for show or part of your successful recipe for being a permanently relaxed and cheerful ‘Guru of Serenity’?
FB: If it were just for show, I’d have become an influencer! (laughing) Over the years, I have created a model for myself that alternates constantly between high performance and relaxation. I have deep work phases every day during which I concentrate on a task for two hours at a time without any disruptions. I don’t make phone calls; I don’t hang out on social media – I just focus on the task at hand. These are usually morning slots when my kids are at school – or in the evening when people have finished for the day and hardly any e-mails or calls come through. Because I work anti-cyclically, I have the kind of freedom during the day that I wouldn’t have with a nine-to-five routine. So I go to the park with the dog in the morning, can make hairdresser’s appointments in the afternoon or sit in the sun enjoying an espresso. In spite of this, I still get my work done on time and am so efficient in my deep work slots that I usually only take half the time I would need in a normal working day. My experience has been that I am much more productive at home than in the office, where I am much more distracted by colleagues. I prefer to go into the office on days off to chat to people and keep in touch.
Just to return to the theme of this issue of TWELVE: speed as a success factor. The need for speed is being curbed by the fact that more and more people are complaining about the speed itself. Stefanie, in the book you co-authored – ‘Das Ende der unvereinbaren Gegensätze’ (The End of Irreconcilable Opposites), you claim that the time of irreconcilable opposites is over and that we will be thinking, living and working holistically in the future. Does this mean that we have to learn to live with high speed?
SK: Yes, it does. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing if we manage to integrate it. In the book, we argue that digitalisation is an exponentially increasing interconnection and will therefore usher in the end of traditional polarisations. This megatrend affects all areas of society, from education, business and policymaking to individual people and creates new structures, power relations and systems. So we also have to live with faster-paced processes. Viewed from a holistic perspective, this also means that we are not in an entirely powerless position. But we need to actively ensure – through greater attention, self-connectedness and decisiveness – that we switch off occasionally and factor ‘me-time’ into our workday routine. Let’s call the deliberate re-integration of slowness the ‘rediscovery of slowness’ and contrast this with the digitalisation turbo. Another point that is important to me is that the polar opposite is not always about slowness or relaxation. Rather, it’s about active self-determination in a vortex that always seems to want to drag you away with it – because you’ll always miss something if you’re offline in today’s digital world. Missing something like that is definitely not a problem, but you have to free yourself from this feeling.
Speaking of switching off: Frank, you have a room at home containing memories from your childhood that puts you in ‘happiness mode’. Should we all make regular mental trips back to happy past times to help us cope better with our current reality?
FB: Yes, I can’t recommend that enough. My psychologist friend Bertold Ulsamer talks about ‘happiness anchors’ that help people to stay in a positive mode in an NLP (neurolinguistic programming) context. For me, this is a flashback to my extremely happy childhood. In my memory room, I have collected all the toys and memories that made me happy as a child. Like my Bonanza bike, for example. Looking at these things takes me right back to those days. When I’m working in digitally enhanced speed mode, this allows me to press a stop button and relax mentally. After one of these happiness breaks, I am raring to go again. Incidentally, German broadcaster ZDF employs a similar method. The format of the German Saturday evening show ‘Wetten, dass..?’ (You Bet!), which Thomas Gottschalk will be presenting again this year as a one-off on 19 November, is behind the times, to say the least. But millions of people will be tuning in to gather around the campfire of memories. And amid the barrage of mainly bad news from all over the world, this provides a soothing warmth and calm.
Thank you for sharing your insights with us.