Amel Karboul

Today’s finance and somehow also world crisis is challenging for many leaders. The tools they have learned, the experiences they have made are no longer helpful. Reading the newspaper every morning, you find tons of reports about top manager who are paralyzed with fear, even panicking, mainly because they just do not know what to do. They do not know what impact their decisions will have. To put it in a nutshell they lost all CONTROL!

Today’s situation is not just complicated or complex - it is chaotic. The turbulence is extremely high; there are no cause-and effect-relationships – so no point for looking for right versus wrong answers. The number of unknowable is increasing and everybody is under pressure to make decisions but we all lack time to think. Which results in high tension, pressure and even burn out. It is however a great chance to learn. I do not want to sound sarcastic, but we – as systemic consultants and researcher in the field – are preaching since many years that leading in complex and chaotic situations will become the norm and that leaders should start practicing. Today you can start. How? Read the rest of this entry »

Martin (CEO) called on the phone Friday 5pm:
Martin: “I need to talk to you, I want to make a decision if I want to continue working with my CFO or not! You know him, what do you think?”
Amel: “If you ask me if you should fire him or not, I am not going to give you an answer. However lets talk about what is going on in your mind right now. I can help you make your own decision based on your criteria and observation and reflect with you consequences for the business and for the organization.”

During our conversation, we found out the following main issues:
•    Martin was not happy with the performance of the CFO nor was the top team. The CFO did not follow up on decisions made by the board if he did not agree personally, he would say yes and then act differently upon his convictions.
•    We also found out that the CFO who was part of the organization since 25 years was hoping to become CEO himself, he never accepted Martin – an outside newcomer - as a boss. And the two were too different in their styles. Martin was suffering because of this lack of acceptance.
•    The CFO had a lot of fans and high acceptance within the organization, Martin was afraid if he would fire him, that he will have an “internal rebellion” perhaps even sabotage and the organization was in a difficult turn around situation. Read the rest of this entry »

I am reading the book of Carly Fiorina, Tough Choices: A Memoir. Actually I am listening to it since a dear friend made me a gift of the CD’s. Carly Fiorina herself is the speaker. She talks about her whole carrier and about her time as HP CEO. I am impressed by the openness and details of different events. Almost every story includes a leadership lesson. For every person working in the corporate world, this book is probably reassuring since you discover that not only you has these weird corporate craziness experiences but that is totally normal!!!

One lesson I liked very much is when she says: “Any structure, even one that it awkward and unwieldy,  can work with enough alignment and teamwork”. I used this immediately within a client project. The head of R&D wanted to restructure the whole department. So I interviewed him about his management team: how aligned are they? and also about the level of collaboration and teamwork. He discovered that he needs to work on these issues and spend his energy and the commitment of his employees on increasing alignment and collaboration instead of wasting a lot of energy and focus during a big reorganization. If after all efforts he still believed it needs reorganization - than yes, he can still do it.

common sense but not common practice

4 pm during leadership training for middle managers in the Alps. The new Japanese senior leader Ishikawa San is invited to get into an open dialog with these young and high potential managers. Ishikawa San was well known of being not only successful business wise but for having developed many talented and inspiring people in his organization and also for his high sense of integrity.

One participant asks him: “you have been a leader for 20 years now and have experienced different styles and overcome many challenges all over the world, what is your leadership secret?”

Ishikawa San answers: “ for most people being the leader means being top of a pyramid and they try all their life very hard to climb up the hill, what I learned over the years to be successful is to turn the pyramid ups and down and to try hard to stay at the bottom!”
Silence in the room … that kind of silence you know now something unusual happened, now some of these young people had an Aha!

common sense but not common practice

Ich habe mich gestern Abend geärgert um mich heute früh dann erst richtig zu freuen. Ich hatte Ende dieser Woche ein Workshop mit der Geschäftsleitung eines Telekommunikationsunternehmen zum Thema Serviceorientierung geplant. Dies wurde am Telefon extrem kurzfristig abgesagt … auch in letzter zeit war der Umgang mit meinen Terminen bei diesem Kunden nicht wirklich verlässlich. Heute früh traf ich den Leiter der Geschäftsleitung um die weitere Vorgehensweise zu besprechen und … er überreichte mir diesen wunderschönen Blumenstrauß, als Entschuldigung für die erneute kurzfristige Absage.

Ich habe mich echt gefreut und dann wurde meine Freude noch größer als er sagte: „Das Thema Serviceorientierung steht groß auf unserer Agenda. Unsere Mitarbeiter haben sehr wenig Spielraum verärgerten Kunden etwas zukommen zu lassen, im Sinne einer symbolischen Wiedergutmachung. Ich habe mir überlegt, dass wir zwar Fehler nie ganz abstellen werden aber ein Budget pro Team zu Verfügung stellen werden, damit sie auch „solche“ Blumen oder ähnliches verschenken können.“ BINGO!

Hier ein Berufgeheimnis: Wie der Kunde mit uns Berater umgeht spiegelt ziemlich gut wie sie a) mit ihren eigenen Mitarbeitern umgehen und b) mit ihren Kunden umgehen… Deshalb anbei ein Diagnose Tool (checkliste-serviceorientierung PDF Download!), was Mann/Frau recht schnell am Anfang nutzen kann um Serviceorientierung in einer Organisation zu checken! – Für Nebenwirkungen fragen Sie sich selbst!

common sense but not common practice

Situation: Daniel K. is new CEO of a mid size company in the US. The former CEO has been there for over 20 years and has run the business very successfully. The US Business is 100% owned by an Austrian company and is part of a global network. Daniel has been chosen for mainly two reasons: 1) he should rejuvenate the business, bring in fresh ideas and 2) bring in a global mindset and increase communication and cooperation of the US business with the “mother” company!

Daniel’s Challenge: he knows about his strengths and areas of development and seeks for feedback from his board and direct reports regularly, BUT he was not really aware that people were not judging him on what or how he was doing things but on how he was doing it compared to the old CEO! The key word here is compared! There were some feedbacks and reactions he could not understand or interpret.

Approach: He did a stakeholder analysis (pdf download!) and went then asking for expectations from his important stakeholder on:

1. What should stay the same?
2. What should be different than before (more of, less of)?
3. What should come on top, new things which were not taken into account so far?

Reflection: it is not about Daniel actually doing everything other people expect from him, but

• about knowing their expectations - since people judge us on how much we do fulfill or not their expectations - and
• about understanding their reactions - why they were allergic to some proposals - and
• he also could then have a concrete picture about what the board was talking about when they gave him feedback on his personal achievements - he had the so called base line, he could build on - and
• he could see where conflicts of interest popped up and engage in dialog to solve them

common sense but not common practice

Video-impressions of a “change leadership” presentation for a top executive team and some of the slides (pdf download!)

common sense but not common practice

Ich fange an mit einem wunderbaren Tipp meines Sitznachbars auf der Strecke Europa - USA; ein Londoner Investment-Manager: Nein es geht nicht um die letzten Börsen News sondern darum, wie man es schafft relativ unbeschadet den USA Jet-Lag zu verkraften.

Gehörst Du zu denjenigen, die immer die Vormittagsflüge nehmen um am Nachmittag zu landen, womöglich direkt ins Büro dort rennen, gegen 20 Uhr tot ins Bett fallen um dann um drei Uhr morgens aufzuwachen. Und noch schlimmer zu den jenigen Millionen, die spät nachmittags aus USA zurückfliegen, um früh morgens in Frankfurt oder sonst wo landen, mit einem Horror-Gefühl im Bauch, wie man wohl diesen ganzen Tag schaffen soll? Dann bist Du der Richtige für meinen (geliehenen) Tipp, das ich auch schon umgesetzt habe: Read the rest of this entry »