Coaches and selling – a tough love

It is not easy to be a manager, and even more difficult the higher you climb. But increased speed, uncertainty and complexity that dominate the everyday lives of decision-makers on C-Level are only one part of the problem. The by far worst part is the total loss of power and status which goes along with a loss of one’s influential position. Exactly this happened to Martin Senn who was the CEO of Zurich, one of the biggest insurance companies worldwide. He committed suicide end of May at the age of 59. Martin Senn was a long-time employee of the insurer, serving as its chief executive for six years before he was forced to step down in December due to public pressure following economic difficulties and a failed M[&]A transaction. The loss of prestige and influence had hit him hard. An acquaintance said Senn had suffered from depression recently.

The Insecure Overachiever
Since the 1950s, McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s leading strategy consulting firm, has been known to employ the best graduates from the best universities, and to use performance incentives and a very formative high-performance culture to shape these young, hungry ‘high potentials’ according to their requirements. After these young consultants are pushed to the maximum by their international projects, most of them voluntarily leave the company on good terms after three years at the latest in order to take up leading positions in the industry and then to become potential customers of their former employer. Over the past few decades, this HR strategy and its accompanying high-performance culture were adopted in the field of professional services by the majority of international companies and are now also entering many more traditional industrial and service-based companies.

More than a century ago during the period of rapid industrialization, the ‘human factor’ and his or her contribution was fitted into standardized structures and processes. Being successful in large and ever-growing organizations required the individual to understand and play ‘the rules of the game’ well.

Narcissus, the young man from Greek mythology, fell in love with his own reflection in a pond and ultimately drowned in his attempt to get too close to his own image. Leaders with narcissistic tendencies fit perfectly into both the modern business world and also the political system. Donald Trump or Silvio Berlusconi are perfect examples for this phenomenon in the political domain while business leaders like Elon Musk (Tesla) or Thomas Middelhoff (Arcandor) are prominent cases for the business world.

The US-American Dan Buettner is an extreme sportsman, adventurer and author of National Geographic. On his expeditions to various parts of the world he had become aware of a phenomenon that he first reported in 2005: the "Blues Zones". These are geographical regions which are characterized by a significantly higher life expectancy than in the rest of the world. One of these "Blue Zones" is the Okinawa archipelago, which belongs to Japan today. Japan's southernmost prefecture consists of 363 islands, on which a total of 1.3 million people are living. 900 of these inhabitants are 100 years and older, which is an unusually high life expectancy even for Japanese conditions. The average life expectancy for men there is 86 years while German or US-American men on average only become 78 years old.

A booming industry provides an encouraging ground for new entrepreneurs - be it through start-ups, spin-offs or management buy-outs. So does the real estate industry. However, not all of these start-up’s and spin-offs become equally successful - despite the fertile environment they incubate in. This is rarely a result of overconfidence of the new leaders, lack of market access or bad deals, but rather a lack of investment in the partnering on the top of the company - the newly found leadership team.

I don’t particularly like the term “work-life-balance”. This has several reasons. For one, most people use this term without reflecting about the true meaning behind. The concept of work-life-balance implies that work and life are two opposite sides of a scale. It means that if you work you don’t actually live. This is a pity since most of us work a lot. In fact the idea behind makes a lot of sense for industrial workers at a factory line but does not apply for people in the knowledge industry. Matter of fact what really counts is a more holistic “life balance” which is far more challenging than just levelling out work and life. It can generally be said that a manager’s ability to bounce back from hardships will be particularly challenged if crises or setbacks are experienced in several areas of their life. The more areas are perceived as unfulfilling or even problematic, the more detrimental the effect will be on the level of available resilience.

"The future is female!" was the title Margarete Mitscherlich published in 1987. My father gave me the book for my diploma! What a prophecy!!!

Time for an interim balance 25 years later: is my and our future female?

In the late 80s I was one of the 32% female students. My eldest daughter is currently studying in Amsterdam, making her one of 55% of all students.

Resilience is the core competence for the time after the crisis. What we are currently learning is that plans don't work out, predictions don't come true, and priorities change by the hour.