Making Bold Moves That Matter

Jon Clifton:
[0:08] Today in Leading with Strengths, I am with the former CHRO and a former board member of Siemens, an employer of over 300,000 employees. She's also well-known as an author. She's been considered one of the top 100 most influential women in business. And most recently by Spiegel Magazine, she was called the most significant manager in Germany. Today I'm with Janina Kugel.

Janina, thanks for being with me today.

Janina Kugel:
[0:36] Thank you for having me.

Jon Clifton:
[0:36] Janina, can you talk a little bit about your strengths journey? Of course, you first took strengths in 2018, but I think you also had a deep familiarity with the philosophy of strengths even before you took it. So can you share a little bit more about that?

Janina Kugel:
[0:51] Yeah, it's actually, you would say it's like 2018, that was pretty late in my career actually that I did the StrengthsFinder, and I would have hoped that I had done it earlier. Just because I did a lot of assessments and, you know, things that you usually do when in advance in your career, people are checking on you, and then obviously as an HR person, you do the same. But most of the times, people are evaluated against, like, what is it that the company wants to see as a performance? You know, how good have you been doing certain activities? The StrengthsFinder for me was also understanding much more, not only me as a manager, but understanding who I am as a person and how much of that did I actually bring to my actual professional day-to-day operational life. And I realized that many of the things, you know, if you would have been asking my friends, they would have been telling us, of course, we know. But some of the things that they were actually talking about me didn't matter in my early careers, but they did matter then much more later on. And that was for me really the event of like figuring that out about myself, but also at that time figuring that also out about the leadership team that I was running. It was a fabulous moment to understand each other in a much better way.

Jon Clifton:
[2:04] Janina, when you first saw your results, was there anything that stood out or surprised you when looking at all 34?

Janina Kugel:
[2:11] I can't remember what I said to the top 10 or what I thought about the top 10. What I remember is like what I thought about number 34, number 33, etc., etc. I mean, maybe that's also like a management thing. It's like you look at least and you know what is the worst, right? So what is it? So number 34 and the last for me is Harmony. And then, of course, I thought, okay, hey, I'm not that aggressive, right? I mean, I like people, you know, I like to interact. But then exploring it further, it actually said one thing. It said, it's like, you're not exceptionally talented in building the harmony, and especially you're not avoiding conflict. And then I actually thought, yeah, that's true, right? I mean, of course, I love harmony, at least, especially with the ones that I love, right? But I will not go out of a conflictious situation only because it could create peace in a way that I thought is like, you know, when I get into conflict, I mean, be it on a personal level, if I want to argue with my partner, I argue. He does not always like it, but we argue, right? Or I argue, let's say it like that. But if I believe that something in a professional environment is not yet at the level that we have solved the conflict, the issue, the challenge, I will not let go. Am I a pain in the neck? Yes I am. Am I a challenge to people? Yes I am. The important thing is for me that I understand that I respect the limits of others to say okay we haven't figured it out yet but we let it go for now.

Jon Clifton:
[3:49] Now when you first took strengths you mentioned that many on your team had taken it at exactly the same time. Can you talk about what that experience was like and what it meant to you to learn the top five of your colleagues as well?

Janina Kugel:
[4:03] The thing is like when you work in the HR field, most probably people have all done that sort of test, right? It's not like the biggest surprise if you do that for the very first time. But I realized, for example, there was a person in the team that was very, very strong in Ideation. And I always got along with the person very well, right? For me, it was like a creativity that the person brought to the place that I knew that others actually were kind of like sometimes wondering and getting impatient, why the heck is that person speaking about this and that? And I always thought it was inspiring.

Having done the strength tests, I understood that for me, it was just like Input, right? It was more ideas and more visionary ideas and things from a world that I had not even been thinking about. And I thought, ah, this is the way that we can actually put it together. So it had a meaning to me. It didn't have a meaning to everyone else. But then, you know, building that bridge from where we were now today with the problems, with the challenges, with the current situation, to making a bridge for everyone else to understand why that person was speaking about something completely different, suddenly became a meaning. And it remembered, I mean, it was like something for me that I remember, I understood that aha moment, why it is important to bring different people to the scene and why it is important that you're not having people that are just like you. I always call them the mini-mes because that's the most pleasant thing to do as a manager, as a leader. You just like surround yourself with people that are thinking the way that you do, that are laughing about the same jokes, maybe have the same background. But eventually for the work that you're doing, it doesn't become better because no one is challenging the other one. But if you bring together people with different opinions, different perspectives, and also different strength, then suddenly the entire piece that you need to create becomes much better.

Jon Clifton:
[5:51] So one of the philosophies that you are well-known for, it's something that you've shared in a number of speeches that you used in your leadership at Siemens, is this idea of the power of being different. Can you talk more about what that is?

Janina Kugel:
[6:04] Yeah, you know, I mean, the business world, I mean, most of my career I did in Europe, right, or in the U.S. So most of the people here that are in career positions are white men. And so the thing is, like, by definition, being a black woman already puts you out, right? I mean, it's like you're very often, you're one of the only ones and all of that. And I think there's a lot of people that can actually relate to that. So now there's two chances, I would say. It's like you can speak about it and say, oh, this is so bad, and I always feel so lonely, etc. etc., which is also true to some time. But then I always figured out that this is actually putting me in a position of strength, of like not always being per definition part of a group. And having said that, only because you are white and male, that doesn't mean that you are alike, right? It doesn't mean that you share a lot of comment, but I mean at the first look you would say, okay, it's all, they're all the same.

But understanding that by having different perspectives, having gone through different things, I actually learned that this is very more powerful. And so that is why in that talk that you're referring to, I said it's like being different actually can bring out a lot of strength that you don't even know that you have. And that was the thing that I most probably had realized already when I was smaller, when I was little, you know, even as a kid. My parents also taught me certain things. But I didn't realize until long in my career that it actually became a very powerful weapon. So to make it more explicit, when you are in an HR function, you're also in the situation, at least I was, where you need to restructure. So you need to lay off people. You need to have, in Europe, you need to lead negotiations with unions about like how many job camps you do. And that is per se not something where people like you, obviously. Who wants to lose a job?

But some people take that very, very personal. You know, when then, for example, there is attacks from the employees or when people are saying it's like, you know, they write bad things about you and all of that. I always could make a differentiation. They are writing not about me. They are not writing about Janina, the person. They are writing about my role. And rightly so. It was a theater of Siemens that said we have to, you know, cut costs and we have to close certain sites and all of that. And being able to make the differentiation and being able to understand that only because not being part of the larger group that is liked and being maybe in an let me call it in a weirder position being an outsider for that moment, it didn't did it matter of course it's not nice but it did not harm me and I saw a lot of managers not only in my own company or my former company but also somewhere else that took it very personally. So coming back to when you are different and you very often are the outside of a group, you learn how to cope with that and suddenly that becomes a strength because if there is moments when you have to take certain business decisions and you become an outsider and you become the not liked person that is not going to kill you now.

Jon Clifton:
[9:06] Now, you and I have talked a lot about Arranger, somebody who has an unusual ability to coordinate. But it's also mixed with Input as you mentioned you're not just an ideas collector it's also a people collector and then mixed with Strategic, which is being able to put together a very advanced plan. But as you think about all three of those, a lot of times people use them in amazing ways with teams, but you did it at scale. How?

Janina Kugel:
[9:28] I believe that a lot of people have a lot of strength that you don't use in companies. So remember the old world, there's job description. Dear Jon, we have been hiring you for this. This is a skill set we need you to perform. But there's so much more about you. But most of the times no one asks you to bring those things into your professional life that you're capable of, that you're interested of. And it's not only skills, it's also the abilities and the strength that you're having. But if you give people a space and allowing them to give their meaningful contribution with whatever they can bring to the table to make it happen, then I don't actually think it's a, it's not complicated.

And I don't, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to use the word empower, because that means it's like you give power, you give the power to someone to bring their expertise and to bring their strength beforehand. You never ask them to do that. But it's not that they need to be empowered, they just can be themselves. And that is what I have always been a strong believer in it. Now there's many of moments where you cannot be who you are, you know, in certain environments. I mean, it's, you know, in formal meetings, you will be formally dressed and you will not say certain things, or in other meetings, blah, blah, blah. But the moment is, or the understanding is, that there is so much more to people that we usually see at work. And I think if you allow them to grow and to flourish, that is how things work at scale.

Jon Clifton:
[11:06] You've talked about how Input is one of the things that has guided this philosophy of yours, that when there are employees at an organization that rather than just being proficient in microeconomics, they should also be proficient in macroeconomics. Can you talk a little bit more about that philosophy and potentially how Input may have sort of guided that approach to doing business?

Janina Kugel:
[11:29] I mean, it's 2023. And I would say is like most people would agree to that the challenges that organizations have, businesses, companies have due to geopolitical situation, I mean to economic situations, to societal changes, whatever, are influencing the way that they're making business dramatically, right? I mean so think about like two countries don't agree that you can actually sell certain things, there is, you know, and suddenly a market actually disappears, etc., etc., wars going on. Now if people only focus on their microeconomics, so on their tasks, on their company, and they don't understand much about what's going on. So one of the questions that I always ask young leaders is, do you read the newspaper every day? And if you do, which section do you read? And unfortunately, many of them don't read a newspaper, right? I'm not saying which one, but A.

And secondly, many of them never read the political part. They read the business section, but they never read about inner politics and, you know, foreign politics and all of that. And hardly ever, people from the business world also read the feuilleton, which is part of, like, theater and art and, you know, everything like that. And I believe that this is limiting your world. You might be an excellent salesperson, but if you don't understand the macroeconomics, you never understand what's really happening with your people. You never understand what's happening in the global world. And the next thing is like, you know, there is things that the business world can learn from the world of art. There is different perspective and different approaches. So if you spend these 30, 40 minutes a day, right, the feuilleton can be read in the evening. I mean, that's not running away. It's nothing that you need to know early in the morning before you start your workday. And I think it gives you different perspectives and different ideas. And here we again come to collecting ideas, collecting different approaches from different worlds in different countries and bring it all together to get the best out of everything.

Jon Clifton:
[13:34] If someone were first starting in their strengths journey and they learned that they had Input in their top five, what advice would you have for them?

Janina Kugel:
[13:41] Keep on collecting ideas because I think the strength phase is like ultimately it's that's way how you are. Who are you? You know, what is driving you? What is inspiring you? But I think in a normal career, in a normal organization, people get rewarded for different things. You get rewarded for how well you have been performing your job, whether you brought the KPIs that were expected you to bring either sales or, I don't know, development, just depending on your job. But you're very seldomly rewarded for thinking out of the box, for bringing in new ideas. It takes a while, you know, if you have a good boss, then people, you know, he or she will be happy to actually collect more ideas. But usually in the mainstream performance management, that is actually not considered. But if you go through that phase and you get into a role where exactly that makes you be much better because you understand the vision, because you understand what's happening in the world, and you can create something that is much bigger than what you are today, and that's much bigger than what the company is today, then this actually will be very meaningful.

So I would say is live with the fact that not every of your strengths is awarded by others, but keep on doing, because eventually you will figure out that it's worth it. And maybe it's also a moment that you might actually believe and understand that you are in the wrong place. Because coming back to what you asked me earlier, bring your whole self to work, where I said, well, I mean, it's normal not to show everything that maybe is in your brain, in your head, you know, what is, who is you. But I believe that there is places for everyone. There's organizations where we are a better fit than others. But it sometimes also needs some time to figure out who am I? Who do I want to be? What am I capable of? And honestly also the part I am not good at ABC, and I'm not even actually so interested to learn ABC. And if you understand that and if you have that self-reflection about yourself, I mean first you tell yourself and you admit yourself what you're good at and what you're not good at. But then you're even like on a higher level. You're not only telling yourself that you're also admitting that to others, right, and by admitting to others then if you think about like who is the best team, then you understand that you need to bring in people that are different than you, that have different strength and different capabilities. It's kind of like you know like cogs you know linking together and if you do that then it makes the best engine it actually makes it brings in the best drive. And for that reflection, understanding, and being able to communicate about that I think is the essential part.

Jon Clifton:
[16:39] To be an effective communicator, with Communication being your number three, one of the most important things is not just getting the message right, but also knowing your audience. What advice would you have for those that have Communication in order to best understand their audience?

Janina Kugel:
[16:58] That is a very difficult one because I think understanding your audience means is you kind of like you need to get out of yourself. Just like imagine you know here you are as a person but for a very moment, you know, you need to try to put yourself in the shoes of the audience, right, and understand it's like what are they in. So for example at conferences when you speak before lunch or after lunch it's a horrible you know it's a horrible slot. So think about like you know what do they want or what I said also earlier if you have bad messages or good messages, you know, what is it that people are expecting you? And I think this is a very powerful part of understanding not only what you want to send, but what is the receiving part. And if you receive a message and you are in a certain whatever mindset, in a certain atmosphere, you will perceive certain things differently than in others.

Yeah. And I think it's like, this is of course now, I mean, it doesn't mean that you can do that on a day-to-day basis, but I think if you are aware of certain situations, then you know when to communicate what, when to better be silent. Now, am I capable of doing that all the time? No. Especially maybe just like, you know, with my kids I definitely say sometimes things that I think is like it would have been much better to say it at a different time or a different voice or just like not being angry or something like that. But having that reflection also to learn from that and to understand that maybe next time you do it differently. I think this is what makes effective communication, and for me you know there is many things that I could watch you know I mean or many things that I could read.

But if they are, if I have the feeling, you know, watching maybe a talk show or something like that. If I'm sitting there and maybe there's interesting things that people say, but it doesn't mean anything to me, you know. I don't, you know, it doesn't really come, I can't relate to what they're talking about. It's maybe in a way that I think is like, this is an awful way to have that communication. And I think we all do know that. Then I stop listening. I might be still watching it, but I stop listening and I will not memorize it. So the effective communication is like, do it in a way, tell a story so people can remember that. I'm sure that we have all had that experience that we're sitting somewhere and someone is giving a lecture, giving a speech and whatever, and we actually think it's super entertaining, even laugh or whatever. But then a day later, if someone asks you, so what did that person to say, you don't remember anything.

So that's the part that you can learn if you are on stage, like having like three messages, pack it into a story, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, it's hard training. Even if you are talented, that's something that you really need to train. But okay, it's possible to make it. But communication does not only happen in these formal meetings. Communication happens in everyday interaction. The moment that you speak to someone, I mean, it's communication what we're doing here. So the thing is like you cannot train that, you cannot stage it. You need to understand, how can I reach a person's mind? How can I say things that the person will remember that? And for me it is I remember things that created an emotion with me you know. It could be joy, it could be unhappiness, so I also sometimes connected with I was ... you know for example if you would ask one of my former assistants, she said, there's an email or something like that. Have we ever seen it? And I would say, yeah, yeah. I remember that I was answering to that person. And I guess it was on my way flying to wherever. That must have been an autumn of that in that year. And she said, 99% of the times, you were right. Because I remembered. I had a scenario in my case. I remembered what was happening around me. I remembered the stage that I was in. And so I remembered the story.

Jon Clifton:
[21:07] Now, you've talked about effective communication especially through stories, understanding your audience, but you've successfully communicated in giving speeches, meaning in front of live audiences, but also through the written word. Do you do anything different between those two because both are very important for leaders to do?

Janina Kugel:
[21:26] The thing with the writing is it's a fun story. So as you mentioned I wrote a book and it wasn't that I always had the idea to write a book right? But it was that someone approached me and said, don't you think that everything that you're saying on stage, it was someone, it was a, you know, an agent who actually, you know, who was attending a conference that I was speaking to. And he said, it would be so powerful if you write things down. And I looked at him and said, well, I mean, it's like, you know, I can speak, but I can't write. And he said, people that can speak can learn how to write. And it was a long journey. No, I'm not an author, right? So I will never be writing as good as a journalist or at least never as fast. But, and I'm always happy if I write a piece, if there's someone who is a trained writer, right? It's like, you know, does a little bit of wordsmithing and improves everything. But what I learned is taking an idea, and that's the difference between writing and saying, if you are saying something, you can say, yeah, maybe like this or maybe like that. You don't have to really say what you really mean. But if you write things down, you have to make a decision A or B. And I think that is also kind of like organizing your brain. You have to take a decision and you have to write it down.

And so that was a huge learning for me to do it in the way. And then another thing that actually came very much, I would say more, I didn't intend to do it like that. The things that I wrote down, it's pretty much like it's a book about how we work. It's about diversity, interaction, work-life balance, leadership management, everything that we actually do at work. So I was telling the stories of people that did that, all of the people that I met in my professional life when I was a youngster, when I was at university, up to the point that I was a leader, where I interacted with people, where people created something that I believe it's worth to tell their story. Because a lot of people think you need to be a superstar to create something. You need to have like, I don't know, an Ivy League education to create something big. But it's not true.

It is who you are, who do you actually bring together, what is your idea, and how can you make it happen. Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of professors will hate me for that, but I think it's, I know a lot of people that come from brilliant universities, you know, that I don't think that they're very good at work, but they're doing. And I know people that didn't go to any university, and they're brilliant thinkers. I mean, the person that, for example, at Siemens developed the first series of an HR bot, like AI at the stage when no one spoke about AI. She has an education of 10 years of school, then she did a vocational training, and she was one of the people that said, I always wanted to do more than I did. I always wanted to learn more. I was always interested in new things coming up. And that curiosity that she always had, and that moment that she also understood and that she believed in herself she could do it, even though she does not have a college degree. I think that created also a spirit where a lot of people said, oh, I can become part of that as well.

So I think this is, and again, we come back to that relating. If someone is telling something extremely interesting, but you believe, I could never be like him or like her. Are you relating to that? No, it's more like a fairy tale story, you know, like the princess or the prince or whatever and you don't see how that actually connects with your own life. But if someone tells a story where you believe I might not be like that person but there's something that is very similar oh yeah I had that feeling as well. Oh yes that's an experience that I did as well. You feel more connected. You will rely to that and I think that's the way that people start moving.

Jon Clifton:
[25:28] Janina, thank you for your partnership and thank you for your leadership. Your philosophy on the power of being different is something that highly aligns with our strengths philosophy and also something that's really inspirational to all of us here at Gallup. So thank you.

Janina Kugel:
[25:41] Thank you for having me.

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