Their success is our success, with Nils Stieglitz, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm really excited to announce that we're going to have a five part web based series called from stress to success. These sessions are going to have lots of discussion about these areas and again, really practical things that one put together create a great path towards not just surviving, but thriving in challenging times. The topics are managing burnout and emotional labor, thrive, having through long term stress, protecting your sleep, creating spaces of vulnerability for yourself and your team, and finally, energy management. The conversation about mental health has never been more open than it is now, and we have an opportunity to go even further with that. I think back to my time as a therapist and sometimes it felt like we had the secret combination that could really help people that really wasn't being broadcasted out to enough. So why don't we take this next step together? Please follow the link and I hope you'll join us. [00:01:01] Speaker B: We have to make sure that people find our school accommodating, that we are. [00:01:08] Speaker C: Also willing to constantly adapt so that. [00:01:12] Speaker B: We also forcefully embrace this idea that. [00:01:15] Speaker C: We are not a german institution, but. [00:01:17] Speaker B: That we are an international institution. [00:01:19] Speaker A: That was a clip from today's guest, everyone. This is an awesome interview. It's with someone that I really respect as a professional, as a leader, and also someone that I consider a friend. It's interesting in the business world because sometimes you hear that term, it's like, it's not personal, it's business. I disagree with that. I think you can say it's personal and it's business because we spend so much of our time working, dedicated to our careers, building on these ideas, these things we're passionate about. How could it not be personal? And that personal part, that really heart led part, is what I like so much about today's guest. So this is a really cool interview with someone that I think has so much to say about being a business leader, but also just being a person trying to do cool things in the world. But before we get to it, please rate, review and subscribe. My name is Aram Arslanian and this is one step beyond. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Welcome to the show. [00:02:38] Speaker C: Thanks everyone. Thanks for having me. [00:02:40] Speaker A: So, for the uninitiated, for those who don't know, who are you and what do you do? [00:02:45] Speaker C: So my name is Neil Stielitz. I'm a professor of strategy, a strategy in business, and I'm also the CEO. [00:02:51] Speaker B: And president of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. [00:02:54] Speaker C: And that's a private business school here in Germany. [00:02:57] Speaker A: In Frankfurt, obviously, what's the difference between being a president and CEO and being a dean? [00:03:05] Speaker C: I think that's a great question. Right? A dean has operational responsibility for all the academic matters of a university or department. [00:03:13] Speaker B: At a university, a president is the. [00:03:16] Speaker C: Ultimate representative of a university. And the CEO has to call the shots when it comes to some of the business decisions. And I think what's very special about. [00:03:24] Speaker B: Frankfurt school is that the role of. [00:03:27] Speaker C: The president and of the CEO is. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Actually combined in one person. [00:03:32] Speaker D: Right. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Because, I mean, that is something that. [00:03:35] Speaker C: Is pretty unusual for higher education institutions. [00:03:39] Speaker A: You also mentioned being president of Strat or a professor of strategy. Do you still teach? [00:03:45] Speaker C: I sometimes teach. I'm going to give a guest lecture tomorrow in our MBA cast because I really love teaching. But it's very, very difficult to do both things, right. Because if you want to do a good job at teaching, you really have to prepare. You really have to make sure that you are up to standards. And I tried this during the first. [00:04:04] Speaker B: Year of my presidency, but it was. [00:04:06] Speaker C: Very, very difficult because it wasn't this meeting that ended at 01:00 and then I had to go down to the classroom, start at 115, start teaching. And you constantly were thinking about, okay, this could actually be time that you have to spend on some of the. [00:04:19] Speaker B: More pressing problems, right? [00:04:21] Speaker C: So when I became president, I first of all made a conscious decision to stop my research. I was very much into research. This is something that I really enjoyed. But back then, my intellectual mentor already told me, Neil, nobody's going to care. [00:04:36] Speaker B: About your next strategic management journal. [00:04:38] Speaker C: That also tell me very clearly you. [00:04:41] Speaker B: Have to shift your priorities. [00:04:43] Speaker C: And that unfortunately, also happened to my teaching. So I'm giving lectures, I'm giving off the cuff talks that I really enjoy. I really enjoy being in the classroom. But you have to have your priorities right. [00:04:56] Speaker A: I want to come back to being a professor that shift from being in the classroom and doing research into being leading an organization, because that's such a cool part of your story. Let's focus on the school first. So you talked about being a private institution. So for the listeners, what's the difference between a public and a private institution? And what would be the benefits of a private one? [00:05:17] Speaker C: So a public institution, a public university is essentially funded by taxpayers'money. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Right? [00:05:22] Speaker C: And that's especially true for Germany because the entire higher education landscape is heavily. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Influenced and dominated by public universities, right? In Germany, your university study is also tuition free. [00:05:40] Speaker C: Right? You don't have to pay a tuition. [00:05:41] Speaker B: For it, but it's entirely funded by the taxpayer. [00:05:45] Speaker C: A private institution, on the other hand. [00:05:47] Speaker B: Has to earn its keep. [00:05:49] Speaker D: Right? [00:05:50] Speaker C: And we have to earn our keep through tuition, through fees for executive education. [00:05:55] Speaker B: For a consulting business, and so on. What's the difference? [00:05:59] Speaker C: The difference is that we have to earn our keep every year in the marketplace, right. And with that, we have to, I mean, really be agile that we really have to focus on. [00:06:08] Speaker D: Okay. [00:06:08] Speaker C: How can we develop the best programs in the world? [00:06:11] Speaker B: And I think that's not true for public universities. [00:06:14] Speaker C: They can lay back a little bit more. [00:06:16] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:06:16] Speaker A: So you have to be kind of sharpening your axe. Always, like, kind of being at the cutting edge, creating something cool that's meeting the need now versus just kind of. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Being a legacy entity. Absolutely right. [00:06:26] Speaker C: And I think we also have to. [00:06:28] Speaker B: Focus on the current needs, but also. [00:06:31] Speaker C: Very much on the future needs. Right. Because if you think about, I mean, disruption, for example, in the marketplace, in the business space, right. Public institutions are very much shielded from. [00:06:41] Speaker B: This, at least in the medium term. [00:06:43] Speaker C: We, on the other hand, have to start ask questions, for example, how artificial intelligence is going to affect higher education. [00:06:51] Speaker B: Right now, because that is something that. [00:06:54] Speaker C: Might undermine our entire business model. So there's a really, really important difference. [00:06:58] Speaker B: Here between public and private universities. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Why business school? Why would someone go to a business school specifically versus any other kind of school? [00:07:07] Speaker C: Well, that's a good question. Right? [00:07:09] Speaker B: I mean, I think that was not necessarily my calling. [00:07:12] Speaker C: I think that's a wrong framing. It's a little bit about my own personal history, basically, right? I mean, I started out, I mean, when I was a high school kid. [00:07:21] Speaker B: I was really interested in history. I was really into politics, but I. [00:07:27] Speaker C: Understood that in order to understand politics, you really have to understand economics. [00:07:32] Speaker B: So I bought a book, a textbook. [00:07:34] Speaker C: On economics, and I opened it, and. [00:07:36] Speaker A: It was all mathematics. [00:07:37] Speaker B: And I thought, oh, shit, you're never. [00:07:39] Speaker C: Going to read this, right? On your own. You probably have to study this. So I started out studying economics and political science side by side, and then at one point, I dropped the political science part. Economics had such a huge impact on politics, on society, and I think I wanted to understand this. So why then at business school, right? [00:08:01] Speaker B: Because at one point, I really got. [00:08:04] Speaker C: Interested in this big topic that was actually my research question when I was still on the faculty. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Why doesn't competition die out? [00:08:12] Speaker D: Right? [00:08:13] Speaker C: Karl Marx, back in the 19th century, sorry, said that capitalism is going to get rid of itself because all the markets are going to get monopolized. You are seeing the same discussion with. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Big tech nowadays, but that never happened, right? [00:08:28] Speaker C: Because, I mean, these big incumbent companies, like radio Corporation of America or Eastman. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Kotak, they were blown out of the. [00:08:35] Speaker C: Water by startup companies or by other companies coming out from under industries. And I found that extremely fascinating. I think it's a really fascinating question. And that is what I wanted to understand better. [00:08:48] Speaker B: And this is how I ended up. [00:08:50] Speaker C: Essentially in business and business administration at a business school. [00:08:54] Speaker A: It's so interesting coming from North America, because most north american schools, you're paying for everything no matter what. I love so much that people have the option here to have a publicly funded education, but then there's an option like this school. So when someone could go to a public institution, why would they choose to come here instead? [00:09:17] Speaker B: I think part of the reason, or. [00:09:19] Speaker C: A major part of the reason is. [00:09:20] Speaker B: That the success of our graduates is our success, right? [00:09:23] Speaker C: I mean, that is what the school essentially is all about. We want to educate them in the. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Way that they are going to later. [00:09:30] Speaker C: On succeed in their career, whatever that career is going to be, right. Whether that is in business, whether this. [00:09:36] Speaker B: Is in government, whether it's in ngos, whatever, right? [00:09:40] Speaker C: Because if they are successful, first of all, they're going to talk about us and say, hey, that was such a great experience, right? [00:09:46] Speaker B: This really opened up doors for me. [00:09:48] Speaker C: But second, I mean, this is also. [00:09:49] Speaker B: What we are seeing. [00:09:51] Speaker C: Our graduates, our alumni are very active, contributing to the school. [00:09:57] Speaker B: They're doing lectures with us. [00:09:59] Speaker C: They are mentoring our students. They're opening doors in the companies that. [00:10:02] Speaker B: They'Re working for, right? So by the end of the day. [00:10:06] Speaker C: Frankfurt school is a community. It's a vibrant, international community. [00:10:09] Speaker B: And that's not what you find at. [00:10:11] Speaker C: A public university here. [00:10:13] Speaker A: Going further into this idea, you know, that idea that the concept of, like, if you have to pay for something, you're a bit more invested in it, versus if you get something for free, maybe you take it a bit for. And, you know, I don't want to generalize that about people's school experience, but I think if I had had the option to go to school for free, because when I finished school, I had a mountain of student loan debt. And that really in North America, that's what you're going to be looking at. If I had the option to go for free versus paying for something. If I paid for something, I probably would have taken it quite serious right off the hop. I would have been a very picky shopper about where I'm going to go, and I would have high expectations of my experience. When I was walking through the campus today, when you're taking Monica and I through the like, our minds were blown. This is a very beautiful campus, very student focused. Everything from having these soundproof rooms so that you could do these meetings and having these special places where you can do phone calls. Still these beautiful flex spaces, it really has the sense of a place where you're like, this is built for you so that you could be successful here. I don't know if. I mean, I certainly didn't experience that at university, and I paid for university, but I didn't experience that back home. [00:11:28] Speaker C: Well, thank you for noticing. I think that's really important. Right. It's also this caring part and this caring about excellence part. Right. And I think this is constant struggle. I mean, you're mentioning the campus, right. I mean, this is something that we have to actively work on, that it stays student friendly, that we are also keeping that quality each and every day. [00:11:48] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:50] Speaker C: That's really important. [00:11:51] Speaker A: Well, so much of the throughline of what we've talked about, and you voiced it, but also I noticed it A-A-I haven't had any experience in public institutions in Europe. This is my experiences solely in North America and then this school here. But the idea of caring is a through line here. So when you and I have done our professional work together and then being here on camera, kind of getting ready for the interview, there's a real intentionality about everything and like a real passion about what you do. And I don't know if I've ever really experienced that in a post secondary setting like this. It's really inspiring to be here. [00:12:35] Speaker C: Okay, thanks. We are trying very hard. [00:12:37] Speaker A: So if you're thinking about from experiential point of view, you can say things like, oh, caring is important here, but you as a leader and as an organization, how do you instill that in the experience? You can want it to be, but you can want everyone to act with caring so that students have this incredible experience. But how do you actually make it so that it's such a part of the DNA of this organization? [00:13:01] Speaker C: I think a big chunk of that is communication, right. That you have to say the same things again and again and again, even if you are tired of it. Right. [00:13:11] Speaker B: I think this was also a big learning for me. [00:13:14] Speaker C: It's something that I heavily underestimated at. [00:13:16] Speaker B: The beginning of my term. [00:13:18] Speaker D: Right. [00:13:19] Speaker C: I thought, okay, if I had said something once, people are going to get. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Bored if they hear it two or. [00:13:24] Speaker C: Three times, but you have to repeat things again and again to make the point. [00:13:28] Speaker B: I think that's the first thing. [00:13:29] Speaker C: The second thing is that you have to also lead by example. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:34] Speaker C: I think that's also, you have to be a good role model for things. [00:13:37] Speaker B: So you also have to have this attention of detail to your own work. [00:13:41] Speaker D: Right. [00:13:42] Speaker C: This focus, and I think that's important. And third, I mean, we just mentioned this this morning. I think it's also about how you onboard your staff, how you onboard your team members, right. [00:13:53] Speaker B: That we spend some time thinking about. [00:13:56] Speaker C: Okay, how can we get across what. [00:13:58] Speaker B: Frankfurt school is all about, right. [00:14:00] Speaker C: In a formal way, but also in an informal way, like, for example, running a reception for all the new employees that we have here so that they. [00:14:07] Speaker B: Get exposed to, well, how we work and how we roll. [00:14:11] Speaker A: When we've been walking through the school really talked about the evolution and how it has truly, I know evolution is like such a term that's thrown around in all businesses, but this really has evolved and grown quite a bit. Can you tell us, just give us a brief overview of the history, but really specifically focusing on the past few years and how things have developed. [00:14:30] Speaker C: Absolutely. I mean, we sometimes come across as a very young institution, but we were actually founded back in the 1950s, back then as a banking academy. [00:14:39] Speaker B: And the whole point was that back. [00:14:41] Speaker C: Then banking was very non academic. So you wanted to train people on the job as they progressed in their career. [00:14:48] Speaker B: And we offered the courses for exactly such a career path. [00:14:52] Speaker C: Right. [00:14:53] Speaker B: We did this extremely successfully all the. [00:14:56] Speaker C: Way up to the financial cris by the end of the day. [00:14:59] Speaker D: Right. [00:14:59] Speaker C: During the financial crisis, it became very, very clear that there's a massive strategy. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Shift also in the financial industry, that. [00:15:07] Speaker C: Academic reputation, academic education is becoming more important also that the financial industry is becoming less dependent on having many, many jobs, for example. [00:15:19] Speaker D: Right. [00:15:19] Speaker C: And then we started to shift gear. So in the 90s, we already founded a very small academic institution, just focusing on banking. And then after the financial crisis, we. [00:15:30] Speaker B: Really said, okay, given some of these. [00:15:33] Speaker C: Developments in our business environment, if we want to survive in the long term, we have to become a full blown. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Business school that not just offers finance. [00:15:41] Speaker C: But also management and that really on a top level. [00:15:44] Speaker B: And that has been our journey so far. [00:15:47] Speaker C: And part of that journey was, I. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Mean, the new campus here in the. [00:15:51] Speaker C: Middle of Frankfurt, we have a so. [00:15:53] Speaker B: Called triple Crown accredited institution. [00:15:57] Speaker C: That means that we have all the relevant international accreditation for business schools, ACSB, ICWIS and UmbA. That's also kind of like a sign of our excellence, hiring a lot of faculty during these years, and we have really grown quite a bit. [00:16:11] Speaker A: And you have quite a large international body as well, right? [00:16:14] Speaker D: Yes. [00:16:15] Speaker C: I mean, in our master's programs, right. 50% of our students come from abroad. Undergraduate level, it's smaller, it's around 10%. But that's because of some regulation here in Germany that in the past restricted our ability to attract international students. [00:16:32] Speaker B: But that has now changed. [00:16:34] Speaker C: And we are also going to see. [00:16:35] Speaker B: More international students also in our undergrad form. [00:16:40] Speaker C: And I think that's part of the business school, right? [00:16:42] Speaker B: That you have folks from all over. [00:16:45] Speaker C: The world that you have this diversity and you celebrate this diversity and also. [00:16:49] Speaker B: This understanding that business should know no borders. And I think that insight is truly important nowadays if you look around yourself. [00:17:00] Speaker A: Let's shift over to you. So you were not setting out to be the president and CEO of high school? [00:17:07] Speaker C: No, not at all. I never planned a management career. Basically, right. Back when I was studying, I wanted to become a journalist. So I did some tv shows and tv documentaries, for example, on hardcore in the 1990s in Germany, and some other things. But then I started to become more attracted to the business side of things. So I also dabbled with being a business consultant, being an assistant to a general manager in a media company. [00:17:39] Speaker B: But then I got this possibility to pursue a PhD, right? [00:17:44] Speaker C: And I thought, okay, that's really nice because it's essentially an extension of your university study. And back then my professor told me, I think that was the first day on the job. [00:17:52] Speaker B: Never think about joining an academic career, right? [00:17:56] Speaker C: It's way too competitive, very, very difficult to land a job. Do your PhD for three years and. [00:18:02] Speaker B: Then you go back to industry. [00:18:04] Speaker C: Problem was that during those three years, the industry that I was interested in, that was a media industry was rapidly declining because of the Internet and advertisement shifting over to Google. And at the same time, I really started to enjoy the research part and really enjoyed the teaching part. [00:18:20] Speaker B: And I thought, damn, that could be. [00:18:23] Speaker C: A very nice career for you, right? So I was really focused on this. And even just a year before I became president, I said to my students. [00:18:31] Speaker B: I mean, being a professor is the. [00:18:33] Speaker C: Best job that you can have because you have all the freedom, you have all the possibilities, and there are all these different paths that you can take. And I think, for example, teaching, interacting with young people, it's so rewarding, right? [00:18:45] Speaker B: And also it's so rewarding to see. [00:18:49] Speaker C: How they are going to develop later on, right? So I take a lot of pleasure out of meeting some of my former. [00:18:54] Speaker B: Students and observing how they have developed. [00:18:57] Speaker C: And what kind of insight they gain from my classes. [00:18:59] Speaker B: And that's truly rewarding. [00:19:01] Speaker A: Let's take a step back. Where did you grow up? [00:19:05] Speaker C: Oh, I grew up in a very small village all the way up in the north, in Germany, in Schlesich Holstein. That's north of Hamburg. [00:19:12] Speaker B: So very small town, right? [00:19:14] Speaker C: With farms and a beach, but not much else. And I always wanted to live in. [00:19:20] Speaker B: A much, much larger city. I wanted to get out. [00:19:23] Speaker A: What did you think you were going to do when you were a kid? [00:19:27] Speaker C: Actually, there is actually this little booklet from primary school where I said, I think it was third or fourth grade. [00:19:38] Speaker B: That I want to be a professor. [00:19:40] Speaker C: Chemistry back then. It is literally like this. It is like this. I wanted to be a professor. [00:19:46] Speaker D: Yes. [00:19:46] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:47] Speaker C: I think I was always drawn to. [00:19:48] Speaker B: This idea that you get paid for thinking. [00:19:51] Speaker C: I think that is something that I always found extremely attractive and that you. [00:19:56] Speaker B: Also get to interact with all these. [00:20:00] Speaker C: Interesting people, that you have this global community. [00:20:03] Speaker D: Right. [00:20:06] Speaker B: And that you are doing creative stuff. [00:20:08] Speaker C: I think this is what already was a draw from me in primary school. As you can see, I mentioned this, then it started to shift it a little bit, right. [00:20:16] Speaker B: I tried out various things, but I. [00:20:20] Speaker C: Always came back to this idea that I'm actually attracted to doing academic things. [00:20:24] Speaker A: That's amazing, because also part of your story is that you came up in subculture, you came up in skateboarding, you came up in music. So how did that find you coming from such a small town? And pre Internet, I think. [00:20:39] Speaker C: I mean, that was when I got exposed to the much wider world, right? So when I was all the way up to 10th grade, I was really a role playing geek, right? So I was playing chess. I was doing role playing on Friday and Saturday. [00:20:52] Speaker D: Yes. [00:20:53] Speaker C: So I was the nerd. And then I spent a year in the United States. And this is where I got, I mean, I saw all these cool skateboard kits and all the cool. [00:21:02] Speaker B: And, I mean, since I was an. [00:21:05] Speaker C: Unknown person in that context, I thought. [00:21:08] Speaker B: Okay, this is an opportunity to start. [00:21:10] Speaker C: To live a different side of what has always been in me, right? [00:21:15] Speaker B: So I bought a skateboard. [00:21:17] Speaker C: I started to skate. I was never very good at it. [00:21:19] Speaker B: I have to say, but I got. [00:21:22] Speaker C: Drawn into this entire subculture, right? So I bought the Thresher magazine. I found out about all these musics that I've never heard about before, all these cool t shirts. And that is what first attracted me to this, right? And this is also where I came across, I mean, punk rock, hardcore, and these things. I mean, back when I was a mean, you had this impression. Punk rock is all for the people that tear down. I mean, downtown places. I mean, there were all these big. [00:21:49] Speaker B: Riots in Hanover, here in Germany, and so on. [00:21:53] Speaker C: You had this very strange perspective on what punk rock is, that it's completely destructive, that it's live fast, die young. And then I realized, no, there's actually a different side to this. [00:22:06] Speaker B: Right. It's more about rebellion. [00:22:09] Speaker C: It's more about being constructive, trying to be the person that you actually would like to be. [00:22:16] Speaker D: Right. [00:22:16] Speaker C: And that is something that I found very attractive. [00:22:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. When I first started hearing about, like, punk and, well, punk, I didn't know there's a thing called hardcore. When I first started hearing about it as a very young kid, I thought it was a dangerous thing, like a bad thing. And when I was more exposed to it through skateboarding, the ideas of creativity, the liberty to think in different ways, even, like the skateboard graphics and how they could kind of juxtapose death and life together. You'd have all these skulls, but then you'd be out skateboarding and creating all these things and doing these things. The whole thing just catapulted me into a totally different way of thinking. And it's funny that it's kind of encapsulated or it's kind of coded in all this seeming negativity, but when you just get a little bit deeper, it's actually like a very life affirming. [00:23:07] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:23:08] Speaker A: So you were there. You told me something that I didn't know about you when we were chatting. So you were in the Dakotas. You were in South Dakota, was it? [00:23:16] Speaker C: South Dakota? [00:23:17] Speaker A: But you'd already come from kind of quite a small town, and then you went to the Dakotas. So it was similar, but different. [00:23:24] Speaker C: Well, it was a step up, I have to say. Right. Because I come a village, 800 people. [00:23:31] Speaker D: Right. [00:23:31] Speaker C: And there, I think they had a population of around 12,000 people. So that was already a step up for me. Right. And I remember when I got the news, when you have these dreams, I mean, you go to the United States for a. Right. You have all these ideas going to California. Right. Florida. I don't know. Right. So I remember, I mean, how disappointed I was. But then when I arrived there, I really enjoyed it. It was a great time. [00:23:54] Speaker A: It was kind of like a lottery system. You didn't know where you were going to go, and then they told you South Dakota, and you were. [00:23:59] Speaker D: Yes. Yeah. [00:24:00] Speaker C: Initially. Right. Because, I mean, you have no conception of the Midwest if you are in Europe, basically. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Right. [00:24:07] Speaker C: Because your perspective on the United States. [00:24:10] Speaker B: Is driven by Hollywood. [00:24:11] Speaker D: Right. [00:24:12] Speaker C: And yes, you know, mean, the Midwest, but that's because of the cowboy movies. [00:24:17] Speaker B: But that's about it, right? [00:24:19] Speaker C: But I arrived there and I think this is. [00:24:21] Speaker B: I mean, it was, for me, a. [00:24:22] Speaker C: Life changing year, right. Because it opened my mind. [00:24:26] Speaker B: It opened my mind to this understanding how cultures can be very, very different, right. [00:24:31] Speaker C: I think it also helped me to understand how german I am in certain aspects, right. And for me, one of the big. [00:24:39] Speaker B: Things that I learned there was tolerance, right? [00:24:42] Speaker C: And at the same time, going back to this, it really also helped me to develop an identity. I mean, it was a much larger. [00:24:49] Speaker B: City, at least compared to where I grew up. [00:24:53] Speaker C: And they did have these different subcultures, right? They had these skateboard kids, they had. [00:24:57] Speaker B: These hardcore kids and so on. [00:24:59] Speaker C: Of course, they also had the jocks and they also had the role playing nerds. But for me, this was an entirely. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Different world that mean started to really enjoy. And then at the end of my. [00:25:10] Speaker C: Stay, I got to spend more than. [00:25:12] Speaker B: Two months in California because my aunt. [00:25:14] Speaker C: Was staying in North Hollywood at that point. So I also got to hang out in California, and that was obviously amazing. [00:25:20] Speaker A: What were some of the bands you saw? [00:25:21] Speaker C: I mean, I saw in stat. That was my first hardcore show. I saw nirvana. I'm opening up for hole in dinosaur Jr. At the Palladium in Los Angeles way before they became big. [00:25:33] Speaker B: I mean, I went to the whiskey. [00:25:35] Speaker C: And some of the other places, so it was a really great time, right. [00:25:38] Speaker B: Especially after I got exposed to all. [00:25:41] Speaker C: This music before, right. [00:25:42] Speaker B: And that was very influential. [00:25:44] Speaker C: Very influential. [00:25:45] Speaker A: This time I'm very excited you saw Nirvana and Holan Dinosaur Jr. But I'm more excited you saw. This is Stephen Rich. I love you guys. Okay, so you are this kid who had aspirations to be a professor ever since you were quite young. Then you kind of got into the idea of journalism. Eventually you find your path into academia. And what's interesting is you start with this very small experience, like very little town, role playing, nerd, all of those kinds of things. Your words, not mine, get into a bigger subculture. But when you get into academia, you join another subculture, because academia is a very distinct subculture, just like punk and harker is. So now you kind of have these two cultures walking side by side. [00:26:31] Speaker C: Absolutely. I think there's a lot of wisdom to this. I've never thought about this in that way. Right, but it's true. I mean, academia or management scholars, I mean, they also have their codes. [00:26:41] Speaker B: They have their gatherings, right? [00:26:43] Speaker C: They have their networks. They have their rumors. They have their chitchat. And so on. That is something that I really, really enjoyed. Right. That was also a big part that you do have this global community, a global of community of people that you see again and again that you interact with, that you develop ideas with. [00:27:01] Speaker D: Right. [00:27:02] Speaker C: And that is something that I, up to this day, by the end of the day, really, really enjoy. [00:27:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:27:07] Speaker A: So I got to throw out a bit of a challenging question. Both subcultures share something I believe share something in common, which would be a distrust of authority. [00:27:18] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. [00:27:21] Speaker A: So for punk and hardcore, it would be distrust of, like, corporations or the police or the government, anything that would be a controlling body for academia, it would be bosses. It would be the governance of a university or of a college or any of these things. It would be the people who are outside of the classroom making the business decisions. [00:27:44] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:27:45] Speaker A: So you were on one side of the fence at one point. Did you hold those opinions when you were on that side of the fence? [00:27:52] Speaker C: I think I always had a slightly different view on some of these discussions. [00:27:58] Speaker B: Right. So, first of all, authority for me. [00:28:01] Speaker C: Only resides in public institutions. In government institutions, right. So this is something that, intellectually, I really grew up with. And I remember that after the financial Cris, I was in this one public university in Denmark, and I remembered a friend coming up to me just after the Lehman bankruptcy, that he's so happy to be at a public university because you are going to have this job for life. And I always thought I was not opposed to having a lot of uncertainty. But then I read an article in the Economist, right? [00:28:37] Speaker B: And that talked a little bit about. [00:28:39] Speaker C: The state of business schools, how business schools function, and why they, and how they are adapting to the ramifications of the financial Cris. [00:28:49] Speaker B: And the big punchline of this was. [00:28:51] Speaker C: That business schools tend to be an extremely conservative institution. [00:28:54] Speaker B: It's very opposed to innovation. [00:28:58] Speaker C: For example, the big punchline was, I mean, that business schools should be run more like a business and less like a school. And back then, I said, hey, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. [00:29:08] Speaker B: I like this because that's also what. [00:29:10] Speaker C: I'm seeing at public institutions, being run as a school, thereby very conservative and so on. And that always had a lot of appeal to me. So when I started to interact with Frankfurt school, with the former president here, Udo Steffens, my sense was, okay, this is actually a place that is being run like a business and not like a school. And this is something that I really. [00:29:31] Speaker B: Liked, and it also drew me to. [00:29:33] Speaker A: Frankfurt school so you came in as a professor for six years, was it? [00:29:39] Speaker C: I was here at six years. I joined Frankfurt school on the faculty in 2012, and I became president in 2018. [00:29:47] Speaker A: So during this time, the school is growing. It's transforming. It's becoming a different beast than. [00:29:52] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:29:53] Speaker A: And you had no intentions or even thought of being the president? [00:29:57] Speaker D: No. [00:29:58] Speaker A: So how did that opportunity open up for you? [00:30:01] Speaker C: So, I mean, I was asked to join the project team for the new campus project here. And obviously I thought, okay, that's a very nice opportunity. [00:30:11] Speaker D: Right. [00:30:11] Speaker B: When do you have the opportunity to. [00:30:14] Speaker C: Be able to help design such a new building, right. That also, 30 years down the road, you can look at and say, okay, I've been part of that story. [00:30:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:23] Speaker C: So this is something that appealed to me, and this is, I think, why folks got interested in some of my perspective, things that I said there. The former president announced that he's going to retire. He's been in this job for 25. [00:30:36] Speaker B: Years for a very long time, very influential for the school. [00:30:40] Speaker C: And then they approached me and I. [00:30:42] Speaker B: Thought, oh, right, no. [00:30:46] Speaker A: So it was a hard no right off the bat. Did you actually say no at the beginning? [00:30:50] Speaker C: I said no. [00:30:51] Speaker D: Right. [00:30:51] Speaker C: Because, I mean, this was completely outside of everything that so far I had thought about. [00:30:58] Speaker B: But then I started to realize that. [00:31:01] Speaker C: A, this is such a nice opportunity. [00:31:04] Speaker B: To be able to help guide such a school, right. [00:31:08] Speaker C: To be part of a much, much larger story that goes beyond your research, that goes beyond what you do there. [00:31:15] Speaker B: And second, back then, I've been on. [00:31:19] Speaker C: The faculty for being a professor for more than ten years, right. And even longer if you also, I mean, think about the PhD. [00:31:25] Speaker B: At one point, it also started to. [00:31:27] Speaker C: Get a little bit boring. I remember when I got an acceptance letter for some of the top journals. [00:31:32] Speaker B: I was a lot less excited than I was before. [00:31:35] Speaker C: Right, back in the days, the beginning, when you got one of your research. [00:31:40] Speaker B: Pieces accepted, I was really thought, okay. [00:31:44] Speaker C: I'm a master of the universe for the next three to six months, right? [00:31:49] Speaker B: Like, wow, right? [00:31:52] Speaker C: Where's the Nobel Prize? [00:31:54] Speaker B: Right? [00:31:55] Speaker C: And you've done this a couple of times, and then you thought, okay, write check. Another acceptance, another journal paper out there, right? [00:32:02] Speaker B: A job well done. [00:32:03] Speaker C: And I thought, okay, how is this opportunity to really shift your career? So I started to get attracted to this. And I remember I was visiting a very good friend. I mean, that was a conference in Berlin, and we had dinner, and he. [00:32:16] Speaker B: Said, okay, you don't have anything to lose, right. [00:32:19] Speaker C: If you suck or you feel that you don't like the job, you can always step down. You can always go back to faculty. [00:32:25] Speaker D: Right. [00:32:26] Speaker B: And no harm done as long as. [00:32:29] Speaker C: You realize this soon enough, right. Before breaking the schools. [00:32:32] Speaker B: And I thought, that's right. Let's try this out. [00:32:35] Speaker D: Right? [00:32:36] Speaker A: All right, man. I'm going to ask you a tough question. I laugh, though, because I've experienced this myself. You went from something you loved doing, and your passion for teaching and really helping people on their journey and becoming successful is totally evident. Like, you light up when you talk about it. And even when you and I are just chatting one to one, when you talk about your time as a professor, you always totally light up. Then you switch into a leadership role. And not just a leadership role, the leadership role. So you become the person, at the end of the day, who's overseeing the whole organization. As you know, not everyone who's good at one thing is going to be good at the next thing that's attached to it. And as an example, as I've mentioned on the show many times, and as you know, my background is being a therapist. And one of the things that I disliked the most about working as a therapist was working in the not for profit system, because I found that people who are fantastic therapists were terrible leaders. And being good at one thing doesn't make you good at leading the people who do those things. So for you, the shift from being a professor to the president, what was that like for you personally and professionally? [00:33:53] Speaker C: I mean, it was a massive change. [00:33:56] Speaker B: In my entire lifestyle. [00:33:58] Speaker D: Right. [00:33:59] Speaker C: Everything basically changed from more or less one day to the next. [00:34:02] Speaker B: But I think I was very conscious. [00:34:05] Speaker C: About this step because exactly what you just talked about. [00:34:08] Speaker B: It was something that I also talked. [00:34:10] Speaker C: About in my MBA teaching, for example. Right. So I think I had the theoretical understanding of some of the challenges, and. [00:34:20] Speaker B: I also went in there with this very clear idea that this is for you a journey, especially a learning journey. [00:34:27] Speaker D: Right. [00:34:28] Speaker C: So I constantly also tried to, I mean, seek out feedback, understand? [00:34:31] Speaker B: Okay. [00:34:32] Speaker C: How did you actually act in this particular situation? [00:34:34] Speaker B: What went well? [00:34:35] Speaker C: What did not go so well? [00:34:37] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:38] Speaker C: I think this is also some of the feedback that I'm getting from the supervisory report. [00:34:43] Speaker D: Right. [00:34:43] Speaker B: That they are struck by the fact. [00:34:45] Speaker C: How reflective I am about some of these aspects. [00:34:49] Speaker B: And I also went in there with. [00:34:51] Speaker C: This very clear idea that especially at. [00:34:53] Speaker B: The beginning, you are going to make mistakes, right. [00:34:57] Speaker C: And that it's all about, I mean. [00:34:58] Speaker B: Rectifying and then learning from these mistakes. But having said all this, what really helped me was truly this understanding. [00:35:09] Speaker C: If I don't like it or if. [00:35:10] Speaker B: I suck at it, I can always go back. And I think that's a huge difference between a career in the corporate world and a career in academia. [00:35:22] Speaker D: Right. [00:35:22] Speaker C: In the corporate world, if you move. [00:35:25] Speaker B: Up, you cannot step down again. It's very, very difficult, and that helped me a lot. [00:35:30] Speaker C: But I think you need to have this really clear understanding whenever you change that what is going to make you successful or even happy in the next. [00:35:41] Speaker B: Step is not going to be the. [00:35:44] Speaker C: Stuff that made you happy before or successful. [00:35:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you mind if I share a little bit of my story? [00:35:50] Speaker C: Of course. [00:35:51] Speaker A: When I was a therapist, and especially because I came from punk and hardcore and skateboarding, I had this very critical view of leadership. And at the time, I didn't realize were opinions. I had at the time, what I thought were the facts, which is like, I know better than you. I'd always look at my bosses and be like, why are they doing it like this? They should do it like that. Until I became a leader for the first time and I stunk. I was terrible at it. My first leadership role was a mid level management role, and I did the classic things that you do. You try and beat everybody's buddy, you try and be the cool boss. And all the things I did were literally every wrong thing that you could possibly do. And I hated it. I was in that position for less than two years. Couldn't handle it. I thought it changed the way that I think about leadership. It gave me a lot more humility because it was truly probably the first thing I really failed at in my life. And I had a ton of humility about it, but also a lot of insight that being a leader is really hard. And you're learning, but you're learning on a public platform where every single mistake can be microanalyzed and judged by all of the people that you're learning in front of. [00:37:16] Speaker C: I agree. [00:37:16] Speaker D: Right. [00:37:17] Speaker B: And also, what I also found really difficult was I also came to this job with this clear idea that if you're a leader, it's not a popularity contest because you will make unpopular decisions. [00:37:33] Speaker C: That's, by the end of the day. [00:37:34] Speaker B: What you get paid for. [00:37:35] Speaker D: Right. [00:37:36] Speaker C: I mean, there are all these ideas also in our research on the problem solving hierarchy and on and on and on. So I had this very clear idea that when you go in there, you cannot be the body of everyone. [00:37:46] Speaker B: There are going to be people who. [00:37:48] Speaker C: Will not like you, who are not. [00:37:49] Speaker B: Going to appreciate the decisions that you're making, for better or for worse. [00:37:54] Speaker C: And that was also my big fear, right. Coming into this, maybe I just want. [00:37:58] Speaker B: To be popular, right? [00:37:59] Speaker C: Because we talked about the academic community before, and there, I mean, what I really enjoyed was that I was actually suddenly a popular kid in that particular subculture, not just in the sidelines, but right in the middle of this. And this is something that I really enjoyed. [00:38:13] Speaker B: And I always had this nagging doubt, maybe I just want to be popular, right? [00:38:18] Speaker C: And if that's your perspective, if you. [00:38:20] Speaker B: Want to be popular, I think you. [00:38:22] Speaker C: Will find it very difficult to be a good leader. [00:38:27] Speaker A: I think everyone knows you come up with that idea. It's like, oh, you can't be everyone's friend. And as you're saying, it's like the research would tell you this, but there's that human desire to be liked by people. And when you have to come in and make a tough decision, if you have to do simple as something is even as simple as changing schedules, it's a huge, huge thing. [00:38:47] Speaker C: Yes. [00:38:48] Speaker A: So starting from the simplest point of view, you said it was like it really changed your life. How did you, as a person and as a family person, as a professional, and just as, like, a person in the world, how did you cope with that change of lifestyle and that change of responsibility and focus? [00:39:10] Speaker B: First, family was really important for me. [00:39:13] Speaker C: Right. [00:39:13] Speaker B: So also, what I also said was that when I end my tenure, whenever. [00:39:18] Speaker C: That might be, I still want to have a family. So I always try to also have. [00:39:21] Speaker B: A focus on my family there, right. [00:39:24] Speaker C: Spending less time on your hobby, spending less time on other subcultures, really spending. [00:39:29] Speaker B: Time with the family, I think that was very useful for me. [00:39:35] Speaker C: Second, really, I mean, embracing the challenge. I mean, going in there without any regrets. Right. Without any looking back and really embracing this opportunity. And third, I mean, what was also. [00:39:46] Speaker B: A strong motivator for me was essentially enjoying the ride. I think one of the things that. [00:39:51] Speaker C: I said back then, also to some of my friends and also to some. [00:39:54] Speaker B: Of the students, right. I think for me, what makes life. [00:39:57] Speaker C: Interesting is a variance, the change, right? Doing different things. [00:40:01] Speaker B: Because if I think back when was a time that I felt most alive. [00:40:05] Speaker C: There was always a time when there. [00:40:07] Speaker B: Was change in my life, right? A new job, a new town, a new kid, a new house, a new career, right? [00:40:15] Speaker C: And that is what I was looking out for. So I was really looking out for this excitement, also the uncertainty, the anxiety. [00:40:22] Speaker B: But I think that is something that. [00:40:25] Speaker C: Really makes us livable. So going in there, this is really embracing the challenge. [00:40:30] Speaker D: Right. [00:40:31] Speaker B: That's, I think, how I was able. [00:40:33] Speaker C: To cope with this. And the first year in my presidency was really, really tough. I mean, we moved into a new campus. We made a fairly substantial financial loss in my first year of the presidency. [00:40:45] Speaker B: And I had to make some very tough calls. [00:40:51] Speaker C: So after a year, I realized, okay, you do enjoy this, and you are. [00:40:56] Speaker B: Actually also pretty good at this. [00:40:59] Speaker A: What's something that you've learned about yourself through taking on this role that you didn't know before and that you really have come to like about yourself? [00:41:08] Speaker B: That I'm willing to. [00:41:09] Speaker C: That I do have the guts to make tough decisions. [00:41:12] Speaker D: Right. [00:41:13] Speaker C: I remember. [00:41:13] Speaker B: I mean, there was also a discussion. [00:41:15] Speaker C: I mean, when I was at university, I remember talking to some friends back then, right. And I said, I can never be a manager because I can't even decide on what kind of pizza I want to have. [00:41:25] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:25] Speaker A: Which is tough to say. [00:41:29] Speaker C: Right. And that actually stuck with me. Right. I think that was quite important to go in there, being reflective about this. Right. And I also remember I was sitting. [00:41:40] Speaker B: On the subway, and that was very. [00:41:45] Speaker C: I mean, I was writing this process, and it was very close to signing off on the deal to become the president. [00:41:52] Speaker B: And I read an article, I think. [00:41:55] Speaker C: It was in the German Harvard Business. [00:41:57] Speaker B: Review, written by Jeffrey Pfeffer. [00:41:59] Speaker C: And he said, okay, everything that you learn about leadership is wrong. [00:42:03] Speaker D: Right. [00:42:03] Speaker C: You don't have to build trust. [00:42:05] Speaker D: Right. [00:42:05] Speaker C: You have to cheat people. You have to be an asshole and. [00:42:08] Speaker B: On and on and on. And I went through this article, and. [00:42:11] Speaker C: I thought, oh, shit, if that's really true, if that's what it takes to. [00:42:16] Speaker B: Be a successful business person, I don't want to go there. [00:42:19] Speaker C: Right. But I think he's actually wrong. And I think there are also models and also empirical insights that you can point to. [00:42:28] Speaker B: I think you can be a good. [00:42:30] Speaker C: Person, a person with a lot of. [00:42:32] Speaker B: Integrity, but at the same time, also be a good leader. [00:42:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't believe you have to be an asshole at all. I think it's lazy thinking. I know you and I have talked about this. The way I frame it up is authenticity versus preference. And a lot of my work with people, they often talk about authenticity as if it's this gold standard. I just want to be authentic. And the way that I encourage people to think about it in the business world is that authenticity and preference should be both considered. And what I think people are talking about when they say authenticity is preference, it's like, oh, I just want to be who I am. Well, who I am is actually. That's how you prefer to be. I prefer to be all sorts of ways. I prefer to wear jeans and a t shirt. I prefer to, when I'm at home, I'm wearing sweatpants. But if I'm going to go to the opera with Monica, I am going to wear, like, a suit or something very nice. And I don't prefer to do that. It's that being in that space, that's the appropriate attire and preference. There's nothing wrong with preference, but preference feels good all the time. But it's not always the right thing to do. Where I bring in the idea of authenticity, authenticity is usually the right thing to do, but it doesn't always feel good. And what I mean by that is that I think that in a business setting and in a life setting, people can become authentic at almost anything. The only thing you can't become authentic at is something that crosses an ethical or moral boundary. [00:44:00] Speaker B: Right? [00:44:00] Speaker C: Yes, I agree. [00:44:01] Speaker A: So you can't be authentic with that. But there are ways of being leading, speaking, interacting with people, doing work, doing process that once you learn about it initially, it's going to feel alien to you because it's new. And because it's new, it might be contrary to how you usually do things. So not only is it new, it actually feels bad. It feels weird. It feels like a block. It's the less quick way of doing things right. But the more you do it, the more accustomed you get to it. You kind of figure out your own shortcuts about it. You make it your own, then you can do it authentically because it's something that was different from you, that you've now made your own. You've made part of your process. You still probably would prefer to do it another way. That's why preference, when people talk about preference, I say, hey, preference is fine, but becoming authentic at something requires work, and it can enable you. So when we think about this idea of being an asshole in spaces, it takes a lot more skill to have a difficult conversation in a non asshole way. Where you're not taking shortcuts, where you're having a hard conversation, you're making the tough decisions, and you're doing it with a lot of integrity, calmness, keeping pace with someone. You could do the exact same thing in 30 seconds by being an asshole. To me, that's preference. Where authenticity is the path, where it takes a lot more skill, practice, patience and time. [00:45:21] Speaker C: No, I agree. I think this also reminds me of some of the concepts I was struggling mean when I also became a mean. So there was a Stanford professor Jim March. And he made this distinction between a logic of consequences when it comes to all behavior and a logic of appropriateness. When I was an academic, I was always struggling with this. I'm an economist. And as economists, you're completely trained by this logic of consequences, right? That in a given situation, you think about, okay, what are the rewards, right? And given those reward structures, what's now. [00:45:55] Speaker B: The best way forward? [00:45:56] Speaker C: But Jim Marshall always said there's kind of like a second way of how we behave and how we mean make choices. And that's the logic of appropriateness, right. [00:46:05] Speaker B: That we ask ourselves, okay, what kind. [00:46:07] Speaker C: Of situation is this? [00:46:09] Speaker B: And what would be, given the person that I am, given my identity, what. [00:46:15] Speaker C: Would be an appropriate response by this? And that's a completely different logic. [00:46:18] Speaker B: And I think a lot of what. [00:46:21] Speaker C: We do as a leader, especially when. [00:46:22] Speaker B: It comes to leading a team, when. [00:46:24] Speaker C: It comes to the business decisions, it's all about the logic of consequences. [00:46:28] Speaker B: But I think when it comes to leadership, it's a lot about finding out, okay, what is actually appropriate here, right. [00:46:35] Speaker C: And then leading by example, showing what is actually appropriate. [00:46:40] Speaker B: So this is something that, as an. [00:46:42] Speaker C: Academic, never really resonated with me. I remember doing kind of like a book chapter with a friend on the logic of appropriateness, but it never really resonated. [00:46:49] Speaker B: Only started to resonate when I became a leader. [00:46:51] Speaker C: This is where I started to really think about this. [00:46:53] Speaker B: And going back to what you just said, right. [00:46:56] Speaker C: The logic of consequences is comparatively easy. [00:46:58] Speaker B: Doesn't take a lot of effort. Right. [00:47:00] Speaker C: While the logic of appropriateness requires a lot of effort, it requires a lot. [00:47:04] Speaker B: Of consistency in your behavior, being conscious. [00:47:08] Speaker C: About this, being able to embrace ambiguity, because sometimes the situation that you find. [00:47:13] Speaker B: Yourself in is not necessarily as clear cut. [00:47:17] Speaker D: Right. [00:47:18] Speaker C: So this is something that I'm thinking a lot about. [00:47:22] Speaker A: I want to add on to the logic of appropriateness. Are you familiar with the concept of emotional labor? [00:47:27] Speaker D: Yes. [00:47:27] Speaker A: Okay. I'm going to speak about it a little bit, just for the audience to get it. So emotional labor being if something provocative happens, whether it could be something provocative in a positive way or a negative way. So if someone came across the camera right now and tripped on a cord and did a total comical fall, we would maybe think it's funny, but it would be inappropriate to laugh. We would push down our reaction to it, and we'd say, are you okay? And they got off camera, and then we'd probably start laughing. Right. Or something that is provocative in a challenging way. And it causes us to have a strong emotion in the other direction. So anything that's provocative, that elicits an emotion. We are always monitoring the environment we're in, and we are always figuring out what's appropriate for that environment, how to express ourselves. So you have an inciting action that raises an emotion. So if you think of a triangle, top of the triangle as emotion, the bottom left would be expression, the way that you express that emotion. But bottom right is environment. And human beings are always looking at their environment, figuring out what is the proper way to express my emotion. And if it's a provocative emotion, we are making ultra quick judgments on that. And of course, everyone's different. They're raised different, grow, have different life experiences. Emotional labor is when we have to manage our emotional responses because we recognize the environment is a different one. We have to think about it. And the way that I describe it for leaders is sometimes something happens and you realize the environment you're in, and you push your reaction all the way down. Other times, you push the reaction halfway down so that you can transform it into a response. So if we think of kind of like old school business from like the. Something like that, where yelling in a workplace was acceptable, I don't know if it was ever acceptable, but it'd be something that would be more common. Where now, in the modern work world, you would never yell at someone? [00:49:22] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:49:23] Speaker A: But you could be angry, and you could want to express that anger, but in an appropriate way, push it down halfway, transform it into an appropriate response. So if we go to the logic of appropriateness, that preference, to me, is someone just being. And I hear this a lot from leaders, but they'll use the word authenticity. If I'll say about how people use jokes or jokes or stories or aggressive language or how they can be not direct or too direct, people often say, well, that's just me being authentic. And that's where I have to challenge that, because it's like the get out of jail free pass, especially in modern business, where people value authenticity. I want you to bring your whole self to work, but I want you to bring that self to work that can work as well with as many people in as many different situations as quickly as possible. And that's not the same person as you that's on the couch in your sweatpants. [00:50:18] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:50:19] Speaker A: So when I think about emotional labor, I think it ties in with the logic of appropriateness, is leaders have to govern themselves in a way that's constantly thinking about the environment, how I express myself, which means there rarely is a shortcut I agree. [00:50:36] Speaker C: Right. And I think also self discipline is really important in a leadership role. Right. [00:50:41] Speaker B: So one should never shoot from the hip. [00:50:43] Speaker D: Right. [00:50:44] Speaker C: So sometimes you get something in a meeting or an email and it really. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Makes you angry, it frustrates you, and. [00:50:52] Speaker C: You should never heat your first initial reactions to this. Right. I've done this two or three times where I got an email or something that I realized and I was really. [00:51:01] Speaker B: Angry, wrote an email, said something. This is where I always, later on, regretted this. [00:51:07] Speaker D: Right. [00:51:08] Speaker C: So I think it's really important to be able to step down, reduce the emotion, and then really think about, okay. [00:51:12] Speaker B: What'S the appropriate response here? [00:51:14] Speaker C: Very often the appropriate response is not what you came up in a split second. [00:51:19] Speaker D: Right. [00:51:20] Speaker C: But this is what I see a lot, unfortunately. Right. Still. [00:51:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:51:24] Speaker C: You mind yelling at people, that's a very radical and unacceptable way of dealing with these situation. But I've seen also in communication or how people blow up in a meeting and so on. Right. Never lose your cool by the end of the day. [00:51:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Because, well, on one spectrum, it's yelling. The other side, it could be people being passive aggressive, withdrawing from a conversation, sitting in too much silence. So I'm going to ask you a follow up question. I asked you before. What's something you learned about yourself that you really like since taking this role? But now the question I'm asking is, what's something that you've learned about yourself since taking on this leadership role that you didn't like and as a result, you've had to work on. [00:52:06] Speaker C: Fantastic question. [00:52:07] Speaker D: Right. [00:52:08] Speaker C: Harsh communication. Right. I think for sure. Right. [00:52:12] Speaker B: This is probably still something that I'm working on. [00:52:17] Speaker C: We talked about academic subcultures and part. [00:52:19] Speaker B: Of the academic subculture, at least where. [00:52:22] Speaker C: I collect the, was very aggressive research seminars. [00:52:27] Speaker D: Right. [00:52:27] Speaker C: Where, I mean, you didn't take any prisoners. Right. It was all about the argument. And that's something that I enjoyed. [00:52:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:52:35] Speaker C: I always enjoyed this intellectual and rhetorical battle where also sometimes very harsh things were said. [00:52:45] Speaker B: I loved that. [00:52:49] Speaker C: I think especially at the beginning, I also kind of brought this to the job. I toned it down a little bit, but I think I can sometimes still see how this bubbles up. [00:52:58] Speaker D: Right. [00:52:58] Speaker C: And I don't like this. It's like going back to the logic of appropriateness. It might be appropriate in research seminar. [00:53:04] Speaker B: But it's definitely not appropriate in a. [00:53:07] Speaker C: Team or business setting. [00:53:08] Speaker D: Not at all. [00:53:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:53:09] Speaker C: It's simply a very different cattle of fish. [00:53:12] Speaker B: That's definitely something that I still have to work on. But I also don't like about me. [00:53:18] Speaker D: Right. [00:53:18] Speaker C: And of course, I mean, there are always many things that you don't like about yourself, right. But it's also about the realization that you might be different. So I'm, for example, not the most. [00:53:29] Speaker B: Formal guy on earth, right. [00:53:33] Speaker C: And that, I think is a weakness for sure. Right. [00:53:37] Speaker B: I don't like compliance rules. [00:53:40] Speaker C: I mean, they are really important. I stick to them, but it's not something that I spend a lot of time on. I think I'm more an agile decision maker by the end of the day. Right. [00:53:52] Speaker B: And that does bring its weaknesses. [00:53:55] Speaker C: This is something where I realized, oh, shit, right. [00:53:59] Speaker B: You never realized that you're a person like this. No, probably not, right. [00:54:05] Speaker C: I think we all know that we. [00:54:07] Speaker B: Are not perfect human beings. [00:54:09] Speaker C: It's a great question. [00:54:10] Speaker A: So in your evolution, not just the school's evolution, but in your growth in this role now, because you are into your 6th year yourself here, what's different about you in year six than year one? [00:54:22] Speaker B: Oh, a lot. The entire demeanor. [00:54:28] Speaker C: I think I'm more presidential now in how I come across. I think I'm much more professional in my communication. [00:54:37] Speaker B: Also, some of these easy mistakes that. [00:54:40] Speaker C: You make at the beginning, I think. [00:54:42] Speaker B: I got rid of, right. [00:54:44] Speaker C: That you want to be buddies with everyone. I think at the beginning, I think I also sometimes blurred the boundaries between my personal and my professional life because, I mean, that's also part of being academic. [00:54:55] Speaker D: Right. [00:54:55] Speaker B: I mean, you interact with people professionally. [00:54:58] Speaker C: But you also interact with them as a friend, for example. [00:55:01] Speaker B: And that is something that I have. [00:55:03] Speaker C: Started to move down a little bit, for example. [00:55:07] Speaker D: Right. [00:55:08] Speaker C: So there are many, many learnings about. [00:55:11] Speaker B: Myself, but also how I can improve. [00:55:14] Speaker C: And I think that's also part of this journey. [00:55:15] Speaker B: I mean, this is also going back. [00:55:17] Speaker C: To some of the hardcore stuff that we talked about. [00:55:20] Speaker B: Right. For me, hardcore was also always about. [00:55:23] Speaker C: Becoming ever a better person. [00:55:25] Speaker D: Right. [00:55:25] Speaker B: To reflect, to not got drawn into your emotions, to think about the person that you are. And that does help me. [00:55:34] Speaker A: So earlier on, we talked about when you first became president, you still were trying to do some teaching, but eventually had to give that up. So how do you replace that? There's the inherent creativity of being part of research and putting forward these papers, and there's that human connection and helping growth happen. So there's all of this creativity and kind of community investment at the professor level. How do you scratch that itch then in the job that you're in now? [00:56:06] Speaker C: Hope springs eternal, right? I mean, every year in January, I think that the next year is going to be a lot calmer and that you can do a little bit of teaching, maybe write something and so on. I vividly remember January 2020. They had just closed a massive deal that was also really important strategically for the school and that was important for. [00:56:28] Speaker B: The financial well being. [00:56:31] Speaker C: And sitting there in January and thought, okay, right. [00:56:34] Speaker B: You are out of the rough now. [00:56:35] Speaker C: 18 months of your presidency, very difficult, all these. And now it's smooth sailing for the next three years. [00:56:42] Speaker D: Right. [00:56:42] Speaker C: And lo and behold, two months later, we had the global pandemic. I mean, something that nobody expected. [00:56:49] Speaker D: Right. [00:56:49] Speaker C: There was another crisis. [00:56:51] Speaker D: Right. [00:56:51] Speaker C: But this is also, I mean, this is also, I mean, it was a little bit. Okay, right. You've been there. You've been done this before. It's different. [00:56:57] Speaker D: Right. [00:56:57] Speaker C: This pandemic. But you have also managed successfully through a crisis. [00:57:01] Speaker B: You're also going to survive that one. So there's that on the other hand. Right. [00:57:07] Speaker A: What I really, I'm sorry, I'm just going to pause. The first crisis was when you took your first year. There was the big financial hit. [00:57:13] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. [00:57:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:57:14] Speaker C: New building. Right. Growth not as strong as we expected it to be. [00:57:19] Speaker D: Right. [00:57:20] Speaker C: So first time for at least a decade where the school made a financial loss. [00:57:24] Speaker D: Right. [00:57:25] Speaker A: And that was in your first year? [00:57:26] Speaker B: That was. [00:57:26] Speaker D: Right. [00:57:27] Speaker C: In my first year. [00:57:28] Speaker A: How did you get through that? Not the school. [00:57:31] Speaker B: How did you get through that as a person? Yeah, I think it was all about. [00:57:40] Speaker C: Embracing the challenge and being prepared for it by the end of the day. I mentioned this before, right. This willingness to make tough decisions. [00:57:47] Speaker B: And I came into this job with. [00:57:49] Speaker C: This idea that I will have to make tough decisions. [00:57:51] Speaker B: And it was great to see that. [00:57:54] Speaker C: First of all, I could not evade them, right. Because we had to do some cost cutting, we had to make some changes. [00:58:00] Speaker B: In the team that I was not. [00:58:02] Speaker C: Afraid during the first six months to actually call the shots there. [00:58:05] Speaker B: That was very important for me to. [00:58:08] Speaker C: Find out that I can actually do this. And second, I think what is also. [00:58:13] Speaker B: Quite critical, also the pandemic, being a strategist and having a strategy. [00:58:19] Speaker C: A lot of the tough calls were informed about what the strategy for Frankfurt school is. [00:58:24] Speaker B: And I think that actually helped me a lot in my decision making. [00:58:29] Speaker D: Right. [00:58:31] Speaker B: And to be honest, it was a. [00:58:34] Speaker C: Really, really tough time back then, but it didn't feel like this. It felt like, okay, this is part of the job. And this also helped me then, right. [00:58:43] Speaker B: When the pandemic came around, you've been there, you've done that, you will manage. [00:58:48] Speaker C: And that gave me a lot of confidence. [00:58:50] Speaker A: So I want to get back to the question I'd asked. How do you kind of scratch that itch of being creative, being really growth minded, being able to work with students that you had as a professor and switching into the role? And the first thing you said was, hope springs eternal. And I thought at the beginning of January 2020, I was going to be able to do that. And we go off to the pandemic. But before we get into anything about the pandemic. So how do you do it? How do you take care of that side of yourself? [00:59:19] Speaker C: I think I came to realization that part of being a CEO is actually pretty creative, that you have to think about, not about all these operational problems. [00:59:31] Speaker B: But what's the next step, right. [00:59:33] Speaker C: How can we preserve this in the long term? And I think this is also something that was struggling with at the beginning that I just constantly got drawn into all the operational details and I didn't. [00:59:46] Speaker B: Have a lot of time for strategy. [00:59:48] Speaker D: Right. [00:59:49] Speaker C: And I think this is something. I mean, I always wanted to delegate. I always had this understanding, okay, as. [00:59:53] Speaker B: An effective leader, you have to delegate. [00:59:55] Speaker C: You have to trust people. [00:59:57] Speaker B: But I realized that this is actually. [00:59:58] Speaker C: Not that easy because people very often don't want to make decisions because it dissipates ownership, dissipates responsibility. And I remember sitting here in this. [01:00:09] Speaker B: Room where the question was whether people should wear caps and gowns at our graduation ceremony. I could care less. [01:00:19] Speaker C: Right. I mean, somebody needs to make a decision and then make it look good one way or the other. Right. And that is, I think, something that I became a lot more effective with. So I think that is something that also is the case now. I'm much, much better to focus on some of the more interesting strategic questions. [01:00:39] Speaker B: Where should the school be five years down the road? [01:00:43] Speaker C: What is the next thing in terms of new services that we want to offer? How can we expand our campus? [01:00:49] Speaker B: And that's exciting stuff. [01:00:51] Speaker D: Right. [01:00:51] Speaker C: And also, I think what is also I found interesting was that the student interactions changes. [01:00:58] Speaker D: Right. [01:00:58] Speaker C: So I'm not in the classroom any. [01:01:00] Speaker B: Longer, but I do have still a. [01:01:02] Speaker C: Lot of interaction with students about different topics now. [01:01:05] Speaker B: But that's also quite rewarding. So it's really about this shift in what makes me tick. And once again, I think the cool thing is if I want to go back to my former life, I can always do that. [01:01:20] Speaker C: The question will be that given also. [01:01:23] Speaker B: How I have changed, whether I ever want to go back to that, I don't know. I can't tell you. [01:01:32] Speaker C: I was in Milan and one of my friends there also said, okay, after five years, I mean, you're not publishing stuff any longer. [01:01:40] Speaker B: Who will hire you later on? [01:01:42] Speaker C: I said, I don't care, because I. [01:01:45] Speaker B: Do have this confidence that something else. [01:01:49] Speaker C: Will come at one point, because that's very much also my experience. [01:01:52] Speaker D: Right. [01:01:53] Speaker C: That opportunities present themselves if you do a good job. [01:01:57] Speaker A: All right, let's go into the pandemic. Yeah, man, what a time you've had since you took over this role. You have a financial crisis in the organization, and you take care of that, make tough decisions, kind of cut your teeth as a leader pandemic the organization was able to carry forward. So what did you do? [01:02:23] Speaker C: I mean, first of all, we always went into lockdown. We all went into home office. Right. But I think, and those were really tough times because we saw that applications came to a standstill. Everything essentially came to a standstill, and that was really, really tough. On the other hand, I had no doubts that we as an institution are. [01:02:49] Speaker B: Going to survive this. And also that by the end of. [01:02:52] Speaker C: The day, the crisis is going to. [01:02:54] Speaker B: Make us stronger, because this is also. [01:02:56] Speaker C: When you look into business history, right. Crisis very often lead to more innovation, lead to more creative thinking, lead to more business models. [01:03:04] Speaker B: So that was also the perspective from the get go that I had on the pandemic. [01:03:09] Speaker D: Right. [01:03:09] Speaker B: And an early insight was that we. [01:03:12] Speaker C: Have to go back to offering in class teaching and opening up the campus as soon as possible, because that's at least what many students expect from us. Other students had a different view on this. [01:03:24] Speaker B: They found it irresponsible that we could. [01:03:27] Speaker C: Offer in class teaching again, open up the campus again. So I had this realization that the perspective on the pandemic, on this virus is very, very different in our student population and in society at large. And we have seen this later on. [01:03:41] Speaker B: So based on that, we started to. [01:03:43] Speaker C: Flesh out some very general policies. So, for example, that we said that. [01:03:46] Speaker B: Okay, we don't want to force anybody on campus. [01:03:50] Speaker C: And based on that, we develop a. [01:03:53] Speaker B: Hybrid model of teaching. [01:03:54] Speaker C: So in the summer 2020, we said. [01:03:57] Speaker B: To students, okay, you can choose whether. [01:04:00] Speaker C: You want to come in, if it's allowed. [01:04:02] Speaker B: Right. [01:04:03] Speaker C: Or whether you want to follow the lecture online. And we install a lot of cameras. We made massive investments into our technical backbone. Second, we also wanted to build confidence. [01:04:14] Speaker B: By saying that, okay, if somebody gets infected, we want to understand who you interact with. [01:04:20] Speaker C: So we bought Bluetooth corona tracers that everyone were around his neck or her neck, right. And we could then if somebody got. [01:04:28] Speaker B: Sick or had a positive corona test. [01:04:31] Speaker C: We could trace the interaction of these people and inform everyone and tell them. [01:04:35] Speaker B: Hey, look, you had interaction with somebody who was infected. [01:04:40] Speaker C: Please take a corona test. We're going to pay it for you, and only if it's negative. [01:04:43] Speaker B: You're allowed to come back to campus if it's positive. Right. We hope that it's not too bad. [01:04:48] Speaker C: Please stay home until it becomes positive. [01:04:51] Speaker B: And we were the only school in. [01:04:53] Speaker C: The area that did that. And also, I think this is kind. [01:04:55] Speaker B: Of like, signifies this for me. [01:04:59] Speaker D: Right. [01:04:59] Speaker B: So our opening of the semester in fall 2020, we did this in a drive in cinema. [01:05:08] Speaker C: So I was standing in front of. [01:05:09] Speaker B: 200 cars giving my speech there. [01:05:14] Speaker C: But that is, I think, demonstrated what our response was all about. [01:05:18] Speaker D: Right. [01:05:18] Speaker B: Trying to do the best for our students, trying to do the best for. [01:05:23] Speaker C: Our community under some very challenging circumstances. And I think that is something that we succeeded. And we grew a lot during the pandemic. [01:05:31] Speaker A: Did the pandemic impact the school in a negative way overall or a positive way overall? [01:05:37] Speaker C: Overall, I think we came out of the pandemic stronger. It was very challenging. [01:05:42] Speaker B: Right. [01:05:42] Speaker C: And it was also some very tragic situations with people getting really sick. [01:05:48] Speaker B: But overall, we came out of the. [01:05:50] Speaker C: Pandemic much, much stronger. [01:05:52] Speaker D: Right. [01:05:52] Speaker C: And we are graveling still with some of the fallout. [01:05:54] Speaker B: Right. [01:05:55] Speaker C: I mean, we moved into this campus six years ago and we thought that. [01:05:58] Speaker B: Okay. And remember also just before the pandemic. [01:06:02] Speaker C: We were thinking about renting out places, office space to external companies, because the campus was still kind of empty. [01:06:10] Speaker B: Now I have the problem that we have to find additional capacity, and that. [01:06:15] Speaker C: Demonstrates how also our position has shifted. [01:06:18] Speaker B: During the last couple of years. [01:06:20] Speaker A: Speaking of how the school is growing, how can you make a campus truly like an international campus, where it is welcoming and a strong community for people. [01:06:33] Speaker B: From all sorts of backgrounds? [01:06:35] Speaker D: All right. [01:06:36] Speaker C: I'm not an architect. Right. I mean, they think about this very. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Carefully and also some of the interior. [01:06:42] Speaker C: Designers that helped us with this. But I think it's all about openness, right. [01:06:46] Speaker B: If you look around the campus, there. [01:06:47] Speaker C: Are lots of open spaces. And also, if you look at this from the street, you can see right into the campus. [01:06:54] Speaker B: We have nothing to hide, basically. So it's very, very open. [01:06:59] Speaker C: And I think that is already an. [01:07:01] Speaker B: Important symbol for who we are. [01:07:04] Speaker C: We are open to the world. [01:07:05] Speaker D: Right? [01:07:05] Speaker B: That's the first thing. [01:07:07] Speaker C: The second thing, when you go across a campus, I mean, we have many. [01:07:10] Speaker B: Of these breakout areas, right? Lots of glass where people can sit. [01:07:15] Speaker C: Spend time, read, interact with friends, hang. [01:07:19] Speaker B: Out, and so on. [01:07:20] Speaker C: And that is, I think, signifies for me the vibrancy that we want to have on the campus. [01:07:25] Speaker D: Right. [01:07:25] Speaker C: And I think those are the two values that we are trying to celebrate with the campus, the openness and the vibrancy. [01:07:33] Speaker A: What about from an organizational culture point of view, how do you really inspire that kind of community sense with really embracing a diversity of student body and also faculty? [01:07:46] Speaker C: Yeah, this is, once again, it's about leading by example. [01:07:50] Speaker D: Right. [01:07:50] Speaker C: I think that is very open. I think it's important that you as a person are somebody who has an. [01:07:56] Speaker B: Open mind, who embraces diversity, who is. [01:07:59] Speaker C: Tolerant of the differences. [01:08:02] Speaker B: So it's a very personal thing. [01:08:04] Speaker C: Second, I mean, as an institution, we. [01:08:07] Speaker B: Have to make sure that people find our school accommodating, that we are also willing to constantly adapt, so that we also forcefully embrace this idea that we. [01:08:20] Speaker C: Are not a german institution, but that. [01:08:22] Speaker B: We are an international institution. [01:08:24] Speaker C: So, for example, one of the things. [01:08:26] Speaker B: That I did was that our town hall meetings or meetings for the employees are in English, not in German. [01:08:32] Speaker C: I got a lot of pushback, for example, from the works council on this. [01:08:36] Speaker B: But that was really important for me because it shows that we are an. [01:08:42] Speaker C: Open place and we want to integrate. [01:08:44] Speaker B: People from all walks of life and. [01:08:47] Speaker C: From all around the globe. And we can only do this if. [01:08:50] Speaker B: Our business language is English. So there are all these little things that we have to do, right, in. [01:08:56] Speaker D: Order. [01:08:59] Speaker C: To celebrate this diversity and to celebrate this open place. It's a constant struggle. [01:09:04] Speaker A: I think it's an interesting thing from a north american perspective. Now, I can't speak to academics, but I'll speak to corporate culture, marketing versus change. And I think any professional can see that there's been a big uptick in how much companies talk about diversity and inclusion in terms of how they talk about it on platforms to an outward audience, versus the work that they do internally to make places truly accessible and welcoming. To do that, as you said, it's a constant work to do, rather than just like, hey, we've gotten here and now this is what we're going to do. And we also see is we're seeing lots of commentary on diversity, equity, inclusion, programming inside of organizations. Funding is being reduced or shifted. It's an interesting time because I'm not smiling because I think it's good. I'm smiling more like, this is the most predictable thing. After everyone kind of does all their marketing boosts about it in the background, things start going away. But something that I know is a shared value for both you and I. And I believe this is true for this organization that you lead. You got to be consistent, thoughtful, forceful in this. And this is a thing. It's not easy, though, as a leader to do that. [01:10:26] Speaker B: No, because it is a constant struggle. [01:10:31] Speaker C: Right. There's always a risk of falling back. Right. [01:10:38] Speaker B: But I think it's hard question whether we succeed. [01:10:44] Speaker C: But if I look at our student body and also how international our staff and faculty is, especially in the context that we find ourselves in. [01:10:53] Speaker D: Right. [01:10:53] Speaker B: We are in Germany. [01:10:54] Speaker C: We're not in the United States. [01:10:55] Speaker B: I mean, we are, as a country. [01:10:57] Speaker C: Less diverse in the United States, but I think we are really succeeding on this. [01:11:02] Speaker D: Right. [01:11:03] Speaker C: But it's something that we constantly have to update that. [01:11:05] Speaker B: We also have to listen to our. [01:11:08] Speaker C: Students, to whether we're a good job. [01:11:09] Speaker B: And where we could become better. [01:11:11] Speaker C: But by the end of the day. [01:11:13] Speaker B: I think it's not about having a. [01:11:15] Speaker C: Diversity, equity and inclusion policy in place. It's all about how we actually interact every day and whether we are truly embracing this idea. [01:11:27] Speaker D: Right. [01:11:27] Speaker C: That true greatness comes from the diversity of experiences. [01:11:30] Speaker B: That's, for me, really critical. [01:11:32] Speaker A: Totally. And you said that to me when we were doing the tour today, is that diversity of experience of the interactions, like working across cultures, having all these experiences with people who have all these different backgrounds. Something that I've heard businesses say so many times and I always roll my eyes at, is we hire the best and the brightest. Well, yes. You're not going to hire, like, the worst. You're not going to hire the worst people, but to be able to hire the best and brightest, if you're only creating a situation where a very small population of the world can be successful, then you're not hiring the best and brightest. You're just hiring the best and brightest from a very small part of the population. Whereas if we think of doing good business, like real business decisions, big and long lasting, thoughtful investments in creating accessibility to all sorts of different kinds of people, that actually opens up the pool of hiring the best and brightest. That's why I think it's so short sighted when a lot of the funding for these programs seems to be slipping away, at least in North America. I can't speak to Europe. [01:12:38] Speaker B: I think it's never been on the. [01:12:40] Speaker C: Same level as in the United States. I mean, the culture context is very different. But for Frankfurt school and also for Germany more generally, it's really, really critical to embrace diversity as a mean. We have to continue to innovate to. [01:12:57] Speaker B: Be successful, and we will also have. [01:13:00] Speaker C: To rely on people from abroad in order to make sure that the economy keeps on ticking. And I think that is where diversity comes in. We have to be a welcoming country. [01:13:11] Speaker D: Right. [01:13:12] Speaker C: And we also have to be a. [01:13:13] Speaker B: Welcoming institution, and that takes a lot of work. And sometimes I feel that at least on the country level, we could do. [01:13:25] Speaker C: A much, much better job on this. [01:13:26] Speaker D: Right. [01:13:26] Speaker C: If I look, for example, in our public administration, when it comes to immigrants. [01:13:30] Speaker B: For example, migrants, I think we are sometimes really dropping the ball there. [01:13:35] Speaker C: That's not good. I think we need this welcoming culture. [01:13:38] Speaker B: And I think this is. [01:13:40] Speaker C: I mean, I'm also very focused on what we can do as Frankfurt school. [01:13:44] Speaker D: Right. [01:13:44] Speaker C: Because sometimes when you look at these entire political developments and political discussion, it can be a little bit disheartening sometimes, right. I'm a very optimistic person overall. Right. [01:13:56] Speaker B: But then I still go back and. [01:13:58] Speaker C: Focus, okay, what are the opportunities that. [01:14:00] Speaker B: We have in order to improve? [01:14:02] Speaker C: And there are lots, right. [01:14:04] Speaker A: It's very easy to become cynical. [01:14:10] Speaker D: When. [01:14:10] Speaker A: You'Re only steeped in the political, because it could just feel like everything is just so complex and you have no real power. Day to day. I always encourage people to get back into that ideal of just, like, the most optimistic enthusiasm about the idea that really small groups of people can make almost anything happen outside of major power systems. [01:14:33] Speaker D: Yeah, I fully agree. [01:14:34] Speaker C: I think there's a lot to be said for sunny optimism, right. There are actually some proofs on this, right. How sunny optimism actually makes you more successful, more creative, more adaptable, even. [01:14:49] Speaker B: I have a paper that shows that. [01:14:52] Speaker C: If you have optimistic hyperbole, that really helps companies to become less complacent in. [01:14:58] Speaker B: The face of disruptive change. [01:15:01] Speaker D: Right. [01:15:03] Speaker C: And I think this is also something that is important for a leader. Right. You don't always have to have the answers. [01:15:11] Speaker D: Right. [01:15:11] Speaker B: But you have to signal that there is an answer. [01:15:16] Speaker D: Right. [01:15:17] Speaker C: And you always have to have this. [01:15:19] Speaker B: Confidence that no matter what's going to. [01:15:22] Speaker C: Happen, there will be an answer. [01:15:23] Speaker D: Right. [01:15:23] Speaker C: And it doesn't have to be you that comes up as the answer. [01:15:27] Speaker D: Right. [01:15:27] Speaker C: That's, I think, also quite important. And I think that's especially important in these challenging times. [01:15:33] Speaker A: 100%. All right, as we're heading towards the end of the interview, we are going to ask you the crucial three. [01:15:40] Speaker C: The crucial three. I always suck at that. [01:15:44] Speaker A: All right, so before we get to the crucial three, I actually have a pre question. This one comes from the audience here. Star Trek or Star wars and why? [01:15:53] Speaker C: Very clear. Star wars all the way. Why? Very easy answer, right. Because Star Trek is boring. I even have a Star wars motto in my office. [01:16:11] Speaker A: I know. Star Trek for life. I like both, but Star Trek for Life. [01:16:16] Speaker C: So you are Star Trek. [01:16:18] Speaker A: Listen, I love Star wars, but Star Trek is like. It's the best. [01:16:26] Speaker C: All right. Okay. [01:16:27] Speaker A: Did you ever watch Deep Space Nine? [01:16:29] Speaker C: No, I did not. I mean, I couldn't stand this. [01:16:31] Speaker D: Right? [01:16:31] Speaker C: It's like I was bored to death after 30 minutes. [01:16:35] Speaker A: Oh, listen, if you watch, despite. [01:16:37] Speaker C: I should try it out. I should try it out. [01:16:38] Speaker A: You got to watch Deep Space Nine. It's so good because it takes away the idea that Starfleet is this perfect entity. And it shows, like, the dark side of it and the grittiness of it. It's so good. It's like the rogue one in the Star wars universe would be. If you think of rogue one. Yeah, that's hyphrase D. Space nine is seven seasons of rogue one. [01:17:02] Speaker C: Okay, that sounds great. So I'm going to check it out. Thanks for. [01:17:05] Speaker A: See, we've just created some change right here. You said you're all about. [01:17:08] Speaker C: That's it. It's all about being open minded. [01:17:10] Speaker A: All right, let's hit the crucial three. [01:17:11] Speaker B: Okay, excellent. [01:17:12] Speaker A: So, for the audience, these are three questions. Get increasingly more difficult. [01:17:17] Speaker C: Okay. [01:17:17] Speaker A: All right, we are going to start easy. We've only touched on it. On it lightly here, I think, because we were just a fun conversation. But you do have an extensive history in punk and hardcore. Came up in that scene of anything that you could say influences your leadership from punk and hardcore. What would it be? [01:17:43] Speaker B: I think it's really, for me, this idea of self reflection and this idea. [01:17:50] Speaker C: That you have to change yourself before. [01:17:51] Speaker B: You can change the world. [01:17:53] Speaker D: Right. [01:17:54] Speaker C: I think that is something that really resonated with me back then. [01:17:57] Speaker B: And I think that is something that. [01:17:59] Speaker C: I also bring to the. To the leadership style, also the humility. [01:18:03] Speaker B: I think that's also very. I mean, there's a song by Ray Capo. [01:18:12] Speaker C: He did the seven inch with revelation records. [01:18:14] Speaker B: Right. And it says, I can't remember the. [01:18:18] Speaker C: Exact words, but it always resonated with me. [01:18:20] Speaker B: Right. That people don't love you because the. [01:18:23] Speaker C: Person that you are, but simply in. [01:18:25] Speaker B: The position that you're in. [01:18:26] Speaker C: And I think that's also very important. [01:18:28] Speaker D: Right. [01:18:28] Speaker C: I mean, this is also something. Suddenly, when I became president, I was somebody. [01:18:33] Speaker B: Suddenly, I was somebody. [01:18:35] Speaker C: I got invited to all these cool events. [01:18:38] Speaker B: People started to look up to me and so on. [01:18:40] Speaker C: And I think it's very important to. [01:18:42] Speaker B: Understand that's about your role in hills. It's not about you as a person. [01:18:47] Speaker C: And that is something that really. [01:18:50] Speaker A: I. [01:18:51] Speaker C: Probably not necessarily maybe learned from hardcore. [01:18:54] Speaker A: Right. [01:18:54] Speaker C: But I think hardcore, I mean, for me, was very, very influential when it came to the values that I hold dear. [01:19:02] Speaker D: Right? Yeah. [01:19:03] Speaker A: What's one thing that someone would not know about the role of president? Like something. Like something that from the outside, you just couldn't know about until you were in the position. [01:19:17] Speaker B: I think what people underestimate is the importance of networks. [01:19:23] Speaker D: Right. [01:19:23] Speaker C: I mean, this is something that I do see again and again and again. [01:19:26] Speaker B: How important it is to just hang out. [01:19:30] Speaker A: Right. [01:19:30] Speaker C: That might be the wrong term. [01:19:32] Speaker D: Right. [01:19:32] Speaker C: When we are talking about politicians or. [01:19:34] Speaker B: Ceos and so on. [01:19:36] Speaker C: But spending time with these people, spending time on building a network, is quite. [01:19:41] Speaker B: Critical because in many situations that also were tough. [01:19:44] Speaker D: Right. [01:19:44] Speaker C: It was important that I could go. [01:19:46] Speaker B: Back to my network, talk to some people, get their insight, maybe also get zero influence. So this is, I think, something that many people from the outside might heavily underestimate. [01:19:59] Speaker C: I think it's also, I mean, in German, I mean, this is also what I underestimated. In German, we have this term, Griskot. [01:20:07] Speaker B: Unke, and it essentially says, I mean. [01:20:09] Speaker C: How many short welcoming speeches you have to give? This is something that I totally underestimated. Right. I thought when I came in there, I'm going to give these big, interesting speeches. But hey, look, we are there for three minutes to welcome folks, tell them very briefly about what Frankfurt school is, and then go off stage again. [01:20:31] Speaker B: Right. [01:20:31] Speaker C: And that's something that you have to get used to. [01:20:33] Speaker A: Right? [01:20:34] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:20:34] Speaker A: So the final one is a tough one. I was thinking about it. When you're giving us the tour, you'd said something that really stuck with me and I think will stick with me forever. Part of a school is creating traditions, and you are showing us with such great pride all of these different places where students who have been recognized for the contributions to the school, their names are actually there and they're going to be there in perpetuity. So creating tradition, creating legacy, creating a sense of space and a sense of history. If we bring this back to you, what do you want or hope your legacy as a leader is going to be for this organization? So that when people are looking back, they can say, this is what this person brought to this organization, that we. [01:21:26] Speaker B: Took a major step towards becoming a. [01:21:29] Speaker C: Top five european business school. [01:21:31] Speaker D: Right. [01:21:31] Speaker C: That's our big strategic goal. Right. [01:21:33] Speaker B: And I hope that at one point I'm being remembered for being a person that took a major step into this direction. [01:21:42] Speaker D: Right. [01:21:43] Speaker B: That's what it's all about, basically. [01:21:46] Speaker A: All right, so as we're closing off, is there anything you want to add in? [01:21:49] Speaker B: Anything you want to say? No. [01:21:51] Speaker C: Thank you so much. I think this was really great. It was a fun conversation. [01:21:54] Speaker B: I always enjoy this because it also. [01:21:58] Speaker C: Helps to reflect a little bit. [01:22:00] Speaker D: Right. [01:22:00] Speaker C: I mean, it's also good to do this off the cuff. Right. [01:22:03] Speaker B: And without thinking about, okay, how is. [01:22:06] Speaker C: This going to come across? But really doing this straight from the heart, because that also helps me to think about this. [01:22:13] Speaker A: Right. [01:22:13] Speaker C: Because that's also quite important. [01:22:14] Speaker D: Right. [01:22:14] Speaker B: When you are talking, you're also thinking. [01:22:17] Speaker C: You'Re reflecting, and you're also learning something. So every conversation is important. So thanks for this. [01:22:21] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:22:22] Speaker A: All right, everyone, I hope you got as much out of this one as I did. You didn't get the chance that Monica and I had today, where we got to have this beautiful tour of this amazing school in the heart of a wonderful city. We're so grateful to be here, and we had such a great time, and I had such an awesome conversation with you. So, everyone, until next time, my name is Aram Marslanian, and we'll see you on one step beyond one step. [01:22:50] Speaker D: One step, one have begun.