00:00:05

I'm here to talk about, uh, servant leadership. Uh, ki I work for Kiwibank. Uh, it's got nothing to do with, with the fruit. Um, Kiwis is what New Zealanders call themselves. And in 2002, when Kiwibank was, uh, founded, it was founded with a, with a thought, with a mission. Um, we wanted to provide, uh, a, a better banking alternative for New Zealand. There's one that provided better value for money, and one that kept New Zealand money inside New Zealand and not to, uh, one of the, uh, well, to Australia where the other big banks are from. Kiwibank is the Fifth Bank, uh, in New Zealand. Like I said, after four, uh, big news, uh, big, uh, Australian banks, and today we are still 100% New Zealand owned, um, and still thinking of ways to provide better banking for New Zealand for New Zealanders from their own, uh, backyard. Um, our mission is to, uh, Kiwis making Kiwis better off, and that is, that has a strong focus on giving back to the New Zealand communities.

00:01:10

We do that with some, uh, strong partnerships, uh, and, uh, that are socially and ecologically responsible. Just a couple of examples. We have a program that is focused on making small children more financially literate from a very young age, because we've seen that the better they understand finances, the more responsible the they manage their own f finances when they are, uh, well, when they are adults. The other one, the other partnership that we have, um, is we helped our department of con, uh, conservation train, uh, dogs that actually help kill, uh, predators in order to, uh, well help our, our, our, our own native wildlife. Um, and Kiwibank is also the, uh, main sponsor of the FinTech accelerated program, uh, in New Zealand. In the beginning of this year, our senior leadership team, uh, realized that, um, we needed an, uh, more focus on, on strong leadership throughout, uh, the entire bank.

00:02:10

So they launched a special program, which is called the Leadership Code. And the Leadership Code is an, uh, a training and a coaching program for all people, leaders in the bank, no matter what area they are in. Um, the slogan was that everyone deserves and has the right to a great leader. Um, it's, uh, a program that takes you through, uh, 10 months of individual or small groups of coaching and training, often offsite, taken away from your day-to-Day work, to, uh, well, to learn new things and to, uh, also work with your peers to develop yourself further. Um, and at the same time, uh, feedback is provided, uh, from the teams as, as, as a manager, as a team leader goes through that, uh, training.

00:02:57

Um, I moved to New Zealand only five years ago. I'm originally from Belgium. I, uh, I did do a couple of jobs before 1999. I'm a little bit older than that. Um, but that was a lot of, um, manual labor. I wasn't very successful in my school career, so I had to start working, um, relatively young. Um, and I soon found out that that didn't, that that wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So I picked up, uh, evening courses, and that was, that opened the door for me to start working on the IT help desk at the airport in Brussels. Um, traditional story, everybody starts on a help desk, um, from that, uh, help desk role, I, I, I slowly, uh, well, I, I did a couple of other things. Uh, I rolled into the world of IT service management.

00:03:47

Uh, sometimes as an, as an internal employee, sometimes as a consultant, uh, IT, and covid jobs were the big thing at the time. Um, and then when I moved to New Zealand five years ago in 2013, um, I started again in the IT service management space, um, until, uh, last year. Last year in September is when I joined the, uh, core and lending team as a technical delivery manager, uh, core and lending, so core banking lending apps. But we also looked after the, uh, anti-money laundering, uh, fraud, and some document management flow systems. Uh, and then in, uh, August this year, I joined the testing team. There will, there is a little bit confusion. Uh, there is a, a difference between the, uh, printed schedule and the one online. One says that I'm still in the corner landing, the other says I'm in testing, but this is the right order.

00:04:41

Um, I'd like to start with a small story about Belgian politics. That's maybe not what you were waiting for, but it, it is relevant, uh, for the talk. Um, until August of this year, Belgium had the questionable honor of having, of holding the world record of longest period without an elected government for a developed country. That was 589 days. It happened after the 2010 elections where 11 different parties were voted into the Chamber of Representatives, making it pretty hard, uh, for the coalition negotiations. Um, that wasn't the only reason, uh, why I, but I think had a lot of, uh, of it to do, um, will become apparent, uh, later on in, in, in, uh, my presentation. But in the 20 years of my professional career, I've often seen behavior that strongly resembled that of these politicians. So today I'd like to share with you some examples of, of events that happened that I thought initially, they weren't very se significant, but I thought they were remarkable enough to write them down in my diary. So that's what I do. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll read from my diary, explain a little bit what happened, and then after those, uh, examples, I'll, I'll also like to, uh, elaborate a little bit more on the, the insights, uh, that I've gathered, uh, along the way.

00:06:00

First diary entry. Dear diary,

00:06:07

Today, I learned that a manager in another part of the organization responded to an email while he was away on vacation, to let people in his and in my team know that he didn't like a suggestion. One of them had made to be more precise. He was the first to respond, saying, let's talk when I'm back, but I don't like your suggestion. So as soon as I found out, I immediately knew that there were a couple of things that were wrong with, with this approach. Firstly, I think vacation is not, uh, or vacation is, um, is meant to allow people to take a break from work. It is not meant to be working from home or working from a tropical resort. Um, we, we must carefully consider the, the consequences and the expectations that we set with our own behavior, especially if you're the manager of a team, uh, responding to work, email is still work, and in these times of auto office, uh, replies, it's not even urgent work. Secondly, by responding, uh, immediately by being the first to respond, and in a very brief manner, this manager shut down that conversation immediately. And instead of allowing the team who do the work to make the decision, he actually made the decision for them. And, and, and act like that kills motivation and, uh, engagement because in the future, it is very unlikely that any of them are going to make another suggestion, let alone that they are going to challenge. Any suggestions?

00:07:30

Um, I'm sorry. That was a slide that should have gone ahead with, uh, my, my explanation.

00:07:47

Dear diary, today was a fourth day in my new role as the manager of a team of technical specialists. The women and men in my team know the ins and outs of nine different very complex systems and how they work together. I am probably the least technical person in the entire organization. When I joined the team last week, it was not to replace the technical wizards, but to help them remove obstacles, develop themselves further, and build a stronger team. However, in the last four days, I have been invited to three different meetings where other people outside my team wanted a decision to be made around some of the most complex parts of our business, and they invited me simply because I was the manager of the team.

00:08:28

So the first time I accepted that invitation, not knowing what I was going to be asked, and it's fair to say that I never felt comfortable in, in, in, in, in that conversation. So it was clear that I didn't want to make that mistake again. For the next meetings. I would always make sure why, that I understood clearly why I was asked in that meeting, and whenever possible I would delegate, uh, to a person in the team that was more knowledgeable on the topic. But that led to two interesting observations. Some people continued to invite me to their meetings, um, simply because they thought it was better to invite a person in a position of authority to their meeting rather than someone in a position of knowledge. I don't, I can't explain why that happens, but it's clear that that goes against effective and efficient decision making.

00:09:16

And secondly, some people in the team like this more than others, um, for many years, I think we've hidden a lot of smart people somewhere in the back room, and now they don't know how to behave when they are given a seat at the table where decisions are made, uh, that affect their day-to-day work. So before delegating, I would always make sure that the other person is comfortable with that. Um, I would explain them, my objective was to give them control over their work and to achieve that in a safe way. Um, so if necessary, we would both join the meeting and, uh, in that meeting, I would openly rely on their advice in order to facilitate or make a decision so that it was clear for everyone in the room who was really making that decision. And then as soon as the other person was comfortable, I can easily remove myself, uh, from that conversation.

00:10:19

Dear diary, um, this one, uh, asks for a little bit of context. In 2016, we had, uh, earthquake, uh, in, in, in New Zealand that disrupted a lot of our, uh, well, professional life, let's say. Um, the, there weren't many casualties. I believe one person died on the south island, but the, a lot of build, a lot of buildings were affected because of the complexity of the quakes. Um, uh, and that meant that a lot of the, the work, uh, couldn't be started up from the same buildings. Uh, immediately after, and in our case, Kiwibank, we were in one building in Wellington, and we all of a sudden, the next, well, one week, the next week, we were spread across seven different sites in, in, in the city because it was so difficult to, uh, to get hold of, uh, real estate, uh, because everybody wanted it.

00:11:11

Um, so recently we've moved into a new building, and that's where this, uh, entry comes from with only a few months away, the excitement around our move to our new building is growing. Everyone looks forward to finally be in the same building again and be able to use the modern accommodation to take collaboration forward. There are a few things that people are concerned about, though, like the fact that they, no one will have fixed desks or the unisex toilets, but what upsets me the most is that people are told that they must not eat at their desk, and that everyone has to take their laptop home every day.

00:11:46

I think general rules are fine in general, but we must always leave room for exceptions because we don't work with armies of clone soldiers. We work with individual human beings with individual needs. As a leader, I think one must make it clear what the objective is and then get out of the way of the smart people around us. Allow them to assess the situation and then go with the decision that makes most sense. Uh, specifically for these two examples. So the first one about not eating as, uh, at your desk, the idea behind that was that when people designed the new building, one of the floors was designed with a, a, a big kitchen area as a social hub. And the company really wanted to encourage people to go away from their work, to have their lunch and to spend that with their colleagues, friends that they didn't see during the day, um, to take a break from their work.

00:12:37

But it's a different story when you tell someone you can't eat at your desk than when they say, um, don't always eat at your desk, but spend some time away from your work. Um, the second one, people having to take their laptops home was an, an, an immediate response to that, uh, that one event. So that one earthquake, because we immediately after the earthquake, we saw that people had left a lot of their devices in the building. Of course, nobody knew that there was going to be an earthquake overnight. And, and, um, that caused a lot of, uh, trouble setting up the operations of the bank again immediately after. Um, I think it's not fair to push that onto the individuals and to give them the burden of having to carry a laptop every home, every day. I mean, a lot of people are walking or taking public transport or running or cycling to work, and, and that is just, uh, there are other ways to, to do that, uh, to, to, to work with these BCP, uh, situations. Uh, for example, uh, having remote connections or work through Citrix. Um, so that would've been, uh, a better option in, in, in, in my view.

00:13:44

I think it's, uh, sometimes surprising to see how, uh, how we all, uh, want to hire, uh, the smartest minds and then put them in a cage, restrict them.

00:14:00

Dear diary, today marks my four weeks in the new job, and I'm beginning to realize that Maggie doesn't pull her weight. My natural position is to trust people until that trust is broken, and it looks like she's used to more supervision. I am surprised, though, that the team doesn't make a bigger fuzz about this. But then again, most of them have worked together for a very long time, and Maggie is quite a, a likable character as well. I have to understand whether my feeling is right and I have to find a way to make performance discussable so different team members can help each other if needed. There is one quote from a social worker, uh, that has helped me a lot in my one-on-one conversations with Maggie, and the quote was, um, there isn't one person that we cannot learn to love once that we've heard their story.

00:14:52

Um, I think investing in people means that we have to show a willingness to learn something from them, to learn their story and not just look at what someone is doing today, but understand the entire context of why they are doing what they're doing today. Um, I also, um, did another thing fair. Fairly soon after I had this, uh, entry in my diary. I organized a, a social event for the entire team. And, um, in that, uh, meeting, let's say, uh, it was, uh, a longer meeting than usual. In that meeting, I asked everyone to talk about themselves. Um, it was an invitation because everybody had to choose whether they wanted to talk about themselves or not, and they could choose how long they could talk about themselves, but there was a maximum of 10 minutes just because everybody had to have the opportunity to, to speak.

00:15:41

Um, I also asked people to, uh, to, to make a note when they learned something new about someone else in the room. And I went first because I joined, uh, recently. So I had a lot of information to share. Um, it made feel the other people in the room immediately a lot safer because I could share so much. And the event was a lot of fun. The most interesting thing, uh, thing was that, uh, even though some of them had been working together for more than five years, everyone learned something about some, everyone else in the room that day. Um, the, um, the story, so Maggie's story didn't end, uh, the way I had initially thought, um, because, uh, I, I tried a lot of things to get her on our on, on our bus, but in the end, she decided that the way that we wanted to work, uh, was not what she wanted. So she left the company and, uh, is now working somewhere else. Um, when I said in my, in my, uh, one-on-one, uh, meetings with Maggie, so that quote helped me, but the technique that I used, uh, was the humble inquiry technique, which is really, um, asking people questions that you don't know the answer, uh, for yet, uh, really show an interest in, in, in what they have to tell you. Not thinking, not asking, not listening to, to respond, but just to learn something new.

00:17:15

In my opinion, as a leader, uh, your job is to look up and out, um, and that everyone is feeling well, and that the team is heading in the right direction to help people, uh, or to guide people into solving their own problems, uh, be there to support them and help them when they are stuck,

00:17:37

Um, in the picture. Uh, that means leadership is what turns the root system into a beautiful tree to help develop individuals, uh, and to help them grow into, in, in a direction that has a bigger, uh, a greater purpose and build, uh, teams that can flourish. Over the years, I have found useful guidance on different moments, and that was, uh, sometimes as an eye opener, sometimes as, uh, a confirmation of something that I already thought was the right thing to do. And, um, these different insights have also helped me understand what my drivers are. I'm not really interested in a faster and a better delivery. My passion lies in creating a better work environment for others so that they can be the best version of themselves. Uh, what follows is a summary of different sources of, uh, of inspiration for that.

00:18:32

Some of the examples that I've, uh, shown or that I've, uh, shared earlier seemed pretty insignificant on their own, but they are, uh, very, uh, common. They are not deliberate acts. They often happen without the person realizing that's because they are products of our unconscious mind. Um, and as such, they are more a testimony to our past experience than to our, uh, future desires. The way that we experience the world is largely driven by unconscious processing. There's a good example in the two picture, in the two pictures that you see at the bottom. When you look at them, you would think that the left one is of a woman, and the right one is of a man, but in fact, it's exactly the same picture, and we've just played with the contrast, and that's how our unconscious mind plays with that every day.

00:19:20

Here's another story. In a study about nonverbal communication, a group of, uh, psychology students was asked to teach rats to get through a maze in a specific way, and the students were asked to reward these rats when they were successful, and the students were also asked to register the learning process of these rats. Um, but the students didn't know, was that, in fact, it wasn't the rats, but it was the students themselves who were the subject of this study. And they were also told that through a very specific and precise breeding process, uh, some of the rats were extremely intelligent, and the other half was dumb. And then one group of students was given the smart rats, and then the other group was given the dumb rats. In reality, there was no breeding process, and every rat was equally smart or dumb. But after 10 days, the smart rats outperformed the dumb rats simply because these two groups of students had approached their rats completely differently.

00:20:20

The smart threats had received more, uh, more encouragement, uh, more attention were treated with more patients. So in other words, the expectations influenced the results in our own professional context. That means that we influence other people's performance every day unconsciously. So if we want to build an, uh, high performing team that starts with ourselves, that study with the rats and the students, that made me think about, uh, the Johari window, which is a heuristic technique that was created in 1955 to help people understand their relationship with themselves and with others. Um, the window represents four quadrants, depending on what you know about yourself and also what others know about, uh, this person As a, as a leader, to be more authentic, you have to grow the arena, which is the open and honest space, and you can only do that by seeking and giving regular feedback.

00:21:26

<silence> to be more authentic as a leader. Another thing, uh, that is often, uh, shared is that you have to show vulnerability. Can I see a show of hands? How many people are familiar with the work of, uh, Brene Brown? That's a number. Not many, but yeah, a few. Um, Brene Brown is a, a researcher at the University of Texas in Austin, and she's done a lot of research on, uh, leadership, courage, vulnerability. Um, she's, uh, she's just published, I think her third book there to Lead is still on my shelf. Um, but I really recommend that you look into her material, into her work online. She talks about vulnerability a lot better than I do, but she mentions that, um, one, one has to let go of who they think they are expected to be in order to be who they really are. And that, that takes a lot of courage. Um, people who can do that are people who are, who are not afraid to be seen as they really are, because they really think that they are enough, they are enough as they are. And if we see ourselves as being enough, uh, we can stop the screaming and we can be much kinder to ourselves and to others.

00:22:42

Um, there are numerous business books out there that portray the alpha male or alpha female as a dominant, almost aggressive, uh, individual. However, the research of the, uh, Dutch primatologist France, the Wall tells us a different story. Um, his research, his research tells us that in fact, generosity and empathy are the two main character characteristics based on which a group of primates chooses their leader. Um, someone who is big, um, someone who, uh, intimidates the rest of the group, someone who insults the rest of the group is not necessarily, uh, an alpha male, they're just a bully. Um, demonstrating unity is extremely important in a coalition system like these groups of, uh, primates. And in order to be successful, a leader has to show or has two obligations. In fact, first of all, a leader is the peacekeeper. He is impartial, and he often supports the underdog, uh, that makes him very popular because he creates safety for the lower ranking individuals in the group. Secondly, um, he is empathic. Um, he, uh, he is the consoler in chief. Highly ranked males provide an, an enormous amount of comfort for distressed individuals.

00:24:20

A leadership coach that I, that I know and that I was, uh, talking to, uh, recently told me that she was working with a group of emerging young leaders when they, in their conversation, when they brought up the word present a lot, and when she, uh, when she asked them what they really meant with that, they, they came up with, uh, well present being, uh, a synonym for dominating for dominant, uh, which is a strange, but not a very uncommon, uh, idea. Um, I think if the Dalai Lama would be in this room today, he would be very present, but he would not be dominant.

00:24:57

Um, the, the American standup comedian Michael Junior, had a very life, uh, had a life changing thing happen to him a couple of years ago, and he, uh, he talks about that in in a couple of talks that you can find on online as well. Just moments before he went on stage, he had this moment where he, he thought, I have to change my approach. Um, usually when a standup comedian, uh, gets on the stage, what they want is to get laughs from their audience. He said, what if I would look to offer opportunities to laugh to my audience? So he started to look to give rather than looking to get from people. And immediately, as soon as he did that, in the days following, he started to notice different people around them, people that had always been there, but he just never noticed them because he wasn't looking for it.

00:25:50

The Belgian politics that were part of these record breaking negotiations, they weren't really public servants because I think they weren't ready to give, they were just trying to get, they were afraid to be seen as weak when they were giving in. Notice how a strong negative connotation that that hasn't giving in. Um, and so they, they didn't want to give in because they thought they were going to be seen as, as weak individuals. Little did they know that primates are looking for those individuals who offer unity and empathy to reward them with a leadership position. So I'd like to, uh, leave you with a challenge. The next time that you are in a meeting or in a conversation and people are looking at you to make a decision, just wait for a moment, wait for a moment, and before you answer, ask yourself, who am I serving with? My answer? Am I serving myself or am I serving others? And then go for the answer that is in the best interest of others. That offers unity and that is rooted in the empathy for the other person's position. It, I'm sure that it will change your life as well. Thank you very much for your attention.