Switch ON

For centuries, we’ve been living in a world where the status of leaders has been significantly more important than the growth of those whom they lead. This kind of top-down, exclusive attitude has had far-reaching consequences in the world, from politics and business to our environment and even within our own homes.

Fortunately, demand is revolutionizing the qualities that effective leaders must possess — adding empathy, inclusivity, vulnerability, and even love to effective leadership approaches. Today’s top leaders are not only smart and fully adept at what they do, but they are also active participants in the growth of those whom they lead.

It was a privilege to discuss with Sonja Klopčič, an independent business consultant who specializes in leadership development for conscious organizations, innovator, and developer of AEIOU Leadership, about how leadership needs to evolve to build thinking and conscious organizations. Sonja talks about how to Switch On our inner game of leadership and clarifies what efforts we need to undertake to become better leaders - how to lead from the inside out. You are most welcome to listen to the conversation.

Do you ever feel like your urgent daily tasks are getting in the way of what's important? Or have you delayed your decision for months or years and someone else overpassed you? You should not be putting your dreams off to the side.

Regardless of how you see success, many of us spend most of our lives talking about "what if."

It's not always about knowing the exact steps you need to take, but you must be clear on where you currently are and more importantly where you want to be. And then take the appropriate action with the right mindset to get you there.

We had a powerful conversation with Katarina Primožič Ramoveš, People & Culture & Communications officer at Nil, about how to overcome the challenges with talent and new competence development.

How to strengthen the team capabilities, readiness, and better balance them with the desired impact you want to achieve?

You are most welcome to listen to the podcast and learn how.

Companies have a great role to play in tackling global challenges.

Creating a better future requires all of us to be at the table, and to understand the wider societal role we all must play to build a better working world. At the heart of that purpose lies the need to build trust in capital markets - trust as a key asset for any relationship and any transaction whether it’s for business or individuals.

Retaining trust requires all of us to go further than before, it's no longer enough to work toward the delivery of the bottom-line figure, it needs to be more than that. It needs to work and succeed in terms of non-financial dimensions to include social and environmental aspects of performance.

All of this is required because growth in the future must be sustainable. It must deliver value that benefits all stakeholders. In this context, leaders need to take a pause, step back and revaluate the point beyond mere profits – and re-think the real purpose of business.

It was amazing to have a discussion with Mojca Markizeti, Head of Sustainability and Regulatory Affairs at Iskraemeco, about How companies can become leaders in sustainable change?

You are most welcome to listen to the podcast to learn more about - How is sustainability bringing value to business and profit? How can you become a leader in this change? What is the cost if we don’t change?

It isn’t enough for leaders to define the vision of an organization. Today’s leaders need to actively participate in the effort to make their vision a reality. Organizations that are focused, resilient, responsive, adaptable, versatile, and able to sustainably innovate are successful. Taken together, these traits are known as Business Agility.

It was an honor to discuss with Alessandro Cugno Garrano, Senior Executive Partner at Gartner and the Business Agility Transformation Expert, how diversity and inclusion are fuelling business agility and driving progress. You are most welcome to listen to his insights and guidance on how we move from doing things right to a point so we can focus on the right things.

Innovation is a collaborative process by which organizations abandon old paradigms and make significant advances. Innovative ideas come from several sources, including unreasonable demands or goals, and time pressures. However, there are many blocks to innovation. An innovative idea is not helpful to an organization unless it’s tested and implemented.

The perfect solution is sometimes there, a vision, a thought, a dream, or just a wish. But it’s often far too complex for an individual to take it into reality. So, we need to move from “me” to “we”.

It was amazing to have a discussion about the importance of collaborative leadership and how it’s fueling innovation with Carlotta Dainese, Digital Strategy & Innovation Lab Director at Prysmian Group. During the conversation, Carlotta shared with us why she treats every innovation like a space mission and what we need to co consider to make it saleable and scalable. You are most welcome to listen.

Your vision and purpose need to be defined before you dive into any meaningful strategy. You need to know where the company wants to end up, and why.

Yet without the real customer-centric strategy, you will not get there. The customer is firmly in the driving seat and with it comes a required change in how you build and nurture relationships with potential and existing customers. And every time a customer achieves their purpose, the company that enabled them to do so, gets rewarded.

We were excited to discuss What to consider when building a roadmap from vision to reality? with dr. Amadea Dobovišek. Amadea is an owner and managing director of consulting company Publi Una, a 2 time Fenix award winner for the best consulting project at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia, and author. During the discussion, Amadea shares what it means to truly have a customer in the center of everything that the company does and how to shape its success by serving its customers better.

The pandemic has highlighted what was already becoming clear over time: that hero leaders are no longer what companies need. The most effective leadership today isn’t about technical expertise and having all the answers. Besides articulating a compelling vision, it’s about being human, connecting with people, and being able to unleash their potential. For companies to be successful they need to create organizations that are more considerate and truly care about people, beyond profit, and do good.

We have been privileged to discuss the future of the workplace with Perry Timms, the founder of People and Transformational HR. setting out to create better business for a better world. Perry is an international conference speaker on the transformative power of HR, a 2-time TEDx speaker, an award-winning writer on the future of work, a renowned blogger, and one of the most influential and progressive HR thinkers of this time. During this conversation, he provided us with What matters and what counts when evolving ‘Better Business for a Better World’? You are welcome to listen to his guidance.

Moving from vision to reality is not easy, especially when the changes keep coming at us so fast. So, we need to be willing to adapt along the way and remember that the journey is as important as the destination. When taking on the necessary steps, big or small, we are usually not alone when implementing change. And these steps are not perfect, but we have to take a risk, remain focused and consistent in our delivery of value.

In this episode, we are having a discussion with Mateja Lavrič about a case when a company decided to take on a new challenge, to go on a new journey wanting to transform themselves while transforming their customers. During the conversation, Mateja, a Managing director at Kolektor Ventures and a member of Kolektor Digital’s core team, takes us through their journey how they pivoted their company in a new direction You are most welcome to listen and learn from her experience.

"Rome wasn't built in a day” as the saying goes So many people give in and fall short of success. When bringing vision to life balance and consistency are key. So, make a plan, and stick to it. Don't burn yourself out in the first couple of days and then give up when things you want don't just fall into your lap. Commit to show up, put out great content, and build connections and relationships with people who can help you reach your goal.

On this occasion, we have taken a broader look into the community that has so strongly impacted all of us and shaped our day-to-day in recent months. Pandemic has turned our world upside down in an instant, and we are still recovering. I this context we need to look around for new experiences and gather different perspectives, different viewpoints. We have been privileged to discuss whether we need to be guided or allowed to make informed decisions with Dr.Mateja Logar. Dr. Logar is an Assist. Prof., Doctor of Medicine, Infectious Disease Specialist at the Department of Infectious Diseases and Department for Hospital Hygiene at University Medical Center Ljubljana. As Head of the advisory group for covid-19 Containment and Epidemic Management at the Ministry of Health. During the conversation, she has shared with us her experience and advice on what to consider when mobilizing people. You are welcome to listen.

Having a purpose, a vision alone is not enough to be successful, both require action. Without action, vision is nothing more than a dream.

The key to success is to stay focused on your vision and to be realistic about your current situation. And that can be a challenge.

We have opened this season - starting with square one –“the change” and how we are perceiving it with a special guest - Dan Podjed, PhD, an anthropologist dedicated to developing ethnography-based IT solutions and innovative research methods at the intersection of different scientific fields. He is a Research Fellow at the Research Centre Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Associate Professor at the University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Arts, and Senior Research Advisor at the Institute for Innovation and Development of the University of Ljubljana. The topic of our discussion was focused on whether technology is making us more or less human?

Dan shared with us how we have forgotten to stay human during this transformation, his concerns with technology dependence and how can we regain the balance between on and off. You are most welcome to listen.

The tech landscape is lush with entrepreneurs who reached success only after the founders had modified or even abandoned their original vision.

What about the idea that the best startups are driven by a clear vision and consistent values that generate success? Well, that’s business. Hard and fast rules don’t work often enough. You can’t always just follow lists of best practices.

Capturing new growth opportunities is fundamental to startup strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. But how can managers best meet this challenge- with flexibility or focus?

We have discussed this dilemma with Jasna Mihelj Coustaury, GM European operations at Plume. Jasna shared with us her story and revealed why constant learning and ongoing innovation are so critical going forward when the world continues to change.

Not so long ago, the time has stopped for many of us, while on the other hand, time has accelerated. Certain aspects of our economy had to respond fast to this unpredicted crisis. It was a ride, but it was not all bad. The situation has accelerated the change and put things in perspective - what we need and what we don’t, what matters to us, how flexible we are to embrace change and act on it.

“Less is more” may sound like a cliché. In reality, it helps us to concentrate on what matters to us and what we need to focus on. It was a pleasure to speak about the dilemma with Irena Turšič, Adriatic Mediterranean, and the Black Sea District HR Business Partner at Bureau Veritas.

Irena shared with us her story of how her team managed to overcome the anxiety linked to the pandemic and how they embraced the necessary change to become more resilient.

If enterprises are going to succeed in their digital transformations, they need to be able to shake up and challenge existing perceptions, mindsets within their organizations. In fact, not being able to challenge the status quo is one of the barriers to their success. Yet moving away from what we know, and how it has always been done, is a risky move - not all transformations succeed. 

It was an honor to speak about new opportunities linked to Living transformations with Mario André Brueckner, Digital & Agile Transformation Expert, the founder of the Agilizer® network, New Work solutions speaker, and coach. Mario shared with us the key failures limiting the transformation success and provided many applicable ideas for business immunity and endurance.

Things are moving too quickly to be able to sit back, review the world, debate at length, and suggest a grand vision to be reviewed five years later. This is a thing of the past.

Executing brilliantly yet failing to consider the long-term implications of these actions can mean a failure. Equally, focusing on the future, failing against the present demands, or not executing against the vision, will not get you there. The need to execute with the future in mind, or strategize while executing requires leaders to become adaptive.

We had a great discussion with Jernej Pirc, General Manager at SoftwareONE Slovenia, about how to execute effectively while being highly strategic? During our conversation, Jernej raised many valid points and shared his guidance on what to keep high on our list when bringing the future into the present, to solve today’s problems?

Tensions we are feeling in enterprises today are especially important, because a company’s long-term survival depends on experimenting, taking risks, and learning from failure … all this in the pursuit of new, better products, services, and processes. However, companies also need consistency, discipline, and steady attention to make the most out of what they already have. These innovations create tensions between today and tomorrow, existing customer offers and new ones, between stability, and change.

We had a powerful conversation with Nico Schumann - Senior Digital Strategy and Transformation Manager at Eon Digital Technology, and a Co-founder of Icon (Inspiring Co-creating Organizations Network of Europe). Nico gave us plenty to think about the importance of gathering different perspectives and stimulating co-creation, collaboration, and co-innovation to shape the future. A lot can be learned from his valuable experience and I hope you will like our conversation.

To succeed in today’s world, innovation is non-negotiable. Leaders need to ensure progress by creating the culture that will drive their organization into new areas, technologies, methods, products, and services. At the same time, they need to understand why their organization exists, what mandate is being fulfilled by their presence and what makes them successful — to guide their decisions.

In addition to looking to the past to steer company growth, leaders also need to be willing to try new things and be comfortable with failure; leading their organization to do the same.

We were privileged to discuss the importance of being tech-savvy and human-aware for today's success with Igor Pauletič, founder and partner of FrodX, author of Game changer portal, and active member of the Customer Experience Slovenia community. He constantly strives to get out of the comfort zone to accumulate development potential and has provided us with useful insight into how technology usage helps us boost business growth through the development of customer engagement and managing customer experience.

The only constant in the world is change. If we only think about how much different is our life than it was 10 years ago - how different do you think the next 10 years will be?

An inspiring conversation about how leadership and life are about reinvention with Ina Kukovič Borovnik - the first certified Chief Reinvention Officer Practitioner, Founder of Bela Voda, and active member of We Exist reinvention agency.

Who we are today will not be who we are tomorrow. There are too many variables beyond our field of control.

Life rewards those who are prepared, those who take the calculated risks and proactively strive to create a successful future. If you stand still, others will pass you by and life will eventually run you over.

We expect leaders to make consistent decisions, keep a steady course, and align an organization’s culture. But leaders typically face multiple demands that conflict with one another, and they need to make hard choices, compromises between today’s needs and tomorrow’s success.

Leaders are expected to be confident but they are also human, not having all the answers and humility is helping them to stay aware, stay alert, and nimble. It was an absolute pleasure to have the conversation around this dilemma with Maja Majstorović Hajduković - the founder of Agile people Slovenia and an Agile HR Instructor. I simply love her commitment to change. Her powerful inspiration can serve as guidance - what modern leaders should embrace and focus on to make a difference.

Experimentation, iteration, and improvisation are all in the rage of today’s dynamic business environment. When evaluating new business opportunities, I often get this question - how to balance between maintaining strategic focus while staying flexible? Both can define or break the business. It was a pleasure to discuss this fragile relationship with Boško Praštalo - a determined business owner, an entrepreneur helping businesses achieve their goals and a passionate networker - who believes that we need both, but we can’t do it alone. During the conversation, he guides us on how to elevate our ability to adapt and embrace the change and shares why building relationships, fostering trust, and inclusion are so critical today.

Modern leaders need courage and creativity. It can be as simple as staying curious or thinking about how it can be done better. But it also means not falling into the trap of “this is how it has always been done«. It is about developing critical thinking and pushing the status quo with new ideas. In this episode, Mateja Panjan - Innovation Manager & expert on the new ways of working at Danfoss, explains her experience on the fragile balance between creativity and control and shares best practices, recommendations on how to achieve the flexibility needed to be efficient at what we do.

Welcome, to Switch ON! A podcast exploring the real experience and challenges of modern leadership. My name is Helena Mah and I'll be speaking with successful leaders to discover their insights, guidance, and trends to learn from them and build on their experience for tomorrow's success. It's coming soon so stay tuned!