Executive MBA: more impact, more space, more fulfillment
“At TIAS, we do not want to leave the meaningful shift that participants can experience to chance“
INTERVIEW WITH ROEMER VISSER, ACADEMIC DIRECTOR
“The transformation that participants experience in a typical Executive MBA program is usually something of a bonus. A side effect.” We are talking to Roemer Visser, Academic Director of the Executive MBA program at TIAS since 2021. “At TIAS, we do not want to leave the meaningful shift that participants can experience to chance, and decided to take charge of this process ourselves. Not that we pretend to know what people need or what shift they need to experience, but we can create the right conditions.”
The essence of leadership
Knowledge and behavior? Roemer argues that there are two main approaches to leadership development. One focuses on knowledge. “In principle, that is what we promise our EMBA participants: ‘We provide you with the tools, concepts and knowledge you need to be even more effective.’ But ultimately, this won’t make you a better leader. It might make you a better decision maker. Another approach to leadership development focuses on the behavioral side. It frames leadership as a set of skills: You are offered a training in giving feedback or in executive presence, for instance. Those are skills you can practice to expand your portfolio of answers and approaches. This all has its value, as does knowledge, but it won’t get to the essence of leadership. I’m becoming more and more convinced that effective leadership is not about skills, but about how reality shows up for you in the moment. It is about how you look, about what you feel. Generally, we tend to look through the filter of our own past rather than directly at what is happening right in front of our eyes. I will come back to that later.”
Influencing without authority To Roemer, the essence of powerful leadership is influencing without authority. “When are you most effective at influencing? When what you feel, what you think and what your body does, are in sync, when everything resonates. These three elements are always trying to find harmony. Your body betrays your innermost feelings, your state of mind, as it were. When you only look at leadership on a behavioral level, you wonder what to say or do. It becomes a quest for the magic recipe. In other words: ‘This is how we do it, because this is how Steve Jobs did it.’ As a result, the words that come out of your mouth do not match your body language. You will feel this internal struggle, where you are trying to suppress something, because it is not allowed to be there. This really pulls you down. And other people will see right through it.”
“My premise is: You know darn well what needs to happen. The question is: Why aren’t you doing it?”
Who is Roemer Visser?
‘I find it fascinating how come you can put a competent, well-intentioned group of people together and the best results that they get is that they make each other's lives miserable. How does that work? It's leadership. That's what makes the difference.’
The big blind spot Roemer emphasizes: “What I want to say is that you know darn well what needs to be done, and you have all the skills to make it happen. The question is: Why aren't you doing it? This should make you realize that what you want to achieve as a leader really has to be important to you, mean something to you. You have to feel it, you have to really want it. And that is a big blind spot in how we look at leadership, I think, definitely in business. People may know this, but they never talk about it. The following example will explain what I mean.”
A gimmick “Imagine I have P&L responsibility. If I hit my target, I will get a huge bonus. But I depend on my team in order to achieve that goal. So, if I notice that someone in my team isn’t going to make their target, I’m starting to worry about mine. Of course, I won’t say that out loud. I decide to have a private chat with the team member in question. Just a bit of small talk, because that is what is expected, but in the meantime, my colleague and I both know what is really going on. We also know what is driving this interaction: My concerns about the results, not my concerns about my colleague.
That type of transactionality has become the norm. And it makes leadership a bit of a gimmick. So I decide to follow a training about giving feedback, because I’m concerned about my team not hitting its targets, while I also don’t want to damage the relationships I have with my colleagues. So I want to learn HOW to have difficult conversations. For many people, leadership is all about the HOW question. But the HOW is hardly ever relevant. It is the wrong question to ask. It is much more effective to ask: ‘What are my responsibilities? What did I miss? Which conversation have I put off too long?’
Of course, it’s fine to call on a colleague if you need something from them, but it has become the norm. We don’t make real, deep connections anymore. If we could escape that pattern, and really connect with each other, we would discover that we can really rely on each other. People would feel ownership, feel safe to admit mistakes, and voice concerns early; and you would not need to exercise control as much.”
Undermining mental models In addition to the transactionality that stands in the way of real connections and therefore leadership, we have Roemer’s earlier observation that we spend a lot more time looking through the filter of our past than directly at what is happening right in front of our eyes. What he means to say, is that we have a past-based mental model of all the people around us and of ourselves, that can get in the way of performance.
“Imagine I am that same manager again, and one of my team members has been in the office less and his productivity has declined. Based on my own past, I conclude that this colleague is no longer motivated. Of course, I won’t say that to him, but this image, this mental model, will be a decisive factor later for how I look at this team member and how I interact with him.”
“This is how we’re all constantly putting other people in boxes. In fact, there is an entire industry that caters to this apparent need, with reports on capabilities, potentials, personalities, preferences, motivations, and so on. Of course, there is merit in that, but one common side effect is that the box becomes even narrower. In the end I might feel, as your manager, that I shouldn’t ask you to get involved in anything green, for instance, because you really dislike all things green. This makes my own world a bit easier and more predictable, but of course, the opportunity cost is huge. What’s worse, I have also put myself in a box.”
Awareness and trust The Academic Director is convinced that leadership development is mainly about helping to let go of limiting beliefs about yourself, about others and about what is possible. “This means we have to examine our beliefs about ourselves, other people, even our world view. It improves our awareness. Then, you practice acting on it, step by step. And once you see that it works, you start to trust the process. That can be the start of a transformation process.”
“Participants think they come for knowledge, but all our graduates later acknowledge that it was never really about the knowledge after all.”
Practical exercise: mind, mood, and body
Roemer has people do the following exercise, to experience what happens when mind, mood, and body are not in harmony:
Stand up straight, close your eyes, and think back to a moment in your life when you achieved a huge success. It doesn't matter what it is, but a moment when you felt on top of the world.
Feel that moment, and then look at your posture. Usually, people will stand up straighter, and sometimes smile a bit. Now, say out loud: ‘Life is hopeless, there’s no point to all of this.’ Do you feel the tension there? Your body and emotions don’t match your words.
Now, let your head hang down. Feel despair. As if you can’t take it any longer. Now, say out loud: ‘Wow, life is great!’ Can you do that? Most people will start laughing, or won’t be able to say this sentence with conviction.
Focus on transformation
People who are attracted to the Executive MBA program at TIAS are often not initially looking for transformation. Roemer: “They want to expand and deepen their knowledge. And of course we will fulfill that promise. But all our graduates later acknowledge that it wasn’t really about the knowledge after all. The EMBA is a transformation process. It is a cocoon that participants enter into and emerge from a changed person two years later. Nobody can predict how much they will change. I don’t know either. I only know that the participants need more. Not more income, but the opportunity to create more impact, more space, more fulfillment. What we do see is that 88% of the graduates does achieve a new job at a different company or gained a promotion at their company after one year: that also speaks volumes about the transformation they undergo''.
In order not to leave the transformation of the participants to chance, we leave room in the curriculum to create the right conditions. Roemer: “We have reduced almost all long subjects to three-day courses. This has created sufficient room to insert a leadership curriculum as the backbone of the program, which invites transformation.”
Deep dive into leadership The kick-off of the Executive MBA, and at the same time the first part of the leadership backbone, is a two-day deep dive. Roemer: “We really look at where people get stuck in their leadership process. What’s going on? And why? What type of shift do you need to make? We do quite a deep dive with the group. It is great for team building of course, which is also an important goal.” As a result of those two days, participants have a clear idea of which shift they need to make. This helps them set the agenda for their own development for the next two years.
Peer-to-peer coaching The participants meet twice a year in groups of five or six under the supervision of an external coach. The first session takes place after the deep dive. Roemer: “During the first coaching session, they translate the agenda they created during the deep dive into a first step: ‘What experiment am I willing to take on?’ It has to be big enough to be meaningful, but small enough to be manageable. The participants know that they will meet again six months later, to discuss how that first step went for everyone.”
Second deep dive in Austria In year two, the participants go off grid for three days in the Austrian mountains for a second deep dive. The idea is to get clarity about what is really important to them. Roemer: “There’s a good chance some people come back from that trip and say: ‘What I took away from that first deep dive is no longer true at all. I now really know what type of future I want to create for myself.’”
Capstone: creating your own future Now that the participants really know what they want, they will each look for a capstone project to make it possible. Roemer: “Take someone who, after fifteen years in HR, has outgrown the job and wants to move into general management. We tell them: ‘Make sure you don’t pick an HR project, but a project that puts yourself in the spotlight with someone who can help you make that transition. For example, someone in a general management role.’ If you approach it that way, you are doing the capstone for yourself. With the support from TIAS, you are creating your own future. That is what we are trying to do. This is at the heart of the program.”
“If people tackle a project during the capstone and they don’t feel equipped to deliver the same quality they are used to, then we are doing it right,” Roemer explains about TIAS’s idea behind the capstone. “For people who are really in touch with their mission, it will feel very natural to take a step that makes other people say: ‘Wow, so courageous!’ While for them, it feels like the only way. In this way, participants are prepared to claim their new role in their organization, or wherever they go after the EMBA. The moment they graduate, they already have proof that they can do it. Of course, that isn’t true for everyone, which is also okay. But what we want, is that when participants get their diploma, they have already successfully taken a step into the unknown, and have experienced an expansion of their consciousness.”
Live Performance Challenge weekends In addition to the components that form the new leadership backbone of TIAS’s Executive MBA program, there is another new component that contributes to creating the conditions for transformation. These are the Live Performance Challenge weekends. Roemer: “Where the EMBA used to be a sequence of courses, we have now bundled the courses into four themed stages. Each of these four stages is concluded with a Live Performance Challenge weekend, where participants work on an actual business problem, for a real-life client, in a pressure cooker-like environment.”
“Everything people really want - not what they think they want, but what they really want - is always inclusive.”
Business and society: a compass for a better world
Roemer realizes that if you really want to be effective and make more impact as a leader, you need to commit to something that is bigger than yourself. “People who are ultimately only interested in a bonus or promotion, often find themselves driving themselves and others. It is not the same as when people commit themselves to a shared purpose, because the vision of that leader resonates with them personally. So as a leader, what you stand for, has to be inclusive. The moment an organization says that it wants to be number one, it is no longer inclusive. That is exactly when it starts excluding others. The same is true for organizations that only talk about increasing their market share or their profit margin. Before you know it, you are pitting shareholders against customers.”
Feeling urgency “You can also create a vision or mission that includes everyone,” Roemer explains. “What we need, is a paradigm shift from shareholders to stakeholders. Of course, if this were easy, it would have happened a long time ago, but you can also earn money while working towards creating a better world. That is why our leadership component focuses on the question: ‘What do I really want?’ Everything people really want - not what they think they want, but what they really want - is always inclusive. Think of a better world for your children. If you work that way, no child is excluded. Because creating a better world for your children also means you create a better world for someone else’s children. It allows you to combine and intertwine your personal ambitions with a broader social responsibility, which helps you find your own personal compass. For example, when you notice that the organization you work at is shifting towards shareholder value, you may feel the need to do something about it.”
4-day BizzTrek Rwanda
The 4-day Business Experience in Rwanda, called BizzTrek, where participants work on business challenges for and with local entrepreneurs, is also an essential part of the program. According to Roemer, it contributes enormously towards becoming more aware of the extent to which business and society are intertwined. “On the surface level, you learn a thing or two about how business works in a completely different context. You are confronted with assumptions that sometimes turn out to be true, but mostly completely untrue. That in itself expands your awareness. On a deeper level, you look at the Netherlands from a Rwandan point of view, which gives you more clarity about the privileges we have here, such as a stable internet connection and safe roads. Or you come to the conclusion that you can learn a lot from the people you met in Rwanda. In any case, if the previous program components hadn’t yet shown you how intertwined business and society are, this will definitely become very clear in Rwanda.”
Back to their own organization Once participants return to their own organization after completing the Executive MBA program, with their degree, the shift they have gone through, and their vision of the future they want to create, a large number of them make significant steps forward and upward. Up to board level, even. But what happens to the dream, the better future they want to create?
Baby steps Roemer: “Of course, we hope that people will indeed try to make their dream come true and have the courage to change the system. Everyone knows that the system needs to be changed. But we also know that it’s not going to be easy. It would be naive to expect a participant to challenge the entire system on their own after returning to their organization, like a kind of Don Quixote. Because, before you know it, you will be rejected by that same system. And that doesn’t help anyone. Creating a better world is often done in baby steps. What is important, is that we start somewhere.”
The simple solution of Tony’s Chocolonely
As an illustrative example of ‘creating a better world by starting somewhere’, Roemer cites the approach of Tony’s Chocolonely, a chocolate brand that has committed itself to producing and selling slavery-free cocoa. Frans Pannekoek, former Head of Operations of Tony’s Chocolonely, now affiliated with TIAS, recently gave a lecture on this topic. “A beautiful, inspirational example,” according to the Academic Director.
‘Just do it’ The money earned by selling cocoa on the world market mainly ends up in the pockets of a small number of companies. They purchase the cocoa from cocoa farmers at far too low prices. Tony’s Chocolonely refused to play this game. “What they did instead, was simply start buying the cocoa at the going market price, even though they knew that the price was too low and that the cocoa farmers would not be able to make a living from it. They didn’t start offering more money all at once. This would only push up the prices charged by the brokers. And that doesn’t help anyone. No, they started playing the game, while paying a 25% surcharge directly to the farmer. They would literally call up the farmer and say: ‘We want to pay you more. What is your bank account number?’ Well, if you are working with independent farmers in Ghana, it can be quite a challenge to transfer money to them. But that is how they started. The message of Frans Pannekoek’s lecture? ‘Just do it! Stop feeding the system.’”
Return on investment?
What really makes Roemer happy, is that during the time that he has been Academic Director of the Executive MBA at TIAS, he has not yet had a single conversation with anyone about the return on investment of the program. “That is not what our participants focus on. Our participants choose this program because they have an intrinsic motivation to make a contribution to society. I think it is extremely courageous of them that they are willing to make such a huge financial investment, especially if they are not sponsored by their employer. And even if they are being sponsored, it is still a huge investment in terms of time and energy. In exchange for what? It’s not even a promise. It’s only a possibility. That they are willing to take the leap; that is what inspires me.”
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