Disrupt, Diversify, Digitise

Our Global Lecture Series returns with tech exec extraordinaire, Janina Kugel, in conversation with ETH Alumna and We Shape Tech board member, Petra Ehmann. Kugel is a highly recognised for her innovative leadership in restructuring and diversification. She served sat Siemens as Chief HR Officer, overseeing a workforce of over 350,000 employees— and was also the company’s youngest executive. In 2018 she was listed among the top 100 influential women in Germany by Manager Magazin. She currently sits on the boards of TUI (travel and tourism company), Kryndyl (based in New York), and is Senior Advisor at BCG and EQT, a purpose-driven global investment group.

In this post, we share some of the highlights from the Fireside Chat that took place at ETH Zurich on 6 October 2022.

Clear Boundaries—and a Lot of Freedom
Kugel, who was born in Stuttgart, had the benefit of farsighted parents who set clear parameters for her education: she could do whatever she wanted (everything was possible), they would support her for six years, and she was allowed to course correct at least once. There were caveats: for example she needed to go outside her comfort zone and train somewhere she didn’t speak the language. So she started out in psychology, then switched lanes, studying economics in Italy. This set the footprint for a career that has spanned several continents.

On Planning a Career
“I don't think you can plan a career, but what you can plan is to build the basis which is at least necessary in large international organisations to actually make it.” Case in point: she found herself living abroad and settled, she had just pulled off a major restructuring coup, the children were integrated in their new schools... and then she was offered another job, a competitive opportunity which would take them back to Germany. The family was not amused, she won that skirmish, but ever since her career ascent has been marked by negotiation—with her loved ones. The framework for expansion was in place, but most importantly for Kugel, compromise is the key.

So Can We Really “Have it All”?
“You can,” asserts Kugel, “but not everyday.” She put forth a simple equation: if you work 60, 70 hours a week, and you want to spend time with your family (when they are awake), you make the necessary sacrifices. While her kids were growing up, she gave up the perks of movie going, tennis, and other extracurricular activities that didn’t involve her family. It was a conscious choice both to be ambitious and raise a family, so there were no regrets.

Negotiating with family was one thing, navigating pregnancy in the workplace was another obstacle course. Maternity leave posed a precarious situation, no one believed she would return, and to assert her position she had to challenge her immediate boss' stereotypical notions in a hard-nosed fashion. He didn’t like it of course, says Kugel, but “once you have reached the management level, the first thing that you need to learn is that you cannot be liked by everyone”. During the Q & A, the maternity leave issue came up again, and one of Kugel’s more interesting and clear-headed approaches to this surfaced: take some time out from the initial romance to actually plan what the financial / career logistics of your future with children looks like. We can have most of it, if we plan for it.

So Better to Be Respected, Than Liked?
“I was in HR after the first of five, six, seven years of my career and it was doing a lot of restructuring. If you tell people that you're closing sites, if you tell people that you need to fire them, I mean how could you ever imagine to be liked?” She offers clarity: if there’s a job to do, as long as you do it respectfully, you will be respected. You can be nice, but there are limits.

On the Concept of Advanced Leadership
She distinguishes between team leaders who run departments or ensure the smoothening of gears in place for manufacture, these are managers. Leadership, advanced leadership requires a holistic vision beyond the self, or immediate enterprise. Surprisingly she uses Greta Thunberg as an example of someone who has rallied attention to an issue scientists have been handwringing for years. Like her or not, she has impassioned others to take up a cause that benefits all.

Dancing in the Boardroom
“Nothing has ever changed in this world without having had people that were courageous to try it out.” Looping back to the idea of visionary leadership, there is that issue where a lot of people have new ideas, but find themselves left in the cold without support. She gives an antidote by way of a Youtube video: an open air concert where someone gets up and starts dancing, everyone around is thinking “what a weirdo.” It takes a while, but a second person starts to dance as well, and then eventually a third—then suddenly it becomes a movement, everyone joins in…

“…So if you're not courageous enough to be the first one and many are not, that’s okay. And if you're not courageous enough to be number two, then at least be courageous enough to be number three, to be number four, or number 10, because everyone that wants to drive change meets those people that are supporting him or her to actually make it happen. And you know, I never found a better symbol than the dancing guy.”

Leadership and Vulnerability
Kugel believes humility is worthwhile, but it’s not necessary to show weakness. One would rather have a network of people you can rely on, that have your back. There is value in these invisible networks, people who manage things for you and vice versa.

Complex Ecosystems
Organisational structures have become complex, where they are cross-functional but not necessarily answering to each other. Kugel handles this by figuring out who is what, and how they want to contribute. The biggest challenge for managers, she asserts, is to understand that you can only get the best out of your team if you adapt to them.

Is Work From Home Here to Stay?
Earlier in the conversation, Kugel mentioned that she has been working from home for 16 years already, before the pandemic. Seeing that productivity didn’t dip during the pandemic, there is more of a case for this. Also, certain groups of people need this flexibility, and if they don’t get it, they will leave. In her experience, whenever she gave people freedom, they always delivered. Mostly because of the trust invested in them. With work hours and location, flexibility is the key.

Before the pandemic, she had already established something called the HR Cafe, with the idea that everyone would dial in from around the globe for about 90 minutes, with no set agenda. It was a community meeting, which triggered all sorts of informal exchanges, and also created a sense of belonging. She advocates creating a culture of these virtual coffee chats to strengthen the dynamic of (remote) workplace connections.

Inclusion in the Workspace
Diversity in the workplace is one of Janina’s passions. For her it is more than gender; it encompasses disabilities, sexual orientation, and race. During the Q & A, someone asked about tips on how to create an infrastructure of inclusiveness within their start up. Kugel responded (to much laughter) that if you hire someone who gets on your nerves, you’ve probably made a diverse hire. She went on to talk about the importance of understanding that whatever you have on your mind is not necessarily what other people would have on their mind when looking at the same situation. This is where different perspectives become useful.

Later on the conversation turned to bias. Everyone has biases, Kugel asserts, and once we identify them, we can consciously work to overcome them. If you have have an organisation with just two groups of people, it will be rife with bias, rejections, racism et cetera, but if you have 10 people from different backgrounds, chances are they are from invisible minorities. There’s a 30% rule in sociology that allows for diversity even within the minority quota, so you don’t have one minority representing all the rest.

Watch the entire conversation below:

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