Essenta Insights

This week we are zooming into the subject of sustainability and more importantly, relating this to business transformations; as this is one of the most discussed accelerated Covid’ trends.

Whether digital or sustainability trends drive change in external circumstances, why is it so hard for many companies to transform? What are the common denominators that prevent companies from leading from the front when it comes to the sustainability movement? And what can we learn from the digital revolution that can impact our sustainability efforts?

Food for thought shared by Julien Devaureix which hopefully inspires companies to act now when it comes to implementing transformative strategies regarding the sustainability agenda.

There is no time to wait, organisations have a responsibility to lead the way when it comes to saving the planet – not just because it is the right thing to do, but because consumers and ultimately talent expect this from companies in 2020 as we’ve addressed in previous episodes. They need to have a purpose, a voice and an authentic stance when it comes to climate change, social justice, waste management and pollution to name but a few.

Julien is a thought leader in sustainability and has a track record of successful digital transformations globally. He worked at Chanel, Burberry, Publicis and most recently at LVMH under Ian Rogers to transform the customer experience.

We hope you enjoy this session and we look forward to your feedback.

This week we continue the subject of purpose – at Virgin, Richard Branson’s founding philosophy has always been ‘Happy people make happy customers, who make happy shareholders’.

Being purpose led is fast becoming a strategic imperative rather than a choice. People and consumers expect businesses to lead the way in creating a more social conscious environment, one that aims to create a more sustainable world.

Based on this we have invited Lisa Thomas, former CMO at Virgin Group, as Virgin Group is a global pioneer in purpose and Lisa was working directly in Richard Branson’s senior leadership team. 

In this episode, she will share how they think about purpose at Virgin, what it means to them, why it is important, as well as some tips around what it is and importantly what it is not. Lisa also discusses some learnings from their experience of developing and embedding their purpose across the Virgin Group. What does it mean for leadership requirements? How to engage your people and how to ultimately let purpose become a North Star across the business to impact innovation and strategic decisions.

 We hope you enjoy this session and we look forward to your feedback.

Please do rate, review and subscribe and email any questions to [email protected]

Empathy, agility, and humility are all soft skills that have been highlighted several times over the past weeks across multiple of our podcast episodes. 

A question often asked by our clients is ‘Where can we find this type of talent?’

It is the right time to think about the talent readiness to face and embrace this unpredictable storm. Restructuring alone might not be the answer with the new reality, as companies ought to consider how mentally agile, diverse and ready their organisations and leadership teams are for the unknown future. 

Hence today we have chosen to deep dive into the correlation between emerging market leadership skills and post-covid leadership requirements as there is argument to say there are many synergies to explore. 

Why could emerging markets offer us an interesting talent pool? What are some of the skillsets we are referring to? How can companies take a progressive approach to ensure they can increase their cognitive diversity levels by looking at emerging market talent and subsequently reduce blind spots?

Today’s guest speaker is William Lumentut, a seasoned emerging market leader who was born in Indonesia and has lived in Asia, Africa and Europe. William has more than 20 years of commercial and leadership experience across different industries including working experience at P&G, Danone and Novartis. 

The desire to evolve culturally to a more empathic working environment has been accelerated by Covid-19 – we see leaders themselves feeling very differently about the world and thus realising the importance of empathy in order to continue to engage talent. How are my people doing and how do we know how my people are doing are frequently asked questions. Humanising leadership and humanising organisations is something we hear all around and a hugely positive trend towards a more compassionate and purposeful work environment. 

Hence we have invited CHX Performance this week as our guest speakers. They are experts in the biology of business - their science-led programmes, supported by hard data, are about people, their biology, feelings and behaviour because better mental health and sustainable, high performance are all determined as much by how people feel as how they think.

Why are empathy and emotion so critical in every day leadership? Today’s episode covers emotional authenticity in leadership.

Getting to the root cause of how your people feel and how you help your people to feel good are current topics for many organisations as they understand how employees feel impacts performance, engagement levels, innovation and ultimately bottom line results. 

Tune in and enjoy and please rate, review and subscribe.

This week we are inviting Eric Liedtke, previous executive board member and Chief Marketing Officer at adidas. He is a progressive sustainability advocate who has taken on the fight against plastic waste full time after a hugely successful career at adidas. A former competitive swimmer, and Oceans Advocate, Eric initiated a partnership with Parley for the Oceans in 2014, driving the ambitious goal of eliminating virgin polyester from adidas products by 2024. 

Eric encourages companies to look at purpose as something that contributes to more than just the needs of the shareholders but to serve the people behind it i.e. employees and consumers. 

Making a difference is what ensures engaged employees as well as winning the hearts of consumers and driving consumer loyalty. Brands in today’s world, need to take a stance on what they stand for in terms of social justice, gender justice, economic justice, health justice, climate justice, etc. as the private sector ought to lead the way when it comes to sustainability and changing the world.

What does it mean to be a purposeful brand? Eric will share his views about brand purpose and how critical it is, addressing purpose and the role of purpose in the current work place touching on culture and leadership skills. 

Additionally, he will share his success story of what adidas achieved in terms of the fight against plastic and how one shoe turned into a billion+ business. 

We hope you enjoy this session and please rate, review and subscribe.

This week we are inviting Zoe Zou, previous US Head of Tmall World. She is a progressive global citizen with 15+ years of working experience at L’Oréal as well as Alibaba. She has worked at both tech first and traditional companies, coupled with being a Chinese senior executive means that she brings a great, well rounded perspective to the table.  

 Zoe will share her views on how to take the best of both worlds and what we can learn from tech first and traditional companies.

 The episode is an interesting analysis touching on corporate culture, customer strategy, organisational design as well as project management and employee well-being. Zoe will share some observations and thoughts on what she believes are some of the best qualities from these two seemingly very different worlds.

 As Zoe is a native Chinese executive and well experienced converting China to the West, we’ve asked her to integrate some of her cultural observations as well as tangible Alibaba examples.

We hope you enjoy this session and please rate, review and subscribe. If you have any questions for us, please email [email protected]

Continuing in the digital space, today we are listening to Eric Johnson, a senior executive with 20+ years experience leading digital and technology teams in solving problems and bringing value to many of the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands such as Nike, Adidas and VF Corp.

The accelerated shift to online consumption is undoubtedly one of the most discussed consequences of Covid-19. So what does this mean for retail? Is retail dead and will we see more and more retailers and brands going bankrupt? No, not if they dare to innovate, to re-invent themselves and put the customer at the heart of their strategies. Disruption leads to new business models and opportunities. 

Eric will discuss his views regarding the post-Covid retail world and more specifically, he will talk about what it takes to compete in the current state of business and how to serve an ever-evolving, more demanding customer. He will touch digital acceleration, omni-channel capabilities, the need for agility, talent and perhaps most importantly, the emphasis on leveraging data and technology to create the right experience for customers. 

We hope you enjoy this session and we look forward to receiving your feedback at [email protected]. Please also rate and review below.

In this episode we have invited Christoph Homann, Corporate Vice President, Digital at McDonald's. He leads the global technology product team responsible for driving digital innovation and transformation. Previously, he has worked for Ticketmaster’s international re-sale marketplace business and eBay Europe.

Last week we covered how to create a Fail Fast culture, which is often prevalent in pure play businesses and/or tech start-ups. Paco’s interesting episode covered the creation of the right culture in order to compete with innovative, tech driven organisations. Yet besides the culture, there is obviously the actual digital transformation that needs to take place within the organisation. Specifically to adhere to the accelerated shift in online consumption and consumer behaviour and digital expectations due to the pandemic.

Hence, we continue in the digital space this week covering this additional buzz word – 'digital transformation'. We know a cliché yet one that we hope to offer a fresh perspective on!

Why do digital transformations fail and more importantly, how do you turn them into a success? Christoph shares four causes of failure as well as his insights with regards to how to define a successful path forward.

We trust his bite size, five super rules to make sure a digital transformation becomes a success are of value and could inspire your organisation to ensure it is not just another buzz word!

 We hope you enjoy this session and we look forward to receiving your feedback at [email protected] 

This episode we have invited Paco Soler, Head of Corporate Partnerships at ISDI, the business school leading the transformation of businesses and people to the digital era. He is an expert in helping leaders transform themselves and create an environment where change is possible. 

Ross’ episode last week explained the importance of creating a highly adaptable environment as well as embracing adaptability as a leader and how to get there. This week we continue to draw experience from the ever-evolving and changing landscape where companies and individuals need to respond quickly without knowing what the right answer is. 

This constantly changing, uncertain, environment urges companies to be able to respond quickly without having all the answers and/ or predictions. This has created the need for a new approach, one that moves away from a ‘Perfectionist’ approach to a more fluid, ‘Fail Fast’ one. Additionally, this Fail Fast culture has been recognised as some of the key success factors of world leading, highly innovative companies such as Google, Facebook, Spotify and Alibaba. 

What is a Fail Fast culture and how to create one successfully? How to move a traditional business to a more fluid one where agility is at the core and what are the underlying human factors coming into play? How does this affect Talent and the soft skills and capabilities we are after? 

Paco will share his valuable insights and we trust that his clear views will be of help in creating a Fail Fast awareness, both on a personal as well as organisational level. We hope you enjoy this session and look forward to your feedback. 

Please rate, review and subscribe and email any questions to [email protected]

In the previous episodes, we have heard insights around diversity and inclusion. In this episode we dive into how, we as people and organisations, adapt to the changing environment around us. Change has increased in speed over the past year, driven by technology, globalisation and innovation. In 2020, we have experienced a new type of change that has challenged us to adapt. So in this episode, we have invited Ross Thornley, CEO & Co-founder of AQai. He is a serial entrepreneur and having built a branding agency, he now champions the future of work and the UN’s sustainable development goals. Listen to Ross share his research and insights into human adaptability, which is maybe the new super power we all look for. He will explain a new model for measuring, what he defines, as AQ. A highly relevant topic as we as people, teams and organisations experience a changing business as well as personal environment. 

Ross will reflect on questions such as how we as individuals adapt and how varied our adaptability is. How can organisations bring their workforce on the change journey? Why is it difficult to adapt to new circumstances? What can organisations do to help their employees on this journey? 

Please rate, review and subscribe and if you have any feedback please email us at [email protected].

Books recommended in this episode:

• Personality Isn't Permanent by Benjamin Hardy
• Unlearn by Barry O’Reilly

The short film Ross mentions can be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/K_Mku_lciF0