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Job Shadowing and Beyond: Anna Mitelman on Transforming Leadership at the EU
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What if leadership wasn’t just about giving orders, but about fostering innovation and collaboration through learning and development?
In a captivating conversation with Anna Mittelman, Head of the European School of Administration, we explore her transformative journey from HR professional to the leader of the EU’s training hub.
Anna shares her insights on how learning to unlearn is vital in today's rapidly evolving work environment and discusses the pivotal role of job shadowing in bridging talent gaps across EU institutions.
Discover the power of decentralized leadership and collaboration in resource-constrained environments. We explore how distributing leadership responsibilities can foster ownership and enthusiasm among team members, allowing leaders to focus on creating clarity and supporting performance.
We also discuss the unique challenges and opportunities the EU faces with technological advancements, societal shifts, and geopolitical changes, and how leadership programs must adapt to remain relevant.
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Join us for this insightful episode as we redefine leadership and learning for a future-ready European Union.
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Wide Circle
Welcome to episode 59 of Leading People with me, gerry Murray. This episode is brought to you by Wide Circle, helping you make better talent decisions. To learn more, visit widecircleeu. That's W-I-D-E-C-I-R-C-L-E dot E-U. C-i-r-c-l-e dot E -U. What does it take to lead in one of the most diverse, complex and dynamic environments in the world? My guest today is Anna Mittelman, head of the European School of Administration. Anna shares her journey from HR professional to leading the EU's inter-institutional training hub, the European School of Administration. During our conversation, we address topics such as how decentralized leadership fosters innovation and collaboration, why learning to unlearn is a critical skill in the fast-changing world of work and the transformative power of job shadowing and how it bridges talent gaps across many parts of an organization. So, without further ado, let's hear what Anna has to say. Anna Mittelman, welcome to Leading People.
Speaker 2:Hi, Gerry, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me so you're the head of what's known as the European School of Administration at the European Union, or, as affectionately known, the EU, and we'll get to that bit shortly, but first, so our listeners can get to know a little bit about you and get to know you better. How did you get here today? What is the person, place or an event or something stands out in your journey or an epiphany moment, and why did you end up then choosing a career in L&D, or did it choose you? And today you end up as head of what, in the corporate world, would be probably considered a corporate university, because it serves the needs of a lot of people in the EU. So let's find out a little bit more about Anna.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of questions in one there. Jerry, epiphany moment no, I don't think I had that actually, but I had. I've worked in HR for many, many years, a big part of my professional life, and in that, for me, learning and development really is the most forward-looking and most exciting bit of it. So I was doing that at the Committee of the Regions, which is for those of you who do not know EU so well it's a consultative body giving advice on any legislation that has a local or regional dimension to it. So I was working in HR there before that.
Speaker 2:Different fields in learning and development, and inter-institutionally we had a. I was participating in this fantastic network across the institutions with all people responsible for training and for learning and development. It was such a vibrant community. We met maybe every two months or so. It was really the cherry on the cake. When you came away from there, you know, having exchanged, came back with insights. Yeah, a position there came up and it was. I'd been in that for quite some time and it was natural for me to apply. And here I am.
Speaker 1:Right, ok, so you had this quite a deep experience working in one aspect of the EU and, for those out there, the EU does have this really fantastic body which represents the interests of the regions.
Speaker 1:It's not just all top down stuff. They listen to what different parts of different countries have to say in that and it's a very dynamic place, I believe, and I met you first actually when you were working in that role, and then the European School of Administration. So I'm sure that our listeners are quite curious to learn a bit more about what is this European School of Administration and maybe you can say some words about it and you know what's its aim and purpose and what's your mission and, as you go along, maybe enlighten our listeners a little bit on some of the terminology that's used in the European institutions. You know that may not be so familiar to people in the corporate world, because it is a pretty well-oiled machine, if you use that corporate term. It has very clear ways of functioning and very specific ways of getting things done. So maybe I'll let you enlighten our listeners.
Speaker 2:OK, well, yeah, so each institution of the European Union would have typically its own learning and development service or department. But inter-institutionally, this school was created kind of, as you were saying, a corporate university, If you can say that the corporate and public is perhaps a slightly contradictory term, but nevertheless indeed a sort of corporate university for staff and managers working for the institutions. So that would be aligning all the policies in terms of training and the activities, the actual training programs, between the institutions in the area of leadership, in the area of induction, and it was also established to organize an internal talent management program called certification.
Speaker 1:On leading people. The goal is to bring you cutting edge thought leadership from many of the leading thinkers and practitioners in leadership today. Each guest shares their insights, wisdom and practical advice so we can all get better at bringing out the best in ourselves and others. Please, please, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share a link with friends, family and colleagues, and stay informed by joining our Leading People LinkedIn community of HR leaders and talent professionals.
Speaker 2:In terms of the leadership which I think we're mostly here to talk about today, which is a really, really exciting area. There we provide training programs and it's also part of our mandate to promote good, healthy, sustainable leadership culture across the institutions, and that's massive, obviously. So if we can attain that, yeah, that's great. So we work very, very closely with all the institutions. We are not really here for our own. I don't have it. We don't have a purpose really on our own. We are here to deliver for the institution, so really at the service of all the institutions and what does what?
Speaker 1:what does the school do, then, that the various institutions were not doing in their own HR field? What is that little extra thing that you bring as a school? Because it's a kind of transversal, isn't it? Because you go right across all the different types of institutions, from the commission to the council, to the parliament, etc.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. It's the only kind of place place it was at least the only place and that's what made it uh. The cherry on the cake and so cool, uh, is that it's the only place that would have its own internal training designers. So there's a lot of creativity. It brought and recruited and attained a lot of lots of people who you would otherwise perhaps not really see in the institution's own training departments, though they work there as well, but there is a really high concentration of highly creative people working here really precisely to design the own, the, the training programs, with the whole idea that that is done at inter-institutional level. We do that together with our stakeholders from the other institutions and then they can run similar projects on their side, but we have designed them together.
Speaker 1:And before we get into the specifics of the leadership aspect, what does this do, then, for the whole idea of talent, talent development and career progression within the overall sphere of the EU institutions?
Speaker 2:Well, each institution would have its own policy on succession, on talent development, etc. You know, knowing that there are about six altogether, there'd be 60,000 people working for all the institutions in all the countries of the world. So that's massive. Obviously, with our 22 people we are not reaching out to all of those. It's not only on our responsibility but in terms of designing those programs. Some of them are a prerequisite in the institutions to apply for a management position, for example okay.
Speaker 1:So one of the challenges that I'm sure every lnd person listening to this and they may be curious about how you deal with it is this idea of um, how do you go beyond that 10% of you know the lnd effort that comes from the classroom the the 70-20-10 rule that's out there. How do you now approach that and what have you been learning so far? Because I think you took off this position. Was it last year or the year before you took?
Speaker 2:off.
Speaker 1:That's right last year so you're bringing a sort of you're coming in possibly with some fresh perspective, particularly coming in from one of the other institutions, and you're bringing that in there. So how's that going in terms of looking at that 70-20-10?
Speaker 2:equation. Is everyone aware of the 70-20-10 listening to this pod? I suppose so, but just a quick recap.
Speaker 1:Perhaps shall I yes, yes, of course. That's what we're here.
Speaker 2:We're all here to learn, you know so, uh, it's kind of a known fact, I suppose, that, um, about 70 percent of what people learn at work they actually learn at work. So how they develop, uh, after having been recruited over the over the years that they stay, they they learn at work. 20 of that and that's really working on everyday work, going to meetings, chatting to colleagues, stuff like that. 20% of the continuous learning comes from slightly more targeted activities such as conferences and that type type of learning and culture, and only 10 actually is what we are doing, the traditional training courses. Um, so, yeah, good question, because basically what we want to do is to expand that 10 to reach the potential, uh, 70 to go into that mode, because that's where people learn the most, when you are active at work.
Speaker 2:One project that we've been that I'm particularly happy about, I have to say it's an inter-institutional job shadowing initiative, which, in fact, came with me from my previous job, where we had taken this initiative as a very small institution, mind you, the Committee of the Regents. We're not really yeah, we're not playing with a big fish there, but it was a great initiative that came that we were running and we did it bilaterally with the other institutions. The whole idea of that was really to get people out of their own institution, focus on light, unbureaucratic, really linking them up with others of choice to expand their networks, get to know how they were doing things, exchange knowledge, exchange IDs, et cetera. So we were running that from the committee of the region side. But we were tiny. I had a very, very small training team.
Speaker 2:So we thought, uh, wouldn't it be clever if we presented this at inter-institutional level and then we kind of give over the project? And what would be better than the commission, than the european school of administration taking the whole logistics over? Uh, and then we didn't have to bother with it. However, little did I know at the time, obviously, that I would be heading the school three years later. And now, uh, I shouldn't say stuck with the project, because I'm delightedly stuck with this project.
Speaker 2:It has really taken off and I think key to success in that respect has really been that we have focused so much on a light process, cost-free, unbureaucratic, as little administration as we possibly can. So the whole thing having been really linking up people across institutions on their terms, it could be a couple of meetings, it could be following projects, it could be participating in the unit meetings, but really getting to know other people in other institutions, because we are all. You may be working for the parliament, the council, the commissioner, whatever, but we are all working for the EU with the same purpose and with the same mission.
Speaker 1:The same values.
Speaker 2:And same values indeed.
Speaker 1:And tell me what is it that seems to be appealing, based on the feedback you've started to receive on this. What is it people are saying about this job shadowing that appeals to them so much?
Speaker 2:The appealing part it's all about people. You know, it's really linking people up, like-minded people working perhaps on similar projects. But seeing it from a completely different side, they are. People are so exciting when we do this launch, uh, the kickoff for it, we have hundreds of people there just for an hour or two, but it's very buzzy and uh, we, we get people linking up so guests and hosts very easily. It's like speed dating in a way, and then they take the job shadowing to levels that they wish. But what they take out of it really is getting to know people, networking, opening up their minds, their eyes on similar work to what they do themselves, but from a different perspective. It also opens up career possibilities, potentially inspiration, motivation, also feeling that you're part of something which is bigger than just your own unit or your own directorate and maybe some of our listeners are wondering how this would relate to the concept of mentoring um mentoring.
Speaker 2:Necessarily. We often link up. People are interested often in following colleagues at the same level. I would say it's not so much on a mentoring program type.
Speaker 1:Okay. So it allows for people to look at moving into jobs where, even if there were independent contributors right, for example, that they could still see opportunities to grow and develop themselves, their skills, their knowledge, et cetera, by just sampling this job shadowing Is that how it kind of works? And they see and hear and feel what it's like to be part of maybe another DG or part of another unit or whatever, and understand better, exactly.
Speaker 2:Okay, another dg or part of another unit or whatever, and understand exactly. Okay, you asked me before to go in a little bit to the about the uh, the structures of the institutions and the institutions are typically there. There is kind of a common structure and then slightly the terminology change between, but you would have director general uh covering a couple of directorates. Each directorate has a couple of units. Each unit has a couple of sectorsates. Each directorate has a couple of units. Each unit has a couple of sectors. That's kind of the traditional structure of an institution. At the head of that you would have a director general, deputy director general, director, head of units, head of sector. So that's a very traditional kind of style which we may get out of uh sometime in the future. I am, for example, at the school. We try to be a little bit less traditional than that. We're working with project teams, a little bit flatter organization, but typically that's how otherwise it's structured yeah, and you are a head of unit.
Speaker 1:Uh, in that schema exactly.
Speaker 2:So I'm head, uh head of the school, but indeed very structurally, that is uh head of unit post so a couple of nice things that we this um, the 70 2010.
Speaker 1:I'd like to come back a little bit to that goal and talk a little bit in a few minutes about that and also, maybe, your role as head of unit, but before that, um, this segues nicely into uh, maybe you could say something about your own uh leadership style and how you, as a manager, live, what you preach and, um, I mean, you even told me recently, if you're prepared to talk about it fascinating story about how you chose to to work with your deputy head of unit and how that evolved, and I personally was really touched by it, and maybe this is something that our listeners would be interested in hearing. But let's start with your own approach to leadership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely With pleasure. I think it's important in general not to overcomplicate. I'm very much for clear communication in general. Very much. We will go into that. Indeed, this decentralized leadership style, which I think is the only way to lead. As we are overburdened with work, few resources, there is no point just relying on yourself. You have to use the team to its absolute maximum capacity. So, yes, decentralized leadership, I think, and that in itself really creates that ownership and the enthusiasm and the engagement that you want your team and your team members to have and the engagement that you want your team and your team members to have, and by doing that really creates, yeah, that type of engagement that you really want to see. And when you do delegate the work like that, you typically also do see commitment, and that's not just commitment to the work as such, that's commitment to people's own learning as well.
Speaker 1:Coming up, anna dives into her innovative co-leadership approach, the importance of purpose-driven leadership and how learning to unlearn is reshaping talent development at the EU. So stay tuned for more actionable insights that you can apply in your organisation.
Speaker 2:When I started at the school. Indeed, I established co-leadership with my deputy, whereby we share the pleasures and the burden of leading the school fully. There's plenty of interesting benefits in doing that it has. I mean, not only do you have someone to run all decisions by, we can brainstorm together, we can discuss the bigger vision, we can discuss the small stuff. It gives you an opportunity to really look at something a daily situation, a scenario, a project, whatever from a different perspective. I'm very lucky to have someone who is extremely professional. I would say we complement each other very well, which is nice, because you know you get two people doing the one, one job, and not only is it handy and practical and beneficial, it's also just practically uh great. You know, in my absence, I am replaced by someone who will do the job as good as I do, um and uh. Yeah, it's just a pure joy as well to share work with someone.
Speaker 1:One of my previous guests from a couple of years back, perry Timms, talked about distributed leadership, and he was more or less getting at the same thing. You need to allow the leadership to be distributed where it's needed to. Now, the one thing that some people out there they already have thought about is how do you, how do you deal, how did you deal with the mindset aspect of letting go of control, because this is a thing I guess a lot of managers grapple with. There is this kind of concept to to to be in control. You actually have to be prepared to give it up. But how do you deal with that? Because in some ways, people might be going my God, does she just trust everybody and just let them go on and get things done? And how come she's smiling and it's all working so well? But how did you deal with that aspect that some people might grapple with, more traditional managers might grapple with out there?
Speaker 2:It's funny, you should say it like that. Someone was describing it as organized hippie and I suppose it's not actually that at all. Decentralized leadership or delegated, both in co-leadership and shared leadership, is very clear, but I think the role of the manager or the leader is to create that clarity and in projects, everyone has its own very specific role. Of course, as a manager, you check in as well, but honestly, if you have a good team and people are recruited to do, hopefully you have done the recruitment right. I mean, a good leader has to do two things well think that's recruit well and help people grow well. And if you do that, the people that you have working in the various teams, they will do stuff that you are never able to do unless you trusted them to do that. You know, I think it was Steve Jobs who said you'd a people, a a leaders recruit triple a people and b leaders recruit c people. And I think there is something very clever in that. You know you should surround, you would want to surround yourself by people who are more clever, more innovative, has brighter ideas perhaps than yourself. Like it's not your, your role as a leader or manager to always be the one who are exploding with great ideas and projects, people are recruited to do that. That's often their jobs. You know you have to sit in in meetings, um, but really to to trust your people to do that.
Speaker 2:And yes, so your question, your question, was how do you do that? How do I let go of that control? I have never been a controlling person so I could imagine that indeed, it would have been difficult, if you were a more traditional type, to indeed micromanage. I've never done that, ever. I've had a couple of managers who did that and it's very easy to pinpoint what you don't like in managers and a little bit less difficult or less easy to pinpoint what good managers do well, but I think the micromanagement part is something you should really stay away from.
Speaker 2:The controlling the micromanagement part is something you should really stay away from the the controlling, the micromanagement because you will always put a limit to the performance and and and uh to the success of your team, whereas if you let people in a controlled environment with clarity, uh, be there in the beginning, obviously you discuss together uh, where are we going with this project, how are we doing that? And then you have to let go. You have to let go and then check in every now and then. Obviously you're there. I think my role is very much remove obstacles, remove barriers, so that they can perform yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:it's fascinating because know I've had over the years, the privilege of you know, spending time and talking to and interviewing CEOs and very senior people and the ones who are really successful have you know that Chinese proverb which is you know, if you think you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. You know the ones that it takes. It takes an inner confidence to be able to say I'm going to surround myself with amazing talent because my job is to draw the best in those people and if I'm able to do that.
Speaker 2:They will follow me because they will feel inspired and engaged by just me giving them the clarity and the vision they need to do good work yeah well, that's that Exactly. To do good work? Yeah well, that's that Exactly. And part of your job is indeed to walk the talk.
Speaker 2:You know we are at the European School of Administration. Part of our mandate is to create good leadership cultures across the institutions. I want to do that, I want to mirror that at the school, which is why we have co-leadership. We have leadership shared among the colleagues. We don't have, for example, these traditional sectors with heads of sectors. It's completely flat, as flat as it can be in a rigid structure. You know we are still the European Commission, but in that, practically, we have project teams and the way that we run them. I have also learned a massive amount since I took up the function, because the people working there are really really great at that and they have also been kind of acquiring, adopting this way of working, for much longer than I have been there. So it's also something that I have modeled and have kind of taken on and continued to cultivate since I arrived. Okay.
Speaker 1:So this is a nice segue into trying to now link the two together. So how is your own experience and your own leadership style influencing the direction you're giving to the school going forward, in terms of how you're trying to shape leadership programs and what you call promoting good leadership?
Speaker 2:well, it's interesting. You should ask that actually, because, um, as I said before, a lot of people have a lot of things to say about bad leadership, bad management. You know, you look on LinkedIn and you know there is masses about that there. Having said that, yeah, what is good leadership? Actually, it's a conversation that obviously we have had at the school, and my colleagues have gone about identifying behaviours that we think are linked to good and healthy and sustainable leadership. So what is it that we want to see in a manager and what is it that we want to cultivate, to kind of distill the essence of good leadership that we want to put in as components in our leadership programs?
Speaker 1:um, I know you're prepared to share a little bit what's emerging from that those conversations, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And also to say this is nothing that we would kind of want to export as a recipe for great leadership, but it is really just about identifying components that we want to have in our leadership programs Not all in the one, but, you know, in our outreach, all together, those aspects should be in there. So, yes, we work for the European Union. Everyone who benefits and who goes and participates in our courses work for the EU. Courses work for the EU. So, purpose leading, purpose driven and mission driven leadership is very much at the core of what we want in our leadership programs. So that's, collectively, what is it? What is Europe? What does Europe mean for you? So I'm talking now about leadership, competencies and inspiration.
Speaker 2:So, going back to really looking at yourself and why did you start working for the EU? What does it mean? How does that drive you? How do you contribute to it? It's the collective history. Typically anyone in any unit you would work in in the EU you could have 20 people from 20 different countries speaking 20 different languages, different religions, different historical background, different political background, etc. So you have to be very, you have to have a very open mindset to tap into that and so that diversity, inclusive, building, inclusive teams, for example comes in there a lot. So, yeah, going back to European history, european values, what does it mean to you? So that purpose-driven part is very important Human qualities, of course, of compassion, integrity, trust, responsibility, humor, humility, uh all those kind of things. It's also about cultivating, uh a way of nurturing, um, responsibility, sense of initiative, uh accountability in your people. To have that. How do you do that whilst still being inspiring, you know?
Speaker 2:yes uh, you want people to take ownership. How do you do that, uh, and how far do you go in that? So, really nurturing that uh, drive in people, nurturing entrepreneurship, allowing people wanting people to grow and helping in that, those are very important components. Giving clarity, structure. Yet within that, giving a space for people to the future, proactively, not just reacting to what's happening in the future, but actually wanting to go out there and actively drive that change. That is needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I suppose my experience has been, if you had something called a cultural density index and you applied it to that sort of two or three square kilometers of brussels, um, it's probably 98 yeah it's probably the richest cultural density index in the world.
Speaker 1:You know people talk about international cities and that, but you know some places like london international, but everybody speaks english. Right, you don't get by if you don't. No disrespect to London, I lived there myself but there's this kind of dynamic that you get when you walk into a room and I do it quite a bit a richness of perspectives, a tolerance of a lot of things. People who have this probably mythological view of the EU as some kind of behemoth institute sort of thing, they miss this dynamic that's inside. And when you talk about innovation, one thing that strikes me is these EU officials have to be able to anticipate, understand and anticipate emerging trends in society like nobody else has to be able to do it. They have to be able to get their heads around stuff and when things are changing at an awful pace out there and then they have to figure out how does that create value for the people in Europe in such a way that the majority of people can benefit from it and we can put in policies and legislation that help. Isn't that right?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's what, in the end, it all comes down to. How does this benefit EU citizens? That is, to a certain extent, exactly what everyone wants. Everywhere in the institutions are contributing to. And it is your role as a manager, as a leader, to make sure that your people know just how to do that and where they fit in, and that they are equally important in that puzzle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So, looking ahead as we now are a couple of interesting probably interesting topics for our listeners here. The first one that occurs to me is what are some of the biggest challenges going forward in running the school and keeping it relevant to the needs of the european institutions, given the pace of change in society? What are some of the things that you've you're looking at and saying, oh, these are challenging things.
Speaker 2:we have to be able to try and overcome these over the next few years from the school's perspective in terms of educating and developing the leadership of tomorrow um, yeah, and we have, um, perhaps not everyone listening uh to the podcast, but probably those in europe may know that there is a shift uh in the commission, so that's kind of the engine of the eu machinery as such. There's a shift uh the president, so the top is staying, but she has then now appointed the commissioners. The commissioners will come with new priorities and those priorities are obviously there to achieve the goals set out, and our training has to contribute to helping our staff and our managers to reach those priorities. I mean, we all know globally what's out there as a challenge and as an opportunity. There is the technological development. We have AI coming. How do we deal with that? What are we doing with it? How are we helping people working in the EU, both managers and staff in general, to go about that and benefit from it? But with the link to that is obviously the cybersecurity aspects to it.
Speaker 2:There's the geopolitical shifts, which means also there's you know, we function on a budget. So, quite concretely, how will the member state want to continue finance us, finance the eu? I mean, I think that is something that is out there. It should be out there. We have to have an added value. Obviously, that will be something that we have to deal with most probably, and this has been the case for the last 10 years as well. We each department, directorate, director, general, uh, in the eu, all the institutions have, over the last 10, 20 years, have to deal with ever increasing resources. So how can we balance that up, uh, with potentially higher demand?
Speaker 2:yeah, those kind of things I would say are out there yeah, yeah and yeah and yeah.
Speaker 1:And I suppose the two major parts of the institutions create a sort of natural cycle when the commission changes with every five years and the parliament reelects itself. So these are kind of natural things, that, that that can be anticipated, but they tend to bring new developments, don't they be anticipated? But they tend to bring uh new developments, don't they? They tend to bring, and you know, quite new. And now you will retain the commission. Uh, the um van der leyen will stay as head of the european commission. However, when, when you have a change at the top, that even brings probably more uh change. So you've not only got societal changes, you've got the more internal political aspects to take into account, and then the national. At the national level, you have changes in governments, etc.
Speaker 2:So it's quite quite a fluid environment, isn't it for uh, for officials to to constantly have to navigate this uh, this, these waters, yeah yeah, absolutely, which is why I I find learning and development being such a you know, such, it is kind of the only tool that you have to allow people to grow, take on new responsibilities, learn new stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean, you can't recruit new people every time there is a change in software, every time there's a change in political priorities, every time there is a change in software, every time there's a change in political priorities, every time there is a pandemic and you're sent home for two years. You know you have the people that you have, and what do you do with that? You have to recruit people who have a mindset to grow, and you have to, or, ideally, leaders will want to invest in that, which is why, yeah, I find L&D really the most kind of forward-looking part of HR policies. You have to. I mean, it's a tricky thing and challenging for the future, perhaps more so than it has been in the past, with very fast technological development, developments in research, in policies, all kinds, in all sectors, whereby you have to not only learn new things but you actually have to unlearn what you learned before, and that kind of cycle has probably always been there, but it's very prominent now because the development is so fast.
Speaker 1:So just bringing together, taking that another step forward and bringing together what you mentioned about AI and the pandemic. I have a question for you as we get towards the end of the conversation how are you approaching the digitalization of learning, the whole hybrid, asynchronous delivery, the generational preferences around you know learning and how they receive, how people receive content, attention spans, et cetera, et cetera? How are you as a school, what are you doing to look at that and make that relevant? And this goes back again to 70-2010, you see, so I'm linking back to that. So how do you now maybe harness those technologies to maybe change that equation, the 70-20-10 equation? What are some of the current type of things that you're starting to explore and look at?
Speaker 2:Interesting Indeed. Of course, we all know that the pandemic just caused and also created a great momentum for change there in terms of blended learning opportunities. You know before, I think, up till 2015, 2016, 17, perhaps, e-learning was the great, the cool kid on the block, and then we're all sent home realizing everyone has to be able to work, function asynchronically. Indeed, in terms of the patience for learning, we have changed quite dramatically over the last couple of years in the sense that we used to have programs before spanning over maybe two days, three days. We can't do that anymore.
Speaker 2:People do not have either the attention span or opportunities to be away from such, from, from from work simply for such a long time. However, that with that comes also the good realization that, um, what you, what you do in in a short time period, it's better to do repeatedly uh, so that what you have learned is also something you can apply at work. So we more and more uh invest in uh training parts rather than a one-shot training. So training parts that would typically spend span over maybe six months. You would have a couple of blended learning sessions there, a couple of face-to-face, some reading that you do by yourself, maybe bilateral discussions at work to really have that set, so really in that sense of maximizing your cognitive capacity using different types of modes of learning. I don't know if that responds to your question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's just a fascinating area, having also been on the one end of it, where, where you know I remember the panic that set in around COVID and you mentioned the CTP program, which basically it was almost going to be cancelled which is a fantastic talent program, and we had situations where some trainers with no disrespect them, could hardly open zoom even.
Speaker 1:You know they never they never had to do things in that way and we all had to learn extremely quickly.
Speaker 1:And I remember trainer sessions where each train, every so often, the trainer put up the hand and say, we, I found this new tool or I found this new way, this new function and the amount of sharing, and was but the thing that, if we go back to the neuroscience on this and you know, as you know, I've studied neuroscience and I've also studied learning transfer into the workplace.
Speaker 1:I got certified in this, the workplace, and I got certified in this and one of the things that that that this emerges from this technology and the whole way of working, is this ability to to chunk learning into smaller portions. That but do what you said, which is a repetition thing and, like when you learn to play the piano, you tend to. The advice is to practice 15 minutes every day rather than one hour before the lesson, and I've been a pupil and a music teacher in my past and that tends to work. If you practice for an hour before the lesson, you tend to walk in there and mess it up, but if you've practiced every day for 15-20 minutes, it tends to embed those neural networks that help you and I think we're seeing that happening now in the way learning is being designed and delivered. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot more of those learning pills.
Speaker 2:But I have to say, though, I fully agree and, yeah, you're a linguist expert, not me but there is also something, however, with at a workplace work coming in between you, don't you?
Speaker 2:You just don't do the 10 minutes a day or the 10 minutes a week because you know back reality at work, work, responsibilities take over and people don't necessarily engage in it. So all of of that, you know you have to, as a professional training center, you have to really look I think also being just realistic about it to see how much and what are people prepared to do to learn what suits them and then try to provide the training on. You know any, what is it? Any device, anytime, anywhere, but not to forget either the face-to-face, not to forget the presential learning, because the meeting with other people, and for us as European School of Administration, I would say that one of the added values of our courses is also that we bring together people from all the different institutions, and that in itself is hugely valuable, and you don't really get that online. So I think it has absolutely its place, but it is important also to bring people together and and to benefit from that yeah, I mean the whole discussion about online versus in-person, et cetera.
Speaker 1:It's not an either or discussion, it's a both and thing, where you know, as you say, there are certain types of trainings where you really want people to be able to see each other, to experience each other and to do some exercises and drills together, where they, literally you can see a transformation after 20 minutes of working together on something, and online often doesn't give you perhaps that type of thing, whereas online can do other things, and it's just finding that balance, I think, which is the challenge.
Speaker 2:Which I think we have done now. I mean, you were referring to the first weeks and first months following the pandemic, when people were sent home. That was a struggle to see, you know, all these one million breakout rooms that we were all in, but I think our enthusiasm and excitement were contained after a while and we managed to put together. I think all of us I'm not speaking about us, but training providers in general managed to find that right balance quite quickly. However, may I just say what remains difficult, I think, is the hybrid. It's one thing to do things physically, face-to-face to meet, that's easy. Doing it online is also easy. But the hybrid remains very difficult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean my experience… we have invested a lot in it.
Speaker 2:We've invested a lot in it. We've invested a lot in it and I have part of my team in Luxembourg. So, just for the school, we are based in Brussels and we have a small team in Luxembourg. So all of our meetings are always hybrid. We have people in the office and then we're always having part of them. So, whatever we do, it's always hybrid and it remains. It remains a challenge. You know, to always make sure that people are included, that they contribute at their best. So for a meeting, that's contained, but to do that well in a training program, that remains a challenge.
Speaker 1:The training is the really challenge. I mean meetings. We. We know the dynamic there it is. You know you have to remember to, but if you haven't got big enough screen in the room facing everybody, it's a little bit easier in a, in a, in a training context, and we had this in the past where I remember we went back into the classroom but some people got COVID so they want they had to stay in the training but, but they would come in over Teams or something, and it's so easy to forget them because the screen tends to be off to the side or behind you. And what impressed me I mean as a trainer, it's very easy to forget them and then they can't follow all the back and forth the conversation.
Speaker 1:What really impressed me, though, was, when it came to doing breakouts, how inventive the people in the room were to include their colleagues who had to come in online. They immediately went into setting up Teams, rooms, dialing in or WhatsApp groups, whatever it was, so that they could actually sit together, put headphones on or whatever, and have the necessary interaction. So it's interesting. We have this expression in Irish, which translates into something I suppose as popular term in English, which is necessity is the mother of invention. You know and you see how incredibly creative people can be about their own learning when a situation arises.
Speaker 1:So it's, you know, I suppose, what it's. It's. It's, you know, I suppose what it's like is it's an evolving, evolving. There is there. We're not going to be static on this. This is going to continue to evolve. Uh, personally, I'm constantly looking for new tools to make the any digital or online experience more meaningful, more impactful for the people who have to go through the learning part of it, not just my, my own delivery of it. So I think we're going to continue to evolve in this way. Now, coming to the end, and I'm just curious, when you think of all your experience and the work you're doing at the school and that, what sort of of? Would there be three tips you could leave our listeners with on how to go about leading people in the future? I'm just thinking back to some of the stuff you mentioned about micromanagement and that and how it doesn't help sometimes, but have you got three tips that you could say? Here's three things that if you're not doing them today, you should probably at least experiment with them.
Speaker 2:That might help you become a better leader in the future yeah, um, I think I mean just to just to uh to grounded, saying that I think, um, good leadership is universal. I think, uh, some leadership skills are universal and they stay over time. So life in the future is not going to be drastically different, probably, uh, compared to what they are today. In that respect, I mean, I think if you have a good leader today, there's high chances that that same leader is great also in 50 years. So, just like as a starting point, but, um, yeah, decentralize, really make sure that you use the potential of your team. I think part of uh being a good leader is provide inspiration, but really be there to uh unleash potential. It sounds like a cliche, but it is that. Make sure that whatever that person can do to perform, to develop, to grow, to innovate, support that, remove obstacles, make sure that each and every person performs at his or her best and also really support the growing in people.
Speaker 2:People are not driven. You ask 10 random people what they are most motivated by at work. It is not salary, it's not the company, car, it's not these kind of things. It's the intrinsic motivation and in that lies the desire to learn and grow. So really use that bit, invest in that. I think that is the best kind of for myself and for others to never forget that kind of tip for myself and for others to never forget that kind of tip desire, probably for the future, a desire to embrace uh, trends, new trends, changes, and not be reactive to it but really be proactive about it. It's probably something that leaders of the future should have or should do. And then, indeed, decentralized leadership insofar as possible, try to break down those structures that are there, try to challenge those and see if it is possible to work in a flatter organization, because that in itself will generate so many benefits.
Speaker 1:And for any lnd professionals out there, are there any sort of insights you'd like them to take away from from your experience in the lnd field, because you're a huge depth of experience in it over the years? So is there anything you'd say to lnd professionals to to go about all that? All this great stuff you said about decentralizing the leadership, bringing out the best in people and that what can L&D people continue to do or work on improving?
Speaker 2:I think something for L&Ds to look at is indeed perhaps investing in that kind of competency of learning to learn. How do people learn? How can we uh improve that skill or that aptitude or that capacity in people to learn? It's about triggering uh their cognitive activity, it's about increasing their memory. It's about uh inciting or stimulating their curiosity to learn and then to apply that back at the workplace as soon as possible. But that kind of that attention to increase the will to learn and the capacity to learn is a good investment, I think.
Speaker 1:OK, and what's next for Anna?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we are going to take our senior managers so that's directors and director generals on what we call leadership circle.
Speaker 2:It's something we do twice a year whereby we provide a speaker or a panel discussion on very relevant topics but that senior managers typically don't really have the time to talk about on their daily life, daily work. So this time we're going to focus on megatrends, foresight and how that impacts them and their working life. So that would be, for example, the demographic challenges that we have, migration, the aging population and intergenerational gaps that we have in the workplace, geopolitical situation, and how that impacts them and us. It could also be, quite practically, how we need to restructure and change the way our organizations are done, are established, so that we can be a little bit more agile in meeting those challenges, but really have structured conversations about that among peers and to see, going back to what we said in the beginning, I mean, we are here to serve the citizens and how can those challenges be met so that, in the end, there is an added value for Europe and for its population? That is purpose-driven leadership, you know, in the making.
Speaker 1:Right. So this has been a fascinating conversation and some of our listeners out there are probably wondering how they could contact you, anna, and maybe on a professional level, and maybe even share their own experience or get some more depth on some of the things you shared here today. I guess is LinkedIn. One of the options Is that where you prefer people to contact you professionally.
Speaker 2:They can contact me via LinkedIn. They can otherwise write me an email. My address I'm sure they can find on Google. But yes, linkedin is good. Otherwise, we have a profile both from the school site and I obviously have a profile there myself.
Speaker 1:Okay, so as ever, thanks, anna, for sharing your insights, tips and wisdom with our listeners today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Derek.
Speaker 1:Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 3:You know, my book is a combination of like business strategy meets behavioral economics, meets the future of work, so that's like in this intersection. So there is actually a lot about business strategy, there is a lot about behavioral economics, you know what motivates people, especially what motivates them beyond money. And then there is a lot about technology. So how can our technology help in humanizing work?
Speaker 1:In our next episode, stefan Mayer, a renowned behavioral economist and professor at Columbia Business School, shares how his new book the Employee Advantage challenges conventional thinking about workplace engagement. Stefan reveals how businesses can thrive by putting employees first and balancing the human machine equation. Don't miss this insightful conversation about the future of work and what it means for leaders everywhere. Until then,
