"The way managers used to lead, the assumptions they had based on, and the powers they had have dramatically shifted."
Zivit Inbar Tweet
Dr. Zivit Inbar is the founder and CEO of DifferenThinking, a consulting practice that specializes in people, culture, leadership & performance strategies for growth. Zivit has over 18 years of experience and expertise with building high-performance teams, driving high-level strategies and processes at the board and executive levels, spanning private and listed local and global organizations (China, APAC, Europe and the US). Her Board portfolio includes roles as a Chairwoman, Non-Executive-Director (NED), Company Secretary and Advisory Board Member. Zivit is a member of Standards Australia AI trustworthiness and governance committees, the Co-Chair of Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs (Australia) and a NED at Rural Northwest Health.
Dr Inbar is an Adjunct Professor at Deakin University’s MBA program, a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School Executive Programs (Leadership Decision Making and Leadership in Uncertain Times), a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow Certified member of the Australian Human Resources Institute. Her PhD is focused on Strategic Thinking and Strategy Implementation by Western companies operating in China and she is the author of “The Ethical Kaleidoscope: Values, Ethics, and Corporate Governance” (with Doug Long), 2017, Routledge Publishing, UK.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Zivit Inbar: I am the Founder & CEO of DifferenThinking, a boutique consulting group in Australia. We help leadership teams reduce risks and increase success by unlocking the potential of their people, culture and innovation capabilities. Our ultimate aim is to create, support and maximize organizational growth.
We believe that the combined power of innovation-culture-leadership is the key to success, especially during times of uncertainty. I established DifferenThinking following years of experience as Chief Human Resources Officer in global technology companies.
In addition to DifferenThinking, I am also a non-executive director of a rural hospital and the Co-Chair of Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Australia.
A few years ago, I co-authored the book “The Ethical Kaleidoscope: Values, Ethics, and Corporate Governance” (with Doug Long), 2017, Routledge Publishing, UK. The book provides practical advice for Boards on governing organizational culture and ethics.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Zivit Inbar: There is no doubt that the last two years have been a great learning curve. The way managers used to lead, the assumptions they had based on, and the powers they had have dramatically shifted.
Recently, I shared three of my learnings:
Learning 1: Operating in constant uncontrollable environmental changes requires agility, empathy and ability to develop and inspire high-performing teams.
These days, the entire organizational environment is in constant uncertainty and changes: the geopolitical, health, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal environments are constantly changing. This global environment influences ecosystems. We see interruptions to the supply chains and employment structures (working from home as offices are no longer perceived safe). There is also a shift of power from employer to employee (especially in the technology sector). As a result, the underlying conditions for retaining talent have changed, and leaders must now amend their leadership styles.
Learning 2: Organizational culture and leadership have never been so crucial!
Due to working from home and hybrid work, we see sub-cultures evolving (some are toxic and unsafe). Managers are now required to lead not only by building high performing virtual teams but also by supporting team members that are struggling to perform due to personal challenges. Managers need to make decisions using their EQ. Unfortunately, not all of them lead using empathy. I think it’s safe to say that the traditional leadership style that lacked EQ is no longer working! There is a reason why we see the Great Resignation globally.
Learning 3: People are fatigued and trying to regain some control over their lives
Living in such a global uncertainty as we experience feels like we have limited control over so many aspects of our lives. The pandemic prompted many people to try and get control over their lives back, to make small changes that will give them a feeling of progress. Some renovate their houses, move home or buy new furniture and gadgets. Others are back to studying a course they always wanted to do, and now they feel it’s time to invest in themselves. And some decide that a new career or employer is what they need. This drives the Great Resignation as well. So, leading from a far distance without understanding what our team members are going through is a recipe for failure.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Zivit Inbar: It is not only the pandemic; it is the entire geopolitical environment that we are facing that affects business. Therefore, I believe that to survive, thrive and grow during these challenging times, we must pay closer attention to our talent and culture. We can formulate beautiful strategies, but the implementation will fail if we don’t have the right people and culture.
Now is the time for organizations to act:
- Conduct an external organizational culture diagnosis to understand what is happening on the floor and virtually.
- Review and implement a cultural change plan
- Upskill managers and provide them with team, culture and leadership tools and support.
- Conduct a talent risk analysis
- Implement a new talent strategy to ensure the company is hiring, developing and retaining top talent
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Zivit Inbar: Before the pandemic, a significant focus of our work was change management, transformation and leadership programs. This part of the business has been reduced during the pandemic, and the culture and talent services have increased. So, we pivoted in this direction. I think that happened because people are now eager to have personal changes (a new job, career, new house, etc.), but find it harder to cope with additional external changes.
So, over the last couple of years, we saw fewer structural and transformations changes. At the end of the day, organizations will need to make changes. But cold, impersonal changes will not work. Change management will need to be based on close interaction and empathy with the team and much better communication than what we saw before the pandemic.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Zivit Inbar: How to create strong partnerships. We are working on it.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Zivit Inbar: Hybrid is my expectation. We must get back to meeting people face to face. Developing rapport online is not the same. Some conversations are the best face to face, and teams need to be able to have a coffee chat and speak about their lives, not only work. We need to find the balance between the convenience of working from home and innovation and team building.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Zivit Inbar: Too many. I try to balance my day with going for a run early in the morning, taking a short meditation break after lunchtime and doing Pilates or swimming in the evening. Otherwise, I can find 12 hours in front of the computer, which is neither healthy nor unproductive.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Zivit Inbar: I share stories all the time with clients and even when I am coaching. I also encourage others to share their stories. For example, recently, I had a team meeting for a group of mentors (we mentor Australian female founders). We shared our stories from the previous cohort and then discussed what we can learn from it- what works, doesn’t work, what changes we need to make.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Zivit Inbar: The Great Resignation and the common conservative leadership styles do not match society’s expectations. Yesterday, a friend told me about a funny story in his workplace. We laughed about it because it is typical old-style leadership, but it shows you how old-style leaders haven’t realized they need to change. The company’s CEO took a big group of employees to an offsite event and lectured them on how important it is to return to work in the office. She gave this long speech about how amazing the office is and the great benefits of working from the office.
Then, she said: “ those that want to return to the office four days a week- go to this side of the room. Those who want to return three days stand in this direction, 1-2 days a week- go to this corner and those who don’t want to be back to the fourth corner. All the employees that want to return to 5 days a week in the office join me in the middle”. Most people went either to the no return to the office or the 1-2 days a week corner. The CEO, the 2iC and the CEO’s EA stood in the middle. When asked for their reasons, people commented: “you have a car park under the office, I have to take the train two hours each direction”. Another person commented that the days of the power status symbols are over…
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Zivit Inbar: I am currently researching how AI can help make better, more efficient and ethical people and culture decisions. I feel that HR is failing because the framework HR uses based on subjective information. For example, performance reviews are subjective; we know about the organizational culture mainly from surveys, and people sometimes don’t tell us the truth. So, how can AI help us understand who are our core talent and what is going on the floor? We need some objective data to make better decisions.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Zivit Inbar: Yes, people leave their managers and the organizational culture they experience. However, I am not sure that leaders actually see the data or even receive feedback from exit interviews in many cases. When there is high employee turnover, it is natural for leaders to find blame in others and hence developing self-awareness is the key to improvement. We need to remember that leaders are human themselves. Therefore I firmly believe that this is the time to audit the culture and provide leadership support for every people manager.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Zivit Inbar: Predict the future. It would have helped me in making better, more efficient ethical decisions.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Zivit Inbar: Growing the business globally; during the pandemic, the work was Australian based. One of my last projects before COVID was running a leadership program in Vietnam, which was fascinating, and I loved it!
On a personal level, I would like to be appointed on a board of a listed company and complete writing the book about how AI can help make better, more efficient and ethical people and culture decisions.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Zivit Inbar for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Zivit Inbar or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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