Henning Streubel

• Only in a healthy body is there a healthy mind. I believe that only if my mind and my body are somehow in balance, can I work efficiently.

• “The client comes first”. I measure myself and my team’s success by our client’s success. We also have a key corporate value of respecting individuals. We encourage hierarchy-free discussion - there are no questions that cannot be asked. We train people to express their opinions as we need inputs from different backgrounds to come up with breakthrough ideas.

• A strong leader is able to motivate the organisation to change behaviour and perception of performance. Leaders can push and drive accountability, which requires the understanding of people’s talent, putting the right person on the right task, defining clear roles and expectations to drive ownership. Leadership starts with self-awareness. A leader needs to understand what he or she is good and not good at. You have to play to your strong area while building teams around you in your weak areas. Strong leaders admit that they need a strong team to succeed.

• There’s a big difference between an expert and a leader. Before becoming a leader, all kinds of success was about your personal achievements, but when you are leader, you should think more about your team and make them successful. Good leaders should lead their team from where they are to somewhere they haven’t been before. Leaders thus need to be strong in multiple dimensions. A leader has to think more strategically – positioning himself relative to the world, knowing the competitors, clients, or what he can do better to serve a client’s need. This is required to lead a team successfully.

• 60% of my time is for the client. 40% is for my teams. As people are our key to success, I also focus on building a stronger team.
  

• In economic downturns, clients pursue tough cost-saving programmes for short-term improvements - this sometimes affects their spending for strategic advisers. But soon they recognise that in tough times our value contribution is a multiple of our fees. In addition to that, we are always short of good talents to grow our teams.

• We focus even more on implementation and time to impact. In addition, we offer our services with different value propositions, for example, we offer success fees.

• In tough times, I have more frequent communication with my staff. Everybody has to know where we stand and to understand the objectives, for example why we have to work sometimes longer and harder so they know what to expect. But also after hard work, we celebrate success together as a team. Work hard, play hard.

How do you keep yourself physically, mentally and emotionally motivated?

• Usually I enjoy what I do. I love my job and my company and this in itself is very motivating. However, when pressure is getting high, I break away for exercise to calm down. Spending time with my wife and my three children also helps me digest a lot. All my stress is gone.

How do you keep yourself physically, mentally and emotionally ready for “combat”?

• Physical exercise plays a big role in my life. I exercise at least three times a week. Also I do triathlon – I just finished the Phuket Triathlon. Being balanced is the key. If you only work day in and day out, and take no time to do something else, in the long run you’ll not succeed.

How do you cope with disappointments?

• Everyone has a right to make mistakes. Everyone can fail, but it’s important to understand why and to learn, so you don’t make the same mistake twice. Move on, and recover quickly. Do not be afraid of failure because people who never fail are those who have never tried new things. If you only do things where you can succeed, you don’t push your limits and you limit your own development.