The Corporate Corner

Mats and Ariel Andersson talk about, corporate thoughts and ideas, expectations, interviews ahead and TCC inception.  Going below the surface, beyond the usual topics and discussions, they look to take you on a path of new discovery through depth and authenticity.  Both the corporate conscious and unconscious are present at every turn.  Here, they hope to connect people around the world with thoughts and shared conversations with people from every rung of the ladder.If you enjoyed this episode, get the more detailed show notes and more at @ www.thecorporatecorner.netSupport the show

Mats interviews Mike Kubena, former member of PwC Global Strategy Council and CEO of PwC Central and Eastern Europe. A truly inspiring and thoughtful man on a reflective journey. Mike’s journey started from San Antonio, Texas, where he grow up, and started his career and moves to where he left, as a 26 year old, to embark on a very successful career that took him to Russia and Eastern Europe.  We discuss:  Cultural differences in the work place, self awareness as a leader, how to retain key talents, the role of HR, the reality of performance appraisals and targets, how to lead thousands of people at one time, whether or not managers should make themselves redundant and much more.Support the show

Meet Shuchi Tandon. She has a unique story. She grew up in India and moved to Prague, Czech Republic to study university and there she started her first job for the development center of the German Stock Exchange in Prague. After that she moved to New York, USA and started to work as a consultant for Goldman Sachs and then moved on to work as a software developer for the insurance company, Geico. We discuss how it was to move from a European company to Goldman Sachs, the difference in work life balance between Europe and USA and how it is to be a working mom with a 6 month old baby. We also discuss cultural differences between India and US and Europe and how difficult it is to be on a working Visa in US.Support the show

In this episode Ariel and Mats are back small talking about various recent experiences.Ariel and Mats talk about their reality over the last few months, the podcast launch, podcast as a media and they as well extensively discuss recruitment from both sides of the equation.Podcasting has been a challenge.  Yet, has played an important role, creating some balance during the unexpected delay in finding the next right position/work for Mats.Mats talks about his experience, in past, being the recruiter and how it feels to be on the other side.  Being the one on the hunt for a job has gifted Mats with new experiences:  The new recruitment reality where half of the time you get no feedback, other times you sometimes get very explicit feedback and then you have the recruitment portals where there is more often a hassle to get to the last page and last, but not least, the one company who surprisingly followed up with a survey about the recruitment process. Ariel and Mats talk about how Mats nearly got a job in Amsterdam and how tricky it is being an intuitive manager without easy expression of your soft skills and having intuitive knowledge in a world thirsty for KPIs and hard facts to measure everything.  In an era where we talk about the importance of a "diverse team", when will this truly include intuitive skills that bring and have already brought great provable success?Support the show

Katri Lampinen from Sweden, an expert on stress related questions at the workplace is our guest today. She talks about how the holiday season is creating sky rocketing figures in the long term sickness leave after the December holidays in Sweden. She also reflects on some causes on why people are so stressed and what can be done about it at the workplace, both for managers and employees. Finally she gives some tips on what you can do to start the year of on the right foot!Support the show

The Corporate corner meets with Tony Schiavo a Wall Street FinTec CTO.We look at Tony’s career that took him to several Wall Street banks and how he was part of transforming the electronic trading systems in these banks for the last decades. We talk about the challenges of managing people, how to lead by influence and the difficulty of having to lay people off.Tony talks about how he took a year off from Wall Street to work on the relationships that had been suffering during his career and how he went to a 10 day silent retreat in Canada and what that is doing to this technology man from Wall Street. Finally, we talk about recruitment and the peculiar thing Tony and his team is looking for in a person and also about his current job at TruMid where he has created an organization without processes and where he likes everyone in the company, which is such an unusual thing to hear, these days. Support the show

In this weeks episode we meet David Dostal, a German entrepreneur who values freedom above anything else in life. David was born in Germany the year after his Czechoslovakian parents flew the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and this has tainted David's life in his quest for freedom. We talk about his dream of setting up his own company and how he, as a 25 year old, succeeded with that in Switzerland after having failed to do it in Germany where there was much more bureaucracy for creating a company. We hear about his experience as an investor and how he, for the first time, saw the Corporate world from the other side and realized the difference between an entrepreneur and a manager. He also talks about Fetview, the company he started, in Czech Republic, that is using the cloud to store and securely share patient and medical data between doctors and patients, etc and is revolutionizing the work for gynecologists and patients in 30 countries. David also tells the story of how he, as a teenager, improved part of the Mercedes production line in Stuttgart and he gives some valuable advice to young students and entrepreneurs. For detailed  show notes go to  The Corporate Corner website.Support the show

Mats & Ariel are back talking in The Cororate Corner, this episode.They share TCC’s first reviews on Apple Podcasts (yeah!) with the listeners and also share some more suprising feedback they had from their first episodes. Ariel shares her view on how each of us have a unique story to share regardless of which position we have in the hierarchy of society, and that we all tend to focus on the more famous, and seemingly succesful ones, and that for some people, it is easy to feel small in comparison.Ariel is also reiterating one of her favorite topics, the unique skills we all bring to the table but sometimes without being aware of them. Mats confirms that for him it is much easier to share something that you have learned, rather than being aware of a natural skill. Mats talks about the importance of, at least for himself, not geting stuck in a past view of yourself or that it has to stick forever. He is so often saying "When I grew up in Sweden it was like this bla bla" that he is getting tired of hearing himself use this truth as an excuse for current attitudes and behaviors.Mats also mentions a great book that he has read, Surrounded by Idiots  by Thomas Erikson (not yet in English) which is currently facing a lot of critique, in Sweden, for not having enough psychology degrees and scientific backing.  Mats thinks it is a great book that can ease a discussion in a group if you share the color model thinking that the book is explaining. Overall, a full TCC week and another dynamic guest, next week.Support the show

This week Mats talks to  David Sobeski in a conversation that lasted for nearly 3 hours so it will come in 2 parts. In part 1 we cover: David talks about how he grow up in an American middle class family in Pennsylvania on the US East Coast. He talks about his early interest for computers and how he got his first computer as an 8 year old and started to program very early. David is also sharing the experience from his university years and he early on learnt to under promise and over deliver. He talks about the importance of being a user of things, to be a listener and never loose your eyes of innocence when building products and that there are no dumb questions. He shares the experience from one of his first jobs at IBM and how he worked on the first smartphone ever, the IBM Simon phone and also how he left IBM because he didn't want to wear a tie. He also talks about how it was to work for Bill Gates at Microsoft and how Bill Gates was in meetings and as a manager. He talks extensively about Microsoft and how a lot of strong technologist strived to build the best products and out beat the competition. We learn about David's time at Yahoo and why Yahoo never became what Google is today. He tells us about his close relationship with Steve Jobs and the conversations they used to have around future of computing.He explains why it should be called Computer Art rather than Computer Science. Listen to a truly inspiring technologist. Support the show

This week we are back with David Sobeski and Part II of the talk with him. David talks about his interpretation of the Oprah Winfrey theory and how it can be applied in management. He tells us how he is using 1 on 1 walks with his direct reports to get out of the confined environment that is the office space and how that changes things. We talk extensively about the difference between US and European work culture and the importance of being passionate about what you do.  David is dreading the notion of "just having a job" when it should/could be "that you want to change the world".IT or technology? David expresses his annoyance with my use of the term IT to define what, in his view, is the technology department and how this difference in expression effects motivation of tech teams.Different backgrounds, different semantics.  Or?He dives deep into the question whether your colleagues and employees also can be your friend and he talks about being fearless, speaking your mind without fear and agree to disagree and not take things personally in the corporate environment. As well, in this episode, Ariel and Mats talk about how the last 2 podcast topics influenced and were aligned with their own experiences, in their debrief.Support the show

In this episode Mats goes solo, for the first time. Mats talks about the suffering he sees around him, in daily life, and how often it is linked to the person that is directly managing someone.  As well, he talks about the importance of the direct line manager and how that person can make all the difference. Mats reminds us that speaking your mind is important and expresses that most of the time he is not doing it.  Mats tells us how it is to be an unemployed executive, how a life long fear of getting laid off can be turned into something positive and he talks about the rat race so many of us are caught up in and how liberating it can be to be on the sideline for a while. Mats invites us for a glimpse at what he is doing to find peace in mind by aiming to be present and how training the mind comes with the same difficulties as training the body.  Nothing in life comes free. Finally, Mats shares a very positive-negative job rejection letter. 15 minutes of condensed Mats.Support the show

Mats and Halee Fischer-Wright talk about the book she co-authored, The Tribal Leadership.  Halee explains what is a tribe and the 5 different stages that individuals and corporations cycle through. Stage 1 - Life SucksStage 2 - My Life SucksStage 3 - I am great you are not Stage 4 - We are great and better than themStage 5 - We are creating something for a higher purpose and LIFE IS GREATThey talk about how the different levels effect one another.  That even a rockstar CEO can get dragged down to the lower tribal levels within an organization and how we must go for “the work we want”, rather than just getting a job and they talk about Scott Adams and his Dilbert figure. Halee also talks about one of the most surprising moments in modern sport history, when the US hockey team in the Olympic Games 1980 against all odds won the Gold Medal and she had the opportunity to talk to several players and the head coach Herb Brooks and how this team raised to a level 5 organization. The also touch upon the US President, Donald Trump, who is the archetype of a level 3 person. Support the show

In this episode Mats sits down and talks with Monika Hilm.Monika is a Swedish international hotel manager, book author and driving force in the happiness at work movement. They talk about Monika's book, "PUT YOUR PEOPLE FIRST and the rest will follow" that she wrote while taking a year "off" and where she outlines her management ideas and how to create a Happy Hotel environment. Monika talks about the journey that took her from Sweden where she is native to all over the world working and managing different hotels. She talks about things close to her heart, how to keep people happy at the workplace, how it is to be a woman amongst many men in the higher management and what has to change to attract the new generation. Mats and Monika also discuss the T Rex dinosaur leaders and how detrimental their management style is. They talk about cultural differences and Scandinavian leadership style which is close to the heart of these two Swedes. Support the show

 Arielshares ideas, tools and solutions to business and life decisions, through. Intuition.In Northern California words like Intuition, Conscious business and meditation were as common as bread and butter, or maybe I should say rice crackers and tofu.  No, seriously, it was part of the norm.  Yet, to the regular business world beyond West coast borders, with some exceptions, you rarely heard much about these things, in North America. Today, Intuition seems to be the newest thing buzzing around.  Popular? Yes. Do people see the value? We hope after today, yes.Yet, do people even realize they are using intuition, already?  Or, how to work with it or realize full life benefit?  Is it worth trying? Absolutely! Regardless of your belief system or current practice, intuition can benefit us all in business and at home.  Once you start to practice, you will experience work and life shifts that will make you wonder why you never started before!See our blog and thoughts on this weeks episode.Listen on our website, Stitcher, spotify and more.Support the show

This week, we meet Melissa Hahn from California. Melissa has made her career in the beauty and luxury goods industry working mainly in marketing and sales for companies like Chanel, L'Oréal and Levis to mention a few. Her career has taken her to the Caribbean, Panama and Chile and of course California. We talk about the difficulty to sometimes be appreciated for your work when you are just doing the job and not tooting your own horn and how honesty at job interviews sometimes backfires and that "fake it till you make it" could be a better strategy. Melissa talks about the amazing atmosphere she met at Chanel in Panama and the difference, there, with a company like L'Oréal. She also talks about the challenge of going back to work just after having a baby and the nice work-life balance she has found in her last job at Perricone. Find out more at The Corporate Corner. Support the show

In today's episode Mats is going on an exploration of targets, target settings and the bell curve. Have you got your targets? Have you made the targets for your staff?The corporate target settings for individuals is a cumbersome, administrative process in many places and often something that just have to be done. Very few are getting their real motivation and drive from these targets written on a paper and people are often cautious when setting their own "stretch" targets. More personal involvment in target settings seems to be the trend, but it is really the optimal solution?Mats went on an exploration on what are some recommendations out there. The Bell Curve, the magic curve that distributes people over a nice shaped curve putting a few as top performers, the majority in the middle and some as bad performers is often used to assess people. How good and effective is this in a time when team work is the holy grail and companies hire and have top notch staff all deserving to be on the performing side of the curve?Support the show

Today’s guest is Bert Muhleman. Bert is a non conformist who has shied away from thecorporate life and privileged travel, instead, meeting with other cultures and keeping a free soul and spirit.Bert shares his story and why he chose life outside the corporate world and how it is to live from job to job, from travel to travel, living life, his way. He also talks about his last project that he started during his studies, accomplished in Czech Republic 50+ years old, an off grid portable washing facility that could help in developing countries, refugee camps or anywhere a natural distaste occurs.. something that "could happen to anyone", as Bert wisely puts it.. Listen to a true non conformist and how you can live life without a huge safety net. Support the show

Mats talks about new TCC Schedule ahead moving away from the weekly wednesday distribution and giving his view on how to stay in good shape while still in corporate. Support the show

This week Mats talks to Per-Erik "Perka" Holmström and we'll follow his journey that is a mixture of innovation, corporate life and last but not least Sport, which has been an integral part of Perkas whole life.  Perka is a man with ideas and he will never take no for an answer when someone thinks that one of his ideas can not be implemented. Stubborn, talkative and visionaire is all adjectives describing Perka. He'll talk about how Financial Hearing was created and how the task of reporting financial results for listed companies in Sweden that in the early 90ties was at minimum a week long effort to meet with investors was reduced to an evening at a fancy restaurant in Stockholm and also broadcasted via Webcast which at the time was unheard of in the board rooms in Sweden. Perka also talks about he brought the crème de la crème of the Swedish industry leaders on a hockey rink for an ice hockey event as an alternative to a traditional get together. And last but not least, we'll hear the story of how Perka was instrumental in bringing the Bandy sport to China where he has become an Honor Professor at the Harbin Sports University. Support the show

In this weeks episode, Ariel Andersson sits down with Jan "Janko" Palenčár in a deep conversation about finding your path in life, being a servant and what it really means. Jan was interested in computers from an early age and started programming already at the age of 8. He started to work as a software engineer but quickly realized that he wanted something more out of life, that his path was meant to be in another direction, but he wasn't sure exactly what that path was, the last time he met with Ariel. Jan experienced something called Vision Quest and went through an peeling of the onion, in this one year long workshop that opened his eyes to what he wanted to do and his path. Some time later, he came across the work of Morgan Scott Peck centered around Community building; a community striving to create an environment where people can be themselves and use their talents and gifts.  A safe place where members allow others to share their vulnerability, heal themselves, and express who they truly are.Jan went through some hard work on himself and came to an insight that he wanted to become a servant. A servant for humanity, for organizations and for himself. He now works as a coach and healer of both humans and organizations. A truly inspiring story of finding your path in life. Key Points:Community Building Workshop is a unique 3 day experiential work. By joining you can gain (3 key takeaways)✅ Building deep relationships based on unusual trust and safety with fellow participants in a very short time✅ Learning to overcome personal obstacles in the way of authentic and effective communication✅ Leadership development experience_______________________________________Some useful links referred to in the episode:Connect with Janko on LinkedInCommunity Building WebsiteCzech Community Building Website Community Building Workshop held in Prague end of September    Facebook event  * A few more things on our blog for you to explore.Support the show