Life as an Expat — Your Chance to Tackle the Big Questions

You can roughly break out the life cycle of most expat experiences into four phases: the honeymoon phase, the reality shock, equilibrium and lastly, do it all over again. These phases don’t always come in the same order and no expat experience is the same because we all carry baggage with us (literally and figuratively). In addition, not every posting is considered to be desirable. However, in the context of the expat experience, you, your partner and/or children have a unique opportunity: find out who you are and grapple with some bigger questions. As a coach, I’d say: Grab that opportunity!

The Honeymoon

You move to a new country and everything is new. The first three to six months can be exhilarating and even the local quirks are interesting, possibly even amusing. Every turn you take you see a new sight. It’s a new job and you meet new colleagues. Your partner may possibly go through the same experience — and often the kids are the ones to adapt the fastest.

Reality Check

The next phase is often characterized by less positive emotions. It hits you that you have given up a lot for this career move: your home, friends, familiar surroundings and the little things. The challenges of the new job sink in as well as expectations people have of your performance. Your local colleagues do things differently and you hit a wall. Your partner may experience the same emotions as he/she may not be able to work and realizes that you cannot fill your day marveling about the new place. What used to be amusing local idiosyncrasies by now is just annoying.

Equilibrium

The third phase is coming to terms with the differences. You find what you like. You know what you don’t like and you have settled. Having made some local friends often helps. Ideally the entire family has had the same journey. While not really home, your new country has become a true place of residence. What used to be strange has become normal.

Do it All Again

Postings come to an end. Your company may ask you to move to another international job or you return to your own country. Either way, you’ll do it all over again — even when you return home. The longer you’ve stayed abroad the bigger the potential reverse culture shock can be. The country has changed. You have changed. Things you never considered quirky about your own countrymen turn out to be just that when compared to how you have lived your life for the past years. You may even find some friendships were not as deep as you had imagined. Some people may think you have become odd. You may find that you cannot pick up your old life where you left it before you moved away.

What Next?

I am sure you will find yourself in one of these phases. Personally, I have experienced them all. Having lived outside my country of birth for 20 years, I picked up a second passport, my children were all born in different countries and have moved to yet more countries. I met my best friends abroad and lost some at home. And home is not what I thought it would be.
Each one of us experiences these phases differently. Perhaps the honeymoon phase comes after the reality check. Perhaps you never quite settle down. It all depends on individual circumstances. The best-case scenario is you moved willingly because of career advancement, you like the country you have been posted to and your partner and children are supportive. However, what if you have been sent against your will into a culture you find too alien? What if you hate the heat and you end up in SE Asia? What if you love sunshine and you end up in a country where it is often grey and rainy?

Self-Reflection

As a coach, I wonder did you even know how important sunshine is to you? Or what kind of discussions did you have with your partner about life abroad? Equally important how do you handle the challenges you face in your identity? For instance, what does it say about your identity as a working male when you suddenly find yourself as the accompanying at home spouse/partner because you are not allowed to work in the country your partner has been posted to?
If you never thought about such things, you might have a hard time. However, just because you never considered these questions does not mean it’s too late. First of all, you are not alone. Second, the rough life cycle I described above is also a common experience. What you do with this awareness can make a huge difference. The crucial thing is to create something like a road map. This is particularly important for dual career couples. 
Such road map is not meant to be set in stone. It simply serves as orientation and is it is perfectly fine to redefine and renegotiate. However, not knowing what is important to you as individual and to you in your role as a spouse/partner will make maneuvering your expat life and your life as a couple and family harder. So, grab that opportunity — and dare ask who am I and what do I want?
 

Why We Should Work Like the Pope

When I went to school we still had “religion” as a subject. I even had it as a final oral exams topic for my high school diploma. To this day I recall with great satisfaction how I dazzled the panel with my “knowledge” of “realized eschatology”.

The Pope Has Time

I also recall one teacher of Catholic theology first and foremost because he was an odd-ball but an odd-ball who visited sick colleagues in hospital, checked on me during a period when things weren’t all that great and had a sensitivity for misogyny which would not be out of place today. He also said one thing that has somehow stuck with me: “The pope has time because he knows what he doesn’t get done, one of his successors will. That is why the Church does nothing in a hurry.” 
I wonder about the business implications of that statement and beyond. Let’s look at taking your time to manage your business or department. I can imagine how the prospects of taking your time will sound very appealing. We live in a fast-paced environment and we have been conditioned to believe if we don’t get it done someone else will eat our lunch. That is true in toxic organizations and for business models without a long-term vision. They are simply “milking the cash-cow” for as long as possible. Squeezing cash out of a segment in itself is a legitimate strategic approach (BCG matrix, anyone?). However, without a long-term strategy the business is a one-trick pony show or in a segment of copy cats riding a wave for as long as possible. Ultimately, it has no outward purpose.

The Management Process is unlimited — Our Time is Not

That brings me back to the fundamentals of how we look at the time we have as founders, CEOs, or managers. By definition, we won’t be able to do it all nor to finish it which should not be the goal anyway if we want to build something sustainable. Our time is limited but the management process never stops. Let’s stop for a moment here and reflect on what this statement makes you think and or feel. If you are like me, you may think how you know this intellectually but you don’t act accordingly. At the end of the day, the way you act is based on your core beliefs and values and that means a statement like this can challenge some of your beliefs or even the notion you have about some beliefs you think you ought to have.
For instance, one core belief and value you may have or think you should have is to always work hard and that this hard work will be rewarded. The way this belief may manifested itself in your working behavior could be that you spend long hours in the office, preferably being the last one to leave, even on a Friday. You may prioritize your career goals at the expense of time with friends and/or family. So far the cliché. What can be a scary exercise is to test whether this value and/or belief is actually true for the organization or the managers you work with. If not, what are the implications? Are your core beliefs wrong? Is your action based on these beliefs perhaps not helping? Or is there a mismatch between your values and the organization’s values? 

Great Beliefs Can Turn into Unhealthy Behavior

What about other less cliché-like beliefs and values? For example, strong beliefs about loyalty can tie you to an organization, one of your managers and your employees far beyond a best sell by date. Or managerial buzzwords can trigger unhealthy behaviors or patterns. I wonder how many aspiring managers mis-read Robert Greenleaf’s ideas about “servant leadership” when the concept was first published in 1970 and took it to levels that were never intended by its author. For example, consider the key tools for a servant-leader including listening, persuasion, access to intuition and foresight, use of language, and pragmatic measurements of outcomes, how many got stuck on serving, listening, etc. Terms such as “serving”, “listening” and “intuition” can easily trigger behaviors in many different suboptimal ways. In themselves, they are important leadership traits. However, they only work with the other bit of the equation, namely the ability to make tough decisions required for good outcomes.
The big temptation for many of us is to believe in our own importance. Not surprisingly, very few people will admit to having a heightened belief in their own importance. But we do and our behavioral patterns betray such as belief such as the desire to be in every meeting. Doubting decisions which were made without you in the room. A need for that corner office. Or simply the idea that you are essential for the department or the entire organization. One of the hardest lessons for our self-worth and self-image is to accept the fact that we are replaceable. Just try naming five decently managed organizations which collapsed because the CEO left. If organizations can survive a CEO succession, they will survive you putting an end to your self-importance.

We Are Unique but still Replaceable

Being replaceable does not negate our uniqueness. It simply means the role we fulfill at our organization can be filled by someone else. You need proof? Think about the last promotion you got and the fact someone else had to step into your shoes. You have already been replaced before. And yes, people may mourn your leaving to a different organization or just moving across the hallway. That will last for about a month, and everyone will have arranged themselves to the new person. 
What are the practical implications of this? Ideally, we can learn to chill. I don’t mean to be flippant about this. What I am trying to say is that there is the potential to feel less burdened. We are free to reflect on our true responsibilities and the ones we took on even though they are crushing us. I am not referring to working less. I am referring to a reasonable pace not weighed down by unmanageable responsibilities and more space to actually think strategically about how to improve things. 

Do the Quality Work

A useful tool to identify how we spend our time – or waster our time – is the Eisenhower matrix.

 
As you can see, the “quality” work happens in the not urgent part. Imagine the opportunities for developing quality output without urgency. 
This is where coaching can support you. Systemic coaching creates an environment for you to explore your own core beliefs and how they shape your behavior in your role in your organization. With your insights, a coach can accompany you on your journey to separate the noise from the essential – in a sense to learn how to work like the pope. Learn to trust in your own decisions. Realize that there is work to be done for your successors and perhaps take a much bigger picture view of the purpose of your organization. And if you really want to work like the pope, you can do the same thought process for life in general.

Prejudices — Not As Bad As We May Think They Are

If you claim to have no prejudices, you are deluding yourself. Irrespective of your political leanings, your upbringing, your level of education, social status or your sexual orientation – you are prejudiced. And that’s OK – as long as you are in an environment which enables you to properly respond because exploring our prejudices is scary and painful. 

Evolutionary psychologists think prejudices arose from adaptive psychological mechanisms that helped ancestors manage threats and opportunities for survival and reproduction. Hate is not innate but the tendency to think in terms of “us” vs. “them” is a normal human approach.

Out of Africa

I took a wrong turn in Mombasa harbor once. While that sounds like a great opening line for a novel, it was the moment I realized I was full of prejudices. This was in the mid-90s before anyone had really heard anything about unconscious bias, DEI and such things. There I was, suddenly facing a harbor dock, the only white guy surrounded by sub-Saharan Africans, a lot of them. My pulse started racing and so did my mind because it made me uncomfortable to realize I felt uncomfortable. 
The easy explanation is I fell victim to unconscious bias against people who are not like me. But how was that possible? I was educated (three degrees and counting); I had a diverse set of friends; I had traveled all over – this was Africa for Pete’s sake; and let’s not forget I had married into a sub-continental family. Talk about culture shock for a white European. I had read all the right books. Feeling uncomfortable in the midst of a sea of Africans just wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did. It made me angry. Then came shame about my discomfort and for a long time, I did not talk about this incident.

Make Harlem Black Again

Over the next decades, my wife and I moved around a lot. I am counting 21 addresses in 11 cities across five countries on three continents. That’s just including places where we actually lived and worked for a while. And guess what! Those prejudices don’t go away. For instance, during the 9/11 attacks I lived in Washington, DC and my office was just three blocks away from the White House. For a few hours it looked like the White House would be another target and we felt trapped. Wait and see what happens? Leave only to find out the roads were blocked? 
A few days later I waited for my metro train and noticed a gentleman wearing shalwar-kameez, the traditional clothes predominantly worn by Muslim men in South Asia. My first thought was “Muslim”. It used to be “Pakistani” or it would have made me think of delicious South Asian desserts served by my in-laws, many of whom are Muslim by the way. And you can guess my next thought after “Muslim”. “Bombs”. That was new. A new prejudice generated by recent events. 
And they tend to go both ways. As if to prove the point, I recently walked down Lenox Ave in Harlem where I live now only to run into an elderly African American gentleman who wore a hoodie with the slogan “Make Harlem Black Again”. There are days when I walk around the block and it is just like on that day in Mombasa harbor. The difference is I am not walking around a chaotic harbor in Africa. Rather, I am walking around a chaotic area I call my home. Do I still feel uncomfortable at times? You bet. Do I apply learned behavior to cope? Absolutely. There is one block I regularly walk eyes fixed on the ground, ears pricked. What I have also learned is prejudices are a normal psychological reaction to strangers. And you do not have to travel to distant places to be prejudiced. 

Diversity Does Not (Naturally) Make for Friendship

Distance only adds complexity and layers to an accumulating list of factors causing prejudices. Historically, the people living in the village the next valley over have always been the lunatics. I am paraphrasing evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar[1] who developed the idea of “Seven Pillars of Friendships”, including: 

1. Shared language or dialect 
2. Geographic proximity or shared history 
3. Similar educational experiences 
4. Shared hobbies and interests 
5. Similar moral, spiritual, or political views 
6. Shared sense of humor
7. Musical taste  

That leaves not much room for diversity. Many of these things would probably even enforce unconscious biases. But it also puts my Mombasa experience into a very different light. Notice I expressed concerns about realizing how prejudiced I was. I did not use the word “racist”. Prejudices are a normal part of the human experience, racism is not. Racism can spring from prejudices but that is not a given outcome. I would argue that accusing me of racism for the prejudices I became aware of is intellectually lazy. I am pretty sure I would have felt a similar level of discomfort had I made that wrong turn in Germany in Hamburg harbor bumping into 50 rugged harbor workers who turn to look at me as one man wondering what the heck I am doing there.

Are You A Racist or Just Arrogant?

Having that same experience in Kenya’s biggest harbor simply added more layers affecting my reaction: color of skin, difference in language, foreign country. Now that I come to think of it, my experience in Hamburg’s harbor would only differ from Mombasa with regard to the harbor workers’ skin color. Having grown up in the Lower Rhineland, I really do speak a different language although linguists would only refer to it as a different dialect; and let’s face it, Germany’s North can feel like a different country for guys like me. 
Therein lies the challenge. Our jumping to conclusions about anyone is rooted in the same human reaction which can lead to racism if we do not explore it further. The important difference is what we do once we become aware of our own thoughts and emotions. I recently read a book where one sentence triggered a long session of self-reflection. Here is the sentence: “[…] a series of encounters between European colonists and North American intellectuals.”[2] Half a paragraph later I realized my brain was still processing that sentence because “shouldn’t it have been European intellectuals and North American tribes”? I re-read that sentence about North American intellectuals and my entire image of 18^th century North American history shifted as I dealt with another prejudice I had discovered. 
Therein lies the beauty of prejudices because they reveal the limitations we impose on ourselves if we dare to examine them deeper. We can redirect our thinking to non-judgmental curiosity about ourselves and just as importantly to other people. 

Accept You Are Prejudiced and Work With It

Just pushing away our discomfort will not allow us to accept a thought as prejudiced and then ask a question which may lead to a transformation. For example, what is the basis for my assumption? How can I be sure this information is even true? Why not ask the person myself and start a conversation? What would it take for me to feel brave enough to ask that question? How can I make sure the person I want to ask will feel safe when I do ask that question?

Trust and Safety 

It does not take much for an environment to be diverse. Forget a global organization with teams from all over the world working at HQ. Remember the guys from the village the next valley over? I just had to leave my hometown in the Lower Rhineland for university in Westphalia to notice “diversity” — and to make fun of my German compatriots because they talked funny. There were different and in that case, they really ate horses. 
To be able to explore how you feel as a new team member and how the team feels about you when you are different from them in whatever shape or form requires us to explore our prejudices. As a manager you have some levers to allow your team members to take a hard look at themselves and admit first and foremost to themselves their own prejudices against colleagues and behavioral patterns they notice. That in itself is uncomfortable enough. 
On another level, you may have to think about how you will deal with colleagues who may realize they are prejudiced against you? Are you ready to have a meeting about prejudices where your team – even when well established – goes through the normal forming, storming, norming journey again because they become aware of prejudices? Are you as manager prepared to share uncomfortable truths about your own insights with your team? 
A good coach is in a great position to prepare and guide your organization through a team building workshop where feeling uncomfortable won’t be unsafe. Such a workshop will make your team stronger not because they will never have any prejudices anymore but because they will be better placed to work through them improving their team and individual performance.

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[1] From whom we got the Dunbar number. It’s 150 in case you wonder, and he will be the first to point out others had discovered that number before him. He was just the one to scientifically calculate it.

[2] D. Graeber & D. Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, New York 2023.

Jobs with Purpose — The Millennial/GenZ Trap

Ever since the millennials entered the job market starting in the early 2000s, the debate about purpose in our work life has been become more and more vocal. Generation X and the remnants of the Baby Boomers have been struggling ever since and a good thing, too. For what worked for them – or far more interestingly perhaps, what they thought would work for them – does not work for subsequent generations like the millennials and GenZ. This is not restricted to how we work but also what we are working for. And that gets me to purpose. 

Purpose is a Key Motivator

Mindless work is detrimental to mental well-being and it dehumanizes us. Purpose is one of the three key motivators for skilled workers in addition to autonomy and mastery. However, those lucky enough to work for a company with a clear purpose and in a role which clearly supports this purpose, can easily find themselves short-changed. You have found an organization with a purpose but you have not found your own purpose.
If you run a Google search for purpose, the AI quickly generates the following summary: The purpose of being, or life's purpose, is a deeply personal and often evolving concept. It encompasses the reasons why an individual exists and what they find meaningful and fulfilling. While there's no single, universally agreed-upon purpose, it's generally understood to involve finding a sense of direction, meaning, and contribution in life. 

Doing vs. Being

Let’s unpack. The first important distinction to make is the difference between “doing” and “being”. We can easily find purpose in “doing”. Hence the anecdote about U.S. President Kennedy’s visit to NASA. During that visit he reportedly asked a janitor what he was doing, to which the janitor replied, "I'm helping put a man on the moon." Anyone with less big thoughts may have responded, “I am making sure the bathrooms are clean,” while someone with no purpose may have felt he or she was not doing anything worthwhile at all for what they clean today will just be as dirty tomorrow again.
Had the director of NASA given this kind of response, I doubt it would have made it into the annals of alleged interactions between Kennedy and other people. Why? Because we attach more importance to bigger roles and people in these bigger roles. We would have easily assumed the director’s purpose consisted of actions crucial to bringing a man (it wasn’t a woman in those days) to the moon and preferably back again.
Our action is an outcome of our being. In our example, both, the director’s and the janitor’s actions were the result of their roles. They “were being” a director and a janitor with the associated tasks they did. However, this is limiting. For starters, they were helping to achieve NASA’s purpose at the time and they associated themselves with that purpose. But was it their life’s purpose? I believe we run the danger of sidestepping the real quest for purpose when we either look for it in the purpose of the organization we work for (fight poverty for example) or bemoan the lack of such worthy purpose in our current employer. It is an easy temptation to fall into because someone else has done all the work for us including the mission the vision statement.

Hand-me-down Purpose

Unfortunately, there is no short-cut to getting around the hard work of finding out what this deeply personal “thing” is for us. This is perhaps the single most important journey we embark on. Finding purpose in our “being” rather than our “doing” is something which cannot be taken away from us – at least not as easily as our job or title to which we latched on as an “ersatz” purpose.
To emphasize again, purpose in our job is crucially important to keep us motivated. Every management research book, coach and psychologist will agree on that. They also agree this purpose needs to be bigger than just a large number representing the bottom line. And in order to achieve this purpose, employees need to have agency, i.e. they need some form of ownership and autonomy in their work. But what do you do when the next round of redundancies hits you? Or when your role changes? Or when you retire? What does that mean for your purpose? 

Improving Working Conditions

I wonder whether the question of purpose is actually closing the loop. The onset of the industrial revolution brought with it unbelievable hardship and exploitation. The later industrial barons thought to address this and countries like Germany and the UK introduced safety and labor laws. Industrial tycoons like Krupp introduced housing colonies and social clubs for their workers. Trade unions fought for reduced working hours. 
Now we have well-being and mental health. Somehow purpose crept into this. In the context of labor, this is a recent development. For thousands of years, work (hunting and gathering, farming, etc.) had only one purpose – to bring food on the table (if you had one). It appears more and more people with the luxury of being able to think about the purpose of their organizations, appear to struggle. I wonder whether that is because even if the organization has a purpose, it really won’t be our own purpose of being. We need something deeper.
It is the manager’s job to align every product, service and function with the organization’s purpose, including branding and marketing activities and for example hiring efforts. It is not the manager’s or organization’s job to provide employees with a purpose for their lives. Neither should you expect it from either one. It is an important component, but it is not necessary for us to lead a fulfilled life. Take it from Viktor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy focusing on helping individuals find meaning and purpose in their lives, even amidst suffering. Frankl’s best-known work is Man’s Search for Meaning which he wrote right after surviving the holocaust. He concluded, those with meaning in their lives had far better chances to make it through the horrors of the concentration camps compared to the ones with no meaningful existence.

If You Want Purpose You have to Make it Your Own

This extreme example is to bring some perspective to the struggles we often have at our workplace. I have no intention of minimizing the tremendously negative impact of a toxic work environment or the way a meaningless task can de-humanize work for us. Rather, it is a call to action. It is your job to figure out your own purpose as opposed to simply grab a second-hand one. First, acknowledge the difference between your organization’s purpose and/or the purpose of your role (“action”) and your own existence (“being”). Second, develop a curiosity about what that means for you and go into self-reflection. Third, be patient. Even “aha” moments are usually the culmination of a process which can take a while. Fourth, there is no need to do this on your own. Involve friends and/or coaches because friends know you and coaches are trained to ask the right questions. It is rewarding work but it is work. 
Through individual or group sessions, a well-trained coach can provide the space for you to explore by asking questions and help you develop insights to make sense of your quest. It will be the journey of your own search for meaning. 
The reward is something you can take into any organization or circumstances. Personally, I view my purpose as “to be” a teacher in the broadest sense. I “do” this literally with my students at college. However, I aim to not teaching people how to think. My mission is to try and make people curious about what to think about. No matter where I am, I can decide “to be” such a teacher. At my job, in my family or church, among my friends. 

AI and Coaching — the 2025 NYU Coaching and Technology Summit in a Nutshell

This year’s NYU Coaching and Technology Summit was all about coaching and AI. Plenty of big coaching kahunas were present from top coaching behemoths such as BetterUp but also exciting start-ups and researchers such as Dr. Nicky Terblanche.

I was able to discern three big themes:

• AI will enable us to democratize coaching

• While everyone needs coaching, in the context of organizations executive coaching will have the biggest impact on companies

• Health and well-being will just get bigger for coaching

What is Coaching?

During one of the sessions, Emma Barker-Goldie, global senior trainer and coach at Amazon was asked about her hopes for coaching: “Imagine a world where we know what coaching is?” She continued wondering how it would look like if we introduced coaching to school age children. 
How do we explain what coaching is? This topic still seems to challenge even the combined brain power I encountered here in New York City. I asked one prominent coach and researcher who actually did not want to get into that kind of debate. Perhaps I am a horrible would-be journalist, but I guess this also highlights how difficult that question remains.
I decided to try my luck elsewhere and asked Laura Rees-Davies, CEO of GlobalForward Consulting who has worked with schools in the United Kingdom. How would she explain what coaching is to a 10-year-old kid. She responded: “Someone will ask questions and not tell you what to do.” She further emphasized the importance of playfulness for children. That made me curious about how to translate this back to the adult world. How would “play” help us explain coaching to adults? In response, Rees-Davies laid out the importance of creativity. Adults need to shed several layers of mentalized frameworks and structures before they can approach coaching with creativity to find answers to the coach’s questions.

So far nothing new. Also not new is that our trade is exposed to the same disruptive forces posed by AI like any other industry. Many coaches and obviously entrepreneurs fully embrace this and only see opportunities. Several researchers are doing what researchers should do and ask the tough questions. For example, Dr. Terblance pointed out currently there are only about 150 peer reviewed articles about AI and coaching published in academic journals - and many of these are not good. Then there are the sceptics and not surprisingly coaches are among them. It seems sometimes even more so than among our clients. 

When the Market outruns Coaches

NYU professor of entrepreneurship Arun Sundararajan explained the number one use of AI is as a personal therapist. Alex Haitoglou, founder of Ovida added “We will all have an AI to speak to.” That means the “consumer” already embraces AI. Coaches need to adapt to it, too. One way many panelists see this play out is in their desire to democratize coaching. It cannot remain a service whose availability is limited by how much people are able to pay. That is primarily a problem of scale – and that is where AI steps in. The technology is placed to make that possible. 

AI as an Opportunity and Risk

That means we coaches perhaps more so than others need to act on what we like to preach, reamin curious about this new thing and think about it creatively. In fact, adapting intentionally to AI is all about curiosity, as Tim Harrison, founder of EPOG Academy explained on how to use AI tools: “It is all human interaction: you need to be curious, communicate well [to the tool] and provide feedback [for the tool to do what you need it to do].”
This mindset shift is not just hard for “older” people. Again, Sundararajan highlighted how for the first time in his 25 years of teaching young graduates are fearful on leaving college. The concern and frustration many express can be summarized in one statement: “If AI can do all this then what is left for us to do?” He went on to provide some perspective, explaining “AI like all innovations helps us meet unfulfilled aspirations”. AI will be a scaling of a combination of human and technological action. To illustrate this, he pointed out that healthcare did not even exist 200 years ago. Now it contributes to GDPs in double digit numbers.
The opportunity is we will be able to offer coaching to a much larger market. How that looks like is currently being addressed by an entire industry segment. What they are up against is the technology itself and our willingness to adapt it. For example, our clients already use AI as a personal therapist. The danger is that “AI can put up a great front”, according to Sundararajan. The current risk of AI in coaching/therapy is inadequate design of the human/technological mix.
He pointedly asked, “What are the pedagogically grounded and science-based templates we use?” The danger is people will not believe in the technology’s potential if it is not designed well. We need to be proactive - intentional (!) - about how we design the tools and the mix of technology and humans.

For our approach to AI’s impact on the workforce in general that means, in the future people will need to be much more entrepreneurial about their work environment. Having the right person in that environment to figure out how to make these transitions and improve our performance and learning who we are at the different stages of our lives will become increasingly important. 

For example, the current labor market includes an unprecedented cohort of five generations (Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z). As a result, we need to manage a lot of mid- to end-of-career transition. The United States, specifically, is great about early career transition - from high-school to college and first jobs – often managed by educational institutions. It lacks the ability to facilitate mid-career transitions. Up until a few decades ago, jobs were for life, the job trajectory was clear and company and pension plans took care of retirement. 

Transitions with Dignity

Today, companies are the only institutions which can manage mid-career transitions, both for the talent they keep and the one they won’t keep. In this context, Sundararajan made a statement that resonated with me a lot. He said, the increasing number of mid-career transitions needs to be managed “with dignity”. There will be people who have done an excellent job throughout their careers. Over time, their jobs have changed. It is too simplistic to always blame employees whose jobs have outgrown their capabilities. Take AI. Today’s experts themselves do not know what will come in six months. As Alex Haitoglo said: “The crystal ball is broken.”

So what are we to learn from all this? There seems to be consensus on AI’s ability to help coaches to scale their business across the entire range. For example, BetterUp shared research results proving how AI can increase bookings for a second session by about 10%. As Woody Woodward, BetterUp’s chief coaching officer said, the first session often “does not feel like a coaching session” because it is all about contracting, managing expectations, goal setting, etc. Coaches who implemented a pre-first session contracting tool reported 92% of clients were satisfied with the tool. With all the “admin” stuff out of the way for the first session, the experience of that first session was better. As a result, 10% more clients booked a second session.

The real scaling though will be on a much bigger level. One hoped for outcome is access to coaching for the “most vulnerable” as Sarah Sheehan, CEO of Braverly said. This is crucial because many underfunded organizations try their best to offer coaching to their staff. They hire well-meaning people but do not have the required resources to afford experienced coaches who also undergo supervision which led Laura Rees-Davies to ask: “Is coaching actually happening” in these places? 

None of this means the end of in person coaching. In fact, there seems to be wide agreement on a hybrid model becoming the norm. But there will be a shift which Levi Goertz, founder of Valence referred to a distinction between lower case “c” coaching and upper case “C” coaching. AI scaled coaching to a mass consumer market is on the way to solve coaching problems for many people in their early career stages. Liz Lowry, VP of talent development and learning at Hearst reported how junior staff utilized Valence’s AI coach Nadia to prepare for review meetings asking very practical questions such as “how do I get a raise”. Christine Nollen, global head of coaching for VML agrees. She believes, AI coaching works extremely well for mid-level and junior staff. 

Coaching for Leaders and Employees

The difference is in coaching for “executives who need to know how they show up with all their emotions, etc.” She argues, coaching is being present with a human including the mirroring and reflecting. “I point out what I see and feel. You have the answers yourself. It is about asking the next provocative question.” That is where non-sentient AI is presumably lacking. The upper case “C” coaching is targeted to the leadership because of the cascading effect. “Leaders make the weather”, Nollen said underscoring the importance of leading by example. No corporate coaching program or corporate transformation program will fully succeed unless the leadership is willing to undergo a transformation themselves. Danny Shea, founder of Thrive Global added to that “[the leaders’] example and sharing their story provides permission and makes them accountable, too”. 
 
The concept of upper and lower “c” coaching does not imply leaders deserve better. Rather, Shea views this in the context of what helps corporate clients. Organizational change is exponentially more impacted by the leaders. The community and peer aspect is essential because of adaptations. Leaders leading by example is the key. That is why it is crucially important for them to be aware of how they show up from an organizational perspective. 

 
However, for an organizational transformation to trickle down throughout the entire organization including the front workers, the most powerful motivator is to see your peers take steps. What are some of the most important areas for sustainable personal transformation? Thrive Global highlights five core areas for micro-steps, including 
 
The emphasize is on micro-steps which is something every professional athlete will tell you. In fact, Holly Benner who is associate director for global talent management at Merck USA said just that. When she is not coaching, developing talent, etc. she runs marathons, triathlons and used to be an elite rower. My memory is a but hazy on that because as a no-sports person I nearly fainted a triathlon, but this quote stuck with me: “We get offered radical change. That is not sustainable. Pick that 1%.” Sustained incremental steps are the way forward through a transformation.

• Healthy nutrition
• Sufficient sleep
• Exercise
• Stress management 
• Community

That Well-Being Thing

That brings me to the last theme I was able to identify at the NYU Coaching and Technology Summit. Where is this all going to play out the most? What is the big area where coaching will take place? If the AI as the new technology impacts how we do coaching not just in terms of methodology but simply in scale, leaders remain the prime target due their pivotal roles in their organizations. They lead in an increasingly volatile environment where the one constant is leadership. As a result, we need leaders who function well in a fast-paced high-pressure environment. That level of performance will only be possible if leaders are mentally and physically fit. So the big trend is, you guessed it: Well-being. 
 
It turns out everyone I spoke with at the NYU Coaching Summit seems to agree they don’t like the term nor much of what the market is including into that. Diego Salinas, founder of Vibly brought his neuroscientific training to bear when he criticized the much-touted concept of work-life balance. “You bring the same molecules to work and elsewhere.” In the end, any well-being program, regardless of what you call it and what you throw into the mix (from bean bags to DEI) has one goal only: performance increase. There is the scientific proof of its health benefits to the people in the organizations. Hardcore management consulting companies have brought the numbers to show how much money companies can safe and how they can improve the bottom line by implementing such programs to boost performance.

 
Like many programs, corporate well-being initiatives can go either way and the one determining factor is corporate culture or as Salinas called it “organizational citizenship behavior”. Unless leaders put their money where their mouth is and walk the talk by actually joining the corporate transformation project as someone who transforms his or her own behavior, the trickle-down effect will be much less impactful and sustainable. Boasting about how you just need four hours of sleep to run your organization is misguided and will only achieve one thing, the failure of any well-being initiative in your organization. Perhaps therein lies the leader’s responsibility for the performance of the organization: lead by example. Use the most powerful tool in the toolbox, i.e. soft power, be present and learn to be aware of how you show up. So, from a coaching perspective nothing new, only this time you can use AI to do it. 

Disclaimer

I conclude this with the statement this article was entirely written by a human, so don’t blame AI for any bad writing.

Dying Can Change Your Life — If You Stop Sleepwalking

Is it life changing when you almost die? For me it was an important starting point of a much longer process of transformation — NOT “improvement”. I am not a better person now. I’d like to believe I am better equipped to deal with life. That does not mean, I am the finished product. 

Dying Can Change Your Life — If You Stop Sleepwalking

So, is it life changing when you almost die? You’d think so but it entirely depends on how you react. I know because I (almost) died — five times to be exact. Four of these times would have been quick affairs: two near misses involving a car and I really mean “near” and instant death. Twice I almost drowned. That was different because you have the time to get scared and fight back — especially when you are on your own in the ocean.
Note to self: don’t go ocean swimming in stormy weather when the red flags are out and the lifeguards aren’t. Unfortunately, the subsequent thrill and gratitude of having survived didn’t last very long and the day-to-day quickly took over. The threat of a sudden death apparently did not cut it for me. It was different when I received my leukemia diagnosis followed by nine months of treatment which could have gone either way. Eleven years on I remain in remission. 

When Your Horizon Shrinks

Back then, it was sobering that my own shelf life (about six months without a bone-marrow transplant) could be shorter than some of the products I grabbed in the supermarket. As my horizon shrank, I started looking for at the past and even more so at the presence. 
That is what has changed: trying to be truly present. I am not talking about an esoteric experience but intentionally taking in what is happening around me. It starts with awareness, trying to let go of assumptions/judgment and subsequently to explore with curiosity how events or people impact me instead of just sleepwalking onwards.
My leukemia treatment was an important starting point of a much longer process of transformation. Please note, I am not saying “improvement”. I am not a better person now. I’d like to believe I am better equipped to deal with life. That does not mean, I am the finished product. And to be honest, I don’t want to have to go through that level of deconstruction again. It was raw, scary, painful and humiliating.

Transformation Is No Fun

I was utterly naked and felt emotionally flayed. Death was not even the scary bit. Sure, I wanted to live but I wasn’t scared as much. In my case, it was my faith in Christ. It may be something else for others. What was scary was the loss of control and a crippling fear of invasive procedures in hospital. But there was also my own biography and things creeping up on me. Cumulatively it brought me to a point where my existence was reduced to just me, no job, title, possessions, no energy for delusions of grandeur. But also no energy for self-doubt, self-judgment or even regrets. Perhaps that’s how I can best describe what I mean by “presence”.
The closest analogy I can come up with is Moses’s encounter with God. In order to survive God walking by, Moses had to cover his faith because no man would see God and live. That’s how it felt to me: nothing left between me and my God and that was terrifying. 
Over the next years, I have thought more about the following: Can there be purpose and deeper meaning in our lives when we remove everything that can be taken from us? This is not a rhetorical question. Every day people lose their possessions and loved ones, their jobs and other things which gave meaning to their lives. How do we go on when it’s all gone? I continue to explore that.
If you are curious, feel free to follow this space. I’ll post more.

The Death of DEI — Good Riddance

Organizations are rolling back DEI and I say (a strongly qualified) “good riddance. Why? Because it the cat is out the bag and we now know which leaders truly supported such initiates and which ones only paid lip-service. As a result, many employees express fears over what this development means for them. I am curious to know which opportunities actually present themselves to entire organizations and the individuals who work in them now that the truth is out. How can the problem (retreat of DEI) become part of the solution (improve your organization’s culture)?
The list of corporate awareness programs has grown significantly over the last decades. They address societal and demographic changes. Fueled by the publicity around the brave actions of whistle-blowers and/or movements which become viral - #metoo for example – they force a reckoning on organizations and governments. The “newsworthy” cases are just the tip of the iceberg or the straw that broke the camel’s neck and opened the floodgates for others to finally come forward. 

The Tip of the Iceberg

It is not that there was a sudden rise in sexual assault or bias against different groups of people. On the contrary, more and more people finally felt safe or encouraged to talk about their own suffering not the least because they realized they were unfortunately not the exception.

To raise awareness of such issues, corporations launched various programs. A quick and dirty Google search returns a plethora of such initiatives, including:

• Diversity and Inclusion Training
• Unconscious Bias Training
• Inclusive Leadership Training
• Cultural Competency Training
• Mental Health and Well-being
• Sustainability and ESG Training

And that list does not even address programs such as or emergency preparedness programs and compliance training. 

The Backlash

Like any powerful idea they also face a backlash. This backlash is not recent. For example, no sooner had Black Lives Matters gained traction in the wake of police killings, Blue Lives Matters sprung up (blue referring to the color of most police uniforms in the United States). The #metoo movement started discussing toxic masculinity and now we have prominent figures like Meta’s boss Mark Zuckerberg bemoaning the lack of “masculine energy” and expressing fears about corporate culture being “neutered”. In some countries, the political environment appears to play into this counter-movement and that scares many people. 

While still in opposition, Germany’s new ruling party started a campaign against NGOs. IN April, the Hungarian parliament voted to restrict Pride March. The U.S. administration is picking a fight against educational institutions. Not surprisingly, a quick check of UN press releases reads like a laundry list of things switching into reverse: Women fear the loss of equality gains they have made over decades. Ethnic minorities with different work permits are exposed to measurably more xenophobic attacks. 

The reasons for the backlash probably range from active opposition from out of touch holdouts, ignorance and just sheer “awareness fatigue”. What I want to discuss is how to handle the rollback of these programs in your organization. Because in the to and fro of this, organizational culture remains an issue. The phrase “toxic work culture” has been entered into search engines more so than ever.

DEI Was Never About Employees

One thing to keep in mind why any of these programs have been launched. While the language chosen appears to address basic human needs such as physical and psychological safety, fairness and equality the actual focus is not employees. What is often and inaccurately lumped together under the label “DEI” needs to be placed in the larger discourse about improved corporate performance. When we do that, an entirely different picture emerges. The focus of these programs is not employee well-being but corporate well-being and by that I mean better business performance.

To illustrate, let me highlight a point made by Michel Foucault, the French philosopher and godfather of discourse theory. In Discipline and Punishment he writes the abolishment of torture and the parallel increase in the construction of prisons did not occur because punishment was to become more human. Quite the contrary, that transformation had only one goal, make punishment more efficient. The concept of punishment was never questioned.

Neither is the concept of improved corporate performance and consequently profits. A more cynical view is that corporations will do anything to improve the bottom line and if that means mental health, DEI, anti-burnout initiatives and raising the LGTBQ+ flag during Pride Month, they will do it. It is not to make employees more satisfied. That factor only plays a role because it can show up in improved individual performance which improves corporate performance.

Does DEI Work?

But does it? It appears the verdict is still out there as the results are mixed. The list of potential benefits supported by research is impressive. For example, such programs lead to increased employee engagement, satisfaction, and a sense of belonging. What is more, a diverse workforce can bring a wider range of perspectives and experiences, potentially leading to more innovative solutions and ideas, attract and retain diverse talent, which can help them access new markets and customers. Some research also suggests that companies with diverse leadership teams and boards of directors may outperform those with less diversity. 

If that applied across the board, why would any organization push back on these programs? For starters, it can be difficult to measure the true impact of DEI programs, making it challenging to determine their effectiveness. Sometimes the reasons for the pushback are simple. For instance, some DEI initiatives can face resistance from employees who feel threatened or perceive them as reverse discrimination. Think the proverbial old white man who fears for his next promotion because the job will go to a “diversity candidate” just because that person is non-male, none-white and not old. 

Also concerning is that certain DEI training methods can inadvertently reinforce stereotypes or increase prejudice. Just have a room full of executives from different European countries discuss their approach to time. IF the trainer/coach gets it wrong, you will easily see a German-Swiss alliance emerge or even fortify against colleagues with a different cultural approach. Some argue that focusing solely on representation (e.g., increasing the number of women or minorities in leadership positions) without addressing issues of inclusion can be counterproductive. The unintended consequences can include increased turnover or decreased job satisfaction among certain groups.

One big question is whether these programs are implemented properly or if they lack strong leadership support. A Pew Research study from 2023 seems to summarize the paradox around DEI programs very well.

“A majority of U.S. workers say focusing on DEI at work is a good thing, but relatively small shares place great importance on diversity in their own workplace.”[1]

What Does it Mean on the Individual Level

But what does all this mean for you? Let’s assume the organization you work for decided to stop these programs. How is this really to going to impact you? One way to answer the question is to reflect on how you personally benefitted from any of these programs. 

For instance, if you are part of an ethnic or sexual minority in your workplace, has your career truly benefitted from DEI and similar programs? If it has, then what are the chances for your career to falter now? Obviously, there is a legitimate fear of any pent up misogynism or racism to resurface. What do you believe is the likelihood of that happening in your environment? The hard part about answering that question is to take a rational approach to a highly emotional topic. 

This requires a critical review of the organization and your own position in that organization. It requires what psychologists refer to as “radical acceptance” of the situation. That means complaining about it or telling yourself “it should not be that way” is not helping. Wherever there are people there is politics and conflict. Just recall the 2019 report into widespread bullying and toxic culture at Amnesty International. 

If your career never benefitted from any such programs in your organization and your performance is comparable to people who did advance, then what is going to change for you if the leadership basically makes it official they never really cared about these programs in the first place? That is a foundational question because you know whether your organization had these programs in place for window dressing purposes only

What we change is our own approach. Can openly share your fears about your place as a transgender person in your organization? If not, what or who exactly makes it difficult and how can you address this particular situation or person to engage rather than walk away?

Hard Lessons

I will share a truly embarrassing story in order to highlight the importance of engaging for the benefit of the “majority” in your organization. This takes us back to the mid-90s, a time before DEI or a wider discussion of things such as unconscious bias. I was at a bachelor party in the United States and got talking to a person who was ethnically Asian. As a white German who was raised at a time when German citizenship was defined by blood rather than birth, I asked the killer question: “Where are you from?” He responded: “I am American.” That should have been the end of it because it was already bad enough but I proceeded to dig an even deeper hole, adding: “You don’t look American.”

To this man’s credit he remained engaged, smiled and simply said: “Well, I am.” That’s when it started to sink in. Apart from my wish for the ground to just open and swallow me, the man’s reaction to the entire encounter transformed my own sensitivity for these situations. I am still curious about people’s backgrounds and since I live in New York City remain exposed to a lot more diversity than in many other cities. That also means, I have learned to express this curiosity differently. 

We all are part of the corporate culture and if that includes vigilance, we need to continue to be vigilant. Coaching can help identify your part, support you in the challenges you face and help you develop strategies that fit your particular situation and role in the organization you work for.

The original blogpost appeared in German on crimalin on April 22, 2025.

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[1] R. Minkin, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace, Pew Research Center Report, May 2023.