Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Peter Brunke's Vision: When Europe Meets America in Executive Search | Staffing Series

Transcript

Peter Brunke's Vision: When Europe Meets America in Executive Search | Staffing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:20
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:26
My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and today's guest is Peter Brunke,
0:30
partner of EO Executives in Nuremberg, Germany and Orlando,
0:35
FL in the USAEO Executives was founded in 1997 and is present
0:40
in 10 countries with more than 30 offices.
0:44
They were just recently recognized as one of the Top 40
0:47
executive search companies in Germany.
0:49
Their mission is to help clients build the best leadership team
0:52
they have ever had, and they do this by bringing together their
0:55
clients with consultants who are experts in their respective
0:58
industries and functional areas. This ensures that success
1:02
critical leadership positions are filled quickly, permanently
1:06
and successfully. In addition to amazing
1:09
consultants, their team provides a dedicated researchers and
1:12
staff and each brings their extensive knowledge to the
1:15
search for the perfect executive.
1:17
Their unique methodical approach called Executive Intro ensures
1:22
that candidates are not only convincing from a professional
1:25
point of view, but also represent a long term enrichment
1:29
for the management team. Now before we get into all that
1:31
good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
1:34
Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
1:38
unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and
1:41
fiscally optimized for your bottom line.
1:44
One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per
1:48
year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our
1:50
proprietary programs. Results vary for each company
1:53
and some organizations may not be eligible.
1:56
To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
1:59
Add Back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the
2:03
managing Partner of EO Executives Orlando and
2:06
Nuremberg, Peter Brunke. I appreciate you making the time
2:09
to Share your story today. Thanks Anthony.
2:11
I'm super stoked and happy to be here.
2:13
Looking forward to our talk. All right, let's do it.
2:17
So, Peter, tell us in your own words, what does EO executives
2:21
do? So EO executives, so thank you
2:23
for the question. Good question and thanks so much
2:26
for the nice introduction. Pretty on point.
2:28
Thank you very much for that. So EO Executives, the the name
2:32
EO comes from Executives Online and was initially founded as you
2:36
mentioned 1997 in England. And EO Executives was actually
2:41
one of the first companies executive search recruiting,
2:44
headhunting, whatever you want to call it.
2:45
Companies that realized that they're recruiting like in
2:51
former times, printing out resumes, sending them via mail
2:55
to the candidates and such things are going to be changing
2:59
dramatically through the Internet, which was in the 90s
3:02
just at the beginning, baby steps and stuff.
3:04
So, but, and this was the reason why it was also named EO
3:09
Executives online because realizing the recruiting will
3:13
change dramatically and this is not being resumes, paper
3:16
printing out, sending around anymore.
3:18
So we were actually one of the first ones, if not the first
3:21
one, jumping on the train, changing the industry and
3:26
recruiting to online business and what we do it would be good
3:34
at. So this is how it started.
3:35
And in 2011, the German managing partners bought it out from the
3:40
owners in England and now it's headquartered in Germany.
3:42
And as you said, we're branching out into more and more
3:47
international markets. So it took some years to get
3:50
successful and settled in Germany.
3:52
And as you also mentioned right now, we got just got awarded a
3:55
few months back by one of the two biggest financial
3:59
newspapers, an independent survey done by them as one of
4:03
the Top 40 executive search companies in Europe and out of
4:08
2000 executive search firms in Germany.
4:10
So it's not just. Out of 2000.
4:13
There's like. You're the Top 40 out of 2000.
4:16
So and of course there's a lot of 1 and twosies of people that
4:19
are going including as one person, but and then also
4:23
obviously big, big companies. So we are a mid sized company.
4:26
We have about 100 people worldwide and we're growing and
4:31
I started the branch in Florida about two years ago, initially
4:37
with a different recruiting company, but now being part of
4:39
EO and because of my, how can I say this here my, my own
4:45
personal experience. I and I just said this at the
4:48
beginning as of today, today was the day 24 years ago when I
4:52
entered the United States for the first time.
4:55
So it's kind of a. On October. 3rd 3rd So that's
4:59
the day we're recording today, October 3rd, 22,005 I arrived in
5:04
New York City, good place to be. Anyways, New York City is always
5:08
fun and started my, my, my journey.
5:12
And the interesting part was there's a couple of things.
5:16
So the first thing is when you study and you have a university
5:21
degree anywhere in a Western culture, you learn decent
5:25
English. You have to, because that's the
5:26
language of, of, of business. But then you then move to a
5:31
country like the United States in this case, and this becomes a
5:35
completely different kind of beast.
5:37
So your language skills are not up to par what they are now of
5:41
24 years later, of course. And and when it comes to
5:45
business, you make a lot of mistakes.
5:49
And I spent all of my years in the United States working in
5:54
transatlantic international businesses for mainly Europe as
5:58
subsidiaries of European headquarters to German
6:01
headquarters, the Swiss headquarter, French headquarter.
6:04
And this comes still, although all of these things are not new,
6:10
you can find all of this in the Internet somewhere.
6:12
And there's guidelines how to behave, what to talk about.
6:15
The cultural differences between Europe and the United States are
6:20
as different as they are from the states from Europe to China.
6:23
But in China, you say, oh, you got to be careful.
6:25
You got to watch out. And with the states, you, you
6:30
speak English, you watch the holiday, the, the, the Hollywood
6:33
movies, you know, this, this TV series.
6:35
So you think you know America which is the 1st and the biggest
6:39
mistake that you can do because that is just wrong.
6:42
Americans are way different in doing business from Germans,
6:46
Austrians, this pick any country in Europe as well.
6:51
So and I, I was lucky I have to say this, but it was painful at
6:57
times as well. When I started, I started in a
7:00
startup situation. I was allowed to make tons of
7:06
mistakes because I didn't know I didn't know better and I did
7:10
probably all the mistakes that you could do because in a start
7:15
up, it's not that big of a deal because there's not a lot of so
7:19
much money behind it. But if you're looking at bigger
7:21
corporations that want to come into a market or in a market,
7:26
those mistakes can be very, very costly.
7:29
And so, and this was my my inspiration, my passions and all
7:37
those learnings that I did from a cultural perspective, I want
7:42
to help other people avoid. Or if you fill in a position and
7:46
let it be in Germany for an American company or in the
7:50
States for a German, Austrian, Swiss company, finding the right
7:54
people that can deal with both sides.
7:57
You got to you got to be immersed to some extent in both
8:04
cultures. If you hire a German, a German,
8:08
German, German person for an American subsidiary in Germany,
8:11
that's going to fail quickly. Same here.
8:14
If you have a German subsidiary in the States and you hire an
8:17
American that has never dealt with any foreigners besides
8:20
Americans and maybe Canadians, it's going to fail because
8:24
communication, the way how to do business is just different.
8:27
So this was kind of a long answer to your question.
8:31
Sorry about why, why I'm doing what I'm doing right now.
8:34
I was, I'm in an executive search for years now.
8:38
I was in yeah, since I came to the US in corporate America
8:43
running two companies. And again, So I I learned all
8:48
these, these things. There's funny stories to it, but
8:52
also sometimes the hard way. So that was a great answer and
8:58
several things I want to unpack there, Peter.
9:00
So the company, when it was first founded in 1997, did it
9:04
have that same name EO for executive online?
9:09
I mean, for people who, who don't realize who, who maybe
9:14
weren't around when the Internet first got started in 1997.
9:17
These were really early days. Like not, not everybody even
9:22
knew what the Internet was at that point.
9:24
And so for the company to have the foresight to say that this
9:29
rickety tool, I mean, it was budding, it was a lot of promise
9:33
there. But to have the vision that that
9:36
this is where everything was going to move to, I think was
9:39
quite prescient because prescient because nobody really
9:43
knew what this was going to become.
9:44
So it's I just want to make that point that to have called it EO
9:48
for executive Online back in 1997, I I think showed a lot of
9:51
force. Point and you're right on point
9:54
with that and you have this was kind of AI mean we know this no,
9:57
I mean if you've been around in the in the 90s now it was a a
10:01
revolution in the making and we have the same we see I believe
10:05
you're seeing the same right now with AI and the AI since it
10:10
started in COVID, it got speed up last year and it's just that
10:15
things are changing so dramatically fast and probably
10:19
younger generation 510 years from now, they will live up to
10:24
completely different processes. And this applies also to the
10:27
industry that I'm in an executive search.
10:29
It's just changing the speed of change is so dramatic and yeah,
10:35
we have it in our names. So we're trying to keep running
10:38
with the AI stuff as well, yes. That's great.
10:43
So tell me a little bit more about this award.
10:45
I mean, to be chosen Top 40 out of, you know, thousands of
10:49
different firms is really impressive.
10:51
What were the criteria that they were looking for?
10:53
Why do you think that EO was chosen for this?
10:56
To be honest, that is a very good question, but it was a
11:00
survey that was done completely without, without involving the
11:06
executive search companies. Nobody knew.
11:08
So they were going they did this with with companies and going
11:12
after HR departments and executives and asking them about
11:16
their experiences with recruiting companies, asking
11:19
them, OK, name your top 123 and why are they good?
11:23
Why are you working with them and why you don't work with
11:25
them. So we have no, it was pretty
11:27
surprising because usually, I mean, there's those type of
11:34
surveys that are a little bit hybrid, I will call it, where
11:38
you, where you are involved and you can participate and
11:41
sometimes you could pay money and stuff like that.
11:42
But this was really an independent 1.
11:44
So it was A, very surprising and B, super surprising because of,
11:48
hey, we're in the Top 40 out of 2000.
11:50
That's pretty cool. That's amazing.
11:54
Yeah. It was going to be my follow up
11:55
question is how much did you pay to get this honor, but you
11:58
didn't even know that it was coming.
11:59
You, you weren't involved. So use the logo and now
12:02
promoting it. Then you got to, so that's the.
12:06
Gotcha. No, that's, that's really
12:09
impressive. Now, you mentioned that when you
12:13
first got here, you were making a lot of mistakes because of the
12:16
cultural differences between doing business in Germany and
12:20
the USA. What are some of those big
12:22
differences? OK, so I started representing a
12:29
company out of Germany, emission reduction business out of
12:34
Nuremberg actually and I started in California and Southern
12:41
California. Pretty cool place to start a
12:43
business. Always Sunny and I started with
12:48
an IKEA. We rented an office.
12:50
I had an IKEA table, a cell phone, a laptop and one service
12:54
technician that came on board two weeks ago and one service
12:58
technician coming over from Germany training the the guy and
13:01
then said OK Peter now go for it.
13:04
So I did business development and stuff and also started
13:08
hiring people. And my one of the first
13:11
learnings was with my then assistant secretary, whatever
13:16
you will call it, somebody that helped me with the
13:18
administrative staff. And I remember one day or very
13:23
early on, I said, can you come in my office and close the door,
13:26
please? And she came in close the door
13:29
and was sitting in front of me and was shaking.
13:30
She was like the hands were like this and said, oh, what's up?
13:34
Why are you shaking? And said, are you going to fire
13:36
me? And I said no.
13:38
And then I learned to hit, at least in that in Southern
13:40
California, if you call somebody in your office and said please
13:43
close the door, that's usually bad news.
13:45
I said no, I didn't want to have bad news.
13:47
I wanted to have peace talking with you and somebody else
13:50
running in the office. But obviously that was a
13:53
learning. And this is just little things.
13:56
Yeah. And funny stories and another
14:00
story. This was when I started right
14:01
the beginning in in New York City.
14:05
I was helping at the beginning also similar German speaking
14:10
companies with entering the American market.
14:13
So legal setup bank accounts, what not the legal foundation
14:18
getting hooked up with potential clients, distributors and all
14:21
those things. And I had a meeting in New York
14:25
City and I rented a meeting room in a hotel.
14:27
I had a German company with cool products and a potential
14:31
distributor for them. So they've never met.
14:33
And I was brought them together and said, OK, we're just going
14:35
to spend half a day here. I rented the room in the in a
14:38
nice hotel in the city. And then the Germans did their
14:42
presentation in their sphere and whatnot.
14:44
And the meeting was so so because also mine was new.
14:51
So I had my learning go through my learning curve as well at the
14:55
end, and this was the learning out of this was the American
14:59
distributor said to me, hey, Peter, these guys are so
15:03
reserved, it sounds they're not even convinced about their own
15:06
product. They talk about, yeah, we got to
15:08
watch out for this and this can be complicated.
15:12
And I was like, OK, so there's a point to that.
15:16
But again, I was German. I'm still German, obviously, but
15:20
I'm now I'm after 24 years in the States, I'm a little bit in
15:23
between. So if you want to sell to
15:27
Americans, you've got to be way more pushy, more aggressive,
15:31
more positive and said, hey guys, we have a great product.
15:35
This is what you should do. We going to make lots of money
15:38
the both of us. We're going to give you a good
15:39
price and you run for it. Give it a try and try this for
15:42
six months and then see how it goes.
15:44
That would be the American approach.
15:45
And as I said, the German 1 is very slowly think about it.
15:49
Oh, we got to watch out this one.
15:51
We got to think this through. We got to calculate this and
15:53
this is the German way. But if you're going to come, and
15:59
this is, I mean, one of the major learnings is if you go to
16:04
a different country, it doesn't matter if you come to the
16:06
States, if you come to Germany, you got to do it the way other
16:09
people do it in that country and not trying.
16:12
And there's examples either way. Big companies, not Daimler, the
16:16
parent company of Mercedes-Benz came and got it has called like
16:20
a marriage between equals got together with Chrysler.
16:23
What is it 2000 something I I don't remember and it failed and
16:29
it was two of the largest companies in the world because
16:31
the the cultures were just different.
16:33
They couldn't couldn't make it out and on the other hand, the
16:37
same thing happened at Walmart, one of the biggest companies in
16:43
the world, except Germany. They tried to vote on Germany as
16:46
well in the early 2000s and same thing.
16:51
They failed because they were trying to copy what they're
16:53
doing in the US, doing it in Germany and spent tons of money,
16:59
millions and millions, lost a lot of millions and then gave up
17:03
after 6-7 years. And this is something I don't
17:06
know if you or one of the people that are listening today, if you
17:10
go to Germany, you will never, never find a supermarket where
17:16
you have people helping you, packaging your things in bags.
17:19
And should I drive your car down and help you load the car?
17:22
This is this is invading private space for Johnson.
17:25
No, no, no, I'm doing this by myself.
17:29
I'm packing by myself and going to myself.
17:31
This is and then also the chit chatting with the cashier and
17:38
the supermarket and a Walmart. Whatever, forget about that in
17:41
Germany. I tried, I gave it up.
17:43
I did it at the beginning. So ALDI German brand now
17:47
starting everywhere in the United States as well, at least
17:50
here in Florida where there's like ALDI popping out everywhere
17:53
and German brand. And in my first, I don't know,
17:59
first or second year when I moved travelling back to
18:02
Germany, I said, OK, I'm going to try this at an ALDI cashier
18:06
in Germany. So I went to buy my grocery and
18:10
then ALDI and then to the lady said, hey, how are you doing?
18:13
How's your day? Is it busy today?
18:15
And she was it's just I'm German.
18:20
You don't talk and say, OK, how much is it OK payment, credit
18:23
card or cash? Yeah, Chuck.
18:25
They're very transactional. We're not here to be buying the.
18:27
Shedding with the cashier ID which this is weird she got
18:32
scared. The lady at the cashier, do I
18:35
know you? What's going on here?
18:37
What do you want from me? Why am I being interrogated?
18:40
I have just a current example, friends of ours we had we had
18:45
over for dinner a couple of days ago and a couple with their son.
18:52
And she works for Siemens now, Siemens major competitor General
18:56
Electric, doing everything from hair dryers, washing machines to
19:00
nuclear plants. And she works in the medical
19:05
division, Siemens Health in years, that's what it's called.
19:07
She comes from Colombia and she's here now a year.
19:11
And then she told us, yeah, they had a major issue with one of
19:15
her bosses and HR needed to get involved and then said, OK, what
19:20
was it? And they said, well, she doesn't
19:22
speak German. So all the conversations in
19:24
English, that's normal. Big corporations span our
19:26
business language is English and she wanted something from her
19:31
boss and she wrote in an e-mail, dear Katya, I need this and
19:34
this. So in Germany, if you have a
19:37
superior person, it's not dear Katya.
19:39
The the normal addressing of the person, even in an e-mail would
19:44
which would have been expected would be Dear Frau, Dr.
19:47
Sollenstein. The title is important in the
19:52
way that you're. Addressing it with the last name
19:54
and not with the first name. And well, she didn't know, but
19:58
it got it, got bumped up the chain and HR needed to get
20:01
involved was a big deal. And this is the same what I had
20:06
when I mentioned before this meeting in New York City.
20:09
I told the German guys and said, hey, these guys going to talk
20:13
with you with your first name, They're not going to say Mr.
20:16
Miller, Mr. Smith. They say, hey, Jim.
20:18
Hey, Peter, Hey, Tony, what's up?
20:20
Well, how was the trip? How was New York?
20:23
And this is normal. The interesting part is if you
20:27
have those things, and I have this also the companies that I
20:30
work for where you still have this more formal approach within
20:34
a company. Even the people that work for
20:36
1015 years, years with each other, that in the meeting with
20:41
the Americans, they all are like, yeah, hey, Bob, hey, John,
20:44
what's up and are we going to do this project?
20:47
And then as soon as they're going back to their normal daily
20:49
routine is still, oh, Mr. Miller, can you help me with
20:52
this? So this is, this can get awkward
20:54
because then if the employees think, OK, now I'm on a
20:58
different level with my boss now.
21:01
So it's not. But actually they have to, they
21:04
just have to shift gears to be in the right communication mode
21:07
for the Americans that they're interacting with.
21:10
And then but this. You've got to address it ideally
21:14
before it happens and figure out what's the what's the rule here?
21:20
Are we going to switch to this informal level also in German or
21:23
be moving back to our list that everybody's clear how this is
21:26
going to work. And this is just, again, I mean,
21:28
this is like little stories like this that you go through.
21:34
No, like I mentioned this, this friend of ours from Colombia and
21:37
said, well, she was addressing just what do you do?
21:39
No, dear Anthony, you don't write dear Mr. Gorisopouli.
21:43
And you say, hey, hey, Anthony, what's up?
21:45
No, thank you for the invite. And this is just different.
21:52
So this is interesting to hear Peter and I because I, you know,
21:56
I see that you're the, the managing partner in both
22:00
Nuremberg, Germany and Orlando, FL.
22:02
These are two pretty geographically diverse
22:04
locations. And now we're hitting on a
22:06
really interesting point that very culturally diverse as well.
22:10
I'm curious, is this part of maybe a unique offering that you
22:16
bring to the table sort of having a foot in both of these
22:19
worlds to where if there is sort of this cross cultural thing
22:24
with one of your clients that you're better able to kind of
22:28
address that as you're helping to look for an executive for
22:32
that that's. That's quite important.
22:34
And this is one of our US BS, the unique selling propositions,
22:38
our, our niche here, so to speak.
22:41
In addition to that, and then I'm going to elaborate a little
22:44
bit on that one is also all our partners, so including me, come
22:49
from the corporate world. I've been managing director of
22:52
the two companies, as I said, the, the running the subsidiary
22:55
for German and the Swiss company.
22:57
So I, I, I know what I'm talking about.
23:00
I had employees, I had to hire people, I had to fire people, I
23:03
had stress. I was in court three times for
23:05
the company. All those things it's and I, I
23:08
learned as This is why I said why I mentioned this before I
23:12
learned all those cultural differences.
23:15
Yeah, Now of course I'm picking the funny stories, but there was
23:19
also painful things. And they come home and say,
23:22
Dang, I mean, this is horrible what I'm going to do.
23:26
But because I, and this is, I know what I'm talking about
23:31
because I lived through this by myself, it's not.
23:34
So by helping people in recruiting, finding the best
23:41
take or what we call it, the best leadership team ever.
23:44
So this is our, our long term goal.
23:46
So we're not trying to be transactional and said, OK,
23:49
we're going to fill one box in your orchard and get you AVP or
23:52
CEO, whatever person in there and that's it.
23:54
We're striving for a long term relationship.
23:59
And ideally said, if you work with us, my goal is I'm going
24:04
to, I wouldn't say any place, but I want to click your
24:08
C-Suite, not because they're changing anyways in over a
24:12
couple of years. So that in five years you come
24:14
to come to me and say, Hey, Peter, this is the best team
24:18
I've ever had. I mean, is this a a goal like
24:23
this? Yes, it is.
24:24
But you're going to have those type of courses that this is
24:26
what we're going for. We don't don't want to fit boxes
24:29
in an orchard. This is there's tons of other
24:31
people that can do that, but that's not us.
24:32
We our cognition is is leadership team ever and for
24:37
doing that is like and again my niche yes, having the foot in
24:41
both sides and having lived through all of this by myself.
24:50
Yeah, it's not like you read this from a book.
24:53
You've gone through these sometimes funny, sometimes
24:57
painful experiences yourself, and so you've got a lot of
25:01
personal experience to draw from.
25:03
You know, you said something, Peter, that your goal is to be
25:06
to equip your clients with having the best leadership team
25:10
ever. How do you approach executive
25:15
search differently than maybe some of your competitors do that
25:18
allow you to achieve that goal? We have as part of our, yeah,
25:24
standard procedure I would call it, but let me go, I'm going to
25:29
go one step back. So usually when you deal and
25:32
this is still, and this is the same in the States and in
25:35
Germany or in other countries as well dealing with recruiters.
25:39
Sometimes you just getting said, hey, I'm I'm getting a resume or
25:44
I said, hey, here's the LinkedIn profile.
25:46
And I had this in my time my last few years in when I was
25:51
corporate America, the last company that I worked for in the
25:55
Atlanta area at the time. And I'm then getting, I worked
26:00
with recruiters quite a bit. And then I'm getting resumes.
26:04
And I'm saying, well, if I would have put my assistants 2 hours
26:07
to work that go through LinkedIn, finally 5 candidates,
26:10
the result would have been more or less the same, except there
26:14
was a nice write up in the conditions and whatnot.
26:19
So what we do is, and with that, the resume checks boxes on the
26:23
skill set. Do you have a bachelor in
26:26
engineering? Do you have a master in this and
26:28
that? Did you have experience in that
26:30
working abroad, working for a foreign company?
26:32
Do you speak French, German, English, Chinese, whatever it
26:35
is? So this is just checking boxes
26:37
on skills. But with this also the
26:39
discussion that we had before with the dramatic evolvement of
26:45
changing technology and now with the introduction of AI skills,
26:50
skills that I've learned 30 years ago, I kept, I need a
26:54
fraction of that today. You got to be constantly
26:57
learning and be making sure that you are, that you're getting
27:00
into. Yeah, the learning mode cannot
27:04
stop anymore. This was different 30 years ago.
27:06
We said my father learned this and then he practiced this and
27:09
he was in the same job for 40 years of his life.
27:11
This is not the case anymore. So the constant requirement for
27:16
learning, which then makes those skills that you're checking on a
27:20
resume, in our opinion, less important For us, it's more
27:24
important that you figure out two more areas.
27:29
One is the behavioral things, how a person is working and
27:32
doing things. And then even more, the driving
27:35
forces, the motivational factors, Why is he doing what
27:39
he's doing? And for that, we're using, as I
27:42
said before, as a standard procedure tool.
27:46
Yeah. So the one thing that I wanted
27:48
to tell you is about the one, one of the most prominent
27:51
personality test, it's the so-called disk test which most
27:56
of the people know and have have done.
27:58
And you're getting categorized in four, four types, a red 1A,
28:01
yellow 1A green one and a blue one.
28:03
The D stands for dominant is the red one.
28:05
These initiative is yellow, green is steady and then blue is
28:10
the conscientious type of person.
28:13
So you've been getting into four boxes and obviously like if you
28:16
have lots of red people in a team, you'd like lots of clashes
28:19
or you need a good mix. But it's just 4 categories.
28:24
We have two different layers on top of this, we can get over 400
28:28
different personality types. So this gives you obviously a
28:33
very more nuanced description of yourself.
28:38
And it is, again, if you do the test, it's very point on.
28:41
And the good thing is those tests are not, there's no good
28:45
or bad. It works on your strengths,
28:48
whether you're good at and whether your uses and things
28:50
that you are that are a little bit weaker on your own, but with
28:54
weak not being bad. So every person, you cannot be
28:56
strong in anything. That's normal, right?
28:59
So, and this works very well. And because it's not, there's
29:04
nothing judgmental in it. Yeah, it works on your strength.
29:07
Even with executives, older people, executives in their
29:12
prime, they're still doing those tests.
29:14
And there's always things that you can work with a, with the
29:18
person said, is this how you see yourself?
29:21
Yeah. Or is this something that you,
29:25
that you reflect on, yes or no? And then obviously the same,
29:28
making sure that you're getting the right person for the right
29:33
job, having the perfect fit might be doing this.
29:37
Of course, we want to have the best leadership team ever.
29:39
This is how we started it. And of course, you always have
29:42
and you're placing a position and it doesn't matter if you
29:44
find it by yourself, through your own network, through like
29:47
an executive firm like ours, there's always a risk that this
29:51
is not going to work out. And with using a personality
29:57
assessment like this, we reduce the risk.
30:00
Do we reduce the risk to 0 on making 100% sure?
30:04
That's like it. You can never be 100% sure.
30:06
So, but we reduce the risk as much as we can.
30:09
So I can see how doing these really in depth employee
30:13
personality tests can be super helpful, let you know what their
30:16
profile is. How do you know from the
30:19
employer's side what profile they're looking for?
30:25
That is valid and a good question.
30:27
Yes. And there's the situation that
30:32
you described. If you just do the personality
30:34
test based on the briefing or the job description that we've
30:38
gotten, again, you have some uncertainty in the game here as
30:41
well. So the ideal situation would be
30:44
we do the, the company that wants to hire the person, the
30:51
peers that working very closely with this position that needs to
30:54
be filled. Do the requirement profile,
30:58
let's call it the profile of this position in the personality
31:02
test. So we have an the profile how
31:04
it's supposed to be and then matching one with the person or
31:07
the candidates. Usually, I mean, the recruiting
31:09
company, if you're not coming with one guy or one person, it's
31:12
usually 234 different options. And then see where, where are we
31:15
matching or whether we have gaps.
31:17
And this is gaps that are important gaps that can be
31:19
bridged through educational training or whatnot.
31:22
That's the second one. And the third situation could be
31:26
if you have, let's say, a volatile C-Suite for whatever
31:30
reason, or volatile team, if it's on a weekly level, director
31:33
level, you can do a team assessment of the people there
31:39
that are working there and said, OK, this person needs to be
31:42
getting along and working closely with this person.
31:45
So we do a team assessment, which would be the ideal
31:50
situation. But to be honest, yes, that's
31:52
the ideal situation, but we're not doing it most of the time,
31:57
unfortunately. You know, it's clear that EO
32:02
executive online is kind of at the forefront of technology,
32:06
right? 1997, they saw where the
32:09
Internet was going. Big deal, such a big deal that
32:13
you guys named yourselves. You're talking about these
32:15
really in depth personality tests that you do.
32:17
I'm curious how you guys are approaching AI and how either
32:23
you choose to incorporate that into your business practices or
32:27
not? Dad is a very good question and
32:34
we are approaching it. We are working with it.
32:37
It's still a little bit driven by individuals right now that
32:43
are having an interest in trying different things.
32:45
We are just working out now. We have a meeting to meet and
32:48
trying to implement a dedicated person that or or a person that
32:54
will inherit or get this on his, his or her shoulders to deal
32:59
with. How can we in the best manner
33:03
use AI in our processes what we also have, I mean, this would be
33:09
the same thing. Of course, we're not be doing
33:12
this also with using tools, using the Internet, using social
33:17
media and also the tools that they're using, the apps that
33:22
they're using. There's new releases all the
33:24
time now, including AI as part of their functionality in tools
33:30
or that you have maybe since 10 years, same thing.
33:33
I mean, a software tool that you're using.
33:37
They have to go with the times as well.
33:40
Yeah. Peter, how would you describe
33:42
your ideal client, whether size, industry, geography?
33:48
I mean, again, for me, I mean we as a total SEO, we deal with
33:55
most industries. I'm an industry guy.
33:57
I don't deal with consumer or retail.
34:00
That's not my my Forte. I've never been my I've been in
34:03
industrial and business to business B2B business my whole
34:06
life. But for me specifically, and
34:10
this is what we're talking about here today, clients would be
34:13
customers that have transatlantic offices and need
34:18
help finding the right, the right people.
34:21
So I have one, one example. Also, I have a customer out of
34:25
Oklahoma. They bought a company in in
34:28
Germany right before COVID. And I called up the, the CEO
34:36
that I knew and said, Hey, I saw you bought the company, you need
34:39
help with staffing or something. He said, no, no, no, we have an,
34:43
we have an internal solution. We, we, we put the, the CEO
34:46
there and that that's good, that's fine.
34:48
OK, good, good, good. I got to call you again in nine
34:50
months later and I said, hey, Peter, we're losing people and
34:56
it's having a tough time finding new people.
34:59
Can you help us? And then one of the reasons, not
35:05
this is not the whole picture, just but for the point, for the
35:08
story, one of the reasons was the difference in vacation time.
35:14
And this is a big difference between the US and Germany, for
35:18
example. So in the US, if you start a new
35:20
job, you have somewhere between 10 and 15 days.
35:24
And if you're lucky, being in a higher up executive position,
35:26
maybe you get 20 days plus some sick days or something.
35:30
So the German company with now the owner in Oklahoma offered
35:37
for their new employees 24 days of vacation time plus the same
35:41
time. So but the standard in Germany,
35:44
the standard is 30 days. Wow.
35:48
So nobody literally you wouldn't want it said this is 6 days,
35:52
this is a week and one day less vacation.
35:55
Why would I do that? This is like I come to you and
35:56
said, hey, Anthony, I have a cool job for you.
35:58
Awesome, awesome people, great pay, but you only have five days
36:02
vacation in a year. You know every normal person.
36:05
Peter, are you serious? This has to be a joke, right?
36:08
Because it's just you. You're deviating from the norm
36:11
and if you and the discussions are still, they're still not at
36:15
30 days by now, they're 27 now because the American Sea Suite
36:21
says are you nuts? 30 days vacation.
36:24
And then on top of that, in average, a person in Germany is
36:29
about 15 days sick in average, which is on top.
36:33
So if you, if you're looking at a company that you run or
36:37
department that you run or team that you run, you have six weeks
36:40
vacation plus 2 1/2 weeks sick time on top, not going out of
36:45
your vacation. So somewhere between 8:00 and
36:48
9:00 weeks. Each employee's out of out of
36:52
the office, out of work in a, in a year, in any given year.
36:55
And this is completely different, obviously in, in the
36:58
US and this was one of the reasons that, hey, if you want
37:03
to hire people and there are the companies not like in a, in a
37:07
big city that it's attractive to be there a little bit like
37:10
Podunk Germany, a little bit outside ish countryside said
37:13
forget about it. If you, if you don't give them
37:16
the same what other people are giving them other companies
37:20
forget about. And that's that's the reason why
37:21
they are struggling finding employees.
37:24
So in this case, was it just a matter of providing him this
37:28
advice or were you actually then moving forward and helping him
37:30
place some executives there? Both.
37:33
Both, yeah. What are some of the most common
37:38
mistakes that you see companies make when looking to fill
37:42
executive level positions in these sort of cross cultural
37:46
situations? Well, the biggest mistake is
37:49
underestimating the difference in business culture.
37:52
And this is sounds very flat, but that's that's just a big
37:57
thing. And also it's, it's again, I
38:01
mean, this is not something that is fancy and super new like AI.
38:05
You can look this up if you spend time in the Internet.
38:07
There's guidelines, there's coaches and whatnot.
38:10
And still I had a meeting with a German automotive supplier
38:15
beginning of the year, mid size company, couple 100 people doing
38:21
107 million in sales. So not a small company, had
38:25
customers in the states, but didn't have a subsidiary yet.
38:29
So they said, OK, we're planning to find a subsidiary somewhere,
38:35
Detroit where all the the big car companies are and you're
38:39
going to send somebody over from here.
38:43
So the guy that they wanted to send over technical sales
38:46
manager has said that has never worked abroad.
38:50
A young guy and 20s beginning 30s without any touching here,
38:55
but he has never worked in any foreign country and his English
38:59
was so, so. And then if you, if you read
39:04
the, the the business forecast, the annual report of the last
39:08
year said they want to go to, I don't know, was it 30 or 40
39:12
million in three years in the US?
39:14
And you and then with all respect, you're sending a young
39:17
guy that has never has never LED A-Team going to a foreign
39:21
country. He has no clue about the
39:23
culture. He has no clue about founding a
39:25
company. He has no clue how I'll get a
39:27
credit card, how to set up a credit history, little things if
39:31
you know how to do it. But if you don't, I learned this
39:34
the hard way. But if you're in the and this is
39:38
a company that has money this large and said why are you doing
39:41
this? This is very, very
39:47
unprofessional at the end of the day.
39:48
So I didn't work with them. They didn't choose me and said,
39:51
hey, I, I, if you want to have this guy starting and running
39:55
the company fine, I would recommend I, this is part of my
39:58
job. I have a network of German
40:01
people also in the automotive industry in the Detroit area and
40:04
said somebody that can do is a fractional something or is a
40:09
freelancer for three months, six months, two days a week.
40:13
Helping this guy or taking away all the administrative stuff,
40:17
legal paperwork, bank accounts, whatnot.
40:20
And this guy can concentrate on sales and business relations,
40:24
so. So, Peter, as an American, if I
40:30
were to go to try to do business in Germany, what should I be
40:35
aware of not to do as an American businessman?
40:39
What is a common mistake that I would be likely to make going to
40:42
Germany that I would have no awareness of?
40:45
And just again, the advice is goes either way, don't do it
40:48
alone. Get a trusted advisor, get
40:50
somebody from the country that helps you.
40:54
You're going to do silly mistakes if you if you're
40:57
running it. You said, OK, I want to do a
40:58
subsidiary with production with larger footprint.
41:03
You know, we have said, OK, we start with 50 or 100 people In
41:06
Germany, at a certain size of employees, you're required to
41:10
have a workers council, which is part of the company, but it's
41:13
independent. They can veto.
41:15
We said we got to lay off half of our staff and say, no, you
41:18
can't, and then they can't. So this is something that is in
41:22
that form not exist. It's not like the Workers Union.
41:24
There's also Workers Union in Germany, but there's this
41:28
workers council as part of the company.
41:30
So there's lots of legal thingies.
41:33
Bureaucracy is miserable in Germany, in my opinion.
41:36
Yes, And one example is no Elon Musk, Tesla built a facility
41:44
outside South of Berlin last year, beginning of this year,
41:48
something like that, I don't remember, but it's not that long
41:50
ago. And the Germans, the
41:55
bureaucracy, the German politicians were surprised how
41:59
fast this or how fast Tesla was able to pull this off, build
42:03
everything and start production. Not everything.
42:05
Oh, this is going to take 2-3 years.
42:07
No, it was done in nine months. And Elon Musk was surprised how
42:12
lengthy all the, the approval process was, the, all the
42:16
instances people really do approve and could talk about
42:19
this. And he was frustrated because it
42:22
took so long. But the Germans was like way
42:24
faster than they would normally expect.
42:25
For him, it was longer than expected.
42:28
So, and this depends on if you coming over with a small
42:33
footprint, it's a little bit easier.
42:35
If you want a bigger footprint, it's a little bit more
42:37
complicated. But in any, any form of shape, I
42:41
would always go with a trusted advisor.
42:43
It's it's your business. And even if you're responsible,
42:47
if it's your money, if you're responsible for it, the money,
42:51
did you pay an advisor or a second research company?
42:56
Yes, it's a lot of money, but it's still cheaper than doing
42:59
all those mistakes. Yeah, for sure.
43:01
You know, earlier in the interview you talked about how
43:04
Americans received sort of the more withdrawn sales
43:08
presentation of the German style.
43:11
How would Germans receive the more upbeat, aggressive version
43:16
of the American sales pitch? Overarching too much, too
43:24
aggressive, too pushy, too salesy.
43:28
And this is, again, this is either you can go through this
43:31
process, yeah, like finding and, yeah, finding a way to find
43:36
together if you're working together together, or trying to
43:42
mitigate this by open conversation about this and
43:46
talking about this for both sides, because it might be
43:49
surprising for both sides, not for the Americans that Jesus
43:52
Christ of Germans are so slow. They always question everything.
43:56
Can we start? For God's sake?
43:58
Can we just start? Then the Germans say, no, no,
44:01
no, no, no, we cannot start. We got to look at this.
44:03
We got to calculate this. We got to watch this.
44:05
This is going to take another six months.
44:06
And they might say, I thought we were going to start in for
44:08
weeks. And you've got to find a middle
44:11
ground. And communication is the one
44:15
thing. And then listening and being
44:19
open and tolerant for the other side, not just saying, oh Jesus,
44:23
the Americans, they're just gold my nerves with all their fast
44:27
doing and stuff. And on other Germans, again,
44:30
we've got this endless discussions with any outcome.
44:34
You got to find a middle ground, and you only reach this middle
44:36
ground by talking and listening. Peter, I've got one more
44:40
question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do 2 things
44:43
for those listening today. If you like today's content,
44:45
please hit the Like Share Subscribe button on your
44:47
favorite podcast app. Peter, I also want to let people
44:50
know the best way to get in touch with you.
44:51
What would that be? I mean, you find me, I'm a
44:55
recruiter, I'm living online. So you find me on social media,
44:58
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. So you Google your executives.
45:03
That's an easy one. OK.
45:05
Last question for you, Peter. What's a serious challenge that
45:09
you've had to overcome, either in your personal or professional
45:12
life, and what were some lessons that you learned coming out the
45:14
other side? Good point.
45:19
So I moved, as I said today, 24 years ago to New York City and
45:25
New York City is not America. New York City is New York City,
45:28
but that's not typical America. I left the last four years
45:32
before we went to Florida and Atlanta and then before I lived
45:37
in California. So this is from a German
45:38
perspective, it's different countries.
45:40
This is completely different mentalities that you have in
45:42
Florida, California and New York City.
45:45
And New York City was tough. I wanted to go there.
45:50
I was at Siemens when I left Germany and I was thinking in my
45:55
young naivety said how OK, there's there's some Siemens
45:59
obvious in Manhattan with 80 people.
46:01
There's one in Trent, New Jersey with 400 people.
46:04
They're going to find a spot for me.
46:06
Neither the German nor the American HR department or my
46:09
boss is really very interested over helping me.
46:13
So I ended up going there not alone.
46:15
I went with my fiance at the time.
46:18
She had a got a chop offer to work for Dunbar Chrysler in
46:21
Manhattan. So I left with her without
46:24
anything. And at the end it's like I
46:28
always quote Frank Sinatra. If you can make it there, you'll
46:32
make it anywhere. It's up to you.
46:33
New York, NY and this the first six months were tough, really
46:40
tough. New York is a city always 120%
46:43
and then at one point here is like punctuality.
46:47
You know, Germans if you have a meeting at 5, you'd be usually
46:50
as a German, you'd be there 10 before 5 if you and again, I
46:55
lived eight years in California. I had lots of meetings in LA.
46:58
If you've been in a later traffic in LA in my opinion is
47:01
one of the worst in the in the world.
47:02
You can you have meetings in LA usually in the morning because
47:08
and said and it's OK. He said, hey, sorry I'm stuck on
47:11
the on traffic on the I-10 or whatever the two O 4 I'm coming
47:15
an hour late or two hours late and say yeah, don't worry that's
47:18
fine. In New York, if you're 15
47:21
minutes late, forget about it. There's five people behind you
47:23
and said they're going to take your spot or you're off or
47:25
whatever it is you you it doesn't matter if it snows.
47:28
The subway breaks down. You got to be on time in New
47:31
York City because the competition there is so
47:35
freakingly high that and with that, literally, I mean, I mean,
47:42
it was not physically surviving because I had an apartment and
47:45
my fiance had a job at the beginning.
47:47
So I gained the confidence you can drop me anywhere in the
47:54
world. I'm going to figure it out.
47:57
I'm going to I'm going to wiggle through.
47:58
I'm going to figure it out. And this is this was a gives you
48:03
the self-confidence that I hadn't had before, to be honest.
48:06
So that was, that was, that was. Great.
48:10
That's terrific. It's interesting to hear a
48:11
German's perspective on the difference between cultures in
48:14
New York and LA, especially for those in person meetings.
48:20
You know, I do a lot of my meetings over, you know, tools
48:23
like this or Zoom, and so you're not typically affected by those
48:28
traffic delays. So yeah, it's kind of
48:31
interesting to hear the hey, in New York, doesn't matter.
48:34
They don't care what's going on. You got to be there.
48:35
In LA, you get a little bit more wiggle.
48:37
And then same thing, the learning, I mean, at the
48:39
beginning, say I can come by at 3:00 in the afternoon.
48:41
Yeah. And if you didn't an hour and an
48:43
hour half late and say no, no, no, no, no, we're going home.
48:45
You know, you got to reschedule. And then you, you're standing
48:48
in. I lived in in Coachella Valley,
48:50
which is like 2 hours away from LA.
48:52
So I'm standing in traffic and then I'm standing in traffic
48:55
again. So I'm spending like 4-6 hours
48:57
on traffic or standing on the freaking highway without my
49:00
meeting and I got to reschedule and redo it again.
49:03
I said OK, I better schedule my meetings at 10 or 11 in the
49:06
morning to make sure that even if I'm late, I'm still going to
49:09
get to my meeting on that day. Very adaptable.
49:13
Hey Peter, I want to be the first one to thank you for
49:15
sharing both your time and your story with us today.
49:18
I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time.
49:21
Thanks for having me. It was awesome.
49:22
I could talk for another hour. It was flying by like nothing,
49:25
so thanks very much. Absolutely, folks.
49:28
That's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
49:31
Thanks for learning with us today.