Latest / Beyond Leadership - Adopting a Coaching Mindset / #05 - "I Can't Ensure Learning" - Leading Without Guarantees

Transcript

#05 - "I Can't Ensure Learning" - Leading Without Guarantees · Beyond Leadership - Adopting a Coaching Mindset

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Take down my monitor here and look into the camera  up here. Then I just look at you on my monitor.
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Welcome to Beyond Leadership: Adopting  a Coaching Mindset. In this series,  
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our conversations aren't about biography  or polished advice. They're about how  
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decisions are made in the real world when the  pressure is on. We'll anchor on one situation  
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where the path wasn't obvious and explore  what goes on in the mind of a leader when  
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confronted with real tradeoffs, imperfect  information, and the need to move anyway.
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This podcast is brought to you by  Peer Plaza. Human help instantly.
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Brian Østergaard is an experienced project  and digitalization leader specializing  
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in cross-disciplinary collaboration and  organizational development. Brian's strengths lie  
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in bringing together professionals from diverse  backgrounds to create dynamic and effective teams.  
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He excels at leveraging individual strengths  to create successful project outcomes.
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Welcome, Brian. Good to see you.
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For non-Danes, Brian is spelled Brian, but his  name is actually pronounced 'Brienne', so I'm going  
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to call him 'Brienne'. When you're out and about, do  people call you 'Brienne' or do they call you Brian?
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When I'm outside Denmark, I call myself  Brian. It's easier for everybody.
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Yeah. So in Denmark, I'm 'Brienne',  and outside Denmark, I'm Brian.
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So, Brian, let's set the scene and tell  
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our listeners what situation  we're walking into right now.
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Yeah. As you mentioned, I have been involved  in different digitalization processes,  
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and the last digitalization project I was  involved in integrated new and emerging  
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technologies such as virtual reality and  3D scanning into vocational education.
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I was asked by management when I could  ensure that all the instructors and  
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teachers had learned to use the technologies. My  experience is that mandatory staff development  
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on an afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.  leads to nothing else but a nice time.
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So let me understand that better. They were  expecting you to bring them up to some high  
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level of understanding of these technologies  in that short time period? And how often do  
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you have those meetings with them? Is it once  a week that you get those two hours with them?
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This was in the hiring process, and  they wanted to know when I could  
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ensure the teachers and instructors  had learned to use the technologies.
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And I can't ensure learning. I  can't learn you anything. You  
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have to do the hard work. You have to  do the learning. But I wanted to lead  
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the project, so I was in a little  dilemma. They wanted a timeline.
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So here's the constraint as I understand  it. The management team is asking you to  
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guarantee that they're going to learn something.
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Exactly.
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And you're saying to them, “Hey, I can  teach. I can offer them this information,  
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but I can't guarantee that they're going  to learn because it's up to them to learn.”
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Yeah. Exactly.
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And they answered with, “Yeah,  you just have to make a timeline.”
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Yeah. Sometimes, if you have  to build a car or a ship,  
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you can make a production line and maybe ensure  it will be finished in time. But with learning,  
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it's another matter because it's all about humans.
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If it's mandatory to be at a course  Thursday afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.,  
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it's not necessarily the right  time for you to learn. And if  
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it doesn't make sense to use virtual  reality, then it's very hard to learn.
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Virtual reality is a new  technology in many places,  
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but especially in vocational education  programs, I have learned now.
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Help us understand what virtual reality is.
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If you put on a pair of glasses, you are  fully immersed. You can see the real world,  
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and then you turn on the power and get  an immersive experience. You can visit  
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places without being there. It can be very  shocking to experience it the first time,  
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and some people get a little  seasick when using the glasses.
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Ray-Ban has made some new glasses, but it's not  virtual reality. It's more augmented reality or  
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mixed reality. You can see the real world through  the glasses, but in front of you, in the glasses,  
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you can see text and pictures. So that's  another emerging technology we have also used.
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Well, I've tried both of those  technologies. I tried the Ray-Bans  
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just recently, maybe three weeks  ago. Very interesting. Of course,  
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it takes some time to get used to  that. It's change management, right?
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The full virtual reality experience,  I remember maybe five years ago,  
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the first time I tried that at  the Mobile World Congress here in  
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Barcelona. You mentioned getting dizzy. Wow.  I think I was sick for a week after that.
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Just talking about virtual reality  makes my head spin. I remember I was  
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at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona  some time ago. They put me in a simulator  
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where I stood on a platform gripping a  bar, fully immersed in what felt like  
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a four-dimensional roller coaster.  Actually, it was a roller coaster.
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And it's striking how quickly the  brain loses its grip on reality.  
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The fear of falling from those  dizzying heights feels completely real.
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Yeah. I have been into virtual reality and  the other technologies for a lot of years,  
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and I have often seen companies show how  extreme the experience can be. They put  
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people into an elevator, take them up to the  60th floor, and make them walk the plank. That  
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confirms for a lot of people that they get  sick with virtual reality and can't use it.
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So I'm doing something else. I'm introducing  virtual reality with a game called Beat Saber.  
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You have a red and a blue brick flying  against you, and you have two sabers,  
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a red and a blue saber, and you  smash the blue and red bricks.
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So it's gaming, it's playing,  and no one gets seasick.
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That's right. That's the trick, isn't it?
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So they have a good experience,  they find it interesting,  
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and then they ask, “How can  I use it in my education?”
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What's the next step in this?
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Yeah. But I want to pull you back to  that moment when you were speaking with  
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management and you said no. First of all,  did you say that out loud? Did you say,  
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“No, I can't guarantee that”? Or was  that in an email? How did that happen?
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It was said at the interview, in  person, when they were hiring.  
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There were three people from management.  They were interested in my competencies,  
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I could sense that, but I could also  sense that they wanted a timeline.
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As I said, they were familiar  with waterfall methods,  
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and I was uncertain whether they were  ready for agile product management.
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Think of waterfall and agile as two  very different ways to manage projects,  
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especially in tech. Waterfall is linear and  structured. You define everything up front,  
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then move step by step: plan, design, build, test,  launch. Each phase depends on the one before it.  
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It works well when requirements are clear and  unlikely to change, like constructing a building.
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Agile is flexible and iterative. Instead  of one big plan, you work in short cycles,  
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constantly testing, learning, and adjusting.  You build a little, get feedback, improve, and  
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repeat. It's better suited for environments where  things change quickly, like software or startups.
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They're not opposites so much as different tools.  Waterfall prioritizes predictability and control.  
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Agile prioritizes adaptability and  speed. Many teams today blend both,  
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using structure where needed and  flexibility where it matters.
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But I chose to say that, as a matter of principle,  
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I can't ensure anything,  and certainly not learning.
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So was there any hesitation before saying that?  Your job was on the line. We all know getting to  
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the interview is very difficult in most cases.  There you were. Do you have a wife and kids?
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Yeah. And house purchases.
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Right. And a mortgage. Everybody's  counting on you. And you say, “No.”
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Yeah. I didn't.
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Call me biased, but I tend to associate this  kind of frankness in interviews with Danes and,  
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more broadly, with Northern Europeans, as well  as Midwesterners in the US. It's less about  
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pushing back against bureaucracy and more  about standing firmly behind your values.
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It was a four-year project, so I knew there  was time to make mistakes. We learn more from  
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mistakes than we actually think we do.  So I knew we could do something good.
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So after I said no, I told them the probability  would increase, but I couldn't ensure it.
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And here, four years later, we haven't given  time for the instructors to learn how to use  
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the technologies. But the instructors and teachers  have taken their own time to learn to use them.  
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It's 3D printing, 3D scanning, virtual reality,  laser cutting, and many different technologies.
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We had the time to experiment and let it grow from  the bottom up. So it was bottom up, not top down.
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What do you think made it possible for them to  attain interest in that? What inspired them?
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The more I know, the more I know that I don't  know. I'm not a bricklayer. I'm not a welder. I'm  
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not an electrician. I'm not a painter. And those  were the educations involved in this project.
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So your audience, they were laborers. They  were people who don't use a lot of visual  
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technologies. Are they now applying any  of these technologies in their businesses?
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Yeah, they are. The students in Denmark  attend school, then go out into workplaces,  
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and then come back to school. It's  a combination of school and work.  
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They are taking their companies back to  school and showing them how 3D printing  
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or robotics can change the production line  in the companies where they are students.
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So the students are taking the technologies  into the small and medium-sized companies.
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We'll continue our conversation with Brian  
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Østergaard right after this  short message from Peer Plaza.
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So you're planting little seeds, and those  seeds are spreading into different companies.
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Yeah. And I don't know which seeds will  grow. So I'm planting a lot of seeds.
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You mentioned change management. I don't know  if it's the right word because we don't change,  
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we develop. And we don't manage,  we lead. So I don't think change  
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management is what I'm doing.  I'm trying to lead development.
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Interesting.
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When we spoke last, you talked  about digitalization being 80%  
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people. What does that change  about how you lead a project?
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If you don't understand the technology,  
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it can't become a tool. And if the technology  can't become a tool, it's not interesting.
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A tool is something that can make something  faster, better, or something you couldn't do  
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before. I've met a lot of people who get excited  about new technologies. “We have to use robots.”  
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But we don't know how to use them, so they  just stand in a corner after we buy them.
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But if we learn the basics of the technologies,  
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then we can transform them into tools  that can change how we produce products.
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It sounds like grounding them in the  basics is one of your principles,  
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making sure they understand the most basic  things, and from there they generate enough  
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interest. They need some sort of anchoring point,  and then they'll fly. Is that how it works?
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Yeah. They are experts in what they can use the  technologies for. I don't know how they can use  
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the technology, but I can show them the basics and  coach them to get inspired and want to learn more.
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A collaborative robot is nothing more  than a paint roller. One of the teachers  
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came to me after a year, and she  was thinking about when she was a  
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student and a smart salesman came with  this new technology. Her boss said,  
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“We can't use that because we don't  paint the right way if we use a roller.”
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She realized it was the same thing when she  was introduced to 3D printing. She said,  
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“We can't use 3D printing. I'm a painter.  I paint walls. I can't use a 3D printer.”
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But after a year, she had tried the technology and  
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learned what it could do, and then she  came back and made a lot of 3D prints.
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We haven't given any mandatory training time  for the teachers to learn the technologies,  
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but they have all been in the 300-square-meter  joint workshop with free access to technologies  
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and materials for students and teachers. It's  a playground where everybody can experiment.
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When we have eight 3D printers  standing in the same room,  
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there's always something you can get inspired by.
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Oh, that's great. What are the  ages that you generally work with?
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From 16 to 18.
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Okay. So it's a really wide range of  people. What is the interaction like  
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between the younger people and the older people?
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The educators have to learn a new way to teach  because they are used to being experts. They  
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are used to knowing everything. But  with technologies and digitalization,  
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you can't know everything. So  you have to learn to let go.
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It's changed, hasn't it? Teachers now... and  this really coincides with my thinking about  
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the future of education. We don't really  need teachers anymore. We need coaches.
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Yeah.
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The facts we can find out ourselves. If  we don't know something, we'll just ask  
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ChatGPT or one of these other technologies.  We don't need the facts anymore. They're all  
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around us. What we need are people who inspire  us and people who help us when we get stuck.
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Exactly. Facilitators, coaches, motivators.  The instruction part is changing. In our  
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joint workshop, we have QR codes with  one-take videos that do the instruction.
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When you want to introduce your students to  laser cutting and maybe it's been half a year  
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since you last used the laser cutter, you  can't remember how it works. So the teachers  
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themselves have made small videos, one takes with  QR codes, and the students just watch the videos.
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As you mentioned, the teachers are now coaches.  They encourage the students to try, make errors,  
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and learn from those errors. They  are guides more than instructors.
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That can be tough to learn for a teacher, and I  think it's the same in companies. This is just  
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education, but I think it's the same  in organizations. Sometimes you have  
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a new strategy and you put it on  the homepage, and then suddenly  
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you say you've implemented a new strategy.  But it's not integrated into daily life.
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So this difference between implementation  and integration is also a focus. I've been  
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asked many times over the four years that  have passed when I think the project will  
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be integrated into education. I tend to  say it has been integrated from day one.
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Yeah. The role has changed, and it's  simply acknowledging the role, isn't it?
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Yeah, it is. You have to learn  to do instruction in a new way.
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I know from my own experience  with interns that we bring in,  
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there's an expectation that we're going to  teach them things. They ask questions like,  
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“How do you do this?” And I say, “I  haven't got a clue. Go and figure it out.”
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They look at me like, “Why did we come here  if you're not going to teach us?” Slowly they  
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learn that they came here to have the  freedom to learn. That's so important  
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to me. It's not going to come from me. It's  going to come from them figuring things out.
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And if I think about my childhood,  and probably your childhood,  
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I don't know if you were the guy who took  apart the TV set, but I certainly was. I  
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think we're missing a lot of that. This is  an opportunity for learning how to learn.
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Exactly. That's also necessary for organizations  to learn. It's not only individuals who have to  
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learn how to learn. Organizations have to learn  how to adapt faster to change. Generations change,  
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technology changes, political situations change.  Organizations have to learn how to learn.
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Well, this ties in very well with what  you were speaking about earlier with  
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waterfall versus agile. When we think  about the older organizational method  
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of teaching something once,  writing it down in a book,  
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and sending that book out to everybody to  learn, there's no time for that anymore.
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No. But you also have to have some  basic skills to see whether AI is  
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telling you the truth. It's just  like a calculator. In the old days,  
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the calculator couldn't always calculate  the right thing because it wasn't so  
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advanced. So you still have to have some basic  knowledge to navigate digitalization processes.
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Yeah. Is there anything else that you wanted  to add today that maybe I've left out,  
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something important for you to  get across in this conversation?
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A lot of people also ask me how  they should do what I have done,  
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and I say they have to have self-awareness.
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When I was younger, I knew I was  right. Life was easier because I  
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knew I was right. Now I know I'm often not  right. So you have to have self-awareness.
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And then you have to, I don't know what it's  called, maybe self-discipline. You have to learn  
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to sit on your hands. You have to give space for  organizations, coworkers, employees, and students  
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to make their own reflections, get hurt  in the learning process, make mistakes.
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Maybe you know what the right way  to program a collaborative robot is,  
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but if you tell an employee,  they don't learn it. They  
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have to make their own mistakes.  They have to do it the hard way.
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So you have to sit on your  hands. Self-awareness and  
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self-discipline. Learn how to sit on your hands.
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And empathy. Organizational change and  development is 80% people. When it's  
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digitalization, it's 80% human and  20% technology. So you have to have  
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empathy for the humans you're working  with. The technology is secondary.
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It's so interesting to hear you say that  because pretty much everything you mentioned  
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is considered soft skills. They're not the  so-called hard skills or technical skills.  
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It's really about being human, something  we're almost in danger of losing these days.
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But it sounds like what you're  saying is that if you understand  
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these qualities and understand  how important these skills are,  
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then you can enable people to grow.  And if not, you'll stunt their growth.
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And when you said “sitting  on your hands,” in coaching  
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I call that silence. I call that shutting up.
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Yeah. Maybe you think you  know the right way to do it,  
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but maybe you don't, and people have to learn  it themselves. So yeah, you have to shut up.
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Yeah, it's so hard. Really hard. But  I think what we find out is that when  
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we get better at it, things blossom, don't they?
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All of a sudden, you realize what power there  is in simply letting somebody go and letting  
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them figure things out without interjecting  all the time. There's so much good in that.
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It's interesting because in music,  silence is an important part as  
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well. Silence produces so much for  us, and we rarely get enough of it.
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First of all, you have to have silence  before a piece begins and silence when  
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a piece ends. Although today they  kind of blend into each other,  
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don't they? Which is also  something to think about.
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The same thing with film today. You watch  something on Netflix, and before the credits  
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are over, you're already watching the next film.  There are plenty of commercial reasons for that,  
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but it does create something  disturbing in our society  
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that we're not really clear on yet.  But that's a story for another day.
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I've lost count of how many podcast conversations  have circled back to the same advice:  
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sit on your hands, listen louder,  or when necessary, shut the hell up.
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What stood out in my conversation with Brian was  a simple shift: let people learn through curiosity  
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rather than forcing them through a course.  When interest leads, learning tends to stick.
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No one forces kids to figure out an  iPhone. They explore, experiment,  
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and teach themselves. The question is  why we treat other skills so differently.
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We spend too much time focusing on what  the company needs and not enough on what  
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the learning actually adds to someone's life.  A bricklayer, a painter, a real person trying  
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to do their job a little better, a little  faster, with a bit more pride in the result.
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Wow, Brian, thank you so much for everything  today. I think we learned so much from your way  
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of thinking and working. Is there any last word  you'd like to add before we take off for today?
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No. I'm not an expert. I'm just human.
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Thank you very much, Brian.  Great to see you. All the best.
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I want to thank Brian Østergaard for  being my guest on this week's podcast,  
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my team at ScaleYOU, and thank you for listening.
26:31
If you're getting value from these conversations,  
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make sure you follow or subscribe wherever  you're listening. It helps more thoughtful  
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leaders find the show. And if one episode  stands out, share it with someone who's in  
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the middle of a real decision. That's where  these conversations tend to matter most.
26:48
I'm executive coach Michael  Hoffman. See you in the next one.