An interview with Eivind Slaaen, the Head of People and Culture at a global company, about innovation — and why chasing new initiatives isn’t always the best way to achieve it.
Eivind Slaaen: We always look for this big thing is going to make that radical change and then you realize this actually very small things you can do to help you have that energy or the energy much better. Then you get more done.
Jacob Johnson: My name is Jacob Johnson. And I'm the cofounder of Gitwit. We're a full service innovation company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That helps organizations move quickly to launch new things. By far, the best part of my job is getting to peek into many different companies that are trying to launch new ventures, rethink their brands, develop new products and launch campaigns. And the longer I've done this, the more curious I've gotten about what it takes for an organization to get something new off the ground. No. Developing an idea or an insight is one thing, but actually getting it into the world and changing reality is quite another.
For this interview, I met up with Eivind Slaaen during a trip to Washington D.C. He's the head of people and culture and Hilti and truly one of the most unique leaders I've ever had a chance to work with. Hilti markets and manufacturers power tools, fasteners, and software for the construction industry. Innovation is truly in their DNA and it's Eivind's job to make sure they're developing a culture that aligns with their strategy of outpacing their competitors when it comes to this innovation. Eivind has a uniquely global perspective on innovation, and I wanted to hear what he thinks is the biggest problem for organizations and companies as it relates to continuous innovation. You know, you would expect him to talk about barriers to innovation, but in fact, he spent most of our time talking about how the infatuation with new initiatives gets in the way of many.
Eivind Slaaen: If we should believe what all the research shows you, that two thirds of change are never successful, then there's probably a reason to think about how many new initiative do we constantly need to start. There's so much going on and so much trends and so much talk about everybody who needs to become agile. Everybody needs to get digitalized, whatever it is, and you need to change your leadership style, or you know, wherever you look, everything seems to have to be different than it had been in the past. And it's easy to jump on certain trends. So there's always a tendency into those things where you then may not even look deep enough to see. How much is really different with this, and maybe these new words, new terminology, but how much of that is fundamental different to what we, what we already doing, and do I gain more by by starting in new initiatives or can I adjust a little bit of what I'm doing? That may not sound as fancy, but it may be actually easier to get to harvest the benefits out of it by end of the day is not about starting an initiative is about harvesting an initiative.
You need to be rooted into innovation. It's there not, for the sake of innovation, innovation is there to serve, serve a customer need or that that is already identified or can be created. And I think that being grounded into what problems do we try to solve for the customer has to be in the center, what you're doing and not that you get excited by either the technology or what they say. It becomes more about you and yourself as a company rather than what's the purpose the innovation is trying to solve.
Jacob Johnson: This idea is so on point. More times than not. People walk in our door with an idea of what they want to do and while it likely started with a real customer or a real business need, they've lost sight of that need and are completely focused on the solution rather than the problem itself. I asked the Eivind how he coaches people to resist the urge to go after every new opportunity and become infatuated with the solution.
The story of Ulysses, right? So he and some of his men had to tie them shelf selves to the ship to avoid being seduced by the sirens singing. How do you coach? Cause you, you have to work with executives across the globe, right? And not just the management team at headquarters. How would you coach an executive to place restraints on themselves to not jump after the new thing or to know when it is time and when it's not?
Eivind Slaaen: You need to understand what's simple. What do you believe is important for your organization right now and how much organization can take and is more about saying no than anything else and how do you build your story around that and how do you then also get the alignment with your boss on this is what we're going to do because you need someone backing you as the pressure comes from, from the rest of the organization. And I think the, in general terms, the organization may give you a hard time, but there was admire you if you can take that stuff. If the results comes, you know, then it becomes easy and the results doesn't come it becomes really tough.
Jacob Johnson: Once someone decides that they're going to go after something, I was curious to know what advice Eivind had for them. And he introduced an idea that was totally new to me. The idea of thinking about your relationship to an idea or initiative. It didn't sink in immediately, but it started to make a lot of sense as I thought about how much time and energy I have spent tending to businesses and projects that are important to me.
Eivind Slaaen: When you drive an initiative and that the initiative is important to you, you spend a lot of time thinking about an initiative and you almost started seeing the world through your initiative. But the moment it becomes everything for you, you become your own biggest enemy. So you need to get a certain relaxed relationship to it while it's still top on your agenda, because if you have an initiatives and you want to go about an initiative you obsessed about, I'm writing about my initiatives and the things that comes a time we need to step back and say, how do I know that I'm right? So what are the things that really prove that I'm on the right path? And that's a tough questions because that's where you get yourself up on the balcony. You look down again and say, step back from that to see what's what are the facts and figures that's is proving that I'm on the right course. If you have emotion bonding into it, then there's many things you, you make an interpretation that fits into your story. But if you step back on the balcony and might look, might look different.
Jacob Johnson: The stories we tell ourselves in those around us. This is another really interesting topic to me because I've seen many promising projects not gain momentum because the leader or team could not get the story right in order to get buy in from the rest of the organization. But on the other hand, I've seen a lot of time and money wasted on projects where great story was not actually representative of the initiative. I asked Eivind to expand on the power and pitfalls of stories when it comes to innovation.
Eivind Slaaen: There comes a time where is only going to work for you if, if you can get the story behind that, that people can buy into your story, because then initiatives become part of something which is bigger and not, it's not just about initiative by itself. Yeah. I think what often happen a lot is the, I mean A, there is, there's always the questions. Do you have, how good is your story to tell? But no, even if you have a story, I think the, one of the problems for leaders on knowledge is that telling the same story becomes boring for yourself. Because you know it in and out and it comes a point though you can't hear your own story anymore. And then you become, you become obsessed and concerned about yourself and how exciting is this for me versus you look upon how many times do you need to tell the same stories of people a understand the story.
And by me repeating this story, they also understand how important it is because I keep talking about it. And I see many times that the mistake you then do is that you starting tweaking the story to keep it fresh for yourself. And what you're not realizing that because you have tweaked this story for the others it doesn't sound as the same story. And, and I think that's the piece where you really need to get discipline is about when I cannot hear it and when my people cannot hear the story. And actually when I start saying, you know, on the first two or three words, they, they said, Oh, we can tell the, you know, the story to end. That's where you become effective in your communication.
And I think that's the skills that not so many people have because you, you obviously use, your story needs to be relevant for the audience you're telling, but the essence, the narrative of your story has to stay the same. If not, there's not a consistent mission traveling in the organization, and I think a lot of time is they're not realizing the damage they're doing by. By changing this story and it requires it requires, a lot of discipline.
Jacob Johnson: This was incredible for me to hear because I can immediately think back to times when I decided to upgrade my story because I thought it would keep things relevant and while I was trying to keep things exciting, my lack of consistency was likely killing momentum. I had one final question for Eivind.
If you could put a placard on every Hilti leader's desk across the globe that they would read every day, what would it say.
Eivind Slaaen: How did you feel energy to your organization today? There is enough research showing that if you have a meeting, then the two people in the meeting adapt to the mood of the biggest most important person in the room within 90 seconds, which is sort of scary. Yeah. And then you start asking yourself, then that's not just the CEO. You know, how many times do I go into meetings where I happen to be that person? The other how, how an impact is my mood having on that, and what are the small little things we can do to, to change that?
And, and we starting doing check-ins where you know normally when he started meeting you, you checking on everybody fine with the agenda. Do any tend to make some changes but before you go there, you just report back on something good that happened since last time we met. And that sets a complete different within the loom and to just become more productive. So we always look for this big thing is going to make that radical change and then you realize this actually very small things you can do to help you have that energy or balance your energy much better. And then you get more done.
Jacob Johnson: This simple idea has been hugely impactful for our team at Gitwit. I can't say we are good at it, but we're having more and more conversations around how we are giving energy to our teams. At the end of the day, doing new things is hard. It requires waiting into the dark and dealing with all sorts of ambiguity and failure. It requires tough conversations, which many times the topic is how the hard work you put in over the last several days is not what is needed to move things forward. There are conversations and meetings that can deflate people. Simply taking the time to recognize something good that has happened before launching into critical feedback is a simple but powerful tool. Okay, so a quick recap of what I learned from sitting down with Eivind.
First, it's to watch out for innovation just for the sake of innovation. Be able to clearly articulate the customer needs you are after. Second, it's to pay attention to your relationship with your idea or initiative. You can't step back from it you won't be able to see things objectively or take care of yourself in the process. Next, be able to tell a great story about what you're doing, but keep it consistent. It might get boring to you, but resist the urge to alter your story or risk losing support. Finally, pay attention to how you're giving energy to your teams. You're always going to have challenges and problems to focus on, but you can recognize the small wins along the way as well. A huge thanks to Eivind for taking the time to sit down with me. I really hope is calmness and awareness rubbed off on you like it does for me and anyone who sits in a room with him.