#120 The Limits of a Controlling Culture with Jan Gilg

A key aspect of Leadership is realizing that you cannot be in every detail of a project for your organization. Instead, you have to trust your team to run experiments, fail often and quickly and provide you with feedback of what is working and sometimes more importantly, what’s not working. So, how do you let go of being in control of all the details? What ingredients are needed to create a culture of collective responsibility instead of control?

Today Deepa speaks with Jan Gilg about the limits of a controlling culture. Jan tells us how we can create empowered workplaces that build trust and growth for all.

Jan’s Tips for Avoiding Control Culture:

• Clarity is key. Give your employees the freedom to make decisions. Giving them this environment lets them get out of their comfort zone and grow. Stay away from the “how”.
• Over communicate with team members. Give boundaries and set up the right framework.
• Fail often, fail early is a key philosophy, not only in the Technology industry.
• Total consensus is not the goal in projects.
• As a leader- the more concerns you can hear, the better.
• Vulnerability is needed for all of these aspects of a product: running experiments, having feedback sessions and how things are going, and there is a sounding board as well. 
• Articulate a clear vision and strategy in addition to acknowledging nothing is going to be perfect. Create the safety to have open communication, including challenges. This creates collective responsibility in the system.
• It’s important to acknowledge and accept the realities of the world and life. We need to give employees more flexibility.
• You have to take time to create team spirit which builds collaboration and connection. 
• Everyone needs to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, make sure you connect your people to that purpose and vision which will unlock potential and motivation. This creates amazing things.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know, what’s a piece of advice from Jan that you’d like to start incorporating in your organization?

Please feel free to connect with Jan and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Jan

Jan Gilg is President and Chief Product officer of SAP S/4HANA, which is SAP’s flagship product that encompasses ERP, finance, and supply chain. In this role he has global responsibility for the development, delivery, and product management of SAP S/4HANA, SAP’s Industry solutions, as well as the Digital Supply Chain portfolio. He is a cloud evangelist, a customer advocate and a business problem solver.  He is based in Walldorf Germany, but lived in the US for many years.

Thanks for listening and stay cool! 

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