On The Balcony Judit Teichert: Practice Is the Path
Season 2 of On the Balcony continues by looking sideways — exploring frameworks that stretch Adaptive Leadership into new terrain.
In this episode, Michael Koehler sits down with Judit Teichert, Managing Director and Partner at KONU Germany. Judit's work is shaped by her background as a licensed psychotherapist trained in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and more than a decade of coaching and facilitation around adaptive leadership and adult development with teams and organizations across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the U.S.
The conversation explores a question that sits quietly underneath so much leadership work: If we already understand the challenge, why is change still so hard?
Judit's answer: insight alone isn't enough. We need practice — repeated iterations that build new pathways, not just in our thinking, but in our emotions, behaviors, and relationships. Change requires more than understanding. It requires reps.
This episode also spends time with loss — not as something to fix or rush past, but as something that needs to be named, held, and lived through if change is going to last.
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What You'll Explore in This Episode
The triangle of change: thinking, feeling, acting
How cognitive behavioral therapy offers multiple entry points into change — and why limiting ourselves to "thinking our way" into new behavior often falls short.
Why insight isn't enough
The gap between understanding a pattern and actually changing it. Why we underestimate how many iterations — how many "reps" — real change requires.
Practice as pathway-building
The metaphor of building a road through a jungle: the first time you take a new route, everything is unfamiliar and threatening. Only through repetition does a path become a highway.
Managing loss in organizations
Why naming loss is both diagnosis and intervention. How holding space — without rushing to solutions — allows groups to grieve and then reorient on their own terms.
The role of ritual and structure in grief
What we can learn from cultural and religious traditions about allocating time and space for mourning — and why organizations often skip this step.
Reframing loss as sacrifice
How, after grief has been processed, framing loss as "in service of something bigger" can restore meaning and commitment.
A live example from client work
How one organization combined adaptive leadership diagnosis with CBT-informed skills practice — role-playing difficult conversations repeatedly to build new muscles for candor.
Quotes from This Episode
"I think sometimes we underestimate how much practice, how many flight hours or reps it takes to actually change." — Judit Teichert
"When you take a new route the first time, you're in a deep jungle. You don't know what the next step looks like. That's why it feels so tense and sometimes threatening to do something you've never learned to do before." — Judit Teichert
"Paradoxically, one of the strategies to manage loss is not to manage — but to hold." — Judit Teichert
"Grief and sadness — their function is to support us to reorient. If we don't take that time, we're clinging to something and we cannot wholeheartedly commit to something new." — Judit Teichert
"There's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. And there's like the absence of any drama in that sentence. That's one of the biggest changes." — Judit Teichert
The Poem: Autobiography in Five Chapters
Judit shares Autobiography in Five Chapters by Portia Nelson — a short poem that captures the long arc of change: from falling into the same hole, to noticing the pattern, to finally walking a different street.
Portia Nelson, "Autobiography in Five Chapters," from There's a Hole in My Sidewalk (1977). Short excerpts are quoted in this episode for reflection and discussion. All rights remain with the author's estate. We highly recommend reading the full poem, which offers a powerful meditation on awareness, responsibility, and change.
Links & Resources
KONU — Growing and Provoking Leadership https://konu.org
On the Balcony Newsletter https://konu.org/balcony
About Judit Teichert
Judit Teichert is a Partner at KONU and Managing Director of KONU Germany. Her work is shaped by her own journey as a leader — learning to stay grounded under pressure, bring care into tough conversations, and align action with what truly matters.
Her early experiences at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York and as a licensed psychotherapist sharpened her ability to read human dynamics and support deep, sustainable change. She originally set out to become an actress — and left acting school with the humbling realization that her drive to "get it right" was getting in the way of being fully present. That insight has stayed with her ever since.
Over more than a decade, she has worked as a facilitator, coach, and program designer with leadership teams across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the U.S. Her approach blends psychological depth with a systems perspective and strategic clarity — creating experiences that build trust and connection, encourage high standards and accountability, and lead to meaningful results.
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Key Notes
This episode complements Episode 1's focus on individual development (Immunity to Change) by exploring how insight translates into action through practice. Together with Episodes 2 and 3, it builds a picture of change that spans the cognitive, emotional, systemic, and behavioral.
The poem Autobiography in Five Chapters offers a gentle, humorous mirror for anyone who has ever found themselves back in the same place — and a reminder that the hole doesn't disappear. We simply learn, over time, to walk around it.