Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Maureen: [00:00:00] Welcome to the final show at the International Leadership Association Conference, we are incredibly fortunate to have the keynote speaker, Joroen Van der Veer. He was named the CEO of what is now Royal Dutch Shell in 2004, amid a corporate fraud scandal. He quickly applied his signature leadership style of steady, pragmatic leadership.

So let’s start with what is the essence of your leadership?

Jeroen: High clarity. Keep it very simple. Concentrate on this simple and clear communications.

Maureen: In your conversation, you went into a lot of detail about what that actually means. In practice, you took over Shell at a very difficult time.

Jeroen: In the end, a leader should tell where to go.

I call that point B. You have to be honest on point A where we are now. And then you have to take the people, the jury. That is the process that sounds very academic. So in practice you have to be in a much more appealing way to say, [00:01:00] this is how we should be. And then they have one or two liners that people think, Ooh, yeah, I feel at home with that.

And then of course you have to convince them why they have to go there. And that is to say, where we are today is not good enough. And then they like to know, okay, what can I do to help there? So you have to give them directions as well. And all the time, keep it very simple, keep it very short. No PowerPoint presentations.

It should be elevator speeches and the best you can reach or achieve as a leader. But a person comes home to write and he said, well, did the boss say today? Your part is asking that. If you then say exactly the same one-liners as the bull sat in the morning, then you are a long way.

So you gave the example of taking your strategy to just a few words. And so can you talk a little bit more about that?

, I do realize that the mission of a company is no different from a [00:02:00] vision for a company or a strategy or the purpose of a company, but for the, all the people at the company to sit one day in, in a luxuries hotel and to discuss that I think it’s not useful. I think in the end you have to say to the people, where are we today?

Jeroen: That’s the point A where is point B? Where’s that going and how can I make that point B where we have to go specific for me about our department or my, or what I have, I, how can I help to do with that? And now, from time to time, you may have somewhere publication in the company where they deal with all this purpose stuff, as I call it.

So keep it very simple because in the answer, strategy, mission, and purpose. They are not that different. There’s a good discipline for some strategic guys to think it through, whether it is all consistent, but it is not the kind of people process for employees.

Maureen: And then you talked about [00:03:00] moving from that big picture that is consistent across the company, the job of middle managers to translating that to what I do as a line person when I show up.

Jeroen: When I was young, now you had a presentation for, from the top person, the CEO. And then what the staff did from headquarters. Then they sent it out on slides and then every manager with says speaking notes. And basically they had to repeat his presentation of the top manager. To all the staff down to the oil rigs or the refinery shop for, I think that is the wrong way to see middle management like death.

In Dutch, we say you use the middle management as parrots, like the bird had they repeat the same line. The parrot repeats this same line, which he was just picking up. So the role of middle management is of course to add value and while what is that, you take this one line off the top, [00:04:00] which gives rough idea of the point B for the total company.

Then you have to make that specific, what that one liner makes means for your own department. And the minus one level does do that minus two from the top and so on. So every time they have to make that specific point B very specific to their situation. So they summarized the top guys as did. The boss of my boss said how our total division fits into that.

This means for our department that, and that’s how I as a leader from you, and now I’m the minus three level translate that and I take ownership that what we do fits in this total company. So the role of management in the journey from A to B is very important. They have to make the BS very specific.

And they should spend 90% of their time on this specific part and only 10% [00:05:00] or 5% what the top message was

Maureen: because the employees have access to the top message, right? You are communicating as the CEO on a regular basis.

Jeroen: Yeah. I think as a top leader you have of course to create and to help your middle managers.

To make, to be specific. But the way you can do that is very easy. You have now emails, or even, I am not sure you can do it in 140 letters, the tweets with, but you can write very short email to all your staff and you say, well, we had our senior management conference and I. I sat now had this as the updated strategy.

These are the four key words. This is the one liner. These are the business fields where we like to play. This is how we can win. This is an email, short and a half a page. Otherwise people will not read it. And I have asked all the managers to make it specific for your particular depart, what it means for you.

And if you don’t hear about it, by the way, this is my address, [00:06:00] then you can respond to me.

Maureen: Actually, you talked about an example where you asked someone if they knew what the point B was and they said, what’s a point B?

Jeroen: Yeah, I think you can use it as a checklist. So if you say, my philosophy is you go from A to B plus next steps.

But of course, point B is the very important. If you’re an operational visit and you speak to a supervisor of an oil rake. And he says, what is the point B for a year? And if they look at, I said, you were, sir, what are you talking? Not an idea. Then of course the vertical top down post fails.

So then what you can do is you send a very simple email between all the bosses and that particular supervisor on the oil rig. And he said well, I asked it in that question. What was going on here? Why didn’t it happen? Yeah. And if you do that a couple of time, I assure you, then very soon, the whole company knows.

You have always to know your A. You have to know your particular, your specific [00:07:00] B, and the next steps.

Maureen: , you talked about taking over on a point of crisis. H ow did you manage a crisis different than ongoing operations?

Jeroen: In the beginning of the crisis, people say how ker, which has to roll, they are all busy with the past.

Now that is important to get lessons learned. If the whole company is busy, how it happened, I don’t come out of the crisis, so I have to isolate. The drivers, which we bought the company into a crisis are to put a fence around it. So I say, I. Investigations. We will take lessons learned if something went wrong, if people did read something wrong, we will take appropriate measures, but that’s it.

But to realize our task, and then I have a bolt between you and me, and I look at you, our task is how we come out of this crisis and not wondering about those hats that have to roll. So how do we build up a good [00:08:00] future for you and me that in this company. And then you are back to very simple and clear communication, and then you’ll know the rules to come if people, because people may be confused, insecure.

So then you have to say, okay, this is the strategy or the plan to come out of the crisis. Everybody can help. Even if it didn’t happen, you are division, right? We can drop one shoe and maybe it happened somewhere else, but you have to help not to be perfect. Nothing goes wrong there. And we need very good performance of your division because we lost Moody where the crisis was.

And you have to take visible leadership. With frequent, simple communication on a predictable way you should be as a leader, the person who talks to the press and to the media. Don’t leave it to the press office. Not every day, but especially in the beginning of the crisis. And last but not least, made clear that you take ownership.[00:09:00]

But it is not about, eh, the crisis. I am here to help the company to come out of crisis. I’m not interested in my own salary or whether, how it affects my bonus. I don’t have any problem if my compensation is lowest than my predecessors, eh, I am here to help you. Huh? And together we will take the company to the next level.

I think that is, that are some of the essential points. to bring, so to come out of a crisis.

Maureen: So clearly owning it, we made a mistake. However, one says that, and Yeah. Owning it directly.

Jeroen: Yeah. And brutal honesty. Okay. I, you see sometimes that leaders in a crisis, they say it was not that serious. Yeah.

Put the team to it and they, and then they took it back mentally at a distance. There’s nothing to do with that. They don’t do it that way. And so you can say, yeah, we as, as far as I can see now, we [00:10:00]made some very bad mistakes. Then you say we made some very bad mistakes. The second one where brutal honesty is.

Yeah. How to take the company forward. The strategy for hope will usually fail, so be realistic, be very, because people will be very critical at that mobile. They think, okay, this is a credible plan. So don’t try to sell illusions or to say you were very hard two months, three months, and then it is all as yesterday.

Be honest about that. The company that goes through a serious crisis usually doesn’t come out the same. There’s no obligation for you to describe how it’ll be different. Huh. But don’t try to sell illusion.

Maureen: I appreciate the honesty outwardly and inwardly because your employees build or lose trust in you forever based on how you handle that.

Yeah. So our future generation of leaders, what would you want them to take away from this [00:11:00]conversation with you?

Jeroen: . When I think about, especially the younger generation of managers, a lot of good things about them, but some people are very fascinated with their own CVs or resumes in the US.

In the end, you have to believe in a system for which you work and under this company first, that is not you first building up a good cv. It is put a company first and if you do well, if you contribute to the good things of the company that as a result, but only as a result, yeah. Then you may make a career or a next step and those catch your the wrong.

That is the first thing. The second thing is, especially for young leaders, think about it. How do I get focus and speed? Usually people lose it because the mind of the people who has to be led. So say the followers, they were going in too many different directions. And then you [00:12:00] lose speed. So how do you do that?

How do you get this focus and how do you get enough speed? Because in the end of today, there were many good other companies out, so you have to be on the right speed. Ally the competition. And at least then you worked it out for yourself. But my secret was always to have very high clarity, make even complex things.

Simple. Last but not least, and this is very serious. Keep listening. I use just in my speech here, it helps if you have flappy ears. Yeah. Then listen all the time. But listening at a certain moment, you have to say, okay, I’ve listened to all of you. I understand. This may happen. That may happen.

Hang on. I happen here to be the leader. That’s why we go to that core.

Maureen: . I often hear people say, keep it simple. What they’re trying to do is get rid of the complexity. I’m assuming you took in all of the complexity and what came out was understandable for your [00:13:00] audience, but not that you boiled out the complexity that exists in the world.

Jeroen: Yeah, that’s a very good point. You have to listen to the complexity. You have to think as a leaders about it. You’re not a facilitator, so we take the average. Because you good leadership, sometimes you have to make, eh, you have to really. To make a 90 degrees term.

And usually that starts with yourself or very few people. And so we say in the knowledge, you must have the possibility to roll, eh, on the river against the current. Yeah. Uhhuh, that’s very important for a leader because you listen to the complexity and you think if we do more of the same, it goes wrong.

Having done all of that, and that’s your point, keep it simple, probably then you make it simple. And the essential thing, why should people prepare to be a corridor? Because you have very good one liars. Why it is not acceptable to do more of the same. And you have allergic. Why point [00:14:00] B is better than today. So , to make it simple and then in the end, if you have a role, it helps you if people get you feedback and to say, sir, you got it. Role. And then you start, then you get the dialogue and so on.

Maureen: So that then reinforces the listing. Yeah, absolutely. That you’ve created an environment that is safe for people to give you feedback.

Yeah. And that in fact you seek that.

Jeroen: Yeah, you have to seek that. , There’s more than operational visits you have to make sure, and that’s where you write your weekly email. They can answer that be as a whole. Right. A whole process for answering all those emails. So that people know that it’s registrated what they say.

And so on.

Maureen: So you sought continual or periodic, you had a process to seek feedback.

Jeroen: Yeah. Absolutely.

Maureen: Thank