Episode 111: Why Sustainable Learning is an Essential Element of Corporate Enterprise, with Christian van den Bosch
In Episode 111 of The Business Habitat podcast, Sam is joined by Christian van den Bosch, Organisational Leadership Coach and Change and Efficiency Advisor, to talk about the need for sustainable learning in the work environment and the difference between a service mentality and a peer mindset.
In this compelling conversation, Christian relates his background as an officer in both the Netherlands and Australian Armies, comparing the two and noting how the Netherlands Army was run similar to a commercial operation, particularly in its approach to people, organisation, productivity and performance. In contrast the Australian Army is much more bureaucratic in nature with less emphasis on career development pathways.
It was in witnessing these two different styles of organisations and having led soldiers and officers in the field, that Christian identified what he terms ‘sustainable learning’, the concept of ongoing learning, both from a personal perspective and also an organisational one.
Christian left the military in 2016 having achieved his goals and moved into the corporate world, where his military background has informed his beliefs around leadership and productivity. In this conversation, Christian shares what he has learned around building strong client relationships through creating parity, and gives practical examples of how he utilises a peer mindset to better engage with his clients.
Negating the popular concept that a leaders’ role is to serve their people, Christian puts forward his view that leaders are not servers, which talks to a submissive approach. Rather he notes that they are responsible for the learning of their people and working with their people to generate a healthy culture within the workforce.
Sam and Christian round out the conversation by discussing how the workforce has changed in recent years and why the concept of sustainable learning is a critical one. In this era of staff shortages and retention issues, Christian emphasises the next generations’ desire to learn and grow, and work in a way which promotes balance and avoids burnout.
Listen to an excerpt
What we cover in this episode
Creating an environment of sustainable (continual) learning
Having a service mentality vs a peer mindset
CPD hours – are they really worth it?
How the Australian Army’s approach varies from the Netherland Army’s corporate style
Managing client relationships to create parity
The benefits of excellence over perfection
The mindset difference between cost and investment
Creating a cohort and working with the way that people learn
Christian and Sam each share one tip on the sustainable learning journey
Quotes
“He turned out to be one of our best clients because if you can establish a relationship of parity with your clients you actually establish a true relationship and then you can also be more demanding on your clients” - Christian
“Leaders can’t create a healthy culture, they can generate a healthy culture and what I mean by generate is if it’s something you can create you can pretty much do on your own but something that you generate you need all the people so you can influence other people to collectively generate something” - Christian
“You as a leader are responsible for the collective learning of the people that you lead” - Christian
“if you pursue perfection you just keep going over and over the work again trying to do fault finding, whereas if you pursue excellence it includes so much more. Excellence includes that you deliver the work to an acceptable standard within the time frame but it also includes all the parameters of performance” - Christian
“What I believe is an essential part of sustainable learning is for leaders to understand what they need to forget” - Christian
“With sustainable learning you need to create cohorts because people don't just learn top down they learn more from each other” - Christian
“People still need coaching and learning because the world around you changes, your competition gets better” - Christian