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Entrepreneurial talk with Sabine Walter

"Why not interview the woman who started the entrepreneur talk?", thought Tomislav Bodrozic, Managing Director of Tabula Games, and asked Sabine Walter for an interview. Read what this thoroughbred entrepreneur loves about her job.

Executive Coach Sabine Walter in conversation with entrepreneurs - Organisational Development | Executive Coaching
Photo | Ania Lewandowska fotobranding

SABINE WALTER | HUMAN RESOURCES AND ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPER WITH HEAD AND HEART

Sabine, what do you love about your job?

There are really many things. What I love most is being able to shape, move things forward and make a difference. I love to develop the people and organisations I work with to their own strengths and potential. This is at the core of my work and reward at the same time. Added to this is the rich variety. No project is like another, no person and no organisation. I have to look at things in a new way again and again and always engage with each individual person. If I didn't have the desire to get to know people and to look behind the façade, then I probably wouldn't be right in this profession at all.

I also love the freedom of being self-employed. I enjoy being able to organise my time freely and choose my projects. A key decision criterion here is: Where is the chemistry right? Where is there a chance of a very trusting collaboration? That's incredibly important in my job because it makes a significant contribution to success. 

I used to do more training sessions. And every training session was like a stage performance. I made a lot of music as a child and teenager, both in the concert hall and at the opera. Just like at concerts, I had stage fright and a rumbling in my stomach before training sessions. That has now greatly diminished. There are a few projects where I still feel it. But I don't have that in personal coaching in particular. Because I also give myself the chance to at least talk to each of my coachees on the phone beforehand to find out what it's all about and to check whether the chemistry has a chance of being right.

How did you become an executive coach?

When I was young, I was lucky enough to take on responsibility very quickly at Bertelsmann and was responsible for the restructuring of a division. I had to deal with many executives, i.e. managers and board members. I was in my late 20s at the time, and it was a tough business. Also because I was a woman in a man's world. But I already managed at that time to establish certain rules and to be successful. 

This experience from the industry has helped me to achieve a high level of strategic competence. I have a sound business management know-how. I have led and managed transformation. These experiences are relevant for my clients, i.e. senior managers, managing directors and board members. As a result, we talk about the essentials very quickly.

Personnel and organisational development as a dream job

Is this a dream job for you?

Yes. It is even a vocation. I could imagine many other dream jobs because many things interest me. Actually, I wanted to become a music therapist. I wanted to use music to heal seriously ill and disabled people, especially children. At that time, you would have had to study music in Germany and then specialise, because it was not a recognised profession at that time. In France, you would have had to study medicine and then specialise. Neither was an option, however, because I didn't want to do medicine and my father saw music as a non-lucrative occupation. He steered me in the direction of banking training - that was also a good foundation for the rest of my life.

With that in mind, I would say that I am now where I wanted to be, which is helping people. But I am still curious about where the journey is going. The journey is not over yet.

What still surprises you in your work, even after so many years? And why does it surprise you?

Two things surprise me again and again. Firstly, how little people are really recognised as a valuable resource in companies. And secondly, how few leaders have actually internalised and live the essence of leadership. How little they put people at the centre of their leadership and actions. This has hardly developed in the last 20 years.

The issue of trust is still fragile. It is not primarily seen as the basis for economic success; in most companies, guidelines, control and reporting are the norm instead of recognising that it is about trust and empowerment and about inspiring employees to do something and giving them freedom.

If leaders succeed in giving employees the benefit of the doubt, they have a greater chance of employees trusting them as well. It also leads to trust among the team members. This has the effect that people show themselves as they are, and they also dare to make mistakes and think outside the box. Because they can be sure that everything will be well received. This leads to fewer conflicts and misunderstandings, and to more teamwork and exchange within the team and thus to more ideas and less friction. These are all important factors for success, including economic success.

When do you get the best ideas?

On the one hand, when I am in exchange with others, for example, when I talk about topics with my colleagues or my partner. But sometimes also when I read, see or hear something exciting - then something is triggered.

But often the best ideas come to me in the middle of the work, i.e. coaching with the person itself or the workshop with the group. That's a characteristic of mine: I make a rough plan, but it will never go as planned. Because better ideas can come up in the situation. Ideas that will lead this group or this person to the goal even faster. 

Personnel and organisational development in 2050

What will your profession look like in 2050?

I have actually never asked myself that question. I've rather asked myself the question: "Will I still be doing what I'm doing right now in 2050?" Because there are so many things I would still like to do. 

From my point of view, this profession will not be so much different. I suspect that digitisation and artificial intelligence will make it even more important in our companies to really find people who do their job with joy, ownership and impact. And they can only do that if they stand fully behind what they do. When they do things that suit their strengths. And if they have creative space and opportunities. I could even imagine that it's about getting people into an effective position even faster. Coaching will then perhaps even become standard.

In addition, concepts such as blended learning will continue to gain relevance. You then have to think about what, for example, is depicted in a serious game, what takes place in face-to-face training, what are the topics and contents for coaching, and where can I enrich learning with videos and other media? This linking of the online and offline worlds will certainly become even stronger and will also be fully accepted in the companies. But I believe that human contact and tapping into human potential will still be there and will even increase in importance. And there will still be coaches for that in the future.

For 2050, I would like to see the coaching profession receive some form of protection. Because currently coaching is not a protected profession, which means that anyone can hang a sign on their door that says "coaching". The market is correspondingly diverse, and there is correspondingly much poor quality. My wish would be to protect this profession with a quality seal in the future.

Sabine Walter has a degree in business administration. Since 2008, she has been running this network successfully. As an executive coach she accompanies leaders, their teams and organisations in their further development and thus helps them to harness their full potential.

The interview was conducted by Tomislav Bodrozic.

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