Board Impulse Thoughts (BIT) – A little BIT for everybody

41st Board Impulse Thoughts with Brigitte Schnakenbourg and her views and assessments of the upcoming and last 12 months.

1. Which were your biggest learnings over the past 12 months?

This year I had decided to make at least gender diversity in the top management and in the supervisory board a criteria to apply for a role in a company. No diversity in top management and in supervisory board = no application from my side. A simple decision. But a tough one as well as I realized that many of well-reputed companies did not match my criteria. When I talk about diversity, it is of course not only about gender but also diversity in terms or background, competences, nationalities, etc.

At RENK Group women are well represented in the top management as well as in the supervisory board. RENK Group is also one of the very few companies I know having HR expertise in the supervisory board. This diversity of expertise in the board is palpable. Great resignation, quiet quitting, scarcity of talents, mix of generations and their various expectations, fast moving working regulations and a high inflation putting pressure on compensation are some the people challenges of today. A diverse expertise?become a real strategic asset which supports business growth and success.

Based on this experience I learned or confirmed two things I was just assuming until then:

-???it was right to not compromise on what really matters to me even when times are challenging

-???it is important to have diverse expertise also in supervisory boards

2. Do you think that diversity in non-executive supervisory boards will become more and more important in the years to come?

Certainly. On one hand we do not need anymore to bring the evidence that more diverse teams are more performant. Also a non-executive supervisory board is a team of which the members need to work well together. On the other hand we see that legislations are also pushing in that direction. I am referring here of course to the ?Women on Boards“ directive adopted by the EU Parliament this June 2022. The beauty of this directive is that it does not only boost diversity in the supervisory boards but it also boosts the professionalization of the recruitment in such boards. I truly believe that professionalization and diversity in terms of gender, expertise, experience, nationality, etc. can only be beneficial to the companies being supervised by non-executive boards. ??????????????

3. What are your observations on executives over the last 12 months, did they change their habits and attitudes?

I have observed that the most successful companies are lead by executives with a high level of empathy. Generally speaking it seems empathy has become a key to leadership success. I think, empathy is exactly what is needed in times of crisis. Empathy has been considered as a weakness over decades and is now finally getting an important place amongst the key leadership skills. Executives become more and more aware about it. They do not hesitate anymore to show empathy. In my eyes this is a very positive development.

The other positive development is that executives are more and more willing to include a larger number of competences available. What do I mean by that? I often compare the different expertise in a management team with the keys of a keyboard. As an executive you can use just a couple keys or the entire range of keys on the keyboard. I have observed that executives are more willing to use more keys on their keyboard than they used to do in the past. Their role becomes more complex but also more balanced and more sensitive to topics they did not really value in the past. Instead of focusing only on numbers and financial KPIs, expertise in such areas like supply chain, people (HR), IT, etc. are more appreciated. Doing so executives are also more and more inclusive. Inclusiveness becomes the next key leadership skill for success.

4. What do you expect from 2022?

I expect that the positive developments I have observed in 2022 will continue to grow and get more and more established in the next years and decades. I am convinced that this progress will become a decisive advantage to overcome the current crisis and the ones to come.

Brigitte Schnakenbourg is Chief Human Resources Officer at RENK Group. She is having a strong international background with experience from and in various countries. She developed her expertise in global roles in family owned companies, middle size structures, publicly traded global corporations and private equity owned companies. She is a seasoned HR professional with experience as Managing Director.

Brigitte Schnakenbourg is also a member of the advisory board of Nordic Minds GmbH and graduated recently from the Board Academy.