How design-thinking changes HR practice for the better: talent acquisition and leadership

Next in my interview series of Hidden Champions is Jeroen Frumau, a Design Sprint evangelist and master facilitator who combines design thinking with human resources and leadership coaching. He is also the co-initiator of the just developing project Virtual Design Sprints | Europe. And he is not stopping there!

Hello Jeroen, hope you are fine! The last time we met you asked me what kind of car brand I would be, and it was really fun. So you can guess that you do not get away with a normal introduce yourself question – this time I would like to know: if you had to choose being a means of transport, which one would you be and why?

I gave it some thought, but I think it is not a traditional means of transport. I would like to be the teleporter from the Star Trek movies. Why? Because I love bringing people into new situations, to have them surprised, to be there where they can impact the most.

Of course, you can drive by car, you can fly, you can ride by train, you can cycle, you can walk, you can skateboard, but I have a feeling that in the current time of virtual reality, augmented reality, digitization, being a digital nomad like you Alex, that, maybe, the teleporter is the real new means of transport that I would like to be so I can instantly be there where I can really add value, create an impact.

How did it come that you started combining HR and design thinking?

Maybe I need to give you a little bit of a perspective of what I'm doing and where I'm coming from, because I do not know whether I'm combining design thinking and HR, but maybe I am.

Let me try to explain:

I've been working for almost 18 years in Philips where I grew up working with talented design professionals and design leaders. When I started my recruitment practice Talents-4U in 2013, I wanted to create opportunities for design and design thinking professionals.

Over the last six years, the connections I created try to impact - through people - organizations of any nature, industrials, the government, small scale organizations, by the potential of design and design thinking.

So you consider yourself a design thinker? And how is combining HR and Design Thinking, coming together for you?

Myself, I'm a passionate design thinker, clearly from a methodology point of view as I believe it can facilitate solving a lot of problems in the world and for organizations. I’m an evangelist of the people that can practice as professionals, even much better than I can do. That's where my HR practice and design thinking come together. That’s what’s driving our niche approach by Talent-4U I co-founded with design-recruiter - Ingrid van Amstel - from Amsterdam.

And what about working with leadership? 

Leadership and Design Thinking first of all relates to senior management utilizing design thinking and design professionals in their business as also just described. But there is another part I started to explore the last three years together with another business partner, Erik-Hans Munnik. He was in the leadership and business transformation domain as well as interim management. Also he was developing that same passion for design thinking over the last couple of years.

Ah, tell me more!

Yes, we came into a conversation about how we could impact with our knowledge, with our experience, with our thinking, and maybe with our personalities. How can we impact organizations and predominantly leadership of organizations by embracing design thinking and making it value to themselves?

That's where we started more explicitly in applying the design thinking methodology in helping individual leaders to reflect on their own reality and the journey they are in: in our view, a journey of continuous transformation. Not only the transformations that they lead functionally in the organizations that they're responsible for, but also in terms of their career journey is going- from A to B.

Just to sort all these amazing initiatives you are in, this is Frank and The Navigator?

Yes, that's the name of our consultancy and our coaching. What we strive to do is to help individual leaders designing, scoping, framing their personal transitions in a way that makes use of design thinking, and design thinking tools and techniques. To create new transparency that supports their decision making while on-boarding in new organization or leadership roles; on transitions also to impact the people around them.

Super interesting, I think there is as well an impressive interview with Valentina Coco in your new series #frankSTORIES from Frank and the Navigator with a deeper dive into these questions:

Let us jump to another topic: There is the phrase about the “end of the resume” I read this in this article from Robert Skrobe – what is behind that?

Let me give you a small recap again, here of what happened the last eight to nine months in my career journey myself.

Now we are getting personal, I love It!

It started with being a participant in the Global Virtual Design Sprint (GVDS) in April 2019 where I was looking to participate for two key reasons.

1) One was, I wanted to inspire myself by meeting new people.

I felt that participating in this event would boost my network of peer to peer professionals but also professionals that offer value to my clients in my recruitment practice. It was networking for personal growth.

But also for creating maybe business opportunities for talented people that I would meet over here. That was the first reason.

2) Second reason was, to understand the design sprint methodology in more detail plus the benefit of it.

I prefer to learn by doing and not by reading. Although, I have the book like many of us, we all have the book (...laughs..and Alex laughs too ??), I felt that by working with experienced professionals like Robert and many others that I would learn faster and probably enjoy it better.

It was also a personal learning experience from that point of view.

I also wanted a validation on how I could use that wonderful methodology of the design sprint in my recruitment or leadership practices. 

And what are your conclusions? What were your learnings?

Participating in the April version of the Global Virtual Design Sprint, almost after two or three days, I noticed that if people start working together, that trust is being built, their professional armor is being lowered, and they start sharing stories, passions, but also demonstrating qualities and insecurities in a small team that is working intensively together on an assignment that they're passionate about.

Instantly, I saw an opportunity to connect that observation to my recruitment practice because what I noticed is that if you create a trusted or framed environment of working together you can actually have people demonstrate your skill sets, they can profile yourself towards peers that are participating, people can profile themselves also to me as facilitator, observer or even advisor.

Super interesting insights, I am already inspired and thrilled. I have to try this myself in a small way, I am not so skilled in this area than you, but it sparks something in me.

Why would you not be able to do this or create that same type of experience and therefore opportunity in a setting where you have organizations like your own startup. 

Many companies, even big corporations are looking for talented professionals. These companies might not have sufficient access to the labor market or do not experience sufficient attraction as an employer to talented professionals, and vice versa! Why would you not create that opportunity for professionals that seek new opportunities, to progress or level up their career?

The GVDS participation actually inspired me to come up with that notion of the Talent-Sprint almost instantly, and when I shared that with Robert Skrobe that he immediately offered: "Hey, let's have that conversation together."

One of those conversations led to Sabrina G?rlich in Germany. We teamed up and Robert, Sabrina and I co-authored the article that is called and you referenced The End of the Resume.

The Talent-Sprint is potentially The End of the Resume.

Famous last words! Corporations do you hear that! Jeroen, this was amazing and there is so much more I want to know. Let us do another session and an additional interview, we need to explore the Talent-Sprint more. And by the way, we will have Sabrina as well here for an interview! Let us talk soon!

Thanks everyone for reading! I hope you liked it and be inspired. If you like to reach out to Jeroen directly click. You find the Talent Sprint program here: https://www.talents-4u.com. For the leadership program go to www.frankandthenavigator.com.

And promised Jeroen will be back soon!

Best, Digital Nomad Alex