Siemens CEO's counterintuitive rule: Change everything when it's working

Among the insights 西门子 CEO Roland Busch shares in part two of our live conversation at Davos (see part one here) is a counterintuitive approach to transformation: The best time to change everything is when you're at your peak.

But we started with his theory on how AI would impact work.

"You would not replace a person with a robot, but a piece of the work a person does," Roland said, using nurses as an example of highly-skilled professionals who are constantly diverted by low-skill chores.

"If (a nurse) has 20% time with the patient, it's a lot — looking for stuff, writing documents, pushing beds around," Roland said. "So you take this bed-pushing work away and give it to productive time for a nurse," he said, referencing a self-driving bed Siemens developed. "This is an advantage of what new technology can do — to really put humans on the spot where they are better than robots or machines."

Leading 320,000 people across 150 countries, Roland has unique insight into what leadership requires in an era of constant technological change. While many executives talk about transformation, he's orchestrating it at massive scale.

And he said the time to act is when things are really humming. "It's when you're working and you have a [good] environment, you have a good team and it's all great ... this is a time when you should think: I have to make another transformation. I have to trigger something and make it different because change is normal."

Most companies attempt radical change only when facing a crisis. Roland says that's a mistake. And it makes sense, even if it's rare in the corporate world: Doing anything under stress versus when you're performing your best rarely leads to a great outcome — not to mention that top talent tends to flee when things go south, so you don't have your best leading.

So the key is to make bold moves when you're strongest.

"This is what I did," he told me. "Over a year ago, I thought, 'Well, Siemens is doing well. We are growing fast.' I said, 'Hold on a second. You have to [now] ignite the second wave in order to really transform our company.'"

His career advice: Challenge your own limits

What surprised me most in our talk was Roland's revelation that he considers himself an introvert. That's a rough trait when you're leading a global company and constantly hobnobbing with partners and governments. But rather than accept this as fixed, Roland applied his growth mindset approach.

And the big unlock? Inviting others to speak first.?

"I was shy. I mean if you had a big party, I didn't really like it," Roland said. "Now I go, I mingle, because I figured out, if you just be open and ask a question — Who are you and what are you doing? — and you're curious, and all of a sudden you get into a discussion."

This approach to personal growth mirrors his philosophy on business transformation: don't wait for crisis to force change. "If you are introvert, you will never be the guy who's jumping on the stage, but you can still work on yourself and train to get a little bit closer."

For the full interview click here.

On LinkedIn’s video series, This is Working, I sit down with top figures from the world of business and beyond to surface what they've learned about solving difficult problems. See more from Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole, Google CMO Lorraine Twohill, Taco Bell CEO Sean Tresvant, Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, former US President Barack Obama, filmmaker Spike Lee, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, cosmetics legend Bobbi Brown, F1’s Toto Wolff, and many more.