Bruno Kahne has been a trainer, facilitator and consultant in leadership, personal-development, communication and change management for the last 20 years. He has managed projects, talked at conferences and trained in many parts of the world: Bangladesh, Belgium, Bhutan, Brazil, Brunei, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Italy, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, UAE, UK and USA, to list only a few.
Today he is responsible for the strategy of the Airbus Leadership University. This year Bruno was one of the keynote speakers of IV PMI Conference in Wroclaw and we had a pleasure to meet him and ask a few questions.
Fot. Bruno Kahne
From your perspective, what is the optimal amount of hours in personal coaching and how many months shall it take?
To help someone advance towards a specific goal – professional or personal – by asking specific questions and giving precise feedbacks, coaching often requires a minimum of 7 sessions of about 1H30. However, I think that the best coaching sessions one can have are often in front of a mirror, reflecting on the day. I strongly believe that we should all go through this daily ritual of questioning ourselves at night on what we did through the day which was good and right or bad and wrong, and then commit to improve on the following day. And this type of ritual should not last for 7 sessions only, but for a whole life time.
Can you refer to Peter Drucker’s quote „Culture eats strategy for breakfast”?
I fully agree with Peter Drucker. You can indeed have the best vision, mission and strategy in the world, if you don’t have a customercentric culture and people who enjoy working together, you can only fail. On the other hand, find a team which takes pleasure being together and loves their customers, even if they don’t have the company’s motto and posters of the strategy posted on the walls, you will find performance and success. Now, of course, if you have both it is better.
What are most important factors of a family life that support one’s successful career?
No success at work will ever compensate failure in the private life. No one on a death bed will ever regret to not have spent enough time at work. So I think that the question should be: how happy are you in your private life and what do you do to improve if you are not satisfied with “your performance”? How do you recharge your batteries? What is your passion? How do you express and receive love? How much time do you spend with loved ones? How much time do you have just for yourself? What are your behaviors which brings peace and happiness? What are your behaviors which triggers sadness? For each of these questions, my best teachers have always been my wife and children!
During the conference panel you mentioned the idea of „expernalist” – what makes one?
I’ve invented that word just a few weeks ago. For years, companies have moved from Global to Local then from Local to Global trying to resolve the opposition between global alignment and local specificities. Only recently people have started to talk about glocalization: focusing on the company’s culture and targets while taking into account the local needs. Indeed, there is no reason for one of the extreme to exclude the other. It seems that a similar issue exists within our companies concerning people’s skills. For some reason in the business you are either an expert (specialized in only one field, knowing nothing else) or a generalist (having a general overview, but being not recognized on a specific topic). I challenge this belief and say that today people need both. Just like glocalization, expernalization is possible.
Did you noticed anything specific about communication in Wrocław?
It was my first visit to Wroclaw, and I was indeed surprised by the behaviour of people. There is definitively a special atmosphere in the city which is rarely found elsewhere: something in the interactions I would describe as open, young and dynamic. I look forward to come back.
