Tune in and listen to Andreas Wilderer discussion with Gregg Stebben “Why AQ will replace IQ and EQ” on this episode of ForbesBooks Radio.
Andreas W.:
GLOBULARITY is, we do Strengthfinder coaching, and we deal with focus on adaptability. So we say that AQ, the adaptability quotient is going to replace IQ and EQ, and how can we use our strengths to improve our AQ? And to be prepared for all the changes, digital revolution, society changes like women going back to work? How can we as individuals adjust to that?
Speaker 2:
Welcome to an Encore podcast presentation from Forbes Books at ForbesBooks.com.
Greg Stebben:
I’m here with Andreas Wilderer. He’s a business coach, his company is GLOBULARITY. It’s GLOBULARITY.com, G-L-O-B-U-L-A-R-I-T-Y, GLOBULARITY.com. And Andreas, you have an amazing story, an amazing business, and you’re in the process of publishing a book equally amazing because it really summarizes the things you’ve done and where you’re going in the future. The title of your book is Lean On, it sounds a lot like Lean In which we all know comes from Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook, right? Is there a relationship between the work you do and the title of Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In, and your book Lean On?
Andreas W.:
Greg, that’s a very good question. Lean On is supposed to be the answer of Lean In. So when we ask for women to lean in into the business world, what ripple effects has this for society and for men? We need men being able to support the women and be someone to lean on while they are leaning in.
Greg Stebben:
We were talking before the interview and you said behind every great leader there’s a partner, sometimes the partner’s a man, sometimes the partner’s a woman. It doesn’t really matter but we tend to think of the man going up the ladder, a woman perhaps behind him supporting him. The whole point of lean on is the opposite. The woman is climbing the ladder, the husband is supporting her. And you’ve actually had that role in your relationship with your wife?
Andreas W.:
Yes. So my wife is a C-suite executive and she’s leaning in for as long as we know each other. And since 11 years I’m taking the nurturer role over for our kids. So Dominique is now 11. And since that time he just knows me as Mr. Mom and the person taking care of him. And for him it’s normal that my wife is gone and she’s acting like normal, every other normal leader worker going to work being naughty and chesty on the weekend.
Greg Stebben:
When you have a spouse in this role and you are the support partner, and the gender roles have switched from what we used to think as of the norm, what impact do you see that having on society and on men themselves?
Andreas W.:
So for one there are enough men stepping up to the plate and saying, “I want to support my wife.” Unfortunately society is still not at the point to accept this stepping up. You get so many-
Greg Stebben:
Or we’re confused by it.
Andreas W.:
We are confused by it.
Greg Stebben:
Yes.
Andreas W.:
We don’t see men as being able to nurture kids. We don’t see men being able to run the household. And that doesn’t mean all men who support the wife have to stay home. About 90% of the people, men who support their wives are business owners themselves, they work, they work half time, they have their own businesses. So I’m not asking for men to stay home and being this stay home mom all the time, but just to be more… Someone has to step back. You can’t have both careers full-blown while the kids are still young and need the attention.
Greg Stebben:
Part of what you’re talking about here is balance. Now, it may work in a relationship without children to have both partners going full steam ahead on a career. But once you introduce children, obviously the balance in the relationship between everyone in the family changes. And you’re saying one member of the family should step back and make balancing life with the family a priority. In your case that was your wife as going full steam ahead with her career and you took on the role as the balancer in your family. What happens if we don’t take that approach and have one of the partners take that role as the nurturer?
Andreas W.:
Somehow all partnerships take this approach, someone is always stepping back if consciously or unconsciously. You always have, you can’t support both careers the same way. If we talk about relocation’s, suddenly one partner gets a great job opportunity with kids or without kids in another country, and now we have to make the decision, do we relocate the whole team to be split up? So many times when you see a relationship that don’t work out really well, they have not discussed it ahead of time.
Greg Stebben:
Sounds to me like there’s two pieces to this. It’s probably a lot more but two jump out at me, planning and communication.
Andreas W.:
Yes. And that’s the vital part on my book is about exactly how can we plan, how should we communicate? What play rules do we have? It’s for us, when we started this journey, we just fell into it. We did not discuss it. But over the way we started to say, “Okay. How long do I stay home?” Or each time we had to relocate we said, “Do we really relocate now?” And we made our plans for it. We communicated it between us and also with the kids.
Greg Stebben:
As you were describing the scenario, for instance, relocation and one partner gets a job in another place and the other part. If you haven’t planned and communicated in a sense part of the puzzle here is also prioritization. We acknowledge that one of us has the career that we’re going to give the bulk of our support to. So if there’s for instance, a relocation opportunity and one spouse demands that you go or partner, and the other partner doesn’t really want to, and you haven’t prioritized, planned and communicated, that’s going to have a really erosive impact on the relationship. Because you’re either going to go and one partner’s upset, you’re not going to go, one partner’s upset. And there’s just going to be, among other things, a lot of resentment.
Andreas W.:
Yes, and this is even a problem not just between when the female is working or the main breadwinner, but that’s for all partnerships.
Greg Stebben:
Right. I don’t think these aspects are really… it doesn’t matter which-
Andreas W.:
Gender-
Greg Stebben:
… partner it is that’s working. What’s different here is that society is shifting so more and more it could be the woman, not necessarily the man. And that’s really where you’re stepping in with your book Lean On.
Andreas W.:
Yes. And you see those problems like how society is reacting to it with simple tasks like when you sign up your kids for school, the first contact information they always call is the mom.
Greg Stebben:
Mother.
Andreas W.:
And there is no field to check mark first contact the dad.
Greg Stebben:
Yeah or primary.
Andreas W.:
Primary contact the dad.
Greg Stebben:
So in an emergency you can see what a problem that is because if you’re the person they should be calling and it’s an emergency and they lose five minutes, that could be an essential five minutes.
Andreas W.:
I had this happening to us, it was not a big emergency. Our son was going down the slide and he suddenly had wet pants because it rained before. And he was sitting in the office for over an hour because they tried to call my wife to bring change of clothes. I was home just five minutes away from the school.
Greg Stebben:
But they never moved to the secondary contact?
Andreas W.:
They never moved on to call me until my son said, “You have to call my dad. Mom is in an airplane.” So those little things show where society is still lacking behind.
Greg Stebben:
And it’s funny when you say those little things, they’re actually not little things. Or each of them is a little thing, but there’s millions of those little things. So making this transition to the lean on world, it’s not going to happen overnight because there’s going to be lingering impacts like forms at schools.
Andreas W.:
It is. And it will take a few more generations. But I see how it is natural for my kids now, how they grow up, how for their normal is dad is the person taking care. And they don’t think even, “Why should it be different?” Also, their friends don’t understand the change sometimes. Like it was one day on the weekend, the kids always came over and my son said, “No. I don’t want to play. Mommy’s home.” And they started to tease him at school, “Why don’t you want to play with us because mom is home?”
Greg Stebben:
They don’t understand that mom’s not home that often.
Andreas W.:
Mom is only home on the weekends, sometimes two or three weeks not at all. So for him it was important, but he needed to explain it to his friends. And that’s a lot to ask. And even the moms from the other kids did not know how to act with this situation.
Greg Stebben:
So it seems to me that there’s a very large ambition behind the book you’re writing. I’m talking with Andreas Wilderer, his company is GLOBULARiTY. It’s GLOBULARiTY.com the book is called Lean On, a response, a gender specific response to Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In. The ambition of your book is very, very large because there’s the logistics of life that needs to change, like the example in the school. But I think first that shift has to come in people’s minds so we’re not stuck with that expectation that it’s mom who takes care of the family and takes care of the kids.
Andreas W.:
Yes. So this shift has to come from society. It has to come from everybody, and not only those people that are involved in those situations because there are enough men who do it. We have the largest numbers of female graduates. So this is coming more and more, and more female young startup businesses than men start up businesses right now. So there are enough men supporting already, but they are stepping back in the shadow, they don’t see themselves and they don’t see an open community for this problem to discuss with others.
Greg Stebben:
Yeah. Fascinating. I want to change gears a little bit Andreas and talk about your company GLOBULARiTY. Tell me about it.
Andreas W.:
GLOBULARiTY is we do strengths finder coaching and we deal with focus on adaptability. So we say that AQ, the adaptability quotient is going to replace IQ and EQ. And how can we use our strengths to improve our AQ and to be prepared for all the changes, digital revolution, society changes like women going back to work? How can we as individuals adjust to that?
Greg Stebben:
And in your coaching with clients, what do you find are the biggest discoveries and the biggest challenges for them?
Andreas W.:
The biggest challenge is first to admit that there is the need to change. They don’t proactively go into change. And most of the times people see change and are afraid of it, instead of seeing the opportunity. Each change brings opportunity for them.
Greg Stebben:
In your working with clients, do you find that that resistance to change, is there a generational aspect to it? Are there generalizations to make about how at different ages people become or are more or less resistant to change?
Andreas W.:
I think-
Greg Stebben:
You know what? It’s a millennial question. Are millennials more-
Andreas W.:
The millennials are way more about change or they are more open to it. Because they’re all ready, I think questioning the existing rules way more.
Greg Stebben:
So if it’s a millennial thing, it’s also not a millennial thing. Which is the rest of us, and I would guess as we age we get more resistant to change for a lot of reasons. One of which is, I’ve been doing this a long time and it’s worked, why should I change? Or I’m afraid of it because this has become so comfortable for me.
Andreas W.:
It is. And I think the biggest change for us is the digital revolution for people that are our age. We are used to slow changes. Like how long did it take from the first cell phone to where we are right now? And millennials have started with a way faster change of revolution and so they are used to doing that.
Greg Stebben:
Who do you see as the sweet spot of your clients? Can you describe the perfect person who would get the greatest benefit from contacting you for this kind of coaching?
Andreas W.:
Actually there is no perfect sweet spot. If you are the millennia, you want to maybe contact me to be thinking actively about it and not just acting by your guts. And if you are not the millennial, you maybe need someone to ask the right question, how can you prepare for those changes?
Greg Stebben:
So in a fast changing world, like the one we’re in, everybody should be thinking about adaptability and being as fully prepared for it, and embracing it as possible. And coaching is going to be a big part of being successful at that.
Andreas W.:
If you want to be successful in the future, you need to see the changes as opportunities. And only if you really are adaptable to it and embrace your strengths, you can benefit from the changes. Otherwise you’re just rolling over and probably you need to be afraid of the change then.
Greg Stebben:
So your fear of change is actually justified because you’re going to be a victim of it?
Andreas W.:
If you are always lagging behind and you change only because you’re made to change, you’d miss a lot of possible businesses.
Greg Stebben:
Very interesting. He’s Andreas Wilderer, his company is GLOBULARITY. G-L-O-B-U-L-A-R-I-T-Y dot com, GLOBULARITY. His upcoming book Lean On. Andreas, thank you so much for joining us.
Andreas W.:
Greg, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for listening to this Encore podcast presentation from Forbes Books at ForbesBooks.com.
