Joris Merks-Benjaminsen

You create a new style of leadership in an organization only with a holistic approach, applied consistently. That starts with the fundamentals: the five Brilliant Basics of Managing Without Power practically show how to apply moral leadership every day, building teams and organizations that operate based on trust and intrinsic motivation.

Inclusion is not waving a pride flag, or symbolically hiring more women and minorities. Inclusion must be the “default setting” of your organization. That means the principles are embedded in everything you do as a manager and leader: how you hire people, how you run meetings, the example you set, how you make decisions about pay and progression and more. Only then will you create an environment where all types of people can be successful in their own way.

Creating space to do the right thing with moral and servant leadership

Leaders often ask how to get people on board with change. That assumes they don’t want to. That is usually incorrect. In fact, people try to change all kinds of things about the organization. But they bump into walls when they try to do “the right thing,” for the customer, for teamwork, for the world long term. We have enslaved organizations to the KPIs by which we optimize them. With Managing Without Power, managers learn to lead with data, mind AND heart.

The most frequently asked question about Organizational Transformation is “how do I transform an organization?”. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong question: one that leads to top-down change programs and an organization that quickly becomes tires of changes. In fact, organizations are constantly in multiple transformations simultaneously. You can only do that successfully if you know how to intrinsically motivate people to push the boundaries of the organization themselves. You get an organization that constantly reinvents itself from the inside out. This requires a new kind of leader.

‘A manager once said to me: I am performance-oriented, you are people-oriented. That’s not possible at all, because people perform at their best when you invest in them and create an environment where they can be impactful in their own way.‘

Organizations that think they can create a high performance culture by introducing strict performance reviews usually end up in a “survival of the toughest” culture where mostly people with thick skin and sharp elbows survive. Then, by definition, you are not high-performing, that would only happen if 90% of your people are their best selves.

Setting a high bar starts with investing in your team. The more you invest, the higher you get to set the bar and the more you get back from your team. It’s all about the balance between humanity and accountability.

Joris knows despite commercial and political pressures in organizations, as a manager and leader how you can create the space for your team to do the right things. He became one of Google’s highest scoring managers through this approach and helped many large organizations with breakthroughs in transformations.

Joris offers both painful and enlightening insights into the forces that keep us from doing the right thing in large organizations. He makes you smile at your own inabilities and opens the door and provides concrete tools to do things differently.

Joris makes sensitive issues open for discussion, makes the unconscious visible and creates space for all perspectives. He helps you to manage in your own unique way without power, keeping an eye for people as well as organizational objectives.

As an experienced workshop facilitator, Joris helps groups of managers and leaders reflect together, engage in conversation, find barriers align principles actions.

With an intensive intake in advance, leadership and management principles are placed in the context of your own organization.

“Making the world a little more beautiful, leaving it in a better shape I found it. That is about past and future, but I also want to be in the here and now doing something for people.

For good in my field means helping formal leaders build teams and organizations that truly add something to society, and where people experience their work (life) as enjoyable and meaningful.”

“As a manager and leader for many years, I have been a buffer for my team, creating space despite high commercial and political pressures. Space for all types of people to be their best selves and to do the right things. Now, with my books, trainings, workshops and lectures, I help as many managers and leaders as possible to do the same for their teams and organizations.

By the way, a word I like to stay far away from is “inspire,” because just by inspiring you don’t improve the situation. In fact, an “inspiration shot” can be deceptive. It can maintain the illusion that leaders are changing the organization, while words are not backed up by actions. Then I miss my goal of actually getting managers and leaders into action mode.”

“Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two founders of Google. Even though Google is now often criticized, about being too powerful, I think there has rarely been an organization that has managed to guard its mission and culture for so long despite commercial success and the size of the company. That has everything to do with the powerful convictions of these two founders.

It was inevitable that there would also be downsides, as a large organization eventually takes on a life of its own. So, it is also good that the power of the company should be critically examined. But the scale and duration at which these two managed to keep their idealistic vision afloat is, in my view, unprecedented and still inspires me.”

“That was always martial arts, judo among others, but unfortunately that is no longer possible. I now consciously work less to give my wife Claire the space she deserves to develop as she wants. I still exercise a lot, in my home gym to stay fit and I play the guitar, just like my mother did.

I also spend time with my children, where I try to teach them about sustainable living with a diversity of people. And writing books also makes me happy of course; ‘Managing without Power’ is my sixth and who knows, maybe there will be a seventh!”