Aug. 18, 2026

Why Companies Don’t Fail from Lack of Talent, But Broken Systems

Show Notes
Transcript

This episode with transformation leader Juergen Dauk explores why outdated management systems hold organizations back. Discover how command-and-control leadership, excessive meetings, activity-based KPIs, and hustle culture create friction. Learn how to build a 21st-century operating system focused on outcomes, value flow, faster decisions, accountability, and AI-ready ways of working—helping organizations execute better, move faster, and thrive in the AI era.

Beyond Confidence is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Beyond Confidence TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).

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This is Beyond Confidence with your host, Divya Parikh. Do

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connect with Divya at contact at divyapark.com. This is Beyond Confidence,

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and now, here's your host, Divya Park.

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Good morning. It's Tuesday, and of course, I'm thrilled to

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be here with you all. And just want to share

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got our books, especially the most recent one, the AI Agency,

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because AI is here to stay. And not only that,

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AI is also coming for the corner office. It was

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first we were talking just about the layoffs, but now

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we are finding that a lot of CEOs are being

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booted out of companies. So if you're looking to stay

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at the front edge of AI, and you're ready to

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keep your soul, then this book is for you. So

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thank you to those who have picked our books and

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left us a review. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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And without further ado, let's bring in our guest, Malcolm Hergen.

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Thank you. Thanks. Really, really appreciate to be invited to

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the show. And yeah, welcome to all the listeners.

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Welcome. Thank you for that. So let me ask you this.

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Do you recall a moment from your youth or from

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any part of your life that left a very positive

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mark on you?

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That left a very positive mark on me. That is

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a very good question. I think what I always liked

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was when I was able to provide an environment where

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people could thrive. So An area that really still in

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my mind is when, you know, somebody left my team

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to join another company. And five years later, he called

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me up and said, look, I enjoyed working in that

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environment so much that I want to come back. I

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want to come back to the team, to the environment.

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And he said he believed that I was part of

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creating that environment where they could really do a fantastic

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job and enjoy time while doing a good job.

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Yeah, and that's powerful. And here's the thing. So many

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times we do hear, like if you look at different studies,

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that so many people leave their jobs because of their bosses.

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And to hear that somebody wants to come back to

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the company because of you, how rewarding that is. So

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tell us your journey into the corporate management.

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So, yeah. Originally, I started my journey as a techie.

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I studied microelectronics and wanted to become an inventor, a

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developer of great things. And then during university studies, I

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worked for a small software and hardware development company that

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was around the corner and was able to finance my studies.

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And Finally, I stayed for 12 years in that company.

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We grew from, I think, initially when I joined, we

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were 12 people only. And then when I left after

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12 years, it was a 150, 160 people company. So

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I learned a lot. And this was my start moving

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away from just tech. to seeing other business functions, and

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I moved then into sales, marketing, and operational leadership. So

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after those 12 years, I've seen a number of bigger

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and smaller companies. I've worked in companies as big as Oracle,

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massive company, but also for mid-sized tech companies in the

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range between, I would say, one and a half and 6,000 people.

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And I learned a lot during that journey. But what

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I've also seen is that most companies are struggling with

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the same things, you know, basic principles, and also with

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an organizational structure that is not really supportive of the

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great people that they are working with. So this is

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really now becoming my passion, really to work on helping

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companies to build better organizations where people can really thrive

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and have fun on the way. I'm really passionate about that.

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So you brought up a good point that most organizations

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keep on doing wrong things that are similar across different industries.

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So can you shed some light as to what are

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some of those things?

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Yeah, a classical one is An organization that is built

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like a machine, the classical matrix or siloed organization where

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you have a global sales function, a global marketing, a

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global customer success, a global product development arm. And they

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have different KPIs. And instead of working together towards a

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shared vision, they're working against each other. They're blaming each

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other because they need to fulfill on their KPIs and

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KPI tracking becomes more important than really serving customers. And

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I think this is becoming even more relevant when you

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look at the recent development of AI, right? So I

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see a lot of companies under pressure implementing AI into

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their organizations and they are signing up for big AI contracts.

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But since the organization is not right and people are

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not really working together, they cannot figure it out themselves.

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So typically what I see is very minimal improvements with AI.

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And if you just imagine for a moment you would

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have a company that is more working like an organism

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instead of a machine, So you would really treat this as, oh,

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we have great people, now we are adding greater tools,

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so we should be able to build something amazing and

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to be really an amazing company. But instead, if you're

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just looking at, oh, I can save cost by implementing

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AI and I still keep this kind of structure that

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is not really a people-centric structure, where you don't trust anyone,

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you know, the benefits of AI will be minimal.

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You're absolutely spot on about that because if you're not

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fixing the foundation, no matter, let's just kind of take

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an example of a house. If you don't fix the

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foundation and no matter how strong of pillars, stainless steel

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pillars or anything that you're using, something happens, if the

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house is shifting or settling, things will go south. It

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will break. So the band-aid philosophy doesn't work. And most

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of the companies are definitely going there like, you know, oh,

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in the rush of being AI native, in the rush

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of being AI first. They're not looking at where to implement,

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how to implement. So you talked about something very powerful

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you said about working like an organism so going from

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silos to being that collaborative collective what is the path

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to that.

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So the number one in my view is having a

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shared vision so if you just have a vision that

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is marketing speech and doesn't doesn't inspire anyone it's worthless

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Plus also an inspiring vision makes it easier for people

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if you distribute decision making and give ownership to the people.

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It's hard if you are not clear, you know, how

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to decide. But if you have a vision that brings

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the people together, you know, this organism, then they can

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decide for themselves what's the best way to have our

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vision fulfilled. but therefore you need a guiding kind of

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a north star that is strong enough that you can

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move from this very stiff classical organization style to a

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more organism-like organization where people can make their own decisions,

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can drive things, on their own and have an idea

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where where to go right so in this process you

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cannot just simply say okay i i remove my old

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organization style and and throw a new one at them

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But you have to unite the people with a shared

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vision that people want to follow and that they are

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inspired by.

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Because they're all working towards the same common goal. There's

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a shared goal and it's not about that they're competing

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against themselves. It's more like, okay, let's say our target

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goal is to reach 20% increase in revenue. then it

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doesn't matter how many leads you're bringing in, if you're

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talking about sales and marketing, or how many closings you're having,

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how many customers you're retaining. What is your go-to-market strategy?

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What you're doing is you're pulling all the elements together

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to work towards that shared goal. In your experience, do

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you know of any actual existing companies that have achieved successfully?

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Well, there are internationally... a number of companies that have

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been really radical in how they think organization so one

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is a u.s based company they are the largest tomato

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processor in the world they're called the morning star company

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they've been founded in i think the late 70s of

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last century right and their founder had the idea or

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the concept to have absolutely no middle management. So what

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he did was he implemented a structure where all teams

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are self-organizing. So they make the decisions. There's no approval workflows.

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There's no overhead and no control in a classical way, right?

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There are measures So accountability doesn't move away, right? But

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the people in those teams, they are accountable for the results. And,

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you know, I personally, you know, I was fascinated when

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reading more into that, they have been an absolute, so

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when they started, everybody was thinking, this doesn't work, right?

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But reality is, Until today, they are the most successful

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company in their space. And other companies followed that, like

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a Chinese company called Heia. They have been in financial trouble,

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not doing well, so they brought in a new CEO.

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And this CEO restructured from a metrics organization towards a

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self-organizing team structure. where there's almost no middle management. And

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as a result, they did a fantastic turnaround, right? They

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are highly profitable now, and they took over the home

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appliance business of GE, home appliance, General Electric. I mean,

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this is really proof that, you know, if you're building

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companies more around people than around processes and hierarchy and control,

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that the results will show up. And one thing I also,

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you mentioned revenue, right? I think most companies look at

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revenue as a goal. I believe revenue is an outcome

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of great people working towards a shared goal. It's not

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a goal itself, right? If you, like Amazon, if you're

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vision is to provide the best customer experience in the

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world right that is a goal and that goal will

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help you to grow and revenue will be an outcome

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and profit will be an outcome but it's not the

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goal in itself.

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Absolutely because unfortunately with the stock market in the u.s

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a lot of companies are thinking short terms that how

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did they perform every quarter And the reports are coming

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out and that seems to be the driver. But as

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you mentioned, that if we look for more towards a

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goal that addresses the causality, like, you know, for example,

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if you're not getting good customer service, people are going

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to be moving away from your company. So if you

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address that satisfaction and bring meaning to the employees, you

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are going to have increase in revenue as a side product.

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So we've talked about that as an example of what

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is wrong or what is not aligned in the companies. Now,

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talking about the alignment, so many companies, whether it's operations

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or even anything else, people keep on setting meetings. I

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keep on hearing from my clients over and over again

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that their biggest energy drain are the meetings. What are

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your thoughts on that?

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Yeah, 100%. And same happened to me. In my last

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corporate job, I was spending probably on an average week,

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25 hours minimum in alignment and reporting meetings, right? And

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I felt so useless, right? Because all the time I

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spent in those meetings and those meetings weren't really driving

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anything new not solving any customer issue not providing anything

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towards customers they were more collecting kpis right to report

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them upwards and then aligning on things that were not

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aligned but it was not working meetings towards something we

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want to build so that was really really frustrating if

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if i feel myself i'm i'm very busy but i

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feel like i'm not really contributing much to to the

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success of the company right because it's it's just reporting

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so for me this is really tough and and this

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is an element of as you mentioned if you're spending

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all your time in meetings If they would be productive

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and you would be sitting together to brainstorm on how

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to solve a problem, great. But if it's just to meet,

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to align and to report, it's frustrating.

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Yeah, absolutely. So what are some successful workarounds that?

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What it needs is a lot of courage because it

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needs to break the mechanism of competition. command control and

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fear-based leadership. So it really needs leaders to step up.

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And I haven't been always great at that, right? So

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it took a lot for me to say, no, less

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KPI calls and more, we go to a place, an

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offsite meeting for two days, We take our challenges, put

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them on the table, and we will not leave the

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room until we have an idea how to solve them

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collectively as a team because we all have different views. Nobody,

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not me, not any other manager, not any portion of

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the team would have the full view, the full picture,

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and nobody could develop a solution on their own. So

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really getting together, putting everything on the table, sorting it out,

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running a workshop on, you know, how could we do

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things differently and how could we solve together the most

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challenging issues that we have and then go away with

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a clear commitment, an idea how to solve that and

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a clear commitment of the team to do this together.

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I think that is the biggest change you could have.

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Absolutely. And one thing that you mentioned, and I've seen

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that with several of my clients, also that if you're

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going off-site, you're not being interrupted by your routine, whether

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it is Slack messages, emails, or Teams, whatever tool that

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you're using. And also there is that outcome that you're

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looking forward to, that we're not getting out till we

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get this resolved. So you're not just kind of pushing

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it off to the next meeting, next meeting, next meeting,

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because that continuity can create that dependency. So you talk

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about KPIs and outcomes and outputs. Tell us, how do

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you differentiate between them?

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Well, outputs are.

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You always mention that, you know, there is a focus

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on outcomes rather than output and KPIs.

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Yeah, 100%. So KPIs are good for measuring if what

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you're doing is bringing the results that you're expecting. So

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I think the right KPIs can be very, very helpful

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to understand are we on the right track. The difference

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between outputs and outcomes are outputs are how busy you are.

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Let's say your job is creating marketing materials, right? So

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if you are creating 200 pieces of content, you would

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have a very high output. If nobody's reading them or

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interested in that output, it doesn't matter because, you know,

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you've created output. Now, if you're more outcome-based, you could

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create five pieces of content, but they are real game changers, right?

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You spend a lot of effort researching stuff and you

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come up with something really meaningful and helpful, right? So

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on the one side, you could have very high output

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with a very low outcome because it's not the right

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thing you're doing, or you could do the right thing,

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be thorough about that, and produce a high outcome where

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customers or prospects say, look, this is really great. and

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we trust you, and we want to work with you.

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So this really, the difference output is being busy and

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producing a lot of something, and outcome is you're getting

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closer to your shared goal.

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Absolutely. And that goes back again to the heart of

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those meetings where you're reporting, oh, yeah, I did this,

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did this, did this, because the focus is on those KPIs,

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KPIs that don't matter. So As you're talking, what you're

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having organizations go towards is taking that shift, that rather

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than just focusing on busy KPIs and busy outputs, start

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with the outcomes. And that goes back to what you

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mentioned earlier. Rather than talking about the revenue, talk about

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we are going to be the best customer service.

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Yeah, or whatever else your original vision was. If you're

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producing video conferencing software, it might be we are bringing

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people together as if they would be sitting together in

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a room or whatever your vision, original vision is, right?

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But a vision is, revenue is not a vision.

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Yes, absolutely. And So tying everything together, what we are

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saying over here, if I'm hearing you correctly, is that

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if companies were to focus on the outcome that are purpose-driven,

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which are anchored in the experience they're providing to the customers,

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then everything else falls into place.

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Yes, strongly believe in that. And on top, I think

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that would make implementing... AI much easier.

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Absolutely. So now you talk about the leadership operations. We

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have touched on a few things. What are some of

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the other things that companies can put into place so

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that it brings in accountability along with engagement and success?

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Yeah, so I start with In my book, I start

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with the original vision and take a look at, you know,

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the people. So an internal view, what people do we need?

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How do they work best together? And, you know, look

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also beyond the hard skills of, oh, there's somebody with

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20 years experience in this area. But what are the

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personality traits of that person? of that individual, right? Are

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they more analytical or are they more creative? You know,

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what type of person do I have and in which

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role would they flourish the most? Then I also take

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a closer look and this is, I think, fascinating. You

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would think that most companies understand their ideal customer profile very,

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very well. Now, from my experience, that is not the case.

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So an ideal customer is not the customer you wish for,

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but it's the customer that has the most benefit out

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of your product or service. They love it. So they

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are your ideal customer. And what I see a lot is, oh,

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we need a better ideal customer profile, more data is collected,

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and Data is only one portion, right? You can build

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up avatars on the basis of that. But if you're

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not talking to your customers, right? How do you know

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your assumptions are right? So what I see a lot

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is that you have huge data sets on customers and prospects.

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And millions are spent on analyzing that. But there's no

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time and money to talk to your customers. Which is

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kind of funny, but an absolute reality that I'm seeing.

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Yeah. And one would think that it's a simple thing

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that people would know that when you talk to them,

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understanding them, what are their pain points? What are their dreams?

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What are their fears? What are some of the hurdles

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that they have faced before with the other brands? What

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are the desires? What do they want? And that goes

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back to the heart of what you said, that it's

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about making the customer happy, who's most happy with your product,

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because a happy customer will share.

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Yeah, 100%. And sometimes it's also how are they using

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our product or service? our assumption might be totally wrong.

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If I'm selling you something, you might like the product

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or service, but maybe the way you consume is totally

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different from my original assumption. So I better learn on

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why you feel this is of value to you.

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00:27:24.119 --> 00:27:28.779
Absolutely. So now we've talked about our customer experience. Coming

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back to you are a huge proponent for investing in people.

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And I'm totally 100% behind that because when you invest

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in people, they definitely rise up to the challenge. Now

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that said, there can be issues in hiring. So what

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00:27:52.250 --> 00:27:56.269
are some of your experiences and hiring the right.

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Talent so one is they have to love what they

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are doing right if if people just come for the

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money and and don't enjoy the role then it's it's

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a difficult thing i also think if if you're just

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looking at past experience and not at not spend a

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great deal of time on finding out what their talents are.

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So are they good at communicating or are they better

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in analyzing numbers, right? Then really finding that out, understanding

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your candidates and then putting them in the right role.

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I remember I've made a mistake in the past where I,

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you know, I was looking... for a sales manager right

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and that person was very bright person he understood our

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solutions immediately in the first conversation so I was I

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00:29:05.799 --> 00:29:09.859
was fascinated right he could tell me immediately the ins

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and outs of our solutions he had done his research

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00:29:13.140 --> 00:29:21.880
he was ambitious and very talented and bright guy but

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What I overlooked is he was not a people person.

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So having him in a customer-facing role was absolutely the

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wrong thing to do. People didn't want to to work

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with him. He was much better in understanding things quickly,

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so I should have hired him for an internal role,

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but not for a customer-facing one. And this is something

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I figured out later on, and You know, there was

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00:30:01.660 --> 00:30:06.130
big regret because he didn't feel comfortable in his role

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00:30:06.230 --> 00:30:11.089
because he was not successful. And, you know, my expectations

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00:30:11.170 --> 00:30:17.059
on him were tough because he just couldn't become successful

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00:30:17.190 --> 00:30:18.980
in what he was supposed to do.

377
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:25.140
Then how did you deal with that situation?

378
00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:31.619
So we had a long conversation and... I remember that

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00:30:31.700 --> 00:30:36.519
meeting vividly. It was locally, we were sitting in a

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room and he felt uncomfortable because he knew he was

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not delivering what was expected. So, but he was expecting

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00:30:48.470 --> 00:30:52.269
me to blame him and to criticize him. And I said, look,

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what I realized is, so things are obviously not going

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00:30:57.289 --> 00:31:03.470
the way we both want. And what I see is

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00:31:03.490 --> 00:31:08.339
you have big talents in this area, but you're not

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00:31:09.059 --> 00:31:13.220
that talented in the other area. And there's no value,

387
00:31:13.519 --> 00:31:17.539
you know, there's not higher value in one or the other.

388
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But I think you're completely in.

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00:31:20.579 --> 00:31:21.279
The wrong role.

390
00:31:22.180 --> 00:31:25.819
And I know you've been in similar roles before, but

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my personal view is you don't enjoy it, you're fighting hard,

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and you'll never be a superstar in your role. And

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it took a bit for him to take that on.

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And so we have been discussing that for about an hour,

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and then we agreed to meet again after a week,

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Why Companies Don’t Fail from Lack of Talent, But Broken Systems

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