Open Door Conversations

Ep 90: Creating High-Performing Teams with Trust and Empathy Joris Merks-Benjamin

Episode Summary

Creating a high-performing team that is also human and inclusive is possible! Listen as Akua talks with organization transformation expert Joris Merks-Benjamin about how to balance high-performance standards with inclusivity and humanness in the workplace. Formerly Head of Google Digital Academy, Joris became one of the highest-scoring managers of all time. After 12 years with Google, Joris has recently gone freelance and developed the Managing Without Power program. He is an award-winning author of several books, his newest being “Managing Without Power.” In this episode, Akua and Joris talk about the importance of trust, empathy, and communication and how to create a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Learn why the best teams are based on trust and psychological safety and how leaders don’t need the power to be effective, but they need to empower their team.

Episode Notes

Creating a high-performing team that is also human and inclusive is possible! Listen as Akua talks with organization transformation expert Joris Merks-Benjamin about how to balance high-performance standards with inclusivity and humanness in the workplace. 

Formerly Head of Google Digital Academy, Joris became one of the highest-scoring managers of all time. After 12 years with Google, Joris has recently gone freelance and developed the Managing Without Power program. He is an award-winning author of several books, his newest being “Managing Without Power.”

In this episode, Akua and Joris talk about the importance of trust, empathy, and communication and how to create a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Learn why the best teams are based on trust and psychological safety and how leaders don’t need the power to be effective, but they need to empower their team.

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Highlights in this episode: 

• Joris talks about his pivot from a marketing space to learning and development and how he created his own opportunity.
• Learn about how instructional design gets adults to learn by doing, leading to actual behavioral change. 
• Joris talks about how, in a large company, balancing the performance elements and human elements is the only way to get a genuinely high-performance organization.
• The two discuss inclusion and diversity, Joris being raised by a lesbian couple, and how intentionality is essential in order to measure progress and enact DEI on a large scale.
   

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

• Ep 71 - Learn Akua’s 3-step framework
• Book: Think and Grow Digital: What the Net Generation Needs to Know to Survive and Thrive in Any Organization
• Book: Online Brand Identity: The Ultimate Guide to Designing Your (Digital) Branding Strategy
• Book: Intergratie Van Schizofrene Online- en Offline Marketing  (Dutch)
• Book: Managing Without Power (Dutch)
  
   

Connect with Joris Merks-Benjaminsen:
Website: www.managingwithoutpower.com
LinkedIn: @Joris Merks-Benjaminsen 
Twitter: @jorismerks

Connect with Akua Nyame-Mensah:
Instagram: @akua_nm
Website: www.akuanm.com
LinkedIn: @akua Nyame-Mensah
Twitter: @akua_nm
Get the secrets to break burnout and overcome overwhelm weekly: www.akuanm.com/newsletter
Work with Akua one-on-one: www.akuanm.com/work
Hire Akua to speak at your organization: www.akuanm.com/speaking