PostdocTransformation show for scienctists leaping into business
Get to know companies which hire people with a doctor title
Episode 0048 Shownotes
In this episode of the PostdocTransformation show, Christina Bösenberg shares her journey from organizational psychology to be a managing director at the Boston Consulting Group, BrightHouse in Berlin, Germany. She's an advisory board Member (AI-transformation, strategy, people), sought-after speaker and writer for the Handelsblatt and Focus, a LinkedIn top voice, an equity & inclusion lead and also a mom. As she hires and works with the brightest minds of your generation, listen to her highlighting the need for behavioral adjustments when transitioning from university to and corporate environments, e. g. when handling power dynamics, managing conflicts and leading teams. She shares about the challenges in building a cohesive workplace culture in times of AI.
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About our PostdocTransformation show
Invest in your PostdocTransformation. Welcome to the seasonal show for scientists leaping into business. In every sponsored episode, we are happy to recommend employers of choice for you. Make sure to check your readiness to leap out of science with us for free, as linked in the show notes. For your career transition, we offer customized career transition e-courses and memberships, also at graduate schools all over the world.
Maybe yours too. And if your university isn't yet our customer, enroll in your free email course for career transition made simple as linked in the show notes. I'm your host, Professor Dr. Eleonore Soei Winkels, with my team who is rooting for you. And let's build your PostdocTransformation with this episode.
[00:01:08] Meet Christina Bösenberg: AI and Future of Work Expert, Managing Director at the Boston Consulting Group, BrightHouse.
Eleonore:
I'm absolutely honored to have Christina Bösenberg with me. I found her because I was looking for an AI expert in consulting. She's responsible at Boston Consulting, for AI transformation, strategy, people, diversity, and also as a huge advocate for female leadership. She actually studied organizational psychology in Hanover, and then she also did her Harvard advanced program for leaders and she gained experience also in consulting EY (Ernst & Young) and also at corporates like Siemens and Kienbaum. And Kienbaum is the top address also for students like mine because they study business psychology.
I want to share her view also on the topics that are dear to the heart of my students.
During the Corona years, she also created her own podcast, which is Transformation Universe. I love the term transformation, as you can see also here on the picture, she's also an advocate for the prefrontal cortex, and that should also ring a bell for my own students.
So, today she's at Boston Consulting. She'll be talking about the Bright House. She's a managing director and she's overlooking a wide range of business functions. For example, strategy, business innovation, digital transformation, large scale restructuring, digital transformations. Across functions like finance, sales, marketing, operations, governance, and of course, HR and people, and always with a human centric touch.
And she's not doing that in a void. No, she is also a business influencer and a sought after speaker and writer also. And you can find her in the Handelsblatt and also Focus.
Without further ado, Christina, this is your stage!
Christina Bösenberg:
Thank you so much for the intro. Yeah, happy to be here. In our pre-conversation we also found some interlinkages and some interesting topics that we both share. I'm happy to talk.
[00:03:08] Understanding Brighthouse and Its Role in the Boston Consulting Group
Eleonore:
So, can you explain a little bit more about your role at BrightHouse Boston Consulting? What is BrightHouse doing within the BCG world?
Christina Bösenberg:
Good question. Brighthouse is indeed a 100 percent subsidiary of Boston Consulting, acquired 15 years ago, and it specializes in people engagement, organizational activation, and purpose, and of course the whole implementation work stream of all three pillars. So that means, putting people at the heart of every transformation and also every restructuring cost transformation and in AI or digital transformations where you predominantly thought or even think today that is more technical, we need to do the processes and structures here, yes true, and we need to include the people.
Eleonore:
And that really resonates a lot. Most of my listeners do not know what consulting is and I already had an episode on consulting as such, but that was more tech consulting.
[00:04:38] The Importance of People in Transformations
Eleonore:
I had a PhD in neuroscience and then I ventured out into IT strategy consulting and already shared my view that this is a great learning opportunity for people with a doctor title.
Do you think that this is just an anecdote? Is the Dr. title helpful or is it more a hindrance in consulting?
Christina Bösenberg:
Oh, that's a good question. I don't think a doctoral title is a hindrance. And neither is it an advantage.
It's always depending on your ability to focus on the right things and what are these right things. That's definitely very client centric and market centric, and it's more than a doctor title.
It's the ability to really get a sense for everybody you're working with and then come up with data expertise and deep knowledge about a subject matter. That's for sure very important and as you might all know, BCG is working with a lot of scientific institutions and we have the wonderful BCG Henderson Institute, who's doing a lot of research, especially in neuroscience, especially also in behavioral sciences and psychology.
And from my personal, perspective, this is hugely important. And my experience is it also convinces our customers very often. It's not about having a gut feeling and then developing a strategy, but having data and then developing a strategy based on data. And data can also be psychological data, data around behavioral sciences or data around, how the brain is functioning.
To be honest, even if we talk about deep tech transformations, and I did that at EY, for example, for many years before that at other consultancies, also at Lehman's and R& D, basic operational business, but in every transformation, no matter how technical they were, in the end, if there was any failure, and always because of the people, leadership behaviors and employee behaviors. If there is any failure, it's never due to technical issues or budget, of course, that's happening, but that can be overcome. If you have resistance or bad leadership behavior, it's not so easy.
Eleonore:
Absolutely agreed. Just to briefly mention, I also talk about intercultural competencies for change management, big transformation, I always tell my students, you need to have a due diligence that also comprises the human part, not just the tech, not just the business assets, not just the promising business models, and the supply chain that can be married, and everything is great.
But if the people do not work within it, If they work against the new system, then everything will fail.
Christina Bösenberg:
That's for sure. And we also have data for that a lot. Everybody knows the McKinsey data, 70% of all digital tech transformations fail, and BCG has the same data. I mean, we have of course researched that as well. 71% of all digital and tech transformations fail due to people behaviors.
That's what you're saying.
Eleonore:
Agreed. And you mentioned also Boston Consulting Henderson and all the other things that we want to make sure that we will link that in the show notes. So if you are interested, especially my own students, because that really should be, a bright future for you so that you can marry the people on the tech side.
Christina Bösenberg:
Yeah. And exactly what I've been doing for 10 years. For me, it's always a triangle and a three dimensional approach. And I'm fully with you. It's the three dimensional approach is also something that's close to the heart of Brighthouse and also BCG, which includes, of course, tech and IT or at the moment, AI as an enabler, super important as an enabler. Then second dimension processes and structures that can be an organizational design or architecture or whatever you name in supply chain setup. And then the third dimension is. the people and cultural dimension, and that includes behavior.
Eleonore: Okay. That is a reel in itself. And I will echo this in all my lectures, really.
Christina Bösenberg: Good!
Eleonore:
So now, the next question really is for my scientists who are leaping into business, you were talking a lot of buzzwords, AI, maybe also machine learning and something like that.
So are there any skills that they should already prepare upskilling while they are at uni, while they are still at the bench. You were talking about Siemens and R& D.
Christina Bösenberg: Yeah, you mean, you mean the postdocs or?
Eleonore:
Yeah, people with a PhD or even postdocs who maybe want to leap into business, do you think that there is something that they can upskill from from a today's point of view?
Christina Bösenberg:
Yes. Two things come to mind immediately. The first is, science is great. I love it. And you need to develop use cases out of science. So if we talk about AI, it's cool to have a nice tech or an algorithm that works well and implement the algorithm into a running system and enhance productivity or gain four hours a week like we do at BCG at the moment. That's all good. But you need to develop use cases that you can, in terms of consulting, sell to a client or offer a client or, make the world a better place with whatever you up to. I would definitely always have an eye on, yes, we have data, yes, we have scientific knowledge, and what does the world need? What do the organizations need? What's the benefit for society? What are the use cases, the practical, tangible use cases of those? Scientific data or knowledge that we are having, first thing.
Second thing, to be honest, is your own leadership behavior or your own behavior. I know universities and I get a lot of people from university directly or even at later stage, and that's a completely different ecosystem and don't get me wrong, there is zero judgment here. It's just different. So if you are entering the corporate world, the ecosystem, meaning the culture is totally different to your well known university ecosystems. I think it's good to be prepared for behavioral changes in terms of power and politics? How am I dealing with conflicts? Conflicts are dealt differently from my experience in the industry than in the scientific environment. How am I leading a team , how am I as a leader? What do I wanna convey? What's the culture I want to build up? Because it's not so easy to build up a cool culture. It's easy on paper, but it's not easy in reality because you're dealing with 20 plus people who are totally different than probably you're, or have different assumption of reality.
So, that's the second piece, first piece. Knowledge and science, wonderful, but create tangible use cases. What's the benefit for a potential customer or a potential system? And then the second is work on your own leadership behaviors and on your own, inner pictures of how you want to be perceived as a team member, a leader or whatever.
Eleonore: Wonderful. Another reel in itself, thank you. The needed adjustments in the professional identity is really something that you have to anticipate when you're leaping from the bench to industry into a business context where it's fast paced, where it really matters that you are there on point and not just reiterating everything.
Making informed assumptions & delivering high performance under time pressure
Christina Bösenberg:
Plus the time. You have to deliver. It's a high performance focus. You really have to deliver, not once a year or like, three times a year or whatever, but it's like spot on. You are talking to CEOs or to boards, spot on delivery. There is a question that you're not expecting, has nothing to do with this, with the issue you are talking about, completely different angle.
You need to answer that, without data, you still have to navigate. And we in German, we say fly on sight. And this is probably one of the big differences to science business.
Always, you don't have enough data, but you get a lot of questions or, challenges where you don't have enough data, where you only have 70 or 80 or 60 percent of the data you would love to have happens to me every day. But you need to answer it still.
Eleonore:
I'm opening records here for my students, that is, really the reason why I'm saying you have to be able to make informed assumptions.
Christina Bösenberg: Exactly.
Eleonore:
Based on models, theory or concepts, even if you don't know all the data, which will be always the case, you have to make a reasonable judgment on what could be happening and then from there on have a scenario A, B or C based on what is most realistic.
So this is especially for my students. Hopefully you have listened now, and if not, rewind. Thank you, Christina.
[00:16:05] The Future of Work and AI's Impact
Eleonore:
Okay, now over to my next question. I think that BCG is always at the forefront of being at the what is new? What is the future of work?
And you are also future of work expert. From your organizational psychology point of view, what are the biggest opportunities for growth in your industry?
Christina Bösenberg:
That's a great question. Let's talk about AI first. We have been implementing AI, large language models, since minute one. Of course, we are always very curious on what new on the market.
We have to be trend scouts because our clients want us to be trend scouts. They want to know how the future will develop, how markets are developing, how products are developing. So we implemented AI and large language models, generative AI at very early stage, some of them even before they went to the broader market.
What I find as one trend the context of future of work is, profitability terms of efficiency. So we have research here in place where we can save four hours a week, only by using large language models, be it Gen AI or be it Gemini or other. It's an average of four hours a week so of course with your capabilities and competences, the efficiency is increasing and productivity is increasing.
It will be very interesting to observe this process also from a psychological point of view, because there's so many psychological or organizational psychological aspects that come with that.
Of course, everybody says, yes, efficiency is great. Yes. But what about, if you have constantly a experience, on a daily basis that the AI is so much smarter than you are, which we are having all day. So the answers are very often better. They're of course faster, more complex, more data in very short time.
And this is an interesting psychological challenge for many leaders, especially those who've been in place for 10, 20 years and consider themselves being a top expert and X, Y, Z, which they are, which they totally are. But then, they have to work with a great AI on a daily basis, I'm working with a gen AI, with several gen AI models and others, I think 30 times a day or something.
For me, it's not a big thing because I never perceived myself as a, Mega, top, super smart expert in whatever because my background is not in science. Of course, I have several Masters, but this is not the point.
The point is, but for those who are coming from a scientific background, this will be probably very interesting because the whole industry in professional services is extensively working with AI. So you will have this experience. So then there's this organizational, psychological questions,
Let's make a case. Of course I sanitize it, but I had a client request half a year ago to develop a global, pretty complex organizational architecture with a agile operating system. So an agile transformation, but also a org design that is, that was pretty revolutionary for that company. So normally I would have said, 10, 12 junior consultants or consultants on it, and they would have needed probably eight days to really come up with a model with 20, 25 roles and responsibilities, the interfaces and the committees where they meet and where they don't meet and define the interfaces, everything. The AI did that in two minutes. And, it was of great quality. Of course there has to be a senior expert who's reviewing it.
And of course you're not selling an AI product to a client, never. But, I mean, hey, this saves you so much time, also resources.
So next question, next to the personal feeling of, oh my God, this is so much smarter and faster than I am. It's, what are we doing with the free resources now?
What are we doing with the four hours or eight consultants or whatever? This is another challenge, not only in my company, but also in the whole industry that we are facing in terms of future of work and future settings.
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[00:20:09] Challenges and Opportunities in AI Integration
Christina Bösenberg:
You asked about the future, to summarize these AI aspects, we will probably face way more efficiency and way more productivity gains through AI, but there are also a lot of challenges for the cultural and people aspects that come with the AI.
Eleonore:
Like you say, I also have people in my team who do the podcast. I'm interviewing people like you and someone else is taking over the editing, but I can see AI features within my editing software that is doing that in minutes.
And I don't even have to oversee this a lot because it really is good enough. And I have already trained it. And I'm questioning myself, do I want to take another intern? Because that takes a longer time....
Christina Bösenberg:
Exactly, that's exactly what I said. Absolutely.
Eleonore:
And then the question is really, when we have this Fachkräftemangel, the people that are missing on the market who have these expertise, how should they get the expertise when they are in a competition with AI?
And no one maybe wants to give them the work so that they can train themselves. Because I don't have time to do that anymore.
Christina Bösenberg:
Same here.
And this is one of the challenges that I see for the future of work in terms of organizational psychology.
Eleonore:
Absolutely. And what do we do with the many people who are not up to the game of using AI in the good way not just consuming AI, but also writing the right prompts.
Christina Bösenberg:
Yeah.
Eleonore: What about the opportunities that you can have with AI and by marrying the different AIs.
Christina Bösenberg:
Exactly, you are mentioning the second big trend I wanted to make for the future of work, economy, because as you were a minute ago, I think for end of 2025, I'm assuming that we will have a lot of highly intelligent bots being a, let's say, a box where you have 20 different AIs running and you are only talking to the interface. And the interface or the AI, the algorithm, is deciding which AI he or she or it is referring to when it is operating.
That's the second big tech trend that I'm following. Seeing the bot, not necessarily bot economy, but that we will have a lot of bots that, and we have, we will have no clue which AI product is running or which model is running below the interfaces that we are talking to or having a conversation with.
Eleonore:
Yeah. And then from a technical point of view, it really is interesting that you have to understand the interface and what data goes from there to there and to make it seamless and everything. So the migration from data here to here and the insights that we need to derive based on the unstructured structured data, that really is where I want my students to have a look at, because tech is blind, tech is agnostic, if it's not led by the right questions, and the right questions need to be made by people.
Christina Bösenberg:
Yes. 100%.
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[00:24:44] The Future of Work and Technology
Christina Bösenberg:
And this is also the role I see getting more and more important in the future. People need to really catch up, not only with tech, but also with their own intelligence to be an expert on prompting and on steering the whole process and being in the orchestrator of it.
Eleonore:
If you are my student, then please know that at BCG, I have a couple of students. You can contact my students at BCG so that you can understand whether BCG is an employer for you, because I really do think that you need to be at the forefront of the people organizational change, but also that it is in a place where it's open to utilize tech. Not in every company, you will find that openness to have all right, three, so process in the middle and then the tech and the people side.
So now over to you again.
[00:25:38] Misconceptions About Consulting
Eleonore:
So misconceptions. Do you think that new career joiners or new company joiners who are new to consulting because they haven't had any industry experience, but also maybe lateral hires, do you think that there are some misconceptions about consulting that you want to demystify?
Christina Bösenberg:
That's a difficult question. At the same time, yes, there are, and people are different. The important note here is that many people, have friends or an ecosystem or a network, and they know that it's not a nine to five job or that the speed is high, the pressure is sometimes high.
The misconception is probably that everybody is a high flyer. Of course, there is a very intense interview process and very intense period of testing, being tested if you are able to create good use cases or to approach a process systematically and so on and so forth.
That's given. At the same time, we are all human, there is a lot of power play and politics and also emotions in play. It's pretty competitive internally. Yes, there is a great teaming as well at the same time and you do have teams and you do have common challenges and the joy that it brings if you are conquering a big challenge and you are , on the front line of a big client project that's for sure.
And if you win it, , but it's super competitive as well and it's super performance oriented.
[00:27:02] The Importance of Emotional Investment
Christina Bösenberg:
What I find even in highly smart people, and I get a lot of them, be prepared or ask yourself if you really want to work in a performance oriented competitive setting, not everybody is emotionally able to do that.
Eleonore:
Okay, that's a great heads up and I really do feel that I should invite you back to another episode that is really focused on organizational psychology and about performance based, measuring everything because that would really shed more light into what I'm also teaching,
I have my Accenture experience, but I'm very curious to know to understand what is the contemporary approach to that?
Because we have other tools, obviously. And I left Accenture years ago. That was not AI. And you probably have a better way on looking at it. And so I will probably invite you again.
[00:27:56] Female Leadership and Neurodiversity
Eleonore:
You are a woman and a managing director, and my students, as you probably know, most of them are female. So, I want them to also have relatable role models. And you are so inspiring.
So if possible, would you be able to also share your own career aspirations? I mean, from our pre discussion, I understand that you are also interested in neuroscience, but maybe there's something else where you think that you will have an impact in the world.
Christina Bösenberg:
Oh yes. Thank you so much for the great question, I have two main missions. I'm really, really committed to female empowerment and female leadership. So I'm trying every day to role model female leadership and to really focus on gender equality and bringing up high performing females, but also in terms of neurodiversity.
I recently published an article on neurodiversity because we have a very interesting new Harvard study. You might be aware of the Harvard study that says basically 20% of all people on the planet in every country, up to 20% are somehow Neurodiverse or whatever that is, dyslectic, autism spectrum, 20% is a lot. So for me, it. Isn't it normal, or do we need to talk about neurodiversity.
One of my missions is to really go to the workplace every day and not only promote, but to make sure that we have an environment where all kinds of diversity can flourish and can be successful. That's my mission. And that's also looking into the future. Something I would love to share more on stages or in advisory boards is, I'm convinced that we need a way closer interlinkage of politics, society, and economy.
For me, the huge gap and siloism between the economy, the industry, and our political system and our societies, it's dramatic and we could, benefit so much from a much closer interlinkage.
I would love to be part of some committees in the political world or in Verbänden, we would say in German, in the big German industry Verbände, where I could contribute as a female leader, 25 years on my back in the industry and transformations, digital transformations from minute one to 1999 started my career at Siemens.
So that would be part of a mission that I'm having. Female leadership, neurodiversity in the workplace as a new normal. And second, the interlinkage economy or industry and our political system.
Eleonore:
And I'm so glad that I have asked this because I really do think that a lot of my listeners are, or at least a lot of my guests are actually headhunters, CTO headhunters, something like that. And I'm very sure that I can share your episode with the right people.
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[00:32:40] Finding the Right Industry and Role
Eleonore:
Now, obviously this is the Postdoc Transformation Show.
And the first step of someone who is leaping into business, maybe is not looking for advisory roles, but instead is more like, finding the right industry, finding the right company and the role that. the current transferable skills that they can offer.
Okay, so that is one step, finding the right company industry and so on, can you share in your industry what are diverse and inclusive markers, because all of them, during the June month, say, "yes, we are LGBTIQ, Pride is everything". And then, obviously in August and September, it goes down. And for Mother's Day, it's always the same for women, et cetera.
Christina Bösenberg:
International Women's Day, don't forget.
Eleonore:
So it's like, wow, LOL. But what are the true markers where you say that, if you're not yet there, what are the indicators that one should look at?
Christina Bösenberg:
Yeah, thank you for that great question. You're totally right. Also, in terms of gender diversity or dimensions of diversity, look at the tangible diversity in the boards, but don't stop there.
Every big consultancy in our industry, be it the smaller, mid size or large ones, the big four, and also the big strategy houses, they have industry leaders, meaning that there's always a leader for the global or European industry sector, like transport logistics, tech and telcos, automotive, pharma, chemistry, so on.
Christina Bösenberg:
So, there's always a leader of those industry sectors. It's interesting to look at the boards, but with the quota, and with a huge wave of discussions and public awareness, Many have promoted one or even two women into boards. If you look at the industry sector heads, I know a lot of large and mid size consultancy where those are purely male and you find them on the internet.
If it's important for you to find a company that is pretty gender diverse, you should look at those as well. So industry sector leads, global, European, whatever, is interesting to you. And then also of course every committee that you can find online.
Advisory boards are better because we have a longer tradition with a quota here at least in Europe. That's something that, that I can definitely suggest and I would highly recommend to do that.
And then also you talked about finding the right industry sector for you.
I was listening closely when you talked about that. And my secret to this is, if you are brand new and if you're starting from scratch as a postdoc, I would recommend to really, scan the markets, get your data in place, and then also get your gut feeling what you are personally really interested in and fascinated with.
For me, this has always been tech. For others, it's consumer products and retail. For others, it's innovation in pharma. But really, please take a look at your gut feeling and in terms of passion, in terms of what you are really interested in.
And I even transferred that to my financial planning and my financial knowledge.
I'm investing in companies that I'm totally enthusiastic about, that have great leaders. For me also here, it's tech, AI, innovation, but for others it's different. I have a lot of friends who are investing consumer products, pharma, whatever. I don't, no judgment, but this is definitely a magic key because you need to have a emotional involvement in what you're doing.
If you don't have that, whoa, life is long. Your career will be long.
Eleonore:
Thank you so much, Christina, for this answer, dovetails nicely with many episodes when you say that if you're not emotionally invested then there's a spillover effect and everything is bad and you need the time off to exhale, but instead find meaningful work for yourself where you have the interest.
And the motivation and that is fulfilling as such so that it becomes more of a intrinsic motivation to work at that kind of workplace and also with the right people. Right? So I always love working in tech the same because tech is always fascinating. I love working with consultants because they are fast paced, they're open minded, they embrace the change.
It's not always like, "oh my God, we've always been doing this. Why should we change?" I don't want to drag people around. I don't want to push people around. I just want to run and I want to have people that are running with me.
And so you have to understand that and then you can find the right spot for you.
Christina Bösenberg:
Exactly. And people are different And it's totally okay to go into a mid sized company, German Mittelstand for example, and have a different pace. That's fully okay. Cool. Do that. It's just, you need to find your sweet spot.
Eleonore:
Absolutely. The intensity of a role for that career stage, that really is different. And sometimes when you're young or when you're unbound, you don't have any family or you don't have someone else to care, you can do this and you should do this while you are young, because later you will have so many other obstacles and also responsibilities.
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[00:39:11] The Value of Consulting Experience, especialy for scientists leaping into business
Eleonore: So what do you think are typical roles for someone who is new to the business, where that person can learn as much as possible in the quickest time possible?
Christina Bösenberg:
I would definitely advocate for not going into another research function or role, we have knowledge teams who are researching for us all day. I would suggest not. to join those. Of course, they are wonderful and great, and we need people there, but the point I want to make is take two to three years of your lifetime and invest them into becoming a consultant. The learning curve is steep, steep, steep. It's amazing. It's fascinating.
You are working with the smartest people that you have in your generation. You learn from A to Z, how to structure a project, how to systematically approach, a very complex situation. You learn a lot about special industries that you are choosing, obviously. You can also learn a lot about people, behavioral science, I would advocate for a two to three year period at least in consulting as a consultant.
And normally the big players and everybody I know actually have great onboarding processes. Of course I'm pretty sure that some people might refrain and be shy and say, well, I've no basic experience in the sector. Yes. And there are a lot of great onboarding programs, so you will learn how to deal with all of that. Hmm.
Eleonore:
Absolutely. And I just wanna echo the two to three years. Okay. So, two to three years. Because that really teaches you the business life cycle and to understand the name of the game and also the unwritten rules of the name of the game. Things change, but you will see patterns only when you have enough data.
And half a year, one year is not enough. It could be tough luck. It could be anything, and also be luck. But the thing is, after two or three years, you will see a pattern and then you can decide whether you want to do further of that or refrain from that.
Especially when you're moving as a lateral hire. So, you are not the youngest anymore. My bachelor students are 23 or whatever. So, the masters are a little bit older, but as a PhD, as a postdoc, you have more years under your belt. What you don't want to do is to switch to industry and stick around for just a year and then try to find a new job again.
That will be very difficult for you in every industry, not just consulting. So this advice is really important for everyone who is starting a new job. What I often see, is that people stick around for a year and then say, "I can't do this job. I don't want to do this."
On what kind of data do you base your decision? You have to have persistence. We have an employment problem at the moment, because people also don't have the attitude. But if you understand, and that goes back to what you just said, if you are emotionally interested, if you are invested, because your interest is at the workplace fulfilled, then that will give you the energy to stick around and to do whatever it takes to be successful, despite maybe the learning curve was too hard and you have to just put in some more effort.
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Work attitude
Christina Bösenberg:
Yes, and of course you have bad bosses, you do have bad behaviors all over the place, yeah, sure, of course, and not because people are intrinsically bad, or under pressure.
Everybody sometimes is not polite, but can be also like, can we get this done please? And I found that people, not postdocs or from university, but the generation is not always used to, a bit more pressure clarity in terms of, this wasn't enough.
We need to get this done. I'll tell you how, but, Yeah, straighten up.
Eleonore:
Yeah. And you must go and I cannot carry you.
Christina Bösenberg:
Yeah. And some people love that. There are a lot of people who understand, challenge as a great opportunity for personal development and professional development. This is the attitude that you probably are pointing to.
Eleonore:
Absolutely. And as you were also leaning into, that's the way to build self efficacy, right? To master experience, you have to master obstacles. And that means you have to put in the work.
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[00:44:25] Final Thoughts and Advice
Eleonore:
I have gained so much from our conversation, Christina, is there anything else that you want to share with us before signing off?
Christina Bösenberg:
Yes, one thing I always like to share as a female leader in an industry that is male dominated. I also have two kids, by the way, two teenagers at the moment. And, my advice for all females, but also for males at that point in time is take things a bit lighthearted. We had a pretty intense conversation and we talked about a lot of challenges and performance pressure and la la la.
All true and at the same time Easy does it. Easy does it. if you perceive everything as a problem, it will be a problem. And if you perceive, things like, yeah, I can do this and I will find a way. And of course I have two children, but yes, I can become an MD, no doubt. Take it a bit more lighthearted. That's it, basically. Take it more light hearted. Easy does it.
Eleonore: Okay, drop mic, LOL.
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So, you will earn money with us as we help you and your PhD besties to [00:05:00] transition into business. We can build our PostdocTransformation together.
So, we are at the end of this episode, and I would love to have you, PostdocTransformers, to contribute to future seasons. We have a PostdocTransformation show newsletter where we inform about upcoming episodes, or we lay out the planning for the next seasons so that you are able to forecast who you want to ask as well as role models, or maybe you want to ask a couple of questions certain guest that is upcoming.
This PostdocTransformation show was brought to you by Prof. Dr. Eleonore Soei-Winkels
Leveraging Podcasting for Internal Communication
Eleonore:
Hey, you're still here and you are a future HR or talent management leader. Well, I want to talk to you about a powerful tool that can transform the way organizations communicate internally. How about creating a podcast like this one in today's fast paced business world? Effective communication is the cornerstone of success, so how can you engage your employees, convey your company's culture and share knowledge in a dynamic, authentic, and accessible way?
Well, to me, the answer lies in podcasting, obviously. So picture this, a podcast tailor made for your organization, where you and your real employees and leaders share and updates in a conversational, engaging format. It's like having your own radio show, but with a corporate twist, absolutely branded.
Now, why should you consider this as a future HR and talent management professional? Well, podcasts are accessible, so your employees can tune in during their daily commute while multitasking off screen or walking, and it's flexible and it can be easily repurposed in different formats and languages.You know what I'm talking about, right?
So, it actually humanizes your organization and podcasts allow you to bring a company's culture to life. You can interview leaders, team members, and highlight what makes your workplace unique and connect with those team members who are far away or on parental leave when they are most receptive for your internal communication.
And in the era of AI generated communications, a podcast with your business leaders in real life is a real human way to reach your employees. You can inform your people every day, everywhere, on demand, and not just during the typical onboarding and promotion seasons.
Lastly, it's a platform for continuous learning, whether it's training materials, leadership insights, or industry trends. Podcasts keep your team informed and inspired. So as you prepare to step into the world of HR, talent management and leadership, consider the impact you can make by introducing a corporate podcast.
It's a game changer for internal communications and aligns perfectly with a modern work environment. So, are you ready to inform with a human touch create a podcast with me. I'm Eleonore Soei-Winkels, the host of the PostdocTransformation Show. Do you need inspiration? Well, you can get a list of free 30 sample episode titles to be customized for your company.
Thank you for reading our full transcript of this episode.
For season 3 & 4 of the PostdocTransformation show, we will interview industry experts, leaders in the corporate world, but also companies serving early career scientists leaping into business.
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Until the next episode,
Cheers,
Eleonore & Team PostdocTransformation
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