Susanne Müller Zantop is founder and president of CEO Positions AG and an expert in positioning with a focus on executive performance. CEO Positions creates strategic campaigns with executives to strengthen corporate positioning, which leads to an increase in reputation. The consultant is a passionate high-altitude mountaineer and has already climbed several eight-thousanders. She lives in Zurich and Berlin.
Does authenticity exist in its pure form?
Nowadays, people like to use the word authenticity in connection with managers. Has the word become overused?
Today, people's reputation is judged according to three criteria. One is performance. That's the whole world of numbers, the left side of the brain.
Then there's the social skills side, and that's where reliability is important. Are you a friendly person? Can people count on you? Do you have a social conscience?
And the third is the expressive side. How strongly do you show yourself to the outside world with what you can do? And that is extremely important, especially for people at the top, because they are 40% of the company's reputation. But it's also very important for the rest of us. With this expressive side, authenticity comes into play.
What are your tips for everyday life? Or how can you maintain self-determination or your own identity in an environment like large companies or organizations?
The important thing is to keep your feet on the ground. And there we are already with the body and what we can do physically when we find ourselves in an exposed situation. Then we often have to take heart. Keeping our feet on the ground and taking heart before making decisions means sleeping, eating, drinking, doing Pilates or yoga, breathing. And before performances you can learn to locate the fear in your body, give it a color, describe it, feel your feet, again breathe and drink, do a ritual beforehand that you always do. And I'm also a big fan of taking a little talisman with you.
Today, people's reputation is judged on the criteria of performance, social competence and expressive side.
Today, people's reputation is judged on the criteria of performance, social competence and expressive side.
Often the topic is also setting boundaries, because of course you can no longer be Everyone's Darling above a certain hierarchical level. How do you learn that?
Ursula Wagner has the Coaching Center in Berlin. And she has been asked by one of the very big German business newspapers to develop an online course for them. And they offered her 1,000 euros for the entire course development, which the newspaper can then keep forever and do advertising and business with. And Ursula said: that's a joke, isn't it? And she didn't do it.
To be able to set yourself apart in that situation is an enormous achievement. When such a big brand inquires....
Do women find it easier or more difficult to appear authentic, to distinguish themselves, to find contact with themselves?
There is a lot to be said for the fact that it is easier for women because they are often closer to their bodies. And as I said, standing on your feet, feeling your heart - that's the body issue, which is why women find it easier to behave authentically. What's great in mixed teams is that women then often make the first move, crack open the windows, ask for the break. And that is very helpful for everyone.
Women in top positions are still rare. What do you think is the reason why this leap from middle management with a relatively high proportion of women to the top of the company is rarely successful?
A colleague, Fabienne Meier at Knight Gianella, has done a whole study on this together with the IMD. It confirms that many women are not prepared to pay the price of a career. And that made me think that the price is not so high if we play it smarter by setting the right priorities in the criteria for reputation.
Now we switch to the private side of you. You are an enthusiastic mountaineer. Where does this passion come from?
These traits, I believe, are in your DNA. I'm extremely perseverant. And for me, in high altitude mountaineering, actually the experience of the death zone is also extremely important, because it gives so much depth and humility, for yourself. It's very hard to express that with words.
That's something you have to experience and not necessarily understand, right?
That is also almost a bit incomprehensible to you, because you are then only such a collection of molecules. So you don't have an ego or anything. But you have a very strong survival instinct and you are like that in your basic functions. That's a great experience. I try to transfer that to business as well.
This is a classic frontier experience. We are talking about Mount Everest, 8848 meters high, and Cho Oyu, 8188 meters.
This year I failed in a classic way. We were in Pakistan and wanted to climb Karakorum 2 (K2), another eight-thousander. I went there and thought: This time I want to make it easy for myself, it might be possible without suffering. And lo and behold, it didn't work.
If you make it too easy for yourself, it won't work. You have to be completely committed. A career that's easy is just not possible. And for me, the most exciting part of the Pakistan trip was the way back. In the mountains, many people die on the way back. In the company, too. When the adrenaline is gone, you see that there is a big void. And how do you deal with that?
Think big, it`s easier.
You have to work hard for every goal.
If you make an effort for a big goal, it`s easier.
Think big, it`s easier.
You have to work hard for every goal.
If you make an effort for a big goal, it`s easier.
With her company CEO Positions, Susanne advises top executives on the subject of reputation and management. She has discovered many parallels in high-altitude mountaineering and has had her own borderline experiences on peaks of over 8000 meters in altitude. What impact these borderline experiences have, how to deal with setbacks and why the way back is a challenge all of its own. These are topics that are not alien to managers.
