Jan Sedlacek, Co-Founder at Stryber: Breaking the Cycle of Burnout & Driving Real Change

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hi! I'm Shannon, Lucas, and I'm 1 of the co-ceos of catalyst constellations which is dedicated to empowering catalyst to create bold, powerful change in the world. This is our podcast move, fast, break ship burnout where we speak with catalyst executives about ways to successfully lead transformation in large organizations.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And today I am super excited to have time with Jan Sedliche. Jan is the founder and managing partner of Stryber, a strategic growth consultancy and corporate venture builder in the Middle East Europe and Asia Pacific. He recognized the need for a new approach to grow business at scale, which is why he combines approaches from venture capital startup and strategy, consulting worlds to increase financial and strategic returns for clients.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: He's already successfully founded. Owner scaled over a hundred businesses with his organization before founding Stryber in 2016, Jan. Experience gained experience as a startup founder, C-level, manager, marketer, web designer, and in strategy consulting welcome. Jan.

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Jan Sedlacek: Thanks very much for having me, Shan. It's a pleasure to be here.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And I just have to tell the audience. I heard Jan speak at one of the innovators online community forums, and I don't impress easily about people who are talking about change and driving growth in large organizations, and not to put too much pressure on Jan today. But his storytelling, his visual representation and the actual sort of content of what

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: he brings to the table. I thought everyone needs to hear. So I'm super thrilled. I know you said, maybe you're the black sheep of catalyst, and we love a good, provocative conversation. So I would love to hear about you and your catalytic journey, maybe sharing a few career highlights that help us see your catalytic nature, or maybe even your black sheep, catalytic nature.

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Jan Sedlacek: Well, thanks a lot also for your intro. You sum that up better than I could

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Jan Sedlacek: but to turn it around actually the title of your book, I think, is a perfect summary of at least the 1st part of my career, so

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Jan Sedlacek: moved, fast, broke shit, and I definitely burnt out. So I started off actually in technology, in the late nineties, 1st Internet bubble, it was an amazing time.

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Jan Sedlacek: really, really amazing projects for the time, like edge of technology.

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Jan Sedlacek: I was very young. I was somewhat puzzled that a lot of the things didn't really work out, but I didn't understand why or what was like the underlying reasons.

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Jan Sedlacek: I started actually organizational psychology along with business and finance, international management. And that was because I was mostly interested in how people, why people do what they do. So topics of consumer behavior, behavioral economics, but also, and in particular change management

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Jan Sedlacek: and

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Jan Sedlacek: deeply interested in these processes. I felt well equipped to then start my career. So I went in strategy, consulting which was an amazing time, great learning journey.

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Jan Sedlacek: And again, most of the things that we did when it at least came to growth, did not really play out the way we intended it to.

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Jan Sedlacek: so that there seem to be a big gap between the conceptual world of

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Jan Sedlacek: Powerpoint like strategy, and then the actual execution on the ground in particular, when it came to growth.

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Jan Sedlacek: I decided that I wanted to do real change, real transformation.

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Jan Sedlacek: and I joined a large travel company in Switzerland back in the day. We're talking mid 2 thousands now.

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Jan Sedlacek: And that was when traditional travel really became under threat.

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Jan Sedlacek: And the transformation on paper looked very simple. So today, you would say a digital transformation. The

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Jan Sedlacek: was very clear that the channels were changing, that consumers were adapting their behavior, and

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Jan Sedlacek: we just wanted to move there.

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Jan Sedlacek: So we incubated all these things. We had dozens and dozens of projects running, and they were of all different sorts of nature.

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Jan Sedlacek: And, to cut the story short, 5 years later, I kind of made my career there. So I was ultimately sitting on the board of a division that was a European business, about a billion in revenue, and I was responsible for marketing, and I was calling my own job that I'm the guy hanging on a rope outside of the Titanic, polishing the tea while the ship was sinking.

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Jan Sedlacek: and this gives you a feeling of how desperate this actually felt.

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Jan Sedlacek: and that was years into my journey, trying to apply all the best practices and all the stuff that I've learned in studies, and like

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Jan Sedlacek: I took into my journey there right.

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Jan Sedlacek: and I could very much relate to your description of a catalyst for my younger self back then that's how I felt. I felt like, I'm 1 of those that actually help breaking through this

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Jan Sedlacek: the structures and trying to change direction. But it all came down to you were on the bridge of this big ship. You were spinning the wheel like the the steering wheel. But the ship just decided to steam ahead and just wanted to ship towards that iceberg and go down.

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Jan Sedlacek: and all you wanted to do is like go left.

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Jan Sedlacek: No, it's simply refused.

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Jan Sedlacek: and that's why I was referring to. I'm a bit of a black sheep for catalyst, because.

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Jan Sedlacek: to be very honest, I don't know how it works, you know. It's kind of

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Jan Sedlacek: when it comes to a transformation of such a scale where you need to change the whole mechanics of a business model.

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Jan Sedlacek: I think you're demanding a lot of an organization.

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Jan Sedlacek: So you're actually asking every single bit to change.

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Jan Sedlacek: And I don't need to tell you how difficult it is to change even a single bit, let alone all of them at the same time. So this kind of systemic change.

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Jan Sedlacek: I felt a thing of impossible nature to this day. I'm let's say.

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Jan Sedlacek: disillusioned, or at least somewhat grounded, in that experience of failing to transform when it comes to overly ambitious.

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Jan Sedlacek: transformational journeys.

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Jan Sedlacek: and maybe we'll have some time to differentiate a little. I'm not saying that's true for all topics. But when you're really trying to change course. Fundamentally.

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Jan Sedlacek: people don't want that.

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Jan Sedlacek: It comes down to this simple recognition that I had then, because

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Jan Sedlacek: when you were talking about change, everyone was with you.

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Jan Sedlacek: and they knew they had to, because, like at the very top of the organization, there was a CEO who said like, Oh, we go left.

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Jan Sedlacek: and then everyone goes. Yeah, sure, we go left, but they keeps going straight.

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Jan Sedlacek: So there is this. There is natural inclination of which is just human to to keep to the patterns that you're familiar with, because that's where you feel safe. And

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Jan Sedlacek: when you actually look into the willingness of people to change, it's surprisingly, surprisingly low.

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Jan Sedlacek: So there is always a big majority of of a large group that

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Jan Sedlacek: that has no incentive and no inclination towards change, and that is what frustrated me so much, and that's what for me ultimately led to burnout at that point. So I did. I really relate to the title of your book.

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Jan Sedlacek: It felt a bit like another metaphor I used back then was.

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Jan Sedlacek: I felt like in this comical psychiatric ward with the rubber walls, not sure whether that ever existed. But you know the the image right.

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Jan Sedlacek: only that the walls were invisible.

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Jan Sedlacek: and you as a change maker, as a catalyst. You knew you have to go there like, you know, you have to go straight, and the goal is over there, and you put all your energy in.

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Jan Sedlacek: And then just someone, something, some invisible force holds you back, and you have this

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Jan Sedlacek: this reset, and you don't even know why. Because along the journey everyone told you they would be with you along the journey, and they would support you and back you up, and everything right and still. Then you look back and you say, oh, actually haven't moved.

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Jan Sedlacek: That's where my big frustration with with transformational transformational exercises comes from.

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Jan Sedlacek: So that's the 1st half of my story, so to say.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, I think it's and I, because I want to pivot into the like what you did with it. So and certainly catalysts in early stage career. Definitely experiences more because they don't have all of that experience. All the things that you saw that help us contextualize. Why, it's so hard, and all of that stuff

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: certainly more mature and accomplished catalysts have learned some of the self management skills. And I just wanted to respond quickly to say, when we work with catalysts like in the class. What we teach is, we teach them to assess the actual appetite for change of the organization, because one of the biggest problems is if you have this very disruptive

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: vision, and they have a very incremental vision that just amplifies the burnout and all of the struggle. And so often you'll say to a catalyst if you guys aren't aligned, maybe you need to go find a place where you are more aligned.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But I would love to, because everything that you just said is, you know, like, I guess, probably experienced by our audience. And so where did you land. After that you're like, Okay, that's a fool's errand. I don't want to be polishing the tea in the Titanic. So here's how I'm going to help organizations grow.

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Jan Sedlacek: I'm sure you should have coached me back then, and I myself would have would have definitely benefited. And it is as you said, but

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Jan Sedlacek: the problem was not so much that the top of the organization wasn't willing to change. The top did mandate the change.

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Jan Sedlacek: but there was more

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Jan Sedlacek: with the in hindsight. I'm I'm working well

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Jan Sedlacek: with a sort of a physical metaphor, or you know, it felt like

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Jan Sedlacek: it felt like gravity. That's 1 of the metaphors I use is that it really felt like

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Jan Sedlacek: you want to fly. But you weren't equipped. You didn't have a plane. So you try to jump, but ultimately always falling back to the, to the ground, because it's simply how physics works.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Did you? Can I ask, did you have other catalysts in your in your organization that you were working.

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Jan Sedlacek: Yes, yes, yeah.

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Jan Sedlacek: There was a big change initiative. I was part of a large group, and there was a big commitment, including the storytelling at the top and towards the shareholders. There was a big amount of investment, a lot of new people, fresh blood, and and all of that.

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Jan Sedlacek: But the the actual learning from it is very, very frustrating, because what we tried to do was saving a dead horse.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Jan Sedlacek: And that was a mission set up to fail. So I don't think actually, it was really an execution problem. It was a strategic problem. We were trying to keep a business model alive that simply has expired, that has achieved the end of its life cycle.

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Jan Sedlacek: and that if if anything, as a as

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Jan Sedlacek: a recommendation for other people. In in this frustration you also, you also need to understand

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Jan Sedlacek: the even bigger picture outside your organization. So

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Jan Sedlacek: what is, what is the tide you're going with, or what's the are there icebergs in front of you, you know. Is there reasons to actually assume you cannot change, no matter how well you execute and how good you try.

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Jan Sedlacek: because how it felt then, for all these catalysts on the inside was deeply frustrating. So burnouts were an organizational sickness. There were really people dropping out everywhere. It was really

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Jan Sedlacek: extremely straining for for everyone that was part of that

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Jan Sedlacek: for me this was such a traumatizing experience as well that I actually decided I would never want to do that again.

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Jan Sedlacek: So I was done with change done with capitalism.

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Jan Sedlacek: And I decided, I want to build things, and I want to grow

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Jan Sedlacek: so both personally, but also in in the themes that I was was covering.

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Jan Sedlacek: and I founded my own startup

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Jan Sedlacek: a very bad point in time, just when we had twins with my wife, and

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Jan Sedlacek: it turned out it was a bit too ambitious to have a startup going on, and a young family, and it was all a bit too much.

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Jan Sedlacek: So I stopped that.

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Jan Sedlacek: But then I started to work with existing organizations, because I also had this recognition that there was a lot of good things in my old organization

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Jan Sedlacek: and one of the startups that I actually did then was a travel technology platform that invented an amazing technology. And I was able to bring in a lot of the vision that we've developed back in my old company, only we've never managed to do that with the startup. A few capable engineers seed founding that was pretty remarkable at the time for Switzerland, at least like 1.7 million.

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Jan Sedlacek: we managed to build a technology platform that my travel company has invested 50 million in and failed.

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Jan Sedlacek: They had to write it off all, and we made it. It felt so so easy, you know, if you if a dedicated team, that is, that is driven by a vision that is motivated and capable to execute on it.

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Jan Sedlacek: It was amazing.

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Jan Sedlacek: We actually failed. At another point. We gained a lot of traction onto the product. But people didn't trust us with their money, because when you book travel it's pretty expensive

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Jan Sedlacek: plane ticket involved and hotels and everything, you're easily in a couple of $1,000. Now you have this unknown startup with a real cool interface. But then, should you really wire them? $5,000. Maybe I go over to booking.com right? So it was kind of that was our problem. And we failed at that point.

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Jan Sedlacek: And to this day. I'm convinced that we would have made it under the umbrella of the old company.

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Jan Sedlacek: and ever since I tried to replicate that so how new that is

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Jan Sedlacek: benefiting from the parenting advantage, from the, from the capabilities, from the from the assets, and all the good things that are in every every large organization.

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Jan Sedlacek: and that has become my theme. So I'm not trying to change people against their will.

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Jan Sedlacek: I'm trying to find something else that a few people from a large organization may be able to do, but not all of them. So then let the rest of them also go about their business. So there is a there is a big case to be made. At least I make it that you shouldn't divert people from their jobs because those jobs also need to be done.

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Jan Sedlacek: So even on the Titanic. You need people running the engines, and you need maintaining the ships right. But you can't start building another ship that goes elsewhere, and that has other capabilities. Maybe the metaphor breaks at that point. But I think you get my point. So I'm trying to create an environment where you're actually able to build something with the people that are able to do it.

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Jan Sedlacek: Those are partly on the inside and partly from the outside. And it's. It's very different from one industry to another and one topic to another.

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Jan Sedlacek: But at the essence it's really about how you organize and how you manage at the very top of such a such an organization.

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Jan Sedlacek: And that's what we do today. So I'm specialized in in growth topics and in finding new growth

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Jan Sedlacek: with organizations that have a legacy that are established that do have to deal with all these phenomena.

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Jan Sedlacek: and I'm trying to deal with the phenomena in a sensible way, not not trying to

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Jan Sedlacek: change at all cost, but really differentiate about what is the change required? And

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Jan Sedlacek: is it actually a fundamental change or not? Because you can change organizations. I don't argue with that.

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Jan Sedlacek: I'm simply saying you cannot change everything at the same time.

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Jan Sedlacek: You can change bits, and you can even change parts of a business model, but not. You can't overwhelm an organization with too big of a course correction at a given point in time.

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Jan Sedlacek: And the way we go about that is really a lot about you need to know where you're going first.st So it's strategy first.st And if you don't have that.

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Jan Sedlacek: that clear vision.

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Jan Sedlacek: and if you don't have a really strong top level leadership that is going after that vision, and that is mandating at least parts of the organization to go after that.

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Jan Sedlacek: then you shouldn't start.

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Jan Sedlacek: So that's that's 1 of the things that I also took away as a learning from my my failed transformation.

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Jan Sedlacek: The vision wasn't strong enough and not really believed in by the top management.

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Jan Sedlacek: So the actual beliefs below the surface.

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Jan Sedlacek: not the lip service at the top. So the lip service was, yeah, we go that way. But below the surface they were deeply convinced that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with their business, so that the conviction of really needing to change wasn't there. And if that is the case, then don't try. You have absolutely no chance. If you're anywhere below in such a hierarchical pyramid. If the top is actually not really willing to go to change direction.

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Jan Sedlacek: So that's that's the 1st step strategy

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Jan Sedlacek: getting a mandate, getting also the kind of runway in terms of time that you need to execute through such a process.

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Jan Sedlacek: And the second bit, that is really one of the main learnings for me is how you organize is as important as how you execute.

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Jan Sedlacek: So it's really to to create the environment that allows people to go after this kind of

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Jan Sedlacek: transformational agendas that are not

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Jan Sedlacek: fully in line or not in line at all with the agenda that the existing organization is going after

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Jan Sedlacek: and the the way how to do that is very specific, that that really is is different from from one organization to another.

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Jan Sedlacek: It can be through inorganic growth strategies. There is

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Jan Sedlacek: always other companies out there that may actually be a good complementary

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Jan Sedlacek: asset in your business portfolio that you can use as a

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Jan Sedlacek: as a starting point, at least. Oftentimes you need to build things yourself, and it really comes down to finding these entrepreneurial profiles that are able to drive something while they're not real entrepreneurs. So I've seen you work a lot with intrapreneurs, which is an inherently

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Jan Sedlacek: conflicted concept. So you you're trying to replicate behaviors and attract people for settings that

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Jan Sedlacek: actually a misfit for so you need to be extremely careful of how you design the environments and the organizations around them, in order not to set them up for a burnout. In the 1st place. And these are the kinds of questions that I'm dealing with these days. We work with large established organizations on these kinds of

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Jan Sedlacek: agendas that that move them forward, or to move into a different direction from where they were going. In the past.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I have so many questions on.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: okay, let me start with the most important for the audience. I can ask you the personal ones later. Where you landed with point 1

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: we totally agree with, and that's sort of what I was saying earlier, which is, if you have this super aspirational as a catalyst in an organization, desire for change, and they want incremental. You're done. You should just leave or just be aware that there's the thing, and just you can stay but like let go of that, and find your catalyst vibe somewhere else. Right?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And I think the list that you have, you know, making sure that there's a clearly defined strategy and vision, making sure that the top level leadership is like legitimately on board, not just like doing the head nod thing beyond that. Maybe one of the ways that you know, if they're not, is by mandating this. And I think it's awesome that you added runway. I remember at 1 point in one of my large organizations I put out like the calendar for 18 months, because it was just like even being able to

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: talk with the key stakeholders with our ecosystem was like, there's just a calendaring effect, let alone, like all the other things that you have to like navigate.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How? What advice do you have for people really at any level, I guess. But maybe the advice is different for different levels of catalysts within an organization to be able to assess these things.

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Jan Sedlacek: Well, probably they should reach out to you. I think you're more.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Are you? It sounds like I don't know you don't. You don't want to help them.

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Jan Sedlacek: I don't know. Look!

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Jan Sedlacek: I feel I feel I'm not really competent, you know, because I failed with those questions for myself.

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Jan Sedlacek: but in hindsight.

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Jan Sedlacek: One of the things that would definitely differentiate is on which level of the organization are you actually operating right now?

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Jan Sedlacek: And unless you're at top level of the organization.

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Jan Sedlacek: What you said before holds true. So look really at how serious is the top with this agenda.

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Jan Sedlacek: and if you feel and it's probably really a feeling. If you feel that they're not fully serious.

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Jan Sedlacek: then you shouldn't continue, because then you really set up for a full burnout. So for me, this is

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Jan Sedlacek: what happened to me, because the top actually did say we want to go that way right? So it was not about

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Jan Sedlacek: the proclaimed intention and what they were saying, but it didn't feel they really wanted. So there was this cognitive dissonance between some of the things that were officially part of the agenda

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Jan Sedlacek: and the little acts, how they behaved, and the things that you actually can observe when you're at the inside of a nomination.

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Jan Sedlacek: So if you're on a on a lower level of an organization. Be extremely careful

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Jan Sedlacek: what the mandate really is that comes from the top down, and whether that's a real mandate.

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Jan Sedlacek: and also what is the nature of the mandate? Because oftentimes what I see is that they're actually serious about it, but not serious enough to actually take

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Jan Sedlacek: into account, or are willing to accept the cost that come, come with change. And with that I mean the things you need to break

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Jan Sedlacek: the revenues that you need to let go.

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Jan Sedlacek: and the the behaviors, the processes, the tools, and all the things that you just take for granted, and that may not be part of the of the next step.

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Jan Sedlacek: I think, even at the top level many leaders don't really grasp that or don't really realize that.

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Jan Sedlacek: So that's that's really this reflection, I think, is essential. If you're on a change mission

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Jan Sedlacek: while not being the CEO, if you're the CEO different set of advice and

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Jan Sedlacek: I really? The the way I perceived it back then was that

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Jan Sedlacek: I was not really enabled to do what I was supposed to, and that's when you end up in a burnout you don't earn in a burnout. If you work too much, you end in a burnout. If the

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Jan Sedlacek: mission you're trying to accomplish, and your capabilities and the resources that you're given are not

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Jan Sedlacek: enough, or are not equipped to actually achieve what you what you're supposed to achieve. If there. If that gap is insurmountable, you burn out. You have.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Jan Sedlacek: Out because it's like

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Jan Sedlacek: you're trying to reach for something that is simply out of reach. There's nothing you can do about it. If you realize that? Then please change the ship, then go somewhere else. Then I think that's the moment where you should have this

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Jan Sedlacek: self-reflection of not only yourself, but in particular the organization around you, whether whether or not you're you're on mission to fail.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, it's interesting. The like the different hypotheses that I was testing in my last corporate roles, like one of them was, you know, having the P. And L.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And having enough freedom within running a P. And L. That's a growth. P. And L. But to your point that if I was successful, I was disrupting the current, the the Core company's S curve at a point of like huge growth opportunity. And so that's 1 of the questions that I'm like, Okay, for catalyst is like, Okay, if I'm successful, I'm probably disrupting your core business or your or your S curve. And so like, when and how are we going to have that conversation?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: The other another place that I went. I ended up at Cisco because I was super curious about having the corporate venture capabilities to to look at different growth opportunities. And I know you talk about, you know, venture studios like, you know, inorganic growth and organic growth and venture studios so like, tell us how you how those things are going like, what recommendations do you have for people who are in senior positions

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: that are responsible for driving growth for their company, and may not be able to do the whole culture change. But you've landed in a different place to solve the growth problem.

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Jan Sedlacek: What what you just described is pretty much the the outline of how I think about this this thing. So 1st

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Jan Sedlacek: don't disrupt your 1st S curve.

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Jan Sedlacek: So

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Jan Sedlacek: I think it's a very dangerous thing to do. So you're you're actually playing with fire, risking to break things that are not supposed to break.

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Jan Sedlacek: So from a governance point of view, I would very much argue that you should manage your your 1st horizon, your existing S curve

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Jan Sedlacek: for efficiency, and you should only try to go for these incremental changes.

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Jan Sedlacek: and as long as you manage your existing legacy organization like that there is no conflict of interest. People will understand they will always be able to make the next incremental step towards efficiency.

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Jan Sedlacek: and they'll benefit from it right now. Dominant example everywhere is AI. How do most organizations use AI well for simple efficiency, you take it, and you do something that you're supposed to do, and that is bothering you and boring you out, you do it more efficiently. Thanks to AI, great, perfect

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Jan Sedlacek: incentives aligned.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: If efficiency increases, everyone's happy.

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Jan Sedlacek: That's the kind of change that you need to do in your existing legacy.

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Jan Sedlacek: And then you need to be extremely conscious about what else you try to achieve.

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Jan Sedlacek: So if you're actually working on a agenda for another S curve to use that model.

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Jan Sedlacek: be extremely conscious about what are the mechanics of that other S curve, the one

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Jan Sedlacek: the the one book that really everyone should read who's dealing in in transformation and innovation is the innovator style, and like really the classicism.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Jan Sedlacek: He kind of. He was the Newton for corporate management, like he discovered the fundamental physics of how these processes work, and he also described it in a way that I can very much relate to in hindsight, even though I've read the book before I joined my corporation. I wasn't.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: What?

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Jan Sedlacek: It didn't really sink in. I need to 1st have the scars before I understood what caused them by then actually looking at these things. And he was referring to us to the value system.

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Jan Sedlacek: And the value system contains the economic value system. So how does your organization create economic value? Including how are all the people incentivized to create that value?

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Jan Sedlacek: And then you very much recognize that the moment you change the slightest bit

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Jan Sedlacek: someone will be very unhappy about it, you know you'll tap into someone's bonuses. You'll remove the profits from an entity that's delivered. Shareholder returns before. And all these conflicts they are insurmountable. That's basically the reason for the Inuit.

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Jan Sedlacek: However, if you're aware of that.

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Jan Sedlacek: and if you're aware, if your next business model is actually in a different value logic.

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Jan Sedlacek: That's when it comes down to an organizational problem. And that's why I'm so obsessed with questions of governance and organization

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Jan Sedlacek: because you can't solve for it, but you cannot

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Jan Sedlacek: solve for it by not reflecting this fundamental question.

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Jan Sedlacek: So the way how I go about this is usually that you create

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Jan Sedlacek: a dedicated organization with varying degrees of independence that can be very dependent. It's possible that the next model is actually very close to what you're already doing, and you need a lot of the existing assets, and you'll think about some

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Jan Sedlacek: some teams that that are supposed to that. But they're dedicated and have to report to the CEO how they progress in order to back them up, etc. But it can also be pretty removed when you say you're actually building another business like one of the

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Jan Sedlacek: classic examples, is aws from Amazon. In the 1st place, they built it from themselves, and it was a very value creating thing for them, and then they just realized other people may use that as well, and then they carve it out into an independent organizational unit with Amazon as their 1st customer, etc. Etc. You know the story as well as I do.

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Jan Sedlacek: but that could not work without an organizational intervention or a structural intervention where you deliberately say, these people now are supposed to do aws, they're not supposed to sell books anymore. You know, it's a different mission. They're going into a different direction. There are still synergies with the old, but they're tasked to do something else.

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Jan Sedlacek: So the the organizational structure, the strategy, and the the way how you interact with those people are absolutely crucial for your chances to to succeed.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I just, I'm like, I want everyone to work with you because I just I think you're so spot on, and another epiphany that I had as you were talking. I mean you handed me the epiphany. It's not a big thing, but you're talking about like, what do you want to do like getting down to the essentials of like, what is the mission here? And what I realized is like, are you actually in a true growth moment. Are you actually looking for growth, or are you looking

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: for survival right now? And I think that those are 2 different things, because the efficiency thing is often just a survival like we have to get back to our fundamentals. We need to make sure that those are working well. And actually, we saw that a lot in the last like 18 months, maybe more, where it's the whole do more with less like that. I don't know if that's if that's like strong in Europe. But that's been a really big theme for business

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: recently. And obviously, AI starts to unlock that. So I mean, it's just a takeaway for me of like, yeah, the focus on are you in survival or growth mode? Because certainly growth mode has its own challenges that are different, I think, than ha! Ha! You know, being a catalyst and help drive efficiencies in the organization.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I want to go back to one of the one of the things that you said earlier. This is sort of a personal question for me, but I think the audience will be interested, too, because you're like after the burnout

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and the trauma and all of the things you're like, I went on, this per this path of personal discovery and personal growth, personal and professional growth. And so. And I heard you say, you're like, I'm not that burnout guy anymore. So I'm wondering if you can share some of the personal lessons you learned as a catalyst as you started to create your path. Outside of these organizations.

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Jan Sedlacek: Well for me, not even sure whether that's a lesson that I can pass on because it was.

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Jan Sedlacek: It was like an experience, and hard to do.

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Jan Sedlacek: I don't think I would be at the same point in my life and my career without having had that other option.

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Jan Sedlacek: It kind of provided me with that, that, that pause, that break like an accident

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Jan Sedlacek: after which you found yourself in the hospital.

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Jan Sedlacek: I'm just thinking about what the hell was going on. How did I end up here?

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Jan Sedlacek: So this capability of reflecting where you are on whether you're

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Jan Sedlacek: on a journey that you actually want to continue.

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Jan Sedlacek: I think sometimes it takes quite a lot of pain to to have that reflection.

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Jan Sedlacek: and it's not something that comes easily.

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Jan Sedlacek: because it will imply change for you personally.

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Jan Sedlacek: After that, let's call it accident.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It was easy, because I didn't have a chance.

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Jan Sedlacek: Like that. I did not. I really literally went through. Would I want to work for this organization? No, no, went through all the organizations that I could work for.

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Jan Sedlacek: none of which I could imagine

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Jan Sedlacek: it was. It was for me, like a physical sensation, that I could not work in such a setting ever anymore.

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Jan Sedlacek: So the only path for me left was actually to create my own business.

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Jan Sedlacek: And of course, then you try to also reflect on. What is it that you've learned? And how can you put that to the benefit

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Jan Sedlacek: of both your personal life and the business that you're managing or working for or creating, which for me led to the company that I built up since. So I tried to

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Jan Sedlacek: to take these lessons

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Jan Sedlacek: and take the conclusions into a value proposition for others. So to avoid at least some of the pain that I went through. That's our proposition as a business. But you asked for my learnings on a personal level.

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Jan Sedlacek: And, to be honest, I think the one thing that that really is needed is this

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Jan Sedlacek: this, I'm not sure what the word is in English. But this breaking point where you really say.

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Jan Sedlacek: am I fundamentally on the right track here?

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Jan Sedlacek: And I think people feel that so they have a feeling that something's off. And this what I called the cognitive dissonance before. That's something you really you perceive it

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Jan Sedlacek: when you have these these feelings. I think

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Jan Sedlacek: my recommendation would be to listen to these perceptions, and trying to understand

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Jan Sedlacek: what is behind them, and also

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Jan Sedlacek: what it does with you. Because if you are actually that catalyst.

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Jan Sedlacek: please go on a mission that you can succeed with.

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Jan Sedlacek: So that's that. That is my most most fundamental recommendation, or my most fundamental insights, because it's it's

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Jan Sedlacek: it's such incredible pain that you can avoid by simply leaving the ship before it hits the iceberg.

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Jan Sedlacek: You know.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, I do know. And and I think.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: there's so thank you for sharing so genuinely and so deeply.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's really lovely. And I think a lot of our audience will relate. I certainly relate to like it got so bad. I was broken. I mean, it was like.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: you know existentially challenge challenging.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I think, though, there's sort of 2 thoughts. One is one of the one of the enterprise jobs that I took. I had a lot of opportunities at the time, and a mentor of mine had me put them on butcher block all over the, you know, on the wall, and one of them. I put the skull and crossbones under.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and I was like, I don't know if I can do that one.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: but I did choose it with a lot of intentionality. And there's something in what you're saying here is like you're like, listen to the perceptions. Listen to your intuition. I think it's like for catalysts. You can make the choice to go do something that you have a 10% likelihood of being successful at

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: with an intention of what are the lessons that I'm gonna learn along the way have these hypotheses? And what am I gonna learn? But I think with the construct, if we can't stay grounded in what our original intention was, and we start believing like we actually should be successful at all costs. That's when some of that dissonance like you forget that you're in the experiment, instead of like on the hook for the delivery but I love the message writ large of

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: to people who are listening. Go on a mission where you can be successful, like we have this vision of having the top 100 catalyst friendly places to work, which is not to say you want more than 5 to 10% of the employee base to be catalysts. That would be a disaster. But I think the organizations that know how to tap into and leverage the people and help them be set up for success in the things that they're being tapped to do are just gonna have a huge competitive advantage over their competitors or the marketplace.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So thank you for sharing that.

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Jan Sedlacek: Well, thanks to you. And I think really you're you're hitting it, spot on the.

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Jan Sedlacek: So there is nothing wrong with trying. As long as you're conscious about what you're trying. And

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Jan Sedlacek: also, if you're if you're having a certain awareness around this environmental factors.

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Jan Sedlacek: then failure is much less of an issue.

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Jan Sedlacek: Then you say, Okay, maybe actually, my feelings, my perceptions are right.

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Jan Sedlacek: Then you fail. And you say, Okay, I confirm my hypothesis.

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Jan Sedlacek: Move on.

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Jan Sedlacek: If you're not aware you perceive it as personal failure.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's right.

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Jan Sedlacek: Which is what happened to me. So I felt I failed personally.

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Jan Sedlacek: and I actually wrote a case study with Incia, the business school.

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Jan Sedlacek: basically as a simple process of psychological coping for myself and I only through that through that recollection I realized that we were actually on a mission to fail. I didn't have that awareness before. So I think awareness is really a key thing here that you're

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Jan Sedlacek: that you're trying to be aware as best as you can. For what is it, actually, what is the mission actually, that you are on.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Do you have any tips for listeners about how to continue to reconnect with that awareness? Because, as catalyst, it is easy to get sucked into the actual. I think I can solve the problem. Booth.

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Jan Sedlacek: I think that's very different for every individual.

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Jan Sedlacek: I think even the times have improved like a lot of these

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Jan Sedlacek: trends of thoughts or these movements like consciousness. Also, techniques like meditation. Yoga, none of which I'm actually capable of doing. But I think those things really help.

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Jan Sedlacek: So you're you're able to to learn how to to retract a bit from the day-to-day reality and and make this sort of mental abstraction. So if if you find a way, and I think everyone should find a way to do that.

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Jan Sedlacek: And it's different things for different people. For me. I'm pretty nerdy and rational, guy, so I have my own set of techniques. So, for instance, I have a little piece of a meteor just in front of.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: My dad.

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Jan Sedlacek: In my office. And it's just I simply take the thing in my hand. And it's like that thing is 5 billion years old. It fell onto this planet 5,000 years ago.

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Jan Sedlacek: Now here's a big picture. So it it just it serves as a

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Jan Sedlacek: it serves as a reminder to trying to take a step back and

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Jan Sedlacek: to look at the bigger picture and how things connect

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Jan Sedlacek: for me. That's that's 1 of my coping mechanisms. But I think everyone needs to find their own way of doing that reflection and of creating that awareness of their situation.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Freaking, brilliant. I love it all right. I've totally talked to you too long, but I'm going to ask who's the most inspirational catalyst, past or present, and why would you pick them.

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Jan Sedlacek: Now, that's a difficult question to answer. And 1st is because

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Jan Sedlacek: I don't have done one person, because I think different times. Different situations require different catalysts. And

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Jan Sedlacek: if you take one of these halo figures and say, that's my inspiration.

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Jan Sedlacek: you risk to get into this.

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Jan Sedlacek: Apply. One size fits all

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Jan Sedlacek: transfer. So that's why I'm a bit skeptical like you want to be the next Steve Jobs, or

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Jan Sedlacek: that won't work for pretty much. Every situation.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah. Totally.

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Jan Sedlacek: So

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Jan Sedlacek: when it comes to real transformations. Actually, one of the deeply frustrating things that I've investigated with my company is that most companies actually fail. So if you're looking at the success rates of fundamental transformations with regards to new business creation, at least 70% of companies fail.

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Jan Sedlacek: and the few that do master it, have usually a very particular set

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Jan Sedlacek: circumstances, and people that were able to deal with it, but very long introduction to an answer. So I would try to look

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Jan Sedlacek: at circumstances that resemble your own, and then you can find inspiration for people that were able to deal with such a situation. So just, for instance, there's this big transformational case of Ibm that is often used as an example, how a big company can change like elephants can dance, etc.

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Jan Sedlacek: What Luke Erstner did back in the 19 nineties there was exceptional. So it's really worth

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Jan Sedlacek: reading that story, because then you also understand what the environment was at the time.

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Jan Sedlacek: And how big the pressure was for Ibm to change. There was a lot of

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Jan Sedlacek: of pain. They were with their backs to the wall. It was not that they were coming out of a situation of comfort.

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Jan Sedlacek: and he's he's very

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Jan Sedlacek: mandate, was to actually achieve that transformation. And the way he went about it was brilliant.

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Jan Sedlacek: So yes, read that story, but then don't try to be Lou Gerson.

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Jan Sedlacek: so you know, you need to kind of find on your

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Jan Sedlacek: your own sets of of inspiration and also combine them. Maybe in a persona that doesn't exist. And you say, Yeah, I'll need to take a little bit of Luke Urston, but a little bit of Steve Jobs would be nice as well.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amazing.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I love that I love the relativism and contextualization of all of your answers, which is why I think you're you're so smart and spot on with everything is like it matters that context matters, Jan. It has been an amazing privilege to have this conversation with you. Thank you.

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Jan Sedlacek: Thank you very much, was my great pleasure.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And to our listening audience. Thanks so much for joining us. If you'd like to learn more about how to create bold, powerful change in the world. Be sure to check out the book that he referenced, move fast, break, shit, burn out, or go to our website at catalystconstellations.com. If you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, please take 10 seconds to rate it on itunes, spotify stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts and of course, if you have a catalyst in your life, hit the share button and send a link their way. Thanks again.