Andreas Lier, Managing Director, BASF Romania: “Keep a high level of optimism, control your thoughts and words, stay away from too many bad news as they start to control your thinking and behaviour”

“I think we have to embrace the cultural and behavioural shifts that COVID-19 introduced. New technologies were often the common denominator for most organizations’ resilience amid the crisis. It created  significant cultural shifts – such as people working from home and connecting with colleagues via video-conferencing and new collaboration tools,” Andreas Lier, Managing Director BASF Romania, told The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Take care of your psychological health and physical wellbeing! Going wrong on one dimension, losing one’s balance, losing that level of functional happiness will have an impact on the performance of the leaders, team and collaboration with colleagues, customers, and partners. Try to find the right activities for you. Keep a high level of optimism, control your thoughts and words, stay away from too many bad news as they start to control your thinking and behaviour. We are strong as a team together with our partners and customers and we support each other! Keep a good level of positive emotions, good and positive relationships, mindfulness, purpose, inspiring people! And finally continue to embrace and promote new technologies, like digitalization and new tools. With this ourselves and our business will become more resilient.”

What leadership skills do you find most useful in the current changing work environment? 

Basically, at BASF we expect creative, open, responsible, and entrepreneurial leaders. By leading our teams into a creative and open way, people get inspired and feel valued. With responsible and entrepreneurial leaders, we create sustainable solutions that have impact.

Pragmatic, fast decisions, empowering the team and creating space for bold ideas to tackle new challenges certainly proved even more important this year.  

Of course, in these times optimism is important, showing empathy, presence, leading with purpose and compassion. I believe it is the time to focus even more on our employees and team members. It is important to demonstrate that we care for their well-being, value contributions, acknowledge their achievements, address the concerns, and worries our colleagues may have about the current situation. In a nutshell: Take care of their physical and mental health.  

Good communication is more important than ever, as many of us work from home. Thus, we implemented team meetings, townhalls, crisis calls to have clarity, to achieve trust and ensure high productivity. So basically, we communicate often and early. An open and creative mindset became more important, to steer a business through challenges and opportunities, adapt to the changes and create and implement quickly new process and digital tools – and here think out of the box!

Which are the empowering mindsets  for building the sense of meaning & purpose, both for employers and employees, to keep each other engaged in reaching the business objectives in 2020 and in the next year?

At BASF we started to develop a new way of thinking and doing already last year with a Growth Mindset Workshop based on Carol Dweck’s research on Fixed Mindsets vs. Growth Mindsets. It was a kick-off. We have tried to bring the concept to life within the team, with customers and partners. I think it was and is a great step that we started to embrace challenges and to tackle obstacles step by step, in confidence. We have embraced new technologies and ways of working, like virtual meetings and workshops. We are demanding and welcoming feedback from employees, customers, and partners – learn from your setbacks and mistakes. We have customer centricity always in mind – the purpose of all what we do. And finally keep a good level of optimism, support, permanent communication and exchange with employees and customers.

What should be a CEO’s and leader’s power message on business resilience conveyed to peers, partners, and employees  for 2021, in order to enhance the trust and engagement?

It is about you and about us altogether! Take care of your psychological health and physical wellbeing ! Going wrong on one dimension, losing one’s balance, losing that level of functional happiness will have an impact on the performance of  the leaders, team and collaboration with colleagues, customers, and partners. Try to find the right activities for you. Keep a high level of optimism, control your thoughts and words, stay away from too many bad news as they start to control your thinking and behaviour. We are strong as a team together with our partners and customers and we support each other! Keep a good level of positive emotions, good and positive relationships, mindfulness, purpose, inspiring people! And finally continue to embrace and promote new technologies, like digitalization and new tools. With this ourselves and our business will become more resilient.

How can a CEO and leader of an organization capitalize on the current challenges to enhance ad promote the company’s competition advantages currently?

I think we have to embrace the cultural and behavioural shifts that COVID-19 introduced. New technologies were often the common denominator for most organizations’ resilience amid the crisis. It created  significant cultural shifts – such as people working from home and connecting with colleagues via video-conferencing and new collaboration tools.

Here is a chance – and we started with this – to create and develop omni-channel business models that combine digital and face-to-face offerings in future.

Which are the current concerns of a CEO / leader in 2020?  Which are the hopes for 2021?

As said, I am basically optimistic and I try to avoid paying too much attention to concerns that are not under our control. It’s of course important to anticipate 2021’s obstacles in order to make preparations now—whether that means pivoting our business focus, changing process and daily operations, or making structural changes for the future. This is what we can control and it is called strategic planning.

The largest single obstacle that I see in the coming year is simply the high uncertainty.

The hope for 2021 is a quick, effective, and efficient vaccination, recovery of the business and that the world leaders and people are pulling in one direction and tackle the challenges instead of creating new ones. Responsible political leaders and a path to a better world with responsible multinational organizations and healthy local business. We had this year the perfect storm with a lot head wind – there is hope for a recovery and may be even a nice tail wind which brings us all further – to more sustainability and a better life, based on more solid values.  

What kind of  innovative measures and inclusive leadership initiatives have been applied within your organization this year, to better cope with the current context and bring the business forward in 2021?

This year we made significant steps in all kinds of online communication and digitalization. We became much more flexible with our home office offerings for our employees. I believe we understand and value the possibilities of virtual meetings with the team and for partners and customers. These topics we will bring forward in 2021. Also, growth mindset initiatives and actions, feedback forward are important and created cultural change and basis for many activities in 2021. Customer Centricity: Understanding their new reality can result in opportunities to develop better customer experience and create even greater value. With an inspired and valued team – being responsible in all what we do and leading with sustainability, with impact and better solutions for customers and industries we are serving.