Have you ever wondered why Red Bull is so successful? Certainly, there are several reasons such as the strong brand, the athletes, the way they do marketing. But what sets Red Bull apart from many other companies is their unique philosophy towards people, which is summarized in their vision statement: Give wings to people and their ideas!
For decades, Red Bull has helped people to find their natural strengths, develop them into mastery and put them to work.
Success, from this viewpoint, is just an output of letting people do what they are excellent at!
Develop a strength mindset
It has many benefits to put people first and to understand the strengths they bring to the table. We all strive in an environment where the focus is on our talents rather than on our weaknesses that need fixing. We all long for a place where we can be ourselves and do what comes most naturally to us and therefore is meaningful to us. Companies would see much more engagement and high performance from their employees as well as better results if such a strength approach was more prevalent.
Know, use & develop the strengths of your people
We all have a natural inclination to see the threat before the benefit and the negative before the positive. We are wired that way and our upbringing continues to foster this tendency. Therefore, it needs a conscious step out of this drama and to gradually develop a new mindset about ourselves and other people. People managers should see themselves as talent scouts who look out for what people can be good at. Such a mindset results in a new language that is characterized by talking about strengths and great results that come with them. We will then ask questions such as “which strength has helped you achieve your goals” or “how will this project benefit from your strengths”? Employees and people managers can also use personality tests such as “Wingfinder” to better understand their own strengths and those of others. Developed by Red Bull and an expert team of renowned psychology professors, Wingfinder is an accurate and free personality assessment that focuses on strengths. Using image questions, for example, Wingfinder is more engaging and less invasive than just text-based tests. A test is always just a tool. But used with the right mindset we can engage individual contributors and teams in very relevant discussions. For example in how much our strengths can help us achieve great results. Or in how much they can help make career decisions. Or how the “shadow sides” of our strengths may get in the way of working well with each other.
Believing in the strengths of people and helping bring those superpowers out is a very humanistic approach. And it is one that works!
Thomas started his career as a teacher as it came very naturally to him to stand in front of people, to present topics in an exciting way and to make learning stick. He then applied his people skills in international companies where he served for almost 20 years as Head of Human Resources. It was finally the company that Gives Wings to People and Their Ideas, Red Bull, where Thomas worked in International HR and Global Talent Management, that made him realize what the next step in his life needs to look like: Taking his natural teaching talent and precious experience as business manager to help leaders and employees in organizations perform at their best! He now delivers high-class business training and assists leaders as a coach on a global level. Besides his teaching degree, he holds a Master in Management and is a Certified Coach. Thomas also runs his own company that puts the needs of people in the center of business in order to connect performance and humanity.
