A Deep Bow to TU Eindhoven Professor and Diversity Coordinator Evangelia Demerouti and Former Rector Frank Baaijens

Their Irène Curie Plan, named after Marie Curie’s daughter, put an end to the unequal distribution between men and women among the academic staff at TU Eindhoven.

After many attempts to correct the imbalance, this plan proved effective: as of July 1, 2019, professor positions were exclusively open to women for the first six months. All flexibility was put to an end. Naturally, there was significant resistance. The majority group fiercely opposed the plan. Four months after its implementation, 54 men had filed complaints with the anti-discrimination bureau Radar and the Dutch Human Rights Commission (CVRM).

Image by Lin Woldendorp via the Volkskrant

Although the plan had to be adjusted slightly, it largely proceeded as intended, with excellent results five years later.

Read the article for all the details.

This article was previously published on Esther’s LinkedIn page. Want to follow Esther’s thoughts on current events there? Click here. Esther is a Certified Top Voice on LinkedIn.

Timeless Wisdom: The Unchanging Insights of Cruijff & Winsemius

Over twenty years ago, in 2004, a book was published by Pieter Winsemius, who is best known as a former Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM). He made the ‘transfer’ from being a partner at McKinsey & Company to becoming a member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and was a professor at Tilburg University. He adored Johan Cruijff: “There are two types of people: real people and fake people. Cruijff is real. You just know it. Cruijff stayed at the top as a footballer and as a coach for 35 years, and almost all his comments are remarkable. Often people think it’s nonsense, but Cruijff doesn’t spout nonsense.” In the book “You Only See It When You Get It,” Winsemius revealed his perspectives on Johan Cruijff as a leadership icon, both in the sports world and beyond.

From Field to Form: Winsemius’ Vision on Cruijff’s Leadership

But Cruijff, in turn, was also inspired by Winsemius. “That you are an example for others, outside the sport itself, I only experienced when that Winsemius at some point wrote his first book about Cruijff (in 1988: Never Play Away). In it, he said that for him, sport was a guideline as a minister and in his company. I thought: sport as a guideline… athletes were always lunatics, you shouldn’t let them talk, they had no education, they couldn’t do anything. When Winsemius started translating sport into leadership, into qualities you needed to reach the top in organizations, then I thought: we are not that dumb after all. We just didn’t go to school.” Winsemius was the inspiration for Cruijff to start the Johan Cruijff University.

Cruijff’s Leadership Lessons: Proven Wisdom Through the Years

What I found interesting as a reader of those books then, and still do now, is that many of Johan Cruijff’s leadership principles that Winsemius wrote about have stood the test of time and were later often scientifically proven as the most effective leadership methods, such as in our HPO research that we first published in 2008. The examples and names in the book are outdated now; but many of Cruijff’s visionary ideas are now commonplace both on the football field and in organizations. It seemed fun to take another good look at the old article. These Cruijff principles have remained rock-solid:

• Team Over Individual: Cruijff’s Vision on Servant Leadership

Cruijff only fielded people who put all their talent into making the team they work in better. In Cruijff’s vision, everyone uses their talents to perform their core tasks as well as possible. This builds mutual trust. A team with a lot of mutual trust dares more and achieves ultimately greater performances. A field full of superior individuals can never compete with that.

• Back to Basics: Cruijff’s Recipe for Success

Cruijff always sought the simplest methods to achieve his goals and ensure that everyone knew his expectations. After making a simple plan, the focus then shifts to perfecting the execution: increasing the speed of action, preventing mistakes, and knowing when team members needed support from each other: “I have a terrible dislike for someone who moves, but does not know where he is going.”

He says: “I knew at a fairly young age what my qualities as a footballer were. As a forward, I simply didn’t have enough technique. I had to rely more on my hard work and determination, running my guts out to win a ball back. Well, if I succeed, I feel like a king. I am happy to pass the ball to someone who can do something good with it. And if it leads to a goal, then I beam with joy. Because that is my achievement: I took the ball away. I am proud of the title ‘vacuum cleaner.’ Inferior? No way, quite the opposite. A cleaner is not inferior either, right?”

• Always Sharp: Cruijff’s Strategy of Constructive Dissatisfaction

Both a team and a management team go wrong if everyone is satisfied. Cruijff constantly irritated his forward Stoichkov at Barcelona, so he was always on edge. According to Cruijff, stars also need to be challenged, through an unexpected substitution or criticism from colleagues. You must be willing to reward good people well, says Cruijff: “Cheap coaches are the first to be fired. If you are not expensive, people also do not trust you. Good people need to be challenged and well paid. The biggest problem is the salaries of the mediocre people.”

• Cruijff’s View on Leadership: Direct and Effective

Cruijff emphasized the importance of clear and direct leadership at the top. He believed that quick decision-making is essential and that leaders must remain credible and respectful. His approach to executives was just as direct; he kept them away from day-to-day operations so that the focus could remain on sporting and operational success: “Executives don’t become executives because they love football, they become executives because they love themselves. These people are also not there when your company is losing” and “A coach always maintains his independence. Your vision must be sacred, you must not be influenced by incidents or external opinions.”

A Timeless Vision on Leadership

In a rapidly changing world, Cruijff’s approach proves to be surprisingly visionary and timeless. Leaders and managers can learn a lot from the sports legend, whose principles continue to inspire.

Image: De Gelderlander/ De Luizenmoeder Avrotros

Humor is important and useful, especially in the workplace. It is a universal phenomenon that can encourage, entertain, and connect people. But things can go wrong if not everyone finds a joke funny; if it comes at someone else’s expense, attacks them, or causes harm. This can cause polarization in your company, requiring awareness from both the comedians and the audience.

An apparently innocent, but actually racist or discriminatory joke, can have significant consequences. According to Dutch humor researcher Zijp, people with an “it’s just a joke” mentality often miss something essential: the realization that humor can indeed have an impact. Why?

Often, laughter comes from jokes that test the moral and social boundaries of people, sometimes crossing them. If jokes in your team are on the edge (or even cross it), Zijp identifies two risks: first, the content of the joke can become normalized, and second, the standard for what’s acceptable can shift. This is not conducive to a healthy work environment.

Here’s how it works: regardless of your political beliefs, discriminatory or racist jokes have a normalizing effect on your brain. Just by hearing Theo Maassen make an edgy joke, you might find a similar comment from a colleague less strange. It seems logical, right, since Maassen got a thunderous applause for it? And Johan Derksen remains on television despite the monthly controversies surrounding his remarks, which shifts the standard for what’s acceptable. In your own organization, jokers unconsciously influence what’s considered okay to say. The more authority they have, the more likely we are to accept what they say. And the more laughter they receive, the quicker this new standard becomes part of the corporate culture.

Yes, even those who laugh along have an impact. Many colleagues will laugh at jokes that are near the edge out of discomfort or relief that they are above such comments. But it’s striking that those same colleagues still laugh heartily at racist jokes. Take, for example, Luizenmoeder, a confrontational series that received a lot of praise, in which discriminatory jokes fly at you. If ‘De Klimop’ were a miniature version of your organization, wouldn’t you find it concerning if jokes about a Black father “probably being the cleaner” and his adopted daughter not being able to speak Dutch at four were accepted as harmless comedy?

Before you go on the defensive: I know that Luizenmoeder was created to hold a mirror to us and that the reflection it provides has a purpose. But even if you don’t mean it that way as a joker, you should realize the possible side effects of your frequent jokes at others’ expense. There’s a risk in how people interpret humor. This is called the Archie Bunker Effect, named after a fictional white racist bully in the 1970s TV series “All in the Family.” The creators portrayed Bunker as a caricature, but the show’s success had an unexpected side effect: conservative viewers began to identify with Bunker as their hero, causing this unintended ideology to gain traction.

Perhaps there’s a Theo Maassen, a Juf Ank, or an Archie Bunker at your workplace? Who sometimes makes terrible, cringe-worthy remarks under the guise of a joke, which might lead colleagues to make similar racist or discriminatory comments? If so, understand that this changes the norm.

What can you do about it?

As an organization, you need to take responsibility for defining and maintaining the company’s norms and culture. Involve all employees actively, making DEI an integral part of onboarding and annual training. Consider making inclusion and exclusion training, and the role of humor within them, mandatory for promotions, or linking personal goals to inclusion. This way, the company sends a clear message: jokes and behavior that don’t align with our norms don’t belong here and have consequences.

To effectively address the problem, a daily approach is also required, to which every employee can contribute. Encourage a culture where employees dare to call out discriminatory jokes so they don’t find a foothold. Make it clear that those who laugh along are also partially responsible for the exclusion the joke causes. If you’re not actively working on inclusion, you’re unconsciously working on exclusion. A joke that doesn’t come at someone else’s expense is delightful, especially in the workplace. Make sure humor brings people together instead of dividing them.

In many organizations, discussing unsafe behavior remains a challenge. Often, we prefer to talk about insecurity in other organizations (such as the NPO) rather than initiating a conversation about the safety of our own organization and how to improve it. Why do we find it so difficult to address unsafe situations within our own work environment?

An effective way to approach this question is through the pyramid of unwanted behavior and insecurity outlined below. This pyramid illustrates that an unsafe work environment not only revolves around the widely discussed incidents at the top of the pyramid but begins with small and seemingly ‘innocent’ actions. Unwanted behavior starts with things we tolerate, ignore, and thereby perpetuate during our daily work. If flawed everyday behavior is not promptly and clearly corrected, it can repeat itself and ultimately create an unsafe corporate culture where larger incidents occur more frequently. This has significant negative consequences for the (mental) health, job satisfaction, and outcomes of many people in that organization.

From a distance, it seems incomprehensible that people continue to go to work in a toxic culture (because that’s what it becomes). Yet they do, as we can also read in the Van Rijn report about the NPO. Unfortunately, the NPO is far from the only unsafe organization. At least twice a month, I encounter an organization where people don’t speak freely, where some dominate meetings, steamrolling others’ opinions, or where jokes are made that exclude certain individuals.

The NPO is one of the organizations where the risk factors for leaving safety unaddressed are higher. In my experience, these are the characteristics of organizations where people are quicker to turn a blind eye to unsafe behavior:

• Organizations structured around professions that are typically exclusive to that organization, such as police, firefighting, diplomacy, or defense, often lead individuals to accept more unsafe behavior due to the strong attachment to their profession.
• Organizations where individuals feel part of an elite group playing in the ‘Champions League’ may be prone to accepting more unsafe behavior, seen in broadcasting companies, top sports teams, businesses in Amsterdam’s Zuidas, universities, and the cultural sector.
• Organizations relying heavily on temporary contracts, weakening employees’ legal standing, may foster a culture of silence as criticism could jeopardize contract renewals.
• Organizations situated in regions with limited employment opportunities may compel local employees to endure a toxic culture due to the lack of viable alternatives without relocation.
• Even organizations offering above-average pay may inadvertently accelerate a culture of insecurity, as individuals may tolerate more unsafe conditions if comparable employment opportunities are scarce elsewhere.

If you’re wondering whether your team or organization exhibits signs of insecurity, ask yourself:

• Are there aspects of interaction within your team or organization that you find difficult to discuss with your colleagues, or only with certain colleagues?
• Are there aspects of interaction within your team that you find challenging to discuss with your manager?
• Are there aspects of interaction within your team or organization that you keep to yourself, even if you consider them undesirable?

If you’ve answered positively to one or more of the above questions, realize that you’re often not alone. What do you need to make these issues discussable? Here are a few tips:

Often, there are more people experiencing the same problems, which can significantly affect their job satisfaction and health. Consider initiating a conversation with others or, if necessary, collectively filing a complaint. This way, you won’t be alone in addressing these issues.

Consider asking if all submitted complaints in your organization can be made public. Analyzing these complaints provides insight into the organizational culture and helps understand what’s needed to create a safer work culture. You can also utilize employee satisfaction surveys (MTO). Don’t just focus on average scores but also examine the distribution of scores and answers, as well as the examples provided. Organizations often only focus on the average score, while outliers can indicate important signals of unsafe situations in specific areas.

Identifying and addressing insecurity within an organization is challenging and not always easy but is essential for creating a safe and healthy work environment for everyone. And the company as a whole benefits from it.