11 Jun

You Don’t Have a People Problem. You Have a System.

Systems-thinking infographic: scattered people icons, curved arrows around a glowing central circle on a dark blue gradient with the phrase 'You don't have a people problem. You have a system.'
Your team won't take ownership. The same crisis keeps returning. You replaced the problem person and nothing changed. These aren't character flaws — they're the shape of the system you're standing inside. Drawing on three decades in the leadership chair, Jan Salomons on why so much competence produces so little change, and where the shift actually begins.
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15 May

The full logic (and context) of yes and no

Hero banner: dark blue gradient with concentric rings and a gold 'yes' at center, title 'The full logic of yes and no' on the right.
A yes from Beijing and a yes from Amsterdam can come out of the same mouth in the same meeting and mean radically different things. A reference-grade walk through the four cross-cultural frameworks — Hofstede, GLOBE, WVS, Schwartz — and the two psychological theories underneath that explain why.
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10 May

What is my colleague’s salary? I have the right to know!

Infographic titled 'Same work' showing salary bars for three senior managers: €87,500, €105,000 and €128,000 with figures and icons beneath.
The EU Pay Transparency Directive shifts the burden of proof onto the employer. A pay difference will now require an objective, documented justification, or a correction. "She negotiated harder when she joined" is not a defence. "He's been here longer" might be — if your tenure logic is documented. The leaders who navigate this well will be the ones who do the work before the questions arrive. Conversation by conversation, fairness becomes a leadership problem.
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23 Apr

Leading in the Waiting Room: How to Hold Your Team Together When the Organization Hasn’t Decided Yet on Organizational Changes

Abstract illustration of golden human figures forming a crowd under a spotlight inside a stylized arena.
When four of your twelve team members may be made redundant — but nothing is official yet — leadership becomes something different. It becomes the art of holding people together in uncertainty. This post offers six practical principles for leading through the wait: with honesty, focus, differentiation, and the kind of steadiness that people will remember long after the decision is made.
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