There is a difference between surface-level and deep-level diversity

Most business podcasts focus on strategy, growth, technology or leadership frameworks. 

This episode is different. 

Our guest is Stephanie Schoss – leadership expert, executive coach and lecturer at the University of St. Gallen, one of Europe's leading business schools. 

Stephanie Schoss studied at the University of St. Gallen, Singapore Management University and Harvard. She holds a PhD from RWTH Aachen University and is a Director of the Competence Center for Top Team Research at the Institute of International Management at the University of St. Gallen. 

Besides her academic career, Stephanie is a passionate commercial and seaplane pilot and has been an active entrepreneur for the past 20 years – for which she was recognised as manager of the year in 2013 by Generation CEO. 

Besides her professional life, she is a dedicated mother of 4 children and 4 stepchildren and lives part of the year in New Zealand with her family. 

Stephanie studied business with a focus on finance, but throughout her career, she became fascinated by a different question: What makes people truly grow? 

In this conversation, we explore leadership beyond titles and management techniques. We talk about developing the capacity to hold contradictions, why excitement and anxiety often come from the same place, how art and nature quietly shape the way we think, and why hope may be one of the most underrated leadership skills today. 

We also discuss: 

• Ambidextrous leadership and leading through paradoxes 
• Learning through every decade of life 
• The difference between surface-level and deep-level diversity 
• Why does exposure to art and nature matters more than we realize 
• And what Pippi Longstocking can teach us about courage: 
  "I've never done this before, so I must be brilliant at it!" 

If you're expecting another business podcast, this episode may surprise you! 

Walk Your Talk - podcast by CROZ

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

And I have this inner voice in my ear saying, I have never done this before. I must be brilliant in it.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Today's special guest is Stephanie Schoss, Director of the Competence Center for Top Team Research at the University of St. Gallen with academic experience from St. Gallen, Singapore Management University, Harvard, and RWTH Aachen.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Okay, so first of all, welcome to another episode of Walk Your Talk, with this time without Miri. We are one year after your great uh keynote session on our QED. And uh thank you very much for the beautiful tour here in St. Gallen. Can you maybe for our viewers just explain a little bit your story here at St. Gallen Institute and university when you were younger and nowadays, what have you done so far?

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Sure, I came here I think 20 something years ago, you know, my age we count in decades. And I came here as a young student before I was a student to check out the place, and I was really um just attracted by the intellectual talent, but I was also attracted by the place St. Gallen itself, the nature, and all the great myth and stories I heard about this institution. So I decided to study here and I studied business with a focus on finance. And I have to say, we will maybe as we walk through this area, we will see a little bit of the buildings. But I have to say they started these buildings here in the 60s as in a in a Bauhaus deal called Brutalism, and I could really feel it. It felt very strict, it felt very much like you better fit in, you better pull your weights.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

I really loved how you said just a couple of minutes ago, and I really wanted to stress that how you said that you were at the same time inspired and under uh pressure. How do you say that in German? I don't want to try. Beeindruckt and bedrückt. Yeah, that's what's because I think everybody can relate to that. There are always some phases in our lives when we are at the same time, I don't know, motivated with rapid technology advancement or whatever, and at the same time a little bit intimidated. How does that feel when you're young?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

So, first of all, we teach this at the university as well. We call it ambidexuous leadership. Okay. How do you explore and exploit, you know, innovate and cut costs? How do we create this expansion inside the capacity to hold the contradictions and actually work with them creatively?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

So I'm not much about our scripts. You already gave me chills. Look, and we didn't even plan to talk about it, but this is so great because I think we we are all in that stage now. So are there any tips or we should, I don't know, just embrace it? What do you teach?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

I I really think um falling in love with the idea of increasing your inner capacity to hold contradictions and grow in these contradictions between these poles. I think this is this is an exciting framing because then you don't have to make sense of them and say, well, is it this or is it that? And today for our young generation, you know, we see this here in Sangalan, unfortunately, also a lot. There's a lot of fear of the future and anxieties and fear of other people. Fear of other people. That's the next. But especially with the anxiety, I tell them, well, you know, excitement and anxiety, they have the same nature, right? So work with these contradictions and try to increase the space and hold the contradictions and grow within these contradictions of anxiety and excitement, and maybe you can frame it a bit more towards the positive, where you have this opportunity, the possibility, the freedom to create and not be kind of depleted and overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

I I think everything you just said, it fits greatly with what what we talked this year with Nasim Talib as well, because he talks a lot about those positive stressors. But yeah, when when he says that it feels like, oh, I need to do this and just jump from that small wall, but I will be better. But there is no of this laughing and hugging, and it will be great. And I bet that most of us strive to the positive part of it. How do you help yourself to always do that?

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Because you obviously I have a great role model. Okay. I I have many great role models, but one of my great role models is Pippi Langstrumpf.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Okay. I didn't see this.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

I loved her as a kid as well. And and I think this unconventional way of being and finding your own way and going against the existing norms. And basically, it's about finding your own truth and standing your grounds. And it's sometimes so difficult because we internalize the voice of society, of institutions, of parents so quickly, and we mistake it for our own, and then we become very hard about it. So it's a bit bring back playfulness and joy. And I always say, you know, difficult things can be easy. Yeah. It's okay to approach difficult things within easy.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

You have always been that kind of colourful person, let's say, or did this brutalism ignite it that in you as a sort of protest? Or there are both angles.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

I think I always was like this. Okay, but I think I have kind of painted myself a bit in the brutalist colour to camouflage better in. And really, I would say in my 20s, it was about exercising my assertiveness. And to do this, you have to understand how to read a system, how to play a system, how to exercise, how to compete, and how to win in a system. And this is not so fun. This is kind of strict, this is ambitious, and I was thriving on this. And then, and this was my times at the university. Then in my 30s, it was more about experiencing life in all dimensions. Everything at the same time, ideally. Just because I felt this power of I understand it being immersing. Who was immersing, okay, and my thinking was everything at the same time because I can. Okay. It was this empowering because I can. Now in my 40s, I discover new quality just because I can doesn't mean I have to need to. Okay, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

But it was definitely so you were like cutting, let's say, from the beautiful bushes and uh roses, you're just trying to find your perfect uh let's flowers or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

What I try to find is the more the fit, the person job fit, the person situation fit. Even when we were walking around the campus, I said feel the energy. Where do you belong? Where are you inspired, and where are you shrinking? Um, so I'm much more looking for operating in a good place in the world. Where can I make the biggest impact? Naturally. And I need a lot of energy also to see what brings me in a good place and in a good mood. Because then I'm the better educator, the better entrepreneur, the better mother and partner.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

But I think it's very important that we stay sincere in that it is not the same in 2030s, 40s, uh, when you are mother, when you're not mother. I very often uh talk to young ladies who are like, oh my god, I'm not verted because I don't have enough time to read or whatever. And then I say, But I didn't have any time to read when my kids were really small. Just please try to be easy on yourself. And very similar to that, you just said something uh before that in your 20s you didn't have like the you didn't cherish the same things that you do today, like culture, for example, or whatever. Are we nowadays maybe forcing young uh kids or ladies, uh uh boys to have the same visions as us and the same level of maturity? Do we maybe need to cut give them a little bit more time to immerse in the things to try? Or how do you see young generations and how to help them?

SPEAKER_02 8:15

I think you know, when you look at the art at our university, we have the biggest art collection within built-in a university in the world. It's really amazing. I must say, I'm only amazed, I'm not even intimidated. And our curator said it the art is meant to inspire on a you know subtle level. So we don't care if the students don't see it, don't know the names of the artists, don't stand in front and oh and appreciate. And I was like one of this. I was sitting leaning against Chacumetti with my cappuccino and thinking it's you know it's a backstand. But it does something to you. So I believe in exposure. I think we can expose our children to our world and what we think is recreational, for example, what we think brings peace. We can bring them into nature, we can bring them to art. Usually you have to grow older to appreciate and connect back to the seed. So my kids still ask me, still say, I have to go out again. Now our 25-year-old said on his 25th birthday, today I was considering taking a walk in nature, the one you always took me to. Do you think I'm sick or I'm just growing old? Yeah, that's it. That's the first sign. So I believe in exposure, even though we don't see the immediate effect. And we call it, you know, dedication and devotion. If you can provide exposure without getting an effect and a reward. And then I also believe, you know, in this Khalil Gibran saying we can, you know, give our children, you know, the hope and the wings and the roots, but we they live in the house of tomorrow and we cannot enter it. They have their own thoughts. And we have to also have deep trust and faith in them. That they they create the new, and not only with the tools we're giving them. And only not only with the projection that we think of the thing. With the projection, and not with the wiring and the consciousness. And that's sometimes difficult because if you're raised in this brutalist style, you know exactly what's right and what is wrong, and this voice that's inside of you. It's getting louder, especially in the parent role. Sometimes you're acting out these concepts and you think they're yours, you're an autopilot, and to take a step back and lean into the deep trust and maybe hope and maybe faith in this generation.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

I really love it. We I had a conversation uh with my colleague and one partner several years ago, and she is a little bit, she was a little bit older than us, and her kids were grown-ups, and she said exactly that. You need to hope that everything will be alright. But it's hard, it's really easy, like when you're general after the battle, to say, yeah, yeah, I hoped. But at the moment it is very uh complex and hard not only to trust that your kids will come to the to the place where they will be happy, but that your colleagues or maybe people you are mentoring. How to do that with your mentees? I I bet you do a lot of, I know you do a lot of coaching and you are a great mentor. How to provide that kind of trust and that kind of hope to your um environment, working environment.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

I think hope is also it's a belief construct now, I'm saying, as a you know, as my scientist mind. Um, but the belief is something that wants to be practiced as well. Okay, it's almost like training and like like a muscle. And um you have to get close up with hope, and you will fall deep and you will hope again, and you'll almost build a kind of a hope, a resilience to hope again and again, and hope despite, you know, especially in in difficult circumstances. And the same with faith. I think there is a big crisis where people looking for some greater meaning, some things they can believe in, sometimes they turn to social media or drugs or whatever makes them feel there is more than just us because I could collapse under the adversities in the world. Um, but I think hope is very um essential in this world, and we have to really train it and and put it on.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Obviously, we need to decide we want to train it, right? Or do you think it's some sort of like like like your North Star, something that your belief? I want to build my hope to other people, to my colleagues, to the to the to the success of my project or whatever, or is that comes just naturally from practicing?

SPEAKER_02 12:55

I would say personality dependent for some people, it's more internally wired. But I think you always have this great degree of freedom to practice something. And of course, we can be role models, you know, and the hope is a pro-social concept, so it radiates. If I'm in front of my students that don't find impact they can have in the world, and when I look at them and I radiate from inside, from really a deep conviction and feeling that I have hope in them and that I believe they will make their way, the way they stand in the world is different.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

So we can we can radiate this for each other and we can inspire walking to another location. You said something really great, and it adds up to what I just said. So today we are all in a little bit different shoes than usual, doing some jobs we never do in our lives, but you said something, what your role model would say about it.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Of course. What would Pippi Langstrump advise me? And I have this inner voice in my ear saying, I have never done this before, I must be brilliant in it.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

That's really it. I hope we will be brilliant. But she knew it, and I will maybe learn over the years to listen to that inner voice. It's an inner attitude, again, something that requires training, but it's fun. Yeah, but but you are right. There are so many things for us to learn. Being in the 30s, 40s, 50s, there is always something new. And uh, when you were our guest last year, there are a couple of things that just sticked with so many people. Uh, I'm sure you don't know, but our most viewed video ever on LinkedIn uh is when you are being on that panel session and talking about deep diversity. Okay. And I just wanted to know. No, I didn't know it uh as well. Yesterday somebody uh informed me, and then I looked it again, and you were saying how today we are obsessed about, let's say, shallow diversity, something that's very vivid, palpable, like we are girls, they are boys, and stuff like that. But the real growth and the real collective comes from the deep diversity. Can you explain it a bit? Because I really think it's important.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

So, first of all, maybe the two concepts surface level diversity, we usually refer to age, gender, ethnicity, properties that are kind of easily detectable on the outside. And with all of these, we still overfocus and we have sponsoring for that for gender diversity, right? And we introduce quotas and so on. But what we see in our research, where it gets really interesting and where it moves the needle from what really differentiates, for example, a top team and a top performance, is what we call deep level diversity. And deep level diversity means how do we operate as a team on the level everything below the iceberg, our value systems, our beliefs, our upbringing. Exactly. It's DNA, it's your RNA. It's the root, the foundation out of which we operate and out of which our autopilot sometimes operates us. System one. System one, yeah. And and so it's much more interesting to look how a team is composed on that level, because it will have a direct um indication of the conflict behavior of the team, and as a result of the performance of the team. So we know from many many studies the longer the team works together, the more the deep level diversity is a predictor of success or not success.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Especially you say when when they are being constantly, let's say, uh focused on some problems and solving them. So they need to keep their level of conflicts. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Or you I think first of all you need an awareness and an understanding because this the different operating modes that we have, first of all, sometimes we are not even aware of them, and for the others, we could be just triggers in our being differently way. Because the different personality leads to different acting styles and thinking styles. So I might come into our team and I might be a complete irritation for you, and you take it personal. So the difficult thing is then the spillover effect. I want to just contribute with my background, my expertise, my values, so I bring in a perspective. But this might be so foreign to you that you would say, I can't, I I can't uh comprehend. So what our system one is then doing, saying, Okay, then let's make an easy choice. Is it a friend or is it an enemy? It seems very foreign. So let's say it's it's an it's a different person, and then we start and struggle for identity survival. Is she good or am I good? Okay, and then we start to withdraw energy from the team, from the task, and start um you know lobbying for our existence that we are kind of okay. This is what's happening in the automation mode.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

And who should then if there is that kind of situation, how where do you find a solution to get out of it? Is it the leader's job to recognize that? Is that uh job of each of us to grow again or both?

SPEAKER_02 18:06

I I like both. Of course, you know, with the leader you always have a special responsibility because um you are you have the strongest impact on creating a culture. And what we want is a you know a proactive conflict culture where people can speak their mind without fearing being judged, you have a psychological safety. But this comes a lot through how the leader lives it, not what he says or she says, but but how they live it. So I think this is the big role model, and of course, if you make this culture more explicit, if you give the people training, you can develop like a reference culture where you can go back to and say, Hey, let's have a good fight about this. And immediately you know what we are doing next, and it's not that I dislike you or disrespect you. So, this is some tools you can use.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

There are there are so many angles now or which I would like to touch, which is really hard in a short forecast. But for example, complacency and loss of agency is something that's I would say now driving crazy, or uh many people are afraid that we will, especially in AI era, start to lose it even more. We already see that complacency is like a disease in a big environment, in exactly in in the situations which which you said. How do you see uh people waking up from that autopilot and stepping into this driver's driver's seat and keeping the steering wheel? What to do?

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Yeah, I think you know, for finding a match the person job fit match, and not from because I'm a woman I can do this better, but from my inner motivation. If I can do, and you can map this, you can map the tasks and what the tasks require, really in terms of intrinsic motivations, and you can map people on their intrinsic motivation and see where's the best fit. But often we map by skill, by experience, even by our egos. I want that visualized conservation bias. But if you map it on on a deeper level, then the job suddenly becomes meaningful. It has something to do with me. It it has a purpose intrinsically, and then you get people more in a flow. So this is one thing, more of a a structural thing that that you can do.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Good.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Talking about AI, the elephant in every room today, and since you are being very connected with so many executives, being coaching, being here from the school, being entrepreneur yourself, not to forget that part. Uh do you think that people are at this moment too bold, too uh afraid, uh just at the right level? What is bugging them? How do you see the that our producer for sure that we need to do it? So it's like a good goal. Uh what's the current stage in the what m what do you see in the C level suits today when it comes to AR? About how they are approaching it or let's say velocity of dealing with the risks and the opportunities. So it's it's very hard. I absolutely understand.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Well, and it's culture dependent, right? There are cultures like the US, China, they say where the opportunities and there are cultures like Germany who said let's map the risk and let's make a regulation around it, how we steer it. Exactly. From uh one level down, more micro on the business level. What I see a lot in companies with the with the CEOs, they understood cognitively, emotionally, fact-based, this is one of the biggest changes we will face. So they know they have no choice but to adapt and find strategies. So what happens next is there are a lot of initiatives within companies saying we need to understand AI impact on business or new business. And they send out the people and they say, Bring me back updates pilot cases. What do you want to do? And the next phase is they sit with 250 pilots. pilot cases and they think what moves the needle, what is doable for us, and the doable, I come back to this big big point. And then um uh and then they start selecting a few and then they go into pilot. And what we see is still extremely difficult to go from pilot to scale. And why? Because they see AI as a strategic investment. They maybe have a an idea of how this could bring a new you know business model, uh a new revenue stream. But what I see they are under investing. Um they are investing in the technology per se, but they are under investing in all the surrounding capitalism. So I I hope they just enter the the new machine into the house everything else stays the same. Exactly and I say you know an AI transformation AI strategy is ten percent AI investment and ninety percent organizational psych the therapy. Yeah they are still being in in plumbing mode of their systems of 10 years ago. The people are not trained there is a lot of fear so you need to um see this as an an integrated system.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

This is I think where we're still where we still what kind of push do you think is needed or will happen so to get out of that and just now start investing in those transformations, adaptations, uh and as you said, uh facing the fears all of that I think partly disruption will do its part itself.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

So I don't expect any of the big big companies to bring this leap forward. I think this is the job of the startups doing radical innovation. And the companies will do incrementally and die in other parts or they will consolidate or they will be bought by tech companies you know for their data to play a new vertical. And this is what we are seeing already, you know a consolidation of of you know tech companies uh collaborating or or buying traditional industries for the data to to develop new business models just because they can and they take job of the challengers let's say or the like younger or at least cultural younger in mind in in a way yes in a way yes and then there's the schumpeters the force, you know the creative destruction. I think this is an a very organic natural part that that will happen as well. But there's a huge chance for all of us. We have to overcome especially in a corporate setting that's more the brutalist you know style of doing business we have to overcome our our fears and the protectionism of our existing business so maybe we can have little spin-outs that go more radical, more wild that are not under corporate audit and have to comply with all the bring some nice nature or nice some fresh art into the brutalist uh architecture.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

That would be the way to go for the corporation.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

And to yeah bring some entrepreneurial spirit into the invasion different ways of doing it usually we do it the other way around and fail we buy startups and incorporate them into corporate structures and then and then they're cool inside so we have to do it a little bit the other way around.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

So we are now inside in in the newer right a bit cooler yes and uh a bit newer and a bit more not so much brutalists no no very I I would say um it really brings you connects you with your own energy and space and everything and uh as I mentioned it was for us really great what we heard from you on your uh long session last time and the North Star was something that I always kind to to go back whenever I remember you and try to find my North Star and I'd be curious to hear more about this at one point. I will tell you and what can you share with us when it comes to your own personal let's say North stars or North Star where are you heading at this point in your life I don't mean an ambitious professional career but what drives you at this moment so I would say my concept of the North Star is has expanded actually since last year.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Okay so how I see it is more like um like a true threefold concept of and I feel this more than I think about it but I put it in words for you I feel that that deep deep trust in life in Mother Earth and I think it's so important today because otherwise it's really difficult to continue in this world and I really feel as long as we are a living human being on this planet there is a connection to that planet to Mother Earth that carries us and it's almost like this primal trust that a baby has to a mother. So I feel this and this is more like a holding but it's an orientation in a way and then I also feel this from below I kind of feel a connection from above it's my my spiritual connection it's my guidance and I feel very guided sometimes gently sometimes more direct but this is also like a North Star that is even sitting above my ego and and my my ambition and I feel in between these two trust faith this is a faith and this is a primal trust this is where you develop where you create this self bewusst between so I would say it maybe in German like this. So this is for me a concept that I more feel these days as I get older and more calm. And when you ask how does that translate into orientation in my life I would say what I said at the beginning of our talk today I'm more curious about what is a match where do I belong to really make a difference that's connected to me and kind of guided and um I'm at the moment of course family and family peace is a big um is a is a big thing for me. But also I'm quite interested and concerned and active about peace in the world but you don't mistake the order right it goes from inside to outside you have to do the job first inside to then radiate it outside otherwise it gets very corrupt and you think you can save peace with making war which is what we're trying today and it's you know not such a clever strategy. So peace is a thing and of course on the more operational level I feel this calling of AI and the new form of AI to bring this into the world and in AI this is more reflective not just stochastical models and yeah I want to give the diversity back to life because also code carries culture as well right so I feel a calling to motherhood for the for the code.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

And I think it's so important you know I'm really very thankful you shared with all of this with us because I think the only way forward for us as a community society is our kids are speaking out with so many important topics. And we somehow left the important topics to some people who want to scream about them and we should take that mic and I'm so as again I can show it I'm thankful for uh putting the peace yeah on the stage.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Even even you know I'm I'm involved in an initiative that is called More Women More Peace. Okay. Bringing women to the negotiation tables. In the house in the business in the world I think this is a natural good position for us to be in. I feel comfortable in this position. Lean into conflict and lend my voice to conflict because I have experienced that I can say the truth more lovingly so it lands better for a better resolution.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

That's that's a really strong card to play with thank you so much for your time and for everything. Thanks thank you and see you soon again and uh bye and yeah see you on another episode