Edited by Julieb Scarlett Garcia
In this interview with Mammen Tharakan, Director at the Edmonton International Airport, we discuss keeping the customer and the team always front and center as part of Leadx3m's Creactive Leadership Series.
Mammen Tharakan emphasizes that business is ultimately all about people, and at best, these people also serve some of the more significant needs in society. Edmonton International Airport (IATA: YEG) is a vital air passenger and cargo airport in the province of Alberta. Canada's 5th busiest airport with closer to nine million passengers in a non-covid year. As Director of E-commerce, Cargo & Aviation Real Estate, Investment Attraction, and Partnerships, it's clear that Mammen wears many hats and is strategically involved in developing this critical hub from many angles. Together with a dedicated team and a strong customer focus, his objective is to retain the positions of Canada and Edmonton in the global supply chain.
Previously, Mammen worked for the Calgary Airport Authority managing Air Service Development and as a Station Manager for Air France-KLM across different locations in Canada and the U.S. Before aviation, he worked in the events industry as Senior Operations Manager for Canada's Wonderland in Toronto, as a self-employed event production manager, and while in Doha, Qatar as CAD Technician at Al Jaber Engineering and Computer Programmer at HKH Contracting. Mammen is actively engaged in volunteering as a Director of GlobalGest, Committee Member of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and Alto Award Judge. He also serves as Global Ambassador for his alma mater, Hult International Business School, where he earned an EMBA with distinction and recipient of the Global Citizens Award. He has also studied Technical Production (Theatre Arts) at Humber College and Visual Arts & Marketing at George Brown College.
Henrik Totterman (Henrik): Mammen, we have known for several years. I'm genuinely excited to have you here today to talk about creactive leadership. The first question is, how do you define your leadership style?
Mammen Tharak (Mammen): Yeah, thank you, Henrik, exciting. I'm so happy to be here and have this conversation. You know, I think I'll answer that by saying I'll define my leadership style as the one that I'm striving for, knowing that it's constantly under progress. Generally, I operate under the principle that I'm a servant to my team, my customer. My job is to make the environment positive, meaningful, inclusive, but to support them in the position that they're doing. Over the years, I've come to learn that I have a very situational leadership style. I adapt it to the type of organization, the profile of my team, the nature of the environment, of course. You know, here we are in January 2022. The type of leader you have to be during a crisis is very different from times of intense growth. And maybe I'll add that ultimately, it's essential to be an empathetic leader who creates the right environment or workplace for others to thrive in and help them to be at their best performing self. The team must know that their leadership has their back and care about them as people first and contributors second.
Henrik: Very interesting, thank you. My next question is, why do you think we see an increasing need for creativity as a leadership style?
Mammen: I love the play on words, creativity, and being active. It's the only way to remain relevant. The last few years have taught us that it's just amplified this reality if there's anything. The environment is constantly changing the expectation of customers, the shareholders, or other stakeholders. Your peers your industry group are changing. You know, if I take you back to my industry - aviation, we often say that it's not an industry, but an initiative of sectors. It can be aerospace, transport, hospitality, logistics, and tourism. It's many more. The drivers and the creactive leadership you've identified, the innovation, the entrepreneurialism, the cooperation, the delivery. These are all elements of survival, but more importantly, sustainable growth. And I think that's why more than ever, it's relevant today because it's the only way to survive.
Henrik: Lovely. Thank you. Next, I'd like to talk with you about innovation and strategy. And my first question is, in a primarily disrupted world. How do you maintain a positive outlook direction and keep a winning concept current?
Mammen: It's an exciting and tricky question these days, but it's an ultimately greater emphasis on the impact you're creating in the world. There has to be a collective buy-in into what you're doing. You know, Henrik, I know that you subscribe by the same principle. I firmly believe business always has been and always will be ultimately about people. And yes, that extends to your customers and other partners. But the same is valid for your teams and people in your workplace. People want to know that they're making a difference, and that's a compelling motivator and morale booster. You see, I'll use the example again from when air travel shut down and our airport deserted, causing close to 100 percent revenue destruction with no passengers in the terminal. One of the things that I focused on with my team was drawing attention to our role in ensuring that the critical lifeline, pandemic supplies, and medical products reached frontline teams in the hospitals and emergency sites. And it provided just the right burst of enthusiasm to remind the groups that the strategy and directions are pointing in the right direction for the right reasons.
Henrik: Very insightful, and of course, your industry and the many other industries your airport represent. I mean, you are really at the epicenter of this pandemic, ensuring there is the crucial provision of supplies coming in and out from the country as planned. It's just incredible work. Kudos for that. Then the following question: Is there any advice on data collection and analysis, especially for companies just looking up the request to generate intelligence?
Mammen: Yeah, I tend to believe, Henrik, that in the future, the best performing organizations will have the capability to appropriately map and identify every data point that is possible to capture. And then leverage that data to provide just not long-term business insights, but perhaps real-time triggers that need attention rather than being reactive when required. The reality is that this data can complement our human interactions to make them even more powerful. I think about implementations from a supply chain visibility and monitoring and tracing for tracking purposes and a security perspective. We understand the realities of cybersecurity that are upon us. We need to ensure that the correct data framework exists to ensure that appropriate tracking along the way is robust. So, I think that reality will continue to exist, and all it will do is further support the human interactions that will take place.
Henrik: Very impressive, and I used to work many, many moons ago for a company called TNT Express, integrated with FedEx nowadays, before the early 2000s. And I recall, well, that back then, we did a fantastic job tracking packages worldwide. And I can imagine how the industry has evolved since then. Do you have any insights about A.I. or predictive stuff that you can use when we think about tracking?
Mammen: Absolutely. And Henrik, let me jump in on that comment. I'm glad you reminded me of your history with TNT. That, of course, is, as you mentioned, now under the FedEx umbrella. Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, had made a very, very interesting comment decades ago that, if heard today, would appear like the mention was just from the last few years. And the word that he made was that the data about the package would be more valuable than the package itself. And here we are today as we're tracking our deliveries and watching our 24-hour orders dropped on our doorstep and other capabilities. One of the things I would say is the ability to adapt to supply chains. So that while a product is in motion through the supply chain, you can divert it or reestablish the appropriate destination while it's in movement dynamically.
The final destination will result from leveraging data and artificial intelligence more meaningfully. And what that will do is allow us to utilize some of the existing capacity in the system more efficiently. So, if there's a reality where downstream a port is congested because of waiting for ships or labor challenges, midstream the systems exist to redirect those modes of transport to other ports or perhaps even another mode of transportation. It's moving by rail instead of a ship or by air because it needs to arrive at a factory in time to meet deadlines. So being able to leverage some of those capabilities through the increasing capabilities of A.I. and be more responsive from that perspective will be a fascinating reality of our future.
Henrik: Well, an awe-inspiring insight. Thank you so much for opening it for us with your expertise. My next question is about creactive leadership, and the question is: With creactive leadership and overall performance in mind. What kind of key performance indicators would you favor? What are the things that you like to measure? And perhaps you can give some examples of things you already do?
Mammen: Yeah. So, I think it's become clear. We've talked a little bit already about the changing expectations societally from a stakeholder or shareholders perspective. I think for too long, we've focused on, you know, collectively on KPIs that focus on profit at all or any cost. And we recognize the impact, the negative impact of such an approach. So, moving to KPIs about efficiency at all prices, profitability at any cost, or more about the collective output that includes employee wellbeing. I think KPIs will differ for each industry. But you know, maybe as you've asked, I'll use an example from my work at an airport. You'd expect the traditional KPIs that monitor operational metrics like arrivals and departures and delays to be existent. But there are other ways to review this. For instance, I have accountability for a metric that measures overall economic impact: How we are positively improving the community that we serve by generating jobs, making it easier for people to conduct business, moving their goods to market more seamlessly. And all of this while continuously reducing our overall carbon footprint. These types of triple bottom line KPIs, in my view, will be more relevant moving forward.
Henrik: I love the example, and I have to follow up with a question. What concrete actions are you taking as a leader to reach those goals relating to the overall impact? I love that one. Thank you.
Mammen: So the best way for me to put this is to change the way we're doing business. Concrete examples are the type of partners we're choosing to engage with, even for very, very traditional physical infrastructure projects. I'll give an example. We're currently developing a cargo apron, and the apron is the parking pad, the tarmac, which airplanes park at an airport. It's a prominent type of pouring concrete and completion of civil works. We've changed the requirements, the parameters of the project, and the delivery. This way, we can ensure that the vendors qualified to bid on a project have the ability, for example, to provide 100 percent carbon captured cement or have programs to ensure that underrepresented groups are a vital part of the workforce that they bring forward, whether it be women or other communities of color. The discussions underway are what kind of engagement do you have in supporting the First Nations activities in our communities? So how do you move your workforce to and from our site? How do you ensure that's done in a manner that isn't the most harmful to the environment? So, these are the types of conversations you can have with your vendors and the types of parameters that you can build into your contracting and your purchasing programs to ensure that you're aligning yourself with partners that view the world as you do.
Henrik: Very well, I would say in those terms, you are way more advanced than many other industries that I know, and I appreciate you going through the insights there. I want to move to our next section here, and it's about compliance and entrepreneurship. And the first question I have for you is: Can you provide some examples of employee engagement in corporate innovation activities? How does this impact the overall wellbeing and retention of your people?
Mammen: Yeah, great question and still relevant in the current environment. There's lots of discussion about the perfect employee resignation and the tremendous innovation capital just waiting for the release within corporations. I think we're often focused on the day-to-day activities, on delivering our routine deliverables taking away from providing that space to unlock these innovations. As you've heard, I've been fortunate Henrik to work for some pretty innovative companies. I've realized that the key is to foster and encourage this culture of innovation. It's not necessarily about capital or teams. It's about creating a culture of innovation. And you know, therein lies perhaps the most critical question: how do you create a culture? There are a few ways to get there. Some of it is accepting failures, which is sometimes a challenging aspect in corporate structures. Some ideas will work, some won't, but you have to fail quickly. I think another part of it is learned. You constantly reiterate - that's another successful learning from some of the more innovative organizations I've been with. And ultimately, what I'll say is the reality is to create that culture of innovation. It comes with recognizing that to be an innovative organization or to be an innovator in your field, if you want to be at the pointy edge of the spear, you must recognize that you have to take risks, maybe there are controlled risks, perhaps there's measured risk, but you have to take risks. Or else the change won't occur.
Henrik: Excellent. And my follow-up question to that is in your industry, how are companies safekeeping their intellectual property and or keeping their knowledge base intact?
Mammen: Oh, a good question again. Another very timely one. So, safeguarding intellectual property, and I'd say just overall cyber health is undoubtedly a hot topic of discussion. We've mainly seen this among the disruptions over the last little while. Again, I'll come back to an example that I shared briefly about supply chains moving precious commodities like vaccines and ensuring that the appropriate measures are in place to protect the movement of some of these unique goods. But what might seem odd, Henrik is that the most excellent protection, whether it be from intellectual property or other physical assets as well, the most significant individual protection has actually come from the result of collaboration with a broader group, the sharing of lessons learned, sharing of separate incidents more transparently, and also acknowledging and identifying forming threats among partners in a transparent way. That, coupled with enhancing the digital literacy, the digital maturity of the entire workforce through continuous training, I think is going to be essential because the threats that exist from an intellectual property perspective or, you know, of an overall asset protection perspective are only going to increase as the digital touchpoints increase.
Henrik: And just for the record. Could you define a little bit who your competition is? How do you see the competitive landscape in your company setting?
Mammen: Oh, that's a good question. Depending on the field of a business within our different verticals, it could very well be different. I'm going to try to answer this question this way. When you think about a broader travel perspective, the couch is a competitor because you have a choice to create an experience by perhaps staying at home, watching a movie, or ordering a meal and transporting yourself through the power of technology to a far-off place. Or you redirect your Netflix fees, and your Uber Eats order to explore the surrounding region perhaps and book a flight. From that perspective, you know, that's one way to look at who a potential competitor is. Another one from a travel perspective, Henrik, as we are on a Zoom call, is from business travel. Zoom is a potential competitor because, in some cases, it eliminates the capability or the need to travel, finalize a deal, or conduct a transaction from a broader logistics perspective. There are aspects of other modes of transport that could be seen as competitive. Still, it's also a challenging harmonious and symbiotic relationship because perhaps marine transportation or ocean freight is a competitor to air freight. Maybe rail is a competitor to airfreight in some instances. So, from that perspective, depending on the nature of the business unit, the types of competitors are pretty varied and quite extensive. I will say all of this aside, Henrik, and this is not my statement. This is a borrowed statement from someone far more intelligent than me, but we will be competing against one thing and one thing only, which will be speed in the future.
Henrik: Excellent, thank you. I would like to move to the next section about cooperation and impact. And my first question is, how are you, your employer engaging with the surrounding society and specific industry? And this is kind of a follow-up, of course, to what we just discussed earlier as well.
Mammen: Yeah. It's an excellent follow-on to the discussion we just had and sort of the wide-ranging aspect that the airport covers. But most people's impression of airports is perhaps confined to their prior travel experience. Don't necessarily think about them as economic drivers for the region or for countries for that matter. Ultimately, aviation is the business of freedom. And, you know, airports could be seen as the modern-day library or the modern-day town square where people gather to make connections to stop on route to other lands or conduct trade between themselves or with other communities. The role of air transport, to use an example, is exemplified as we discussed in the movement of vaccines, PPE, and other medical supplies. And that continues now to prove its worth by keeping regional and local businesses afloat, by supporting the movement of e-commerce goods, and ensuring that critical imports and exports are moving freely. You can imagine that to ensure our role is appropriately fulfilled. Much engagement needs to occur with the communities, societies, and various entities. So, bringing it back to airports as an example, the types of connections include the tourism authorities, universities and academic institutions, chambers of commerce, the business community, the hotels, the trade associations to continue to understand their needs, the impacts that are evolving that are imposed upon them, and how an airport can best play its part in supporting and enabling their worlds.
Henrik: One curiosity I know is that Montreal hosts the headquarters of IATA, and I always wonder what is the impact of that in Canada when you are operating there. Are you having closer ties to them because of their closer proximity or no special effects?
Mammen: It's a great question, Henrik. The International Civil Aviation Organization is headquartered in Montreal due to conventions from decades ago. While there is perhaps some geographical benefit, and we know the teams there very well, I commend their work, and I have the fortune to meet with them regularly. The reality is that the organization's mandate is to play a neutral role in global aviation activities. They do an excellent job of ensuring that they play a very Switzerland-like role if you allow me to add, in fulfilling their obligation and mandate. I have the opportunity to engage with them on a more frequent basis because of geography. But beyond that, the reality is that the commitment they fulfill pretty appropriately is neutral and one that spans the globe.
Henrik: Thank you. The next question is: How are you interacting with different customer segments, and any changes there? Of course, COVID right now probably has changed many things. We've spoken about your cargo customers and various partners there. And you've also mentioned the consumers and the travelers from a consumer perspective, so you can define your segments along those lines, or if you have a different segmentation, please feel free.
Mammen: The broadest way for me to define the activities involved and, by extension, the different customer segments, Henrik, is at airports we move people, transfer goods, and move investment, dollars, and ideas. And I think that's important because the last piece opens up the funnel, as you can imagine, to a series of conversations. For startups to thrive, they need to gain access to capital markets that need to be connected. Aviation is the modern-day railroad. It's the modern-day shipping so on and so forth. And no surprise that aviation has been one of the hardest-hit sectors. The impacts to the different customer segments I just mentioned are pretty drastic, perhaps highlighting the need for more proactive leadership.
On the one hand, the passenger airlines that primarily move people have suffered devastating drops, as we discussed. In contrast, the other customer segment, cargo air freight, has never been busier, and ongoing supply chain pressures that are forecasted to exist will stay in this matter. The types of conversations you have to have are different from the interactions that must be adapted to these other circumstances. But the environment has shown us that the definition of customer evolves. I appreciate the example you raised of the trade industry association. During the last two years, airports' level of engagement with their government agencies, the regulatory authorities, and their health authorities has been accelerated in a manner that perhaps was never forecasted before. I mean, we're starting to see examples of airports and airlines having chief medical officers. If you begin to think about the definition of the customer and the types of conversations that need to occur, it can only be described as one that's dynamic. And then the reality for organizations like us and others is that the types of conversations need to be adapted because you could be speaking to someone who's reporting a quarter that has exceeded any annual performance. And you're also communicating with customers that perhaps have been challenged to make payroll tomorrow. So that's a reality that needs to be factored in the type of conversations you're having with your partners.
Henrik: Thank you. My next question is, how do you assess risks and opportunities for key partners and suppliers? And we touched upon this a little bit earlier. I love your example about your current building project, and you have concrete suppliers and so forth and how you assess them. Perhaps you can open a little bit more of that example or find another way of approaching this particular question. Please go ahead.
Mammen: Again, this is all significantly related to the conversations. I believe, Henrik, that it's vital for our partners and vendors to remember that we're there during times of trouble. It truly highlights partners from firms where the relationships are more transactional, and I think that's key; the real risks exist if there isn't an alignment in values. You want to do business with partners that share your values. And you know, if I could use examples like the one that we described from a construction project that's underway, there's an opportunity to very quickly determine which partners, which vendors are looking for the low-hanging fruit, looking to seize the concise term opportunity, and perhaps at least in the current environment, don't have intentions of building a long term relationship. And then the other ones that, as I mentioned, stick with you during the bad times that youth want to build on a foundation of trust to grow. And it goes both ways.
I'll compliment my CEO. One of the messages that came out quite early this was right at the beginning of the pandemic, during a period where, as I mentioned earlier, there was absolutely no revenue coming in. Projects had been committed to that had no logical purpose of proceeding in the manner that they intended. And one of the principles of values of our organization is to do the right things right. It makes decision-making relatively easy when in times of difficulty or in times of complexity how to approach a particular conversation with the vendor, falling back on that principle and falling back on the values. In this case, it was doing the right things right to ensure that projects that we had committed to making payments for, we would make payments regardless of whether it made any sense to go forward with the project. There was an acknowledgment that an element of trust was expended for activities to be conducted. And it was essential for us to make sure that we extended those. Fast forward a year or two years later. Those decisions have come back to support us in times of need.
And when we think about it, you know, I'll use another example. This is a little bit more of a geopolitical one. Still, I recall an instance where just before Canada was largely impacted or suffering from the lockdowns that we have all now since come to accept as being regular. There was a need from China's perspective to have PPE. They had run out of their pandemic response supplies. And there was a decision made to send pandemic supplies from Canada to China to ensure that they could manage their crisis at a particular point in time. Four weeks later, those factories that we could remain operational due to equipment provided and other capabilities ended up coming back to North America to support our own needs. I think that alignment in values and recognizing partners with you during times of need are essential because, as businesses, we must operate under the principle of sustainability and existing in perpetuity. And for that, it requires an understanding of long-term business partnerships and long-term relationships rather than transactional ones.
Henrik: What a great example. Thank you. Let's move over to the last section and then have a small surprise for you after that. But before we get there, let's go-to delivery and transformation. And the first question here is: How do you prepare and make decisions, describe the typical process from strategy to implementation.
Mammen: Well, it's changing, but we discussed earlier my desire to maintain a more collaborative approach with the team. One of the things that my team and I try to do, Henrik, and with whom I'm fortunate to work - I'm biased, but perhaps the best in the industry - is to ensure that there's some strategic flex in our plans. So, while we undergo these regular strategic exercises to evaluate the external and internal landscape, prioritize opportunities we are most likely to execute. We routinely visit and question the assumptions, something you've done a great job of instilling in me. But the execution, I would say, is key to the strategy. In the process, as much as we look at existing opportunities and capabilities that the organization has, the decision always comes down to the ability to execute. And from there, it's essentially a resource allocation exercise to ensure that the teams are appropriately supported to deliver.
Henrik: And do you have a concrete example you would like to share?
Mammen: Yeah. One of the ones that come to mind is a shift we've just gone through a strategic exercise to provide less focus on operational elements and move to some more business development activities that would seize more global opportunities from a freight perspective. And almost immediately after the pandemic was underway, it became evident that the reality in ensuring a successful week, month, and year required being boots on the ground and being eyes on the frontline to ensure that you can become an extension of the organization that was impacted. An example is, you know, airlines with borders closing and restrictions in place. Airlines were unable to travel or send qualified personnel to appropriately audit or manage the activities at an airport. So our team very quickly reacted and pivoted. So this reflects what I mentioned making sure that agility exists to modify this more commercial transaction or this commercial relationship to one that was more operational. Our customers knew that someone would answer on the other end of the line if they were to pick up the phone and call us. They would be able to get a real-time reality view of what was happening on the ground at an airport worldwide. The strategy evolved from one that focuses on more commercials to one that is operational, resulting in one acknowledging that our environment had changed substantially. It meant that we had to take the strategy, rip it apart and throw it behind our shoulder. It required buy-in from the team, so it needed routine discussion to validate these assumptions that we were making. And then, it was a matter of ensuring that there was organizational buy-in to pivot and be present when the general message was to stay at home and not cross the door.
Henrik: Oh, such a great example of explorative activity. My last question in this section is: How are you assessing implementation and driving improvement? This perhaps takes us a little bit back to the question about KPIs. From a practical point of view, how do you keep track, and how do you ensure that you continuously improve your activities?
Mammen: Yeah. And I think that's another excellent question, Henrik. It still requires agility and extensive stakeholder engagement. I would say becoming an extension of the customer is like we just discussed. The other reality is that execution is key to strategy. The sales and implementation cycles are incredibly long if I think of our business. It's not unusual for a discussion to take ten years to reach fruition. And it's prone to shocks from external factors, as we know and we've discussed, so the assessment needs to look at immediate and short-term opportunities that can provide improvements on an incremental basis. I think that's a reality to factor in, and now that has modified the nature in which we move forward with projects. So that is to say, if we can achieve 80 percent of a solution now, then we agree to move forward and continually iterate to drive the improvement rather than wait for this so-called perfect solution that may never come. I think that's likely the most significant improvement in assessing how we implement change. And I can say this, this iterative process we talked about earlier about speed is key to driving improvement because it allows for an ability to use a functioning operational reality to assess the assumptions in a more meaningful way.
Henrik: Great, and just there for our audience, could you open a little what a solution that would take ten years to sell so that they understand the scope and magnitude of something like that is?
Mammen: The creation of an air route, this air bridge between two destinations sometimes requires the coordination of different activities. Some are technological. In some cases, the aircraft or the equipment may not connect point A with point B on either side of the planet. And we know the design cycles for new aircraft are pretty long. The political considerations that enhance the cooperation, the relationship, and the trade that exist between two regions also take an extended period. The market's growth to the point that provides a reasonable level of traffic would give a baseload that would support a viable business case between two points. An example perhaps could be from Boston to Oslo. These are opportunities and discussions that take years to materialize. But the pieces are being laid on and built upon with different components. We discuss the various customer segments, whether the tourism organizations, academia, business community, or cargo demand. There's a seafood importer-exporter somewhere on the planet that's having discussions with another seafood importer and exporter about growing the volumes between certain regions to allow for one day when there's dedicated air access that they will be capable of. These are discussions and negotiations at the government level, municipal level, and the industry at the business level, sometimes over an extended period.
Henrik: So it goes back to what you said earlier. You represent a kind of a networked honeycomb from different sectors coming together to enable your business and your solutions. Great. And I promised I had a surprise section for you. I have a couple of bonus questions. I would like you to do this without too much time to think about how you would define the word that I will be stating. I will start with an intro to understanding the question before answering. So, it's without thinking too long. What is the first thing that comes to your mind from the following words? I have four words total, and the first word is: Influence?
Mammen: Influence is trus. It's being accountable. It's walking the talk. If I can share, the role model that comes to my mind is the great Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi moved millions in both mindset and action and influenced leaders worldwide - Martin Luther King, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who unfortunately just passed away. So, I would say it's trust. It's speaking from the point of view that people believe and trust and recognize it to be authentic, which is a necessity.
Henrik: Well done, the next one is Agility?
Mammen: Wow. Yeah, it's something we've discussed quite a bit on the call. It is the ability to adapt and change with both speed and grace. And, you know, maybe I'll draw from Darwin, in this case, the quote that I hope I get accurately here is that "it's not the strongest or the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change that that thrives o," the ability to adapt and change.
Henrik: Up next is Resilience?
Mammen Resilience is endurance, and Winston Churchill perhaps comes to mind from that perspective. It took him 40 years or so to become prime minister, only to endure his most significant test, with that he had to continue to display persistence. And I can't recall his exact quote. He's got a collection of really fascinating quotes that I think we continue to use today. But there's one where he talks about resiliency, where he talks about "Never give in. Never, never, never.,ever give in. Nothing great or small, large or petty, just unless it's an honor and good sense." So, he has a firm quote about never giving in.
Henrik: Final one on is Efficiency?
Mammen: I hope this doesn't contradict anything, but sometimes efficiency is the enemy of being effective or influential, perhaps. Being a clear leader, and I say that Henrik, because aspects of leadership, like showing understanding or patience, we've talked about empathy, team development, building relationships, trust, inspiration. Those aren't necessarily the most effective. They aren't necessarily the most efficient activities, but they are still essential for effective leadership.
Henrik: It's been an absolute pleasure to have you here. I love your comments. You were very insightful, going into great detail and bringing forth many practical examples from your industry. I can tell from knowing you from before for a long time and of course from our interview here today that you are a fantastic creactive leader. Your team is privileged to have you. Thanks for your time here today.
Mammen: And thank you, Henrik. It's my pleasure. And any time, this is invigorating having this conversation!
