Conny Kalcher (Zurich Insurance) | Reinventing Insurance Through Empathy

16:10Jim Stengel:Well, that plays a role. You have had a major role in two remarkable stories, two brand renewals. Everyone thinks Lego is so fantastic, but it wasn't always that way. And of course, you came into Zurich with a very different business situation, but you and your colleagues have renewed each of those brands, new energy, increased relevance, excellent outcomes, which we'll go through a bit. So these are two incredible stories. And you told me about this when we were together. And in doing this, your teams became stronger. Your teams became more important to the company. Your teams became more business critical.

16:48Jim Stengel:And a lot of people, I know you oversee customer experience, but a lot of people oversee marketing, they wrestle with that. Their teams being important to the company and business critical. So I think your role, your front row, not a seat, you're an active player in both of those. I think we should talk about that. And I'd love to, and I think Zurich actually is a more interesting story, but I want to start chronologically and first talk about Lego. So it's hard to believe I was looking at the calendar and Lego's history and your history. So about 20 years ago from today, when we're having this discussion, Lego was almost bankrupt.

17:24Jim Stengel:And at that time, I think you were the VP of Global Innovation and Marketing. So you were right there in the middle of it. So I want to start there. Was that the most unnerving chapter in your career? And yes or no. And what was it about it that was unnerving? And then the follow-up question will be, how did you keep your confidence throughout all that?

17:46Conny Kalcher:What was really interesting about the crisis at Lego was that it came out of the blue. And nobody really had an inkling about how bad it was. And we had very high self-confidence in everything we did. We were kind of masters of the universe and we knew everything about our customers and how to deal with things and our products were popular, et cetera, et cetera. So we did not really understand, at least not on my level, that this was such a big crisis. But then, of course, things happened. We got for the first time an external CEO and he came in with a brief of stopping the bleeding immediately.

18:24Conny Kalcher:So we were bleeding money every day. And we came from a culture of being privately held. So we were used to when we needed money for something and there was lots of innovation going on everywhere. So if we needed to build a theme park in London and we needed 90 million for that, we would get it because the family had lots of cash and we were just used to that. That's how it works. So nobody paid attention to which products were profitable, which product lines or distribution forms were the best to choose. We chose what we thought was right, but it was not based on facts. And then suddenly the company is almost over the edge.

19:08Conny Kalcher:So Jan And we came in and his brief was to stop the bleeding, create a new strategy and refocus the organization. So that was a shock to the system. So you get a little bit of a confidence knock when that happens because you were believing you were in a very successful company doing all the right things. But of course, then when the dust settles, you realize, no, actually we didn't. We did a lot of things based on gut feeling and maybe we were less in control and maybe we didn't really understand our customers as deeply as we thought. So then the whole company was reset and I actually moved in that period of time, I moved roles.

19:47Conny Kalcher:So I became head of HR and corporate comms in that whole transformation period. So I left marketing and played a role in these two functions, which meant that I was very close to the top leadership and the whole journey and how we communicated and acted on that within the company. So it was unsettling and there were lots of discussions about really, really important things. Should we outsource production? I remember big discussions about that. And we've always learned nobody could produce Lego bricks better than we could. We ended up deciding to outsource production to save money and took it back a few years later.

20:28Conny Kalcher:But everything was turned on its head. How we produce, how we plan, how we look at cost, our processes, our structures. But once you're overcoming the first shock, it becomes a really, really huge learning opportunity. There's nothing better than a burning platform to revisit all the things you believe in, which are not always true, and what to do to turn it around. So I learned a lot from that situation. I learned a lot from being close to the mastermind behind it and seeing how he was acting and how the team got together in order to bring the company out of this situation. But you are shaken in your beliefs.

21:10Conny Kalcher:But what happened was we came from this. We've been with the company, all of us for many years. We act a lot on. And we sort of know in our gut to starting to act based on clear structures, clear processes, clear understanding of profitability, those kinds of things. And that was healthy. It was healthy for the company. And then at the same time, we went all the back into understanding our core customer and redefining the brand, which was also fascinating.

21:42Jim Stengel:And we'll get into that in a second. and you got flipped from VP of marketing innovation to a senior HR role. The skills, the capabilities are different. So how did you adjust as a leader and a person? How did you get off to a vertical start on that? Because I'm sure with the company and the situation it was, you had a lot on your plate.

22:00Conny Kalcher:Yeah, we were right in the center of the storm, really, in these two departments. So I was chosen for the role because I came from the business. They wanted somebody that understood the business. in those two roles. And then I was very lucky that we have very good people in those two departments. So I didn't need to know everything day one, but I had a steep learning curve, of course. And all the things I learned then about HR and what you can do with HR and how you can put HR to do good, change processes, all those things, how you bring an organization with you. I carry that with me today. So the whole process, I learned so much from it.

22:43Conny Kalcher:So you should not always think crisis is for the worst, at least if you come out on the good side of the crisis afterwards. Yeah, you can really learn a lot.

22:55Jim Stengel:No, I agree with you. I came into my role at P &G as global marketing officer during, for P &G, a crisis. And it was fantastic for all the reasons you said. People's mind opened up, you challenge yourself, you get energy behind retaining your swagger and more, and to challenge paradigms that had never been challenged. So I think it's a very exciting time. In fact, I think that's the best time to be in a role because I think there's so much new thinking you can bring to it and people's minds are open.

23:27Conny Kalcher:Exactly. And then you have to experiment whether you want it or not. Yes, you do. Of course.

23:34Jim Stengel:Yeah. Now, the brand now, Lego, of course, is highly admired. People study it. There are lots of articles written about it. It's an incredible business system now. And so you have such an interesting perspective, and we'll roll this right into Zurich in a minute. But could you just helicopter up from that experience and tell us a bit about maybe a few things that haven't been written about enough in terms of the principles behind this remarkable, not just brand turnaround, but brand rethinking. And Lego now has a far, I think, more interesting and important and wonderful role in the lives of people, not just children, than it ever had.

24:20Jim Stengel:So what could others benefit, Connie, in terms of principles, secrets, insights from that most amazing brand rethinking?

24:29Conny Kalcher:I think one of the key, key things that happened during that time was we kind of lost a little bit of sight on understanding our core consumer. And at this point, when we were in a crisis and we were bleeding money, the core consumer became the six to nine year old boy. So not boys and girls, but just boys in order to start somewhere simple. And what we did was we did an ethnographic study of these boys. So we lived with families around the clock for a couple of weeks. And what we mapped out was what do they do in the morning? They take their breakfast cereal. What's in their breakfast cereal or what cup do they drink from?

25:15Conny Kalcher:Do they watch TV at the same time? Do they get a story before they pack their lunchbox? So everything was kind of written down. And at that point in time, we saw ourselves very much like a toy company. And our window as a toy company was 20 minutes a day. That was the play window that kids had. And that window was just getting narrower and narrower and narrower. So we could just see ourselves shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. So we needed to understand what happens throughout the day. And then when we mapped that out, we then looked at, so where could Lego play a role? From that, we learned that how important stories and characters are, that the kids are emotionally connecting with that.

26:02Conny Kalcher:They don't wish for a hundred red bricks that they can build a wall with. That's the parents' dream of how they want to see their kids playing with Lego. But kids of then and today, they're looking for a cool spaceship to build where they can play out some role play and something with pirates or something with a deeper emotional connection behind it. So we learned about the power of stories and characters and how they were used in the everyday life of kids. And then we looked at, OK, they play a lot of computer games. Can we do computer games? Could we do more licensing? We had been doing licensing before, but we were always struggling with this putting a Lego logo onto a lunchbox.

26:48Conny Kalcher:That didn't really feel right for Lego. And if you look at all the partnerships Lego is doing today, they are smart, smart, smart partnerships that adds value to the brand, both brands, I would say. So I think that was a really good insight that if you don't understand your customer and the customers are not the same today, they won't be the same 10 years from now or even two years from now. They constantly change. And going really deep on that understanding is sometimes something we forget as marketeers. We kind of maybe keep on scratching the surface, but don't go deep. And now we have with AI coming like a roller coaster into our world of marketing.

27:32Conny Kalcher:That's a huge disruptor. What does that do to customer behavior, customer needs? But sometimes there is no external disruptor to make you change your mind or go deeper. sometimes it just happens slowly, sneaks up on you. So I would say that that was a really huge learning for me that I take with me and which I don't think has been talked so much about. It's almost been flipped from the other side that Lego was spreading itself too thin and which also Lego learned from and it's not spreading itself too thin, but picking these really valuable partnerships now that drives value for both partners.

28:09Conny Kalcher:So I would say that's one aspect. Are there others? Yeah, I think what I really learned from Johan Witt, who was the CEO then, was the holistic way he looked at transformation and which elements do you need to use. So he was looking at the products, the economical structures, so the profitability of products, but also processes. We learned, for example, that where Lego is being produced in Denmark or were produced by then, we learned that between the factories in Billund and the storage facilities, I think we were driving bricks around in Billund 23 kilometers before they ended up in a box and went out to the customer.

28:56Conny Kalcher:Another thing we learned was we were having suddenly we were having 14 ,000 different bricks. Every brick needs a mold. A mold is driving cost beyond belief and it lasts forever, but it's still a huge cost. And if you think about how many ways you can combine 14 ,000 Lego bricks, it's like astronomical. So how do you produce to that? So We were running out of bricks for one box, so we couldn't produce it. So all of these intricate details of understanding your flow, the workflow, the logistics, how much it matters, was really becoming visible. And we cut them down on these bricks, which were also driving complexity for the children so they could hardly build these models.

29:47Conny Kalcher:They were too technically difficult. And then in production, so we were actually a... We came from a manufacturing culture. We were at a manufacturing company, more so than an actual marketing company. So that was also a transition there. But one thing they did very cleverly in production during those times is they created what they called the visual factory. So we're planning in the factory. And this drives cost. Like it's very difficult to understand, but it does drive a lot of cost if you're not in control of your production. So what they did, they brought the planning out on the factory floor and then they had all the data from the day before.

30:31Conny Kalcher:So how much were produced? Where did it go to? Which boxes are lacking production facilities? And then leadership stood up in the middle of the factory and discussed actions, dedicated people to solve the actions every day. And they were visible. So the sense of urgency was visible to the factory people as well, but it was not happening in a closed door office. It was happening right there in the middle. And it created this sense of, I can go see that data. I can understand it as well. And then the sense of urgency. And that was a very smart move too. Thank you.

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32:18Jim Stengel:We'll see you at the 2026 IAB New Fronts.

32:26Jim Stengel:Well, we could talk this whole show about this, and it's endlessly interesting, but we won't. I want to get into Zurich because I think it's such an interesting story. So you've been there about six or seven years. You came into a very different situation financially than you had at Lego in the situation I was just talking about. Quite the opposite, actually, of Lego. And I think you were the first global chief customer officer at the company. Do I have that right?

32:52Conny Kalcher:Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.

32:53Jim Stengel:So new role, new company for you, new category. What was your brief when you joined? What did your CEO lay out for you? Was it a collaboration? Was it clear? Was it something he wanted you to create? So talk about those early days and what your brief was in this new role.

33:10Conny Kalcher:Yeah. It was an interesting time as well, because I think the department had had five different CMOs on a very short period of time. So it was a real swing door, people coming in, going again after a short notice. So my brief was to get customer office that would have responsibility for brand and marketing, for customer experience, customer data and analytics and customer insights. So that gave a lot of scope that wasn't there before. And before I came, they had had a lot of talk about the new brand identity. They had a lot of work on the new brand identity. And the discussion has been a lot about what kind of color should we have?

33:55Conny Kalcher:And we needed to get away from the color of a logo or the look of a brand into what is this brand all about. So the CEO, Mario, had a vision of we should fix the customer experience. And of course we should, but we needed to start somewhere else. So when I came in, I was looking for all that kind of information we had at Lego, where we knew what the brand purpose was, the brand house, the values, the promises, all of these things that a refined brand has and is kind of part of the culture. So when I came in here to Zurich and I asked, what does the brand stand for? I got the answer, we are blue.

34:41Conny Kalcher:That doesn't mean that much to a customer. So I realized we had We had to actually go back and redefine our purpose and our values and our brand house in order to understand who we are. So with the team, we couldn't move straight into what kind of customer experience is, because how do you know what you're going to offer your customers if you don't know who you are, why you are here? you know that you're doing a good business and you're good at insurance, but you really don't know what the brand is all about. So we quickly created a group across the business to create a brand house and a new purpose.

35:24Conny Kalcher:And we worked over a couple of days and came up with three suggestions, tested it with customers, and then based on that, created one brand house with a new purpose, which was create a brighter future together. The original purpose was we're here to protect you. Every insurance company in the world is here to protect you. So it doesn't really say anything differently. But by defining that we're not about being kind of a company over here and then all our customers over there, but we really have some things that we need to solve for together. So we redefined that and then launched that in the organization so they could see, okay, here's some kind of foundation.

36:08Conny Kalcher:It built on what we had already been for 150 years. It wasn't out of the blue, and now we are something totally different. So there wasn't a line of sight. And then we changed the visual identity. But now not based on whether we should be this color or that color, but more in a sense of how do we become more relatable? Because we heard from our customers, they were saying to us, Zurich, you're cold and you're distant. And for a brand person, you cannot say anything that's worse than that. So the brand was cold and distant. So we needed to overcome that. And we redefined the brand. It became much more about what can go right, a positive outlook, also showing real people, not models and in live animated scenarios that are focused on the emotional connection in the work that we're doing, not so much about the transaction or the functional benefits.

37:03Conny Kalcher:So we kind of moved into a different, more sexy brand, I would say. And that landed actually very well internally and also eventually externally. And then we kept on building on that. Then we looked at the experience. Then we could look at, okay, so what does good look like? And in order to get to that, we trawled through all our customer insights and looked for what are we not good at? What are customers missing from us? And then out of that, we defined first a vision. And the vision was to create a meaningful relationship. Because as an insurance company, we very easily end up in a transactional relationship.

37:48Conny Kalcher:We don't see customers that often. And we need to then, And when you don't see your customers that often, you need to make sure every moment matters and you need to be at your best. And then we defined 33 standards for good customer experience.

38:03Jim Stengel:33.

38:04Conny Kalcher:33. For retail and then for commercial insurance, which we're actually pretty good at and where the business comes from, 18, but we are on a different level in that part of the business. But 33 standards. And this was in order to set direction for the organization, but not telling them how to do things, but just saying, this is the brand we want to be. And these are standards we need to live up to. But it's up to you how you want to get there. What is meaningful for your customers, meaningful for your customers and where you are as a company. but we will measure you year after year so we can see that we move the needle and we are delivering a better customer experience today than we did originally.

38:52Conny Kalcher:So this is trying to do things that makes the whole organization act in a different way rather than being told what to do. And then throughout that journey, some things I knew, some things were clear in my team. They came with expertise in various different areas. So the analytics team made sure we had all the customer data in one place, which we didn't have before. Data is power. Data helps drive change. So that was very important to the change journey. And then our CEO would come from time to time and say, well, you should look at this, or it could be good if we could look at, we do segmentation in these markets and then link that to sales and then change.

39:38Conny Kalcher:So he would have ideas and he would kind of serve up to me and the team from time to time, which was helpful, still is helpful. So a little nudge in a certain direction.

39:50Jim Stengel:I want to, two follow-up questions to that. You just rattled off, oh, it came in and, you know, we were seen as cold and distant. We were seen as blue. We created a brand house, purpose, values, beliefs, activation. I mean, you're new to the culture and you're coming in to rethink the brand and to address your weaknesses, building your strengths, that's not easy. And there are a lot of people who fail at that. So can you talk a little bit about why this stuck, why this kind of was a propellant for the company? And I'll go through some of the data about what's happened since you've been there, which is amazing.

40:30Jim Stengel:Why was it so successful, Connie?

40:32Conny Kalcher:I think it was because as a principle, we co-create things. We don't sit in headquarter and think we know all the answers. So we might know the tool or the framework that we need to get to, but what's actually in the framework needs to be co-created between the business and us because we don't know everything. So the co-creation, and then you get an army of willing supporters because they've been part of creating it. And then we had a, we We created an organization as well with a central customer office, a regional customer office, and then a local customer office to help us roll out everything.

41:10Conny Kalcher:So we had local people on the ground to help drive the change. But I think a lot of it had to do with involvement, listening, understanding, but then also showing there is a different way. We can actually be exciting. Guess what? insurance can be exciting. So I think there is, gives a good feeling for people in the organization that they can see the brand showing up in a more interesting way, more relatable way. And how could we ever connect with customers if we can't connect with our own employees? So maybe I'm a good salesman.

41:49Jim Stengel:I would be. Oh, you're that too. You're that too. So you talked about these 30, this is a second follow have a question. You talked about these 33 standards, which I think is amazing. Could you speak about, as an example, one of those standards, which you think has been very, very powerful in terms of its impact on your customers and your culture? Yeah.

42:08Conny Kalcher:So one example could be that every conversation needs to start where the last one ended. So we should not force our customers to repeat things they have already told us. It's our responsibility and it's our sign of respect that we know where we are in this conversation with them. Because our ambition is to build a meaningful relationship with them, then we need to do that. And you can't do it overnight. We are suffering from legacy systems like many other companies. But at least you have a North Star and you then start putting things together so that you can actually do that. Another standard is we will always place contact information where they are easy to find.

42:55Conny Kalcher:We want customers to talk to us. We welcome their call or their email or their WhatsApp or whatever it is. And it's our job to make it easy. We're not here to save money. That's the wrong place to save money. So then there could be something about how quickly we need to get back on a request that comes in. But they were, as I said, all based on where we had gaps. And then now when I travel, I hear the stories back. And now we've done this, and now these standards are at this level. So we get a language. We have a shared language of what is our ambition and how do we get there? But the language is based on standards that the business understands.

43:41Conny Kalcher:It's not really, we need to be seamless. Yes. Yeah. Hello. What does that look like? So it doesn't communicate. So, but you need to get back within 24 hours, for example. I know what that looks like. I know how my systems can be changed to do that. So it was an important tool for making the vision real and also something that can be understood and worked towards.

44:08Jim Stengel:Now, some data about Zurich since you joined. You have millions new customers and you understand the revenue implications over time. Your brand value has increased 35%. Your following on social media is off the charts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Your team is seen as business critical and business drivers. And your entire organization is measurably more empathetic with customers, and you know the outcome that's had on the business. So any one of these we could talk about for quite a while, Connie, but I want to talk about the last one, because I know you've written about this in Harvard Business Review and other places, the stand you've taken on understanding empathy and making it a business driver, in addition to being a wonderful thing to do as a human being.

45:00Jim Stengel:But could you talk about these building empathetic skills? Because again, it isn't a platitude. You're training in it. You're measuring it. You're talking about it. You're studying it. So can you talk a bit about that? It's so, so rich with learning.

45:16Conny Kalcher:Yeah. It's a, it's of course a topic that I also learned a lot about when I was at Lego, which was a very emotional brand and we were connecting very emotionally with our customers, but it's not, it shouldn't be limited to certain industries. I think what we learned when we did this piece of research in 11 countries with 11 ,000 people, we learned that...

45:38Jim Stengel:With Zurich.

45:38Conny Kalcher:Yeah, at Zurich. We learned that there is an empathy gap. Customers want empathy. They don't want to talk to a bot that is just a mechanic voice. If they don't get the empathy, they don't want to have a relationship with a company that doesn't deliver on that. In fact, empathy is more important to customers than reviews are, for example. So we set out to understand it more. So that's why we did the survey to find out what are people expecting from us and how do we deliver on it? And we did this together with Jamil Saki, who was a professor at Stanford University who started the topic for years.

46:21Conny Kalcher:And what we found out was, for example, in financial services, customers are expecting us to deliver it to the tune of 88 % of customers expect it, but only 63 % of our customers, not Zurich customers, but customers of the industry, think they're getting it. We also learned that they will leave companies that don't deliver it. So 43 % will leave a company that's not empathetic in their interaction with them. So there is a gap. And you can put a number on it. And that's the gap we're trying to kind of narrow. And as I said, we were told we were cold and distant. So we've, in our communication, tried to change that.

47:07Conny Kalcher:But it doesn't help if we then somebody calls us and they get somebody that's very transactional on the phone. So we need to also, in the human interaction, deliver more on empathy. And then with Jamil, we also found out that it's perfectly trainable. So you can teach people about empathy. You know, there is this notion out there that I'm empathetic, but you are not, or you're born with it. That's not true. You can learn to be more empathetic. And I believe strongly that people want to do the right thing. You just need to help them do the right thing. So if they've always been trained in, well, these are the things you need to say, and here's your script, and this is how you do this, they don't even consider that they should be different.

47:56Conny Kalcher:But if you then train them and teach them about, people don't want to be addressed the same way. People have different characters. They have different needs. One customer might just want it fast. They want it 24-7. They don't care if it's a human being. Okay, so let's give them what they want. Other customers really want the support. They want the guidance. They want advice. And they like to be talked to in a way that they can really understand what you're saying. So we're teaching that. We're teaching the different characters and how they would like to be talked to. And what we learn from that is that not only do we improve the customer experience, we also improve collaboration.

48:39Conny Kalcher:Because the empathetic approach is not something we put on when we pick up the phone, it's a tool for us all. Tool sounds a bit cold. I don't mean it cold. I mean more like, you tell me how I can do better and I will do it. And I believe every human being wants to do the right thing. So if we can help them do that, that's better. And we have situations in insurance where something bad has happened in somebody's life or they could have had an accident and something with their house, with their family, we should be the first ones to start with showing empathy and how can we help you and how are you feeling?

49:22Conny Kalcher:The first question should not be what's your policy number. And I'm not saying we did that, but we had it to a degree and we are now moving to a much better place where we think about who is it we're talking to and how can we make sure that they understand And we are there for them, not the other way around.

49:52Jim Stengel:You train something like a third of your people, I think, on empathy. And your goal is to train 100 % your large organization. What have you learned in terms of developing effective training for people to understand this concept, really? and then to build it into how they are as a person, a leader, a human being.

50:13Conny Kalcher:Yeah, so we do two types of training. We do an online training. It's more simple. You can do it in your own time. It's a couple of hours. And it creates the awareness and it helps you change how you deal with people. The other kind of training is more unique. And that's where we go in and we analyze the situation. We do a kind of an audit in a department on how are they acting today? What are the issues? We talk to the leadership team about the findings and the issues. And then we create a training program with local actors that will show them scenarios that they know from their everyday work.

50:50Conny Kalcher:And then the teams will evaluate these scenarios and give ideas to what can be done differently, what could be done better. So they're not criticizing their colleagues, but they're seeing scenarios that they can recognize based on the audit. And then they can reflect on that and they can be taught from that. So that's very powerful when we do that. The audit is three to four days done locally, and then two days with the team in the room and the actors. And then afterwards, we follow up with learning nuggets, inspirational videos, things to remind them that keep it fresh, keep it top of mind. So far, what we're seeing is that the effect is lasting.

51:33Conny Kalcher:So the NPS and the friendliness of the advisor or who it is, the claims person, it can go up to improve by 20 points in some cases. So it's a little bit depending on the starting point. If you're high already, it won't go up as much, but it can go up a lot. And the big, big insights we have is it stays like that. So we now have data for a couple of years and it stays high. So it's a lasting change. And it plays into what I said before, that people basically do want to do the right thing. And if they experience this is working. And instead of having lots of difficult conversation, they have better conversation.

52:17Conny Kalcher:They feel better at the end of the day. Sometimes I get challenged by, but isn't this just about you give people what they want and you avoid the conflict and then that's it. We just become a giveaway shop. And that's not the intent. You learn how to have easy conversations, but you also learn to tackle difficult situations where you have to stand your ground. So if somebody is not covered by the policy, they are not covered by the policy. But you can say that in many, many different ways. And you can be empathetic by, okay, you didn't understand that. I'm sorry, maybe we didn't explain it well enough.

53:01Conny Kalcher:Or all of these things, you can deliver even difficult messages in a good way. And that's what we're learning as well, that this helps people cope with the stress of having these roles as well.

53:15Jim Stengel:And you feel pretty strongly this has had a direct impact on your business.

53:19Conny Kalcher:Well, we know. We have data that proves that satisfaction has gone up. We have that retention has gone up. And also the hit rate in some instances where it involves a sale that has also gone up. So we are connecting better with customers. And in essence, it's what we have learned as other brands, that the more you connect, The more you are there for the customers and you kind of deal on their premise, the more successful you will be because you're not just the insurance company. You are something more than that. And that's what we want to be. And we are to a good degree in some parts of our business, very, very strong at that.

54:00Conny Kalcher:We also have a commercial insurance arm that serves the biggest companies around the world. and the way they deal with the complexity and the service offering for these companies in very complex situations is also very empathetic. But there we almost have teams to deal with each client. So it's easier what we're taking some of that knowledge into. Yeah, but what happens when it's an individual we're dealing with or an SME we're dealing with where we don't have the big service suite, we can still be good human beings, professional human beings that are living our values at the same time.

54:42Jim Stengel:Jon Sorrentino, Connie, let's flip into the creative brief. And I think my segue question is, you've been several years at Zurich. Empathy has been something that you have stood for that's making an impact on the company. Have you become more empathetic in your time there? I suspect you came in as a pretty empathetic leader, 33 years at Lego. So, but have you, and if so, in what way?

55:03Conny Kalcher:I kind of learned how to bring empathy into this kind of culture. Probably many of my colleagues would say, yes, I'm clearly empathetic. So I don't think I have lost it, being an empathetic leader. It's important for me and my leadership that it's not all about the cold numbers. It's also about the numbers. It's also about the results. We wouldn't be where we are if we weren't focused on creating results. But we need to understand how we can create these results so people feel good about them. They feel good about the progress. And I don't want it to sound easy. It's not an easy transformation.

55:43Conny Kalcher:It has its fights. It has its battles as well. But if you go into these battles that you're here to drive something that's positive for the company, I think that makes it easier to have them. You love to travel.

55:58Jim Stengel:What adventure are you planning now or looking forward to?

56:01Conny Kalcher:I'm planning an adventure very close to home because I've just built a summer house in my home country, which is Denmark, on the coast in Denmark. So I am this summer house. I'm bringing my family who comes from my daughter lives in Australia with her family. My son lives in the UK with his family. So the biggest adventure for me this year is bringing them all together in this new summer house in the Easter holiday.

56:28Jim Stengel:So what did you learn about yourself building a house? That can be a stressful process, a creative process, sometimes full of empathy, sometimes not.

56:39Conny Kalcher:Yeah, I learned a lot about what matters to me, you know, where battles are important and where they are not. Yeah. But it's a fantastic experience to go through. So we bought an old house from 1906 and kind of redoing that. So it's modern, but still with links back to the old house and keeping that character alive. So that's a nice challenge to have.

57:04Jim Stengel:I was looking at some data recently. My wife and I have lived in 17 houses in various countries. 10 of them have been renovations.

57:12Conny Kalcher:Okay. You've done your share.

57:15Jim Stengel:We've done our share. Yeah. What's the first brand you remember making an impact on you as a young girl?

57:20Conny Kalcher:Lego.

57:21Jim Stengel:Is it really?

57:23Conny Kalcher:Yeah. I grew up in Denmark, so Lego is a huge brand in Denmark and we all had it as young kids. So it played a big role in my childhood playing and it was something we could play. So I have a brother and a sister, we could play individually. We could also play together. So that had a huge impact on me.

57:44Jim Stengel:Do you still play with Legos? Do you have any favorite builds? I do.

57:48Conny Kalcher:I do. I love building some of the Star Wars boxes and other boxes. And especially now, I like the new flower boxes as well. I built that with my little granddaughter and grandson and had lots of fun doing that. That's a different expression than the big spaceships from Star Wars, but it's more creative and they're beautifully done.

58:13Jim Stengel:Yeah, my wife builds the flowers and she also loves the Volkswagen bus, the camper bus. Oh, yeah. That's a great set.

58:19Conny Kalcher:That is a fantastic model. Yeah.

58:22Jim Stengel:Yeah, it really is. Who has been the most inspiring person in your life, Connie?

58:26Conny Kalcher:Well, one person that's inspired me a lot is Fred Reichelt. And Fred is the inventor of NPS systems. So he's the biggest thinker behind loyalty and satisfaction of customers. And he started a NPS forum years ago when the method was new and he brought together people from different businesses. So you would have Nike in there, you would have Apple in there, you would have American Express, you would have all kinds of progressive, all kinds of companies. And we met four times a year and he was hosting it together with Rob Markey from Bain. And it was amazing for him to learn from other practitioners and then have the guru himself in the middle of teaching all of his knowledge to us.

59:16Conny Kalcher:So he has had a very, very strong influence on me.

59:19Jim Stengel:What's he like as a person?

59:21Conny Kalcher:He's a wonderful, wonderful, warm person. You can't really be about loyalty and satisfaction without having that kind of sense of what's important and strong values. And he's good at explaining why things are like they are. It's always backed with data, but it's also very intuitive. And NPS, the reason why he's been so successful with it, it was an open platform. He didn't want to earn any money on it. So what he got was people who were really into the methodology, progressing it with him and with each other. So there's a very strong community around NPS. And the guy who actually recommended me to this job is in that network and became a friend over time.

1:00:08Conny Kalcher:So I always have people, I can pick up the phone and say, what do you do in your company about this? And what's the problem you have there? So it's a safe haven place of getting advice. And he was very strong on that.

1:00:24Jim Stengel:Connie, we're going to have to stop because of time. And I just have found this wonderful in so many ways, on so many levels. There's a lot I did not get to that I would. So maybe we need to do a chapter two with Connie at some point. I think one thing I admire about you is you lead from the center in a very effective way in large enterprise. And I think there's so much learning in how you do that. It's a tough thing to do and you do it extremely well. So we'll get to that in the next episode, chapter two with Connie.

1:00:51Conny Kalcher:Sounds good.

1:00:52Jim Stengel:Anyway, did you feel good about the interview?

1:00:54Conny Kalcher:Absolutely. It's a good conversation and it felt like a continuation of what we started at CanLion. So maybe we can continue at CanLion this spring.

1:01:04Jim Stengel:We'll have another, maybe not a dinner, but maybe a rosé. Yes. That sounds nice in the middle of February in Cincinnati. Thank you, Connie.

1:01:12Conny Kalcher:Thank you very much. Good to see you.

1:01:14Jim Stengel:That was my conversation with Connie Kulture. Three takeaways from this one for your business brand and life. The first one, the importance of a network in your career. Connie talked about the move to Zurich as an outcome of someone she knew and was in her network. And she intentionally builds her network and has done that throughout her career. It's helped her be a better leader. It's helped her expand her horizons and it helped her discover the amazing opportunity at Zurich. The second takeaway, Connie talked about coming into Zurich and starting in a collaborative way to build a framework for the brand, a model for the brand, a brand house, if you will, that clarified the purpose of the brand, the role it plays in people's lives, its focus, its values, its beliefs.

1:02:00Jim Stengel:And once you have that and people believe in it, you can then start to talk about activations and executions. A very powerful story about brand house first before you get into tactics. And the third takeaway, and we spent a lot of time on this one. Empathy as a focus for a leader and as a driver, frankly, of strong business outcomes. Connie talked about the Lego turnaround and the importance of going and living with families to understand the potential role Lego could play in the lives of children. She talked about when she went to Zurich about training in empathy and understanding there's a big empathy gap in business at large and one in Zurich as well.

1:02:35Jim Stengel:They treat empathy as a skill that it's trainable and they track its direct outcome on their internal culture as well as their business outcomes. That's it for this week's episode of the CMO Podcast. As always, I would be grateful if you shared our show with your friends, along with subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The CMO Podcast is a Vive original production. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of our sponsors or its personnel, nor do our sponsors advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.