"Having graduated with a Harvard MBA and 7 years of consulting experience, I was well prepared for the strategic content of my role and my mission to develop a strategy to turnaround the company. However, this training didn’t prepare me for navigating the corporate culture and psychology. I was offered the support of having a corporate coach and John O’Brien’s Jung psychology background stood out at me. Since then, John has been by my side, helping me develop, understand the landscape and have impact during each of my subsequent roles. He has taught me how to apply corporate analytical psychology and understand the unconscious forces at play in the board room. (...)

Business schools and consulting firms train people to only focus on results and that can lead to blind spots. To be effective we also have to understand the culture, the mindset of leaders and the psyche. In organisations there are often repeating patterns of family structures playing out. There are organisational scars from previous failures. There is often an inherent risk aversion, built up over many years. Coming in fresh into an organisation, one has to learn the culture whilst convincing people to trust us. As a leader with a diverse background, it becomes even harder to gain trust as people tend to like those who are similar. The 20/60/20 rule applies quite accurately in these situations: 20% of people can be convinced to support you, but 20% of people will be at best sceptical and at worst out to destroy you. The real challenge is to work on the middle 60%, using your supporters to help. In most companies trust comes with time rather than fresh ideas, making it challenging for new comers."