In the West, a good manager is direct and quick to say no. Dr. Joerg Storm spent 12 years running IT for Mercedes-Benz in Tokyo and Beijing, and that instinct kept letting him down. He joins host Emre Ok to explain how he learned that clarity isn't what you say, it's what the other person absorbs and acts on.
Storm shares the moment a Japanese intern handed back 20 pages of questions instead of the slide deck he'd asked for. He gets into why public confrontation quietly destroys trust in face cultures and what to do instead, plus the finding from his PhD that teams in long-term cultures start projects slower and finish faster with fewer defects. The last stretch turns to AI, where his take is blunt: it doesn't replace organizations, it exposes them.
1. Clarity is measured by what the other person absorbs and acts on. Storm's Western instinct to over-explain earned polite agreement and no movement in Japan. Alignment came only after he built shared context before asking for anything.
2. In face cultures, orchestrate instead of confront. Public disagreement reads as constructive in Germany and as a trust breaker in Japan and China. Storm switched to nemawashi, lining up agreement privately before any formal decision.
3. Culture is structural. Cultural-awareness training fails when incentives and performance systems stay Western. In team-oriented Japan, reward the team rather than the individual, or local staff engage only on the surface.
4. Slow starts can mean faster finishes. His PhD found that long-term-oriented cultures spend longer setting a project up, then execute faster with fewer defects once the team commits. It shows up in quality data like JD Power, where Japanese brands dominate the top ranks.
5. AI exposes organizations, it doesn't replace them. Where work is well structured, AI lifts productivity. Where roles and processes are unclear, it adds friction. That makes HR, not IT, the real architect of AI success.
6. Consistency beats intelligence. Storm built a 600,000-follower LinkedIn audience by posting daily like doing push-ups, sharing real lessons over polished self-promotion, and engaging with comments before and after each post.
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Emre (00:00.316)
Also, yeah, I just started the recording because I wanted to make sure I don't miss it. But yeah, two months backpacking through Turkey. Did you do it across the coastline?
Dr. Storm (00:10.99)
No, no, we went, it was 30 years ago with my friend. We went to Alanya, Atalya and then to Göreme. By bus, no car, we took buses to Göreme, Ferry, Cimni and Ankara and then back to the coast and then along the coast back to Istanbul. Super cool, I had no money, we had no money for hotels so we slept in...
Emre (00:19.786)
Perfect. Yeah.
Dr. Storm (00:40.042)
open space and then farmers invited us to their home and we had to eat with the family at home and super poor people. And my luggage, I forgot my luggage once in my in the, when we changed the bus, they put my luggage to the wrong bus and then my luggage was suddenly in Ankara and I was in Fethiye or so and then I had no more luggage and then the bus driver, they got my luggage back and we slept.
Emre (00:49.6)
man, that's amazing. Yeah, but.
Dr. Storm (01:09.654)
My friend Ivey slept at the family of the bus driver at home. So, would never happen in Germany, never, never.
Emre (01:17.64)
I always say, you when people are visiting different countries and they say, I want to try the cuisine. I want to try their food. If you don't sit down with a family and eat home cooking, you don't know that country's food. So, you're ahead of a lot of people. so you're, I sent, you're, I sent you like, the list of questions and I think, first of all, you have like the, you have a killer story as a person, honestly, like been all around.
Dr. Storm (01:28.583)
Yeah. I,
Emre (01:44.996)
And I think what's really fascinating about your story is managing at an international level, seeing different countries and having a managerial role in multiple different countries. I want to touch a bit upon that. I obviously want to get your insights on AI in the workplace and everything. But yeah, I think we have a lot of cool conversation topics and
Man, you're such a pro. You can just like come in and do like an episode of the show like that. That's amazing.
Dr. Storm (02:17.135)
Well, not sure. Let's see how we do that. Let's see how we get that done. So what we think a little bit careful is this Mercedes-Benz topic. I cannot talk too much on this, so only let you know a little bit. But I can always try.
Emre (02:25.176)
All right. Let's not do it anything like company specific. Let's focus more on culture and management anecdotes, and we can keep things unnamed for sure. But I'm sure we can name the company itself, right?
Dr. Storm (02:43.746)
Yeah, yeah. And I... Yeah, yeah, I think we can name them. Okay, I'm... I checked the question there. A lot going to the topic of intercultural communication. This is my... I'm doing a lecture at a university in Frankfurt on intercultural communication. This is my PhD also. PhD in intercultural project management.
Emre (03:05.476)
Amazing.
Dr. Storm (03:14.126)
Why did I do it? Because I was working with Mercedes-Benz, with a lot of people from Japan, US and Germany. I know that culture is extremely important, but they don't do this well. So that's why I worked little bit longer on that topic, so that you know that.
Emre (03:32.784)
Perfect. Awesome. So, yeah, I'll just smoothly get started by saying, hi, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Team Check-In. And with me today, a man who needs no introductions, but he will get one anyway, Dr. Jörg Storm. He has, if the brand has wheels, he has led that brand's uh IT department.
from Mitsubishi to Mercedes-Benz to Chrysler, moving there to becoming a top, top voice in tech on LinkedIn. And I am pretty sure that the Tolkien estate has bought the rights to his resume, so they're going to make another trilogy out of it. That's how long this man's experience and credentials are. Jörg, welcome to the show, man. How are you?
Dr. Storm (04:31.278)
Alright, thanks for inviting me. Yeah, perfectly. I really would like to know this guy which you just introduced. Seems to be interesting.
Emre (04:39.552)
He's a cool guy. I've met him like once and he seems like a cool guy. And I think we should introduce this cool guy to our audience. For those in the audience who may not be very familiar with your work, you have such an interesting story, right? From being CIO at Mercedes Benz in China to becoming Germany's one of Germany's top LinkedIn influencers and voices, you have
an amazing journey. So can you give us a brief intro to Dr. Yerik Storm?
Dr. Storm (05:15.343)
Yeah, so if I had to describe one connecting thread, I think it would be something like this. I always try to turn complexity into clarity so that people at the end can act on it. Throughout my career, you just mentioned the company, 25 years, I worked in several roles from strategy, sales, audit and IT in large global organizations.
And today I'm writing about AI on LinkedIn. We have 1.4 million followers on our brand and an AI newsletter with 570,000 readers. I've always been interested in tech itself and also I think I even got more interested in the consequences these new tech brings. Why? Because I've seen...
Many organizations, they invest heavily in systems, let's say, an SAP application costing 100 million euro or platform or transformation programs. But there are a lot of money spent, but a lot of them struggle to change how decisions are made or how people actually work. So the real gap, in my perspective, is not only the technical one.
It's almost organizational and human topics. So what connects my corporate career and my public work on LinkedIn today, I think, is the same motivation. Explaining what really drives successful transformation without any tech-specific wordings, without pretending that it's easy. And yeah, my audience grew over the time. It took me
Emre (07:02.788)
Yeah.
Dr. Storm (07:12.142)
six years or so to get to my, I have now 700,000 an hour on my profile as audience group because these challenges which I shared, many people, have that, many leaders have that, but I think not, a lot of them are discussed honestly. So I think this was my journey on this topic.
Emre (07:36.243)
Amazing. in this episode, guys, we will be hitting up on
multiple key areas where we can benefit a lot from Dr. Yorg's experience. Because, again, he has led organizations and departments across the world, specifically both in the West and in the East, in China, Japan, so in Asia. And he has written his like doctor thesis on intercultural communication. So we'll be focusing on the role of leadership in these intercultural settings and how
our listeners how you can apply some of his best practices and some of these lessons in your workplace. And it would, of course, be a shame not to have Dr. Yorg on the show and not discuss the role of AI in the workplace. And if you stick around till the end, maybe you might get some quick tips on how exactly Dr. Yorg built such an impressive personal brand. without further ado, Yorg, what?
took you from Germany to China and Japan to Asia overall. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Storm (08:47.563)
What took me from Germany to Asia? That was the question. I got the offer from the company I worked for, if I want to go to Japan. I think that was 2003. And then a couple of years later, I got the offer for an assignment in China. So, overall, I spent 12 years in Tokyo and Beijing together.
So it was a super exciting time, super interesting. the roles which I had, there were, more, not really observational roles, more leadership roles. Like department had something like this where we really had operational impact, pretty big budgets, or also very complex stakeholder environments with leadership teams locally, leadership teams centrally.
So at the beginning, I think I viewed the move primarily as a professional challenge. What I underestimated was how deeply this could change my understanding of myself, my person, myself, and also my leadership. Working in China and Japan, I would say, forced me to confront my own assumptions about authority.
communication and trust. And over the time, in those 12 years, I realized that many leadership models we take granted in the Western world are not universal truths, but simply cultural constructs, cultural constraints. the realization, I think the realization fundamentally reshaped how I approach global leadership strategy and transformation. And I think this still influences my day.
Emre (10:35.7)
Amazing. I'm going to, yeah.
Emre (10:44.773)
Yeah, so... Amazing. And that was going to be my next question. Now, I'm going to... You kind of touched upon it, but I will ask it because I think I'm going to use the sound bite from it anyway. So, what were some of your assumptions coming in from the Western world to China? What were some of your assumptions as someone in a management role and how were they proved wrong?
Dr. Storm (11:13.486)
I would put this in two areas. Personally, I am super honest now. I thought I'm German. I know it all. I'm working for a premium car company, which invented the car 140 years ago. And then you come to a different culture, a different city, where everything is different. A lot of things. In China, they...
you don't use any coins anymore. No cash, only WeChat and Alipay. But put this more on a professional level. think my biggest wrong assumption was that transparency automatically creates alignment. So in Western context, especially in Germany, we believe that
You have to be clear, you have to be direct, you have to say no. That's we do. And I always believe that explicitly is the fastest way to execution. But if you do this in Asia, that's maybe not a really clever idea. In China I learned that clarity is not defined by what is said, but about what is absorbed by the other person and acted upon.
implicit versus explicit communication. So I initially communicated a lot, explained decisions in detail and expected momentum. And instead, I only got a kind of polite agreement. In Japan, they said hi, followed by hesitation. And only later I understood that I think the real alignment required simply a deep understanding of relationships, hierarchy, and also the
the unspoken expectations. The things you don't say are also expectations. Implicit. So once I shifted away from explaining clear decisions to building shared context beforehand, I think the execution improved dramatically. And I'll give you an example. I had an intern and I did the German way and I said, I need a department presentation. It was in Japan.
Dr. Storm (13:44.526)
Normally, I would say a Western intern, a student would say, problem, I get that done somehow. So in Japan, two weeks later, I asked my intern, how are you? I have some questions. I don't have the presentation, but I have lot of questions. So then he gave me the questions. And I was super shocked at that time, because he didn't give me 20 pages.
He gave me basically 20 pages in Word with questions about what is the storyline, what font do I want, what font size does the presentation have to be, do I want header, subheader, footer, subfooter, title, anything. It was unbelievable. I was deeply shocked about this, about the level of information, this was prepared.
Emre (14:34.56)
that's incredible. And I think, I mean,
Dr. Storm (14:43.71)
lessons learned have to be extremely... I was then very careful what I do, how I do that. I have a lot of examples like this.
Emre (15:02.072)
Doesn't this kind of fit into your overall narrative of maybe complicating things that shouldn't be so complicated and instead focusing on something simple? I mean, initially when we started this conversation, you were talking about how what you do is keeping things simple, right? That's what you like focusing on, like over complicated things.
Dr. Storm (15:15.118)
Say it again.
Emre (15:28.836)
Is this high level of specificity, you think it complicates things a bit too much?
Dr. Storm (15:39.775)
I think it really depends on the culture. In more Asian cultures, let's say there are some studies like Hoogstede, Hampton Turner, Trompenhaas, which are extremely different from masculinity, femininity, long-term versus short-term orientation, communication explicit, implicit. I think what you really have to do, have to adapt the communication style to make sure that the message you broadcast is
Emre (16:09.387)
Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Storm (16:09.39)
is understood in the right way. And as I said, in Asia, not only what you communicate to the other person, but also what you don't communicate to the other person. So, for example, if you want to be sure that the message gets across correctly and the team knows what to do, you don't address tasks to a single individual person, you address tasks to teams, complete teams and give them the task and then they think about it with them.
I would say a collective growth crowd wisdom. then they have, at least in my experience in Japan, then the results are simply unbelievable. They're extremely good in terms of, let's say, optimization Kaizen processes.
Emre (16:51.744)
So were there any leadership practices or leadership principles that you found worked very well in Germany, but were failing or needed adjusting in Asia?
Dr. Storm (17:14.999)
I was maybe not leadership principle, but there's one thing in Asia which is a lose of faith, which I that you cannot make other people lose their faith of your public confrontation as a tool of progress. I think in Germany, openly debating problems in meetings is seen as constructive. I can say I don't agree to this. You should do this.
Emre (17:28.736)
Hmm.
Dr. Storm (17:43.918)
in both Japan and China because of this face topic, don't lose face. This, I think, can easily damage trust and cause people to disengage. I had to, this is what I really had to do, had to replace this confrontation with a careful orchestration. So this means addressing sensitive issues only privately. I think which is also in Germany more or less.
preparing alignment before formal decision. This is called in Japan, nemawashi. You do the discussions with other people before, some kind of negotiation before it comes to the formal decision. Nemawashi is extremely important and also allows consensus to emerge indirectly. So you try to convince the team.
approach I think requires quite patient and discipline because it takes simply longer time. But it creates far more valuable than speed because this at the end gives you long lasting commitment. And once this commitment exists with the team, the execution is often faster and also more reliable than any top down directive. That's what I found out in my PhD, which was about intercultural project management. I basically checked
Emre (18:47.904)
you you
Dr. Storm (19:11.722)
I worked a lot with projects in members from US, Japan, Germany, and I found that they were completely different. Why is this so different? This was, for example, also one topic that especially if you look at a project, let's say you have PMBOK PMI, it's project utilization, execution, monitoring and closing phase.
The starting point, this project setup phase, especially in Asian cultures, in Japan particularly, is much longer because you have to convince all the people first. But once they are committed, then the execution phase of the project is much faster. And the mistakes are also lower because they have a fairly different approach to quality.
Emre (20:07.536)
That's very interesting. And I really, really want to get in on intercultural project management with you.
Because I have a Polish friend who used to be a project manager for one of the top airlines. And she used to live in Dubai. And she had the most corporate life that I had ever seen. But when I met her, she was running a surf house in a remote island in Lombok, Indonesia. And I asked her about, what is it like to employ Balinese people?
Indonesian people and like work with them because from the outside looking in they look you know very relaxed they look very chill and they're very fun to hang out with but I think I would personally lose my mind trying to run projects with this group and she told me about some of her principles she said Emra I came in with my Kanban boards and my timelines and all of that and after like the first month they all went out the window.
and she had to adapt to their style. And one thing that she told me about a style of management with Balinese people was, or Indonesian people overall was, said, even if you're frustrated, and even if you are right to be frustrated, even if you have every right to be angry, you should never stop smiling. The second you stop smiling when you're talking to them about work, about anything, they tune you out. Even if you have every right to be as angry as possible,
They will tune you out and they will walk away from the conversation and they'll say, you know what? I can find another job. Now I thought about this and I said, Hey, that feels like a good practice everywhere else in the world. You know, just everywhere else in the world, in every company, I think that's a great practice. No matter how frustrated you are, no matter how difficult the conversation is, keep like this certain level of decorum and just keep smiling. So.
Emre (22:10.204)
What I'm asking, what I want to ask you is, were there some takeaways from your time leading companies in China and Japan? So what were some of the lessons you took away and said, hey, I think I can apply these in Europe as well?
Dr. Storm (22:27.126)
I think the most common mistake what I do, maybe others do, is to treat cultures and...
as more a soft overlay that rather structural factor. So many organizations invest in cultural awareness training. They also join those classes. But they leave the decision rights, incentive system and performance system unchanged, which is wrong because in Japan, for example, they are team oriented. You should give an incentive to the team and not to an individual because they work as a team. So culture becomes real.
when it shapes how promotions happen, how this agreement is handled and who is allowed to make decisions. If those elements purely remain Western, the local team, they will adapt only superficially, never ever take full ownership. And this is what I also experienced. Successful global organizations, they have to redesign structures and not just behaviors. And simple example, a Japanese...
Emre (23:29.984)
That's brilliant and
Dr. Storm (23:38.274)
wearing blue jeans is not American. Only by wearing a blue jean. And this is we think, yeah? You have to treat people differently with their background.
Emre (23:57.012)
I mean, this is predominantly an HR podcast, so...
Dr. Storm (24:00.623)
Wait, wait, can you stop? I to cut it out.
Emre (24:05.2)
All good. Pizza? All good. Was it pizza?
Dr. Storm (24:19.161)
We cut that out.
What? What? My wife? No, no, why is that? I didn't tell her that I have a recording. Sorry for that.
Emre (24:29.467)
Oh, good, man. No worries. Yeah, we'll just pick up right at that point. It's no worries. And I do love that, you know, anecdote about like a Japanese man in jeans is not American. mean, so, Jorg, Jorg, this is an HR podcast overall. So what I would think is we've had a lot of guests on the show talk about management principles and communication and all of that.
If you were talking to an HR person who didn't have a lot of time, a lot of experience with managing intercultural teams, teams across multiple different countries, what would your advice be to them going into this environment?
Dr. Storm (25:16.726)
I think what I meant before, advice is especially in incentive performance system to adapt this to the local culture. And there's very big differences in also in the cultural theory. I mentioned some of those gurus in that area before. If you look at this, you cannot treat Japanese like an American in those systems.
This is not working. You will not motivate or you probably will demotivate your team. If they are still in their country culture embedded and only by hiring someone into IBM, if you hire a Japanese into IBM, this doesn't mean that this guy then is an American thinking, no, they are Japanese. I think this is something.
Emre (25:51.686)
unintentionally.
Dr. Storm (26:14.863)
have to consider especially in incentive performance system, which I think this is I also saw that very often was very wrong.
Emre (26:27.495)
Yeah. And now, before we move on from this intercultural leadership discussion, I just want to ask you a bit about your doctorate thesis, where you worked on project management in intercultural teams.
Was it managing projects across different cultures or was it focused, were you focusing more on project teams that were built up of an intercultural group? Mm-hmm.
Dr. Storm (26:56.655)
What I did, I combined PMBOK from PMI, so you know the PMP certification, I combined this with several cultural theories. Like Hofstede, Trubner, Säppenthal, Haus et al. And then I made a survey to, quite some years ago, was quite a lot of work, an online survey.
Emre (27:23.027)
Of course. you
Dr. Storm (27:24.953)
They ask project leaders about their experience all over the world. Project leaders about their experience. How much time they need, for example, in the initialization phase, in the execution phase, in the monitoring and controlling phase, the project closing phase. How many of their projects fail due to quality budget or time constraint or scope erosion topic? And all of this, yeah, and all of this I mapped together and exactly what was the assumption, the hypothesis.
That for example in countries with a long-term orientation, like in Asia, people think about long-term. They don't want a short-term benefit. They want a long-term benefit. Especially in those companies, for example, the project phase initialization takes longer. It was one finding of that study, which basically underlies what we
what I just mentioned before. It takes longer for an agent to commit them to, for example, a project target, which was defined by Western management. But as soon as they are committed to this, then this is like, they work like a machine and they're much faster in that topic. That was one of those findings.
Emre (28:38.336)
Could you share, mean, if there are any, like one more key finding from your study that really surprised you as you were looking into intercultural project management?
Dr. Storm (29:06.064)
Yeah, and also the quality. You know, in this project management for BMBOK, they have not only the project phases, but also knowledge areas like quality management, cost management, vendor management, stakeholder management. For example, the quality management topics are in some cultures, they don't see it as important. In some cultures, they see it as extremely important. Now I ask you, Emre, which culture does not see quality management so important?
Emre (29:15.092)
Mm-hmm. you
Emre (29:37.344)
I, to be honest, I would not like to throw any guesses out there.
Dr. Storm (29:39.321)
Yes.
Dr. Storm (29:46.767)
The study of a couple of thousand participants stated that especially in the US culture, which are in the different edge of all those cultural theories, they don't see this quality topic as important as in Japan.
Emre (30:05.856)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Storm (30:15.896)
Americans, they tend to be excited on idea and they start directly, immediately working on something. But then they see, maybe something is wrong and then they have to rework this topic. So that more rework is needed. While in Asia, especially than in Japan, they don't start immediately. You have to convince them because they don't want any risk. They have a very low risk tolerance. They have a very...
Emre (30:19.072)
Yeah. Hmm.
Dr. Storm (30:45.761)
long term orientation, they don't want to have any risk. So this means they need to think about longer and then they do something with, for example, product for their customer. They want that it is really good. And if you only look at the JD Power Quality study in US, which cars are under the top 10?
Emre (30:46.016)
In terms of power,
Dr. Storm (31:08.899)
Ready? Which brand?
Dr. Storm (31:13.263)
Quality. Quality.
Emre (31:15.9)
I would, I think as a guess, wouldn't bet very highly on Tesla. I'm saying like, Yeah. So I was saying like, but when I said Tesla, was like, which ones would not be on the top 10? Which ones I would not trust to be on the top 10. And I wouldn't trust Tesla to be anywhere close to that top 10.
Dr. Storm (31:21.729)
Nah, they're better. Top 10 are basically all Japanese. Toyota, Mazda, and the latest JD Power study. They're all Japanese. That's because...
Dr. Storm (31:40.964)
Yes, that's true. But the best ones are here the Japanese, because this is cultural topic. They want, they have a long-term orientation with the customer. customer has to buy a Toyota again, and Mazda and Honda. So this is they really make sure the quality in this area is extremely high. And this is, see, not what I say, but this you see in the results of all these car clubs and...
Emre (31:57.18)
Mm-hmm. you
Dr. Storm (32:10.479)
JD Power study for example. There are also some western brands under the top 10, but normally the very good quality level is Japan. And this I think, and this also found out in my study, is due to this cultural topic, long-term orientation, risk avoidance, and that they have a very high quality of expectation.
Emre (32:37.698)
I think from the outside looking in, if you had given me a statistic and said, hey,
US companies care less about quality and Japanese companies care more about, you quality. I would assume that this would be because, the American companies, they want to get things done faster and they want to say like, okay, we want to wrap this project up faster. But when you told me that the real difference was in the initial starting phase, I think that's really interesting.
Instead of like, you know, putting the blame on like the end of the project where it's like, okay, we're putting a bow on it, bye bye. It's actually this excitement to get started on, okay, we are doing this, let's go. Like, I mean, without a, with no disrespect, this is more like a cowboy approach, you know, like saying, hey, you know, we're going in guns blazing. Where on the other side we have, no, let's.
Take the time, let's be diligent about how we're going to approach this. And yeah, oddly enough, we have a Turk talking to a German. And there's a very famous saying in our country where we say, hey, start things like a Turk, but finish them like a German. Because we tend to be really excited, but we drop off and then like, yeah.
Dr. Storm (33:54.393)
okay, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Storm (34:00.215)
faster yeah yeah could be could be
Emre (34:04.896)
Yeah, this is all fascinating, Jörg. So thank you so much for sharing your insights on intercultural communications and leadership overall. But again, I think it would be a shame if we didn't talk some AI with you. And where does this passion about creating content and discussing AI come from?
Dr. Storm (34:19.983)
Yeah.
Dr. Storm (34:30.32)
This AI topic is not a new topic. I remember one of my first projects I did in year 2000, think. We did a project about neural networks. We calculated how many tons of steel you need to put in the buffer stock in the warehouse. At that time, we did not have those possibilities we have right now, the tech possibilities. And a lot of car companies, they have
Emre (34:33.066)
course. .
Dr. Storm (34:59.609)
picture recognition in the assembly line. When I was in China, my team did many programs with AI. This was before ChatGPT and then ChatGPT came out. I really, really found it super interesting, especially the possibilities. And the more I read on this topic, the more I was convinced that this is
a game changer. And it's not me that I said that, but this was Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs stated the impact of AI on the GDP is bigger than the invention of electricity and internet combined. And McKinsey stated this will have an impact on the global GDP of 4.4 trillion US dollar. Others say I think this is the fifth industrial revolution, steam engine, electricity.
This is a super important topic. And that's the reason why. I thought this will change the world. And I used a lot of those tools directly from the beginning. So thought this is worthwhile to do. But I, in the closest circle, I experienced it in China. They're super fast. So now I'm in German, in the Western world, more traditional. Yeah, so I wanted to...
to help also my friends, colleagues, and then also my followers to see the positive aspect of AI, how this can change their working life and personal life also.
Emre (36:30.784)
And yeah, I mean, you're a tech guy and I think what a lot of people kind of forget about the conversation around artificial intelligence is in the mainstream sense, the discussion of AI, people think of it as, okay, the AI discussion starts when James Cameron made Terminator 2.
And then nothing happened in between. And then we started talking about chat GPT. So that was it for a very long time. And that was like the outward perspective. yeah, but I mean, if you look at all the nuances and everything, of course, this is an incredibly complicated topic with a lot of science and hard work and man hours going behind it. And the thing is, right now, I feel like the conversation around AI.
has been diluted to bits with so many different companies trying to reskin some version of an LLM. So it's been like one chat GPT clone after another, and that's the new AI innovation. Now this is the new AI innovation. So there is a lot of hype without a lot of reality. And while there exists some reality with great substance, there are a lot of, you know,
let's say, tools that don't really have a lot of substance behind it. So in 2026, how can HR departments or any other department, for that matter, look into integrating AI into their day-to-day work and differentiate between the hype and the reality?
Dr. Storm (38:20.324)
Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. I think the most important thing is that HR leaders need to understand that AI is fundamentally about work redesign. AI does not replace organizations. I would say it exposes them. It highlights unclear roles, inefficient processes, and also weak decision logic. So where work is well structured, AI
can increase productivity. there a lot of statistics that also people will be unfrozen, released, people will be released for more higher valuable tasks. Where work is more ambiguous, would say AI creates frustration and also resistance. So this means...
HR leaders are central to the AI success. So not as the ones which select the tools, but more like the architects of how work is defined, measured and rewarded later on. Organizations that treat AI purely as a technology rollout, led by IT, I think will underperform those that treat this as an organizational transformation, led by CEO.
Emre (39:25.408)
Yeah.
Dr. Storm (39:46.319)
supported by HR team. I this is the key message here I would say for HR and the AI.
Emre (39:55.364)
I mean, I mean, I've seen this in a lot of different workplaces, a lot of the people I talk to, a lot of departments, including HR, people are getting, you know, the, hey, do something with AI, can't we do something with AI? Hey, all this work, what if we did it with AI without, you know, any real research behind this question? So I think what you're suggesting is the right framework.
to implement AI in the workplace is less, hey, we bought this tool, and we're going to do this with this tool now, but instead coming at it from a more, no, this is going to be a more wider scale transformation. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Storm (40:36.431)
Yeah, yeah. I think maybe for the old HR leaders here, then I assume they get asked again and again from their management also that they have to do something with AI. For sure. And how should they tackle this challenge? And I get this asked also very often because I'm doing also AI and strategy projects.
So in that sense, if I would be an HR leader, I would get asked to implement an AI application. How would I do that? And I would start with first step to evaluate AI use cases through, I think there are three pragmatic lenses. First, this use case remove a recurring pain point in everyday work?
and not just automate tasks that already works pretty well. there's a crucial part. Secondly, does this change behavior or does it simply add another layer of complexity and tools that require additional efforts do not really scale easily. And the third is a clear accountability for the outcome. Yeah, know, the outcome of AI is discussed quite often.
hallucinization, AI initiatives without ownership tend to remain pilot. So if the use case does not clearly improve how people work and decisions are made, I would say it's not worth pursuing, regardless on how impressive the performance or the tech stack looks like. You shouldn't blend by the technology, but at the end, it all comes up to the business case of this topic.
Emre (42:35.966)
I mean, that is, I think that's incredibly poignant. and that is incredibly important for this discussion overall. Again, I've talked, we've talked about this a lot in this podcast before where the world is filled with a lot of sleazy salesmen who will try to convince you that this tool will be the tool to change everything you're doing at work. This is going to be reinventing the wheel and this is.
The real key is, this tool right for my people? And the real key is taking a look at your people before actually trying to devise a strategy around AI or any form of AI tools overall. Jörg, I've promised our audience that if they stuck around, they would get some information about how you've
built such a brand because you've built your audience while being a senior executive. And that is not an easy thing to do. I tried to start an Instagram page for my dog while doing my marketing job, and I failed because I couldn't keep up with so many posting rules and updates and everything. what I'm wondering is,
How did you balance building a personal brand that has now over 600,000 followers on LinkedIn while being a senior executive?
Dr. Storm (44:11.087)
That's a very good question. I get asked this quite often. And I could give two answers on this. So you mentioned personal brand. I never approached this as building a personal brand. I focus on sharing what I was learned in real time, in my real time job. What worked in my job, what failed, and also what I saw the leader struggled.
I avoided all the confidential details and also never positioned myself in any opposition to my current employer. In many cases, think thoughtful public reflection actually strengthened my internal credibility. It signaled to my employer, for example, curiosity, accountability, learning and especially hard working. And I think the key, overall key is
the intention. the goal is contribution rather than visibility, then I would say the balance takes care of itself. People inside and outside the organization, they respond to authenticity. And if you ask me for my tricks, I always put it like this. It's like this push-ups. When you start push-ups during the first time,
Maybe you could do 10 and then it came over, but if you do every day 10, at the end of the year you can do 100 push-ups. So same I think with social media, also LinkedIn. The first post will be miserable. The second will be a little bit better and if you do this 365 times, getting better and better. Very important is here good quality content, content which other people like to read, which other people...
want to follow that person. Then consistency. You see so often that people post here something and then three months they don't do anything and then they expect that their follower base will grow. This is wrong. You have to do it consistently. Then you have to engage with your audience. have to, before you post, they call it warm-up phase. You have to warm up your account before you post something. Maybe write 10, 20 comments on some other...
Dr. Storm (46:31.92)
influencer's account, people's account, do the post and then don't post and ghost. So don't post and then leave it. But stay another 10-15 minutes with the post and try to take it out of comments and react to the comments. By this you're building a community. And what never works is if you say, let's say you post seven times a week, did you do seven times a week marketing for your product? My advice is
Emre (46:58.912)
Okay. you
Dr. Storm (47:00.333)
If you do seven times a week, you do five times a week, you post something which adds real value to the person, to other people, with so much value that they want to follow you. And maybe then two times a week, something where you sell maybe a product. So this is my five cents on this. And there was a very cool statement that not from me, I don't know who they said, but I read that somewhere at a wall. Consistency beats intelligence.
So you only have to be consistent in this topic and to build up my brand now and this 700,000 on LinkedIn and our total brand is 1.4 million on LinkedIn. In my case this took I think 6-7 years or so. And my account looked like any other person's account. It was basically only on CV before but now it's not anymore. So this is the crucial part of it.
Emre (47:28.832)
All right.
You said it right there. I think consistency beats intelligence is whoever that quote is from, it's great advice for, again, any department, especially if you've been through the performance review season, you know, over the past weeks, you will see that, you know, consistent performance beats sparks of brilliance on again, off again, any day of the week.
Yorick, we've approached the rapid fire section of our episode. So are you ready? Three seconds best leadership advice you've ever received. Go. Amazing. See, this was supposed to be a rapid fire thing where I bombard you with questions. You said something so deep that I have to like actually think for like three seconds. That's
Dr. Storm (48:30.383)
Sure, let's go.
Dr. Storm (48:35.641)
Listen long enough to understand what is not being said.
Dr. Storm (48:50.927)
I hope you like it. Listen long enough to understand what is not being said. This is I meant with culture. Implicit, explicit.
Emre (48:56.777)
Exactly. Amazing. A book or a resource you'd recommend to our audience.
Dr. Storm (49:05.429)
This is on organizational culture. I would never say this book Edgar Schein, work on organizational culture. This explains why transformation fails long before technology becomes an issue. Topic for AI.
Emre (49:20.672)
Perfect. And last question is, what is an AI tool you personally use every day and you couldn't live without?
Dr. Storm (49:31.543)
I use several, yeah, but LLM as thinking partners are not for answers, but to challenge assumptions and refine questions. Chat CPT, perplexity, and so on. Those are the tools I'm using.
Emre (49:38.08)
All right. And if they were to disappear like this, how would that impact your day-to-day overall?
Dr. Storm (49:54.413)
question. Never thought about it. Maybe I should do. Maybe I install a local version on my machine. But then this would be massed back in 2021 before ChatGPT. And you know, there was a life before. There was a life before ChatGPT. I still can survive. Maybe it takes a little bit longer to do emails and do presentations without gamma.
Emre (50:14.704)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I tried to tell, talk to my little brother about life before any large scale social media and he has a hard time comprehending it.
Jörg, this has been an amazing episode. Where can people find you?
Dr. Storm (50:40.239)
LinkedIn, you can find me on LinkedIn and on Substack.
Emre (50:45.388)
Yeah, where all the others, over 700,000, 1.5 million have found you, which is just incredible overall. And if you're listening to us on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts, leave us a like, subscribe, it really helps us share out. And if you're looking for a performance management solution in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, you cannot go wrong with the highest rated performance management software in Microsoft Teams. Team Flick to learn more, you can always click the link in the description. This has been the Team Check-In. Bye-bye, everyone.
Dr. Storm (51:13.582)
So, everybody, bye-bye.
Emre (51:14.368)
All right.
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