Stephan Polomski is a systemic business coach, consultant and trainer specializing in employer branding and organisation development. He works as human resources director at XTRONIC GmbH, a medium-sized company which delivers telematic and multimedia solutions in the automotive sector near Stuttgart (Germany). In his organisational function he also embodies the roles of a management consultant and leadership coach.
Stephan´s vision is to develop as HR-steering-partner medium-sized and mostly owner-driven companies into top employers by applying soft factors. In 2009 and in 2011, his current employer was certified Top Employer "Engineers" and "Automotive" by CRF.
He has over 20 years of international experience in different leading positions and various industries like TV and journalism, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, energy, mobility, design and engineering as well as automotive.
He was born in 1963 and studied in Berlin, Florence, Rome, Bejing and Pforzheim graduating with two master degrees in arts and humanities and in economics. Two times he was DAAD fellow.
Furthermore he is certified as systemic coach and consultant by the German Federation of Coaching and Training (dvct), by the University of Augsburg (UniA), and by the IFW (Institute of Professional Training in Munich). He furthermore holds a master of neurolinguistic programming and qualified in process oriented psychology after Arnold Mindell (FG-POP/ IPA).
Personal Mission
Every single person can make a difference. If I decide to make a difference I can change the world by being and enjoying myself and by respecting others and enjoying them. Hence, my attitude towards life becomes my mission and my life my message.
The first step though is to take care for myself. This is a big deal when you are leading and your focus is constantly directed outwardly to others. Only, when I am in a good inner state of mind, in balance, and endowed with a clear set of values and principles, I am able to balance and lead a team or an organizational system integrating all interests and stakes. With care, that means with attentiveness and regardfulness I offer people a good experience with me as a leader in the presence and for the future I direct them towards a joint vision. What I get in return is trust and peace and wellbeing and happiness.
To Make a Contribution That Matters
After a successful career as a filmmaker, a personal bankruptcy as a musical producer, and starting a new career as manager, after almost 20 years of leading time has come to share experience and knowledge with a broader and interested audience. Writing this blog, I would like to encourage people, especially young leaders, to discover their own potential to lead and encourage them to lead with care and humanistic principles.
I deeply experienced that it is the individual heart, which moves another heart. And that it is the heart beat of individuals, their emotions, which find their resonance and their harmonic balance, and finally a unique sound of many diverse voices which I may call the song of life.
In order to change systems leaders have to understand themselves and then to offer perspectives to individuals. These perspectives are designed to motivate people and to initiate change within themselves. This change will change the organizational world and society.
I hope, the visitor sharing our experience, finds inspiration for his work as a leader or future leader.
Professional Focus
My professional objective is to enhance organic and opportunity growth by supporting organizational and leadership development together with corporate and employer branding and strategy to maximize potential and performance.
- Employer Branding and Corporate Communication
- Organizational and Leadership Development
- Consulting, Coaching, Training
- Change Management and Facilitation
For my work and approach how to deal with change as a manager and head of human resources I found a philosophy of five genuine principles. These principles are my personal working charter. They reflect how to make change a positive experience for employees and all other stakeholders, apart from demands for a tool kit how to execute change.
1. The Principle of Profitability
The principle of profitability is the material basis of our existence. I understand it as platform for individuals to unfold their potential and to gain security, orientation and identity while working. The more this is realized through change the more the social system lively and positively generates material return, benefitting all stakeholders.
I furthermore understand economy as a system which carries and serves life and the human community. Nonetheless, economic activities create order and hierarchy as a structural framework amongst equal humans. Therefore, economy influences culture and is thus a constitutional part of the social community and its patterns. The way we design and change economy we design and change our cultural and social community.
Profitability and return on investment shall take place within a framework guarding human needs and of social and ecological balance. By securing profitability we sustain and develop common welfare and life quality. This is where economical and cultural change should aim at.
2. The Principle of Humanism
Humanism according to Erich Fromm is a system, which centers the human being, his integrity, his development, his dignity and his freedom: In order to live the principle of humanism the human being himself has to be his own aim (and has not to be considered as a means to gain this or that). And as the human being is his own aim, he is enabled to influence history – as huge change process – carrying humanity as a whole within himself.
Although in a framework of necessity and contradiction, humans constantly search for new solutions in order to – in the best case – lively and positively design the change of what is to the better.
3. The Principle of Change
Nothing is as consistent as change – this is the Aristotelian principle. Within systems like organizations renewal and change are successful only, if all stakeholders incorporate renewal and change. The potential of success lies within interpersonal resonance utilizing and orchestrating all powers and abilities of experience, knowledge and wisdom as resources for the entrepreneurial or non-entrepreneurial aim. Securing interpersonal resonance creates an organization which works integrated and self balanced. This also unlashes motivation. Individuals are engaged target-oriented, self-responsible and meaningfully whoever they are and wherever they stand.
Productivity grows when employees and leaders find opportunities to express their interests and talents. Positive experiences in the presence on the one hand and on the other hand a long term, meaningful perspective – a vision – for the future are the basis of engagement and performance not only in periods of change.
4. The Principle of Systemic Thinking
What fosters the cooperation of all people involved? Understanding multidimensional interrelations and networks, considering their feedback and being aware of the process of these networks. This is what the principle of systemic thinking – introduced by Peter Senge as Fifth Discipline – means for me. And this is true for individuals, groups or teams, and organizations.
This is also why personality development and organizational change are closely related to each other. And this is why I understand the company as a place for partnership and dialogue, as a system, that needs a systemic way of understanding how to organize itself in order to solve the tasks of constant adjustment to new situations – called balance.
Balancing itself and using mutual synergies shall raise motivation, productivity, effectiveness, and innovation in a company.
5. The Principle of Facilitation
Professional facilitation may have different faces: such as consulting, coaching or training. It signifies for me in a broader sense to design and accompany the processes of change of individuals, groups or organizations. Finally, they reach they reach in their own responsibility a positively perceived state of success coming from a stuck state, like a crisis or dysfunction. This positive state is then perceived as a temporary solution or a newly acquired capacity to act and work during the constant process of development, change, and self-balance.
In a narrower sense means facilitation the interaction of individuals towards an aim. The facilitator or coach is expert for the process guarding strength-, resource-, and solution-orientation, and the client is the expert for himself and his specific context as well as the concrete solution he finds for himself.
Future-orientation and solution-orientation are also the basis for all interventions in the field of consulting, coaching, and training after the situation analysis. Cooperation with all stakeholders is a key issue of success. New perspectives on the perceived problem are jointly developed. This leads to new and innovative concepts and their later execution.
The attitude of the facilitator as change agent is shaped by empathy, acceptance and congruence.
Publications
- 2001: „Courage, Risk and Opportunity. Entrepreneurial Challenges out of the Perspective of Employer Branding.“ Merck Ltd., Thailand, Bangkok, 2001
- 2005: „More than Branding: Employer Branding“; in: Praxisorientierte Markenführung (ed. B.Gaiser, R.Linxweiler, V.Brucker, Gabler Publishing House)
- 2005: „Because We Care – Integrated Brand Management Considering Merck Ltd., Thailand“; in: ibidem (together with Heinz Landau)
- 2007: „Target Group Employees – Entrepreneurial Success through Motivation” in: Qualitative Marktforschung (ed. G. Naderer, E. Balzer; Gabler Publishing House)
