Dr. Pari Namazie, Managing PartnerIn an interview with Manage HR Europe magazine, Pari Namazie, Managing Partner at EUNEPA, talks about how the firm bridges the gap between leadership theory and the realities of everyday life as a leader, navigating the ever-changing work environment.
The Reasons to Opt for EUNEPA
Throughout any change, your people will always be your biggest source of value and innovation. “This is why I often say we work with heart and love,” Pari says. “And I mean it. While everything we do is anchored in creating value for our clients, we set great importance on emotional intelligence and soft skills to develop leaders and collaborative teams. And this often means creating safe spaces to help them listen to their heart, their gut, their values and their inner voice. When people are aware and aligned — with themselves and with others — they perform better.”
Clients are not only at the centre, but co-lead the collaboration. “We listen carefully to what customers need and co-design an approach that best suits those needs, in terms of outcomes and resources. Flexibility is really important here. Our approach includes playfulness, humour, tapping into different forms of intelligence, and working with presence, impact and authority.”
EUNEPA’s approach has paid off immensely: “Clients trust us and feel safe working with us.”
The Best Practices Followed by EUNEPA
Leadership development and alignment are EUNEPA’s main areas of focus. “We observe how a team aligns or communicates in uncertain and complex environments,” Pari says about her approach. “You can tell a lot about what is needed that way. We work with dysfunctional as well as high-performing teams, and we have learned to spot patterns. But you also need to tap into the organisational memory and involve the client in designing their solutions. Obviously, when it comes to best practices, it depends on where the client is and where they start. On that journey, we help them become self-aware, communicate more efficiently and improve their leadership skills.”
For leaders, the journey is individual, but also forward-looking with the future in mind. “We help leaders identify their practical goals and how to focus on those. This includes training them on leadership and communication skills, as well as managing new global priorities.”
This is important because many leaders were trained in traditional leadership skills. “What we are seeing now is the great resignation, quiet quitting, and Millennials and Gen Z entering the workforce. There is a shift in the way leadership is approached. We discuss new ways of working including hybrid working, and so forth.”
EUNEPA addresses questions such as:
● How do we develop empathetic leaders?
● As the work environment faces more uncertainty and increasing demands on leaders, how do we support the individual leader and create an empowered leadership team?
● How do teams and organisations become more agile?
● As we adapt to the new ways of work, how do we enhance meaning and purpose-driven values for leaders to better connect with and inspire their team members?
We help leaders answer these questions by developing tailor-made solutions, starting with listening carefully to their needs, where they are, and where they want to be. Sometimes, solutions lie in unexpected areas, which we only discover through dialogue.
We also believe in building community. To this aim, EUNEPA has developed a platform called Vienna Global Leaders (VGL) to bring together an international leadership community, dedicated to developing and connecting leaders and managers in a complex world. We address clients’ pain points, build community with leaders, and address topics that our clients are interested in.
Successful Collaborations
EUNEPA works globally across North America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Some of our clients are multinationals with headquarters in Europe and subsidiaries around the world.
For example, we worked for an international non-profit headquartered in the US. The project started with the leadership team, who was on the brink of collective burnout. The management needed help understanding why and where they were stuck, and how to support them.
Through initial interviews with team members, we identified issues and pain points the team was facing. Based on this, the first intervention with the team focused on building psychological safety and an environment of trust, where they could “safely” put the “elephants on the table”. Through this process of safety, ensuring deep democracy, and making sure each voice is heard, we helped the team take first steps towards alignment.
The outcome of the team intervention was an action plan of what was needed for the team to move forward. This included a leadership transformation project over a one-year period, with milestones, key deliverables and different methodologies.
We facilitated discussions around the questions: What do we need to learn? What do we need from each other? And how do we take care of our own well-being?
I always use the analogy that when you are on a plane, you put on your oxygen mask first and then your child’s. You have to look after yourself first, then others.
Within that year, we helped the team focus on areas they needed to develop — whether it was about conflict resolution, managing performance, or developing a feedback culture. Leadership transformation meant growing by raising awareness, identifying blind spots and adopting new behaviours for the team and organisation.
The project consisted of individual and team coaching, team interventions and leadership development. Part of the leadership development journey included curating an online learning programme to meet their needs, followed by peer learning using our RAISE (Reflect-Awaken-Impact-Sustain-Empower) coaching model. This approach helped the entire leadership team develop a learning culture and enabled them to become role models for the organisation.
Eunepa’s approach has paid off immensely: Clients trust us and feel safe working with us
Similarly, in another instance, we worked with a multinational high-tech firm headquartered in Germany, with over 10,000 staff. Through an annual employee engagement survey, we identified their pressure points.
It became apparent that following the pandemic years, the organisation needed to develop and build a learning culture. To that end, we provided a fully-serviced LMS solution, a management and leadership development platform that works across various subsidiaries.
Our platform is now being used for the second year across the client’s subsidiaries and has a 69% engagement rate, compared to a global average of 35%.
At the end of the day, when we look at the feedback we received, we register that the organisation has become more agile, and the entire workforce has learned new skills facilitating the efficiency of management and leadership. In other words, they are more aligned and more purposeful. And they’re having fun learning. The approach has brought the whole company together.
Keeping the Values Intact
EUNEPA has had an international journey itself (read the EUNEPA story online) and has developed custom-made solutions for various clients over close to three decades. On this journey it has been guided by its core values of transparency, honesty, professionalism, positivity, and a clarity of vision focusing on building long-term relations with clients.
We believe in supporting our clients in reducing uncertainties by unlocking their people’s potential and focusing on their business activities to generate value. We do this through ensuring we work closely with our clients, on a strong trust-based relationship, and always with heart.
