Business Partnering with Sonja Sinterhauf

Thomas Kohler:
Today’s guest, Sonja Sinterhauf.

We met at the Berlin Wine and Cheese event, I think, where we plan to have 100 CHROs. Ultimately, I think we have been around 80 people and there was one crowd which was the Ex-Zalando Crew. And you were part of it. I remember right. You were around five, six, seven people who all met people because you worked at Zalando. You worked more than eight years there and others did as well for a long time. And then we catched up and said, yeah, let’s do a podcast. And now we are here. Great to have you on the show and thank you for taking the time. Maybe we start with a short introduction about yourself.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
Yeah, happy to do so. And thank you for inviting me. I do remember the event. Thanks for co hosting. And I can agree you always find a Zalando bubble. Some colleagues that you are more in contact with or some you don’t see often. So it’s always good to get together at these events. I already said it.

I worked at Zalando for almost nine years and before that I was in HR roles in different businesses. Always, I would say, presented with a challenge to help businesses grow and flourish. And the original part or the start of my career was in marketing, so. So I’m half marketing, half hr. That’s how I usually start. And I think the common thread of that is communication. It’s all about how to communicate something to people that are affected by a change or expected to buy something, a solution. So communication is key and it’s always in partnership with a business. So for the purpose of helping a business to grow and flourish.

Thomas Kohler:
And now we had a lot of, I would say, different phases in the past, right? You had, I would say, the tech boom, then crisis with the pandemic that suddenly shocked everybody. Then you needed to ramp up again. Then suddenly companies really were focusing the AI suddenly not scaled back everything with the change of leadership in the US and now it’s somehow a mix. Right. So people go more. I feel in a domestic way that back to the office is also a big thing. Again, previously it was a remote hype. So companies go through a lot of different stages and you saw a lot of them. Maybe you can share a bit also from a communication or from a leadership or HR perspective, how you transition organizations as a partner and that you can also really shape organizations instead of always acting reactive.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
And sometimes the context makes you react because that’s what’s needed. So sometimes you have to just react. You don’t have the like surreal, the space to Drive a strategy, find a strategy. But in a crisis, you react, you get presented, this is it. And then you rather chase after what’s needed to be done. And in other phases, you have to be a bit more creative and you can strategize, you can create a vision, create a roadmap to get this done. And I would say, I mean, I’m a business partner by heart and I love the variety of different faces, different challenges, because you have to adjust. I know business is the same, always the same. Business goes through different phases. So this role as a business partner, I think has. That has a variety. But I don’t know of any other HR role, to be honest.

Thomas Kohler:
But how does this feel when you switch from crisis mode into growing again, into pausing again? Because if you do this regularly and also the business is doing this regularly, I don’t know, sometimes I feel that companies then just expect from the internal, I don’t know, management team, HR team, that they just adjust. But how does this feel actually? Because I think often this is not really talked about because it can be really frustrating or also demoralizing if you are always going back and forth. No.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
So I would say the more you are part of the business, the more you are included, you can anticipate what’s coming. So ideally, as a business partner, you’re not too surprised. And that helps to not feel suddenly shifted to the other side, right. Or, you know, shifting gears so quickly. And I think that’s what also makes a good business partner. Do you anticipate what’s.

Thomas Kohler:
Do you think that this is coming with experience or can you also learn that?

Sonja Sinterhauf:
I would say definitely comes with experience. When you’ve seen different situations, contexts, so you see the signals maybe earlier, or if you’re someone who observes the market, who reads a lot, who follows the news, also economic news, then you can connect that with signs that you see in the organization. And the other thing is also how much you are shared information. And that also we talked about different business partner types. I’ve seen. Sometimes an organization does not share information to the extent with business partners, so that they can actually, you know, read the signs and say, okay, this is possibly going in that, in that direction.

Thomas Kohler:
What could be a type of information that is often not shared? I’m always thinking about maybe the budgets. What are the budgets?

Sonja Sinterhauf:
Budget is one that’s usually annually and then more frequently reviewed, but is maybe on a monthly basis. Their report on financial results, like what the executives use as for their steering and operational planning. I think a business Partner should have that. Because then you see, you know, the top line, the bottom line, you see how the personnel costs, you know, what’s the factor in the whole P and L, and you see what are the challenges by selling a product or extending the customer base and you see the seasonal trends. You can interpret that and that kind of information, I think.

Thomas Kohler:
Okay, so that means that you need a certain level of transparency or also insight in order to be even able to facilitate and help. Are there some strategies where you can build this layer and level of trust with, I don’t know, a VP sales, a cto, a founder, a cfo that you get access to those informations? Because often I don’t feel that without being proactive and demanding access, you don’t get it.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
Yeah, so what I usually share with business partners I have in my team or if others that I mentor coach, when they reach out, say start with a business, be curious. So understand what the business is about, how do they generate value? How does this translate into the organization? So how do you make that happen to drive revenue? What are the capabilities behind. And be curious. I have not met, or maybe a few exceptions, not really met leaders who do not like to talk about their business. So that’s first, be curious, ask. The second is deliver on commitment. I think that’s the number one driver for building trust, even if it’s small things. So if I start in a new role, I usually ask what’s most pressing and that can be a very tiny thing.

But that is a lot of causing a lot of pain to the leader. Just get it solved and then repeat that. And so I think this in combination the curiosity about the business, understanding the business and helping solve some painful challenges, then that builds trust.

Thomas Kohler:
Could you give some examples maybe where you saw that in the past where it was done well versus not so well?

Sonja Sinterhauf:
You mean the establishing?

Thomas Kohler:
Yes, establishing the trust piece partner.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
I think for me, to be honest, I mean, it’s called business partnering. Right. And I don’t know another role which is as clear in the job title and then so unclear and so diverse in what it is. But I think it’s really, it’s. I think it’s the partnership element that shows how good it is then. Because an example of not being done well is maybe someone in the HR business panel who wants to drive their own mission. And they might have a good mission of increasing diversity stats, women in leadership and so on. It’s all good objectives and to drive for.

But if that is, for example, dominating the business agenda and then you have a disconnect because the business leader seeks someone who helps them grow their business, make it more successful getting out of the crisis or whatever the situation is. So I think it’s being situational, doing situational, the right thing and it’s business first for me and people first. But these two things together and I think it requires a mindset that whatever you suggest needs to serve the business. And that I think is one of the distinction factors or where it’s, where it distincts from other HR roles or someone who is more driving an agenda because of the agenda and not driving the agenda items because of the business. And exactly knowing why I do this because it helps, you know, in a certain way. So being more clear about the cause and effect, I would say.

Thomas Kohler:
And when you, when you now take that back into sometimes you need to be reactive, sometimes maybe not, then this is also then easier, right. If you have this context that you see, okay, the overall business priority, I don’t know, for a go to market organization is enter a certain market or scale to a certain level of revenue in a certain period of time. And if you then see that something else, I don’t know, needs to prioritize or deprioritized, then you just need to make the things happening on your end in order to facilitate that change. And if you have the right context, it’s easier to be flexible, right?

Sonja Sinterhauf:
Yeah, yeah. Because then you inform sometimes it’s really a sequencing like what comes first and the other, as I said, it’s, you know, there are different objectives, all valuable, but then what is at this point the right thing to do and do that with some foresight, like how does it play out in a year’s time, et cetera. So that’s also, you know, I think it’s a, it’s a skill as a, as a business partner and it just solves the thing that is immediately in front of you. But seeing that connected to the broader picture and how you approach something should be done in a way so that you either can build up on it, you can iterate on it, but it’s definitely done with foresight.

Thomas Kohler:
You also talked about different types of business partners. The partner and the fulfiller. I saw in organizations, I would say differentiated by size or complexity of the organization, that for instance an HR business partner at a smaller scope organization usually in my understanding would be more a fulfiller or a generalist that is doing anything, often end to end. And then maybe over time there are more functional hires made like a talent acquisition organization, a people Ops, organization, compensation and or total rewards, whatever it is. And then it’s getting more into a generalistic role where you’re really there for certain stakeholders, gathering information, sharing information. Then it’s even more a management role where from my understanding sometimes this could be compared to an head of HR for instance. And in small organizations it’s way more broad that you are more the fulfiller. This would be my understanding of the differentiation but maybe you can share a bit context how you differentiate the two terms and also how they may be differentiate in different types or sizes of organizations.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
And it’s so nuanced. So I like how you put it the fulfillable strategies. So they are both valuable. Right. And I want to be clear it’s not one or the other. I think it’s really depending on the situation. Like what’s the organization and organizational state the business. There’s a variety of HR business partners and there is the right approach to that role for that organization in that situation.

So just want to say that, that I don’t want. Okay, that’s just one way of doing it. But I think it’s really the variety of the different business partner roles. And I would say first the organizational leadership should make a decision if they really want a business partner because it starts with you welcome someone and include someone in strategic decisions. Ask them to contribute with their knowledge because they have subject matter expertise in people. That’s a lot of. Usually comes with a lot of EQ and iq but this expertise is welcomed at the table. So that’s for one and this is really a question, do I want that as a management.

That’s irrespective of what the organization is in as a phase, if it’s growing or consolidating or international whatever. And also the business like what can I cope with or what do I want as a value in my strategic decisions? Am I done as a management? So that’s for one. And then the organizational phase, I think generalists, etc. I think in a startup and that’s not my area where I know a lot but this is. So there’s a lot of assumption here you need someone who’s very flexible, very fast doing a lot and maybe also doing things where you get to do stuff where you’re not really equipped for that. Right. And I have high appreciation for people who are in the startup world. I know more the scale up world.

So growing, preparing a company for business to go public. And I think the processes change, the requirements change. So you also have more specialist roles in the HR team, for example, because you are expected to provide reports in a different way, you need to have different programs, etc. So in such a context the business partner can and I think is expected to or should because of the value add, really understand the business and what does it take to grow? How does this impact or what is expected of the organization? How does the workforce need to change, the skills needed? Leadership maturity, maturing leaders is one of the key topics there. So that requires a different business partner who understands business translated to organizational capabilities and then the talent side in terms of the skills. So yeah, and I think the, as I said in the beginning or when we prepare like fulfiller or someone who designs to me that often from what I have experienced myself, but also hear from others, that comes down to the management, do they see the value? Have they ever experienced that, the value of nature, business partner and can they cope with it?

Thomas Kohler:
What do you think? How does this feel for a manager to really let somebody in with people decisions and then to a certain extent really collaborate and also letting them give you maybe insights on how decisions should be made and run instead of doing it the way you always did it.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
I’ve experienced so many different types of managers and I’d say it’s how they are personally wired. Some really welcome it, some use you as a, as a sparing partner. Ideally there’s that base of trust where they feel comfortable to also be vulnerable. Like okay, I don’t know, some, maybe not the best speakers, but then they need to do the all hands or something doesn’t go as expected and instead of blaming it somewhere else it’s like okay, now I messed up, so I don’t know about this. So ideally this is a partnership and that also comes to having each other’s back and being able to talk. Right. And there should be a lot of integrity. So there are this kind where I connect best with, really allow candid feedback for the purpose of becoming better as a team.

And then for some it might feel frightened as well or frightening because if you allow someone to see you then you know, it’s, it’s quite wonderful. So not everyone I would say can go there and this is, you know, hearing a question. It started out like there’s such a range of leaders so it might feel very different. Some are very happy, others are like nah, don’t want that.

Thomas Kohler:
Or yeah, I also think what you said in the beginning matches there that the title maybe is clear, but it’s not clear what does it include. And this varies by organizations very heavily I would say, but the title is often really the same. And I think that’s also part of the problem, that this is really not clear, not clearly defined, or it just changes and nobody is really aware of it. But I don’t know when you want to roll out a strategy, right? Kicking off a new sales strategy, for instance, or preparing for a growth phase, or also just downsizing. Often this is just started and being done. Instead of planning what might be the frameworks we use what might be the communication workflows we need to integrate. Consider what is the messaging we want to use and how do we also make sure that we measure if people understand what we want to do and if they understand what is their role and how they can contribute. And I think that often things are rushed without being repeated often enough, because I think you can move fast and you can’t rush.

But then you also need to make sure that you are very clear in the messaging, in the guidance and in communicating. And this is often just not done or planned well. And this could also be a situation where this business partnering piece can really, really add value, is what I saw in organizations where it was done well.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
You touch on a very good point. And I would say in all things organizational changes can be their contact is a communication. And I think communication often is understood as someone shares an information with someone else. So you have a communication plan, maybe you have day one where you communicate. We’re doing this, we’re buying a company, we are going public, we’re merging these two functions or whatever. And there’s such a variety also on organization changes. And I’ve often seen that this is prepared well, then it’s executed. I hate that word executed.

And then nothing. It’s like a flat line afterwards. Or you give the managers maybe some enablements. I check in with your team, we prepared like five questions. You can ask them how they are and etc. So but it’s often a very short phase after the communication. And I believe the communication starts there. Because whatever the change is, unless you close the whole business, but even then you have to communicate for a while.

If you change an organization, people move in different roles or have suddenly new colleagues, whatever the context is, I think that takes a lot of time and this is maybe often underestimated. In order to successfully change and bring people really along, it takes a lot of communication afterwards. And it’s a dialogue and there’s a lot to listen to and maybe adjust. Yeah, I think it’s somebody too much planning on the technical side, like which capabilities to move. How, how many people here, how many people there? Then communication cascade. Done. It’s not done. This is how when it starts, because the people or the majority of people in the organization hear it for the first time. And that’s when they start thinking about it, processing it, reacting. And they need to share the concerns, the questions. And it’s not a two weeks.

Thomas Kohler:
And that continuously, right because things can always come up and change. And this is relevant information, but you also need for decision making.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
Yeah.

Thomas Kohler:
Great. Great closing words, Sonja. So we’re done. Thank you so much and it was great talking to you.

Sonja Sinterhauf:
Thank you, for having me.