Special Guest Expert - Norbert Majerus: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Norbert Majerus: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Here's the big question. How is it that most entrepreneurs hustle and are always busy and struggle to take just one step forward, only to fall two steps back? They're dedicated, determined and driven, but only a few finally break through and win. This show uncovers those quantum leap patterns of highly successful people so you can simply model what they do and apply to your future success. That's the question. And the answers are right here. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle and this is the Success Patterns Show. And welcome, everyone. You are at the right place at the right time here at the Success Patterns Show where we put the do in learn, do teach. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle. I am the CEO of the Center of NLP and the owner and founder of the Success Pattern Movement. And I couldn't be more excited about this show today because I have, well, almost a fellow countrymen. It feels like he is a fellow countryman. This show was designed with your success in mind as we are going and kind of peeling back the layers of how people got to the success that they have today. The quality of our success starts with the attitude towards it. And if you have an attitude and you have a negative attitude towards, well, I am entitled to have success. Success is probably not necessarily flowing to you because it's not a sustainable strategy. Success is an interesting thing, though. It shapes its meaning within each individual success seeker, if you will, because everyone defines success a little bit different and it's not limited to business or personal. It kind of weaves in and out and and it balances it out. Success is modeled in patterns, behavior and strategies. And Tony Robbins is known for saying success leaves clues. I say success comes in patterns. So a pattern is an example for others to follow. And in this success pattern show, we decode these patterns that led to the success of our guest experts. So you can then encode in your own life for your own success, starting right now, as humans were hardwired for hands on application by living teachers. And that's why we're here. And that's why you are here to learn from our guest book guest experts, our living teachers.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Because we are not theoreticians because they just kind of talk a good game. Here are grandmasters at work and we're going to give you bit a model success for you. And when you fine tune your hearing, you will be able to identify the steps to get to success. Success is yours. We have an incredible show straight to the very end. Our guest expert has brought us gifts and goodies. So I want to jump right in and get started because this gentleman that I have here is retired. After 39 years in innovation and in engineering. He's worked with a large I don't even know, a Fortune 50 company. Probably he'll tell us. He speaks over four languages. He has had global responsibility back when he worked in corporate America and he had to learn things the hard way. And we're going to hear a little bit more about that today. He loves to share his insights when it comes to innovation and when it comes to insights about himself of how he went through life and went through his career. And he wrote books, he speaks at conferences, he coaches folks. He spent more, like I said, more than 40 years in this specific industry as an engineer, as a leader, as a consultant. He's originally from Luxembourg, and I couldn't be more excited and honored to have Norbert Majerus with us here today. No, but thank you for being here on the Success Pattern show.

Norbert Majerus:
Well, thanks for inviting me.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I am so excited. Today's a great show. So I But when we first got to meet each other and I read your bio, very impressive 40 years in innovation in engineering and and I jumped to a conclusion. Well, clearly, Norbert is a very left brained person, being 40 years in innovation and engineering. And then Norbert told me this. What did you tell me know about?

Norbert Majerus:
Well, actually, I'm a totally right brained person. I'm I'm very creative. I'm I mean, not only a right brain in terms of being creative, but also right brain, including the emotional part and everything that that that comes with it. I don't know why I went into engineering and I worked as a right brained person in a totally left brain, very conservative company my whole career. And it had challenges. I have to say that it was challenge.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I bet. And there's a piece of loyalty in that that you would stick around for 40. Years.

Norbert Majerus:
Well, okay. That I can. That I can answer the good part. By the way, I worked for for Goodyear, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. And the good part at Goody Goody is very innovative, very conservative, but also very innovative. So at least they let me try out things. Not always, but but but for the most part. And the other thing, I always got to do something new, something different. Every three or four years I was moved to some other place. And that was good because I could not have, as a guy trained as I am, it would have been a challenge. But then on the other side, I would consider myself a little bit even I, I studied engineering and I did very well in school and I, I'm able to speak in engineering language. I love I love data. The the only the biggest challenge that I had as an engineer is I went into engineering because I didn't like to work with people and but. The reason is that I had no skills and I never really learn how to do that. And over the years, and especially later in my career, when I got involved in in lean and operational excellence and things like that, I finally learned how to. How to how to deal with people through concepts like respect for people, humble leadership, those kind of things. Finally, let me learn the basics that I would I would never say that I'm that I'm an expert in dealing with people. But at least at the end of my career, I became comfortable. And so.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
You're clearly an expert in innovation and engineering, and you shared with me at one point that you had you were part or even you as the person. Please help me clarify. In charge of 60 patents.

Norbert Majerus:
Yeah, well, those are that's patents that I got over my career, and I'm just counting the American ones there. I'm a very creative person, and creative people have a place in engineering, by the way, that they can be great entrepreneurs. They can be they. There is something what I call industrial creativity, and that's how the big companies make the big money. As far as I'm concerned, I still do not. I still believe that creativity and innovation is probably the foremost company. A very, very fast the path to revenue and to success, and especially to winning in their in their industry. So I, I believe there is a place for right brain people in engineering and.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Clearly we have evidence for that. You're sitting right here. Now what really struck me odd and I didn't read it in your bio, but I do want to speak to it because it's a very interesting thing that you wrote in your bio and it reads, I wish I had known what I know now earlier in my life, because you would have chosen a different career.

Norbert Majerus:
Yes, I would probably still have ended up in in an engineering career. However, I would have. Instead of hiding behind a computer and avoiding every human contact possible and not being comfortable. I mean, I was always comfortable as people have. Everything goes right if they don't argue and if ever if there's no conflict, of course it's fine. But to to get comfortable at dealing with all these different situations around people, that is something that I was that I was totally missing in my early and my career was never even taught it. I was sent to to leadership classes and so on, but I don't think I ever understood what they were talking about. But then later, when when I got involved with Lean and the Toyota manufacturing system and all those kind of things, I learned, I don't respect for people. I learned humble leadership, I learned servant leadership. And all of a sudden those things started to make sense to me. And and of course, I tried them out immediately. And they work okay. They work very well. So I wish in my college education they would have had a class about how to manage people and and I would have chosen a different path, not the past. Where I'm hiding behind the computer was a sign. Please leave me alone. I'm I'm thinking here and I would have sought out that that interaction, that contact and had moved into a career of leadership of managing people and so on, rather than a career where I'm just out there with my data.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And do you regret do you regret the 40 years that you spent.

Norbert Majerus:
On engineering innovation? No, I don't. I don't think so. I always had fun. I have to say that I always had fun. Sometimes it got frustrating and but as I said, I moved around a lot. And the fact that I had global responsibilities, I moved around working with different cultures, different countries, something that I really enjoyed, that diversity and and so on. So no, I, I would probably I would probably stick with engineering creativity, but more in a more engaging and in a more people centric world than I've ever been.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
If you could go back to Little Norbert, to the the the kid that grew up in Luxembourg and then decided to go to university in Saarbrücken in Germany, what would you tell him?

Norbert Majerus:
Well, I sometimes I joke about this, but I blame it all on the fact that that kindergarten in my country was taught totally different than kindergarten is taught in the United States. And when my kids grew up, I couldn't believe what they learned in kindergarten. I said, Well, I wish I had learned all this stuff in in in kindergarten. But that so that. I think my kids learn stuff in kindergarten that I didn't learn in my in my whole career. And I wish I would have learned those things through high school, through through college and so on. And that is something that that I missed. I also missed the opportunities in my home country. Luxembourg is a tiny little country. And I, I did leave the country to go to Germany for college. And I think that was way overdue. Not that I don't love that country. It's a wonderful place to live. But it you it is you have only one or two no colleges in the country. When I was there only one school and it was no. Virtually only one or two companies that you could think about going to work for. If you want to stay in that country, it that was a lot. A little lack of opportunity. Now, of course, that's not the case anymore. Now you have a computer, you have an Internet, You have even Luxembourg has a college now and so on. So it has changed tremendously. But of course, that is also something that played a major role, that the lack of diverse opportunities for sure.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
For sure. And culturally in the era that you were brought up, you know, being this maybe supporting the whole child, the holistic child, I don't know which school your children went to in kindergarten. I you know, our children went to Montessori schools. So, you know, I appreciate the. Exploring what is and what else could be out there. Right. And I think yeah.

Norbert Majerus:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, we had the choice. We went through that discussing schools and we purposely put our kids in in a school where they. They was in America from the kindergarten where they would, where they would experience all the diversity they could diversity in terms of people around them, religions, you name it. Racist you name it. Really. That was very important to us always that the kids get the full experience of all the diversity that's there and. Putting them everywhere possible. They they they played the in the band. They did drama, they played sports. They were in the academic challenges. They were everywhere they could go just to make sure they experience that diversity. For me, that's very important.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I know growing up we didn't have that in the schools and even in Germany, so I can only imagine how it was like. Luxembourg and Luxembourg is beautiful. It's a beautiful country that I visited many times. There is there is something that you have done over time that you shared with us. You learned the lean methodology and and really not just learned it and studied it, but it sounds like you applied it. You you internalize that you made it yours.

Norbert Majerus:
Yeah, he was more than that. I was actually when I got challenged to implement it in an innovation center, I mean. Doesn't fit there. Okay. And that's what everybody had it. A lot of people you could read everywhere. Don't try this. This is this is an uphill battle. It doesn't fit there. All this standardization and and all those things that that doesn't fit with creativity. And I bought and I didn't want to do it at the beginning. It took a lot of convincing from the my leader at that time to get me. Try to do it. But at the end of the day, it fit it perfectly. I mean, all you have to do is figure out how to make it work. And and that was a challenge for me. That was a creative challenge for me in an engineering environment, which I absolutely loved. And we had very big success with it. And it works extremely well. And in fact, the center that we implemented it, we we did get the the Emmy Award, which is a very prestigious award for operational excellence. It's meant for manufacturing. But we did it. We got it for an innovation center, and we're very proud about that. And so that was a real challenge. That was something I loved to do. And then at the end, a good year, let me write a book about it. I wrote my first book Driven Innovation about what we did there and how we did it, and really appreciate that I did get the opportunity to share that, to share what we learned there. And it as I said it, it was probably the funnest assignment that I ever had. It was also where I learned to work with people and it was I had to learn to work with people.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Kind of threw in the deep.

Norbert Majerus:
End. There we go. It's a big thing that I learned all these books that you read about it, it's all principles and so on and the tools and so on. But I learned that the biggest challenge is the people that you work with. You have to change their behaviors. You have to change the behaviors of leadership. By all means. You have to coach upwards and change the behaviors of the leaders. And to have our our chairman stand in front of a group that I brought in and say how great this whole thing is, I mean, it blew my mind. Even the chairman all the way up to the chairman, they were believers. And so that that was actually a lot of fun and.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I want to come back to the book that you wrote, and I know that you wrote another book. And I also want to come back to you inviting Challenge, because you're like the innovation master. But you said something, and I want to tap into that before I move on. And that is you've got to change people's behavior. How in the world do you change someone's behavior? Well.

Norbert Majerus:
The psychologists tell you, well, of course, common sense. You you, you you teach them and teach them and teach them. And you hope that they eventually get it and then change their behaviors. But the psychologists tell you, you have to do it the other way around. They tell you you change the behaviors first. And once you have succeeded to change the behaviors, then the beliefs will follow automatically. Well, that is something that is really hard to do. And again, I'm an engineer. I'm not a psychologist at all, but I think I learned enough about it. And for me, to give you one example, I engaged our leaders in coming to teach all this stuff, and they wouldn't believe us at all when they came, but they might. Well, okay, what's wrong with coming for 415 minutes into a class and and helping you with the class? But it was amazing how I witnessed I witnessed how their behaviors changed because they started to behave like they were teaching. And at the end of the day, the beliefs followed and they became huge, big believers in this whole thing and gave me more support than I could ever have dreamed about. That's just one example how you how you how you can engage the leaders and coach up with.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Would you would you say you're a trailblazer in that sense, that you kind of model it for them and then just kind of through them, like you said, in the deep end and then they just had to swim?

Norbert Majerus:
Well, no, not really. Like they it wasn't really it was it was really that bad. It it was just Yes. And another one that works extremely well. If you have a little success somewhere, you really have to to talk about it. That makes everybody understands, hey, this thing may work. And that that's a great tool to to engage people on all the different levels. Of course, education is a very important one, but the education cannot stop at just the technical piece and the principles. The education goes into the people part and it has to involve how you change the culture eventually, because at the end of the day, the culture has to change. If the culture doesn't change, it ends with with the current, the job assignments, The minute a leader leaves, everything is gone. But if you succeed to change the culture, then it stays and then it will. It will continue. But an interesting point that you talked about the books and my first book was all about how to do it, the principles and everything. But then as I learned, it's all about the people. I was thinking about writing another book and I was thinking about it, but how can I get that message across the people part course? Because if I write bullet lists and so on, I can't bring the feelings in there. I can't bring the emotions in, I can't bring the frustrations in there and so on. So I decided to write a business novel, which was totally crazy, by the way. And here's the engineer who who was never able to write a decent essay in his whole life, trying to write the business novel and all invented story that brings out that brings out the the emotions, the challenges, the the frustrations, the feelings and so on. And combine that with the scientific principles and everything. And I wrote it with a gentleman, George tenderness. And George is actually a book writer, and I can remember his face the first time I talked to him, I said, George, would you help me write this thing? You must be kidding me. Right? But then. Then eventually, he he got I mean, he had so much fun doing it just as much as I do coming up with all these stories.

Norbert Majerus:
And we wrote it the opposite way because I talked to a lot of people who are experts in business. And so they said, You have to have a story first. Well, I didn't have a story. I'm sorry, I. I just had lots of stuff that I remembered. And by the way, pretty much everything in the book is had actually happened like that. I just put different people in it. And so and then it every time there was something that came up that I wanted to put in the book, I thought, How can I. Come up with a story around this. But right brain. I'm a right brained enough to do that. So I had no challenge. There was no problem. And I always came up with the right story to get.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So what's the book called?

Norbert Majerus:
Oh, it's called This is called Winning Innovation. And it is about actually, this is another aspect that I like to bring in. The book is about a company. They said they made race bicycles in Italy and they won all the races, but their business was not doing well. They just didn't know how to win in the business. And they eventually it dawned on them, Hey, we just do it the same way, the same passion that we have out there to win on the road. Maybe we should learn how to do that in the in the in the company. And so and then it evolves. And of course, at the end it has a happy end. At the end, everything, everything works out.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So winning innovation, I would say definitely get that book because it sounds like just from the quick one minute that you gave us about the book, that it already has the success pattern in it that you shared with us and you made use of one of the success patterns and then, you know, translated it to something similar in their.

Norbert Majerus:
Business the way that I think it has most of them in there. It has all of them in there that I know.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Mm hmm. Now, that's saying an innovator, an engineer that has gone to love people. I would say, guys, whoever's watching this out there, watching the live, watching the recordings, go get the book winning innovation now before we end. And gosh, I can't believe that we're already coming close to an end. You love challenge that it oozes out of you. I think you're really good at overcoming challenges, sounds like to me. How how does one other than studying about lead and really implementing it how does one going from innovation and engineering to coaching and and and writing business novels and being so open being on the show, it's not scripted. You didn't have clear outlines before. How is that shift?

Norbert Majerus:
Well, you have to have an open mind. And always when something new comes up with, I tell people, try it out, try it. I never nobody could have ever convinced me to become an author and write fiction, business fiction. I would have said. And in fact, it happened that way. And the publisher approached me and said, Do you ever think about writing your book? I said, You must be out of your mind. Okay. But but then I tried it and it was fun. And it and that's what that's what kept me in it and kept me doing it. If it is a challenge, try it and try different ways. Not only run into one brick wall. If it doesn't go that way. Well, try another one. Try another avenue. You will figure it out and then go seek help. And I offer help to everybody. And in fact, just Googled my name and called me. Text me. I promise you I will call you back and see if I can help you. That I learned that a long time ago too. I somebody said, How do you. I'm a consultant. I do a lot of consulting. But somebody said, Do you advertise? I said, No. So what you do is somebody somebody asked me for help. I help them. Okay. And if it develops into an assignment, maybe I take it. But most stuff that I do, I don't. I just help the people. And that's it.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And that is that is truly what you learned, that that's the true definition of being a servant leader of part that you have integrated. He so so to to to wrap up Norbert is a servant leader with an array of of knowledge when it comes to innovation and engineering. He is a I would say if we look at and this is part of what I taught the last seven days in his whole gestalt and his whole being. He's a beautiful balance of left brain and right brain and nobody brought us a gift. What's the gift?

Norbert Majerus:
Well, you said that. What is it? Some people who will contact me, I will coach them, help them.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And and you said and you said one thing, but you said, I will help people. All they have to do is get in contact with me. I'll help them. Yes, guys, I promise. I don't I don't know how much clearer we. Yeah, well, when you can. I think it would be probably a better, better way to put it, because you have a wealth of knowledge. 40 plus years in innovation as an engineer in corporate America. Written two books implementing Lean was the first book. What was the what was the name of the first book again?

Norbert Majerus:
Oh, the first book is called Lean Driven Innovation.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Lean Driven Innovation. That is beautiful. So definitely both books winning innovation and lean lean in innovation, in innovation.

Norbert Majerus:
Yes.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Lynn Driven innovation. So for the first five, that will send an email to Norbert Dot Majerus at gmail.com. That's n0rbrt dot mage e r us at gmail.com. Norbert Majerus at gmail.com. The first five will get to spend time with Norbert and God knows what's going to come out of that session because I can't wait to hear all of that now. But we're going to have to have you back on the show because we want to hear what happened. And sure, as you know, as people are reaching out, what greatness came out of that. So Norbert Dot Majerus at gmail.com and basically you can Google him. Norbert Oh, yeah. It's it's it's similar to Brigitta. Hopefully there's only one Norbert Majerus out there, so just Google him, you'll find him. Make sure that you in the subject line that you put in that you saw him on the success pattern show. So he knows where you guys are coming from. No. But any last words that you have for us?

Norbert Majerus:
Well, I just want to thank you for inviting me, giving me an opportunity to share. I, I love to do that. And thanks for inviting me. And thanks, everybody, for listening. And if you want to know more, as I said, just Google my name. You will find me, Send me an email, I will answer it. And I'd love to do that.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Thank you, Norbert. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for being here. Tune in again next week on Tuesday at 430 Eastern time. Same place, same time. Until then. See you. Thank you for tuning in to the Success Patterns Show at www.TheSuccessPatternsShow.com My name is Brigitta Hoeferle.

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