The Wisdom of.... Henrik Ertmann

This "Wisdom of"-profile features Henrik Ertmann.

The first time I met Henrik, we didn’t have a clue that the other person was a fellow Dane. We sat through an hour and a half meeting, both speaking Spanish until the very end, when he asked me where I was from and I told him it was a tiny place in Denmark nobody knew – but of course Henrik did.

Henrik has spent the last 25 years working his way to the top in British Airways, starting out in phone sales and is now the Commercial Portfolio Manager for Latin America.

It’s never easy climbing the corporate ladder but doing it in a British company as a Dane whilst speaking Spanish adds a whole new dimension to the challenge.

Here’s the Wisdom of Henrik:

What do you think are the most important skills for young people to have or to develop when starting their career?

I think interpersonal and relationship skills are essential, at all stages in life. In this technological and digital age, with so many working in front of a laptop most of the day, and when not, totally engrossed in Facebook, Instagram, emails (or even LinkedIn!!) on their mobile phones, it seems like we are losing rapidly the personal touch, looking each other in the eyes and actually having good and sound verbal communication and conversations with each other.

Preparing oneself academically and possessing business acumen is important, but when people cannot interact socially and empathize with others, both in private or at work, then we are starting to lose something very valuable. I work in the airline business, and this is not about flying planes from one place to another, but rather about making people connect. I would go even further and say that first and foremost we are a people business - in the shape of an airline.

Whether that connection is by talking briefly to someone in the hallway, in the office corridor or during a business meeting, or simply picking up the phone to discuss a topic, or even getting on a plane to meet someone in person, well, all of that boils down to developing your interpersonal, relationship and people skills. 

So, straighten your back, look up, and don’t be afraid of putting down the mobile phone or silence it, and talk to people. It can actually sometimes be a relief!

What would you tell your younger self at the start of your career? Is there anything in particular you wish you would have known back then?

I would give myself four advice:

1.    Work as hard as you can in whatever you set your mind to, be it studies, or a work in a regular job, or in your own business, or whatever you choose to do.

2.    Treat people you come across in life with respect, and be nice to others, above all, no matter where in life or on the corporate ladder you or they may be.

3.    Few people manage to have a Master’s Degree, five years of working experience AND a full time management position / directorate at 25. Relax, be patient and don’t try and eat an elephant in one bite! Things will work out.

4.    And be happy in life – you only live once, so make the best of it and enjoy.

How has failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

I think failures, or rather set backs, are an inevitable fact of life, be it at a personal or professional level. In my view, they should not be treated very differently, and they may actually interact in many cases. In other words, be prepared for disappointments and set backs, or what may even appear as failures (life is not always easy!), and do expect a set back at work to perhaps affect you in your personal life, and vice versa.

There is no set formula for success in life, but if you take learnings from any adverse situation you come across as you move on in life, then you become better prepared to affront similar, or even other and perhaps tougher, challenges in the future. So, learn from your mistakes.

On that note, it is also important to be honest with oneself in the process and admit defeat, so to speak, when there is no point in continuing. If it is evident, don’t head for failure but try and change direction, if possible, or “abandon ship”. My recommendation is to listen carefully to others, and when dealing with important issues or topics, do get input and views from people around you, and even better if it is from someone who normally has a view which differs from yours, and not just from someone who tells you what you would like to hear.

And finally, as a motivation and to set yourself up for future success, do remind yourself from time to time of the successes you have already had in life, and then you will see that there are normally many more of these than failures. Just remember, it is not a straight line!

do remind yourself from time to time of the successes you have already had in life

On that last note, back in my twenties I wish I had known, or rather realised or taken stock of the fact, that the next 25 years of my life would go by so fast. When I was young and in my mid-twenties it seemed like there was no end to anything, and I just wanted to move fast and that things and people around me move equally fast. The furthest from my mind was to pay attention to all the “boring stuff for old people”, such as saving up, thinking about my pension, or going to see a doctor, unless I was feeling very unwell.

So, the point I want to make is that even though you may be fit as a fiddle today, but perhaps on a tight budget or all your income goes towards raising a young family or paying off a mortgage, do think from early on about pension, medical care and having a little bit of money set aside for a rainy day. You will need ALL of this later in life, and that “later” comes much quicker than you may think!

“later” comes much quicker than you may think!

What advice would you give to young people who cannot figure out what career path to take?

This may sound like an old and tired expression, and a bit of a cliché, but feel your heart and think about what makes you happy in life. If you are about to start university and will spend the next four to six years of your life studying a specific career, make sure you are passionate about the subject. The same goes for you when deciding on what job to take, if you are fortunate enough to have a choice. It must be something that gets you up in the morning, makes you happy, and if not all the time then at least the majority of the hours you put into it.

I went into the airline business because I was passionate about geography in school and loved traveling since I was a child, and not because I wanted to fill in spreadsheets or work on formulas to calculate the best return on investment for a specific project, etc. I do all that now, but I also ensure that I feed my original passion and I keep traveling the world in my spare time, and also for work!

So, in short, choose a career or a job which you are passionate about, or at least where there are elements of strong passion, involvement and drive. If you are not quite sure what career path to choose, then don’t rush it, but rather work on something else in the meantime and until you figure it out. If you can afford the luxury, a year or two between high school and university to travel or work can be very rewarding, and it will provide you experience (and experiences!) to bring with your later in life. It may also give you time to ponder what career and career path to choose, make you more mature, and help you make the right choice.

In my own case, I took a break between two airline employers. I used to work for Scandinavian Airlines System, and during the Gulf war (the first one, back in the early nineties), SAS were eager to offer unpaid leave to its employees and which I took advantage of and accepted. That took me to Mexico, where I worked in two completely different jobs before joining British Airways.

The first job was selling time share in a beach resort hotel and the second one was as an English teacher, giving private classes to executives in a number of companies. Both jobs gave me very valuable insight and experiences. The first one in the time share business showed me later in life as Sales Manager just how far you can push a customer to buy something they may in reality not be interested in, and where the limit is for a sales person to not annoy a customer! The other job as a teacher also gave me important learnings and lessons in life, and as a people manager later in life I was able to use a lot of the teaching and coaching skills I learned to put into practice in British Airways, to develop successful teams and drive both the group and the individual forward.

That was the wisdom of Henrik - next week, The Wisdom of.... blog will profile Lord Price, former British Minister of Trade and Investment.