In conversation with Edith Nordmann

Going back in time

Amsterdam, the Dutch capital, was the place to be for the many, including myself more than three years back. The year 2020, the year the pandemic introduced itself to the world, managed to change the world completely leaving intense challenges for politicians, entrepreneurs, CEO's, global citizens, and people out on the streets. The biggest challenge for all of us was how to proceed in the unknown. Visiting Amsterdam in 2020 was quite a nostalgic visit after inhaling the Dutch culture, habits and in particular the ‘Goudse stroopwafels’ after so many years. Walking through clean and organized streets where the wind and rain hits you in the face and only a strong umbrella can prevent your outfit from getting soaked. I still felt the desire to look presentable for my business visits despite the Dutch weather but could only manage that partly. Good old Dutch weather and good old memories I thought to myself.

One of the highlights of my visit in Amsterdam was to meet with Mrs. Edith Nordmann LL.M, Managing Partner at ACG International – Attorney Consulting Group. Edith is a Dutch Attorney at Law, Mediator and Arbitrator, specialized in corporate and commercial law with expert qualification in Employment Law. We prepared our physical meeting via several online meetings in which we discussed how to create an inspiring and strong collaboration between the NICCT (Netherlands India Chamber of Commerce and Trade) and the INBCB (India Netherlands Business Circle Bangalore). I, the president of the INBCB and Edith, the Chairman of the NICCT, had the ambition to increase the traffic on the corridor between India and the Netherlands. In fact, we developed a motto for our meeting in real life: to be innovative in our thinking and to challenge current paradigms for the better of our mission, with respect to the differences in culture, members, and local context.

I took the train from The Hague to Amsterdam and while entering the Atrium building at the Strawinskylaan I revisited memory lane.

How many times have I had inspiring events in this building, or on the contrary challenging and tough meetings, great round table sessions and strong Italian coffees with business friends in earlier days? Many times, I can tell you that.

'... Aahhh, Marianne, so happy we can meet in person finally!’ Edith greeted me warmly. ‘You arrived yesterday? Ok, so your internal clock is still adjusting itself to the Dutch time zone. One strong coffee I suppose, right? Please follow me to the boardroom and we will continue our talks as usual...' Edith was right, my entire physique was in jetlag mode. Though somehow, I knew that my dialogue with Edith would trigger interesting questions and have surprising twists. This would definitely bring me more into the present and ease up my jetlag.

'Edith, how nice to meet you, finally indeed.' I replied. 'How are you doing in this good old city? Did you know I lived here for more than 10 years? I assume we won’t talk about the differences between the Hague and Amsterdam, the Indian and the Dutch diaspora in both cities and the variety of restaurants selling 'broodjes kaas' or spicy dosas...?' We both chuckled while I settled myself into the boardroom.

While we continued chatting around the agenda points, Edith served a real Dutch home baked apple pie with of course the strongest coffee ever. 'How did you know that I'm a big fan of apple pies?' I asked her. 'Hmm, I assumed that if you are living abroad and especially in India for so many years, some Dutch habits will never leave you', she replied. 'A piece of Dutch apple pie might just give you the right boost before we start with our Indian Dutch agenda.'

This warm welcome formed the right base to kickstart our dialogue. While we set the scene of our meeting more in detail, our humor, our straightforwardness, our vast experiences in our areas of expertise and out-of-the-box-thinking helped us to get into the zone. We didn’t forget about our mutual interests and country-related business goals either. Setting up a strong collaboration between India and the Netherlands on business level via the NICCT and the INBCB was the need of the hour. Within two hours we agreed on certain goals, responsibilities, activities and paved the path for the coming two years. Implementing those goals was the next challenge but also the most interesting one. After agreeing on the drafts for an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding), we signed the MOU during the New Years' reception of the NICCT in January 2021.

Female Leadership

Three years later after we first met in Amsterdam, I invited Edith to contribute to my applied research about ‘Female Leadership and Managing Change’

I was impressed with her work attitude, the various board positions she held including chairing supervisory boards in the field of art and social work. She held these positions while managing different turns in her career and raising three children, all at the same time. ‘Being a mother and co-manager of your own family during your professional career, you learn to follow your guts and intuition, especially during times where fast decision-making is key. Interestingly that isn’t so much different in doing business sometimes. I felt a constant flow of leading unpredictable changes by and for people.’

I wondered where she learned these skills to move along in life without losing her own ambitions. In a long virtual call on a Sunday morning in July 2023 we continued our dialogue. I listened to stories and a variety of experiences in which a more human side of her legal identity became visible. Standardized solutions and ready-made legal frameworks in order to solve technically oriented cases aren’t standard in Edith’s professional life.

Born and raised as a Swiss citizen, Edith followed her school-life with discipline and adaptation to the environmental requirements at an early age: 'You know Marianne, I was very disciplined in high school and pretty much outnumbered everybody in everything. I was the best in class and received great support from my family to follow my ambitions as a child. My family protected me while achieving my dreams, following my intuition, and achieving my goals. Going to Harvard was one of my ambitions, however my grandfather told me: ‘if you are going to study at Harvard, your life will consist of books yet again and there is so much more in life. I would like to recommend that you take a break for one year and start working in a company abroad.’

‘Marianne, I will never forget what my granddad said that day. I listened to him and went to the Netherlands, started a sales job, going from door to door, learned Dutch on the spot and proposed a variety of new ideas to the company. I learned to collaborate with a business family and with people from different backgrounds. I think that was one of the best experiences in my life where I followed my intuition, listened to advice, took a few risks and just did it. Sometimes you just need to start and do it, spicing it up with perseverance.’

Leading by experience

I asked Edith if her experiences at such a young age, which included starting and raising a family while studying law and setting up a career, formed her as a leader. ‘Definitely Marianne, the basics of leadership I learned at a young age while always trying to keep in my mind what I want to achieve, my horizon and supporting others to achieve their dreams and their goals. Empathy, imagining how the world will look like when you implement your dreams, anticipating the impact of your decisions and not be afraid of learning from your mistakes, are key elements. Well, I can tell you, I made quite some mistakes, which I would like to call 'learning-opportunities' instead. I was always open to receiving feedback and willing to 'repair' the consequences of my actions and behavior.

That is, as we all know, not easy and sometimes you have to compromise with your own ambitions to gain more insight into business life and especially into your own profession. Applying whatever you learned in your study isn’t mentioned in a book which you can learn by heart.

I studied her while she connected events of her past together and observed she wasn’t just memorizing her early dynamic life consisting of international experiences. While sharing her real-life stories, it was as if she watched her own personal film again and narrated it at the same time. Edith was able to share her stories in such a detailed manner that it was similar to being in a cinema and empathizing with the main character, both cognitively and emotionally. For Edith, it was about imagination followed by real life situations which was her way of sharing her story about her family and career.

Balanced competences

'I always had the opportunity to create interesting jobs for myself or join challenging projects with different law firms. Studying law by heart is a totally different ball game compared to applying that same knowledge. If you want to contribute to society and people, you need the competences to understand the actual clients’ needs and their story behind the story they share with you. And let’s not forget about the personal impact of each case on the lives of clients. The question that arises then is how we can best support them within a realistic timeframe, an affordable budget, and sometimes uncontrolled emotions. That's what social support should be all about: to help our fellow humans within the context of the law, with our juridical professionalism, our values and norms as best as we can. Every lawyer needs the skill to balance the cognitive aspects of our legal responsibilities and the emotional aspects of our clients’ cases. These balances should be flexible and may change over time.’

‘Let me share with you a simple example. When I open a meeting by welcoming the participants, my first questions are: How are you doing today? What are your concerns? Which hurdles do you feel to finalize the job successfully and how can we help you out? As you can imagine Marianne, a totally different dynamic will occur when you pose these kinds of questions. People will open up, even though they may feel a little uncomfortable at first, however they will share their stories, the real story. They will share their concerns about their case, the work that needs to be done and, potential hurdles to be expected throughout the process. By doing so, I have the real core of every case in front of me in a short period of time. I take into account the human side of our work in order to find the most suitable and feasible solution. ‘My style and approach are not always appreciated by everyone; however, I believe that merely technically ticking off agenda points is not effective at all. You simply ignore emotions which are deeply embedded in the personalities sitting in front of me.'

To my question whether scenario-thinking is an important aspect of her professional responsibility, Edith replied: 'indeed, scenario thinking on an emotional level is one of the critical success factors of our job. You need the sensitivity to observe and intervene as well. Clients expect that in a more subconscious way because solving problems of a case is like 'seeing beyond' the problem. To find an innovative solution for a complex problem, you can’t just copy any solution you have implemented in the past. Each case is unique. Therefore, managing the unpredictability of finding a suitable and legally correct solution is in my opinion the most interesting part of our job.'

Recommendations

After wrapping up our dialogue I asked Edith what kind of recommendations she could share to motivate female leaders who are equally managing constant change in their professional (and personal) lives. ‘It is important to develop a sensitivity to observe interactions between people, anticipate their behaviors and see if you can discover certain patterns in how people react and act. It provides you with more insight into the story behind the story, and how to lead the situation towards next steps. Secondly don’t try to copy-paste 'men'. Being yourself, as a woman, is essential to know who you are: what kind of person am I and what suits me best, professionally, and personally. Discovering the real ‘you’, takes time. And last but not the least: listen to your guts, don’t ever ignore your intuition. We, as female leaders, are working very hard and we shouldn’t be ashamed in being rewarded for that!’