LEADING with AI

Training for 'AI-First' Managers and Leaders who build high performance teams, the human way

Restore the balance between people and performance with AI.

Most organizations fail to balance people and performance, costing them their best talent. Over-emphasizing kindness erodes accountability (Survival of the Nicest), while a rigid results-focus creates a political arena (Survival of the Toughest). Both scenarios kill speed.

High performance requires the top-right balance: All People Alive and Kicking. AI is the lever that restores this balance, regardless of your natural leadership style.


E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

INCOMPANY training

AI-First Leadership for Agile Organizations

Managing Without Power injects startup speed and culture into growing and large organizations. We deliver action-based training supported by a practical toolkit brimming with AI applications for modern managers and leaders.  

You learn to lean less on power and invest more in teams by applying AI across every aspect of management and leadership: from 'mundane' administration and razor-sharp strategies to the most nuanced human challenges and coaching conversations. You will role-model tech adoption, while building high-performance teams through intentional, human leadership.

Through Managing Without Power your organization will benefit from:

  • Increased productivity, and thoughtful application of AI
  • Increased team performance based on trust and intrinsic motivation
  • Less ‘quiet quitters’ and reduced employee burnout
  • Increased talent attraction and retention
  • Managers and Leaders who role model growth mindset and tech-adoption
  • Leaders with the confidence, skills and frameworks to nurture high performance teams

E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

It’s the perfect fit for...

Large Organizations

  • Wanting to increase AI adoption across the organization and regain entrepreneurial spirit
  • Seeking to help teams be more agile when facing change, and quick to adopt new technology
  • Struggling to create momentum, maybe suffering from politics and low productivity, or lacking performance due to people not challenging one another
  • With flat org structures that lack performance management and need to reintroduce managerial roles without creating an unhelpful hierarchy
  • Struggling with consistency in management style and quality
  • Struggling to hire/retain talent

Start ups & Scale ups

  • Wanting to scale while retaining effectiveness and culture alongside growth
  • Aiming to lead the industry by embedding AI organization-wide
  • With young managers needing professional support, without turning them into 'traditional style' managers
  • With flat org structures that lack performance management and a need to introduce managerial roles without creating an unhelpful hierarchy
  • Struggling with consistency in management style and quality
  • Struggling to hire/retain talent

E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

Course structure

Train your managers and leaders to build high performance teams, with AI as their sparring partner

We will work on real management and leadership challenges in your organization. With a systemic approach supported by proven frameworks, AI-applications and measurement we help groups of managers and leaders, and their management team apply principles of Managing Without Power. You'll co-create the management principles and structures needed for lasting change.

Trainings are run incompany, and are customized to the needs of the organization. Elements of the program can be run separately or be combined. We regularly run trainings during offsites, and can also guide individual managers, or do new manager onboarding.

Module 1

Brilliant Basics
Part 1
  • Kickstarting your journey to apply AI for all aspects of management and leadership.
  • Measure upward feedback on the ten behaviors of great managers, and analyze results with AI.
  • Applying the five brilliant basics to build trusted relationships and intrinsically motivated teams.
  • How to manage effectively in a remote environment.
  • How to run meaningful conversations about personal growth, career and life.

Module 2

Brilliant Basics
Part 2
  • Writing strategy and objectives 90% faster with AI, reclaiming time for strategic thinking and alignment conversations.
  • Agreeing and cultivating healthy team norms, including norms for thoughtful use of AI.
  • Tracking progress, course correcting and providing ongoing feedback.
  • Running fair and predictable performance evaluations.
  • Dealing with low performers timely, effectively and respectfully.
  • Creating accountability in a human way.
  • Using AI to practice difficult conversations and to set consistent expectations.

Module 3

High Performance
Through Human Leadership & Safety
  • What makes a high performance team, and how to combine high performance and humaneness?
  • Creating psychological safety through actions in the ‘moments of the truth’.
  • Making objective decisions under pressure with AI.
  • Coaching on the job, and practicing it with AI.
  • How to make sure all types of people can succeed.
  • Using AI to become a more versatile leader and adapt your style to the needs of different people.

Module 4

Org Transformation Space for change
Making change the new normal in any organization
  • Making change part of core work by writing strategy and objectives with data, mind and heart.
  • Use AI to make your vision and strategy actionable, and bring people along with change.
  • Applying the ‘change formula’ for teams and organizations: rolemodel, amplify, (don’t) tolerate.
  • Fostering ownership and entrepreneurship in all layers of the organization.
  • Using data based experiments to optimize your people strategy.
  • Creating space to innovate in a growing organization.

E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

Packages

Example: Training for leaders and Management Teams
2 days, incompany:

Applying the five Brilliant Basics of high performing teams at scale. Defining your personal leadership philosophy and applying it with both idealism and pragmatism. Leading with data, mind and heart. Being a rolemodel for growth mindset and thoughtful application of AI.

We'll explore desired leadership principles and the gap versus reality. We jump back and forth between the role of individual leaders as manager of their team and as role model for the organization. We will review and co-create supporting tools and AI-Prompts to enable consistent quality and style of leadership in all layers of the organization.
€10,000
(price is per group of 6 to 12 leaders)
This is an indicative example. All content will be customized to your ways of working. For large assignments a discount will be applied. Suitable for Management Team offsites. Online or blended formats are possible.  
Example: Brilliant Basics for Managers
3 days, incompany:

Applying the ten behaviours of great managers with personal and situational awareness using feedback from your team. Five Brilliant Basics for high performing teams. Developing Personal & Strategic Leadership. Using AI across all aspects of management and leadership.

We apply AI prompts and practical tools directly to real-world challenges, ensuring application on the job between training days. Every element of the program is customized to your organization and can be delivered in flexible formats, including face-to-face, online, or blended sessions. By learning from peers and tackling actual business challenges together, participants form the personal and strategic allyships necessary to drive impact.
€13,500
(price is per group of 8 to 14 managers)
This is an indicative example. All content will be customized to your ways of working. For large assignments a discount will be applied. Online or blended formats are possible.
One-on-one Leadership Coaching
In one-on-one coaching, we help you build high-performance teams by mastering the balance between people- and performance-centric leadership. We believe consistent behavior is far more critical than eloquent words or polished strategy decks.

In a series of one-on-one video calls, Joris Merks-Benjaminsen helps you pinpoint the weakest links across the '5 Brilliant Basics' for high-performance teams. You will utilize upward feedback from your team on Google's 'ten behaviors of great managers'.

Core focus is on applying tools and AI-prompts on 'moments of truth' across all aspects of management and leadership. This is how you convert good intentions into consistent, impactful leadership.
€3,000
(price is for 10 one-on-one sessions excl. VAT)
One-on-one sessions are always custom.

E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

Customer testimonials

If you’re a manager, or are looking to upskill managers, if you want to establish an inclusive culture with start-up spirit in a large organization, or you’re a scale-up, growing rapidly but eager to maintain the culture you’ve built, then look no further than Joris’s Managing Without Power.

Kim Wylie

Global Director of People Development & Change at Farfetch

Managing Without Power is NOT ‘Edutainment’. It’s practical application of learning. It achieves change and transformation at a systemic level, which is the only way to achieve lasting impact in my experience. I can highly recommend working with Joris.

Stephanie Conway

Senior Director Talent Development EMEA & LATAM at LinkedIn

What makes or breaks a startup is the team and culture that you build. In the day-to-day chaos of building its easy to not be deliberate about building that culture. Joris provides practical, low-nonsense tools and training to help us create a high performance team in a human way. We would highly recommend him.

Stef van Grieken

CEO and founder of Cradle.bio

Joris offers immediately applicable, practical and strategic tools. He helps leaders run teams in a human focused, performance driven and consistent way. He combines a wealth of experience with humaneness, pragmatism & authenticity.

Joris de Haas

Global People Business Partner at Wise

Joris' trainings have given us not only a proven framework but also very practical tools to become a more performance- oriented organization. His step by step explanation and focus on practical application have helped us tremendously to get a good foundation and start with that.

Jasper ten Hove

PostNL Director of IT E-commerce
(the Dutch national postal service)

Seeing Joris bring his book Managing without power to life and apply it to GetYourGuide's challenges was nothing less than energizing. It was a valuable binding experience for our group of Directors and VP's who were sometimes moved to tears.

Wouter Blok

Vice President Growth Marketing at GetYourGuide

About joris

Joris Merks-Benjaminsen

integrates technological innovation with authentic leadership. As the former Head of Google Digital Academy, he accelerated the digital transformation of the top 100 brands in EMEA. Within Google, he was recognized as one of their highest-rated managers worldwide. Drawing on this hands-on experience, he developed the programs Managing Without Power and Leading with AI.

Joris is an award-winning author with a clear mission: helping leaders restore the balance between people and results while empowering organizations to fully embrace new technology. He guides executives and teams through action-based in-company training and coaching.


E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

Some of the companies I’ve worked with:

Joris is a rare kind of leader and mentor: generous, super smart, insanely knowledgeable, insightful and humble. He’s truly collaborative, and fun with an abundance of quiet energy. He is the person you really want to be leading your team. And if you can't have that, you definitely need him to be working WITH your team to enable them to be the best they possibly can be.

Jo Royce

AVA Head of People, Culture and Capabilities, ex-Unilever

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In my quest to create organizations that are highly effective as well as great to work for, I frequently speak at leading industry conferences and incompany events. I also make guest appearances on podcasts, contributing to conversations that matter. Here’s a podcast I joined recently.