Connector of Talent and Success 💼 | Empowering Businesses to Thrive through People | Culture Growth Strategist | Coach | Writer | HR leader | #1 LinkedIn Belgium | Top #150 LinkedIn 🌍

Who I help: Ambitious introverts and people-first companies

Problems: Visibility without burnout, quiet leadership, culture that enables deep work

Outcomes: Promotions, role transitions, retention, high-trust cultures

STRATEGIC HR LEADER AND COACH WITH HANDS-ON APPROACH AIMING FOR THE BEST EMPLOYEE/BUSINESS EXPERIENCE - INTROVERT ADVOCATE

International HR Executive passionate about the link between employee experience and business dynamics. Combining a strong focus on strategic thinking and planning with a structured and factual hands-on approach. A positive well connected team coach with a natural sense of empowering team members in a spirit of challenge, learning and mutual recognition. Sound decision making capabilities based on critical reflections within companies focusing on innovation, change, digital transformation and learning.

A. Group HR Director Alter Pharma (200 FTE - BE/IRL/US) – private equity backed firm defining & implementing HR strategy (from strategy to operations) including definition of mission/vision/strategy & values.
B. Global HR Business Partner BU Kerley international/Tessenderlo Group (+/-300 employees - 11 countries) developing/transforming key HR processes (talent resource planning, talent acquisition, performance management, competency management, learning, reward,..) - HR project lead new factory Rouen, France. 
C. Global HR Executive SWIFT (+/- 3.000 employees in +25 countries) transforming/coaching business and HR into new ways of (digital) working/thinking to improve the employee and business experience 
D. Global Head of Reward Tessenderlo Group (+/- 5.000 employees in +25 countries) - strategic development/transformation reward strategy
E. Development new holistic performance management framework for Tessenderlo Group, including full implementation recognition stream.
F. HR Project Manager : move of the Chiquita EME Headquarters from Belgium to Switzerland (social plan negotiations, c&b setup, recruitment, mobility, new policy/process design,...)

Professional coaching certification Better Minds at Work               2018 - 2019
Centre for Creative Leadership - senior leadership program           Q1-2 2018
Management Development Programme Vlerick (17 days)		  2010 - 2011
Strategic Compensation & Benefits Management, Vlerick 		  2007      
Master degree in Law&Taxation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven    1997 - 1998

Steven Claes

This visual stopped me mid-scroll.

Not because it was poetic.
Because it was accurate.

For 20 years as CHRO, I sat across from introverts who apologized for being exactly this.

For needing silence after back-to-back meetings.
For choosing one real conversation over five surface-level ones.
For slipping out before the small talk started.

Last year, a senior director asked me permission to skip the team dinner.

He thought I'd mark him as "not a team player."

I told him I'd been doing the same thing for two decades.

What most people get wrong about us:

They confuse selectivity with coldness.
Solitude with sadness.
Quiet with empty.

All three are dead wrong.

What work actually taught me:

→ Selectivity is a self-management skill
Choosing fewer interactions protects your best thinking. Not coldness.

→ Solitude is a recharge, not a retreat
The best boardroom decisions? Made by someone who sat alone with the problem first.

→ Quiet is not empty. It is focused.
That depth is a career advantage most never develop because they're too busy performing.

The quiet life is not a consolation prize.
It is a chosen one.

And if you are in an introvert's inner circle, know this.
You were not a convenience.
You were a deliberate choice.

That is quiet confidence in action.

Which line on the visual hit you the hardest?

♻️ Repost to help a fellow introvert feel seen

Introversion isn't a bug. It's an operating system. I spent years apologizing for who I am.

Too quiet. Too reserved. Too much "in my head."

I tried to fix myself.
Fake energy. Forced small talk. Endless networking events that drained me by Tuesday.

Then something shifted.

I stopped treating introversion as a bug to fix.
And started seeing it as my operating system.

My quiet? It's deep listening.
My reserved? It's strategic thinking.
My "in my head"? It's where the best ideas live.

20+ years as a CHRO taught me this:
The leaders who know how they're wired outperform those who fight it.

Every time.

So I wrote this on my whiteboard.
As a reminder.
As a declaration.

I'm done apologizing.

And if you've ever felt like you needed to become someone else to succeed, I see you.

♻️ Repost for the introvert in your network who needs to hear this.

📩 These are the daily techniques that helped me stop fighting my wiring:
https://lnkd.in/eSdKpkMs

Michael Pedersen

Revenue Growth | Emotion-Based Brand Messaging To 3x Your Revenues | Bridging the gap between sales and marketing

High call-volume teams don’t fail from lack of skill.They lose performance across the shift when rough calls stack and recovery lags the next dial.Morning numbers are strong.Afternoons drift.DecideFast™ runs in the seconds after a call so performance holds from first block to last.No integration.No coaching.No training.No workflow changes.No IT involvement.Training happens before the shift.Coaching happens after the shift.Dashboards explain the drop once it already hit the numbers.Nothing protects the transition between one call and the next.That is the gap DecideFast™ fills.DecideFast™ shortens after-call transition so the day doesn’t slide as it progresses.Used in seconds.No management overhead.See after-call recovery live.No slides. No pitch.

CEO & Founder

Does your website convert? When was the last time you gave it a refresh? How does it compare to your competitors?

Your company website is your brand on the Internet. An under-performing and outdated website will cost you revenues. 

Let’s jump on a discovery call to see if we are good fit to work together 

Visit: www.AZNetmarketing.com or 
Email: mike@aznetmarketing.com

Most phone sales “burnout” isn’t burnout.

It’s compounding.

A rough call ends.
The rep logs it.
The dialer fires the next one in seconds.

➡️ Nothing clears what just happened.

By the third or fourth tough call in a row, tone tightens. Close attempts lose edge. Response speed slows just enough to matter.

Morning block looks strong.
Afternoon block drops.
Same script. Same leads. Same rep.

What changed?

Not energy.
Not motivation.
How fast they bounce back after a rough call.

If it takes 3-4 calls to get back to normal, the afternoon is gone.
If it takes 1, the day holds.

➡️ Training builds skill.
➡️ Coaching fixes patterns.
➡️ Dashboards show the drop.

But the real break point lives between calls, or more specifically after a rough one.

That’s where the afternoon is won or lost.

The gap is the 5-8 seconds after a rough call when the next dial starts and they're still carrying the last one. 

You don't need to make them better salespeople. You need to help them start the next call without dragging the last one into it.

➡️ 14-day, 25 rep contained pilot. 
➡️  Does afternoon output hold.
➡️  Email me: mike@decidefastbusiness.com

#insidesales #phonesales #salesmanagement

Mike Pedersen

High-Volume Phone Teams See Afternoon Performance Drop | Between-Calls Reset Software Prevents It | No Training. No IT. No Workflow Changes.

If your sales reps make 60 to 100 calls a day, read this. ⬇️ 

If you run a phone sales team, you already know this.

Mornings feel steady.
By mid-afternoon, you are pulling reps aside, calming people down, resetting tone.

You are not coaching skill.
You are managing carryover.

You've already invested in training and coaching. That's not the gap.

The gap is the 5-8 seconds after a rough call when the next dial starts and they're still carrying the last one. 

You don't need to make them better salespeople. You need to help them start the next call without dragging the last one into it.

➡️ 14-day, 25 rep contained pilot. 
➡️  Does afternoon output hold.
➡️  Email me: mike@decidefastbusiness.com

30–45% annual attrition in phone sales. 20–40% afternoon output decline.

Every year. Every floor. Industry-wide.

If a manufacturing plant lost 35% of its operators annually and produced 25% less output after lunch, the operation would be shut down.

In phone sales, it gets a line item in the budget.

Detection would follow measurement. If afternoon throughput consistently runs 20 percent below morning throughput, that pattern would be identified, named, and quantified. Not absorbed. Not averaged away. Named as a recurring condition with a measurable cost. 

Nobody caused this. Nobody's proud of it. But everybody normalized it.

The question worth asking isn't who's responsible. It's why the industry stopped looking for a solution.

I wrote something every phone sales leader should read — and pass to their CFO.

Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gT8ssJaE

What is rough call carryover.

Most leaders call it burnout.

Morning block looks sharp.
Afternoon block widens.
Same reps. Same leads. Same scripts.

What changed?

After a stretch of tough calls, hesitation between dials stretches.
Five seconds becomes eight.
Eight becomes twelve.
Across a team, that compounds fast.

That’s not exhaustion.
It’s rough calls accumulating.

Definition of Rough Call Recovery: The ability of a phone sales rep to return to normal pace and tone before the next dial after a rough call.

I wrote a breakdown on what it is and how to spot it in your numbers.
https://lnkd.in/gycdm6eq

If you are a phone sales leader and you want to stop your afternoons from crashing, there is a way. And it's not in your current tech stack.

➡️ 14-day, 25 rep contained pilot. 
➡️  Measure: Does afternoon output hold.
➡️  Email me: mike@decidefastbusiness.com

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The Battle

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Michael Pedersen

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