Why do some teams stay energized and productive under pressure, while others become resigned, disconnected, or stuck?

In this episode of Think Beyond Talks, Anne Barnea speaks with Ines Drechsler about the conditions that shape performance during change — and why leaders need to look beyond targets, KPIs, and strategy to understand what is really happening within their teams.

Ines introduces the concept of organizational energy and four different energy states that can emerge in teams: highly productive energy, comfortable energy, resigned energy, and corrosive energy.

Together, Anne and Ines explore why resistance to change is often a natural response to uncertainty and perceived loss, how leaders can create space for people to voice concerns, and why connection, clarity, and self-awareness are essential when navigating pressure and transformation.

They also discuss the difference between managing performance through numbers and creating the conditions in which people actually want to perform.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why change can trigger resistance and fear of loss
• How reframing change as advancement can shift perspective
• Why leaders need to understand both themselves and their people
• The role of emotional intelligence and authentic leadership
• Why pressure can trigger fight, flight, or freeze responses at work
• The three conditions Ines sees as essential for performance: clarity, capability, and energy
• The four organizational energy states and what they reveal about a team
• How comfortable energy can become an “inertia trap”
• What resigned and corrosive energy can look like in everyday team behavior
• Why team-level performance can sometimes hide individual disengagement
• How leaders can diagnose what is draining energy rather than relying on quick fixes

A question to take with you

What gives you energy at work — and what drains it?

And when you look at your team: are you currently operating from productive, comfortable, resigned, or corrosive energy? Understanding the answer might be the first step toward changing it.

Welcome to Think Beyond Talks. I'm Ann Barnea, and in this podcast, I sit down with leadership development experts from our global network at Think Beyond. We explore what leaders, teams, and organizations need to thrive. And you'll walk away with practical tips you can put into action right away. Listen, reflect, and think beyond.

Change is one of the few things we can truly count on. In life as much as in organizations. So you would think that by now we'd be quite good at dealing with it. And yet when it really knocks on the door, many of us hesitate. My guest today explores exactly that in her work, why change so often feels difficult and how we might learn to experience it differently.

Not only as uncertainty or loss, but as an opening toward new possibilities. Ines Drechsler combines extensive training in systemic consulting, coaching, ikigai, and organizational energy, she brings a perspective that is both thoughtful and grounded. And that brings us to the heart of today's conversation what people and teams need in order to perform well through change and pressure.

Not just at the level of targets and strategy, but at the level of energy, team climate, and the condition that makes sustainable performance possible. So Ines, welcome. I'm really glad you're here. Let's start with what first led you to become so interested in change and in supporting others through it.

Yes. Hello Anne. I'm very happy to be here with you today. thank you for having me. I'm a big fan of the podcast. I listen to almost every episode. So yeah, so I'm actually very happy to talk to you today about the topics that are very dear to me. from my personality I'm someone who likes to reflect. I was always interested in why

Do people or myself reach goals very easily and other situations where you're stuck and you cannot move forward. So that always fascinated me, also on a personal level. And that brings me to my to my profession because I want to understand the framework of change, how does change work?

And yeah, I think that's a great topic to work with, not only for myself, also for my clients in organisations and in teams.

Yeah, and when you look at how people and organizations respond to change, what is it that you notice most often?

Well, I think it comes down to our conditioning because when you think about the word change, this triggers something in everybody. It could be that you think you have to give something up, which gets you to a fear of loss. and the thing that you might need to give up is maybe something that you really worked hard on to build. So it's really hard to let go.

The second thing is that the new is still not tangible for you. You don't know how it feels and how it yeah, how it will develop. So it's really normal to have resistance against change. So instead of taking courageous steps and move forward, we tend to stay in situations that clearly don't serve us anymore. Would

Would

say this is a given in organizations or do you also see organizations that are ready to jump into any kind of change?

So both exist at the same time. I think we're not only as an as a person and also in as part of an organization, as part of a team, we're not always in one way. we have things that come easy to us and things that are way harder for us. and it comes a lot down to perspective. because as I said before, the word change triggers something in you. When you think about the word development or

even better advancement. I think this has a completely different positive connotation because advancement suggests growth, you're becoming more, being more building on what's already there. You don't have to give up anything to become more. And I think that's a really positive outlook and that creates something

Completely different. You have a positive feeling, you want to jump up and get right started. And that's what is it it is all about.

You just mentioned this shift in perspective from change as something threatening, to seeing it as something that advances where we can develop so that raises the practical question or what kind of conditions actually help people, both organizations or teams deal with change instead of resisting it?

Yeah, that's the that's the the biggest question of all is how do you get there? And actually it always comes a little bit also on your ground perspective, how do you want to approach something? So when you when you find conditions where you say, Okay, let's take this into account, change can be frightening. Change can be connected with the feeling of loss. And when you talk about that

It gets way easier because when everybody has the possibility to talk about their fears or their resistance, it is out in the open and then you can start to deal with it. And then you can shift the perspective because you can try to get the people to a positive outlook. You can say, Okay, but if we stay in that way, at what cost? The situation may no longer serve us and it will come at a price. And once people

realize the price and they see and they can express their fears, and they can talk about it, they can move towards a more positive outlook, towards advancement.

It reminds me a lot of this concept of adaptive leadership where it's all about as a leader mobilizing people to actually tackle change and exactly how important it is to acknowledge loss, that people fear it, that maybe also people will experience it. And you just brought the perspective to actually also shine light

on

what you would lose if you don't change. So this already brings us to the question of the role of leaders in supporting throughout change, in supporting their teams in change. And you said everyone needs to have the possibility to address these fears, but how can leaders actually do that? How can they create the space to address these

issues. Yes, yes. That's that's very important that first they want to create this space. the key is to look really closely and to reflect and to gain clarity about what is going on. This means that you really have to be connected to your people and you need to observe and you try to connect with them. So that's I think the

The most important thing, know your people. And in getting to know your people, you can move forward together. however, this move forward may look, it needs a lot of acceptance. It also needs openness and you also have to look at yourself as a leader. You have to to look how do I lead myself, how do I react?

You also have to know yourself. And once you know yourself, and you go in your team and you talk to your people, I think you can you can advance very quickly and successfully.

And that sounds like emotional intelligence is one of the key skills.

Of

course. Of course. I think that's that's that's true for life in general, not only in in our business context. It's it's important for all our connections, all our relationships, because basically we're always the same human. We're just in a different situation. we are in our work environment or in our private life. And I'm quite sure that the things that you want to achieve in your private life

correspond to the things that you want to achieve in your business life. Don't don't see yourself as the working life person and the private person. See how you are the same. And I think that's also very important for leaders because they go into their teams in their organizations and they think they have to fulfill a role. They have to be someone now. Maybe someone

They don't really like to be or they read about in books about leadership and leadership principles and the leader should be strong and perceived like capable and all of that. But you're still the human and I think that's also the biggest power of very successful leaders that they are authentic and they are themselves. They don't change just by walking into their office.

So do you think everyone could be a leader?

I'm definitely sure about that. And I think we're completely on the think beyond definition of leadership here. Everybody is a leader because as you say it perfectly, you influence people every day in your life from morning till evening.

lot of leaders find themselves in situations where quick decisions are being asked of them. They might make a decision today that doesn't hold true next week just because there is such rapid change and a lot of pressure also. And when you say they should know their people, they should reflect, they should observe, maybe from what I hear between the lines, maybe also not just jump right in. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

how do leaders get this space, this time to do this when they're when they're so pressured in acting fast?

that's a very good question and I think that's something everybody has to struggle with. I think when it comes down to reflection it's about being connected with yourself. Because when you see that the things are difficult or you don't have a good feeling right now, you need to think, okay, where is this feeling coming from? And especially in a work context, this can happen quite often because as you described it's completely true.

We are under a lot of pressure and the pressure comes from all directions. It comes internally when you think about factors like AI or or diversity, but also external factors. Well, just turn on the news and you see what's going on. So pressure is always there and we need to accept it on one side and we also need to accept that we are humans and that we see pressure as a threat.

And when you think about humans, how do humans respond to a threat? It's basic psychology fight, flight or freeze. So either you you withdraw, you see resistance, quiet quickening, the range of reactions it's is quite wide and very individual. And as the leader when you

when you see and observe the people and you y you see what's going on, that's very important. And also you have to communicate. I think the team knows, everybody knows, that sometimes you have to make quick decisions. And maybe these these decisions don't turn out to be the best decisions by next week. but just talk about it. Mm-hmm and get acceptance. Get everybody

In your boat. I think that's that's really important.

Just sharing that you had to make this decision under these conditions and this is what you decided right now without hundred percent certainty.

Absolutely, absolutely. I think there's a lot of power in it because when you tell people, Okay, I had to decide this now because it was urgent and I had to come up with a decision right now because we couldn't go on working. let's see what how it turns out. everybody can can understand that. It's it's normal. It's it's it's the way of life I think. And the way of business life.

Yeah, and when you speak about just us as in our private lives, we're not the d different people when we go to work. we have to know ourselves well, we have to know our team well. All of this I'm curious how your background in systemic coaching plays into supporting clients in f in these challenging situations.

Yes. I think that's what is really important is that when you look at the system you see what factors are at play. There are a lot of interdependencies and there's always the drive between cause and effect. And the situation, the context is very important. There can be a context where we are top performers.

And there are other contexts there's another context where we are completely stuck. We don't know what to do. And yeah, you create whenever you walk a system is based on communication. So when you walk into an organization and you communicate, you're shaping the system. And by knowing this, I think this is a very good point, a very good starting point by knowing this.

So you can you can shape your team and communication is everything. Communication and connection to the people.

I was Enus, you just mentioned high performers, so top performance, and I would like to look at performance in in general, like what are actually conditions under which people can perform well?

Yeah, that's a very good question. in general, I think every company, or that's the business way, you measure your performance in numbers. You look at all the figures, at the annual figures, the quarterly figures, at your revenue, your return on investment. That's the basic equation of business. And naturally every organization tries to manage these numbers.

for instance with more meetings, with more control, with more guidelines. And that's actually like a management overload because you're constantly under pressure and you try to reach the numbers and you think by managing the numbers you will succeed. but when you really take a close look at numbers, what does the numbers say?

Actually the number reflects performance. It reflects the quality of performance. And so you see that getting people to perform is the real lever for economic success. So when you think about that, you see that performance is not reached by pressure and

By managing figures, it's by managing people to perform. And I think there are three factors that are really important for that. The first factor is clarity. Clarity means alignment and focus. So you need to be clear in your goals, in your values, and of course in your purpose.

Capability means people need to be capable for doing their job. They need to have the skills and the skills need to fit their job. it's no question that you can always get better at what you do. that's for sure. Everybody can work on that. And the third most important factor to me is energy.

Energy sounds maybe now a little bit soft or a little bit esoteric for some people, I get that. But energy actually means that people are in a state where they like to contribute, where they like to perform and where they like to create impact. I call this the mood for positive performance. And that's something that I think

It's really nice to reach for everyone. And also possible to reach for everyone.

Great, let's hear more about it. What is this mood for positive performance?

Yes, this mood for positive performance means that people are really energized, they are happy and enjoy performance and contribution. And for that we need first of all, a positive mindset. That's the first thing. So the conditions around us need to be almost perfect, so that we are happy to bring ourselves in, that we are happy to bring in our potential, our skills.

our thinking and we also want to feel emotional connected at work. So we want to have positive emotions about the organization we are working in, like enthusiasm or pride or joy. we want to be connected with our team members. And yeah, what is really important is that in a team we need shared goals. That's important. And

Also we need to communicate about ongoing pressure and we also need to think about negative tendencies that can undermine the performance. So it's actually a leadership responsibility to create conditions where people are happy to perform, where they like to bring themselves in.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and as a leader, I mean I think the the part of clarity is pretty straightforward. You should define your KPIs, your OKRs, all of this, the strategy, the purpose. you have to equip your team, as you said, with the skills and the ability. But how would a leader approach the topic of energy? How do they understand what's going on?

Perfect. I mean I think when we think about energy, we all have our gut feelings. when you walk into a room, you can sense what is going on there. do you feel by easy, how do you feel when you walk in there? Do you feel happy or do you feel depressed? Is there positive energy? Are people laughing or do you perceive people being yeah, relaxed? Or is the opposite the case?

in an organizational context, energy actually is the force that makes people move forward their goals. So it's the action that drives performance. and in an organization it's not only the energy of one person or an average, it is the sum of the energy states of all employees together.

And that's it all comes down to activating the potential of people. And there are big differences in organizations because some organizations can activate their people pretty well while others are not go doing so great. and when people are highly motivated and positive.

and like to perform. For me that's the core of the mood of positive performance. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and when you support leaders or teams in understanding their energy level can you walk us through how you do this kind of work? What tells you what kind of energy is present?

Yes. Well I work with a very good concept here. It's a theoretical concept that is also used in practice. I learned about it in Switzerland at the University of St. Gallen. it was developed in leadership research by Heike Bruch. She leads the division of leadership at the university. And it's not only a

theoretical framework, it's also a practical tool. And the basic is that there are four main energy states. They differ both in intensity and in quality. So when I look at intensity, I ask how strongly a team's potential is activated. Is it very high or very low?

And when I look at quality, you ask, is this energy now positive? Is it constructive? Or does it look like destruction or resistance? And with two these two factors, you can build a matrix and you see four different energy states. The ideal state

is when the intensity is very high, so energy is very, very strong and very positive. This state is called the highly productive energy state. What does that mean? this means that team members are deeply engaged and they have a strong will to perform. they have very

positive feelings at work which means they experience enthusiasm and pride and joy and they are really communicating actively. So it's not like everybody's working for themselves. They are really working together as a team. And they want to reach a shared goal, of course, and they want to be good at it. That's also the

point. And for that reason, they bring in everything they have. They walk the extra mile. They don't think about it's five o'clock in the evening, now I go home because I'm done with this. They they're almost in a state of flow. And this ideal state is especially beneficial when you want to change or advance. And

It's also very good when you need innovation because the people are ready to give everything.

is there maybe a poster child company that represents this kind of energy?

Well, I don't know if you know, but we made an energy measurement at Think Beyond and actually what we saw there I think it was one and a half years ago, what we saw was that Think Beyond was really the gold standard of this highly productive energy energy.

Okay, I I didn't ask to hear the think beyond as the answer.

It's great because it's it's important for a leadership development company to to be in this ideal state because you have a goal and when you have this goal for yeah, for something for something meaningful, it's important to be in this highly productive energy.

And I I assume because you said it's such a great soil, such a great fundament to for innovation that you find this kind of energy a lot in startups.

That's true. That's true. Especially in startups. That's that's quite common. but I think every team can be in this energy state. It just depends on the conditions and yeah, you can get there. I'm quite sure.

Sure.

Would you say if you are in an organization that might not rank as high in energy, you as a team could?

Definitely. Definitely. Because there's the over overall energy of the organization, but there's also a a team within an organization. And you see it quite often that you have divisions or teams that are highly productive. And in other teams in an organization the opposite is true. Mm-hmm.

Yes, so now now you explained us how the gold standard looks like. would love to hear more about the other energy states.

Yes, there are actually three more states. there's another very positive energy, but not as highly activated, which is the comfortable energy. everybody wants to be comfortable, so this energy is not something bad. it's just not as activated, not with the same drive or momentum like the highly productive energy.

It means that the team members are very satisfied, they feel at ease, there's harmony, and they identify with the status quo. that's good in one way, because I think you can never be comfortable enough or feel in harmony and stable enough. especially for instance after the team reached a big milestone.

stone, this energy can act like a springboard because teams need to relax, they need to pause briefly and regain their strength so they can activate themselves again and move to the next goal. that's especially important after periods of high pressure and heavy workload. On the other side, you know when you are comfortable it could

happen that you get a little bit sluggish because you identify with the status quo, you tend to say, everything is okay, we are fine, everything is good. But in this case you are less alert, less open to change and also less innovative. So you lose a little bit of your momentum. So when you get that sluggish, it's very hard for it

team to to activate themselves and this is called the inertia trap so something that you definitely want to avoid because being sluggish doesn't get you anywhere. You need to get active again. And there are also two negatively charged energies. resigned energy and corrosive energy.

both these energy types require urgent attention because they are both a downward spiral that you want to do not want to stay in. They can be really dangerous and damaging for the culture and for the team.

Resigned energy means that you have low intensity with a negative quality. What what do we mean by that? The team members show little interest, they don't see a common goal, they resign, they are very withdrawn, you cannot really connect with them, there's no identification, and it's resignation. some

of your team members may feel hopeless. you may hear sentences like, this all does not make sense and it won't change anyway, so why pursue this goal or why just get started?

And when you go into a team or organization and then you notice well there are some team members with a very comfortable or even high energy, but then there are some of these reserved resigned energy people. what to do about it then? I mean you said it's a accumulation of all the energies, that's how you un understand the state of the team, but

What if they are very far apart?

Yeah, that's that's a good question because you came straight to the point. The energy is a collective is is a collective state. so the team energy is a collective form of energy. a team can appear very stable on the surface. So which means that they still perform, numbers are reached.

you tend to say, well, everything is fine, everything is great. but individual members may already feel disconnected and completely different internally. So that's one of the most challenging things because you have to get people to talk about how they feel. So the individual energy level may be something completely different.

than the team energy level. you need to see what is going on with a person, with the with the team member. Because we are all unique in how we think, how we are motivated, how we work. and everybody has different circumstances in their lives and may go through phases changes.

And all of that can influence how your energy level may appear inside a team. Mm-hmm.

And what I understood from our conversation before this recording is that you also have a diagnostic tool at hand to understand the the energy. Does this assessment also show the the general team energy and then maybe where individuals stand?

Yes, definitely. as a as a result you get an energy okay, definitely. the measurement of the energy is very concrete with this tool. It's based on a questionnaire. And what you get is an energy profile for the team. there's one collective energy profile.

But everybody also gets his personal result. so what I do in situations like that, I look at the energy profile of the team or the division, and then I look at individual energy profiles. So you can address so you can say, Okay, look, you're not so bad on a team level, but

Within your team there's someone who feels completely different. Why do you think it is like that? And that's really powerful because you can it's anonymous it's anonymous, so you don't there's no blaming. There's not you, you see it differently. Why do you see it differently? It just gives people a voice.

without naming them. And that can be very powerful.

Yeah, and once there is this indicator that let's say one teammate is on a different energy level, what can a leader explore to help this person maybe raise the energy level?

yeah, I think it comes back again to connection and to observation. You need to check what is the what is the basic dynamic of being in a low energy state because there are different reasons. I mean there can be of course a h pressure, heavy workload, the difficulty to prioritize

but also it can be a mismatch between the skills and and the job, so that people are either underchallenged or overchallenged, which also creates low motivation. And also it can be a question of the team climate, because we also have a fourth energy state, which is the destructively high energy, which is called the corrosive energy.

in this energy state people are not working together, they're working against each other. There's a lot of resistance, there is there are almost battles between different people, a lot of conflict because people pursue their own agendas for instance and they there's boycotting or manipulation. So the team climate is is really shaped by these negative energy states.

Mm-hmm. Because I think we mentioned it before because there's this emotional contagion theory. so when you perceive in your team people fighting against each other, you think, okay, that's that's the these are the team rules. It's against each other, not together towards results, performance, goals, our purpose, all of that.

Yeah, and I assume I mean you already noted how behaviour looks like in certain energy states. What could a leader give some indication that maybe they're not on a comfortable or high energy state? So once a leader now sees clearly what's going on because maybe they did the assessment with you or

just looked a bit more closer. Where c where can they begin fixing it?

Yes, it's actually that's perfect because it ca always comes back from to to get into action. And you get into action by have a close look. So after the analysis it's very important to to analyse where is this behavior coming from? Where is the low energy coming from? this works know your people again.

Yeah, sit together with them, talk to them, observe. and think. And I think be practical. Don't think about okay, so we knew now have to adapt some new model of working together or we now look just at work life balance and we give the people half a day off. That's just short time

remedies that are okay nice to have, but in the end they don't change on a core level. so you really have to look at the people and also ask yourself, what do you actually perceive? What are underlying dynamics? What conflicts are maybe unsolved and can you see the connection between the people? What is

Working against that. And also very important, how do you feel about that? Mm-hmm. How does it make you feel?

And I assume it's not or let's say like this. What if in a very honest conversation with you it turns out the issue is the leader? The the issue that takes the energy away is I don't know, lack of clarity or overburdening people, not matching matching them right in into the right roles. I mean

It's not always easy for a team to address if the issue is the leader.

Definitely. The the team is just showing what is going on on the leadership level. That's true for sure. So you have to to work together with the leader, because the key is that they need to adjust their leadership mindset and their behavior. it's not about textbook leadership.

It's about really going down to the core, what is missing, what are people missing in you as a leader. And yeah, that's that can be hard for leaders to look that way. but once they realize how they can develop or how they can get connected to their people, it's it's not important only that

team is aligned. It's also important that the leader is aligned with his team. And yeah, what do people need? And what you have to think, what can I give them? And if you say, okay, there's something that I cannot give them, you have to think, okay, what is it and why? I can't give it to them. So that's interesting coaching questions.

Deep exploration can be a hard work for the leader because it's yeah, it's also about knowing yourself. Yeah.

And I assume just like many diagnostic tools or approaches, it's a very great start to understand and to diagnose situations. Definitely. But then but then what follows depends on the situation. As you said, like maybe it's coaching, maybe it's something else.

Absolutely. You're completely right.

Every episode I ask our guests to recommend something for our listeners. But is there something before we get to this recomm recommendation that I should have asked you and I didn't?

Mm, I think we covered everything pretty well. I think for me the most important message that I have is that performance and work can be fun and joyful. And I think everybody wants to be fulfilled and I think everybody has strength that can play out

perfectly in a work environment and I think you just need to be curious about yourself and motivated. Motivate yourself. Know yourself. Know your mindset. Know what is holding you back. Know what you to the core think about yourself.

I think these are r really fundamental questions and once you ask these questions yourself.

It makes a powerful shift. And yeah. I really like doing that with my clients, but also these are fundamental questions that I ask myself as well. It's it's a constant questioning.

Yeah, it for sure is. And yeah, if you want to recommend some first steps for someone listening who wants to make a better assessment of the energy in their team, for example, what would you recommend?

Well, also by simply asking questions because that's where you get going and starting. So the first question that I would ask, what kind of actually of what kind of energy are you currently operating in? Mm-hmm. Are you very productive? Are you more resigned? Are you feeling comfortable? Or is there any conflict? You can also go further by asking

Are there situations where we are productive and situations where we are resigned? And why is that? And what are we resisting? That's really that that's a starting point on a team level. But when you want to look at yourself, which is also very nice to start with yourself, you just ask what gives you energy? And what drains your energy? Mm-hmm.

Enos, thank you so much for these suggestions and for this conversation. I hope it inspired our listeners to get a closer look at their own energy, their team's energy, and to make adjustments to reaching at least a comfortable level. Thank you for sharing your unique perspective on this.

Thank you very much for having me and yeah, you can never be comfortable enough. So be productive and comfortable and then you can reach almost everything that you probably now dream of. I'm very sure about that.

Thanks for listening to Think Beyond Talks. If you enjoyed today's episode, share it with someone who inspires you. And if you'd like to explore how you and your organization can grow your leadership and impact, visit thinkbeyondgroup.eu. Until next time, keep thinking beyond.