Bert Fabry
Innovative Leadership & Agile Expertise | International Speaker & Empathy Advocate | Advocating Road Safety
Ekeren, Belgium
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As the Head of EMEA Operations at One Task, Bert leads the deployment of innovative camera systems designed to combat mobile phone usage while driving, combining his tech expertise with a strong commitment to road safety. He is also the founder of FabCore Consulting, where leadership, communication, and agile training and coaching are provided to organizations and individuals worldwide, fostering environments that emphasize empathy and efficiency.
An international speaker, he regularly shares his insights at conferences, engaging audiences with his deep knowledge in technology, leadership, and agile practices. With a background spanning the arts, technology, and international development, he draws on a diverse array of experiences to champion empathic leadership and continual learning. His journey through personal challenges has fueled his dedication to professional growth and making a meaningful impact.
Outside of work, he indulges in cooking and storytelling, enhancing life's flavor as a culinary enthusiast and a veteran tabletop roleplaying game master.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Flat Earth Management
Subtitle: How to Abolish Line Managers, Common Sense, and 400 Years of Organizational Learning
Are you tired of clarity, accountability, and anything resembling structure? Well, good news! A bold new anti-management philosophy is sweeping certain workplaces like a plague of willful ignorance. Why bother with “line managers” unless you're herding a small nation? Who needs defined roles when you can achieve peak inefficiency by ensuring no one really knows who’s in charge of what?
In this tongue-in-cheek exposé, Bert Fabry takes a satirical scalpel to the latest genius idea to hit the modern organization: the Deliberately Undefined Management Model™. You’ll hear about the brave new world where vague authority reigns, middle management is vaporized, and leadership is replaced by performative consensus and chaos masquerading as agility.
But wait—there’s more! This brave philosophy doesn’t stop at dismantling the concept of a line manager. No, it dares to challenge centuries of corporate governance. Why separate ownership and execution, a principle dating back to the Dutch East India Company? Let’s go full pre-capitalist feudalism: give the king back his scepter and the quarterly targets.
With a straight face and a healthy dose of irony, this talk celebrates the death of coherent leadership and invites you to marvel at the brilliance of those who believe that the less defined an organization is, the more agile it becomes.
Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.
By the end of this journey through managerial absurdity, we’ll circle back to the basics—why real leadership, clear roles, and thoughtful structure still matter. Because while it’s fun to laugh at the idiocy, someone’s got to do the work. And someone probably still has to be the boss.
Leading with the Heart: The Transformative Power of Empathetic Leadership
You enter a meeting room, greeted by an atmosphere of apprehension. You're here to discuss the future of an initiative with your agile team. At this moment, traditional leadership methods fail. What's needed? Empathy.
"Leading with the Heart: The Transformative Power of Empathetic Leadership" shifts the lens from managing to leading people. This isn't a typical leadership talk—it's a transformative journey. Step into a room filled with energy, role-playing, and dynamic dialogues. Participate in empathy circles where we tackle real-life scenarios that challenge us emotionally and ethically.
Through interactive exercises, you'll experience leadership from both the leader's and the team's perspectives. These experiences will illuminate how an empathetic approach to leadership can dismantle barriers, foster open communication, and create a thriving, psychologically safe work environment.
Leave this session armed with the tangible skills to become not just a manager but an empathetic leader, capable of navigating the complexities of human emotions to elevate your teams to new heights.
From IQ to EQ to 'We-Q'
Emotional intelligence is no longer limited to individuals. Collective emotional intelligence (or 'We-Q') is becoming increasingly important in our hyper-connected, collaborative work world. But what exactly does 'We-Q' mean, and how can you, as a leader, nurture it in your team? This presentation will take you from the fundamentals of individual emotional intelligence (EQ) to the revolutionary possibilities of group EQ. Using the most recent psychology research, this session will highlight real-world examples of teams who have achieved extraordinary success by prioritizing 'We-Q.' From ensuring psychological safety to encouraging various perspectives, you'll discover how to measure and improve collective emotional intelligence within your team. As we transition from an era of individual accomplishment to one of collective effect, this session will provide you with tangible tactics to not only keep up, but to become a leader in developing high-performing, emotionally aware teams.
The Psychology of Change
Change is the only thing that stays the same in today's fast-changing corporate world. But why do some efforts to change work and others don't? We might be able to find the answer by studying how people think and feel.
In this informative session, we'll look closely at how the brain works to find the hidden reasons why people resist change. We'll talk about the "righting reflex," which is an instinctual need to correct other people's behavior, and how it might make change management harder. We'll accomplish this by using stories and examples from real life. Then, we'll talk about Motivational Interviewing (MI), a breakthrough method that started out as a clinical psychology practice and is now a strong way to lead change efforts. Participants will learn the useful skill of "reflective listening," which is part of MI, to help people connect with each other and make changes. This session will give you the tools you need to not just deal with change, but also to support it, through a mix of neuroscience, psychology, and our own experiences.
Agile Testing Days 2024
Featured my workshop: Leading with the Heart (120 mins) with co-facilitator Claire van der Meulen
Newcrafts Paris 2024 Sessionize Event
srvision24 Sessionize Event
ScanAgile24 Sessionize Event
Agile Testing Days 2023
Featured my talk: The Psychology of Change as a Conf-in-Conf talk
Agile Prague 2023
Featured my workshop on The Psychology of Change
Agile Consortium Belgium
Featured my talk: The Psychology of Change as a Keynote
Agile Prague 2022
Featured my talk: Psychology of Change
MoveIT 2022
Featured my talk: How to Pilot a Pirate Ship: A tale of Agile Software Development spanning half the globe
MoveIT 2019
Featured my workshop: The Hollow Square
MoveIT 2018
Featured my talk: Agile Adoption: How to avoid failure?
MoveIT 2017
Featured my talk: Design and Build Better, Faster, Together.
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