by Florin Lungu | Apr 17, 2026 | The Flabby Middle
When I was working in engine development at Renault, I watched five teams ruin a perfectly good engine. Each team had a legitimate goal. The performance team wanted maximum acceleration. The emissions team needed to limit that acceleration to meet pollution standards....
by Florin Lungu | Apr 16, 2026 | The Flabby Middle
My first week at Volvo, nobody told me what to do. I don’t mean they forgot. I mean the onboarding was: “Just follow this guy, Lars, and do what he does.” That was it. No brief. No structure. No explanation of what the role actually required. Lars...
by Florin Lungu | Mar 30, 2026 | The Flabby Middle
I’ve been coaching leaders in Sweden and Denmark for over a decade. In that time I’ve sat in hundreds of rooms where executives described what was broken in their organization. And then I’ve sat with the middle managers who were expected to fix it....
by Florin Lungu | Jan 9, 2026 | Employee Engagement, Foundational Leadership, Leadership Strategies
Happy New Year! Many leaders tell me the same thing. “My team is smart, capable, experienced… but they don’t take initiative.” They wait for instructions. They wait for permission. They wait while problems stay unresolved. And eventually, the...
by Florin Lungu | Dec 27, 2025 | Leadership Development, Personal Growth, Self-leadership
Personal Note I’ve been thinking about 2026 for a while now, and one question keeps resurfacing for me. It came up earlier this year at Live2Lead Sweden, when John Maxwell shared something deceptively simple. He said that most leaders spend their time asking,...
by Florin Lungu | Nov 27, 2025 | The Flabby Middle
A few weeks ago, I joined the People People Meetup in Copenhagen. The topic on the agenda was ownership. A simple word, but one that carries a lot of weight in leadership. As I listened to the conversation, a quiet thought kept forming in my mind. We keep asking...
by Florin Lungu | Oct 14, 2025 | Leadership, Team Dynamics & Culture, Teamwork & Collaboration
Can you picture this? You’re sitting around a polished conference table. Everyone is polite. Smiles all around. The agenda moves smoothly. People nod in agreement. No one challenges. No one stretches. On paper, it looks like collaboration. But in reality, it’s just...
by Florin Lungu | Aug 2, 2025 | Communication, Leadership Strategies, Team Dynamics & Culture
Ever walked out of a strategy meeting feeling confident… Only to realize two weeks later that every team interpreted the plan differently? It’s like everyone heard the same song title… But walked away humming their own tune. The Watermelon Phenomenon At a global...
by Florin Lungu | Jul 17, 2025 | Clarity, Communication, Leading for Performance
Have you ever wondered how much unclear communication really costs? Let me show you. According to SHRM, businesses with 100 employees or less lose an average of $420,000 per year due to poor communication. Yes, you read that right – almost half a million every...
by Florin Lungu | Jun 30, 2025 | Employee Engagement, Team Dynamics & Culture, The Flabby Middle
Imagine this. You walk into the office. Everyone is at their desks. The KPIs are green. Nobody complains. But something feels… flat. There’s no spark. No urgency. No hunger. People aren’t checked out. They’re just not fully checked in. Welcome to what I call “the...
