Michael Zettel

[… 4 minutes of not great story] C: Tell me about your kids... 2 and 4, they must have interesting personalities! Well actually we are laughing quite a lot with them because the older one more or less looks exactly like me and the younger one looks exactly like my wife. And from a character perspective it's the other way around, so we're getting everything back! The older one, the four year old, Leo. He's the sensitive one. If you are too picky with him then he is crying a lot and really taking care of thing. He's really warm and gentle. On the other hand he's really very strong minded so he doesn't change his mind and if he wants something he goes for it. You can't bring him off the track. So it's quite similar to some of the traits of my beloved wife! And on the other hand, the younger one who more or less resembles my wife, he's the one who is a far less sensible person– he's the tough one walking through everything and punching and kicking sometimes the older one. His name is Chris. C: What is that like for you and your wife to experience? How have you changed? Besides that it's really exhausting to bring up children, it makes you aware of your faults and I think they become somewhat under a lens. You realize sometimes that your behaviors are not the way they should be and we often recognize ourselves telling each other that the child is behaving exactly like the grown up is behaving – in a magnified way. Of course every person is a different person, but it's still sort of a self reflection. C: How has having children changed the way you work? It doesn't change the immediate way of working. What it does change is decision making in general. So you start to take a more long term perspective. One of the core values Accenture is providing is stewardship and stewardship is about developing the next generation making sure the legacy you leave behind is better than where you started. That's the obligation I feel towards our employees and that sense became far clearer to me when I became a father. So my goal on a personal and professional level is to live stewardship, meaning to bring the next generation to a level that is better than where I started and hand it over at the right time in a situation where they can take it on from there to the next generation.