#479 Kevin Patrick and Niels Brabandt on Why Organisations Must Invest in Employees’ Dreams
Kevin Patrick and Niels Brabandt on Why Organisations Must Invest in Employees’ Dreams
At first glance, the idea that organisations should invest in employees’ dreams appears counterintuitive. For many executives, the corporate contract seems straightforward. Organisations provide compensation, employees provide labour, and both sides benefit. Yet this traditional view fails to address one of the most pressing leadership challenges facing modern organisations: disengagement.
In a high-level interview with leadership expert Niels Brabandt, ERP and organisational transformation expert Kevin Patrick explains why investing in employees’ dreams is not an act of charity, but a strategic investment with measurable business returns.
The disengagement crisis undermining organisational performance
Kevin Patrick identifies disengagement as a global organisational crisis. Estimates suggest that up to 70 to 76 percent of employees are disengaged. This means that the majority of organisations operate far below their potential productivity.
Disengagement is not merely a cultural issue. It has direct financial consequences. High turnover leads to significant recruitment costs, onboarding expenses, and the loss of institutional knowledge.
Niels Brabandt highlights that turnover costs alone can reach hundreds of thousands per year for mid-sized organisations.
Why disengagement begins in leadership decision-making
One of the most powerful insights Kevin Patrick shares is that disengagement often originates in leadership processes. Strategic decisions are frequently made in executive meeting rooms without meaningful input from employees who perform the operational work.
This exclusion sends a clear message. Employees are expected to execute decisions, not contribute to them.
This dynamic erodes ownership, commitment, and engagement.
Kevin Patrick emphasises that leadership effectiveness depends on recognising employees as stakeholders in organisational success, not merely as operational resources.
The Dream Manager framework as a strategic leadership intervention
Kevin Patrick introduces the Dream Manager framework, a structured approach designed to help employees define and achieve their personal goals while aligning organisational support with those ambitions.
The framework addresses multiple dimensions of human life, including personal, professional, emotional, and financial aspirations.
Contrary to scepticism, Kevin Patrick presents evidence that organisations implementing this approach achieve measurable results. Employee engagement improves. Turnover decreases. Customer satisfaction increases. Organisational performance strengthens.
Leadership investment in employees creates measurable returns.
Why investing in employees’ aspirations strengthens organisational resilience
The fundamental leadership insight shared by Kevin Patrick and Niels Brabandt is that employees who feel supported as individuals demonstrate stronger commitment to organisational success.
This commitment translates into higher productivity, lower turnover, and stronger organisational culture.
Leadership must move beyond transactional relationships toward developmental partnerships.
Leadership is not merely about managing performance. It is about developing people.
The financial case for investing in employee engagement
Executives often evaluate initiatives through financial return on investment. Kevin Patrick demonstrates that investing in employees’ development can generate returns of 300 to 450 percent.
This return results from reduced turnover, increased productivity, and stronger organisational stability.
The financial case for investing in employees’ aspirations is compelling.
Conclusion: Leadership requires investment in people, not only processes
The interview between Kevin Patrick and Niels Brabandt provides a clear leadership lesson. Organisations that invest in employees’ growth create stronger, more resilient, and more successful organisations.
Leadership effectiveness depends on recognising that organisational success is inseparable from employee engagement.
Investing in employees’ dreams is not philanthropy. It is strategic leadership.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
Is excellent leadership important to you?
Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com
Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn
Website: www.NB-Networks.biz
Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.
Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, Moderator.
Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
When someone tells you you should believe in your dreams and then someone tells you, as a corporation, you should invest in your employees' dreams, some people would think, "Are you serious? We're a business. We're not a charity." And someone has a different take on that, and that's why I invited him here today. Hello and welcome, Kevin Patrick.
Kevin Patrick
Daniels, thanks for having me.
Niels Brabandt
Thank you very much for taking the time. Can you get a bit can you get a bit more into the details of what is your approach of why do you tell corporations to invest in employees' dreams? Because most people will say, "Look, we're a business. Your dream is your thing. We pay you a salary, and then you can make any dream come true. But that's not our job," or is it?
Kevin Patrick
Sure. Yes, I can go into it. There's
Kevin Patrick
so it starts, right, with, with what I would say is a worldwide disengagement problem, right?
Niels Brabandt
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Patrick
I mean, the number is somewhere in the 70 to 76% range.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah.
Kevin Patrick
Right? So three out of every four employees in your company isn't working eight hours a day.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah.
Kevin Patrick
Right? So when you put it in perspective like that.
Niels Brabandt
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Patrick
It's kind of eye-opening. Two
Kevin Patrick
turnover is very expensive, right?
Niels Brabandt
Absolutely.
Kevin Patrick
Very, very expensive. And then losing tribal knowledge. So, right, my in my day-to-day business, I work with ERP, right? So we currently installing Acumatica around the country. I was in the SAP ecosystem for 15, 20 years. And, right, ERP gets a bad rap, right?
Niels Brabandt
Yeah.
Kevin Patrick
It gets, you know, they're, they're expensive. No
Niels Brabandt
one's waiting for you. No one's waiting. I mean, when, when, when we got in, in, into touch and I, I just read, "You have to invest in people's dreams," I just thought, "This is going to be some esoterical stuff."
Niels Brabandt
And then I looked at your CV: CFO, COO, leading in different positions, SAP consulting, which is extremely hard because, let's face it, no one's waiting for an SAP consultant to come along. They all know it means lots of work, and it's hardly any benefit in the first place. So you know how the business works. You, you, you've been there.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
You, you've, you've, you've done that.
Kevin Patrick
Both sides.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, exactly. And especially when it comes to disengagement in tech and, and, and in tech projects, where do you think this comes from?
Kevin Patrick
W-where the dis so where the disengagement comes from, I think, is just not I think. I, I kind of know because I've seen it for close to 30 years. It, it comes from decisions being made in boardrooms or conference rooms without any consideration or discussion with the people doing the job, right? So a typical example would be, you know, we go in, we do all the pleasantries, we sit down and do discovery, and at some point in that conversation, I'm going to say, "Hey, can we take a walk on the floor? I want to talk to the department lead," like, right, not the department head, the person doing the work.
Kevin Patrick
"I want to talk to the production coordinator. I want to talk to the inventory specialist." Like, "I want to talk to the people who are going to be touching this system day in and day out, not just waiting, basically, for reports from it." so what happens is
Kevin Patrick
a very large percentage of the time, all of the decisions around the ERP and the workflow and the way it's going to work are designed in these conference rooms. And then one day, very close to go live, people come you know, the consultants come down, the management comes down and says, "Hey, we're changing all the systems," right? "Your job is now not to do this. It's to do this."
Niels Brabandt
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Patrick
And essentially, what you just told your employee is you don't care about them. Your opinion doesn't matter. It, it has it has no weight into how we drive our business. And I think anybody that's been in a leadership position for long enough knows you can't do anything without your people, right? Your people need to be on board.
Niels Brabandt
Absolutely.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah. So yeah. So that's where I think the disengagement comes from, or at least part of it, right? I mean, the other part of it is
Kevin Patrick
life is lifing all the time, right? People have things going on, right? Whether their parents are sick, they're sick, child's sick, got in a car accident. I mean, you name it. Like, life is just happening.
Niels Brabandt
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Patrick
So, you know, what when they're sitting at work and they're worried about their, their child who is in some sort of, you know, distress they're not thinking about work. They're thinking about how to get their child out of trouble, you know, or out of out of this state of distress. So
Kevin Patrick
I noticed that there was a disengagement problem very early in my career just based on the fact that I, you know, I dropped out of college, right? I did. I, I was I, I partied too hard. I dropped out of college.
Kevin Patrick
I went to work on a factory floor, and within about six months, right, they, they plucked me off the floor and put me on the fast track to, to management. They were like, "Hey, you know, this, this, this kid has a head on his shoulders, and let's rock and roll."
Niels Brabandt
I saw that, yes. So you became director of operations pretty quickly after you basically started working. So that is.
Kevin Patrick
Pretty quickly. Yeah. Within a within a year or two.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah. Yeah. Which, especially in the US, I think, is unusual. Especially many HR departments will ask, "So where did you study? Where's your degree? And you made it without all of that?"
Kevin Patrick
Correct. Yeah. I had I had a I had a couple of the senior managers who really liked me and kind of, you know, lobbyed for me. So.
Niels Brabandt
Well, they probably lobbied for you because you did your job very well. They didn't lobby for you just, just because you had a nice face or they just liked your jokes.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah. I was very fortunate. I, I, I, I owe those folks my whole career, like, plain and simple. So
Kevin Patrick
there's fast forward, right, 20 years. Well, like, we don't obviously, we don't have time to talk about all of it. Fast forward 20 years. I'm now in the ERP space, right? Like, I was on the other side of the table in operations and financial management. And I always found myself in positions where a company was going through an ERP implementation. Like, it's it just became my thing. Like, I was I was the change agent guy, right? Like, I would go in and help and facilitate companies through those changes.
Kevin Patrick
Well, in 2014, my, my SAP partner said to me at the time, "Hey, have you ever considered getting into consulting because you're really very good at it?"
Niels Brabandt
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Patrick
And I was like, "No." Like, you know, I'm kind of at the like, I'm the chief operating officer. Like, I'm kind of as like, I'm right below the highest you can go.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah.
Kevin Patrick
So no, I'm not. I haven't considered a career change, you know?
Kevin Patrick
Then we talked about it. Me and my wife, my wife and I, we just had kids. The, you know, the factory floor work schedule is brutal, right? It's, it's, it's not it's not a 9:00 to 5:00 gig. It doesn't leave a lot of time and forgiveness for, for family and children and that sort of stuff. So we said, "You know what? Let's do it."
Kevin Patrick
So we moved from Boca Raton, Florida, up here to St. Augustine. And, you know, fast forward through a couple years on the consulting side of the table, I ran into this book called The Dream Manager.
Niels Brabandt
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Patrick
Written by a gentleman named Matthew Kelly, right? So as you said
Kevin Patrick
first thought, fluff piece, right? Like, what is this? Like, you know, it was just my first thought. And it's not something that I found. What's, what's, what's great about this story is I interviewed a gentleman who was all gung-ho about it, right? He had just gotten a certification. He was ready. He was preaching it to me. And I was like, "No way." Like, I don't know what you're talking about. And absolutely not. So I passed on him. Well, he then went to my previous employer and launched the program there. And I just noticed, right? I mean, I keep in touch with people, colleagues.
Kevin Patrick
He did a very good job. And their turnover dropped. Their engagement and efficiency went up. Their CSAT and NPS with customers and employees went up. And I was like, "Huh." So I read the book. I'm lying. I listened to the book on an airplane via Audible. And
Kevin Patrick
I was
Kevin Patrick
blown away. I mean, it's, it's a it's a fairly easy read. But basically, the gist of the conversation is, look, if, if, if your employees don't think you care about you, you care about them, why are they why would they or should they put anything into anything extra into the business?
Kevin Patrick
Now, flip the script on that. If you have a person that, you know, they want to let's I'm not even going to say go to school because that's pretty cliché. But, right, the dream manager talks to the employee and says, "Hey, what's on what's on your bucket list? What do you want to do?" Right?
Kevin Patrick
So you're in Berlin now, right? We're I'm a I'm an American. And my response is, "I'd love to travel Europe." Right? Okay.
Kevin Patrick
Then, you know, we basically lead them down a list of questions, right? Like, okay, when? I don't know. Okay. Do you know how much this is going to cost? No. Okay. So before, before we can do anything, you need to go and do some homework. And while you're at it, figure out how much disposable income you have right now. And then we can start to put a plan in place that looks like that that is realistic to get you to that place, right?
Kevin Patrick
And that's just one example. But, but the point being, what happens is when that person realizes that the company is fully engaged with them, right? And they're they're really looking for the best output for, for them as individuals, the return on that investment is, you know I mean, I've seen numbers in the 300 to 400 to 450 percent per average.
Niels Brabandt
Wow, that is a lot. Yes.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah. Return on investment, right? So that's what I usually say to people. When you go to if I were to go to you as a business person and just say, "Hey, give me $100,000. In 18 months, I'll give you a 400 percent return."
Niels Brabandt
Yeah. Polly, I would say, "I don't believe that this is going to happen."
Kevin Patrick
Right.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah. But.
Kevin Patrick
When it happens, I would be pretty impressed. Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
Pretty impressed. Right.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
So it's, you know, there's I can I can break down those barriers in conversation pretty easily, like specifically in the consulting world, right? So if, if you have a turnover ratio of 40 percent and that 40 percent equals 10 people, right? And 10 people to replace 10 people through a recruiter at $30,000 a pop.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
Right? That's 30 grand or 300 grand. Sorry. There's $300,000 to replace those people. And that is just the.
Kevin Patrick
That doesn't include onboarding them. And maybe someone doesn't make the cut. Someone's not a cultural fit. Someone just walks out or whatever else can happen. That is only the get the people through the door fee.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah. Let's let me find the people.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
So it goes when, when, when you put it in terms like that to a business owner or manager, they're like, "Huh." Like, and, you know, what you have to explain to them is like, "Look, this isn't an HR program, right? This is you're, you're either you're doing one of two things. You're either certifying somebody internally, and this is like a standalone project. Everything is kept confidential, or you're bringing in a fractional person, which is somebody like myself."
Kevin Patrick
Mm-hmm.
Niels Brabandt
And that the power of that in sitting down because, you know, we have a we have a whole playbook, right, to take them through the process.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah. So you come in every couple of days, weeks. How does that specifically work? How?
Niels Brabandt
So you're usually meeting with each individual once a month. It's a 12-month program, right? Because, because there's 12 areas of life that you're addressing, right? Physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, you know, yada, yada, yada.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
And you're addressing each one of those kind of month to month. And while you're doing that, you're addressing the dream scenarios too, like the things the things that are on their bucket lists and you and stuff like that.
Niels Brabandt
Typically starts out as a pilot, right? I mean, you're not going to company's not going to go and dump an outrageous amount of money.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
Out front, right? So you pick whatever one person, five people, 10 people, whatever a whatever a company's comfortable with. And what they inevitably find is it works.
Kevin Patrick
Mm-hmm. How do how come that so many organizations overlook this fact and simply say, "Look, we got a contract. You get a salary. You do the work. We're all happy, happily, happily ever after"? How how come that so many companies overlook this fact that you need to do more than that?
Niels Brabandt
Well, that's I would say that's the that's I don't want to sound too harsh, but I probably will. So that's.
Kevin Patrick
I'm okay with that. I'm German, so you can't be too harsh here.
Niels Brabandt
That that so, so that's the old thinking, right? That's the lie. That's the lie that and and we also believe it. I'm going to give you a salary. You give me your life from, from, from, you know, X to Y time.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
And and beyond if I call you.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
So, you know, how do people overlook it? You know, I think there's I mean, look, there's there's been buzz you know, you have the buzzwords, right? Employee engagement.
Kevin Patrick
Mm-hmm.
Niels Brabandt
You know, those types of things where employers are trying to do the right thing. But it's it is all all of those things that happen
Niels Brabandt
have a have a direct relation to a positive impact on the employer. It's not in the best interest of the employee, right? The dream manager program takes a completely different approach, right? Instead of asking, you know, what can we get out of our people, right? It's the question should be, what can we put into our people to make them basically the best version of themselves is basically what it comes down to. And yeah, sure.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
I get it. It sounds fluffy, right? Like, I get it. But when you see however long later, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, whatever when you see that turnover has dropped, recruiting costs have gone down, customer satisfaction has gone up, employee satisfaction has gone up, you're going to say.
Kevin Patrick
That was an investment worthwhile. Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. So to wrap this interview up, when people now say, "Hey, I think I should at least have a chat with you or maybe even bring you in directly," how can people get in touch with you?
Niels Brabandt
Sure. So I appreciate it. So first, I would say just to explore, right? Go read or listen to the dream manager book, right? I don't I can't take credit for this program. I'm just the certified dream manager. So I would say start there. See if it's something that piques your interest.
Kevin Patrick
Mm-hmm.
Niels Brabandt
And then from there I have a podcast of my own called The Dream Dividend. And it walks through real life, you know, real stories and examples and scenarios of how this is practically done.
Niels Brabandt
And then beyond that, my my company is called Trinity One Consulting. So you look at The Dream Dividend as the podcast and say Trinity One Consulting is just called as the publication company, right, or the distribution company. But that's the that's that's the business.
Kevin Patrick
Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
Right? Where we go in and consult. And, you know, I found this I've identified this little niche that says if I can thread that needle of disengagement around ERP and the dream manager program, we're going to see a lot more success on the ERP side.
Kevin Patrick
I think these are the perfect final words. So when you now say, "Hey, I think we need to do something, especially regarding tech projects," we have someone who was in the field, worked his way up, been there, done that, speaks from firsthand experience, and is a certified dream manager. So at the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Kevin, thank you very much for your time.
Niels Brabandt
I appreciate it, Niels. Thanks.