You Were Not Hired to Be Invisible. But Somehow, the Matrix Turned You Into Exactly That.

Four Years in Prievidza.
Not a Consultant Visit. A Life Built From Zero.

In 2019, my former manager told me directly: the R&D role in Slovakia will fail. The technical complexity is too high. The team does not exist yet. The cultural gap is too wide. He was not trying to be discouraging — he genuinely believed the mission was impossible.

I did it anyway. I moved to Prievidza. Not for a rotation. For real — living there, driving Slovak roads at 6am, navigating the unofficial team chat that tracked my mood on bad days (yes, they had one — I found out on my last day). I built the Brose Electronics R&D department from zero to 40 engineers. A two-million-euro technical laboratory. Full product responsibility for two core lines.

That department still exists today. Still performs. Under my successor.

I am not here to tell you what Slovak leadership looks like from a framework. I am here because I made the mistakes you are trying to avoid — and because I know that the gap between the German SOP and the Slovak floor is not a cultural flaw. It is a structural reality that requires a specific kind of bridge.

The Livia Story — What I Learned on My Last Day

On the day I left Prievidza, my assistant Livia told me something I never forgot. The team had a private group chat. Its single purpose: to warn colleagues when I was in a bad mood. I had spent years believing I had my emotions under control. I was wrong. They saw it before I did — every single time.

The learning was not that I had failed as a leader. The learning was that even when you think you are hiding it, the people who work close to you already know. Your emotional state is always visible. Be honest with it — or it will be honest without you.

Nemáme. — The Word That Taught Me More Than Any Leadership Book.

“Nemáme.” We don’t have it. That was the word I heard most in my first weeks in Prievidza. Things I had taken for granted in Germany — simply not available. I had to find a different way of thinking about what was possible and what was not.

But in that same period, I learned something that no briefing document ever prepared me for.

Slovaks are hard coconuts.

You will not crack the shell in a week. Not in a month. Maybe not in a year. They will be professional, reliable, and perfectly pleasant — and still completely closed to you. If you arrive with your process framework and your quarterly KPI slides, you will get compliance. You will get green reports. You will never get the extra mile.

But if you do the work — if you show up with real humanity, real consistency, and genuine interest in who they are, not just what they deliver — something shifts. And when it shifts, it shifts permanently.

I am still in contact with the friends I made in Prievidza. I drive back once or twice a year to see them. They come to us. That is not a professional network. That is a relationship built over years of showing up as a human being first, and a manager second.

In leadership terms: the Slovak team that trusts you will not just meet your expectations. They will watch for how they can exceed them — without being asked. That is the team every German operations director is looking for. And almost none of them know how to build it — because they are managing from a distance a connection that can only be built up close.

This is not a cultural stereotype. It is four years of lived experience — still active today.

“Andy Balbus was my first manager after I finished my studies. He was able to listen to my worries and either give me another perspective — or stand up for me. Even if you don’t know Andy personally, I would recommend you give him a try. You will be more than surprised.”

— Marianna Kopásková, Application Engineer — LinkedIn Recommendation

The Last Day. The Moment I Could Not Hold Back.

When I knew I was leaving Prievidza, I expected a professional goodbye. A round of handshakes. Maybe a small gathering. Many of my team members were working remotely by then — I did not expect them all to come in.

They all came in.

Every single person. They formed a line. One by one, each of them shook my hand — and said something personal. Something they had never said in a meeting. Something that had nothing to do with KPIs or project status.

I could not hold back the tears. I was not ashamed of that.

And then Michal — one of my three team leads — looked at me and said:

“How dare you. You leave a family.”

— Michal, Team Lead — Brose Prievidza Electronics R&D

That sentence is the most honest evaluation of four years of leadership that I have ever received. Not a performance review. Not a KPI report. A team that had been built on values they chose themselves, rules they committed to on day one, and a leader who was demanding — but never a stranger.

That team was built with a Team Charter Workshop. Not a theoretical exercise — a real, full-day process where we started with warmup exercises that made people think and laugh, then moved to values cards, then to how we want to treat each other, then to what must never happen between us. We sorted everything together. Prioritised together. And ended with five team rules — not mine. Ours.

Every new team member heard those five rules from me on day one. Every single one was asked: do you agree to this? Not as a formality. As a real commitment.

The result was not just performance. It was a team known across the company for what they delivered — and for how they showed up for each other when it was hard.

If you want to know whether this is replicable in your Slovak team: it is. But only if you are willing to show up as a human being first.