Many of the ideas that prove successful in some companies are disclosed and known. What makes it difficult for them to be copied and applied in other organizations multiplying that success?
Sergio Marchionne, head of FIAT, is an admired man. He has managed to revive a sunken company (with debts worth 10 billion euros) in just 3 years! The new hero of the Italian youth titled John Müller an article published in the newspaper El Mundo about a conference by Marchionne.
It is easy to imagine a very attentive audience waiting to hear the FIAT chief reveal the keys to how to achieve what he has done.
And apparently it does not disappoint them, offering them the 5 principles on management, very easy to understand, on which FIAT has managed to transform itself. None of these ideas is new (one of them is a copy, Marchionne says it bluntly, of the same concept applied in the Toyota) but he has used them as if he had discovered them.
In his office he has hung a black box with the word "Competition", one of his 5 principles.
What does a manager wanting to improve the results of his own company need to reproduce these ideas in his organization?
Imagine B at that conference. Listen carefully to what is said, write down certain ideas, and return to your company with the idea of taking advantage of what you have learned.
B is aware of his company's capabilities and weaknesses to capitalize on those early Marchionne ideas. They need to adapt them (some may even be rejected) to the characteristics of their organization and make them suitable for use. Ultimately, B uses these ideas as a stimulator for the birth of others in his own company. They may look like the originals but when they are thought and reformulated from within the company they become unique.
For this to be possible, B must have an emotional capacity that allows him to observe and think while keeping in touch with reality, without falling into extremes: be it divinizing the company (our company is the best in the sector, it is difficult to do things best); be it demonizing all or a part of it (all our ills reside in crazy). Being able to see and think like this requires, as a prerequisite, accepting your own limitations: I am a manager with strengths and weaknesses, I do not have all the answers. B, in short, must be an inclusive leader.
Now imagine C in the same conference. Listen carefully, write down certain ideas and return to your company with the same spirit as B. But in this case, C calls his management team, transmits what he has heard, wants the same in his company. Exactly the same. If it works in FIAT, it has to work for them! He even puts up posters with the word "Competition" not only in his office, but throughout the company. C knows that communication is essential if you want to generate change.
C is attributing a magical capacity to ideas: if I put up the “Competition” poster and throw a harangue / spell, magically, the intended change will occur.
That attitude avoids him facing his own limitations and those of the company (or department) he runs; It allows you to transfer your responsibility for the change to others and stay away from a possible disappointment that shows him / her some imperfection (I told you what you had to do, the failure is yours, for not paying attention to me).
The first option is difficult. B and his team must accept the limitations of the company and, even more difficult, accept their own to carry out the task for which they are paid. And yet, only awareness of imperfection (own and company) will allow us to design realistic action plans that are likely to be successful.
C's attitude is, in principle, emotionally less painful, but it will be useless since it will not allow him to make an objective assessment of reality. Will generate action but does not improve: inefficiency.
At the end of J. Müller's article, a final Marchionne idea is released. Faced with the 5 concrete principles, easy to understand and associate with terms such as effectiveness / efficiency or business action, the last idea is more abstract, apparently more related to the poetic component of Marchionne's experience: “There is an untold story. It is the one that concerns the personal transformation of the leaders and managers who have made the change and of the people whose lives are in their hands…. They have changed forever. ”
In my opinion, this last idea of Marchionne is the most valuable. It not only refers to personal transformation as a consequence of the change produced in the organization, but to previous personal change.
In a company, an idea by itself has little value, it is the members of the organization that make it an added value. And in order to do this, people must be emotionally prepared. The 5 principles of the new FIAT, although dazzling, easy to understand and communicate, can never be used successfully without C having previously been developed in B.
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