Content:
Would you like to learn as quickly as a successful automotive CEO?
I worked directly for automotive CEOs for almost 10 years. I witnessed their inspiration and ways of thinking. One day I started to compile a list of their principles for their thought leadership.
Here are some insights I have first-hand:
To be successful in the automotive industry, you need to become a thought leader in automotive technology.
Car CEOs who are only good managers but not product experts will be fired sooner or later. Hundreds of press articles bear witness to this.
To become a thought leader, you need to maximize your learning rate by accessing only the most relevant information.
The trick is to curate relevant information through the organization.
Ideally, you don’t have to search for this information, it is already provided to you. This way, you can keep track of business and company policy, make the best decisions, earn the respect of your board, employees and other stakeholders and gain influence to implement decisions.
Successful car managers and CEOs spend a lot of time structuring their work. They organize their teams and information flows.
Employees can advance by applying CEO principles. The general rule of thumb is: access to the best content should be prioritized over status and compensation.
Your knowledge and skills are the foundation of your reputation and influence. This includes your decision-making ability, the value you create and your recognized contribution to the company. Your career and long-term income depend largely on the value you create and your contribution to the company. It is therefore important to prioritize learning and, in particular, to learn the right things.
Here are four examples of admired CEOs and their personal principles.
Luca de Meo (CEO Renault Group) – Turn off the noise to gain time for deep reflection.
From 2015 to 2017, I worked directly with Luca de Meo, who was CEO of the Spanish car manufacturer SEAT. When he arrived, he redesigned the established information flows and shortened the board meetings from six to two. He canceled the participation of the CEO in meetings.
Instead, he concentrated on the product and the brand story. He took time for quiet work almost every day. During these times, anyone who worked directly for him could walk into his office. I remember unscheduled meetings that could last for hours.
He held original thinking in the highest esteem. One of his catchphrases was: “The automotive industry is full of nonsense”, referring to the industry’s many dysfunctional beliefs. For example, he insisted on the distinction between an “emotional car” and a “sporty car with lots of horsepower”. The Fiat 500 is an example of an emotionally charged vehicle.
It was accessible to engineers, designers, consultants and multipliers. Anyone with half-baked ideas had to wait or was completely ignored. If he could not extricate himself from a situation, he sometimes made fun of the interloper by asking detailed questions and commenting on the answers. He always strived for excellence in thought process and results, but he never lost his cool.
Luca brought a new dynamic to SEAT. With his background in product marketing, he quickly learned the entire technical and manufacturing side of the business. He created a new, profitable brand, CUPRA, a product line that is still the fastest growing European brand today.
Luca de Meo was appointed CEO of Renault, one of the largest automotive groups in the world, in 2020.
Jürgen Stackmann (former CEO SEAT) – Be consistent, be empathetic.
The automotive industry is rough and male-dominated. Especially in Germany, where the culture is supposed to be direct, blunt and effective. As this style is all about effectiveness, it can occasionally create a rude tone in meetings and business relationships, causing fear and hesitation and leaving no room for empathy.
However, social skills are important because they facilitate human communication and the flow of information.
Jürgen Stackmann is an example of an effective and friendly mastermind.
Every day, he acted according to a simple principle: everyone has emotional needs and a private life, in addition to the desire to be professional, effective and valued. And the two are intertwined. We cannot address the professional side of a person without influencing the other side.
Jürgen was completely consistent in his application of this principle. He was so consistent that he was able to tell his own personal stories without jeopardizing any respect in this harsh environment.
Even the most hardened technical experts, who only competed in their field and thought everyone else was a complete idiot, respected him. Because Jürgen was a genuinely nice guy with an infectious smile. Even in the most heated debates, he could turn around and cheer the team up. People who worked with him felt respected and listened to, and they could easily take criticism because they liked him.
This is not to say that he could not be firm and resolute. He was firm in his opinion and demanded critical and well-founded facts when necessary.
Above all, he inspired the team to work hard and provide him with the best possible information and suggestions for decisions. Jürgen laid a large part of the foundation for SEAT’s success. With the introduction of the ID family, the first all-electric car family, and the establishment of the Volkswagen brand in the field of EV technology, he was able to regain brand power and market presence for Volkswagen after the diesel crisis.
Jürgen Stackmann is currently a keynote speaker and professor at the University of Sankt Gallen in Switzerland.
Martin Winterkorn (Ex-CEO VW Group) – Owns the product.
“Herr Professor” Martin Winterkorn is the former CEO of Volkswagen who resigned after the “Diesel-Gate” scandal came to light. Winterkorn’s role in the scandal has tarnished his reputation and he is often associated with the company’s fraudulent actions. Some believe that he was responsible for the culture at Volkswagen that led to the scandal and that he should be held accountable for his actions, while others believe that he was used as a scapegoat for the company’s misconduct.
During Winterkorn’s tenure, the Volkswagen Group increased its annual car sales from 6.2 million in 2007 to 10.1 million in 2014. This was made possible by exceptionally well thought-out standards for platforms, suppliers and factory layouts, which Winterkorn aggressively enforced as CEO. Unlike many of his successors, he was involved in all technical aspects of every car.
Even though he may not have succeeded in preventing “Dieselgate”, Winterkorn was a master at building cars that people wanted to buy.
He was once presented with a derivative promotional model in Valhalla, the design center at the company’s headquarters, just a few minutes’ walk from his office. Promotional models are used to revive sales for an aging model. This model had an eye-catching body paint job and parts with the same color for the dashboard, the center of the steering wheel, the door panels and the rim covers. Winterkorn was satisfied, but criticized the color coordination between the steering wheel and the rim covers. The designer replied: “But all the parts come from the same paint shop.” Winterkorn then asked: “And why are the colors different?”
Silence reigned in the room.
No one had noticed the difference, but everyone knew the old man was right. Imagine sitting in a car with the door open and trying to compare two pieces of colored plastic, one on your wheel rim and one on the steering wheel in front of you. How would you notice a tiny difference in color? “I don’t know, but the parts are from the same paint machine with the same color,” the designer said again. The next second, everything froze.
Winterkorn jumped out of the car, knelt down next to the front wheel, pressed the plastic part against the wheel cover and shouted: “Tell me, are these colors identical?”
They were not. A small but noticeable difference. The old man was right.
Although Winterkorn’s public reputation is questionable, he serves as an example of how technical knowledge and product responsibility at CEO level can drive a company forward. The information he was fed had the potential to provide the best and most detailed insight into the company and the automotive industry as a whole.
Elon Musk, a more modern CEO archetype, is widely regarded as a man who has a similar product obsession and understanding of the CEO role.
Martin Winterkorn is retired and lives in Germany.
Simon Thomas (Ex-CEO VW Group UK) – “Go and see.”
I first met Simon Thomas in 2012 when he was Managing Director of Volkswagen Group UK, a €24 billion company with a few hundred employees. He had the task of reorganizing the UK importer of the Volkswagen Group. I was his advisor and led the team to restructure and optimize the business.
Simon knows his way around the car trade. He can talk for 45 minutes without interruption about the current state of retailing in the UK and Europe and it could be turned into a book and sold. He knew the basics of the network at the time, and in the UK alone there were around 2,000 retailers selling over 500,000 cars every year.
Simon taught me the principle of “go and see” (Gensi Genbutsu) – nothing beats first-hand knowledge to understand the state of a business. He moved his desk from the board level to the open space on the first floor when he took office. The only difference between him and another office worker was that he had a desk and not a cubicle. Apart from that, he was visible in the office and anyone could simply walk past his desk. To keep intruders away, he bombarded them with detailed questions. This had two advantages for him: First, he got the best information directly from a person (and not from a memo), and second, he could assess each person’s individual contribution.
After starting my assignment in Milton Keynes, I realized the power of this principle and traveled with my team to dealerships from Brighton to Edinburgh. With the experience of speaking directly to dealers, even with little prior knowledge of car sales, my team was instrumental in developing a reorganization plan and increasing the company’s profitability by 8%.
Simon became one of the most admired managers of his generation as well as the smartest and always best-informed executive in the boardroom.
Simon is retired and lives in the UK.
