Hannes Shariputra Chopra, CEO of Allianz Rosno in Russia, tells us about the management style he applies in his organization, about the governance and decision making process established in Allianz Rosno a few years ago and about a mixture of Eastern and Western styles of management that he believes works best.
1. How do you manage to combine the different styles of management?
I can't say much on what it is to work in a company with one owner. I have always been working for companies which are publicly listed companies and I have clear authorities and abilities to steer what I have to do. Yet I consider myself not to be employed by Rosno or Allianz, I consider myself an entrepreneur, I try to behave as if it would be my company. It helps me to take the right decisions. You cannot always know everything by yourself, but if you have those sort of "twins" in your team which compliment what you might not know so much in detail, it works in my opinion very well. I have also this experience - half of my management team is female, and this experience I've got after becoming CEO in this company, because in my previous places of work the number of women in the management team was always limited. I'm learning a lot, it's a different way of working, much more interesting and challenging one.
2. How would you describe this entrepreneurial style of management?
It's very important to me. It goes with leading by example. I would really like not to apply overall different realities to myself than to my team and the people who work here. If I have certain requirements towards people in my team, I should be the first one to the best of my abilities to fulfill them. This aspect I believe is most important for entrepreneurial DNA - to think all the time that if people copy your behavior you don't feel ashamed.
3. Do you have any particular example?
Usually people in this company work quite motivated focusing and ready to work long and very passionate on topics. I think it reflects a certain DNA a company has, and Rosno for sure has very active and energizing DNA. Secondly, as a management team we also try to lead by example because of the amount of work which goes through the company. You can see it in my team members including me, we work very hard and long, very dedicated, and, as I have already said, that's how it should be. We have a very transparent decision making motivation system which goes from top to the bottom, I'm as much part of it as anybody else in the company, including that we all have local currencies with all the good and bad things, but we're all part of this. Nobody should be out of there, we don't have two or three classes of people in the company - it's very important.
4. How the decisions are taken in your company?
We have established a very strong government and decision making approach in the company, all decisions are taken in the Board of management, and we discuss them out very intensively and then we take decision together. My people feel that they're part of the decision and they're responsible for this also. We have a very team-oriented culture, but things are being decided, they're moving, and we're not overbureaucratic. I think there're lots of features which underline and explain a bit better what I was talking about before.
5. Do you have any examples of that kind?
We did a major transformation at the end of 2007 - beginning of 2008 when we completely changed the system of work in the company, and it really affected everyone. And it was done in a mixture of Eastern style and Western style of management. We have worked for 2-2,5 months on the concept, part of my team members were involved in it, and for Western style we have discussed it for a very short time - for two or three weeks and agreed it on the Board. Then I invited all the next level of managers - around 80 people - and we spoke in a certain time frame about what would happen. We invited people for so-called "open hours" - three times a week they could come down and could ask me and my CFO or COO any questions on the new structure. This lasted for two or three weeks and then people started not to come any more there because they were exhausted of asking questions.
6. What was the difference for you between the Eastern and Western styles of management?
I had some prejudices when I came here to work - too much micromanagement, forgetting about general direction, - and I really learned my lesson, because if you have these different approaches and styles - it's important, but it has to be a mixture. I learned to appreciate the part of digging into details and keeping control. And at the same time you respect the people who are working on this - it was one of the many learnings that I've got in the Russian market.
