Joerg Schreiber (Mazda Motor Rus LLC): "People in Russia or Another Country Like East Germany Are Very Good at Smelling When There Is Something Fishy In There"
Joerg Schreiber, President and Managing Director of Mazda Motor Rus LLC, tells us about his values. We also talk about most important challenges that he has to deal with now.
1. What values do you share?
I think it would be integrity, in any place of the world. Not just as a "well, that person you can't buy with money." I don't want this to be mixed up with Russian specific that we are dealing with in some other society. It's a general thing: being an honest person; somebody who is sticking to what he said and is straightforward and candid about what he has to say and then sticking to it; somebody you can rely on. Integrity as a person, any human being. When somebody doing a job and how does it end, as well as a person. It has many facets and shadows in this subject but it would be a core value, I think.
2. Can you explain?
It's a difficult thing to find. You find it in many people but by far not more than 50%. Put it this way: it's very easy to be corrupted by yourself or by your own weaknesses. Integrity and consistency go together, and it does not exclude that you say "I made a mistake. I need to change. This was not good". Find courage to apologize. It's not an easy thing if you are very self-confident person, so it's probably the toughest thing, and without appearing to be arrogant on knowing things better, which is difficult.
3. Do you have an example?
I know a very brilliant person working here, in this company who has this tendency. I'm sure that he doesn't mean it this way but some people perceive it as being arrogant. He is just the one who always wants to learn news things, and whenever he learned new things, he keeps lecturing other people about what he learned. They may or may not be interested at all. It doesn't keep him from lecturing. And it comes across sometimes as being arrogant - "Oh, he knows better, why otherwise would he want to share all this with me?" Simply because he just needs to talk about it because that's his way of how he is digesting what he has accumulated, and he is trying to put in place, and get some reaction to see whether this is right or other people share it as well. There are people who want to argue. Other people don't want to argue. Most people don't want to argue at all. We're all piece-loving societies, mostly. Who wants to argue in particular? If you ask, everybody will say: "No-no, I don't want to have an argument, just want the other side to agree with me but I don't want to argue". So, integrity in that and you may not match all the expectations that others have of you but try to be the same person over a consistent period of time.
4. The most difficult part is about cynicism and skepticism, isn't it?
I grew up in East Germany as I may have told you before, and I had my share, my time of speeches and all of that, so I'm not particularly keen on speeches either and all these promises. Yes, there is that element. That means for any company who is working with Russians... well, take Russians, you have to convince them that you are sincere in what you are saying, that you mean it. You may not be right, be wrong but, at least, you need to believe in what you are saying. People in Russia or another country like East Germany are very good at "smelling" when there is something fishy in there, when I being just told "la-la", so don't even try this. It doesn't work, wasted effort. Which is why when sometimes we've got visitors, I take charge on speeches because I'm sensing that people start to slip away because they perceive it as a bunch of words.
5. What are the most important issues in your agenda now?
Clear challenge: to be true to my claim that I'm open and frank and straightforward. With slump of the economy it has also been a freeze, kind of, in salaries, many companies similar with us. We basically stopped what we've been doing with some exceptions; of course people still had been promoted, etc. So, trying to figure out where you are, what's the business, what are you going to do next and how does the future look. Here comes the challenge with that because you need to find a point when you switch going back to what you need to do in a more normalized market. I wouldn't say that a market that is gradually climbing ahead over extreme crisis situation, getting gradually out of the crisis. You need to find a right spot when you start doing again something for people, in terms of money or bonuses, etc., because otherwise there is a danger that people might simply leave you, that others come earlier to a conclusion and then, you lose the talent that you have. And if you invested so much time and money and they have invested a lot and then it's all about the money. We all recall how it was two or three years ago when the label market was so hot and salaries seemed to be rising every year by 10-15%, and if you couldn't give that, some people told me from recruitment world, then you had a certain set of people who were job hopping because they were just looking for the next rise.
6. How about Mazda?
I can't recommend even trying this with Mazda because it's not going to work. We are looking for people who want to have a solid career and want to gain a solid knowledge, and want to be paid fairly and well, and getting paid better if they make progress.
7. Can you tell us about another challenge?
How do you find a long term business strategy in a market that is so in a short leash? A normal thing that you might see from foreigners: very fresh coming into market, all of the culminated knowledge of their global business that after two weeks they start explain to you how it works. This is what's happening in one-two years. My impression is: the longer you are at whatever place you are and particularly in Russia and particularly with the global crisis and local crisis, they are not sure. You don't know. You are happy if you can predict next quarter more or less correctly, forget about next two or three years. If you want to keep buildings and business you need to have some sort of strategy. That leads you that you need to make certain assumptions about how the market is developing. Try to do this in Russia. Still you have to do this, otherwise you will not develop your own business, you will not develop your own organization. How can you develop it if you don't know? I think in ten years time, I need this and that many people or more or in five years time... You need to start talking about that well in advance.
8. How do you deal with that?
I'm glad that we are now through the toughest part of the exercise as many other companies after last year. Where is the proper scope of this organization in a market like this? Now, I'm assuming that the market will stabilize and then keep growing, and I need to think ahead: who do I need, where do I need to develop, how many people do I need. And if I want to get that support from my central offices as well. It's not about single positions; it's about total business equation. Then I need to start talking about this now, if I want to have it in two or three years. That's the challenge, clear challenge in Russia because nobody knows. The easiest is to assume that nothing changes, not do anything new, might be too risky. Who said life would be without risk? Risk is all the fun... Some risk, measured risk...
