George Chumburidze, the general director of the representative office of Azimut Yachts in Russia thinks his strong point is his ability to explain people what he wants. He tells us how he does it and what is the most important in this competence. He also explains that leadership is always about responsibility. Besides, he gives some very interesting examples of how this competence works and how important the knowledge of national specifics can be.
1. What is your strongest competency?
I have an ability to explain people what I want. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with everyone. But if the person is on the same page with me, I can always explain the task through to the result I want to get.
2. How do you do it?
I focus at the result not the process, and then I try to imagine the entire process from the beginning to the end, as if I am doing the job myself. Then I explain the task and the key elements of the process, but always with a request to work out details.
3. Do you go into details?
Of course, everything depends on a situation, but I try not to be very specific, because when you tell to an architect precisely what house you want, he doesn't bring any of his own ideas and the vision into the project. The person should be able to make operational decisions by himself. People are not robots. If you would write for each person an exact algorithm of actions for achievement of a concrete result, the background and experience of a person becomes absolutely unimportant because he will be simply doing mechanical work.
4. Can you explain more about this competency?
When I studied, we had a task on drawing up algorithms. In the first situation are given water, an empty teapot, and a stove. To boil water you should use the following algorithm - pour water into teapot, put teapot on stove, put the stove on and wait, while the water is boiled. In the second situation the teapot is already filled with water. What do we need to do to boil water? We should pour water out of the teapot; and then follow the algorithm from the first situation. The morale is that instead of going deep into unnecessary details, you should set a task in a way that leaves people enough room for creativity. It is important to give people a chance to make decisions even though not all are ready to do it.
5. What is the most important thing in the application of this competency?
It is necessary to always have an understanding of where we go if we don't want to sink in routine of the process. The most important skill is to give people tasks which they can accomplish. I think very positively about people, therefore sometimes I just tell them a wide array of results which I wish them to achieve, even though in some cases it would be better to give a more specific explanation of a given task. The most important skill is to understand what weight the person can bear. Sometimes a person may appear thin and small but indeed he can be very robust. Sometimes a fellow may seem to be strong and healthy but in reality looses his breath after a small effort. Someone who can pose for a photo but to climb a mountain with this backpack - sorry, no way! The most important thing is to distinguish the real potential.
6. Do you have this skill?
Only the God can do it without mistakes. He gives each of us as much, as we can bear. The only important measurement is responsibility. The key factor to assess people is their readiness to accept responsibility for decision-making and for the outcome. The level of responsibility for each task is the same regardless if the task is big or small. If a person assumes responsibility, it means, he has the growth potential. In my understanding to be in command and to bear the responsibility is the same thing. Furthermore, to be in command is to dispose the money, it's to allocate administrative, human and financial resources.
7. Can you remember a non-standard case of application of this competence?
The mental characteristics of different nations can be spotted best in household situations. I had a situation in a French restaurant that, in my opinion, absolutely accurately shows the way how French are thinking. I was eating oysters, watering them with lemon juice, and I didn't have any lemons left. I called the waiter and I said: «Lemon. Le lemon. Lemone. Lemon», - he was shrugging as if he didn't understand. At some point I couldn't stand it anymore, so I took his hand and put a squeezed lemon in it. He took it, looked at it and said: «Oh! Citron! ». But he knew from the very beginning what I was talking about...
8. Does this knowledge of national features help in business?
I always take into consideration the mental features of other nations, remembering "the lemon case". Foreigners always pretend they don't understand you, but they are always lovely, and there are always some national specifics. For example, if you do business with Italy and speak Italian, a completely different world opens up to you. It is usual for them to mix work and friendship, and in spite of the fact that worse, than "fraternally" cannot be, the new horizons open up for you if you speak Italian; it's like breaking the glass wall. In Germany it's different, whether you know the language or not...
9. Can you tell me a case when this approach helped you?
Once, we were negotiating a license agreement with a Korean company. We had a meeting with the СЕО of Korean company. We were telling him concrete things about the entry to the Russian market and the promotion, and he was answering with poem lines: "The summer day is hot and dry". We: «Yes, it's a hot day today». He: «Even the bird that flies very highly can't see everything because of clouds». We: «Well, we don't think our cooperation will be easy, because the infrastructure for the application of your licenses is not ready". And we had such a discussion for a while, and at the end we figured out that he was telling us a Korean joke, but we thought that we were negotiating the deal with some comments, smiles and other.
10. When you realized, it was a joke?
We realized it at the very end when he laughed. We laughed too, but we couldn't guess in advance what he meant because we have a huge cultural difference. There is a set of traditions and signs, which people transmit to each other, and which help to understand what the person is. To be able to "read" an oriental people, it is necessary to live long enough in their environment. Therefore, in first contacts with oriental people such funny incidents frequently occur.
