Filip Kegels, General Director, Danone Russia & CIS, tells us about one of his strongest traits - energy. In his opinion, every leader should have enthusiasm, energy and dynamism, and should be able to transfer it to his people and his organization.
1. What other leadership competencies do you have?
Leader should have a lot of drive. In my case, I think; never take no for an answer; always try to find new angles to resolve problems. That needs a lot of energy and drive, and I think if a leader of a company shows a lot of drive, a lot of energy, a lot of alternative ways to look at things I think it also will help the whole organization to be, probably, more entrepreneurial, to be more open, to be more energetic and ambitious. There is a part of, I would say, giving prospective, vision, which is a little bit medium long-term, and then you have a part that is more day-to-day operations which you are very persistent with and energetic, creative and ambitious. This kind of attitude.
2. Are you naturally energetic or where does it come from?
I think there are two things. First of all, it's how you are energetic yourself. I suppose you probably have it in your jeans or don't have it. Secondly, how do you want to transfer energy to your organization which is another, not necessarily the same thing. The first is energy it's a very personal characteristic, you have it or you don't have it. You can't create it. I never had any courses "how to create energy"; it's more how you contain energy, in my case. So, I could not function without enthusiasm, energy and dynamism. That's why my whole life I worked in very unstable, changing environments because I just like it. I don't really have to manage this.
3. How do you transfer your energy to the organization?
I put a system into place that allows me to be on a very regular base confronted to a large amount of key managers and even non-managers which means that it feeds me and I feed them. I think this is very important because it brings a certain amount of proximity; it brings at the same time a better understanding for what's happening in people's heads, and it's also a way in order to transfer or to feed each others energy. I have at least ten committees where up to thirty people, non-managers, and even level -4 vs. me are sitting and we're working on certain subjects together.
4. Why do you do it that way?
I think this is an interesting way to conway energy and at the same time to work on proximity. On the other hand, of course, this could be very dangerous for your consistency because you are sitting in the meeting and you have all these managers there and you say this and then next day you say absolutely opposite, they say "oh, this general manager he doesn't know what he wants". But what I want is that people at the end of the day are involved, energetic, ambitious. I want to give visibility and that we go on by learning. That's what I want and that maybe not always understood. And certainly in Russia, I think it's a way to go much faster; it's a way to have more recognition; it's a way to be more entrepreneurial, more dynamic. So, I push this kind of process a lot.
5. So, this communication of your energy is communication with people, isn't it?
Yeah, it's communication with people but it's also a review of the key projects of the company which I could easily give out also on my directors which are certainly also doing a lot of projects but I do it in a such a way that the key projects and the key things are exposed to me also that I feed it. It doesn't mean at all that what I say is going to be done; 50% of what I say on these meetings is not even fallen but it's good, I don't care because I don't want to be there and say everything that has to be done but I just want to feed the people with my experience, maybe, my view of things, and then, honestly, it's empowerment; you take it or you don't take it but you are accountable. It means you are running this project, you take the advice, sometimes you take it, and sometimes you don't. It needs a certain degree of maturity. It needs a certain degree of, I would say, self-confidence but, one the other hand, I think it's very enriching.
6. This review process doesn't substitute the decision making, the empowerment, does it?
No, it's feeding. Sometimes we will come there and review and it needs a decision because sometimes in a decision making process you have a conflict of interests so finally it comes to the boss and he has to decide but it doesn't come too much on that. But, yeah, sometimes we need a decision because it needs a compromise to a certain extend which was not found on a lower level. On the other hand, I'm much more interested in seeing how projects go, how we manage our brands, our clients in order to give my feedback and input to feed not the decision making but the project itself, and also maybe my help. Because sometimes it's not depending purely on us; you are a part of a big cooperation, so sometimes decision making process is also working outside very far away from here, and then sometimes a little push from a top-manager can help to speed-up.
7. Some companies have problems with recruiting top-managers and one of the reasons for that is micromanagement.
I think micromanagement is impossible in today's world. It was maybe possible in a company with three-four people or ten-fifteen but in a company with three-four thousands of people it's impossible. You will not survive and you will suffocate the whole organization. Complete saying-do-it also. It's dangerous. We need what we call "managed empowerment".
8. What do you think about making mistakes?
You probably learn more from your mistakes than you learn from your successes. I call that "the process of confronting the brutal facts". I will always push in any meetings when things go wrong try to understand why they went wrong not for finger pointing because this is a national sport in Russia - finger pointing and blaming; but to learn; try to understand why we did that because nobody makes mistakes on purpose. For me the kind of spirit and culture have to feed is to say "ok, guys, this went wrong, now let's learn from it"; I don't even want to know who were responsible but I want to know what happen and I want to know what we learned form that so it doesn't repeat. That's another thing which you will never have in a micro or a completely liberal empowerment because micro - if you made mistake it was your mistake. This is one of the most difficult stuff, not only in Russia, globally. It's difficult to make people recognize there were mistakes done and to learn from them, and probably it's a biggest source of improvement.
9. How do you deal with that?
For this year I put the good to great management ID on the table. In "Good to great" ("Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't" by Jim Collins) it's all about discipline. Discipline on itself is not a nice word, isn't it? But well managed empowered discipline is probably the thing which will give the most learning you can imagine.
Prepared by Liza Barzova, Good2Work Intern, on January 16, 2009
