My first car was a Fiat Uno, Fire engine.
mistreated shamefully walked at full speed Milan-Genoa. Output for Acqui, then Roussillon and then shot up to Tiglieto to visit my girlfriend, now my wife, visiting his mother in the village.
The car belonged to Lia, my nanny, who years earlier had looked after my mother and that a few years later, he looked after my children. One
pushing the poor beyond belief, uphill and then downhill, both night and day, with rain, the sun, with the fog. He never stopped, except once when the engine simply refused to continue. Quick strike for a few hours to return immediately to march faithful.
This is the Fiat. At the time my friends and companions were driving foreign cars, the German major. Yet, at the expense of the less famous of the manufacturer, one could not see my simple mechanics for much longer.
I have this conviction: sometimes not always, the product is clotting and other intangible presences within the company. I'm not talking about ghosts, I refer instead to a certain culture at a particular climate, practices, structures, personality, charisma, that somehow end up sublimating in a community of purpose, which in turn leads to the creation of a product that is infused with these, which of these is actually the product (forgive the pun, I promise not to do even more and I shall refer to the Latin etymology of the word). Fiat
Giorgio Garuzzo is in my opinion, a rare and precious phenomenon in the Italian context. Our top managers write not (or do you write less) of their fellow Anglo-Saxons. Yet I have enjoyed every single page of the autobiography of the former CEO of Fiat. Compared to the American classic about the visionary leadership, about being successful, which shall at well pleased because part of my culture, I found myself deeply in the words of Garuzzo. Perhaps the tension that characterizes human, or for the humility and sensitivity of the author.
After reading, I'm used to classify each text in a personal library of mind whose shelves are sorted by category, a little like the modern commercial libraries. Mental Culture in short, a hypermarket in the East following which I signs along the lane. Sad, but functional. Fiat is one of the lucky few texts that I find it still difficult to place.
words Garuzzo accompany me in the company. While array exquisitely descriptive and therefore deeply rooted in history and time, the story takes lightly, even during the reading, a tank size and share. Reflecting on interaction with human relationships and describing different business, the author gives us as if by magic the organic unity of the universe in its business be collegial, plural and often inconsistent. While focusing significantly on structural processes, Garuzzo paradoxically manages to communicate its human dimension, individual and group, which permeates the organization. I think of a parallel school to explain the phenomenon. You learn more by studying the History of Philosophy, or individual philosophy of a thinker? I incline to the latter. Deepening the knowledge of the particular can learn the general. Less emphatically, I appreciate the methodology of "case study".
In our case, however, this definition would be tragically limiting. It is perhaps surprising cohesion between the human element within the company, historical, economic reality and reflection of the individual to make the book so unique.
own experience I believe the preponderance of a posteriori rationalization of the facts with respect to corporate strategic planning from the outset. Very often I found myself in front of explanations-a rear-linear and seemingly consistent with the work of several managers about the previous processes of which I was personally troubled actor. Over time, the paradox has ceased to trouble me and now I am convinced that the human mind works in a similar way inside and outside the company. The phenomenon of rationalization for their actions then take place in both worlds in equal measure. The irrational component of our behavior plays a fundamental role within the organization.
What I find particularly valuable in the words of Garuzzo is the ability to make, without undue emphasis, this dichotomy, declined in several areas in which it occurs, in the sphere of individual and group.
doing so and also thanks to an ability to observe any difference in my opinion distinctly Italian, the author allows us to understand a reversal of the normal control logic of the corporation. Certainly in the light of rational models which provide the separation between ownership and management company, the reality of Fiat partially described here makes you smile. The lack of clarity "digital" with regard to the budget, the allocation of property to a single family, promiscuity policy, banking and industrial make those instruments unsuitable for theoretical analysis of the significance of which is discussed today in light of recent scandals involving the world of our business and North America. Yet the Fiat
example may help to understand the inability to mount (and thus the obsolescence) of a model that includes as a mechanism of the relationship of government ownership / management, the balance of labor markets and finance. You can certainly argue that only if Fiat is an exception. Yet I can not help but bring to mind the phrase so subtle, yet significant Garuzzo that attaches to Gianni Agnelli: "[...] You feel really part of the company [...]".
There will certainly be those who will take in defense of certain models the number of consecutive life sentences accumulated by the leaders of some American companies for operating in a dishonest (or have made out ..) and basically I could not agree with those who see the American capitalism a more "legally clean" of certain local or nearby. However, for dispositional prefer a more analytical and less corporate universe, so to speak-open politics. In this I find that the work in managerial Garuzzo Iveco and before that in Comau can serve as examples of those much sought after "best practices" that scientific research should be pursuing.
In line with the thinking of the time I could not imagine work more coherent, strategic and pervasive. The author acting in an extremely complex, stands out even more by his ability to mediate between the size of structural, strategic and human in the recipe that I think is crucial to the success of the company.
models of management and strategy most acclaimed dwell on notions of leadership, control of top management, positioning, learning, sustainable competitive advantage and business capabilities. In groped to create control structures for the management General public companies, whose ownership is not due to a natural "relationship" (allow me this term), which are often focused on creating economic mechanisms that lead to a convergence of interests between management and those of property. I think these are much more suitable types of properties "relationship", the interests are clear and relatively stable over time. The pace of public administration is dictated in the financial markets, which rotate around the unit time of the quarter and month. It is time well-known, predictable and repetitive, which influence the choices of a top management contingent upon action of their company stock. If we also associate the presence of a labor market is as dynamic, the result is an extremely difficult to formulate comprehensive strategies. It is not trivially the focus on the short term at the expense of long-term management by an improperly promoted, but a bias endogenous to the system. It is the pace of financial markets, fixed in their reporting, but in freedom volatile equity trading and derivatives to cause this regressive spiral.
Garuzzo the structural changes planned and carried out in Fiat are almost utopian in the corporate world today. Not that this does not happen, but it is the intention to be completely different. Paradoxically, the strategy seems to be confined to the "danger zone", where it survives the process of framing that Kahaneman and Tversky have shown recently. It is as if they were suddenly connected risk and strategy. Where the perception of loss is greater, right there you can act strategically, giving less weight to short-term benefit of restructuring in the medium and long term.
Instead of reviewing the system of incentives of top management in light of the new corporate structure, in my opinion would be more useful to rework the system of reporting companies. In essence, breaking the fixed rate and predictable quarter in favor of a control public random and unpredictable, the court would be forced to trial strategy and not sclerotic. Measure performance indicators at predetermined times, or analyze past trends and asset structures can certainly shed light on the state of health of a company, but to make these measurements in a dynamic and constant, at irregular intervals, in my view makes the process significantly encourages more efficient and automatically clear and strategic operations. Forces in short, the intentionality and planning to emerge and open to the opinions of stake holders.
leave at the moment the issue of governance and management control to return to more "internal" company. In reviewing the story so typically "engineering" by Giorgio Garuzzo, I would take some personal reflections, still rough on the need for greater variation of different models for HR business function. If it is true that the culture of organizations tends to be more or less uniform, I should also consider the different subsystems of HR and business strategies according to different business functions. Indeed, I think it is possible to speak of different subcultures, depending on the business function in question, not to mention the various business units. Research and development, operations, manufacturing, finance, administration, control and other functions should be considered as part of the microcosms. Therefore, any activity within them, in my opinion should be designed specifically. Pooling, the staffing, training, activities regarding the transfer of training, planning, human resources management, thought everything would be perhaps more specific function according to touched.
Clearly in this context becomes even more important than the alignment of duties and facilities dedicated to them. From these considerations would seem to take shape a seemingly unmanageable complexity. I am of the opposite. Just because the universe of firms becomes increasingly complex and turbulent, become necessary in my opinion less intuitive models for the understanding and the development of new realities. These, if properly applied, should enable the individual investor in this reality, the conquest of what I like to call the "areas of discretion," those areas within which decisions can significantly affect the progress of the team while respecting the prerogatives of all its members, without exception.
Let me conclude with a sentence of Garuzzo, perhaps trivial, but when I find myself fully:
"[...] my memory is even more pleasantly the large number of people, many in one way or another outstanding, of which I could get acquainted. The people of Fiat, including those working around Fiat, was a world of ability, professionalism, dedication, unique in the context of the country, and hard to find elsewhere, even around the world. "
Here, I believe that really this short epitaph contains all the elements that can characterize a large corporation:
"People" ultimately it is constructed by people.
"extraordinary" because the company stands they have to get out of the ordinary, as individuals and as communities.
"Doing the knowledge "a great manager has to do deep knowledge of its people.
"The people of Fiat [...] around Fiat" is necessary to consider the population inside and around the holding.
"Universe" you can not escape the definition of the universe as a collective enterprise.
"Competence, [...] seriously [...] commitment" are the three features that have made the difference for Fiat. You need to ask what are those that make a difference for your business.
"Context of the country [...] around the world" Today, these are the geo-political areas which should be measured.
A personal thanks to Giorgio Garuzzo to have wanted to share his experience.
BY Imanuel Baharier 
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