I have decided to share a story that has many associations with an extraordinary spring of 2020. I am curious, if anyone sees any reference in it, or maybe even a moral?

 

Some time ago, our Italian Client had given us a recruitment for the position of General Manager / Plant Manager. In this respect, there is nothing extremely interesting, such tasks have been done many times over the last 15 years. However, this situation was unusual because the main task for the new General Manager / Plant Manager was to close the Polish branch. I was informed by the Client that the reason is to optimize production, with the intention of moving production volumes to another country. One of key objectives was to close operations in Poland within the timeframe of no more than 12-18 months. From this perspective, the role had the characteristics of Interim, although no one had called it this way.

 

One of the people we recommended was speaking Italian very well. Those who, among readers, recruit for Italian companies or French, Spanish and German, know that this is an important fact – knowledge of the language in company DNA. There was no such requirement, but that skill affected the Candidates’ ranking. This person was employed, but I would not miss her knowledge, skills and very relevant professional experience.

 

What’s next? We are coming to the heart of this story. The person selected has amazed both the Client and us by something else! Imagine that she did not achieve any original objective. Moreover, has defended the existence of the plant in Poland. In addition, doubled employment in the near

 

What does this have to do with spring 2020? Maybe nothing at all or we might want to ask ourselves some questions inspired by the above true story:

 

1.    Are we sure that we know what changes our companies need?

2.    Do we have people who have experience and competence in diagnosing the situation and capability to design and manage those changes?

3.    If the first two questions are negative, can we afford to learn from the basics and from mistakes in spring, summer and autumn 2020?

 

What do you think?

 

Rafał Jędrzejewski

Partner / CEO, Executive & Friends

r.jedrzejewski@executiveandfriends.com