A few years back, I had dinner with Sergio Marchionne, an executive sponsor of a leadership program I was facilitating for the Switzerland-based company Alusuisse-Lonza.
Marchionne always made it a point to come to as many senior manager sessions as possible to meet with participants.
He is now CEO of Fiat S.p.A., the Italian automotive group that runs American carmaker Chrysler. Naturally, the recent Fortune article on Marchionne, Chrysler’s Speed Merchant, caught my attention. Would it portray the leader I remembered: smart, decisive, and driven? What are his leadership beliefs about strategic speed?
Marchionne believes that his competitive advantage is speed. Yet, as Alex Taylor III, the author of the article, points out, “speed has been a cornerstone of management theory for two decades.” So, what is Marchionne doing differently? I don’t think it is his 24/7 Blackberry habit—he carries six of them with him while traveling! (That may increase urgency for some leaders, but it seems like it might leave them little time for uninterrupted strategic thinking. And it surely is not sustainable for most of them.)
Marchionne thinks about speed more strategically, believing that “by wiping out layers of management and making decisions more quickly, he’ll get closer to the market and bring out new models faster than his slower-moving rivals.” This practice worked well when he took over the struggling Fiat brand. Marchionne is confident that it will work again at Chrysler.
Chrysler-Fiat’s plans for rapid market-share gain hinge on creating clarity, unity, and agility throughout the organization. Marchionne focuses on clarity of strategy, values, and decision rights, seeking “unifying architectures” to improve scale and increase engagement. He also reduces internal demands (for example, meetings and reports) so that people can focus their attention on shifting marketplace demands and respond with agility.
Clarity, unity, and agility: These are the same “people factors” we found in our research on speed of strategy execution.
Marchionne is strikingly similar to another CEO whom I interviewed for our Strategic Speed book, Vittorio Colao of Vodafone Group Plc. Colao can also point to a sterling track record of business growth. (Vodafone has become famous for the speed of its growth, mainly through acquisition.) And, like Marchionne, Colao believes firmly in the symbiotic relationship of people and speed of business growth.
When I shared our finding that the people factors are a big part of the speed equation (Speed = Pace, Process, and People), Colao agreed: “The three key words for us are speed, simplicity, and trust—which in a way correspond to pace, process, and people. Pace is the pure speed element. Process is something you have to pay attention to in a large company, but it’s something you need to simplify as much as possible. Then there’s people, which we’d put under the ‘trust’ category, because, if you want people to move fast and simplify processes, the key is to inject a high degree of trust.”
In fact, Colao’s thirst for speed and simplicity continues to make headlines. (See this recent Wall Street Journal article, Vodafone CEO Pushes to Untangle Giant, and click here for a video on Financial Times’ website.) It’s fascinating to see these two leaders in very different industries both seek speed that involves a similar belief in people. As Colao says, “From time to time … you need to take away committees and go back to the core of individual accountability and teamwork.” Colao believes that Vodafone executes more quickly than when when he took over in 2008, and their stock is up 20% since May. As for Fiat-Chrysler, it will be interesting to see whether they can make significant leaps in quality and innovation, once they pull out of turnaround mode. I wouldn’t bet against Marchionne, that’s for certain.
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