À la recherche du temps perdu

As you may have read in the news, the German automotive industry is under unprecedented pressure. It is the result of a mix of internal factors, changing geopolitics, new technologies, new competitors and last but not least a dysfunctional German government. Volkswagen Group, the company I have been associated with for decades, has been hit exceptionally hard. It is not the first crisis we see in the company, but this time it is different. A lot of what is happening now, and the internal shortcoming that lead to failing to confront it, have been visible for a long time. And I don’t say this in hindsight. A tragic mix of inertia, complacency, arrogance, governance issues and political interference have veiled the realities of a new world order of the auto industry. Volkswagen, especially in Germany, is in many aspects not so much managed like a company but it is more of a “brotherhood” (with only very few “sisters”).

Naturally, when I sent out my recent seasonal greetings, it reached a lot of these “brothers” and some “sisters”. I left 2015, but bonds remain strong. And there followed dozens of calls, to catch up. In the last decade, as I was the youngest back then, I have seen many retiring, and some sadly even died - sometimes just months after their corporate farewell. But this time, it is different. This time, it’s my direct former peers which quit or are pushed into early retirement. It’s those who remember their first working day in the passive Wolfsburg plant, and how they walked into the HR Department to report duty. It’s my fellows from the high potential development programs shaping the “leaders of the future”. And that future now is past. For many of them, it has been 30 years or more with the firm. And most of them think, where is the time gone, since I walked through “Tor Sandkamp” (Gate Sandkamp) for the first time. Don’t get me wrong, all of them had amazing careers and explored the world. All of them made the fortunes you can make working in the management of a true global player in that industry. But still, the time now seems lost to them. And with it some of the skills, they could now use perfectly, for example playing an instrument, the patience of reading a book, and distinguishing between friends and network.

Luckily, I never had this. I think, I was quite a free spirit during my times in any company, but very loyal to the people I work with. All I wanted, was to work on exciting topics and I never really pursued a career. Career, what ever that actually is, was just a result of the work I did. My career is the thing HR figures out, somewhere in their dusty corner. They don’t need me for that, right? I was not even aware I had a career, like I am also not really aware that I am approaching 60. Sure, sometimes you need a big title to get things done. A big name card opens bigger doors. It’s like in a computer game. There they call it tools, weapons, or assets, don’t they? It’s about the size of the toys they give you. It’s not about your size.

I have been discussing with a friend whether this attitude maybe the result of coming from a refugee family. Once you learn, that all can be taken away from you by “the system” - for sure your home, and even your life - you may stay more of a free agent. But I also know decedents of refugees, which put all into rebuilding their old life, just in a different place, where they gain trust into institutions. We had this twice: once fleeing from East Prussia and then from the Soviet occupied East Germany into the West. This part of the family never regained trust into any “system” and for sure not into any government. And then there was my father, running away from a steel worker’s apprenticeship in Differdange (Luxembourg) as a teenager looking for adventure and a better future. And then, for myself, there maybe perhaps an influence of what is called the (notorious) “Generation-X”, the latchkey kids brought up on garden hose water and neglect. Back then, we called it freedom.

In any case, I can remember anything I every did. Perhaps not the years, but the projects. There are no gaps and no time lost in my memory, even though I don’t think much about it. Thinking back to the beginning of my time in Volkswagen in the Wolfsburg headquarter, I found the picture of my view on the powerplant on an early winter morning. It was the time the factory was alive and running, workers changing shifts and many of the “office guys” did not wake up yet. That’s the golden hour in which the world is still in some kind of harmony.

Not quite the case

Over the years I was the subject of a few business cases, and also found it useful to build up an own stock of such cases for my teaching in postgraduate business programmes and Executive Education. The case method goes back to the law school of Harvard University where it was introduced in the 1870s. The approach to derive common principles from cases in a system where case law in place, appears reasonable. In 1920 the Harvard Business School introduced cases as a method to train management students. Normally, to “crack it” the students have to put themselves into the shoes of a business leader and derive a suggestion for action, using the information given in the text and also applying a framework or “theory”.

Especially, in cases where I was the subject myself, like in “Shanghai Volkswagen: Time for a radical shift or gears” (2005) it strikes me how oversimplified the students propose their suggestions. Sometimes, when I google on the web, I find sample solutions and interpretations which really make me laugh. For example one was praising my strategic foresight of a decisions, while in reality it was 3 in the morning in a meeting room and I wanted to get my team to get some sleep before the board meeting on the same day.

Also, the in cases, which I published myself with colleague I can well imagine what really went on in the manager’s mind and this had far more dimensions than we can state in this format. And I can imagine, most other case have the same issue, specially those written by pure academics who never actually decided anything of substance. There is normally more than one solution, the situation is more complex than stated in the case and the information is given, is not sufficient to come up with a real proposal which would work outside the textbook.

There was some critique to the case method, that there should be more of a philosophical undercurrent included in decision making, for example by Donham and Whitehead in Business Adrift. Also, in 2016 a paper by Todd Bridgman, Stephen Cummings, and Colm McLaughlin is "Restating the Case: How Revisiting the Development of the Case Method Can Help Us Think Differently About the Future of the Business School". And of course Minzberg commented critical and others. Still the Harvard style machine kept running.

I use cases only for introductory purposes and to have some “lab environment” of an isolated problem. That’s useful, but not sufficient. After that, I immediately switch to real-life examples, where finding and analyzing information available and useful is part of the assignment. I was never a big supporter of frameworks anyway and I honestly have never seen any complex problem, which can be solved by for example by a blabla-Matrix. It may help to structure initial thoughts or communicate with people who have been trained in the same jargon. But it’s unlikely to deliver an intelligent and holistic solution.

I find business problems extremely interesting to solve. But cocking by the book does not appear to me being the golden bullet, specially when you look at the books the management profession has. I fully agree that learning by doing and dealing with real-life problems is a good element in business education. But is that really what we are doing with these cases? It looks pretty 1920s type of analysis to me. And “doing”? What do you mean? A presentation is not the kind of “doing” I normally experience.

Anyway, now I have to think about a teaching note for a new case which will be published soon. They always come as a package. I am always a bit puzzled when Professors need teaching notes. But they come as a package. It’s a bit like you need a recipe to make a pizza. Hope they grow quickly into cooking gourmet meals. Don’t slide into hot dog. Enjoy.

From the sketchbook of my mind: The launch of the Santana 3000 in 2005 and the many other things which became the “Shanghai Volkswagen Case”. I really like this one, but of course there is much more to it than ever has been written.