How to Keep in Check Professional Conflict in an International Company
Leadership is a game. Or almost. Several changes of scenery have occurred during the life of Giovanni Ciserani, Group President for Procter & Gamble. The first turning point was graduation at Università Bocconi, which was the key that opened doors to a world of opportunities. His marketing career with P & G started immediately after he finished university and brought him to Rome, to Germany, to the UK and to Geneva, where he is currently working. Both an international leader and an enthusiastic fan of football, Giovanni Ciserani seems to apply rules and strategies of games to his distinctive managerial etiquette.
The concept of international leadership might sometimes trigger the idea of something potentially complex and intricate. How do you reconcile the responsibilities of a global manager to a more playful notion?
In my view, business is essentially about winning a game. Therefore the role of a leader can be compared to that of a visionary and trusted coach. Effective leaders can set the vision for their team because they are able to decide which game it is best to play and to define what success means for the company. A football team cannot win every single game, nor can they play consistently at the same intensity and at the same level of quality throughout the whole league. Similarly, companies need to set realistic goals and priorities, and decision making is part of a leader's duties. The task might occasionally prove to be uncomfortable because of the potential risks that come with those decisions, but experience is a very good teacher.
Along with vision, another shared requirement of good coaches and effective leaders is that of trust. Again, pragmatically speaking, I believe that superpowers do not exist and, consequently, that leaders cannot achieve anything by themselves. What they can do though is to find individuals with outstanding strengths, leveraging those strengths to the benefit of the team and combining members in a way that the areas of opportunities are compensated, while at the same time being always available to provide help and support. This is how you build a winning, successful team.
As far as the global setting is concerned, being an international leader involves coping with the same exact challenges as any other leader, namely the ability to bear physical and mental stress, decision making skills and flexibility, to a wider extent. However, international leadership offers more opportunities in terms of experience and diversity, insofar as it allows managers to draw from multiple backgrounds and competences.
Are there any other key ingredients to build a successful team other than well combined skills?
I certainly would not say that I possess any secret recipe. However, there are some expedients involved in my personal method. Something that I consider to be essential is good conflict, which is the expression of contrasting views when it comes to set a team's strategy and goals and differs from bad conflict, which is personal. I refer to good conflict as "divergence – convergence" and it is a powerful tool to evaluate the effectiveness of a strategy and all the possible alternatives. Because I expect team members to give their own contribution also in terms of disagreement, I feel that it is necessary to create an environment and a culture where constructive debate is not only welcomed, but desirable. In order to achieve that, leaders need to reassure people and remove their fear that expressing contrast will have negative consequences, by taking charge of potential mistakes and problems but also by establishing some symbolic gestures that encourage divergence. As for me, I shake hands with those who openly disagree with my suggestions and award them with a free coffee ticket. As unconventional as it may sound, this is the kind of behaviour that contributes to create a conflict-friendly environment in the long term. In parallel, I have been shaping a communication culture that encourages an informal and direct approach. Indeed, there was a moment in my career when I realized that in order to be successful I needed to focus on my strengths and be myself. I think spontaneity is the most effective tool when the aim of communicating is setting the best strategy or finding the solution to a problem as quickly as possible.
In your career, you have been in touch with a great number of diverse communication styles and ways of working. Did that change you as a leader and as a communicator?
The turning point in my experience was when I understood that communicating is like playing chess. My experience taught me that people get motivated differently across cultures and corporate environments. For instance, in some contexts showing a definite goal is what gets people excited about a project. In other cases, people become energized after understanding every single step of the job in detail. Sometimes meetings need to start with the analysis of the current situation before moving on to discussing the next business. It all depends on the people you are working with. Hence, in order to be effective, you need to focus less on what you want to say and how you want to convey that meaning, and more on the reactions that you receive from your audience. The more you practice, the more you develop empathy and emotional intelligence, thus becoming able to adjust your communication to the reactions you see and to the result you expect. With respect to that, asking questions is key. Being an international leader gave me the opportunity to learn how to ask the right questions depending on the audience and the context, and to understand that clichés about communication styles are irrelevant most times. It is the individuals, their personality and the real contributions they can bring to the table that really matter.