Page 18 - Company Excellence

Walter Döring

"Cool through the crisis"

... was the title of a long article in a weekend edition of the
Handelsblatt, in which various "strategies, tools and tricks" of
company leaders were presented.* This is a bit of an exaggeration,
because even the best of the best do not manage to be "cool" in
the conventional sense, but "unagitated", "smart from experience"
and "self-confident" are attributes that come quite close to those of
successful entrepreneurs. The most successful among the
successful were and are once again the family-owned or owner-
operated companies, often world market leaders, whether with family
board members or outside managers.
One outstanding example is WÜRTH: from a two-man business
to a global market leader with more than 86,000 employees and
sales of almost EUR 20 billion in 2022. Reinhold Würth has a recipe
for this: "Keep arrogance out of the company, stay curious, take
advantage of opportunities, don't pay attention to 'politics', in other
words: don't make decisions dependent on politics, always keep
the customer firmly in mind and, of course: create diligently". Or Hen-
kel, another world market leader, which can boast record figures:
CEO Karsten Knobel emphasizes "never complaining, because that
really doesn't help anyone." For many top managers from the ranks
of world market leaders, "self-management" seems to be a magic
word, one that unleashes magical powers through its
implementation and provides structure and support. I would like to
mention Tim Höttges, the successful boss of Telekom; and Berger
boss Stefan Schaible also writes self-management large as a
recipe for success, while the CEO of VW and Porsche, Oliver
Blume, relies on structured work: "I set priorities. It works like a
training plan in sports, with focus and discipline." And he adds, "You
have to be prepared for imponderables and act pragmatically,
flexibly and decisively." Kerstin Hochmüller, the boss of drive
specialist Marantec, has a radical

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