Aces in Our Hands

Blume: Very clear­ly an opti­mist. I myself am opti­mistic by nature. As a man­ag­er, I’m always think­ing about oppor­tu­ni­ties. I want to build on suc­cess­es. And learn from fail­ures. What’s cru­cial is to have the courage to pur­sue the right thing. And to inspire oth­ers in the process. Mak­ing cars is a team sport. And suc­cess con­sists of team­work. When every­one works togeth­er and pur­sues a com­mon goal, you can move moun­tains togeth­er. At the same time, it’s also impor­tant to assess busi­ness con­di­tions con­tin­u­ous­ly, objec­tive­ly, and real­is­ti­cal­ly, in order to draw the right conclusions.

Blume: It’s a good anal­o­gy. Win­ning teams are pow­ered by a shared spir­it, fair­ness, and pas­sion. What’s true of sports here is exact­ly the same for suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies. It’s about going the extra mile. And fight­ing for every yard. By every sin­gle mem­ber of the team.

Weiblen: When times are tough it’s all the more cru­cial for man­agers to be opti­mistic. We are the “lead­er­ship per­son­nel.” Like good moun­tain guides, we’re respon­si­ble for mak­ing sure the team reach­es the sum­mit. And that’s only pos­si­ble if you your­self are sure you’re on the right path and your goals are attain­able. Some busi­ness lead­ers do a lot of com­plain­ing. But com­plaints have never attract­ed any cus­tomers. You have to address neg­a­tive devel­op­ments open­ly, and not pass over any unpleas­ant top­ics. But you can’t gripe — instead, you tack­le things head-on. At times like this, we need speed and the abil­i­ty to take quick action at the right moment. I like your com­par­i­son with a sports team, Oliv­er. When the oppos­ing team kicks the ball, you have to sprint too. That applies to soc­cer fields and com­pa­nies alike.

Blume: At least you can say that those who believe in suc­cess have a good chance of achiev­ing it. Suc­cess is plannable. I saw that again and again dur­ing my time as Chair­man of the Board of Man­age­ment of Porsche AG. We’re vision­ar­ies as well as doers. There’ll always be set­backs, but you can’t let them get you down. Every­one makes mis­takes. What’s impor­tant is to learn from them, to grow, and improve. That’s why, in my view, even mis­takes con­tain opportunities.

Weiblen: Opti­mism is more than just hop­ing things will work out. It’s also always ground­ed in your own abil­i­ties, in trust­ing what you can do. The lessons you’ve learned from pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences are anoth­er key component.

Weiblen: As a very young con­sul­tant I once did a project with a car­mak­er in Spain that was hav­ing some sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion prob­lems. Its man­agers were sure every­thing was fine and there wasn’t any need for change. But I had filmed the prob­lem­at­ic parts of the plant the pre­vi­ous evening and could show the whole team — who were all men — that they were wrong. I admit that there was a smart-aleck qual­i­ty in show­ing peo­ple up like that. It wasn’t exact­ly a hit among the Spaniards, who have a cer­tain pride. And prob­a­bly wouldn’t have gone over well in any other coun­try, either. I’ve never made that kind of pre­sen­ta­tion mis­take again.

Weiblen: Every cri­sis con­tains an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Spot­ting it and mak­ing use of it are what good man­agers are sup­posed to do. I’m delib­er­ate­ly using the plur­al here, because solo man­age­ment deci­sions are a thing of the past. The only way for a com­pa­ny to solve increas­ing­ly com­plex chal­lenges and to be suc­cess­ful is for its lead­er­ship team to have a strong spir­it of col­lab­o­ra­tion and mutu­al support.

Blume: A good exam­ple here is how we’re elec­tri­fy­ing our cars. At Porsche we decid­ed to go for elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty back in 2015, which was ear­li­er than a lot of our com­peti­tors. That took quite a bit of courage. Today we see that the Tay­can is a big suc­cess. Our courage paid off. And we’re con­tin­u­ing to build on this suc­cess. This year we’re bring­ing out the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion of the Tay­can and the all-elec­tric Macan. Our prod­uct strat­e­gy is focused on being able to deliv­er more than 80 per­cent fully elec­tric vehi­cles in 2030 — depend­ing on cus­tomer demand and the devel­op­ment of elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty in dif­fer­ent parts of the world.

Blume: No. I’m an opti­mist here too. The Ger­man auto­mo­tive indus­try leads the world in many areas. The next five years, how­ev­er, will see big­ger changes than in the past fifty. Our chances of emerg­ing from this trans­for­ma­tion as a win­ner are good. As far as glob­al com­pe­ti­tion goes, we have many aces in our hands: qual­i­fied and moti­vat­ed peo­ple at our com­pa­nies, our dual voca­tion­al study and train­ing sys­tem, renowned uni­ver­si­ties, and world-famous research insti­tutes. The country’s inno­v­a­tive power con­tin­ues unabat­ed. You can see that in the num­ber of patents our com­pa­nies are pro­duc­ing. A pio­neer­ing spir­it has always been key to Germany’s suc­cess, cou­pled with the exten­sive expe­ri­ence and high qual­i­ty of our industries.

Weiblen: I like this pos­i­tive view of the world. Even if some dis­cus­sions sug­gest oth­er­wise, Europe has by no means been over­tak­en by China, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to cars. Sure, the race has become tighter. And the pace has picked up, for rea­sons of China’s size alone. It has more peo­ple, and more grad­u­ates. We in Europe sim­ply have to make bet­ter use of our resources — and of course also try to recruit the world’s most tal­ent­ed peo­ple. As a glob­al con­sul­tan­cy, we find that eas­i­er than other com­pa­nies. But it would help us, too, if Ger­many were more attrac­tive to high­ly qual­i­fied immi­grants. We have more than 30 nation­al­i­ties on our team. I was impressed, Oliv­er, when you spoke out against extrem­ism and for sol­i­dar­i­ty at the demon­stra­tion in Wolfs­burg. It’s impor­tant to take a stand, not just to crit­i­cize. Par­tic­i­pa­tion is what gives life to democ­ra­cy and social cohesion.

Blume: Speak­ing at the rally in Wolfs­burg was very impor­tant to me per­son­al­ly. Man­agers, too, have to active­ly pro­mote cohe­sion in our soci­ety. Any­one look­ing at Ger­many these days will see a coun­try in action. Many peo­ple are going out onto the streets and tak­ing a stand — for democ­ra­cy, sol­i­dar­i­ty, and free­dom. They see the impor­tance of speak­ing up and get­ting involved. They want to join the debate on some­thing very essen­tial and fun­da­men­tal: how we live togeth­er. It’s about our home, our coun­try, our soci­ety. We’re show­ing our col­ors by stand­ing up for democ­ra­cy and free­dom. For diver­si­ty and open­ness. For respect and tol­er­ance. Togeth­er with oth­ers we’re stand­ing for every­thing that has made our coun­try strong over the past decades — and will keep it strong.

Blume: We are firm­ly com­mit­ted to Ger­many as an indus­tri­al base. We’re invest­ing in our sites and secur­ing jobs. It’s essen­tial to draw on our strengths, oper­ate glob­al­ly with a future-ori­ent­ed strat­e­gy, act region­al­ly, and think in terms of oppor­tu­ni­ties. What we need are even bet­ter frame­work con­di­tions for research and indus­try. The trans­for­ma­tion going on right now, espe­cial­ly in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, needs to be pow­ered joint­ly by busi­ness, gov­ern­ment, and soci­ety. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, Ger­many is still too attached to famil­iar struc­tures. With attrac­tive back­ground con­di­tions for jobs, tax­a­tion, and pros­per­i­ty, we can bring our loca­tion back to the fore­front. It’s cru­cial that we con­cen­trate our ener­gies and move quickly.

Weiblen: Let’s take semi­con­duc­tors, for instance, specif­i­cal­ly the com­plex chips installed in cars: from the raw mate­ri­als to the fin­ished prod­uct, we’re talk­ing as many as 1,200 pro­duc­tion steps. Com­po­nents and mate­ri­als can cross up to 70 bor­ders, and some of them go back and forth sev­er­al times between Europe and Asia. These high­ly tech­ni­cal prod­ucts haven’t been made “local­ly” for some time now. No coun­try can do it all on their own. Not even the USA, nor China for that mat­ter. High-per­for­mance chips are glob­al prod­ucts. As such, the thought exper­i­ments about autonomous pro­duc­tion we’ve recent­ly been see­ing in many coun­tries are not real­is­tic. The more suc­cess that com­pa­nies and the econ­o­my in gen­er­al can attain, the more inter­con­nect­ed we are, and yes, the more depen­dent we are on each other.

Blume: Ulti­mate­ly, it’s a mat­ter of iden­ti­fy­ing prospects and pro­vid­ing guid­ance. In Ger­many, right now we have to focus on the right issues. On future-ori­ent­ed mat­ters. We have to make strate­gic deci­sions on what areas of tech­nol­o­gy we want to excel in: semi­con­duc­tors, soft­ware, cars, chem­istry, med­ical tech­nolo­gies, bat­ter­ies. Renew­able ener­gies of course. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is one of the most impor­tant respon­si­bil­i­ties of our time.

Blume: I’m for­tu­nate to head a com­pa­ny that has always placed a pre­mi­um on con­tin­u­ous learn­ing — for our work­force every­where, by the way, not only in Ger­many. Life­long learn­ing means that peo­ple can con­tin­ue to do high­ly qual­i­fied work at an advanced age. We’ve there­fore con­sis­tent­ly invest­ed in improv­ing the work­ing con­di­tions at our pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties, and either elim­i­nat­ing or high­ly automat­ing any haz­ardous, harm­ful, or stren­u­ous activ­i­ties. Our focus is on people.

Weiblen: It’s com­plete­ly nor­mal to see some gen­er­a­tional fric­tion and for ideals to evolve. I, too, had many dis­cus­sions with my par­ents that helped me forge my own approach to work and suc­cess. Aside from that, health has improved over­all. A cen­tu­ry ago, 50-year-old peo­ple were often no longer fit and felt “old.” Today, no 50-year-old would say that. Instead, they feel in the prime of their lives. And that’s a good thing. Longer lifes­pans are one of the results of med­ical and tech­no­log­i­cal progress. That’s anoth­er exam­ple of success.

Weiblen: I total­ly get the fears of the younger gen­er­a­tion. It’s our respon­si­bil­i­ty to leave the world a bet­ter place. Com­bat­ting cli­mate change costs money. As do address­ing demo­graph­ic shifts, main­tain­ing and expand­ing infra­struc­ture, upgrad­ing the mil­i­tary, inte­grat­ing migrants — to list just a few exam­ples. The only way to mas­ter these chal­lenges is by work­ing togeth­er. Each gen­er­a­tion has to do its part. It’s essen­tial that we sub­stan­tial­ly increase our inno­v­a­tive power and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. That’s the only way to fund the invest­ments we need to make. His­to­ry has shown that tech­no­log­i­cal advances always release new ener­gies. We’ve never had so many researchers and devel­op­ers. New ideas arise every day. We need to ensure that our research also leads to mar­ketable prod­ucts. That’s what’s mak­ing me opti­mistic, espe­cial­ly with regard to the future.

Blume: It’s everyone’s job to ensure that the world is a good place for future gen­er­a­tions. At Porsche we take a com­pre­hen­sive view of sus­tain­abil­i­ty — in eco­nom­ic, envi­ron­men­tal, and social terms. For us, eco­nom­ic suc­cess, envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness, and social respon­si­bil­i­ty com­ple­ment each other. The elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of our vehi­cle range reflects this. At Porsche we’re also work­ing to achieve a car­bon-neu­tral value chain for our new cars by 2030. At the Volk­swa­gen Group we’re part­ner­ing with com­pa­nies to devel­op and opti­mize recy­cling process­es for high-volt­age bat­ter­ies, so we can keep using the huge amounts of valu­able sub­stances they contain.

Blume: Intel­li­gent use of tech­nol­o­gy is the best way for­ward — I’m con­vinced of this. Elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty is the future. I’m a big fan. And we take a broad view of cli­mate pro­tec­tion. So we’re going for “e” in two ways: elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty and e‑fuels. Renew­able syn­thet­ic fuels give com­bus­tion engines the poten­tial to be near­ly car­bon-neu­tral. We’re think­ing about exist­ing fleets here that will still have com­bus­tion dri­ves for years. There are around 1.3 bil­lion vehi­cles with com­bus­tion engines on the roads right now and many of them will be around for a long time. Adding e‑fuels to gaso­line can lower car­bon emis­sions. Porsche is a pio­neer in pro­mot­ing this devel­op­ment. At a pilot plant in Chile, we and our part­ners are show­ing how pro­duc­tion can work on an indus­tri­al scale.

Weiblen: That’s more a ques­tion of pri­or­i­ties. We can’t do every­thing, so we have to invest in the right areas. As some­one who does a lot of trav­el­ing, I’d like to see a high-speed Euro­pean rail net­work that con­nects inno­va­tion cen­ters with each other. Or a func­tion­ing hydro­gen infra­struc­ture that reli­ably and sus­tain­ably sup­plies our indus­try with ener­gy. If we invest in the right tech­nolo­gies, we’ll get growth.

Blume: Growth from tech­nolo­gies that coun­ter­act glob­al warm­ing — I’m all on board with that. We want to be in the fore­front here. Porsche stands for a pio­neer­ing spir­it and ath­leti­cism. The heart of Porsche is our prod­ucts, which com­bine our unique her­itage with cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies. In inno­v­a­tive, sus­tain­able, and exclu­sive ways. Every one of our cars is the ful­fill­ment of a customer’s dream.