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The profession of manager

An account of the career of someone who organises and manages production that becomes a management manual

Leading a company, but also changing it and having the courage to do it. Taking care of the (financial) accounts, but also everything that, together with that, really makes for a comprehensive company. The businessman and the manager have a difficult and complex profession, one that needs to be told in order to be properly understood, rather than explained with an abundance of theories. And this is precisely the story that characterises Il manager veste il kilt. Crescita di un leader nella visione della fabbrica perfetta (The manager wears the kilt: growth of a leader in the vision of the perfect factory), written jointly by Lorenzo Romagnoli – long-time manager and currently executive of the GE Vernova group – and Giovanni Barni – journalist and writer – who in just over a hundred pages have really recounted the events of Romagnoli’s life and profession, ultimately writing a kind of “field” management manual.

One observation provides an outline for the underlying theme of the book: big companies (but you could say every company) are complex machines. They are trains that run along their tracks and can’t suddenly steer towards a new destination. But there are cases, situations, events and eras that force companies to change rapidly, to change their skin, their image, their face. These kinds of changes can be attributed to a very specific category of manager. They are people, women and men, with great expertise whose work is often concealed from the spotlight of great communication. They are capable of interpreting the new and overcoming the rigorous constraints of the tasks that organisations and company bureaucracy assign to them.

This book, based on Romagnoli’s experiences, indicates how this aim is achieved, what qualities you need and how much intelligence is required. Readers are therefore accompanied on a twin journey: there’s the true story of Romagnoli’s work and there’s also learning the tools needed to relaunch and change a manufacturing company in the difficult transition between an analogue past and the promises of a digital future. That is to say, exactly the situation of most businesses today.

Readers are therefore guided through learning management techniques by degrees: from the meaning of investment as a factor for transforming the environment, we move to the value of training as a tool for cultural change even before changes in production. In the last chapter, the manager’s strategic plan is fleshed out completely into a proposal to build an ideal production facility where technology blends with individuals and the local community is completely integrated with its factory. It’s the dream of the perfect factory.

Romagnoli and Barni have written an original book, which effectively combines the features of a story with those of a manual. It should be read and annotated, and its content also verified in other business contexts.

Il manager veste il kilt. Crescita di un leader nella visione della fabbrica perfetta

Lorenzo Romagnoli, Giovanni Barni

Franco Angeli, 2024

An account of the career of someone who organises and manages production that becomes a management manual

Leading a company, but also changing it and having the courage to do it. Taking care of the (financial) accounts, but also everything that, together with that, really makes for a comprehensive company. The businessman and the manager have a difficult and complex profession, one that needs to be told in order to be properly understood, rather than explained with an abundance of theories. And this is precisely the story that characterises Il manager veste il kilt. Crescita di un leader nella visione della fabbrica perfetta (The manager wears the kilt: growth of a leader in the vision of the perfect factory), written jointly by Lorenzo Romagnoli – long-time manager and currently executive of the GE Vernova group – and Giovanni Barni – journalist and writer – who in just over a hundred pages have really recounted the events of Romagnoli’s life and profession, ultimately writing a kind of “field” management manual.

One observation provides an outline for the underlying theme of the book: big companies (but you could say every company) are complex machines. They are trains that run along their tracks and can’t suddenly steer towards a new destination. But there are cases, situations, events and eras that force companies to change rapidly, to change their skin, their image, their face. These kinds of changes can be attributed to a very specific category of manager. They are people, women and men, with great expertise whose work is often concealed from the spotlight of great communication. They are capable of interpreting the new and overcoming the rigorous constraints of the tasks that organisations and company bureaucracy assign to them.

This book, based on Romagnoli’s experiences, indicates how this aim is achieved, what qualities you need and how much intelligence is required. Readers are therefore accompanied on a twin journey: there’s the true story of Romagnoli’s work and there’s also learning the tools needed to relaunch and change a manufacturing company in the difficult transition between an analogue past and the promises of a digital future. That is to say, exactly the situation of most businesses today.

Readers are therefore guided through learning management techniques by degrees: from the meaning of investment as a factor for transforming the environment, we move to the value of training as a tool for cultural change even before changes in production. In the last chapter, the manager’s strategic plan is fleshed out completely into a proposal to build an ideal production facility where technology blends with individuals and the local community is completely integrated with its factory. It’s the dream of the perfect factory.

Romagnoli and Barni have written an original book, which effectively combines the features of a story with those of a manual. It should be read and annotated, and its content also verified in other business contexts.

Il manager veste il kilt. Crescita di un leader nella visione della fabbrica perfetta

Lorenzo Romagnoli, Giovanni Barni

Franco Angeli, 2024