The balancing act between production and profit needs and the effective organisation of production were examined in a recently published thesis.

People will be more productive if they work in an organisation designed and built around their wellbeing.  This does not come about naturally; it is something which can only be achieved after a long, and sometimes difficult, process. Not everyone will achieve it. Andrea Iacobelli studied the various routes that can be taken, and the conditions one may find on getting there. In his thesis, “Nuove prospettive di studio sul benessere organizzativo: il caso di un’azienda

metalmeccanica” [new approaches to the study of organisational wellbeing: case study of an engineering firm], Iacobelli explores the much-discussed area of organisational wellness, initially from a theoretical point of view then in practical terms. In other words, the objective of his research was to analyse the factors and variables which shape the creation and development of the much-hyped organisational wellness in the workplace, factories in particular.

Iacobelli begins by examining current theory on the importance of creating a positive organisational climate and evolved organisational culture in an organisation. Both are pillars of organisational wellness.  Iacobelli doesn’t stop at conventional theory, though, and goes on to focus chiefly on work engagement, which is defined as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption in the tasks at hand.  In other words, it is the basis of effective labour and, therefore, of an effective and productive organisational culture.

The author then turns his attention to the cognitive aspects at play in work engagement. More specifically, he focuses on differences in motivation between individuals, who can be split into two groups: locomotors and assessors, based on their motivation to get involved in the job.  Iacobelli places one final tool in the theoretical toolbox, discussing the Interpersonal Power / Interactional Model (IPIM) which is used to analyse the power tactics of superiors and employee motivation to comply with requests made of them.  All are then brought to bear to understand the organisational and productive context of an engineering firm in Lucchesia.

The conclusion which emerges is the importance of the almost imperceptible conflation of production needs with the fine balance of interests between profit targets and goals connected to the human and social development of the people working in the factory, to produce the kind of shrewd production culture underpinning the success of a good business.

Nuovo prospettive di studio sul benessere organizzativo: il caso di un’azienda  metalmeccanica [new approaches to the study of organisational wellness: case study of an engineering firm]

Andrea Iacobelli

Thesis, University of Pisa, Business communication and human resource policy course, 2017

A book that has just been published analyses the fundamental element that sums up the image and the culture of businesses from an original perspective

The image of a business reflects its culture and its history. This is basically the gist of the essence of the entrepreneur and of his managers , but also of all those who work for him. At least, that’s how it should be. And it is in turn what is summed up in the company brand. A precious element (also in strictly financial terms), the brand should be understood and explained in order subsequently to understand the company behind it. Hence from the brand  one can understand a lot about the nature of the company that created it and therefore its culture.

Alberto De Martini – among the most famous advertisers in Italy -, interprets the concept of brand  in an original way, contributing to investigating its role within manufacturing and its many meanings.

In “Brand narrative strategy. Il segreto dell’onda” (Brand narrative strategy. The secret of the wave), De Martini has written a book that should be read with one’s mind cleared of all preconceptions. There is one idea at the heart of the book: the brand is a great ideological narration that is not dissimilar to Marxism or liberal thought. Like these, it is based on a system of values, a critical vision of reality, an ambition to change it in a direction that will improve the life of all people or part of these. When built correctly, it thus reflects the mind of the entrepreneur and of those who gave rise to the company alongside him. It is from the brand  that all the rest naturally follows on from: the mother of all stories, the great story which every single advert, poster and event tells a part of (which is why the volume is entitled Brand narrative strategy). De Martini has therefore identified what the common narrative structure is to all types of brand that have gone on to be successful. Here the reasoning starts with a series of examples such as Barilla, Nike but most of all Facebook and Apple as well as IBM, Colussi, Red Bull, Toyota. The objective of this analysis is to cast the limelight on a characteristic wave-like structure comprising five groups of elements: values and legends, empathy, change, tools, processes.

Nevertheless, what counts is the highly concentrated analysis of the brand  which reflects a much more genuine image compared to the ideologies with which it can be compared. It is on the brand, emphasises De Martini at the end of his work, that companies “rely”. “And ‘relying’ – in this case – is not a trivial verb. Because it is on the narrative strategies of brands that entire companies rely these days and, when these companies are the size of Apple, Toyota, Barclays or L’Oréal, large communities the size of regions of the world, with their live fabric, comprising millions of people among employees, suppliers, tradesmen, carriers, shareholders, and all their respective families”. What De Martini has written is in some ways hard and fast, and thus clear and true.

Brand narrative strategy. Il segreto dell’onda (The secret of the wave)

Alberto De Martini

Franco Angeli, 2017

A substantial research study initiated by the Bank of Italy analyses the concept of competition, its implications over time and its relationship with the culture and growth of companies

Companies grow and their culture evolves if both of these – the company and its culture – are subjected to stimuli and demands which make their daily existences a fact of life. It is a matter of intellectual vivacity and of the need to survive and to be a winner in their markets. This is exactly the opposite of the repetitive and monotonous management, which is the antechamber of bankruptcy. Within economic systems, one of the principal factors which have played a key role in this respect is undoubtedly that of competition. A positive one when it is loyal and transparent, but negative when it is disloyal and tainted by other external influences. Understanding the relationships between competition and company growth is important. Including from a historical perspective. Indeed, the company culture and the management techniques of today benefit from this understanding.

It is therefore a good idea to read “Concorrenza, mercato e crescita in Italia: il lungo periodo” (“Competition, the market and growth in Italy: the long timeframe”), the research study edited by Alfredo Gigliobianco and Gianni Toniolo and published by the Bank of Italy.

The investigation seeks to answer a series of questions. For example, what does history teach us about the connection between competition and growth?  And what was the role of competition in defining the characteristics of the Italian economy?  And what are the implications for the current situation?

And when you start reading you quickly discover something: it was only during recent decades that competition was truly taken into account as a key factor for company innovation and growth. Once upon a time competition was a threat and that was all. Gigliobianco and Toniolo set out a series of arguments around the concept of competition which analyse a large number of its aspects. Starting with its cultural aspects and moving on to its legal ones then ending with its more strictly economic functions. They are all then brought together to be examined from different standpoints.  There is, for example, an in-depth analysis of the implications of economic policy and thus of the inheritance of the pre-war imposition of well-ordered markets and production facilities. Whereas in another part of the study they sift through the attitudes of manufacturing industry when it was faced with the need to open up to international markets and to imports. Other contributions, on the other hand, remind us that in reality the markets of today are not actually perfectly competitive and how therefore the ideal of a perfect market is still a long way from being achievable. Yet further ones venture into the delicate areas of oligopolies and monopolies.

More generally, the research initiated by the Bank of Italy seeks to measure the competitive deficit of the Country, to determine the historic reasons for this, and to shine a light upon the consequences. The result is a very substantial book (nearly 600 pages), and one which is not always easy to read or in a logical sequence. However, these are important pages for those who wish to understand more about how a corporate culture originates and what is meant by the loyal sort of competition of which today we feel much in need.

Concorrenza, mercato e crescita in Italia: il lungo periodo (Competition, the market and growth in Italy: the long timeframe)

Alfredo Gigliobianco and Gianni Toniolo (editors)

Collezione storica della Banca d’Italia (Historical collection of the Bank of Italy), Marsilio, 2017

What a pity that Italian managers and entrepreneurs read so little, too little.  Four in ten, on average, never touch a book (the statistic is from the AIE, the Publishing Association, according to which 39% of executives, managers and professionals in the twelve months preceding the date of a survey, presented in October 2015, had never picked up a book, except for technical texts). What a pity, for the quality but also for the intensity of our economic growth: in these times of “know-how economics” and of quality manufacturing, it is precisely the conditions of a sophisticated “know-how” and “knowledge of how to do it” that form the essential basis for competitiveness. Especially during this controversial period in which the traditional maps of investments and exchanges, drafted under the sign of positive globalisation, have been ravaged by the assertion of neo-nationalisms, sovereignties, protectionisms, choices of walls and tolls, subcultures of fear, exclusions and closures.  Everything which is the opposite of the good liberal cultures of the marketplace. “The retreat of the global company”, was the heading a few weeks ago in “The Economist” (28th January), pointing out that “the biggest business idea of the past three decades is in a deep trouble”. These are times of crisis, then, accentuated by Brexit and by the pronouncements of the new President of the USA Donald Trump.

It is a little hasty, it is true, to talk about the death of globalisation. Certainly, politics and economics need a radical re-think. As do the relationships between different countries and populations, which need to be interpreted using updated criteria, not least in order to govern them better. What we need, however, are new geographical maps. And new geographers.

What sort of new? Geographers who are good at de-crypting and describing the conditions of a changing and contradictive world (digital and big data, cloud computing and science, these key features of the hi tech economy, are open phenomena, and do not tolerate national boundaries). But also people who are aware that there is no future which does not have roots in the past. There can be no conscience of an identity in movement, indeed no history, without a critical memory (Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Scritti corsari”, 1975: worth re-reading).

Geographers, then, who are sensitive to the perspective of transformations. And to teachers. The recent loss of three great men of culture of the Twentieth Century is a good reason to look at or pick up their works again, and to re-learn the lessons they taught us.

That of Zygmunt Bauman, for example, who died on 9th January last and who was remembered too a few days ago by Pope Francis as he was debating with the university students of “Roma Tre” (Corriere della Sera newspaper, 18th February): to counter the risks of an aggravation of the instability and of the limits of a “liquid society” which disbands frontiers, references, and social relationships, the Pope insists on hard work and solidarity, in order to oppose “an economy too which has itself become liquid, and without any consistency”. Hard work means security, dignity, a future. And this is precisely the challenge which must be sustained. He also emphasised the need for “a dialogue”, a meeting between cultures, a chain of solidarity between individuals. These are all central themes, in fact, in Bauman’s research. Something solid, insists the Pope, in the face of “the violence of anonymous and liquid societies” and of the risks of the arrival of “a society of the dead neighbour”. A greater effort is needed, still, “to cut the noise down, to talk less, and to listen more”.

The second lesson to be remembered is that of Predrag Matvejevic, who died in his native Zagreb on 2nd February. An exemplary geographer and historian, he was a true teacher (he taught at Rome University and at the Sorbonne in Paris). He is the author of an extraordinary “Mediterranean Breviary”, one of the most important works of the whole of the Twentieth century, which describes, in a “poetical essay” or “a poem in prose” or “a romance about places” (three of the many definitions given by the critics), with the documentary precision of the great historians such as Fernand Braudel and the narrative abilities of the best writers, a Mediterranean which is steeped in communal myths and rites (the olive, the vine, bread), full of journeys and adventures (the sea of the Odyssey), of commercial exchanges and of conflicts.  This is a dramatic and poetical Mediterranean. Where, despite everything, something held firm and still holds firm today: an aptitude for dialogue, even during the most difficult times. A Mediterranean in which were born Europe, democracy, and the finest concept of politics.

Here is the third lesson. About the essentiality of politics, of a good sort of politics. “Politics is the only way to understand other people and to love them”, argued Jannis Kounellis, who died on 16th February in Rome (his funeral was yesterday). Kounellis was a remarkable artist, not a political figure. Originally from Greece, and Italian by adoption, he grew up during the dynamically creative years of the Fifties and Sixties (the first exhibition which witnessed the birth of the “arte povera” of which he was an exponent, alongside Pistoletto, Penone, the Merz family, Fabro, Mondino, etc., was held in 1967). He was international by inspiration and by vocation. He saw art as an area full of strong signs of research and innovation, drama and confrontation, and as an instrument for “people being able to breathe together”. Art which was a long way from being separate from “the contexts”. Art and politics.

So the new geographers must remember him too. So that they can draft their original maps. Perhaps on a piece of cloth from an unstitched sack, on a slab of steel stained with rust, or on a course coal-stained wall. Just like Kounellis, in fact.

The mechanical industry is changing its name. To meccatronics. Precision mechanics entrusted to production robots linked up in a network of digital relations. An Italy which is therefore dynamic, competitive, in a good position on the international markets (nevertheless an open challenge, even in this season of walls, neo-nationalism and vulgar protectionism).

But there is also another face, which is radically different, the face of the economic and social Italy. The face of the rise in vouchers , precariousness that is affecting the majority of youths, the rise in occupational deaths (there is a close and painful connection between accidents and precariousness).

In newspaper and website headlines, on the same days, the two faces of innovation and backwardness are in contrast and even partly overlap. “Industry, information technology and robotics, even with innovative trade union agreements, such as the new contract for the engineering industry, focusing on training and corporate welfare. And ‘karstic flooding’ with trades that are sinking quickly, freelancers with a VAT registration number with low incomes concealing an actual employment relationship, vouchers”, sums up Aldo Bonomi, a sociologist who is careful to follow “the tracks and subjects” in the “microcosms” of social transformations. All this has a strong geographical connotation, between North and South. Indeed, in the South where what is commonly referred to as the “Third society” recorded by the Hume Foundation (IlSole24Ore, 12th February) and comprises those who are “left out” and in other words unemployed, black-market workers and inactive people who do not see any chance of employment touches 48.5% of the workforce, compared to a national average of 30% (which is still an alarming figure, on the rise in recent years and well above the rate in Germany and France: “A negative wave that could lead to new social tremors”, according to Luca Ricolfi, statistical economist).

North is in fact meccatronics (in the South, especially in Puglia, there are a few isolated islands, but no interlinked production fabric). And it is “Industry 4.0”, the innovative dimension of manufacturing which, already growing in the USA and Germany, is searching for its particular paradigm in Italy, suitable for a set of smaller and medium-sized companies rather than medium-to-large ones, in districts and networks, and articulated supply chains across territories with a more robust industrial vocation but also capable of gaining ground on an international scale. The Government, with the choices made by the Ministry for Economic Development to provide fiscal and financial support to those who invest in technology and machinery as well as in research & development, is taking steps to lend a hand.

This is frequently discussed, among entrepreneurs, at the European heart of quality manufacturing, in “greater Milan” a hybrid of industry and hi tech corporate services, in Piedmont where meccatronics is a distinguishing feature of post-Fiat automotive industry, in the dynamic province of Brescia and Bergamo and in the North East and in Emilia, where precision mechanics and “machinery to make machinery” are developing. Despite everything, this industry is growing. It can be compared with the stronger European industrial areas, such as Bayern and Baden-Württemberg, Rhone Alpes and the dynamic Catalonia. Manufacturing already currently has an incidence on the GDP similar to the German average, in excess of 20% (so already beyond the targets that the EU asks to be achieved by 2020).

“New capitalisms in Lombardy and Veneto”, as efficiently summed up by Bonomi (IlSole24Ore, 12th February), nevertheless accounting for the force of the “Milan centre of gravity”, the smart city capable of protagonism and plans (Assolombarda testifies to this) and the uncertainties in the North East, dynamic and with a robust “entrepreneurial social capital” yet still devoid of a vision, of a common project. To be built by companies and territories, redesigning new development opportunities.

What about the rest of Italy? It trudges on. Its industry is still too tied to the domestic market (for years substantially reducing consumption levels). It is small. Innovative and competitive to a small extent. Familialism. Closed off.

The effect of this dualism, amid innovation and conservation, corporate spirit and welfarism, partially North and South, is reflected on the GDP growth indexes: laboured, below the EU average. The great long stagnation.

Statistics aside, anyone travelling in the large complex Italian province will still detect traces of dynamism. It is clearly visible in the areas of Lombardy, Emilia and the Veneto where companies are undergoing changes, where the social aspect plays the leading role (also with representative organisations) in an albeit difficult economic and social growth. A dynamism that it would a serious mistake to thwart and disperse.

The challenge is all here: giving business trust. And moving, towards companies and the market, savings, in forms of investment. A political challenge (a horizon of sense and security, beyond the albeit essential stimuli and supports for Industry 4.0). And a cultural one. Public debate, in addition to discussions about early elections or not, and internal duals within the centre-left and the centre-right, should finally take it on.

Research written by several hands sheds some light on the role of differences in the organisation of production and company networks

There is no doubt about it: a workplace and production organisation that fosters the exchange of experiences and ideas is what is necessary for a company to grow. Diversity and imagination at the workbench. Which also means greater flexibility, the ability to react more efficiently to change, speed and readiness. While these are some of the features of a strong company, one needs to look more closely at the organisational box to understand more about the concern.

This is what, from a certain perspective, John W. Upson (from the Richards College of Business, University of West Georgia, USA), Naga Lakshmi Damaraju (from the  Indian School of Business, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana, India) have done, together with Jonathan R. Andersonn (of the Richards College of Business, University of West Georgia, USA), and Jay B. Barney (David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah).

In the article which was published a few weeks ago in the European Management Journal, these researchers start off with a premise: these days diversity within the strategic company networks is looked upon keenly and presented as a source of ideas and opportunities. Yet networks can always get tangled if they are not managed properly; and diversity can create chaos, also taking into account that there may be different degrees and types of diversity itself.

Based on the literature available and on the indications of cognitive psychology, the authors of “Strategic networks of discovery and creation entrepreneurs” explain that in actual fact the level of diversity in strategic company networks varies according to the nature of the entrepreneurial opportunities, on the context and on the level of competition. Thus different corporate cultures are outlined, each worthy of being understood and investigated.

The authors then identify two possible cases. The first is indicated as the “context of discovery” whereby the entrepreneurs tend to use the networks of links with individuals who are relatively similar to themselves. In other words, we discover what in actual fact already exists. The second possible case is indicated as the “context of creation”, where network links with people who are relatively different from the entrepreneur tend to be used. This is where diversity plays a more important role. With all the stresses and problems which the search for what is actually new can entail.

Then everything changes again – it is underlined – according to the “material” and to the “sector” in which the company does business.

“Strategic networks of discovery and creation entrepreneurs” is a good read better to understand the subtle links between corporate organisation, its components and the end results.

Strategic networks of discovery and creation entrepreneurs

John W. Upson, Naga Lakshmi Damaraju,  Jonathan R. Andersonn, Jay B. Barney

European Management Journal, online 30 January 2017

A new biography of Adriano Olivetti has just been published, exploring the training and development of his original concept of the factory and the community

It is important to understand how ideas are born and then how they grow and develop, through to outlining their concluding path. This approach also applies to companies and to their leaders. When doing business also means creating culture, then the history of ideas merges with leading human and cultural adventures. This is the case of Adriano Olivetti and Olivetti. A story that has been told a thousand times, yet one which can always be told again. A story that each time suggests new aspects to recount, and which still has a lot to teach to those who want to learn.

This issue – seen from a particular perspective – was addressed by Marco Maffioletti who wrote “L’impresa ideale tra fabbrica e comunità. Una biografia intellettuale di Adriano Olivetti”. (The ideal company between factory and community. An intellectual biography of Adriano Olivetti) This is a good book that narrates the corporate and cultural life of Adriano Olivetti based on what has already been published and on an examination of books and papers owned by Adriano himself.

The text is organised simply, a scan in an almost elementary few basic steps of the affair: how an idea is born, how to develop an idea, how to implement an idea, how an idea ends. However, the focus almost entirely lies on Adriano’s youngest years, those of his training first and then the formation of the idea at the heart of what he designed and subsequently developed. The book thus recounts his family and his initial views of the world, the outline of a company that not only produces objects but also culture, the ties to the local territory, the birth of a particular conception of relations between the factory and the social system, the contrasts with a society (in the early 1920s and then the Thirties and Forties) that was initially difficult and unfavourable and subsequently (after WWII) one that was difficult to understand and far-away. The Community Movement is outlined.

The more than four hundred pages of the book are a smooth read, even though they tackle complicated moments in the life of a significant company and of a complex man. The effort in analysing and summarising made by Maffioletti leaves a lot of space open to investigation and learning, which is in fact why it should be read through to the end.

L’impresa ideale tra fabbrica e comunità. Una biografia intellettuale di Adriano Olivetti (The ideal company between factory and community. An intellectual biography of Adriano Olivetti)

Marco Maffioletti

Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, Edizioni di Comunità, 2016

“Leopoldo Pirelli was a reserved man, full of charm, with a profound sense of duty … a work ethic… the product of an education that made him feel responsible because he had inherited a role and he had to give something back in exchange for what fate had gifted him”, states Marco Tronchetti Provera, vice-chairman and CEO of Pirelli. “He was a gentleman. He was passionate about politics, a person who sought out the good of the Country among the most humble classes and among the most privileged ones”, recalls Michele Salvati, economist and political science expert. “He was an entrepreneur who had a lot of respect for his peers, whether institutional, political or within the trade unions”, according to Sergio Cofferati, former leader of the Cgil. “Protestant in culture, of great moral intransigence”, in the summary of Piero Bassetti, a leading figure in Milanese politics and entrepreneurship.

These are four opinions which are presented in the documentary entitled “Leopoldo Pirelli – Impegno industriale e cultura civile” (Leopoldo Pirelli – Industrial engagement and civil culture) produced by the Pirelli Foundation and created by 3D Produzioni for Memomi, which was broadcast on Monday 30th January on Sky Arte HD, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the death of one of the leading Italian entrepreneurs. Memoirs, documents (the majority of which were taken from the Pirelli Historic Archive), testimonies and interviews: among others, in addition to those mentioned above, Rosellina Archinto, Alberto Pirelli, Alberto Brambilla, Gianni Cervetti, Valerio Castronovo, Furio Colombo, Vittorio Gregotti, Claudia Ferrario, etc. All of whom are tied together by an awareness: in Leopoldo Pirelli they can find the original combination of entrepreneurial responsibility and human attention to people. Economics. Culture. Ethics. As emerges clearly from the documentary’s opening sentence: “I believe that the entrepreneur should not have to boast merits which are often not individual but rather collective. If I had to attribute a merit to myself, I would choose that of remaining calm and collected at the helm at times when the ship was in difficult waters, when the hull seemed to be about to capsize. Yet I was far from alone in sailing the ship away from stormy waters: while I remained at the helm, others hoisted the sails and we took to the waters again all together”. These are the words of Leopoldo Pirelli, taken from “Le dieci regole del buon imprenditore” (The ten rules for a good entrepreneur). The reader’s voice belongs to Toni Servillo. The pictures, a storm at sea which gradually settles and calms. Knowing how to sail, even in difficult times. At the helm of a multi-national enterprise. And in life.

Indeed, it is a value to create a company and make it thrive. Wealth, work, innovation, development. But also growth and the economic and social transformation of entire communities. As told by the documentary. And as testified by all the experience of a man who positively marked Italian economic history in the second half of the Twentieth Century: the happy times of the economic boom and the critical times of the oil crises in 1973 and 1979, the ”hot autumn” of heavy trade union conflict and the “years of lead” of terrorism, the drafting of the “Pirelli Report” for the reform of Confindustria and the pursuit of improved industrial relations with the “decretone” (literally big decree) (40-hour work week instead of 46, part-time for women, corporate welfare, etc.: too many novelties, for a portion of the trade union which prefers more accentuated conflicts), technological innovations and international alliances, corporate balance sheets, the architecture of the Pirelli Tower and the transformation process of the Bicocca, the creative comparison with culture (Eco, Munari and Sinisgalli, Ungaretti and Montale, Moravia and Guttuso write in Pirelli Magazine), in the debate on ideas and in communications. A cutting-edge Pirelli.

“A gentleman entrepreneur” is what Italian newspapers had named him on 24 January 2007, capturing fully, in memoriam, the human and professional distinguishing features of Leopoldo Pirelli. “The serious Italian”, as written a few years earlier, in September 1990, in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, recognising his qualities, just as Pirelli was preparing to acquire the German tyre group Continental. That acquisition never went through. In public opinion, nevertheless, the positive view of the person at the helm of Pirelli remained widespread.

There is a great ethic of responsibility, in the history of the men who, in almost one and a half century of history, have built Pirelli, from its founder Giovanni Battista to his sons Alberto and Piero, from Leopoldo Pirelli, the third generation, to the shareholders and managers of today. Leopoldo himself bore an exemplary testimony to this. An entrepreneur who was a good interpreter of the open soul of the Milanese bourgeoisie, innovative, cultured, modern and international, which still bears the distinguishing traits of a European metropolis to this day. Also “a moral man”, to use another relevant definition.

As confirmed by those “Dieci regole del buon imprenditore”, a summary of the experience gained as the leader of the group (read in public in autumn 1986, during a ceremony of the Board of Engineers of Milan). Starting with the conviction that “free private enterprise is an important pillar of a free system and an irreplaceable means of social progress”. Insisting on enhancing the value and training of people, on the importance of transparency and honesty, on the strength of dialogue between company and trade union, on the “duty” to “try to end the year with good balance sheets”. And underlining the reforming role of the entrepreneur: “Our authoritativeness, I would say our legitimacy in the public eye are in direct relation with the role we play in contributing to overcoming social and economic imbalances in the country we operate in: companies are increasingly becoming a place of synthesis between the tendency to achieve the utmost economic and technical progress and the human tendency to achieve the best working and living conditions”. Intense words. Which are still highly topical today.

A recently published book combines good corporate management with the ability to improvise music; this leads to a new and fascinating method for the organisation of production

Efficiently managing a company may also mean improvising. Momentary skill, the ability to grasp an opportunity, instant and instinctive calculations are part of the baggage – also cultural -, of a good entrepreneur and manager. Which does not mean abandoning rationality, but rather making it richer thanks to other ingredients of human activity. So the task of managing a company closely resembles that of other fields of activity, such as music and in particular jazz. Corporate culture all the same, but cultured from an unusual perspective.
It is around these ideas that Frank J. Barrett (economist and management) expert focused in his “Disordine armonico. Leadership e jazz” (Harmonic mess. Leadership and jazz). A booklet of just under two hundred pages, which should be read carefully with a mind that has been rid of preconceived ideas.
The questions it begins with are simple. What can Duke Ellington and Miles Davis teach us about leadership? Is there an efficient way to tackle complexities in organisational contexts which are constantly changing? The answer is more or less given above. You need to know how to improvise. Inventing new answers, taking calculated risks without a predetermined plan or a safety network that guarantees specific results, negotiating as you go without stopping in the event of a mistake to avoid suffocating ideas: in short, saying “yes” to chaos, accepting the mess that the current world of labour is, increasingly changing and tormented, yet also – indeed owing to this – enormously innovative and fertile. The parallelism (which also gives the book its name) is in fact with the technique used in jazz. Because, this is Barrett’s idea, this is exactly what the greatest jazz players do. Barrett thus demonstrates how improvising, a distinguishing feature of the “jazz mentality”, and the skills that accompany it, are now essential for efficient corporate management.
The text is a smooth read through the fascinating tale of the intuitions and innovations of the greatest jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, but also the direct experience as a musician of Barrett himself. Mess (often apparent) and the ability to unlearn are two concepts with which the book starts, to then continue with an examination of the resources which can be obtained from mistakes that have been made and also from the simplicity of the organisation as well as from the ability to be together, swap ideas, be gregarious at times and soloists at others. The book therefore presents a kind of new model of leadership and collaboration in organisations. All with just one secret: knowing how to master the art of unlearning, performing and at the same time experimenting, alternating solo acts with mutual support. There are beautiful double-sided presentations of Paolo Fresu (jazz musician) and Severino Salvemini (economist and corporate organisation expert).
Barrett’s book is pure oxygen for managers and entrepreneurs in search of fresh air for their businesses.

Disordine armonico. Leadership e jazz (Harmonic mess. Leadership and jazz).
Frank J. Barrett
EGEA, 2017

Similarities and differences between various approaches on the part of companies in the USA, Canada and Mexico bring to the light the obstacles to overcome as well as the shared work spaces

The view which companies have of the external environment changes according to multiple factors and conditions. It is a question of men and women, of the environment and cultural climate, of stresses and social conditioning.

Comparing corporate systems that are close yet different helps better to understand not only the different manufacturing and commercial strategies but also the approach towards the outside of the factory which now goes by the name of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This is an important operation, which was carried out for North America by Karen Becker-Olsen and Francisco Guzmán and which provides a good snapshot of the situation of companies in Mexico, USA and Canada in terms of corporate social responsibility. This is an even more important photograph today, considering the recent political developments.

The historic base presumed by the research is the creation of the NAFTA area, in other words the free trade between these three countries. An agreement which – as the two authors explain -, was obviously studied in an in-depth manner in strictly economic terms, but to a much lesser extent when it comes to CSR. Indeed, the corporate social responsibility strategies implemented in different ways by the companies in the three countries, as their communication and cross-border exchange programmes, are elements which have been given little consideration to date.

The work by Becker-Olsen and Guzmán, therefore, starts with a theoretical basis and proceeds with an analysis of the historical development of the various CSR approaches to the present day. Specifically, the situation of companies in the USA and Canada is compared with that of Mexico. Hence emerge not only the peculiar characteristics of each type of company, but also the possible contacts which there are in any case and the spaces within which work can be done to achieve improved integration concerning the entire NAFTA area.

Becker-Olsen and Guzmán’s work is a useful read to understand about multiple corporate cultures that are not merely apparently far removed from our own.

Corporate Social Responsibility Communication in North America: The Past, Present and Future

Karen Becker-Olsen 

Francisco Guzmán

Handbook of Integrated CSR Communication, Part of the series CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance pp 293-315,  30 December 2016