Stéphane Mallarmé was probably right to say “Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book. Indeed, he was the one who declared with a game of paradox and some regret that “he had read all books” (and so, what could he have possibly done afterwards?), he nevertheless didn’t hide his passion for libraries, for those places filled with a certain magic not populated by books, but by people who love books, who leaf through them curiously, who borrow them, read them and then, from one passion to the next, read another, and then another, and another still…

Mallarmé’s judgement springs to mind as one walks through the doors of the new Pirelli Library, which was inaugurated on Monday, in the large open space of the Headquarters in Bicocca as one looks at the white shelving already filled with almost 3 thousand volumes (the majority of which were purchased by the company, some supplied free of charge by the editors of the “IoLeggoPerché” initiative of which Pireli is the main sponsor, 700 of which provided by the Rsu (the corporate trade union representation) and many gifted by private Pirelli employees). Shelves, naturally, ready to host up to 10 thousand books in just two years’ time. A large room full of books, then.

A corporate library, open to group employees, organised like a library, with a librarian, a loan service, consultation rooms, encyclopaedias and illustrated art books to peruse, borrow and return. Reading as a service. Like a distinguishing element of the “corporate welfare” (it’s a good life, one among books). And as a pleasure. Continuing in the theme of the “French greats”, one can remember how Roland Barthes speaks of the “pleasure of the text”. And how Daniel Pennac, the fun and genial creator of a very popular character such as Benjamin Malaussène (the “scapegoat par excellence” in “The Scapegoat” and “The Fairy Gunmother”) puts the pleasure in the “rulebook” of the “rights of the reader” in his fantasy book, “Reads like a novel”. Besides, Pennac himself writes, in praise of reading: “We human beings build houses because we’re alive but we write books because we’re mortal. We live in groups because we’re sociable but we read because we know we’re alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no one’s place but that no one can replace either”.

Pirelli has three corporate libraries. A record, in the Italian corporate universe.

The first, in Settimo Torinese, the group’s most modern and innovative factory, had been in force for a few years, with approximately 6 thousand volumes in a large bright room “wired” with services and research designed by Renzo Piano. And since late March, it has been connected to the services of the Settimo Municipality, as part of the project entitled “Archimede fuori di sé” (Archimedes beside himself). So Pirelli employees can count on 110 thousand volumes, 220 magazines, 14 newspapers, 4500 films and documentaries on DVD, 4 thousand music CDs and 400 audio books, in short all the wealthy heritage of the Archimede municipal library, which supplements the even wealthier heritage of the Sbam, the “library system of the Turin metropolitan area” (11 million books, which can be tracked and reserved based on the ErasmoNet catalogue). A lot to read, in fact. And easily.

The second and third were inaugurated on Monday. At the HQ in Bicocca. And in the Bollate plant, on the Western outskirts of Milan. The library at the HQ will also be linked up to the Milanese municipal library system (interviews with the people in charge of the Municipal services are already under way).

It is a large, brightly lit, well furnished space. With shelving. And a sitting area with armchairs and sofas for reading. Along with a big table for consultation: an historic piece that was recovered and restored, one of the furnishings designed in the 1950s by Gio Ponti for the “Pirellone”, the “skyscraper” next to the Stazione Centrale which, although no longer a Pirelli location (now belonging to the Region), continues to be among the major much-loved symbols of “industrial Milan”.

The walls left bare of any shelving display reproductions of a famous campaign launched in 1962 by a great photographer, Ugo Mulas, for one of Pirelli’s leading products, the “Cinturato” belted tyre. The tyre is in the foreground. And immediately beside it, there is a well-defined picture of a girl reading. In Italy during the “economic boom”, in Mulas’ acute and well-educated intuition, the book also plays an essential role. In the hands of a woman.

But why corporate libraries? The initiative is part of a project entitled “IoLeggoPerché” (I read because) organised by the Aie, the Association of Editors, with the support of Confindustria’s Gruppo Cultura (Culture Group): to promote corporate libraries (also as corporate engagement) and build a positive relationship with municipal libraries and school libraries, in a virtuous circuit which marks an active process of reading and participating across the local territory. A library as a “public service”. And factories considered to be special places where, even while one works, one is cultured, one produces culture and inhabits it together. Like good books, sometimes, narrate. There are other examples in Italy aside from Pirelli. At Zambon, a cutting-edge pharmaceutical firm, in the plants in Vicenza and Bresso (Milan), just to mention one example. Or in the factory-Mediaeval town of Brunello Cucinelli, in Umbria, a symbolic place for the production of superior quality textiles. At the behest of Confindustria, other initiatives will follow.

Readings to improve production? No. Readings to read. To discover other worlds, other feelings, other dimensions of life. Reading as travel. And adventure. Reading – we repeat – as a pleasure. And the library as the place that makes our workplace more pleasant, welcoming and personal. So, by reading, one improves general culture and the quality of work; this effect will most likely come about naturally.

Books, in any case, open up new worlds. Lives. Thoughts. They help understand, reason, see better and more. They are essential tools, in addition to being enjoyable, for improved comprehension, community, civility and culture. At the end of the day, Mallarmé was right.

A book of just under one hundred pages efficiently sums up good corporate advertising methods and applications

The culture of a company – and therefore its vision of manufacturing and its approach to business – can also be understood from the way in which the company communicates with the outside. In other words, it is based on the messages and on the way these messages are conveyed that one better understands what lies behind a product. Learning about the origin and the spirit of corporate advertising is therefore very important to know more about the company itself. When it is also possible to follow the paths of those who create the advertising, then one is able to delve into a world entirely to be discovered, made up of creativity, skill, imagination, daring and a profound knowledge of humanity which – all things considered – are some of the fundamental ingredients that make for a good entrepreneur and a goodmanager.

Reading “La mia pubblicità” (My advertising), a collection of articles and studies by Emanuele Pirella curated by Vanni Codeluppi, makes up a genuine adventure to dive into. On emerging from reading these near one hundred pages, astounded by what appears to be simple – yet is profoundly difficult – one can communicate well and with imagination, having comprehended the crucial aspect of each product and, as mentioned, of each company behind it.

Pirella has never been fond of teaching and narrating her work method, she is not smug or condescending, but rather a simple and coy person. The texts collected in the book, nevertheless, help better understand how one can achieve a unique advertising message, a striking one, that will make others reflect and most of all remember both the company and the product. The book does not contain lessons, but four distinct parts that integrate one another. In the first part, Pirella analyses the advertising context that surrounded her work, in the second (an interview), Pirella sets certain basic principles at the core of her view of advertising, in the third she narrates (almost as if it were a case study) her most famous and significant advertising campaign, and in the last part Pirella illustrates who her teachers were. She ends the work with a collection of ten pictures of the same number of famous advertising campaigns the author curated.

Beautiful and interesting – also to understand certain aspects of Pirella’s personality -, is the Introduction by Vanni Codeluppi who rightly recalls how passionate Pirella was about René Magritte: “Pirella adored his work and probably saw in him an ideal reference model for what he thought advertising should be about: a form of communication capable of surprising the observer, but also of creating with the latter an extremely close relationship, some narrative devices capable of involving in depth”.  If one looks more closely, it is quite similar to the mechanisms of culture communication. And also of manufacturing.

Reading “La mia pubblicità” is like a breath of fresh air. Pirella is not an entrepreneuse, nor can she claim to be amanager. She is something else. Yet she still has a lot to teach to those who need to plan, organise and run a business. Starting with the role of ideas left to roam freely, of imagination in everything, of the ability to look at reality all the time and not stay behind a desk for too long.

La mia pubblicità (My advertising)

Emanuele Pirella

Franco Angeli, 2016

A work organising and clarifying the importance of human relations within companies has just been published

In a company, men and women count. In an era of digitalisation and dematerialisation, exactly what the shrewdest academics predicted has happened: the human factor, also referred to as social capital, is growing in importance is plays a crucial role in growth and development. This is not a theory but a statement. To help understand how broad the role of social capital is in companies, read the work of Alessandra De Chiara (from the Department of Human and social sciences at the “Orientale “ University of Naples), contained in the book entitled “Implementing Sustainability Strategies in Networks and Clusters” which has just been published.

“Social Capital and Sustainability Strategies” takes into consideration social capital as a resource to implement sustainability strategies in small and medium-sized enterprises. The field observed represents just a part of the manufacturing system, but it applies to it all. The focus is on the human and social role of expansion and network strategies in SMEs. The core reasoning is that it would appear that the weight of social capital is what makes the strategic difference for SMEs, giving a “responsible vision” that allows these players to reinforce their relational resources. In other words, it is the presence and the attention of men and women (with their relationships) which achieve the leap in quality which machinery, automation, digitalisation and new technologies fail to do.

This also and mostly applies to relations which can be set up between different companies (networks), and within individual manufacturing concerns.

“Relations – the author explains -, are therefore vital connectors for the involvement of the stakeholders”. The theory is therefore demonstrated through an examination of the literature available on the concept of social responsibility of companies and it identifies the distinguishing features of the sustainability strategy, while describing business advantages and the ensuing benefits for thestakeholders. Men and women are therefore presumed to be of superior and irreplaceable importance as “capital”.

From a reasoning about human relations and social capital, Alessandra De Chiara moves on to address the role of networks for SMEs and for companies in general. She therefore identifies the need to establish a bond between corporate social capital, manufacturing systems, competitiveness and institutions, with the aim of creating networks of relations and businesses that are sustainable and useful for the local territory.

The writings of Alessandra De Chiara are useful in placing the idea of social capital in a positive and concrete context: this is why it is useful to read.

Social Capital and Sustainability Strategies

Alessandra De Chiara (Department of Human and social sciences at the “Orientale “ University of Naples) in “Implementing Sustainability Strategies in Networks and Clusters”, Springer International Publishing, 2016, pages 25-72.

A research paper published by the Bank of Italy highlights the relationship between cultural upbringing and development opportunities

Training and development are concepts and practices which are intimately linked. This is also true for companies, of whatever type or size. And this is still true today. Especially when considering the differences or rather the similarities which characterise social structures, worker groups and production teams. Indeed, the culture of manufacturing is also built through learning and training, as it is through the social and family background from which an employee originates.

Marta De Philippis and Federico Rossi – respectively from the Bank of Italy and the London School of Economics -, have recently published a research paper which brings clearly into focus (including quantified data) the origins of the school population using the results of internationally standardised tests. This is an important research paper, because it sets out with mathematical precision, as well as from an overall perspective, the basic platform from which companies too can expect to draw on the human resources which are necessary for development and the creation of well-being.

The study, as has been said, looks into the extensive differences between countries in the results of students in internationally standardised tests: its purpose is to measure the importance of cultural-type factors. According to the two researchers, the latter vary not just as between the various schooling systems, but also within each of these, as between the country of origin of each student’s parents. The research paper compares the learning of students whose parents have different origins but who study in the same school, thus allowing them to maintain at a constant level other performance-determining factors, such as the curriculum, the school timetable or the quality of teachers. The sample population is a substantial one: around 40,000 students resident in 40 OECD countries during the years 2002 to 2012.

The results show a clear fact: a high percentage of the ability to achieve good results in the international tests is attributable to the cultural differences transmitted by the family of origin. This is a demonstration of the significance of culture in general but also of the importance of the type of teaching given and of the necessity to continue in a determined fashion the long job of increasing learning everywhere.

Not by levelling out differences, but by providing everyone with equal cognitive tools to allow them to express themselves. Everything, as is only natural, can have a significant effect, including in relation to a company’s culture, and thus upon the ability of different manufacturing systems to follow the path of growth, and of well-being

De Philippis and Rossi are right when they talk about “human capital”.  It is from this that is built an awareness of growth and development of an altogether different type and value.

Famiglie, scuole e differenze di capitale umano tra paesi (Families, schools and the differences in human capital between different countries)

by Marta De Philippis and Federico Rossi

Subjects for discussion, Bank of Italy, , September 2016

Families, schools and the differences in human capital between different countries

A book is out which summarises the lines of a different approach to manufacturing and profit, featuring the “new heroes” who can spring into action

Good enterprises grow from entrepreneurial visions transformed into reality.  Images and dreams which in the end are converted into manufacturing processes, organisations and initiatives. Here is probably the true meaning of what it is to be an entrepreneur. This is actually something quite rare, which often borders on a sort of madness which can also frighten many people and which must nevertheless be “managed” wisely.

Learning about this from the histories of companies – or better still, from those of entrepreneurs themselves -, is beneficial for everyone. This is why it is a good idea to read “Il tempo dei nuovi eroi. Riflessioni per il terzo millennio” (The era of the new heroes. Reflections for the third millennium) by Oscar Di Montigny which has just been published A personal history interwoven with a manager’s visions, culture and operational experience. It is a history which can indeed appear that of someone who “dangerously” brings together management and spirituality in order to extract from them something unexpected.

An expert in marketing, communication and innovation, but also a husband and the father of five children, Oscar di Montigny has committed to several hundred pages a series of reflections which have matured over many years of both personal and professional experience, and from significant meetings with personalities including Tara Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Lech Wałesa, Gorbachëv, and Patch Adams, which have allowed him to distil the principles of what he has defined as the “0.0 Economy”.

What has emerged, however, is not the usual sort of book about economic and managerial analysis, but something completely different. Something which also has parts which can appear challenging, but which is nevertheless well worth reading.

“One day in 1999 – the author starts by writing -, in an unexpected moment of awareness, I realised that I was leaving behind me very little of what I believed I had been up until then. So I decided to search, to observe, to study, and to ask myself questions. It was in that moment that my heart was opened to a new emotion (…).  These are the microscopic pills of awareness which I would like to share with you”.  Visions, then, but with solid features: after a few lines, actually, very soon emerges a concept which will return frequently in the book: that of responsibility.  And then specifically that of being 0.0 and thus belonging to the “0.0 Economy”.  Which, it is specified straight away, “does not necessarily mean being in agreement” but “rather means sharing the requirement for and the usefulness of holding a common vision”.

In this way during the course of the pages of the book concepts and echoes emerge which are very close to that culture of manufacturing and entrepreneurship which renders the social responsibility of a company one of its fundamental values. In this manner, the “0.0 Economy” indeed means doing good and doing it well, but it is also a sustainable economy which expresses our ability to live together, in a relationship with everything else and not simply as an independent entity. An economy based upon creative cultural capital, founded on transparency, gratitude and responsibility.  An economy which is in a certain fashion heroic.  It is for this reason that Di Montigny writes about “new heroes” who can simply be people who are busy creating that “0.0 Economy” which also has the ability to provoke a crisis in the traditional system of manufacturing.

You may not necessarily agree with Di Montigny, but what he writes is worthy of being read, with close attention.

Il tempo dei nuovi eroi. Riflessioni per il terzo millennio (The era of the new heroes. Reflections for the third millennium)

Oscar Di Montigny

Mondadori, 2016

Sustainability, as a basic characteristic of companies, as an everyday feature of the way they live, manufacture, do business, innovate and grow. Sustainability, in fact, as a company culture. As the very condition of competitiveness.  The Chair of Sodalitas, is changing from Diana Braccoto Adriana Spazzoli, a woman of tremendous entrepreneurial abilities who is at the head of Mapei. A similar basic strategy will remain in place for the organisation which was founded in 1995 by Assolombarda and by a group of major companies and managers sensitive to social issues and which is today also driven by other small and medium enterprises and managers as well as by company men and women who increasingly pride themselves on and commit to voluntary work on behalf of the association.

The confirmation of this can be seen in the quality of the winning projects for the “Sodalitas Social Award 2016 (presented at the end of September with a ceremony at the Milan Stock Exchange, during a presentation entitled “Changing the paradigm to create a sustainable future”): youth training, work placements for disabled people, extended use of renewable energies in local organisations, recovery of unsold food items to be recycled to aid centres, protection of the rights of migrants, removal of digital divides, support for the circular economy.

There is in fact a new way of thinking about what a company stands for, which goes well beyond the old type of benevolence and the volunteer-based “social commitment” by “well-intentioned” people. One looks at how the economy has evolved, based on the teachings of the Church but also of the best economic literature dealing with the matter of inequalities as a social and ethical question, naturally, but also as an extremely stubborn hindrance to economic development (we have spoken about it several times in this blog). And one considers the company as an active subject, which should and indeed must make profits only within a competitive context which is “environmentally and socially sustainable”.  A “change of paradigm”, indeed.

“Sustainability must be in the DNA of companies” affirms the new Sodalitas chairwoman Spazzoli. And she insists: “Development and widespread well-being are today objectives which are at risk. We are living through a time of major change but also of uncertainty….  The awareness of the problems we are facing is spreading amongst families and consumers. If sustainability and solidarity do not get included in the DNA of a company, sooner or later it is destined to exit from the market”.

These are important and time-consuming issues, about which fortunately the debate continues. They featured, for example, at the centre of the Congress of Aidaf, the Associazione delle aziende familiari (Association for family businesses) led by an excellent entrepreneuse, Elena Zambon (pharmaceuticals, third generation, a company with strong Italian roots and active internationally, with two sites, in Italy, in Vicenza and in Bresso, on the outskirts of Milan, designed by a major architect, Michele De Lucchi and a fine example of the sort of “beautiful factory”, which is increasingly springing up around Italy, and is therefore open, light, efficient, secure, harmoniously located within its surroundings and able to marry quality of life and of work, environmentally sound, with a positive relationship with the land around it).  The theme for the congress of Taormina, from 29th September to 1st October, was “Family companies of the future, between social integration, social innovation and family cohesion”. All questions linked to sustainability, in fact. With several questions worthy of further investigation. Another example of topicality? The Anima award, from the association of Unindustria entrepreneurs, in Rome, scheduled for 10th October. Here too, the subject is social impact and entrepreneurship, with all the same topics in common.

Responsibility is creating a clear path ahead for itself. With one final point for consideration: the moment may not be far away in which there will no longer be a company balance sheet accompanied by a “social balance sheet”, or a “balance sheet of social responsibility”, but a single balance sheet. Sustainability as the be-all and end-all of competitiveness, indeed.