Otmar Szafnauer has been on a wild ride. Born in Semlac, a small village in Romania, he immigrated with his family to Detroit, Michigan as a young boy. Szafnauer received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Wayne State University and a master’s degree in business and finance from the University of Detroit.
He joined the Ford Motor Company and was appointed program manager for Ford in the United States. While he was working at Ford, Szafnauer had larger ambitions and attended the Jim Russell Car Racing School. The engineer turned race car driver.
After Ford, Szafnauer became the operations director at British American Racing in Formula 1 (F1), hired by Honda. He then rose to vice-president of Honda racing developments and became a member of the management board of the Honda F1 team. Szafnauer later joined Force India. He was, up until very recently, the CEO and team principal of the Aston Martin F1 Team.
In an in-depth conversation, Szafnauer shared his management philosophy. As someone who wasn’t familiar with F1 racing, I mistakenly believed he would be a brash, tough-talking, take-no-prisoners type of guy. I was terribly wrong in my naive presumptions. Szafnauer comes across as a humble, genuine guy. The nice uncle who you turn to for life advice, with the knowledge that he won’t judge you.
F1 is the highest level of racing around the world. It’s a multibillion-dollar enterprise. The stakes are huge. It’s one of the few sports where the participants run the risk of permanent damage or death. There is little room for error when your team prepares the driver to go 200 mph against the best competitors in the world.
Rising through the ranks of a highly competitive industry that is constantly under the lens of the media and fans is not easy. Along the way, Szafnauer learned how to become a successful leader and manager. Working for teams that didn’t have the funds and the large numbers of employees as rivals, Szafnauer needed to become more thoughtful and creative to empower, inject positivity and motivate his people to win against larger, highly funded competitors.
Here are some of the highlights of Szafnauer’s mixture of Zen, Stoic and Yoda management and leadership style:
Creating Camaraderie
At an early age in his career, he would walk around the factory floor and chat with the mechanics. As a former engineer and racer, he had credibility with the workers. He’d inquire about how they’re doing. Chit-chat about their family and kids, ask about the latest cricket match (yes, he’s based in the U.K.) and how their children are doing in school.
The purpose was to get to know the team, and for them to know about him. It was a way to show that whether the person was a famous driver, paid millions of dollars, or a young mechanic, everyone was important and mission-critical to building a successful winning team. One of the first steps is to create a sense of camaraderie and esprit de corps. This is especially important when your business is smaller and less financed than your bigger rivals. There is the need to “punch up against your weight class.”
Szafnauer had to deal with the organization’s bankruptcy proceedings and turmoil with a couple of top investors. Without focus, these issues could cripple a company. He used adversity to unite everyone together, as scrappy underdogs taking on everyone else.
Psychological Safety
Szafnauer is a proponent of psychological safety. This concept means that a person can do something, fail and won’t be chastised. Mistakes happen, and it doesn’t help to compound the problem by ruining a worker’s self-esteem and confidence. It’s important, though, to learn from the mistake and try hard to not let the same thing happen again. In the corporate world, a mistake could cause the loss of a client. In the racing community, a mistake could cause the loss of a life.
Szafnauer believes that if you harp on a person’s error, they’ll never feel safe to take action. The employee, and everyone around them, will be afraid to take action. They’ll second guess every decision, worrying about being berated by the boss.
By offering immunity to nonpurposeful mishaps and being nonjudgemental, workers will feel that a heavy burden is lifted off their shoulders. They feel free to take calculated risks and do their best work, armed with the knowledge that if their intentions are honorable, they’ll be rewarded when the outcome is favorable and won’t be penalized or chastised if it doesn’t work out well. This simple-seeming hack is a great way to get people to work without fear of being called into a supervisor’s office to be chewed out and demoralized.
Take Personal Ownership
When you do make a mistake, “raise your hands” and own up to it. Don’t compound the problem by pointing to others. The same holds true for interacting with colleagues. Too often, offices are filled with people back-stabbing rivals, gossiping and spreading rumors. There is no room for this at the Aston Martin racing team.
The leader espoused telling the truth, treating everyone with respect (from the janitor to the owners) and focusing on “activities, not words.” The racing executive calls for his team to have “high integrity” and be honest with people. By having these traits, the workplace avoids being toxic. It creates an environment where people want to come into work.
Recruiting And Retaining Top Talent
When it comes to hiring, it’s important to “hire the best people.” You also want to have a good place to work. You especially need this type of environment if your racing team isn’t winning. If you can’t celebrate the wins, you still have a great group of people who like and respect each other, and know that eventually they’ll have their day in the sun.
During the challenging times, the organization didn’t have anyone leave, as everyone was confident in the long- term success of the organization. Showing skin in the game, Szafnauer helped fund the operations with his own money, in a display of faith and confidence in his people.
He shared an interesting anecdote about attracting the best talent. In an early stage of his career, he asked his boss to pivot to another role that looked exciting. The manager didn’t want to let him go. He did, however, receive a promotion. Learning from this, Szafnauer made it a practice to offer promotions and champion internal career advancements to people. This turned out to be a great recruiting tool, as job seekers in the space recognized that if they joined the team, they’d have room to grow and develop their careers.
F1 Coming To the U.S.
F1 racing is big around the world, but NASCAR continues to dominate America. Szafnauer sees the U.S. as the next big market. He attests, “I’ve been a Formula 1 fan since the early ‘80s when I lived in Detroit. There’s lots of other Formula 1 fans in the States.” The Drive to Survive Netflix series was very popular and drew a wide audience. Szafnauer contends, “Our product is so entertaining and enticing, once you start getting the flavor for it and start understanding it, then I think the Formula 1 audience in the States can grow significantly.”
Source: Forbes
