Strategy
Innovation
Leadership
July 31, 2024
Five leadership lessons from the COO of Hyundai Brazil
Within the series of videocasts produced by Pecege on leadership, the vice-president of Hyundai Motor Brasil, Marcos Oliveira, gave an interview in the studios of MBAs USP/Esalq. I compile here five lessons on leadership that were addressed in the interview, conceptualizing aspects related to quality, customer focus, employee focus, operational excellence, and innovation.
Dedication and commitment to deliveries
Continuous contact with customers, genuine listening, identifying pain points, needs, latent demands, specific problems they may be experiencing with products or services, can raise the bar for quality that a company needs to have, making everyone within the organization understand that some specific actions and initiatives can generate strengthening of the brand’s reputation. Examples: delivery of excellence; products with consistent quality; differentiated service; and genuine concern for customers.
Much more than just selling a product, companies will need to worry about delivery times and efficient technical assistance. These factors contribute to increasing the customer’s perception of value of a company, providing a feeling of support and security with the acquired products and services.
Understanding why the customer chooses one brand over another helps to increase operational excellence and makes everyone involved in an organization’s production chain work with a common purpose.
Firm leadership with a clear vision
The leader needs to have a clear vision of what is important for the organization and help their team work with commitment towards this vision, pointing out its impact on business strategy.
In the case of Hyundai Motor Brasil, Marcos Oliveira emphasizes that quality management is a purpose to be followed by everyone. In this sense, he constantly shows his team the importance of working correctly; of correcting and learning from mistakes so that they do not happen again; of acting with operational excellence; and of continuously studying work processes. To this end, leaders need to dialogue constantly with their teams, helping them to improve their methods and creating an environment of exchange.
There must be a lot of respect on the team, because it is through transparent and systematic conversations that people will understand that they do what they do not because someone is “ordering” them, but because it is actually important for the entire company’s production chain. Understanding the “why” generates commitment, not obedience.
An environment of honest and respectful exchanges fosters important learning, increases trust, reduces control, and makes people work with a clear vision of the future.
Humility to always learn
All of us are in continuous evolution and we can learn in various situations with diverse people. For this, we need to be humble and not think that we know everything or that we have already reached the top of our careers and our qualifications, regardless of the qualification or position held.
In any situation, it is essential that the professional says “I don’t know” when they really don’t know, in addition to “I will study,” “I will learn from those who know,” “I will get it right next time,” seeking continuous improvement. It is important to ask the right questions to obtain effective answers that help us make assertive decisions.
Furthermore, developing assertive and non-violent communication techniques, improving critical vision of processes, being questioning, having an analytical vision and creative and innovative thinking are factors that can catalyze self-efficacy, a competence that contributes to the individual’s ability to solve complex problems.
Companies today seek people who know how to solve complex problems and who enjoy continuous study, characteristics that are differentiators for any professional.
Lead by example
Quality management, that is, working with excellence in all processes, is an important value for Hyundai’s COO, as has already been mentioned here. To convey the relevance of this value to the teams, he has no doubt that the best way is through example.
Discourse and practice need to occur throughout the entire production chain of an organization. It is useless, for example, to announce that you sell a product or service of advanced quality, if the people who work in your organization have no idea what quality is, because they do not experience it in their work routines.
For example, if an organization’s employees take a chartered bus, is that transportation safe and comfortable for them? If employees have lunch within the company, is the food quality good? Are daily tests conducted and samples collected to verify food quality and food safety? In equipment maintenance, does the contracted team understand and implement quality standards? Do employees working on parts inspection know the importance of their work and what safety and excellence represent to customers?
Leading by example is the attitude that represents the image of discourse and practice walking hand in hand. The values, the strategies, the indicators, the recognition and feedback programs, the hiring; all processes within a company must experience this value. This is setting an example. It is worth noting that before the numerous decisions that Marcos Oliveira and his team of leaders have to make, they usually ask themselves if something will affect the well-being of employees and/or customers. If so, they take another direction. Thus, the leadership perpetuates, for its team of leaders, the notions about the importance of quality, safety, and the well-being of all people, strengthening organizational values.
Working on organizational ambidexterity
Organizational ambidexterity can be characterized as the balance between operational excellence and the pursuit of innovation. This is one of the great dilemmas for organizations: to have a careful look at current processes, as well as a look towards new businesses in an innovative way; to work on adaptability and alignment.
An example from the automotive sector: when a person decides to sell their car, it needs to be valued, and the automotive industries play a big role in this regard, as they need to constantly provide repair parts, component exchange, and maintenance teams that can serve customers: this is what we can call operational excellence.
On the other hand, in the scenario of rapid transformations, especially technological ones, like the current one, having a stock of parts for car maintenance and a specialized technical team are no longer sufficient. It will be fundamental to think about innovation systematically, following market trends, such as greater safety, quality, comfort, fuel economy, sustainability.
Companies need to form new partnerships and constantly communicate with their suppliers, as ambidexterity demands energy to keep the current client running and having access to maintenance or component replacement, while simultaneously thinking about new products that meet the needs of current and future clients – or even latent demands, maintaining focus on safety and quality. In summary, the five lessons above, related to excellence in deliveries, clear vision, humility, and innovation, show that the role of leadership within organizations is of extreme complexity and that, to be an effective leader, it is fundamental to have a good understanding of the business processes and strategies and to have genuine concern for employees and clients.
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Who wrote this column
Denise de Moura
