F1 RACING JANUARY 2020 55Man y of the peoplethat have been the backbone of this success
over the past six years, they were already on board. In 2012
many good people were there since theear ly days, since the
BAR days. Many goodpeoplewere hired in 2011 and 2012 that
are still the leaders today. And then we setup a very dedicated
talent development programme. It is all around the individual
and their performance. That starts from the right academic
background, the rightexperience, support, deployment within
the organisation; are you in the right role foryour personality?
And then it’s many marginal gains that will add up. It is the
sum of the parts. And thesum of the parts
in any company is itspeople. We are a safe
place, we are a place people enjoy working in,
where they are being looked after, they are
being developed, empowered. We are a high-
pressureenvir onment, butwith positivestress.
F1R:How do you structure things whenyou
have so many people andyou need to optimise
all of them for the whole? You can’t obviously
be in charge of 1500 or 2000 or however
many people individually, it comes down to
the tiers you have belowthat. How do you deal
with that situation in terms of management
underneath you – trusting those below you in
the structure toget the most out of the people
they’re in charge of?
TW:In every large organisation it becomes
impossible that the guys at the top manage the
whole organisation. You just need to set the
tone, define your values, the objectives, and
make sure these are being cascaded within the
organisation – and [that] every single layer of
management completely understands whatthe
target of the company is and what its values
are. That is not something you can just put on
a PowerPoint and then expect everybody to
behave accordingly, that is an exercise over
many years. And you need to live it.
F1R:Which is why you’re here, at races, allthe time...
TW:Absolutely. You either do itproperly or you don’t. If you
are the team principal that means part of the role is at the race
track. [Apartfrom Brazil thisyear] I haven’t missed a single F1
race since 2012, since I started with Williams, as anexecutive
director. It’s tiring and it’s difficult to come back on Monday
and have a normal office job. I’m the chief executive also, so
I need tolook after the commercialside as well, and finance,
and overall reporting and responsibilitytowards Daimler –
but I can see around here that the best ones, they give it 100%.
You can’t expect to give 90% and hopeto be competitive.F1R:How do you approach theMonday aftera race – when
you winyou obviously need to keep peoplepushing and not
relaxing too much into success?And how do you dealwith
defeat,galvanisethe troopswhen things aren’t going yourway?TW:Losing is extremely painful and I’m almost not capable
of talking normally because I’m so annoyed. But equally,
emotions are OK but they mustn’t stress you
out. The days of losing or underperforming
are so painful thatthe learning curve is
enormous from these days – as long as you
can make the organisation cope with failure,
and understand that failure is an opportunity.F1R:It seems you have aculture of no
scapegoating. Other teams, you can see people
getting hung out to dry when things go wrong.
But many times we’ve seen James Vowles, for
example, come on the radio and say ‘Sorry
Lewis, we’ve lost this race for you’, or ‘I’ve lost
this race for you’. He’s able to do that without
fear he’sgoing to be lynched for owning his
mistake. How doyou f oster that culture?TW:It takes years to create a safe environment.
If you’re a high-performance organisation
there is automatic stress, and it’s human
nature totry to identify who is at fault–
because it helps release pressure. It’s easier
to say ‘it’s your fault!’. Acknowledging that
psychology works on you is the first step
towards changing. But when you’ve been
with each other for a while, you understand
the personalities and you’re capable of
being brutally honest witheach other, and
transparent, and that creates an environment
where peoplewill say ‘I made a mistake’. But
again, this is somethingthat takes many years
and needs proof. If you have an environment basedon ‘hire
and fire’, because somebody needs to be blamed, you’re never
going to be able to createthat [trust]. It is an exercise that
never ends, because the tough moments will always come back.
The intensity of defeat, thepain of defeat is so big, that we just
don’t want to go there. That’s what keeps us pushing on.F1R:Taking ego out of it is incredibly important as well...TW:Everybody has a certain amount of ego, but you need“Thedays
oflosingor
underperforming
aresopainful
thatthe
learningcurveis
enormousfrom
thesedays–
aslongasyou
canmakethe
organisation
copewithfailure,
andunderstand
thatfailureisan
opportunity”