Interview with a modern automotive manager

“I choose to be happy”

AUTOMOTIVE SPECIALIST CONSULTANT

Stephane Castets

Stéphane CASTETS is Quality Vice- President of the PSA GROUPE in Trnava, and PSA worldwide industrial quality network President. He gra-duated from a famous engineering school in France. He likes to say: “in this industry, we are living a permanent miracle” because of the number and the complexity of products, processes and organizations. He has, over the years, been responsible for many areas within the automotive sector, such as stamping, assembling and project managements. He has managed teams comprising of ten to a thousand members, and he has learned through experience that self-leadership is the base for advancing relationships and operational efficiency. His core values are responsibility, authenticity and humility, and he tries to practice and embody these fully every day. Stéphane has been playing the guitar since 1981 and enjoys various outdoor sporting activities, such as kitesurfing, hockey, cycling and skiing, through which he seeks to exert himself physically and experience not only the rush of adrenalin, but also the feeling of pleasure that accompanies it.

This is an interview with a real modern manager. The interview was conducted while creating Pro-lant Cap project in December 2016. Mr Castets worked as a consultant in the project for leadership and management topics.

What was your motivation to become a manager?
As a young adult with an engineering diploma in my pocket, I only knew what I did not want to do, and that was to become a specialist – to be isolated, to spend all my time in an office, to build something useless and uninteresting. I had a lot of good team experience from actively taking part in sports and within student associations during my time at university, so I chose to further my studies within the field of automotive production and management. After years full of real work experience with my teams and our results, I knew that I had the ability and that it was a good choice, a practical and intuitive choice.

Where did you start your career in the automotive industry?
I started my career in 1995 in Rennes. As I was from Paris, I had to settle down in Brittany. I was 25 years old, and my wife lived 1000 km away.
My position was that of a supervisor in the stamping plant located in Rennes. I led 50 team-members, 3 team-leaders for 3 production shifts and 10 production lines. It was a real rebirth for me: a new environment, no friends, no family, a new culture and no legitimacy … let‘s go! I thought.

You have been a manager for 22 years now. What have you learnt so far?
I have been learning continuously all throughout my life! I have learned through every single person I have met within my years at work, both good and bad people. I have learned from my successes and from my failures. I remember the first and best piece of advice I received. It was 22 years ago and I received it from an old supervisor. He said, “’Take care of your people and they will take care of your business“. Later I discovered that leadership and self-leadership has the ability to create a shared vision, a shared behaviour for your team and for yourself that fosters good relationships and a sense of inner peace. It fills us with the energy to act, to react, to change, to discover, and to succeed.

What do you think makes a good manager today?
A good manager is well balanced and has the necessary competencies, abilities, knowledge and expertise. He/she is active in the field, is able to fully implement processes, check results ad improve upon held stand-ards. An effective manager is a happy and optimistic individual who embodies a company’s culture, genuine-ly cares about people, is always able and willing, and can emotionally connect to those he/she is in contact with.

How did you discover leadership? Why do you think it´s an important skill of a modern manager today?
I think I’ve always had a little natural leadership in my genes. My education and my career have been cultivating my self-leadership over the years. Here I mean those thoughts and ideas that you have always had for yourself will one day become your reality, and that you will have to improve yourself everyday so that you will become that person who is able to positively impact others.
Leadership and self-leadership were lifelong skills to be learnt and motivated by the challenges I had to face when I felt that I was not able to. I attended training courses, I read books, I never had a guru at my side but I did have marvellous teams. I can sum up leadership with 3 key attitudes or skills: responsibility, authenticity and humility.

What do you think about the next development of the position of a ‘’manager“?
I think we have achieved great things in the field of processes and standards and so we have succeeded in improving the efficiency of our production system. This, however, also decreases autonomy within people and has a negative effect on motivation. So, we need to strengthen the leadership of managers in order to find other ways of motivating people. For example: reinforcing the bonds within teams; finding the best job for everyone; or developing technical and behavioural skills. Personal relationships are created in order to show that managers care. As the saying goes, “I don’t care how much you know, until I know how much you care.” Fostering the improvement of leadership also generates more flexibility and efficiency within relationships, and we know that people generally can often slow processes, decisions, creativity, autonomy, and so on, because of bad relationships.