A year no one will forget

ZEIT: That was too abstract.

Schwenker: People are planning differently. And that affects how they communicate with their companies. Leadership is very much about making people in a company feel secure. Confidence! That's one of the reasons companies work at all. Numbers and structures can't be used to make people feel secure any more, they're changing too fast. That means management must be much more direct and personal. Managers need to be role models.

ZEIT: Now you're arguing against the dominant management model of recent years, managing by numbers.

Schwenker: Yes, the forces are shifting. CFOs dominated for a while, also because the capital markets were so important. Businesses will need to focus more on their products and customers once again in future and try to set themselves apart through doing so. Which is why I believe development, production and sales will become more important once again.

ZEIT: Continental, Porsche, Bayer and SAP are all examples of this. The new leaders are emerging from production, research and sales. But they're not charismatic. So how is management by personality supposed to work?

Schwenker: That's not how I see it. What it really comes down to in making people feel secure is whether they can trust board members to take the right decisions – like what cars should be on the market in five years' time, say. What they want to see is that they're close enough to the market, thinking, finding solutions, then standing out right in front of their people and saying, this is what I think.
That's much more important to staff than looking good on TV and having the right charisma. Leaders must be credible and to achieve this, and the boards must change too. If bosses are to think in scenarios, they need to take time to do this. It's not something you can do in a couple of hours. So the Chairman will be less involved in day to day business.

ZEIT: Seeing things your way, many CEOs now in office will have to change clearly if they want to keep their jobs. You're advising some of them. Has this crisis turned you into some kind of personal coach?

Schwenker: Consultancy and therapy have had something in common in recent months, and I don't mean that in a bad way. What people needed to do was to sit down and talk seriously, ask themselves honestly what's actually going on, and how to deal with the new uncertainty.

ZEIT: Admitting that to yourself, but then keeping on moving ahead…

Schwenker: … takes courage, of course!l Before, you could say the capital markets want this or not. You can't do that any more.

ZEIT: You were speaking just now about how CFOs are becoming less important, now the capital markets are becoming less important as the supreme authority for management. Bye-bye shareholder value?

Schwenker: I simply meant people aren't being guided by figures any more. But I still think it's important to run a business on shareholder value principles. It's just that returns in the money markets have been playing too great a role. People weren't paying enough attention to the long-term factors that are also part of the shareholder value model, that is, having the right products, customers and staff. That's changing now, I think. Good!

ZEIT: Do we need a "new business model" for Germany if we are to take up this debate, do we need to restructure our economy as it is now?

Schwenker: Even if that's not how many people see it. The fact is, our exports and imports were growing equally strongly until the crisis came along, we're more balanced than other countries. That's also because our businesses are organized more globally than many US companies, for example. And that will benefit us in the long term.

ZEIT: It looks like things are getting better again. Do you believe that?

Schwenker: Yes, even if you can't honestly believe that from the figures as yet. I can see some good signs, though, such as, China will grow by 8% this year again. What worries me about that is, China is growing precisely as fast as the Party Conference said it would in June (laughs). China looks very dynamic, as always, I can see similar signs in the United States, given also that the US economy reacts faster and can switch amazingly quickly and successfully, toward green tech, for example. And even Russia seems ready to invest once again.

ZEIT: What do you conclude from this for the prospects for the German economy?

SCHWENKER: First, China will soon be buying more German capital goods once again. Second, we have learned in recent years that high-quality services are best built around an industrial core: so Germany's industrial strength makes me feel optimistic. In the World Economic Forum's current economic ranking, Germany is still number one in conventional industry. In research and development. In supplier structures. In being differentiated. The crisis hasn't hit any of this, which means we also have good prospects for green tech. Because green tech involves everyone. You need good engineered products and plant construction, good electrical systems and services. Like we have here.

ZEIT: While on this subject, what do the United States' and China's major investment programs in green tech mean?

Schwenker: More competition, but also more orders for German companies, at least, for those we call system head companies. They’re the ones who develop and refine technology, and they're the most valuable part of a global value chain – which in turn explains why imports and exports are high.

ZEIT: Does the crisis mean Germany has lost the kind of companies you call "system heads"?

Schwenker: No, because research budgets haven’t been cut back badly, as far as I can see.

ZEIT: What does that mean in terms of unemployment continuing to rise?

Schwenker: As the economy picks up, which I believe it is, short-time working will have paid off. If not, many companies will have to decide on letting people go in the second quarter of 2010.