“I don’t think so but you can check with them.” The only area where he was demanding was academic results. “I couldn’t understand it when they were coming with low scores. I said, ‘You’re not stupid. I don’t understand.’ On all other areas, I was very open, very liberal.”
I’ve been told that at the heart of Ghosn’s ruthless leadership style is an obsession with “commitments and targets”. Is it true you fire people who don’t deliver on their commitments, I ask. He sits up and nods.
“When I arrived at Nissan in 1999, people didn’t feel committed to anything; they were saying, ‘I’m doing a great job and this guy next to me is not.’ The company was going bankrupt and everyone was sleeping well at night. I wanted people to make a commitment, which doesn’t have to reflect everything they could do but ensured that they did it. I also wanted them to express via a target what else they could do. If they don’t reach their commitments, I have a problem.” It was seen as ruthless, he goes on, but “the company went like a rocket, up in the first two years”.
Another of his traits is to pit people and companies against each other. He likes to call this the “systematic system” of benchmarking. “The only way I can push Mitsubishi is to say, ‘Go take a look at what Nissan is doing in this area.’ I am telling them, ‘You are engineers, you respect facts and data and I’m going to give you facts and data.’ ” Like it or not, Ghosn’s formula has been successful, although he admits that none of his techniques work unless the company feels the person leading it is engaged, believes in the mission, and sets his own commitments and targets. That, he says, is his definition of leadership.
“Parfait” is Ghosn’s verdict on the beef, much to the satisfaction of our waiter. The famed cake-sized millefeuille is placed between us. Ghosn teases that a second serving is on the way. I confess it is the best millefeuille I’ve tasted. Ghosn’s drive makes me wonder whether he can live with imperfections. I remark it must have been difficult for his four children (all graduates of Stanford University) to grow up with such a high-achieving father.