ORGANIZACJA TURKUSOWA - MODEL SKAZANY NA SUKCES, CZY SZALEŃSTWO? Marek Piechocki /LPP/

Listen, I think it's like this — practically everyone starts from some kind of employment. And then our own business ventures may appear when we have some idea that we want to change something, that we want to challenge the current state of the economy in this or that area. And this idea must be... so most of the time it happens, I think in a significant majority, that every entrepreneur — even when they have an idea — starts their life working for someone, even just to learn something, to see what limitations exist, what market possibilities there are. So where should one start? It seems that in 90 percent of cases we start by working for someone, and then we see the imperfections of that venture, we see that we can do it better in a proven area, and then we start our own business. Although there are cases where people start right after university, but then it may turn out that the cost of mistakes made is so high that we often work for nothing. So it might be worth being cautious. Most entrepreneurs believe exactly that — maybe it's better to look around, go somewhere, work for someone — not to earn a living, but to see what mistakes are made, what decisions are taken, what are the consequences of those decisions. We also said something like: if you want to become good managers, work at least a year or two as an assistant to a good manager, carry their briefcase. But the younger generation seems reluctant to carry someone's briefcase, reluctant to learn — they'd like to be CEOs, directors, hold high positions right away. Why do you think that is?

No, I think they are aware — of course, everyone carries a marshal's baton in their backpack, everyone thinks about that. But I think they are aware. Of course, we live in different times, and these times are somewhat connected with changes in social consciousness, with changes such that young people know more, they can do more. This is also connected with changes in management methods. For example, we made a fairly significant change in management style a few years ago. There are different types of organizations — hierarchical organizations, flat organizations, various organizational structures. One of the organizational forms is the so-called 'turquoise organization,' where responsibility is delegated to fairly low levels. And you could say that even though LPP is a company employing maybe two and a half thousand people at headquarters — and overall over 25,000 people — despite that, we are organized quite flatly, and we decided to go quite strongly toward this turquoise model. The majority of those 25,000 people from headquarters and beyond consists of so-called 'mini-teams,' teams of 6-10 people, which are like small companies that manage independently, and these teams have a very high level of decision-making power. They essentially decide what they buy, at what price, how they buy, what they sell, and so on. I think this already gives young people who join the opportunity for self-realization. So the question of whether we'll work for someone, carry someone's briefcase — it's again a question of what opportunities for self-realization these companies offer.

I look at it more from the perspective that as skills progress, these young people receive increasingly broader competencies and possibilities. For example, a young buyer who has been a buyer for a year or two, who started as a buyer's assistant and has worked maybe four years total — suddenly discovers they have a budget of 10 million dollars for purchasing and goes to Asia to buy. It seems like a lot, and they must do it responsibly, thoughtfully. And then they are essentially already a decision-maker, which brings us back to the point about people wanting to be CEOs right away. It's more that young people want to make decisions themselves about phenomena, they want to have influence on what happens. Whether they hold this or that position — they know they have to climb the hierarchy for a while. So I see it more as young people today expecting that they will be making decisions rather than holding positions. They expect a great deal of possibility of influence, of not just executing orders or commands, but being a decision-maker. And part of our success is that responsibility is delegated to very low levels.

We are fortunate that people work with us for a long time. We have a tradition — every year we give elegant watches to people who have worked with us for over 10 years. We have a dinner, and at such a dinner there are 120 to 140 people. We now have about 1,000 people who have worked over 10 years, and maybe 30 or 40 who have been at LPP for 25 years. This means there is a large mass of people with great experience. On the other hand, when we entered this system of delegating responsibility to lower levels, there were fears among managers — should I really give this responsibility to young people? Why am I afraid? I'm their supervisor, product manager, and they're going to decide on their own? There were certain tensions. But we said: the more successes you have, the more you'll get in terms of decision-making autonomy. Starting from some product group, we expand it, and in this way these young people gradually get a larger circle of responsibility. You can't immediately give 10 million dollars to an assistant who has no experience — it takes two or three years for them to actually manage that budget independently. But it happens fairly quickly. Within two to three years, 10 million dollars is already there.

We work in a fast-paced industry, and on the other hand, we evaluate work results quickly. We see whether what someone is buying or designing is actually working — we have daily reports showing people what sells better. Green or red? They need to buy more green, not red, and so on.

Listen, a person who asks that question — I think you need to have that inner feeling that you want to change something, that inner restlessness that what's on the market today is not perfect and I have an idea to fix that imperfection. But on the other hand, it's a personal choice. We have people who sometimes tried to create their own businesses and unfortunately it didn't work out, so they came back. But on the other hand, you can also be perfectly fulfilled in an organization like ours, where we have a whole range of possibilities. People in logistics, in freight forwarding — they're doing truly remarkable things. We're building three distribution centers per year, and that's a big challenge — building somewhere in Bucharest, or near Bucharest, or in Russia, or in Rzeszów. That's a great challenge for people, it's a lot of money being spent. Or managing IT teams with great data science capabilities, where we're processing data and doing things that very few firms in Europe do. It's always a question of choice — whether you want to, whether you see such possibilities. On the other hand, there are many people who are fulfilled because we give a high level of autonomy. People thank me for giving them that level of independence, for not interfering. I set them a problem and give them time to solve it.

So whether it's worth starting your own business — you need to have the idea for it. I don't have ideas for any business other than clothing. I only know this. I often joke that I'm so concentrated on one thing that if you asked me about other businesses, I wouldn't know. We've been doing the same thing for 20, 30 years and it seems to work for us. Some entrepreneurs who tried to develop their business, hit a wall, and now try to start in other sectors, other fields — they try to steer their fate differently because they don't want to close the company and go back to employment. To answer your earlier question about whether going into employment is bad — I can say that I am a slave to my best managers. They decide what they do. I depend on them. Their happiness and satisfaction is my biggest concern. If they're happy and satisfied, they won't go start their own businesses.

One business might be logistics — they're building distribution centers, buying containers. Right now we have problems with containers from China, so they came up with the idea of sending entire trains. There are incredible possibilities for self-realization, for doing things. I believe we must pay people very good money so they're satisfied, so they have peace at home — that's a kind of security. They come home without problems, can buy what they want, go on nice vacations. And because they don't have other problems, they can fully dedicate themselves to developing their area — whether it's creating fashion collections or logistics. It's a huge problem — imagine sending 10 million garments from distribution centers in one week. That's a lot. Or receiving 500 containers in a week — that's a huge challenge. And when Gosia says she can't send them, she starts figuring out how to buy a few trains. The possibilities you give your employees are enormous. I'd call them more partners than employees because they co-create this business year after year.

I think it's definitely worth it. I think you need to seek satisfaction and the desire to, in a way, compensate for the misfortunes of people who for some reason have been excluded or disadvantaged by fate. But thinking that you go there to acquire professional competencies — that's probably not the right approach. You may learn something along the way, but the purpose is something else. You shouldn't think about it through the lens of 'I'll go to some social enterprise to learn management.' I don't think that should be the main goal. You can go to one company or another to acquire competencies. But organizations that deal with helping — people there mostly do it from altruistic motives. The pay there isn't the highest, and they deal with various other problems. So you shouldn't seek professional competencies there — you should think you're going for something else.

Right, those are more like business or near-business activities, social actions that aren't directed at helping excluded or disadvantaged people. What you're talking about is broadening business potential through social engagement. We have people who do that. For instance, because we're a family company, we belong to the Family Business Network — about 100 organizations that in some way connect people and help. And you can certainly learn many things there. That's exactly what I meant — our foundation has been operating for 10 years, helping people acquire competencies. Our foundation's motto is 'Help me do it myself' — the motto of Maria Montessori, who created children's homes where children developed skills not by carrying them on their backs but through a completely different approach. What you're describing is much wiser, and it's something I always support. There's the famous saying about giving someone a fish versus a fishing rod. What you're talking about is more like giving the fishing rod — you help by showing or hinting, not doing things for them. Such competencies can be acquired while still at university. There are many students and young people — it's a Gauss curve — these are the people who make things happen. When people engage in student organizations, academic circles — they have some internal clock that drives them to do something.

Such people always appear. Listen — such people are always in society. I think even the complaints about today, that the new generation isn't like this or that — I think it's a bit like with the Gauss curve. We always have a certain portion of the population like that, and there's always an average too. I believe in this — for example, in the 90s we had a big social breakdown here after the years of the 80s. And I don't remember exactly when McDonald's came to Poland, but suddenly it turned out that they were able to find a group of people who sold those hamburgers at McDonald's — organized, happy, great workers. And yet at Społem stores on the corner or in state shops, women would lie on the counter, lean on their elbows, and not care about anything. But there they found people. So I think it will always be the case that young people will appear who have the desire to change the world or actively do something. They appeared in my times when I studied in the 80s, and I think today too. Whether the proportion is larger or smaller — that's hard to measure.

Note that a whole mass of companies are being created — internet companies and others. They're created in somewhat different areas. In my time, those possibilities didn't exist that exist today. But there were other possibilities — back then anything was a commodity, any product was much easier to sell in the early 90s when the economy was changing. Today the possibilities are different, and those people also appear. Enterprises are being created — a whole mass of internet shops offering this and that. Today, just as in those times goods disappeared and nothing could be imported, today young people have much greater possibilities. They have access to a broad market through the internet — you can sell anything, sell a great deal. But I think each decade brings its own possibilities, its own changes. Where our business once had high growth, today it's more flat in Western Europe generally, but in Poland we still grow. Meanwhile, technological and internet businesses are sprouting like mushrooms after rain. There's a big focus on e-commerce, data science, and similar solutions. Young people are exploiting this niche — a whole mass of startups are appearing that offer various things. Some succeed, of course — only a small percentage survive — but they try.

There will always be entrepreneurial people appearing. Entrepreneurship is the desire to change the current state in some area of the economy, the desire to improve that area. And there will always be someone who has the idea and the courage — the idea, the courage, and some inner drive to do it. Look at what appears today — there's a new profession that didn't exist before, called 'barber.' In my time there were hairdressers. But today my young friends go to a barbershop around the corner. A whole mass of barbers have opened, and young people who once would have been ordinary, average hairdressers have created their own small businesses. There are a whole mass of such things. So it will keep changing and repeating and developing. I believe in entrepreneurship. I think we Poles show a higher level of entrepreneurship than other nations. Young people don't remember the late 70s, 80s — a trip to the West in a Fiat 126p, through Ukraine, through Bulgaria, and along the way you could buy one pair of pants, sell another, buy Biseptol, sell it — the whole trip paid for itself. That was the fruit of Polish entrepreneurship. And I think today something similar is happening. That's why the Polish economy is in better shape even than our neighbors — the Czechs and Hungarians — because of this entrepreneurial spirit. We're a bit rebellious. In Spain, people from Barcelona are called 'polacos' — Poles — because of that rebellious, change-seeking, unyielding spirit. So I believe this will continue.

Competencies are one thing, values are another. Regarding values — when a young person comes to us, I start with the three most basic ones that every parent teaches, and I also teach and repeat: honesty, fairness, tolerance. Don't deceive, don't lie, don't scheme — because it has short legs and sooner or later it will end badly. We don't do that. Maybe somewhere along the way you forgot what your mother taught you, but in a new company they'll teach you too. Remember this — it's important. It's worth being honest, because sooner or later it comes back. I always tell young people: don't deceive, don't scheme, because sooner or later it will take revenge on you. Whatever you do in life — whether working for someone or on your own — be honest. Because everyone wants to be treated honestly, everyone wants to be treated fairly — even the CEO, even anyone else in an organization. Young people creating their own company should remember these values. Regarding competencies — it depends on what area they want to work in. But I think everyone should try to be curious about the world, discover something new, not just do what's given to them and stay locked in their little drawer. Instead, seek something new, want to discover. Such people are wanted everywhere — the economy needs them, companies need them. If you ask who we're looking for, we're looking for interesting people, people who want to change something, who want to challenge things. They're small entrepreneurs within our company. So I encourage them to be curious about the world and to question reality as much as possible — wisely, but to question it. Thanks to that, they'll develop the companies they work for, or develop their own businesses, and they'll be needed by their potential employers or by the market.