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Volkswagen: CEO Herbert Diess reaches for an astonishingly open LinkedIn post in the power struggle

2020-12-01T03:06:23.369Z


The Volkswagen boss pulls out all the stops in the power struggle: In a post published online, he admits problems with the "Wolfsburg system", but at the same time advertises his abilities. The timing has been chosen with care.


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Digital fighter:

VW CEO Herbert Diess advertises his management skills in a LinkedIn post - and addresses problems surprisingly openly

Photo: Ronny Hartmann / dpa

Volkswagen CEO

Herbert Diess

(62) has been posting regularly on the LinkedIn career network for some time.

In a short time he has risen to become a LinkedIn influencer with 138,000 followers.

Diess promises his fans an insight into his working life, and he also goes quite unusual ways: Sometimes he posts videos of himself and Tesla boss Elon Musk in the ID.3 electric car, sometimes videos of car test drives, sometimes commented insights and photos of Management meetings.

With his most recent contribution, Diess gives a very special insight: In a contribution published on Sunday entitled "How we walk Volkswagen", Diess not only describes his partial failure of the "Wolfsburg System" with unusual openness - with the contribution he is also fighting for a premature one Contract extension.

The trigger for the debate in Wolfsburg is seen as a contribution by manager magazin, which describes the open power struggle between Diess and employee representatives and, in particular, works council chief Bernd Osterloh.

Diess is said - after a scandal with the supervisory board that was just defused in the summer - again asked for an early extension of his contract, which runs until spring 2023.

Even though the world's largest car company usually speaks about it twelve months in advance at the earliest.

According to insiders, the top of the VW supervisory board will deal with the future of Herbert Diess as CEO tomorrow, Tuesday.

"The Presidium will put its cards on how it will go on," said a person familiar with the discussions on Monday to the Reuters news agency.

The outcome of the deliberations is "completely open, everything is possible at the moment."

Two other people confirmed the appointment.

Volkswagen did not comment.

Even before the weekend, Diess caused a stir in Wolfsburg: In a message of greeting to celebrate 75 years of co-determination by the works council, Diess bluntly urged the employee representatives and the major VW shareholder Lower Saxony not to block the restructuring of the group and to support important directional decisions.

"This also applies to filling top positions," Diess added.

Before the presidium meeting, Diess now presents himself in his LinkedIn post as a manager who strives for and implements changes - and apparently wants to serve himself as indispensable to the group's decision-making body.

In the LinkedIn article, Diess stated at the beginning that the Volkswagen Group was very complex and that there were "sometimes different interests of the shareholders".

The management is conditioned to internal competition - the size and history can be more of a burden in a "time of dramatic change", so Diess.

"Bringing this tanker successfully into the future," says Diess, is "the greatest challenge of my career".

It's about getting the giant corporation with all of its stakeholders to rethink and strive for new skills despite today's successes.

Many structures are "encrusted and complicated";

there are "different interests and political agendas in the group".

That makes the "already large project even more time-consuming and complex".

Diess: I have adapted the "occasionally confrontational" leadership style

Resistance, according to Diess, "should spur us on and also motivate us".

But Diess also exercises some self-criticism in the article: When he took office, he “firmly resolved” to change the corporate culture and thus “the VW system”.

He wanted to break up old, encrusted structures in order to make the company "more agile and modern. He and his colleagues have succeeded in doing this" in many places, "says Diess. But, Diess admits," not in some, especially in our corporate headquarters Wolfsburg not yet ".  

He was addressing "grievances and need for action very specifically," said Diess.

"With my occasionally confrontational manner" he has "changed a lot and achieved good results" in his career so far.

After five years at VW he "naturally questioned his management style and" adapted it for Wolfsburg, "says Diess. That is why" experienced managers who are familiar with the Wolfsburg system "are now assuming more responsibility." They know how things are going in Wolfsburg, "says This "less confrontational, with more empathy." With this you achieve very good results.

Overall, the openness with which Diess reveals its problems in Wolfsburg and at the same time promotes itself and its course is astonishing.

He also indirectly advertises an early contract extension - with an apparently precisely planned strategy.

A guest article by Diess in the Handelsblatt, which was published last Friday, is almost identical to the LinkedIn post over long periods.

However, the part in which Diess described the delegation of responsibility to executives familiar with the Wolfsburg system was missing.

It seems as if the VW boss wanted to add something to the supervisory board via LinkedIn - by positioning himself as a stronger team player.

wed with material from dpa, Reuters

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-12-01

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