Total Competition: Lessons in Strategy from Formula One

by Ross Brawn

I had the philosophy that it took a year to understand a team, a year to fix it and then the third year you should start succeeding. In my mind these were the timescales I worked to. Your first impressions of people are quite important, but sometimes they are the wrong impressions. Someone can be very awkward, difficult – but as you start to understand them, you discover they can be contributing an awful lot. They just need a few edges massaged off. And some people who are very friendly and nice and cooperative, you realize they aren’t contributing very much. It takes time to understand that. So, first impressions are not always the best. I would always prefer to have time to absorb and understand how an organization was working. And also be able to spend the time to tell people what’s expected of them. Understand what they think they are there for and make sure that aligns with what you think they are there for. Often, that is not the case.