Total Competition: Lessons in Strategy from Formula One

by Ross Brawn

It took a while to persuade him to join Mercedes. At that level, I always got personally involved. Sometimes I would have HR make the first approach, but other times I would do it. I would talk about my philosophy, the company’s philosophy, why it would be fun to join and what would the opportunities be, and so on. And I would negotiate a remuneration package myself. It’s impersonal if you delegate that. It gives you the chance to see reactions and you hear little things that you can follow up on. You can pick up on things and think, ‘How can I help him with that, what can I do?’ When Aldo joined Mercedes, I wanted him working flat out on the car as soon as he arrived. Because he was moving from Italy to the UK, we hired someone to take care all of that for him. It cost us several thousand pounds, but it was great value to the company. You want a highly paid technical guy working on the car, not trying to figure out how to get his furniture from Italy.

You want people who are difficult to get out of a team, you respect their loyalty and dedication. If someone jumps at the first opportunity, you wonder.

And you could set targets. It’s a difficult process because you say, right, we have to be a second faster, but that is a hollow command unless you support with discussion and debate.

It wouldn’t be very complicated. Just so I kept them on their toes a little bit and showed my interest. They knew they had to come and see me on a Wednesday and nobody wants to go along and say, ‘We haven’t made any progress.’ So just that process of sitting down with everyone on a regular basis helped to drive things along.

There is no doubt that the more complex the solution, the more unintended consequences you can have.

And that balance of performance against complexity is one that should always err slightly on the side of simplicity.

Because it is surprising how often the drivers forget the mirror was broken until they get in to go out for the next session. ‘Oh yes, I forgot the mirror was broken.’ So we had a checklist: brakes, mirrors, seat, belts etc. just to make sure everything was okay with the car and there was nothing they had forgotten.

One race we had a pit stop and at the time we had the lollipop system of releasing the car from the pit stop; and our chief mechanic lifted the lollipop too early, let the car go too soon. He was destroyed. In that meeting I said, ‘Look, you all know Matt, we’ve all relied on him for years. He’s made one mistake. Support him while he gets over it. We can’t change the way it is. But we trust him. And he will actually be stronger from this. It will either destroy him or it will make him stronger. And we all believe it will make him stronger. So let’s get over it.’ You can’t hide away from those things. Ultimately, if the guy does it a couple of times you’ve got a hitch. And everyone knows that. If someone who has done the job really well makes one error, you get over it.

The people you have talked about are not really on the detail day in, day out, which is difficult to do. You’ve got to be patient and interested in it. And my guess is that a number of those people you’ve described just aren’t. In fact, they would take pride in not being involved in the detail. But the devil is in the detail.

Everyone runs to the problem.’ In fact you don’t want that. You want to decide who is going to deal with the problem, get them to work on it, give them all the support they need. And then make sure the rest of the people – maybe they are kept informed about what is going on because there can be concern – but make sure they carry on doing what they should be doing. Sometimes create the opportunity for them to have an input, but in a very structured way. ‘So, okay, we’ve got this problem. Going to have a review meeting. What has everyone got to say about it? Okay, that’s your opinion. Maybe you’ve got an interesting perspective on it that’s vital. Now, this is the team we’ve identified and they are going to deal with the problem, so get back to your day jobs.’

‘Luck is preparation waiting for an opportunity.’

investing in trusting long-term relationships with his colleagues; • an inclusive and consultative but decisive management style; • disciplined, structured and formal rhythms and routines; • being generous in success; • taking responsibility for setbacks; • looking for systemic root causes using rigorous analysis rather than scapegoats; • being passionate but not emotional; • being on top of the technical detail; • working alongside technical staff and mentoring them in a structured and consistent way; • looking ahead to prospective regulatory changes, establishing a small, dedicated project team to pursue such opportunities; and, • seeking out wholeness, integration, completeness in both the product and the process of designing, manufacturing and racing it.

Ross avoided conflict, not by being a pushover, but by actively seeking people out, being approachable and by socializing with them. I saw this myself. I recall many occasions when Ross would sit down with me and chat in an airport or on a plane or (on one occasion) a helicopter flight from Nice airport to Monte Carlo. Ross just made the effort to be friendly and good company. The result of this was that people always wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Once Ross had evaluated his people and other resources, he would then seek to supplement them with external hires. As he says, he undertook this himself, treating this as an opportunity to get to know the candidates personally, even regarding negotiations of their package as a way of understanding them better. No leader is better than their immediate team, so this is a critical part of his methodology.

Ross focused on the process, knowing that the competitiveness would follow.

Ross never delegated responsibility for the process or the product, and attended to all aspects of it, without ever disempowering either the heads of department or the staff working for them. He did this by using formal and informal processes and ensuring that his involvement was positive and constructive. That requires a frequent and regular process so that things never get far out of hand and can be gently reined back without a fuss.

One tactical trick to avoid unnecessary errors is the use of checklists, which Ross illustrated in relation to drivers forgetting to mention broken wing mirrors or other minor details.

My learning from Ross, is that leaders need to focus more on process and less on diving into content.

people never seem to want to take ideas, systems or processes from others, even from within their own companies. They want to develop their own things. People in Formula One are no different, but leadership requires that you constantly challenge this. You have to foster a culture not only of innovation but of looking outside for ideas. Also, when you take someone’s ideas, you need to do it swiftly. The whole point about something that is working elsewhere is that it is working. Fiddling with it, ‘making it your own’ adds cost, delay and risk that it will not work.

a hypothesis that leaders should be able to be more statesmanlike on long-term issues, even while competing ruthlessly in the short-term.

Complexity cannot be avoided, so it must be managed through – guess what – shared vision, clear accountability and the rhythms and routines described above. No one can manage everything.

adversity is an opportunity to gain competitive advantage.