Publications
Partners
THE boardroom can be a viper pit filled with snakes camouflaged in suits and ties. Real snakes are different. They always slither away from human beings, and will strike only when cornered. They are never greedy. They are satisfied with rats and mice.
Human tongues may not be forked, but their poison can be powerful. We can now say human beings have become better at being snakes than the snakes themselves.
Six months ago, the Volkswagen (VW) boardroom was the site of a bitter battle between then chairman of the supervisory board Ferdinand Piëch and his CEO, Martin Winterkorn.
It was supposed to be an easy fight for Piëch. After all, he is the grandson of the founder, Ferdinand Porsche, and a member of the family that controls VW.
Piëch openly criticised Winterkorn in the magazine Der Spiegel. His wish was supposed to be the company’s command. But Winterkorn is no small fry. Forbes listed him as the 58th most powerful man in the world.
“That was not the family stance,” responded Wolfgang Porsche to his cousin’s statement, with whom he had a bitter and public feud just a few years ago. “That was his personal opinion. Ferdinand Piëch hadn’t cleared his remarks with the rest of the Porsche family.”
The hour of the duel arrived. The VW supervisory board includes Stefan Weil, who is the prime minister of the government of Lower Saxony, and Berthold Huber, who represents the union IG Metall. They unexpectedly supported Winterkorn, just like Porsche. Piëch fell on his sword and resigned.
The fight between the chairman and his CEO was a complete surprise. They have a long history together. Winterkorn joined VW 22 years ago, and over the years was deeply involved in technical development at VW and Audi, which is something that is very close to Piëch’s heart.
Piëch dreamt it, and Winterkorn made it happen. Piëch dreamt of reviving the Beetle; Winterkorn revved it into production. Piëch dreamed of VW being the largest car maker in the world; Winterkorn overtook Toyota and General Motors.
Like most Germans, Winterkorn is well educated, something that South Africans must take to if we are to compete successfully in the world. He has a doctorate in metal physics.
When the scandal broke, Winterkorn didn’t try to hide it. Instead, like a good citizen, he apologised profusely, but that was not enough to save his job. He had, after all, completed his most important job: being the tool that ousted Piëch.
He was now past his usefulness, and so he was fired. Porsche consolidated his position in the empire by choosing Matthias Müller, the former CEO of Porsche, as the new chief of VW.
We do not read history because we are afraid that if we don’t, we may be doomed to repeat it. Only cowards do that. We read history because we want to understand the future game plans of our adversaries.
We read it because we understand that life comprises systems that live within other systems. Unlike the reductionist view of science that looks at immediate cause and effect, we look in every direction for possible cause and effect – for the related and the seemingly unrelated, because life does not happen in the controlled environment of experiments, but in a chaotic and unpredictable world.
Who could have predicted this great German commercial empire Volkswagen would fall at the hands of a little-known engineer who drives a 1997 Honda Accord? His name, paradoxically, is John German.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the US can fine up to $37 500 (R522 000) for every car that breaches the emission standards, up to a maximum fine of $18 billion. That is in one country alone.
The “diesel dupe”, as this scandal is now called, is going to be very expensive for VW – 11.5 million cars so far.
Times are tough for many governments around the world, so VW is going to be an easy source of free revenue. The fines will be written faster than those given out by the Johannesburg Metro Police Department.
But VW is no Lehman Brothers. It is too big to fail. Its failure would lead to extensive collateral damage that could make the German economy worse off than that of Greece. So it will get a bailout.
The Porsche family in Germany is unlike the Peugeot family in France – the government will protect its interest, and will certainly not allow the Chinese to take over.
The only man with the political capital to save Germany and its car pride is Ferdinand Piëch himself. But he probably won’t return to the helm. Aesthetically, that would be too ugly, but he will certainly install the next emperor.
Kind-hearted people would like us to think there is a better and more ethical way of doing business. Pleasant as that may sound, it is a fallacy. Business can be both dirty and dangerous. Often, the mistakes that come from kindness to adversaries are the very worst.
* Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive, an advertising agency
