Transformation Is Not the Idea, It’s the Execution with Patrick Apostolo

I definitely see that with some of the transformation teams I work with, where even smaller changes can take months and months and months, go through committee after committee, where you see these large kind of management of change processes.

It's about risk mitigation as opposed to biting the bullet and trying to switch things up.

So there is definitely that kind of built-in reticence to change in a lot of larger organizations.

Is that something that you actively try and challenge now that you're in that kind of leadership role at MSC Cruises?

In larger organization, many times there is a big taboo about failure.

There is many times, as long as we want to also, in many cultural or value messages that many corporate organization are passing through, there is the request of feedback.

Well, reality is that today, the culture of feedback, there is gaps more inside the organization than outside organization and the fear of failure.

I've always said that, you know, it's better to try, it's better to admit failure or success, but move on because the speed of the world of today doesn't allow us many times to sit and stay still.

We risk actually suffering a boomerang effect that our inertia is actually brought us to sink.

So those, I think, are the big two taboos, is the culture of feedback and the fear of failure.

They're the two main areas where I'm trying really to, to break the silos, to break the walls, to break the reality and the culture of big organization is when we're saying about accountability, sometimes there is also in big corporation what I find a lack of decision-making.

And most of the times, the lack of decision-making is driven actually from the fear of failure.

It's all connected.

I mean, the culture of feedback with the fear of failure is just going around.

If you have that fear, you're never gonna give the right feedback, and sometimes you're not gonna even try.

So you better try and be sorry than stay still and be drowned.

So if you were coming into a new organization and taking that transformation leadership role, what are some of the things you'd do to be able to tackle that fear of change?

To be honest, I strongly believe that is also a change and a transformation that takes time.

It goes deep in the culture.

It goes sometimes even deep in the industry.

I had this pleasure or adventure to move from different industry, from the food manufacturing early in my career as well, working for Heineken, going to hospitality, which added another layer of complexity that is the human experience to then now the cruising industry that is a combination of many industries together.

And I think most of the time starts as well from the top management.

The top management needs to empower, but at the same time, what a little bit replicate into what you just said, you know, every decision goes to the head of function.

What I've also experienced and what I see every day in different organization is that even if the head of function is actually empowering the teams under them to proceed, to test, to experience, it goes also beyond that head of function if it doesn't have the right support, you know.

One of the requirements that I always and try to get out of my business stakeholders and shareholders that I refer to is always freedom of movement, and that is an important point that you always need to put very clear into the organization you're entering to transform.