| COOL FRIENDS |
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| Mihaela Perianu, General Manager, Aims Human Capital Romania |
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Mihaela has entrepreneurial spirit: since the launch of Snelling in Romania and till today, she has been running the AIMS Human Capital company, always preoccupied with exploring, testing and trying out new approaches - all with the same level of enthusiasm! In this interview Mihaela has decided to tell us a bit more about her activity!.
1. Mihaela, we've known each other for a long time! You've been one of the pioneers in the industry of training and recruiting services as well as one of my first training partners, back when there was no Human Invest,, and I was working as a free-lance trainer (in the period between 1997-1999). Looking back, what accomplishments are you most proud of??
There are a few accomplishments that are important to me. Chronologically:
• Creating a strong brand, the Snelling brand that is still known although it hasn't been around since 2001. It seems that the Snelling team did a good job since most people's reaction is "A, Snelling...of course I remember"
• Being a pioneer in the field of personnel leasing - we were the first company that offered this type of service in 1994
• Creating another strong brand, Aims... and introducing the "one stop shopping" concept, which meant integrating recruiting, consultancy and training
• Bringing the Dale Carnegie Company in Romania. At the end of 2004, a number of Romanian firms were audited and we were very glad they decided to choose us (the training division of Aims at that time). Every year, starting with 2006 we received different awards for excellence in activity at the International Dale Carnegie Conventions
2. All this time, what were the most important leadership lessons, which made you ponder and change the way you behave? Can you give us an example or tell us about a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision, but coherent with your values?
I am currently reading a book called The Leader's Way written by the Dalai Lama and Laurens Van Den Muyzenberg (management consultant). While reading this book I realized, yet again, how far most of us are from what leadership truly means. One of the key characteristics of a leader is self awareness...it's hard to know yourself when you're 20? It's just as hard when you are 30...
There are a lot of lessons I learned and still am, but you don't have enough space in your newsletter for all the lessons I want to share! One of the things I learned was quickly realizing when I make mistakes and learning from them just as quickly...even more, sharing my management mistakes and the lessons I learned with my colleagues.
I had a few situations along the years when I gave up a lot of big clients because their behavior towards my colleagues was totally rude and aggressive. It was a hard decision, because we needed them (they were big corporations, multinationals), but the respect clients show towards our consultants and team is very important.
There was a situation, about 7 years ago, when we won a very big pitch, valued at about 200.000 Euro. The client (an expat) accused the Aims team of hiding the CV's received from their competition. In other words they were calling us liars. I sent a letter in which I requested a meeting in order to recommend other recruiting firms to take over the project, the reason being that there is no point in working with Aims if there isn't a high level of trust regarding our honesty and professional capacity. After receiving this letter, the client called, apologized and the project went on very well, our collaboration from that point was excellent!
I risked a lot, I was afraid that I was giving up a large money-making project, but I couldn't handle the idea of working with a client that didn't trust our honesty and professionalism.
3. Mihaela, starting with 2010, we may have to change a lot of the paradigms that are in place today, starting from scratch with a new business ideology, systems, structures and processes! What changes do you consider as being important when it comes to the values present in society and the business world, after this period of economic crisis? What are the trends you envision?
I think these paradigms have already changed and I believe it is the best thing that could have happened... Finally, if in the past we didn't bother to look in the mirror from the right angle, the crisis places the mirror at exactly the right angle in order to get a better view of our value and understand that we have a lot to learn.
Regarding my management lessons. Until 2003, I wanted to create a "learning organization". I was inspired by the books of David Maister... I used to organize Reverse Seminars, Breakfast meetings, Bottom-up Feedbacks, client satisfaction studies, internal methodology enhancement competitions, and general business strengthening meetings... From 2004, due to the economic growth, our focus on continuous quality development was reduced due to the fact that we gave up a good deal of these practices because of the accelerated rhythm of projects. Lesson: no matter the quantitative growths, I shouldn't have stopped developing the qualitative side of the business. I know the theory says that quantitative growth leads to diminished quality...unfortunately I think this phenomenon is very common in Romania...
What we started to do, from 2008 onwards? We recommenced our good practices, of constantly developing the quality of our work, based on David Maister's concepts (all of those mentioned above). Even more, we created a culture based on sales, we opened a recruiting company focused on the entry level and specialists, and we trained our sales team...all of this started in 2008.
Our mentality has changed a bit after the end of the 2008 "vacation". Between 2005 and 2008, I think the best way to describe the situation of our human resources market, especially in Bucharest, is with a line from a famous Romanian novel " you don't have much skill but your demands are by the busload"... starting with 2009 people have become more reasonable, more willing to put the "whatever works" paradigm aside.
I believe 2009 marks the end of a new period of evolution when it comes to quality, both in people as well as services and products offered by companies. Too bad there is a lot of collateral damage... common sense people that were and still are good at what they do... being affected by the crisis... I remember when I was conducting interviews for Dale Carnegie trainers and discovered that the demands in salary of some employees in their early thirties were out of this world: I want 10.000 Euros a month, I want to make my first million by 30, and I want a black company car with a lot of horse power... I had the feeling that most of these people had talked with each other in order to throw me off balance, most of them often told me "I want to make my first million by the age of 30 and retire at 35"... well here comes the crisis...
Here's what I hope will happen after the crisis (maybe in a couple of years):
• An increase in the level of professionalism of both companies and people as well as their continuous need to learn. A lot of companies are interested in identifying business elements that make them different, offering better quality at smaller prices and people will have to get in line and support the steps that companies are taking to survive
• The need for socializing will remain at the same level
• Giving up the "whatever works" mentality
• I hope we don't become bitter after we have experienced the tip of the crisis
• I hope we give up English words when we are talking in Romanian...this has nothing to do with the crisis
4. The AIMS Human Capital Company that you are in charge of has both entrepreneurial spirit as well as roots. What were the experiments and unconventional approaches that you tried? What lessons have you learned from your mistakes?
I think we could be considered as trendsetters from a couple of points of view: the first company that expanded starting from 1994 in Timisoara and Sofia, Bulgaria. The first company that launched personnel leasing in Romania. The first company that launched the "one stop shopping" concept. If I'm not mistaken, we were the first company that organized, between 2002-2003, open courses for Executive Coaching taught by Dan Yollek, the President of Aims International at that time. Unconventional approaches: implementing David Maister's concept - Reverse Seminars, a few collaborations with Harvard Business Review in order to disseminate their articles in Romania.
5. If you were to take a sabbatical, how would you spend it? What are the things you dream about doing?
This question hits where it hurts, especially when it comes to the crisis...when a sabbatical seems very far away. I would travel to Asia, and spend time in a Buddhist temple...if they allowed me to smoke... I would travel around, go to all the concerts I'd want, I would learn to sail...and after my money is spent I would start arrasing, to educate my patience.
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Human Invest is a Premier League company in the arena of training and organizational development consultancy services, present on the Romanian market since 1998.
We are recognized for conceiving and implementing programs which offer managers an authentic experience towards improving their leadership performances, and thus we support companies in becoming more and more engaged in delivering excellent services for their clients.
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