National Taiwan University Career Speech

Topic: How to become a global leader Speaker: Roberte Guidetti, P&G Taiwan VP & General Manager. Date: October 30, 2006

Preamble

Good evening, I am very glad to have the opportunity to be here together with you. Coming to campus always makes me feel younger. And you are all young so you can shave your life and do your plan in the best way for you. So I hope that the conversation tonight will help you in the planning of your lives. And when I said “conversation”, it really means “conversation”, because this is not meaning a presentation. We have a couple hours, and I think we would do what we like to do. It may be available for you to ask questions about anything you would like to talk tonight. So this part won’t be too long, I mean that I planed to talk like a twenty minutes and an hour. And you are welcome to ask me at anytime you want and anytime you need. And when I finished at the end, you can ask more questions. OK? Can we do like this?

OK, let’s see at the topic tonight. “How to become a global leader”. I think I should say about something myself first, because then you’ll know who the person is talking with you. I’m an Italian originally, and I have been living in few countries because what I want to do is go out the Italy and see the world. I work for P&G and I started at Italy, and then I stayed in Greece for a while, for a short time, for a few months. And then I went to U.K., then China for about three years, and then I have been in Taiwan for about four years, I came here in 2002. The best language I speak is Italian , and I think my English is also good because I lived in U.K for six years. And then I can also talk Chinese, but I won’t talk in Chinese tonight, sorry. I would like to let you know what kind of people I am, and I will share what I believe to you.

There are something what I believe is very important. I believe in vision, discipline, passion and conscience.

Vision is a spot we would like to get to, no matter it is good or not.

I find out that it is important to be discipline, because success doesn’t happen

overnight, and doesn’t happen without effort. Things are important to be discipline, and that’s what motivates us behind. So I believe discipline.

I also believe in passion. Italian is the most passionate. And I really believe that it is much easier for you to achieve things when you think you should do something. It important to make sense for you to do something, it’s different. Making sense is really important when you want to do something, you like to do something.

Conscience I think is talk about achieving something that is meaning. I believe it could make things to be better. And that’s why I stay in P&G for a long time, because conscience is the thing this company would like to do.

Leadership (vs. Management)

To be simple about today’s topic, I would like to introduce leadership, and discuss about the relationship between leadership and management. And then we will talk about how P&G define leadership. Finally, I would talk about how to become a global leader.

Now , I would like to ask some questions. Here we have few people here, I think most of you know who they are. But what I want to ask is “why these people become great leaders”?

(The audiences’ answers: Influence, power, passion, they change the world into a better place, persuasive, and they believe what they believe is right)

Yes, the last answer is very good. You know, life is pretty tough. But if you have belief, you can go over difficulties much easier. Life can be tough, but you can also continue.

General definition for leadership: Ability to establish a direction and then to motivate people to move in that direction, delivering results

You can’t handle all the things, so how to motivate people is very important.

And let’s talk about the relationship between leadership and management. I would say in this way: Leading is doing the right things, management is doing things

right. For instance, management is efficiency in climbing the ladder, while leadership determines where the ladder is leaning.

How P&G defines Leadership

The reason that things work well at P&G is that everyone is an owner and a leader; we hire people because they are leaders, and we give them the training.

Now I will tell you how a corporate evaluates ability of a person from the following views:

Power of mind Thinks and acts decisively Leverage mastery Innovates and reapplies

People Leadership Collaboration Grow capability Agility In-touch Operation with discipline Embrace change

5es leadership model

I. Envisioning:

Creating a picture of the future

Envisioning is to recognize the trend and opportunity in the future. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams (E.Roosevelt). You must first have the motivation and then you may handle your own future. You may choose your dream and try hard to fulfill it.

Why is envision essential? Because envision clarifies direction, motivates people, and aligns individual actions.

Great vision has three qualities:

1. It is compelling

2. Creates energy

3. Comes from the heart

Like P&G may come across different situation in many countries, but our mission is to improve the human life. How to make all our colleges identify with the values and culture of P&G, feel proud of our works is what we would like to do.

Let’s talk about an example: Made in Taiwan, win in the world

P&G Taiwan created many successful proposals, and we all feel proud of the achievements. Pantene is a good example to explain what is “made in Taiwan, win in the world”. When Pantene first introduced in Taiwan, it was just a small brand. But our marketing teams made the investigation, and discovered the”shinning, healthy hair” image could attract the peoples’ attention. Therefore, we finally use this theme to promote Pantene, and create a great success. This case showed the creativity of Taiwan. Moreover, it further won the respect from the other P&G divisions in the other countries.

Example: how P&G structure the envisioning work? Objectives strategy measures What to play? Goals How to win?

Strategy: What to play? What do we want to do? Which market should we enter? What kind of channel should we distribute our products?

Measures: The measure should be something concrete. For example, the market shares, sales revenue, growth rate.

Goals: Make sure that all your team members realized the goal, and try to achieve it together.

How to win? How should we design the promotion schedule in the stores? How should we lead the organization? How could we motivate all the members?

II. Energizing:

Creating an environment where others are motivated to do their best

There’s an old saying by Ghandi, “We must be the change we wish to see”. Energizing is making people and resources to realize the vision, creating an environment where others are motivated to do their very best role models desired behavior. A good leader should motivate his partners, and think about what resources he has in hand.

Example: P&G Taiwan culture and work place environment

Before our office located in five different floors, people in the same department tended to be together because of the office allocation. After then, we are thinking about how to organize the environment to bring our member’s potential into full play. And we decided to make some changes.

Now our office is at the 101 building, we have one and half floor office. And everyday when our employees come into the office, they have to get into their seats according to a map. In other words, nobody have a “seat” now in P&G. In this way, there is no wall between people. And no matter which division you belong, you could have chance to interact with the other people. All our members become closer and closer.

Besides, inside P&G, we have many different names for the public spaces. For instances, the “cloud gate room” means for the inspiration, and it is also the best proof for “make in Taiwan win in the world”. And we also have “Community room”, “Risk-taking room”, “Out role-modeling”, “Trust room”, “Focus room”, “Care room”, and “In touch room”. Everyone in P&G has their own preference, because the different names will give each room different meaning. And when people work in there, they will feel very pleasure.

III. Enabling:

Enables self and others to achieve the vision by leveraging strengths and

removing barriers to success

As a leader, you have to lead your team members to fulfill the target. There is a real example in P&G. As the chart you can see on the screen, in P&G we will have this kind of plan. There are five different years, and we would have different goals in these stages. To organize the progress for business, we may focus on the enhancing the satisfaction or the other things. We would use the “System process” to organize the people and allocation the resources, make sure they knows clearly what their tasks are responsible for.

In addition, before we launch a new product into the market, we would discuss together to set the vision. A good vision may make your members combined to be a qualified group, and then you could pursue the goal.

IV. Engaging:

Building relationships/ collaboration

In P&G, we try to engage others in developing and owning the vision and strategies, leverages cross-organization.

Nowadays, P&G Taiwan want all our members clearly understand the corporate goal and mission. We would present it in a simple way. Every July, we would held a vision day, everyone in P&G must leave the office, and we will select a theme to have some activities.

For example, we had OGSM Day for a bicycle race. We take the Bike racing as the symbol of persistence. Our members do the force to present our mission, and the winner will wear in yellow shirts.

Besides, we also presented our mission in the spirit of cloud-gate, and we invited GIANT Company to introduce how they succeed internationally. The above are all successful corporate, and we were moved and inspired by their vision.

V. Execution:

Leverage strengths/remove barriers

Execution is to develop executable plans to deliver the strategy and allocates

diverse resources effectively. It must ensure individual work plans are aligned to the plan and established clear expectation

“Execution is strategy”. We often heard about people should execute plans in the strategic thinking way. The most important thing is that thinking about how to execute the plan practically.

Olay Taiwan 05 success

There is a real case we could use to present the above concepts. I would like to introduce the “Olay Taiwan” case to all of you.

As you saw from our advertisements, we tried to use the following way to approach our customers.

Holistic Communication → Prestige Challenge→All Involve In One Bottle

We tried every possible channel to touch our customers, and we appeal to the concept that “all essence in one bottle and you only need this one”.

The procedure we introduce this product was:

1. Awareness 2. Browsing 3. Buying 4. Usage 5. Remembering 6. Repurchase→Efficacy discount coupon 7. Advocacy→100 beauty editors education 8. SWAP campaigns

And the final result is revenue growth 36%，and the market share grow from 15%~16% to 20%~24%.

In that moment, the price war made the market more competitive, so we thought we should find a new idea to draw the customers’ attention. We hope the customers would not take the discount as the prior consideration, and we created many situations to add the customer preference and acceptance. You could see how we market an old

product, giving it new life to approach the customers, and further led the customers really buy the products.

In summary, I believed there are many different ways for you to organize your employees, and then you will find out some interesting effect.

How to become a global leader

I. Make dreams come true: You have to think it big, and then you could follow up the changing age.

II. Be the best of yourself To prepare yourself, then you would show your ability when opportunities come.

III. Enthusiasm The passion will be the biggest motivation to do your work.

IV. Honesty and respect: You have to build up the trust with the people.

V. Volunteer responsibility You have nothing to lose. Try to learn from doing as much as you can.

VI. Master your fundamentals Like playing basketball, you have to practice from the basic, and then you could actually play in the real game. This is what the fundamental. If you learn from the very beginning, you could realize what you have learned. As you first enter the company, you often do some unimportant work. But you have to improve your ability form these work, and then you may have the chance to take responsibility for important task.

VII. Demanding & caring leadership There are tough and soft two different leadership styles. Sometimes the tough leading would be suitable, but sometimes the soft leadership may help your team improve and grow up.

VIII. Create your future, anticipate and sense continuously

What is your plan for the future? Sometimes we would decide the way suitable or not depends on the vision. P&G hope to grow continually in the future. Therefore, when we come across the difficulties, we will seek for the appropriate actions instead of being panic to overcome the challenge.

Now I think we should stop at here, and you may ask some questions.

Audience Question 1

P&G might be the best company in advertising promotion. Would you tell us that how many percentage of your annual budget in your company?

How to choose the people for the brand representative is very important, he/ she have to suit the product and the image of the company.

It most time, the consumer product line Television advertisement is the biggest part of the investment. While now the percentage gets lower and lower, because we find out that the Television is no longer the only channel. Sorry that I would give the specific number because of the confidential problem, but I can say that it is really a big cost.

In our investigation, we discovered that nowadays audiences seldom focus on a specific channel. With the concern that advertising efficiency becomes worse, we reduce the spending on Television. Take the Google for example, now we could observe a more obvious approach rate through the clicking numbers. The number of people approach our advertisement is important information for us to measure the effect. We must make sure that our promotion could attain our estimated effect, not to spent 100 million dollars but only work out 50% of use.

Perhaps I should take off my coat to make us closer. Actually, all of you are our target customer. I hope you can raise every questions, this would really help us to handle our product line management.

Audience Question 2

How do you lead and organize different people in a group, such as science and marketing creative background people?

Now in our P&G, there are three divisions. The people in these three divisions sometimes work together, sometimes work separately.

Besides, we have branch office in many countries, and we will try to know the local preference for conducting the localized marketing promotion. We choose people from each countries, and let them work together to make sure that they could design the fittest action for that region. And then you can learn the many experience to know what may be effective for this country.

Like in Taiwan, we find out that there are many people with “story”. Taiwanese people are creative, and their design, commitment, hard-working, flexible, and entrepreneur spirit are all critical ability in the future. Those abilities make you think longer and more complete, and you could figure out not only a new idea. More importantly, you could process in long-term, and the business sense can lead you catch up the trends. This is really important the fiercely changing age in the future.

Audience Question 3

Why will you come to Taiwan and choose to stay here for a long time?

We could discuss this question in several dimensions. First we could start form the professional side, and then the cultural and personal side.

I think the experience in Asia is really different from in Europe. It is really a good challenge for me in professional. And after I stayed here for a period of time, I found out that I truly like this country, and felt like to stay here.

I recommend you that when you have chance to travel or work in many countries in the future, you should try to check where is your suitable place to stay. A good environment which can inspire you is the most important place you should stay.

Audience Question 4

Can you share some of the personal characteristics to help you succeed?

I think first of all, collaboration could help you do things professionally and worthwhile. Now I am stand on the highest position in Asia, I think only to make a practical project is meaningful.

Secondly, I think cooperation is important. You may interact with your colleagues and inspire each other to grow. I think I am a best team-player. When I first interview for the P&G job in Italy, my recruiter is a person who with same age as me. This is the first shock for me. And then after I first formally work, my boss told me that my first task is to charge for the two market project, this was the second shock for me. But in fact, only when you cooperate with the others, you could improve yourself rapidly.

Finally, I think the determination and passion would be critical as well, because they will motivate you to complete your dream.

Audience Question 5

I read an article written by your marketing manager, I would like to ask for the effect of your CSR plan?

P&G believes in communication with the population and the effect of live and learn. We think the past sixteen years activities in Asia are important for P&G Taiwan.

We try to make improvement for our products. We conducted an investigation in the U.S. hope to find out what kind of events we held would make people feel more meaningful, what kind of activities would help P&G to deliver our mission. We believe that the social events can make people better understand what they are doing, so we continue conducting several social charity activities.

Audience Question 6

Why you choose enter P&G to be your first job? How P&G helps you become a global leader?

It is obvious that international corporation could provide more resources. Because I like advertising and I would like to broaden my horizon, I determined to work in the multi-country company. In Italy, P&G is famous for marketing, so it becomes my best choice for my career path.

I met many outstanding people in P&G, and they traveled around many countries to work. I would like to know how these people live, and why they like this kind of way for life. I wonder perhaps I would like this life as well, and I took a try. Through the process cooperating with many people from different countries, I learned more

about different culture. And I fulfilled my dream no matter I stayed in Europe or Asia. In P&G, I met many friends, and I got more opportunities to make myself become the people I would like to be.

Audience Question 7

Sometime even you are deal with the things you believe is right, you may com across frustration. How do you handle this situation?

When you look back to the past, it may help you to consider things better. You may find some good experience or bad experience, but all these would help you find the way to relief yourself.

I always try to stand back to figure a bigger blueprint. Give yourself a quiet afternoon to clarify your thought. Some other people relax by doing Yoga, they relief their mentality through the physiological relax.

But I have to say, success often comes with persistence. When the successful people looked through their past, failure is not the most important thing. In fact, failure may be the inspiration for insistence. Only the people sticking with their dream could succeed. So I will be responsible for my own success and failure.

I would try to encourage others by do the role-model. I must understand not only the difficulties and thoughts of people, but also the outside environment then I could help them. Therefore, I consider role-modeling would be the best way to lead your members.

Audience Question 8

Is it difficult to get a full-time job in P&G? I heard about there many tests for estimation.

P&G would use many group tests to select the suitable candidates. In the competitive market, companies are looking for the people with strong willingness and ambition to help them grow.

More concretely, I think the person with team-work spirit, and the motivation to grow with the company would be the qualified candidate for P&G.

Audience Question 9

How do you identify your interest and preference?

Actually I don’t know specific answer. But perhaps it is because my father is also engaged in advertising, so it might affect me.

When I was in high school, I am not sure about my interest. While after I entered university, I felt I was quite interested in the economic marketing field in the class. Afterwards, I tried to realize how the business operates in reality through observing the magazines and advertisements. And when I studied in the MBA program, I further thought things from the angle of company.

Nowadays, there are more chances for you to seek the information about your interest; I think you should try to use the resources you have to help yourself.

Audience Question 10

How do you adjust yourself to get used to the unfamiliar working environment?

When you have to go over some place to work, you won’t have much time to prepare everything. But you may try to get some information by asking some people stayed there. Through finding the information by yourself, you may prepare mentally first.

Audience Question 11

Do you think it is possible to deal with the same thing in the same way under different cultural background?

The world communication is very convenient now, you may contact through many ways. However, communicating face to face is still important because you may exchange more ideas when you meet face to face. I like to communicate in person, and perhaps we could make the same effect through some technique products in the future.

Audience Question 12

What is the greatest challenge you met?

I think to adjust for sharply changing is really a big challenge for me, like when I transferred from Rome to London. Going to China is also a big challenge because the market is so huge to handle. It is difficult to adjust all the things in the same time, so I take the far-distance transference is the greatest challenge for me.

Audience Question 13

How do you handle different culture after you came to Asia?

You have to do some preparations. I would try to observe the difference in this country. For instance, you might discover that the social way is quite different in Italy from in Taiwan. In Italy, we go to lunch with many people together, but people tend to move together in a small group in Taipei. You may learn many things through your observation, adding with your prepared knowledge then you can handle the cultural differences better.

Audience Question 14

Do you ever consider combining the Italian culture with your marketing idea in Taiwan?

I think when P&G promote a product in Taiwan, what we want to do is serving to Taiwan people. Therefore, we should make our product best fit for Taiwan customers, not to introduce my home-country culture. But to stand on the personal side, perhaps we could consider it when the culture could combine with the idea naturally.

Ending

Thank you for your participating tonight. I feel really great to share my life experience with you. I really enjoy tonight, and I expect to have another opportunity to come here again.