| COOL FRIENDS |
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| Vlad Cretu, Radio Frecquency Manager, Vodafone Romania |
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Human Invest: Vlad, you have been successfully managing a key technical department in Vodafone for years. How have you done it? As a manager, what responsibility areas do you pay most attention to?
Vlad Cretu: In the ten years and more I have spent with Vodafone I have had the chance to work with many managers, with different styles, but all of them coming from the American or British managerial “school”. Being early acknowledged as a potential manager, I have attended high quality training sessions where I have learned very much. However, I believe that, besides all these, the secret of my success (and, generally speaking, of any manager’s success) relies in the pleasure of working with people. Without this pleasure and without naturally interacting with your colleagues, you cannot be a successful manager and, more than that, you cannot be a manager for a long time. One of the advantages of being a manager is that you never get bored because working with people means dealing with extremely varied situations that can hardly fit into a pattern. If you can accept and be happy with this continuous change of the tasks you have to solve, everything will be very easy when you become a manager.
As a manager, I am trying to give the people in my team a certain amount of freedom when working and making decisions, especially when it comes to the technical, detailed areas. I also expect this from my direct subordinates, who also have to manage their own teams. I have noticed a big temptation inside Romanian organizations (and not only) concerning managers promoted from the members of the team (and not only). They tend to do “micromanagement” and continue to pay attention to tasks that do not concern their level anymore. Drawing a parallel with sports, the situation is similar to that of a football coach who stopped playing a long time ago, but who, when the situation seems difficult, does not hesitate to enter the football pitch and play, because some time ago he used to be a good player, too. I have seen many managers who behave more like players than like coaches. As a manager, you are sometimes tempted, especially during a crisis, to think that nobody can do a certain thing better than you. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior blocks the growth and development of the team members, who should deal with the respective problems in detail and that is why these situations of crisis appear increasingly often. The moment I accept a managerial position, I am aware that, no matter how much I would still like to play, my main role is to train and to get results by “assembling” a team, establishing responsibilities, deciding on priorities, motivating the players, providing permanent feedback and rewarding performance.
HI: The projects you have carried on have also taught you many lessons! Which is the most valuable lesson you have learned?
Vlad Cretu: The most important thing I have learned is that the way you manage to achieve an objective is as important as the objective itself. I have carried on a lot of crucial projects for the company, some of them with objectives and deadlines that looked like fantasies. I strongly believe that no matter how difficult the objective you have to achieve is, and no matter how critical the situation is when you are carrying on a project, achieving the goal cannot be an excuse for the ways you get there, and the concern for the team, the natural interest for your colleagues’ opinions and fears will prove to be valuable in the long run.
I have noticed that sometimes team satisfaction does not necessarily come as a factor of success when dealing with a project. Enemy number one for the interest in the way a project is delivered is time, the feeling (many times a false feeling) that you are pressured by time. You can deliver one or two projects only with a whip in your hand, but you will soon realize that the people you can really trust and who can make the difference will no longer be with you and will no longer support you and your team. This is the kind of situation when there is nothing else for you to do than to “specialize” in always managing with a whip aside, which means amplifying the dictatorial side that probably exists in every leader.
HI: You enjoy high credibility inside the organization. How did you manage to get that? From all you do for the company and for your team, what contributed the most to this credibility?
Vlad Cretu: Unfortunately, credibility is part of the things which are difficult to obtain and easy to lose. It is generally accepted that only those who do not work do not make mistakes, but there are so many who hurry to start labeling managers the moment one has a project that does not go very well or an idea that is not one of the best. Credibility comes together with the results and performance you bring to the company. I believe I have the reputation of a manager who achieves all his objectives, no matter how impossible they may seem. I am also well aware of the saying “as a manager you are as good as your last quarter results”, so I am trying to maintain performance at a high level.
My team has delivered important projects for the company, projects that contributed to getting the leader position on the business market and in the 3G and 3G broadband service area on the Romanian market. For my colleagues, both top managers and the managers on the same level as me, this matters very much. Achieving daring objectives is also important from the point of view of the team, a leader’s credibility also grows in the eyes of his/ her subordinates when you make them feel as important members of a successful team. Besides this, the team appreciates a minimum of freedom when it comes to making decisions, they appreciate a leader’s openness and sincerity, the stability of some working principles. In short, when we speak about credibility, management is less sophisticated, but much more demanding from the point of view of the quality and consistency you deliver results, while the team deals with a larger range of aspects, also being more understanding in some cases, especially towards the leaders who have proved their qualities in time.
HI: Life in Vodafone often means social events, when you feel good having your colleagues by your side and enjoying yourselves. What is the most pleasant memory from such an event?
Vlad Cretu: It is difficult to choose from dozens of such events… It is not fair especially when we think about older events and the memories that came with them, which are not so vivid in our mind anymore… I have been together with Connex from the very beginning, when all the employees could gather for a party in just a large apartment. I took part in the party organized when we launched the first GSM network in Romania, and then the party when we celebrated five years and now ten years. I have felt the emotions of dozens of service promotions all of them top innovative for the Romanian market… dozens of team building programs together with the team in extremely beautiful locations… the Christmas parties together with the technical department … launching the Vodafone brand in Romania.
I remember with much pleasure the launching of the 3G services in Romania. I have managed together with my team to work miracles and to be ready with this launching in a race against time (five months from the moment we got the license). Emotions were strong because we offered then, for the first time, some “live” demonstrations of the 3G video telephone services. We also had a live video call with the President of Romania, during the press conference. Until the end of the press conference, my colleagues and I were very tense because any little mistake would have spoiled that huge effort, that singular success not only for Romania, but also for the European telecommunications market at that time. Everything went on perfectly and during the party that followed I was filled with pride and satisfaction, feelings which all my colleagues, members of a successful team, were sharing. |
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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
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