Corporate Plasticity: How to Change, Adapt, and Excel

Spirit

There are companies run by accountants and companies run by people who are passionate about the products they make. Volkswagen falls into the latter category and is making a credible push to becoming the world’s number one carmaker soon.

Let’s take a look at how a board-level executive at Volkswagen spends his day. Many decision-making meetings don’t happen in the board room but in a laboratory looking at prototypes. Final decisions are made by gut feeling; rather than looking at spreadsheets, the executive asks the question, “Is this a product I like?”

Getting to a board-level position at all requires a skill that may come as a surprise. Throughout their careers, Volkswagen executives spend a lot of time test-driving the cars they make. ...