Interview #5 – Carlos De Castro

SHARE > Nominate > Connect > Learn

My name is Carlos de Castro and I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. My professional trajectory happened through different industries and countries: I started in quality control and inspection, then became plant quality manager in a small factory of Invensys, moved to the automotive quality with ZF Group in Germany. Went for 11 years with Philips in different quality positions and recently joined Novelis, the world leader in rolled aluminium products, delivering high quality alloys to the beverage cans, automotive, architecture and consumer electronics industries. 

During last years I’ve realized there are actually three elements imposing a big challenge for quality leaders. 

The first is People. I have worked in many different countries and managed people located in various locations, such as factories in China, supply center in Hong Kong, or R&D facilities in Singapore. Understanding the drivers that lead to engagement and motivation in all those different places was always a challenge but fundamental to obtain effective team collaboration and results. To reach engagement at individual level, I have learned the importance of making people accountable, identifying owners with a face and name, and then connecting them together. 

The second is Strategy. It starts by understanding that customers don’t buy things but buy solutions to their needs, so we must find out what problems people are trying to solve or what needs they are trying to satisfy. Without a good product and service, there is no business success and to achieve those we need to place the customer high in the vision and drive the right mindset. 

The third is Execution. Without focus on execution, the best strategy would fail terribly. I experienced success and also failure depending on how the vision & strategy were deployed to the people in charge of making it happen. Without dialogue, clarity, targets and follow-up, programs went through the sink without people feeling accountable for the implementation.

I keep my eyes and mind open to learn. As a friend likes to say: “life is constantly teaching me”. This is valid for both professional and personal aspects of life. Our journey is full of incidents along the way and to progress we must learn with the incidents and avoid incurring on the same mistakes. But if we don’t experiment and try there will be no learning. Therefore, in all aspects of life, be open, experiment, try, learn from it, and keep going.

“Organizations are like automobiles. They don’t run themselves, except downhill” by Prof. Manfred Kets de Vries

* ADVICE / RECOMMENDATION: What advice would you pass along to others taking the same path as you? Any specific books/blogs/authors you would recommend?