José Manuel García – Russula Inside
This year, José Manuel celebrates 22 years with Russula. As a project manager, he has worked in Asia, North and South America, and many countries in Europe. In this interview, he shares his project management philosophy, how to carry out projects successfully in cross-cultural environments and a good story or two.
Tomorrow’s project is based on yesterday’s success.
What motivates you to keep improving on a day-to-day basis?
Tomorrow’s project is based on yesterday’s success. In many ways, the life of a project manager is similar to that of a merchant. I have a product. I go to the market every day with my basket, which contains my product, and I have to sell it. The product has to be good to be sold, and every day it has to be better, because every day the market is harder, and I want my client to be satisfied day after day so that each day he buys more of my product. This is my concept of continuous improvement. Some days it is harder to sell but I have to do whatever it takes to improve my product and come back the next day and sell it. Over the years, the product that you carry in your basket is getting better.
Paralleling this allegory to the steel sector in which we operate, I always bring more experience, more knowledge, I expand my area of expertise, and I offer more to the market. This is my concept of the life of a project manager in Russula because I have been coming to the market with my basket for many years, and I try to improve my offering each and every time.
How do you motivate and lead the people you are in charge of?
I think the best way to motivate a person is full participation in the project. Even if they are supervised, give people the freedom to carry out their work.
I have often met people who, regardless of their age, gender, and race shared the same philosophy: Move forward, and move forward effectively.
What is your approach when it comes to leading and moving forward in projects where the culture and way of working are different?
On the one hand, I have often met people who, regardless of their age, gender, and race shared my same philosophy: Move forward and move forward effectively. But on the other hand, there have also been times when the culture and the concept of time and quality are different. Moving the project forward became much more difficult and you have to push a lot, you have to convince people to adapt to a certain way of working. But in general, I have not seen extreme differences in culture from one country to another.
What do you like about working in other countries outside of Spain?
Every experience I have had abroad has made me realize that we, at Russula, are capable of delivering quality work anywhere. When I first went to the United States, my seatmate on the airplane asked me "What is a Spanish guy going to do in America?” I even asked myself the same question because the impression I had at the time was that the United States had a very high technological level. But when I arrived, I saw that the state of the steel plants was worse than expected, I thought, "Who is taking care of the mills here? Who is making the installations?" And for this reason, we are still there. At the time, I remember speaking with someone from maintenance and he told me "José Manuel, we count on you to radically improve the situation here."
In the electrical and control revamp at a mill in Charlotte I carried all the weight of the pre-installation, to keep the commissioning to 240 hours of downtime, a lot of work had to be done. And they congratulated me.
I particularly liked working in Canada and the United States. They program the work and they keep at it until it’s done. There is an urgency in the project planning and execution. I had two great projects in Canada. But I especially liked working in the United States, because I appreciate this immediate definition of doing things.
You have to be very agile and adaptable, to work in all places.
Does the environment and culture of a country matter a lot when it comes to doing a job?
I have worked in some tough countries, where any problem takes a long time to resolve, where there is excessive paperwork with an overabundance of unnecessary bureaucracy and where the unions are so strong that they can stop the project. You have to be very agile and adaptable, to work in all places. Also, being in such different countries with high poverty affects you, but if you are sent to do a job, you get it done.
Beyond the country where you are working, I think that the most important thing is who you work with. If you do a job with a very fine, elegant and excellent person, and the communication is exceptional, it does not matter in which country you are.
Safety and environment can vary. For example, in Brazil, there is a mosquito that carries Dengue, which is very contagious. Two employees from the civil construction of the project were victims of this disease, which never disappears one hundred percent because it can always be transmitted again. But even so, when I'm on a plane going to what is considered a "riskier" country like Brazil, I only think about the project.
I like working in Canada and the United States. They program the work and they keep at it until it’s done. There is an urgency in the project planning and execution.
Have you been happy working for Russula over the past twenty-two years?
With all the changes that have taken place, both inside and outside of Russula, I still find myself at ease. I like and enjoy what I do. I am in the place where I want to be. Of course, not all moments are happy moments, but I deal with all of them, both the very good and the very bad ones. You have to learn to deal with them, and the next day, keep selling. In these times when things change so fast, you have to try to understand what is happening, go home, sleep, and the next day, you have to sell again.
The lesson I have learned is that in Russula we do what is necessary to do the job well and on time.
Do you think the culture in Russula is different from other companies?
I'm going to tell you an anecdote. In 2001, Russula opened a delegation in the United States. We won our first project. I met up with Eric Thorstenson, who is from Wisconsin and is now our Regional Sales Manager. We had won our first project in the US and scheduled a trip to Knoxville, Tennessee. And we were going to transport two remote IO units in a van. But it started to snow a lot. So, we went to the airport and bought tickets. But the flights were canceled because of the snow. Eric proposed to go by car. Everyone was worried about what could happen while driving when it was snowing so much, especially being Europeans, we were not used to seeing snowstorms, but Eric said: "If you don’t do the work, another person does it". Despite the danger, we drove more than a thousand kilometers to deliver the remote IO in time. The lesson I learned is that in Russula we do what is necessary to do the job well and on time. Probably someone who was not from Russula would have been more conservative, and would have said: "it's too risky, we're not going". But we went, we arrived safely and we fulfilled our commitments.
