Management Lessons at the Beginning of Life

I was at the beginning of my business life. I was aware that I was very lucky to be able to say, "If I become a manager one day, I should be a manager like this."

My job was to assist him. I would research which opportunities existed in which countries and present him with country reports. Are the supply chains mature enough in the country markets we wanted to reach? How are the conditions of competition developing? What is the level of adequacy of the technologies that need to be used in the production stages in which countries? My job was to produce answers to such questions.

My American female manager was in her early 40s. She was extremely disciplined and principled. She was also cheerful. The years I worked with her gave me the principles of my business life.

There were about 900 of us at DuPont’s European headquarters. I was the only Turk. I was selected for this job after meeting very ambitious criteria. It was the mid-1990s. Former Iron Curtain countries were trying to open up to the outside world. It was exciting to be involved in a project that was built on how developed countries’ supply chains would adapt to newly opening markets. I was watching the world change dramatically and witnessing firsthand the application of the theoretical foundations of my education.

Of course, there had to be boundaries between concepts such as work, friendship, discipline, seriousness, and jokes, but I had not yet experienced balancing these concepts within the boundaries of my behavior in business life. I was at the beginning of my life.

My manager was extremely serious, extremely disciplined and principled in the work environment. How would it be to meet him outside of work? He was much older than me. However, being American was also an advantage for me. Even asking me out for the evening as a person responsible for all European operations of a brand of a multinational company was not something that would be welcomed in Eastern cultures. Only a Western professional, and especially an American, could do this.

He was very well informed about what was going on in the world. He was a very good newspaper and magazine reader. He was careful to get to know different cultures. His horizons were very broad. The conversations helped me a lot.

Despite all the friendly conversations, jokes, and occasional drinks, he had an attitude in the workplace as if we had seen each other for the first time in our lives. This was very natural for me. In the face of his modesty, I felt like I had to work with zero mistakes and I showed a work performance above average.

He never gave me permission. Because there was no need for it. He would say, “Plan yourself and finish your work, then report back to me on time what you have done.” This freedom was stimulating me. It increased my creativity and motivation. In this atmosphere, the effort to do things better and to progress had become almost a religion for me. That is why my professional life was spent in an atmosphere where I constantly disliked myself. The feeling of ignorance that increased with the lack of knowledge that became more noticeable as I learned and developed!

I never took any leave. I always planned myself and did my job. Here he taught me such a lesson that I will never forget.

In February 1997, I was devastated when I learned from a phone call with my family one evening that my uncle and his wife had died in a car accident. I don't know what we were celebrating, but I was at a cocktail party. At one point, I went up to my room and called Istanbul. I learned what had happened and couldn't go back to the cocktail party. I closed the door to my room.

When I was late returning from the cocktail party, they asked about me. Someone came to my room. When they saw my condition, they asked. I told them how I had received the news. The news had also reached my American manager. Half an hour passed, he came to me. He brought two plane tickets. The departure was the next morning, but the return date was open. My brother had come to visit me in those days. He knew this. He said, “Go and do what you feel like doing, not what you have to do from now on.” The next morning, we flew to Istanbul. I stayed in Istanbul for 10 days. Then, I returned to Geneva and continued working from where I left off.

At the point where I started my life, I understood how to use the creative power that freedom gives with uncompromising discipline and principles. I learned to be in professional life and do my own job. I experienced the impossibility of learning without making mistakes. I also learned how to correct myself. I saw that management starts on the first day of work in life and that it is not necessary to have a manager title to be a manager. I experienced the necessity of hierarchy, but I saw the contributions that an environment where you work without feeling the hierarchy can offer to both the person and the organization.

Time passed. Returning to Turkey was not like returning to my own country. It was like returning to a country I had never met. When you first experience business life in a completely different atmosphere, it turns out that you do not return to your own culture with the business life you see for the first time in your own country.

I became a manager. I tried to take what I learned from my American manager further, develop it and apply it. I got into trouble from time to time because of this.

People wanted to ask for my approval on various issues. They asked for permission. I have never given permission to anyone in my life. Because I have never asked for permission. I do not know how it is given or received. But I have learned many other things very well. That is, the issues that I think are more meaningful.

I said, “I won’t give it” to those who asked for permission to go on vacation. They said, “Okay” and started to leave my room. “Wait,” I said. “As adults, you can’t ask for permission from me. You can only let me know that you are going on vacation,” I said. They were surprised. “When someone in your family gets sick, you won’t ask me to go to the hospital in the morning. You will go directly to the hospital,” I said. How can a person whose mind is on their mother, father, child, and spouse work? “Just let me know,” I said. A person makes plans, finishes their work on time, and decides for themselves when to go on vacation or not. Permission is not needed for this. Should an adult ask for permission?

I told my friends I worked with, "One day you might want to skip work to go out with your girlfriend or boyfriend. Don't kill someone from your family or have a funeral for this." A person can get very depressed while working and might want to take a breath. I always said, "Do this and don't ask, just let me know."

Discipline and principle should be uncompromising in every environment. Mistakes should be discussed as clearly as black and white. But, with kindness and to learn and improve. For this reason, either I said goodbye to some jobs or they said goodbye to me. But, there is never a gray color left in anyone's mind. You cannot find the honorable life that comes from holding on to principles in money.

I came across a person who tried to abuse this management model that is completely unsuitable for Turkey. I had to fire him too.

I was always very angry when people I said “Object to me” said “God forbid” to me. “I have learned in life not to be stupid enough to claim to know everything, and I cannot lose this quality of mine because of you,” I replied to those who said “God forbid” to me. However, while every business organization should be open to ideas, I also saw that decisions cannot be made through democracy. I understood this at the beginning of my life.

We always talk about the economy and such. It seems like when those economies are managed with such principles, they become more efficient, conscientious and humane.