The freedom to excel — memoria di Rick

I was preparing coffee after lunch in the sun of mid-April, it was a Sunday. The mobile phone rang, and the voice of the new president was almost inaudible: rick, comma, pause, has passed away. I was standing, I looked at that device as to throw it away and with it that unqualifiable news, and I thought our rick oh no.

We had exchanged rushed mails few days before, and even in the rush he managed to joke about how our colleagues were trying to mold his life after the presidency, trying to make him behaving “well”, aligned like — he said, playing our common games — an Anglo-Saxon. No, he wrote, “for sure that will never happen”.

Rick loved to spend few days every few months in Roma or Torino, meeting his Italian friends who never bothered him with questions about money and profits, shareholders and the president’s stuff, instead while delivering good profits spent the due time talking about life, wines, women and what matters.

Working with him was enjoyable for most of his colleagues, because like kids engaged in a never-ending passionate game, we were together building the environment to work in, which is the true privilege for lucky professionals. And we were building the company telling stories, never ending anecdotes, episodes concerning working lives and private lives, teaching each other’s, leading by examples worked in our thoughts, carved out from the experience of hundreds, thousands of people that travelling and listening around the world we had the privilege to witness and work from.

In Lima the management team worked for two days reading the feedback from hundreds of office to prepare the vision statement, under his leadership, which very rarely was practiced with the bitter force of power. It was late in the afternoon when the last session in groups gathered, and the team after years of forming and storming was performing at best, which is the magic moment that change inevitably soon destroys, and nevertheless is the best target you can aim for when managing a team. The groups gathered, most of us exhausted, and compromised on the statement “the freedom to excel”. Two words close to the best genes of a company founded on the responsibility to strive for the best in Toronto 50 years before and grown to unexpected maturity, expanded beyond its Canadian roots and any mental border of the founders. Border essential for the initial start, dangerous for the growth which follows success. A statement rather bold, born under Rick’s vision and our commitment to deliver the best.

Rick, to most of us, was not only a friend but also a good grandfather — unwilling to play the role of the father boss telling you what not to do, rather looking at alternatives to go around and have someone else something else putting pressure on you, helping you finding the right direction. He did not like, actually he rather hated, conflicts, and managed the inevitable ones postponing, drinking on top of them, enough to find in the deep night’s conversations the solution, or at least what in the night seems close to the best solution.

For the few years we enjoyed him and a large organization enjoyed his leadership, we were given the chance of the freedom to excel and some made a good use of it. And I learned, from him, many things concerning curiosity for people. And what matters most: how to use garlic and fresh onions together to start the fish soup or just a potage for the long winter evenings ahead. April 18th, 2019 — nine years after. Picture: Marco Garbaccio photos