“Vanity is the beginning of the end”

The conversation starts by discussing the impact of Covid-19 on Mr. Schwörers everyday day business. He states that they used the time to pull forward investments which anyway would have been necessary at some later point. He then tells he never felt threatened for PERI or himself, although the pandemic was and is an emotional roller coaster. This could be traced back to PERIs business model and its fast response on the crisis, which means focusing on rental, switching fast to short time work and having a strong supply chain.
Despite Covid-19 hitting global trade hard Mr Schwörer does not think that it will stop the process of globalization. Still he emphasizes that companies need to hedge which includes to create redundancy and to analyze who their suppliers are.

Further he explains how requirements for leadership are changing. For example, cultural understanding will be most important, by which he doesn’t mean to understand the cultural background of your employees at all time but understand the culture of your company.
That is why the owner concludes that owners and leaders would have to develop this culture, live it and make sure it is alive and strong. Therefore, vanity and self-focussing is the beginning of the end, because future leaders must be “empathetic, understanding and can listen but at the same time give a clear direction”.