Decision Leaders. How decision-making experts make a difference

Episode 1 | Interview David Cabero & Ernesto Weissmann

In this first episode, Ernesto Weissmann, Partner at Tandem, talks with David Cabero, Group Category Leader Stationery at BIC, about his experiences and learnings from making decisions in various contexts and cultures. David is passionate about decision-making, has reflected deeply on this topic, and is the author of the book, “Deciding: in times of peace and war. A practical guide for making better decisions”.

Video transcription

Ernesto Weissmann: Hello everyone. Welcome to Decision Leaders, the series where we talk to top-level executives to understand how they think and make decisions. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with David Cabero. David leads the Stationery category, BIC’s largest global business. With nearly 25 years of experience at the company, he has worked in a wide range of areas. Starting in finance, he quickly became a young general manager and has led operations in several countries before taking the helm of the entire European business. As you’ll see in a few minutes, David is also an expert in decision-making, having written a book called, “Deciding: in Times of Peace and War, a Practical Guide to Better Decision-Making,” which is full of valuable advice. Without further ado, let’s talk to David. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I do.

David Cabero: Hello, good morning, Ernesto. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today.

Ernesto Weissmann: Well, thank you very much. The purpose of this series is to learn as much as possible from the leaders who participate. And perhaps the first question I’d like to ask you is, in all this time of your career, working in so many countries and businesses, what have you learned about decision-making? How could you summarize some of those learnings for others to copy?

David Cabero: I would differentiate three elements, what I call the PEC with experience. First is politics. Sometimes decisions are made in companies, and now I’m focusing on the corporate world because there’s someone, your boss, who’s going to promote you, and to avoid contradicting them, to ensure that promotion goes through, you say yes, that they’re right about a plan that doesn’t seem very reasonable. This is politics. The second letter of PEC is emotions.

Ultimately, what’s happening is that it’s influencing the decision you’re going to make, and you’re not even aware of it. You’re using logic, explaining that you’ll make the decision based on certain criteria, but that’s not the reality. The reality is that you’ve already decided that you don’t want to go down that path, you don’t want to make that decision, and you make another one.

And the third is the C for culture, the company’s culture. Depending on the culture and how decisions are made in that company, we’ll later talk about leadership styles and other important topics, it can influence your decision because someone in the hallway tells you that Marcel Bich, the founder, would never have done that. That’s culture.

So, the first lesson is that emotion, everything that isn’t logic, has a much more significant weight than we think, and the lesson for me is, well, this leads you to self-awareness. You have to know yourself well when you have these biases, not to stop or suppress them, but to control them. My body tells me to go one way, but the reality is that I probably should make another decision. So, what you do is ask other people who don’t have those biases, who aren’t influenced by that emotion, that pressure you’re putting on yourself, and with them, you can make a more thoughtful, balanced, and less influenced decision. That’s the lesson from 25, 28 years of leading different countries, different regions, and different cultures. Ultimately, I’ve encountered this everywhere.

Ernesto Weissmann: That’s interesting. I find it very interesting because the P, which you call political interests, seems to be a big influence, it can make you think about decisions or make decisions contrary to what you would want. Emotions too. Fear can make you not make decisions that you think are rationally the best for the company, and the same thing happens with culture, because of the way things have always been done…

David Cabero: So, if I understand you correctly, what you’re saying is: be careful because in companies all these forces, some internal, some external, can push you to make decisions that aren’t the best, and knowing yourself is one way to be able to turn these forces around. Is that right?

Yes, yes, and not only that, but you’ll justify that it’s the right decision. In the end, the neural system works very well. You end up convincing yourself that the best thing is not to fire anyone because things will get better. And why do you think things will get better? Not because the numbers explain that, the market trend, if you’re gaining or losing market share, if you’re competing well, but because you don’t want to reach that conclusion, because that conclusion forces you to reduce staff, and you don’t see yourself making those decisions.

Ernesto Weissmann: So, how do BIC or your experiences in different teams ensure that reason prevails over all these hidden forces you mentioned? Because you’re a very successful company, and I’m sure in the long run you make the decisions you believe make the most economic sense, right? And you weigh all the variables at play. So, how can one, in a company with these forces, overcome what you mentioned?

Group decision-making has the benefit, as we mentioned, of giving you another type of vision, another type of reality, because everyone has their own fears, but they’re different, everyone has different emotions, they see politics differently. And they also read the culture from their own personal culture that they’ve lived at home, the country’s culture which isn’t necessarily the same as the company culture. In the end, there are 3 cultures that intersect. So, when you decide to say, “I’m not going to decide, but first I’m going to discuss it with a team”, what you’re doing is opening up that possibility to have various perspectives, and that can shape a better decision and sometimes better control these emotions we were talking about.

When you want to use, when I say use in a good sense, leverage, leverage the team, there are several points to consider. One is what I call the fair process. Teams, people think that because it’s a team, because if everyone has the same vision, the same solution, they’re going to agree with you because they have the same one.

People think that’s the end game, the consequence, and that’s not true. Teams are motivated if you put them in, let them discuss, let them participate. If in the end the decision is different and you explain it, and if the process is fair, they have no problem. So, you don’t have to think, “I’m going to confront the team because the decision is different”. No, no, what you have to do is explain. You have a thought, you’ve reached a conclusion, and you say, “Look, I’m 90% convinced this is the right decision, but before I make it, I want to take your pulse. What do you think?” They discuss and say what they think. What you do is you collect that information, take a pause, go home, and with your pillow or in the shower, you end up thinking about what’s best.

Then, you go back to them and say, “Look, because of what you’ve told me, Ernesto, of everything you’ve told me, I buy this, you’re right. This, no, for these reasons you haven’t considered these situations that I’m experiencing globally, corporately or where the company is going, so if we integrate this, it wouldn’t work”. When you do that, the team has worked, has committed, has given their vision, and then they are willing to follow and support whatever the final decision is, if you explain it to them. So, to be able to have a fair process, you need several things. One, is at a personal level, the leader needs to be humble because ego goes against this. If you think you’re right and the team isn’t at the level or isn’t as good, then you won’t apply the fair process. It will be a false fair process. I’m going to explain, tell me what you think, but you’re not really listening, and they’re going to realize it, which is the worst.

This is the second element, the ego. The third is how you see your team. When you see your team from the perspective of team developer, coach, of people you want to develop, you’re going to accept a certain delegation sometimes, so sometimes you won’t even decide yourself. You’re seeing that you have many biases or that you’re not sure what to do. You delegate, which means: It’s you who decides. So, delegating doesn’t mean I’m going to influence you to decide what I want. You decide, I give you an input, you decide, but I feel co-responsible for the consequences of your decision.

What you’re doing is you’re delegating the decision, but you assume the consequences, right? And there are people who don’t do that, so a third option is to delegate that responsibility, which improves the decision. If you think someone else is more suitable or you’re developing the person and you’re accepting the possibility that they might make a mistake, and you also assume the consequences. So those are group decisions, those are the different options that I see improve the final decision through that process that is more logical, of discussion, of acceptance, of feedback to reach the best possible decision.

Ernesto Weissmann: That’s very good. So, in a way, if I understand what you’re saying, it’s that group decisions, the sum of these individualities, of these biases, gives a little more objectivity to the process. The sum of subjectivities gives something more objective.

David Cabero: Exactly.

Ernesto Weissmann: Listening to you and thinking about how in an organization there are many teams that work and decide with a greater or lesser degree of openness to conversation and tolerance for error. What have you seen in your experience that helps the organization as a whole, the sum of all these teams, plus certain decisions that are made individually, plus others that are made by 2 or 3 people, or in processes that are already established, maybe even taken automatically. What have you seen at the organizational level that helps a company make more and better decisions and also do so efficiently? Because clearly there are some companies that make more decisions than others. We see this all the time.

David Cabero: Well, so we started talking about the individual, we moved on to talk about the group, and now we’re talking about the sum of groups. Now we’re talking about a cross-functional organization. The generation of value, because in the end we do all this for what, the strategy, that the strategies are made to generate competitive advantages and win, generate value. If value is not generated, it is not a strategy. So, in the end what we want is to generate value. Value is generated mainly in what I call the intersections between marketing and sales, between sales and production. And that work of intersection and alignment makes the sum of the work done in each department multiplicative or additional. Sometimes what is done subtracts because each department goes in different directions, so you don’t add up.

So, that generation of value at the intersection, returning to organizational decision-making, I see 3 important elements, and there is one that I’m going to omit because it’s the one that people refer to the most and I think it’s not as important, which are the processes. Processes give you a framework, but being too tied to the process can sometimes mean that you don’t make the right decision and that it’s not agile enough, so the process has to be the framework, but it can’t be the insurance, like when you pay for insurance in your house, for whatever happens. I have a process that assures me, guarantees me that the result will be good. No, it will never guarantee anything, the process is a facilitator, and it has to be seen as such. So, for me, leaving aside the process, there are three elements. One is culture, and we’re going to go into a little more detail, we’ve already mentioned it.

The other, the second, is the leadership style of the leaders of each department, of the Executive Committee, of how they connect with each other and work with each other, and the third is the teams below. So, let’s start with culture. Culture, what is it? Culture is a sum of beliefs that say how we have worked this way for all these years. Then we’ll get into the elements. But beliefs, we’ve worked this way for so many years and it has given us, it has created value, it has given us benefits, we have grown, this is the way to work and because the conviction is so strong, the culture doesn’t change. You enter a company and want to change the culture, it’s impossible. Now I’m exaggerating, maybe you’ll allow me the exaggeration, but it’s very difficult to change the culture in a company. Very difficult. You can change some elements, but not the culture. Why? Because it’s very ingrained.

Because culture, what is it? It’s values, what are the values that move us, teamwork, responsibility. Everyone has their own, each company has its own, but what moves us? This is one part. Then there are behaviors, that behavior in the end is how we put those values into life or how we give life to those values, how I behave, what we accept as behavior, what behaviors we don’t accept in the company, in the team, etc. The third are the rituals, the meetings, so when we talk, who speaks first, who do we let speak, who is silent, how they speak, how often we meet, who participates in those meetings, who do we leave out.

Ernesto Weissmann: You say it doesn’t change, but these things are things that can be changed.

David Cabero: The ritual can change.

Ernesto Weissmann: The same with behaviors through incentives, through practices.

David Cabero: Behavior is more difficult. When a culture is very ingrained, whatever it may be, one thing is that the behavior doesn’t fit, so what we do is adapt. There are people who have a behavior that doesn’t go with the culture, yes, but we’re not changing the culture. What I’m talking about is, we have a culture that is ingrained, how do I change it? Well, it’s very difficult, very difficult. If the behavior of a company, a family business that you enter is that the boss decides, a small company, how do you change that? You have people who have not been thinking for 20 years, someone else does it, how do you change that? Very difficult.

The second element is the leadership style. I see four styles, and it’s something we can discuss, but there are four styles. There are many theories. I do it very simply. There is the commanding style, the person who decides, who makes all the decisions because he is the great general of the company’s armed forces, and he decides. This is commanding. There is another style that is teaching, which is giving meaning, giving the vision, explaining and through that explanation, giving meaning, the teams then work. It’s another type of style. A third style is socializing. I decide and I work through connection with people. I go to the factory, I talk to the workers, I ask them how we could improve this and by talking first about the family, about your children, I know you, and it makes people more open, to talk and discuss. And the driver, the style that person leads with is the connection to people, putting people at ease, and the connection.

A fourth style is processing, which is that everything in the end is processes. I have to unite, there has been an M&A to unite two companies, if I have a processing style what I do is I only want one R&D department, not two, and we’re going to divide it into pieces and we’re going to design what it should be and I see the company and my leadership as a result of the solution of processes always.

Normally, leaders have two strong or predominant ones. Two is better than one. Why? Because none of them is the good one, there is no good one. Each one is as it is. So adapting your style to each situation makes you a good leader because in the end what you do is you adapt to the need of the moment, knowing who you are and what your style is, so, to return to the question, the leadership style helps because depending on your style, the application of the company culture in your department will be different.

And the third is the type of team. In teams, to simplify and return to the military logic, of commanding, there are teams, there are people who are soldiers and there are commanders, so the CEO, the general commander below has this type of team. The more commanders there are, if they are also humble, and they take responsibility for the discussion and the decision, it is easier to implement a culture of discussion and improve the decision because of the varied knowledge and the varied perspective that a sales, marketing, production, communication department has. The more soldiers you have, the soldier just waits for instructions. If you ask them to reflect, they will find themselves in a situation where they will not be comfortable, they will not know how to do it and they will have a situation of stress because their personal preparation does not allow them to do this type of discussion with value creation. They will feel violated. “I don’t know what to do, they ask me to decide, I don’t know what this is about”, etc.

Ernesto Weissmann: Thank you very much, your answer is very comprehensive, and it’s given me a lot of new questions about what you’re saying. Let me delve a little deeper, into a more personal realm. You were talking about leadership styles, and I understand that leadership styles are partly learned, I’ll say theoretically, and partly formed through the experiences one has. In your particular case, what is your style like and how did it form? Let’s say, what experiences as a child, with leaders, with bosses, what are the things that made you the David you are today when making decisions?

David Cabero: Yes, the leadership style, I think there’s an important part and I can’t assign a percentage. This should be someone who knows more, a biologist. A significant part comes from birth, from your DNA, from who you are.

Ernesto Weissmann: It’s in the genes.

David Cabero: And that personality ends up adjusting, but it ends up adjusting in a very early stage of your life. I don’t know if it’s when you are 10, 15, how old, but the leadership style doesn’t change at 50 or 40, etc. So, before I go into and make the connection with the styles I mentioned, an anecdote, the anecdote of when I was 6 years old and I’m at school in Barcelona, the boys at that time, now it might sound wrong to say it, but that’s what it was like 50 years ago. The boys used to play soccer in the yard. Well, I was the captain, there were two captains, each captain chose their team. I wanted to be the captain to choose my team at 6 years old, so one carries a backpack that starts to get quite full at 6 or 10 years old and then it ends up being filled and perfected, changing depending on the learning capacity and saying, well, sometimes I’m like this, but sometimes this situation, as I said, you have to adapt. So maybe now I’m not commanding, but that’s what I need, I adapt, but I don’t change who I am.

So, going back to the four styles, I recognize myself in two styles. One is teaching, explaining things, giving meaning, giving direction, explaining why and storytelling, teaching, storytelling. What you do is use that communication and vision ability so that then the teams do their job.

The second is socializing. Latino, Mediterranean, a person from my land, well, it’s socializing, the relationship, the food, the dinner, the discussion, giving that oil that makes the teams, even if they have discussions, everything ends up going well because what you do is minimize those discussions or frictions, because you know the team and the relationship is part of that leadership. Those are my two predominant styles.

Ernesto Weissmann: Speaking of this, and I’m not surprised that the teaching style is one of your predominant ones, you’ve written a book called Deciding in Times of Peace and War, just to be able to teach your learnings on this subject, which I understand our audience will have already realized that you are passionate about and that it is a subject that you have thought about a lot. I would love to, I was thinking of specific questions from the book that I really liked, but I wanted to ask you a very general question, which is what are, if you had to tell someone who didn’t read it, the main ideas that the book has for those who haven’t had the opportunity to read it yet.

David Cabero: Well, when people ask me questions, I always try to give 3 points for each question, because it’s a way to simplify. I’m going to take the liberty of giving four this time, because if you give 10 then no one remembers anything, so people don’t learn. This is about getting messages across so that they serve a purpose. So I’m going to give you four.

The first is the importance of the emotions, and with the first question you asked me, I already cover that. Everyone, we are formatted to think that logic is paramount, and in decision-making, logic is not paramount, but it’s not even paramount for the wars that exist today, there is an emotional part of how the leader sees that war and what is the importance of that war for him. Right? So the emotional side is everywhere, not just in the company, not just in personal decisions, but in all types of organizations, all types of entities. The second, we live in a world of immediacy. What do I mean? My boss sends me a message, sends it to me by email, and after 1 minute sends me a WhatsApp to tell me that he sent me an email, and after 2 minutes sends me a Teams message: Listen, have you read the WhatsApp? Right? So that world of immediacy that we live in, and that we see in our children who have to play, have to do things that have to be now. We want Amazon in 5 minutes, not in 2 days.

That immediacy has a very important implication in decision-making that doesn’t allow us to separate the important from the urgent, what is urgent, what is important and why is that relevant? Not only because of the time you’re going to spend doing it, but who’s going to do it. Because something urgent, but not important, I shouldn’t be the one to take care of it, it will be someone on my team. So, when you delegate, when you don’t delegate, how you do it, the time you spend, the importance you give it depends. So many times, too much weight is given to the urgent and by definition or default, little importance or little time to the important, because it’s not urgent. Well, that’s a second reflection in the book and it explains how to manage it and how to make decisions about time and who takes care of which decision.

Ernesto Weissmann: Prioritization.

David Cabero: Yes, prioritization and who does it.

Ernesto Weissmann: Of course.

David Cabero: And who does it. Because in the end, bosses end up doing everything. And that, well, it doesn’t help develop the teams, nor for them or us to be more efficient and effective, etc. The third is the perspective. We’re talking about immediacy. Immediacy has another perspective, which is the short term and the long term. The incentive system of the Western world, I say the Western world because a country like China looks 100 years, 200 years into the future. And the decisions it’s going to make, whether they’re wars, whether they’re economic, whether they’re social, the perspective is long-term. I say China, there are others. China is a good example, I think, with its five-year plans, with that very long-term vision. So, in the Western world, the perspective is very short-term and is marked by the economic, and the economic, well, it’s marked by the allocation of resources, whether it’s the stock market, whether it’s funds, debt, etc., etc. And that, since there is remuneration, there are assets, there are liabilities and they have to be remunerated, well, there is very short-termism, so we have to present results, and the results of this quarter are not good. And since they are not good, we are going to make decisions because if not the stock market will punish us.

Well, that third idea is that long-term, short-term perspective. I can make short-term decisions that help me in the long run and maybe don’t hurt me in the short term. There’s a very nice thing in English, which is the hard right and the easy wrong. What is easy, the easy decision to make, but which is the bad one and the hard and the difficult, but which is the good one, the correct one. Well, that’s the third element. And the fourth would be, and you’ve understood it from my contributions, the importance of culture, the relevance of it in decisions, whether it’s family culture, whether it’s the culture of the people who are around the decision, the culture of the team, the culture of the company, the culture of the couple, the culture of my parents, with my sister, etc. So, four elements: the emotional, the urgent and the important, the long-term or short-term perspective, and that cultural relevance. They would be the four lines of the book and there, well, the book is defined a little more, explains a little more and gives some ideas of how to address each of these issues.

Ernesto Weissmann: Thank you, of course, the book has much more, right? And it has content, concepts, theory, practice. It’s a combination of tools to help executives make decisions with concepts that also nourish personal decisions. I would like to ask you two more questions. The first regarding the future, how do you see decision-making going forward? The perspective we have at Tandem with all the advancement of different technologies, let’s say decision intelligence, including artificial intelligence, and all language intelligence like ChatGPT, which today allows, let’s say, to converse in a super friendly way. How do you think this is going to impact the way decisions are made in organizations going forward?

David Cabero: Technology is exponential, everything human is linear. It’s a linearity that has changed because my grandfather got up in the morning and every day was the same, for 50 years, until he came to Barcelona. Well, in the field every day was the same. Then it changed, but that linearity has accelerated a bit because the changes are now faster, but the human is linear. Technology is exponential, so people who are very technological or people who are in the world of technology, what do they tell you? Watch out because you can’t imagine what’s coming because they see the exponential nature. Because they are living it, because they are designers of chips, they are people who are applying this in startups, they are people who are making new technology. And this technology, as there are different levels, like 3D printers, which are layers, you add a layer of geolocation, you add a layer of doing things in a small way, in miniature, you add the layer of change in communications, you add the layer of etc., etc. You keep adding layers. Voice detection, image detection, and in the end this combination of technologies allows you to do things you can’t imagine. Well, the technologist tells you this.

It’s this, the world tomorrow is different. So of course, here it’s a bit like asking me, it’s a bit risky because I’m a more classic person, more linear. So, I’m going to answer you with the caution that what I say may be obsolete in 20 years because of my bias. So, my bias, what does it tell me? I listen to them and they’re right, my bias, what does it tell me? My bias tells me that this is about hybrid, human and technological, so I don’t see when technology does everything and the human is no longer useful, I don’t see it, but who knows, maybe it will come. And I’ll give you an example, which may not be the right one because it’s an example based on the old, but well, in the end when things happen if you look at three billion years, four billion, I don’t know how many, well, it gives you a certain trend. So cooking, the way of cooking has changed a lot. 100 years ago, they cooked one way in a restaurant in Paris and the way they cook today has changed.

But what has changed? The tools have changed, that’s artificial intelligence. The ingredients haven’t changed that much, we’re eating the same thing. Less, because now there’s less fish due to climate change and there are fish you can’t find, but it hasn’t changed, we eat the same thing, but the way we work with it is different, the way we communicate in a kitchen is different. So, leadership isn’t going to change, the basics of leadership are five. It’s the leader, having a vision, must know how to communicate it, must be a passionate person, must have decision-making ability and must have an interest in people. A genuine, honest interest. These are 5 things. This is not going to change, the decision-maker is not going to change, but they are going to use very powerful machines and sometimes they are going to completely delegate the decision to those machines, so for me, just like in the kitchen, as in leadership, the basis of decision-making is not going to change.

It’s true that technology is going to allow us to make much more precise decisions in many domains, combining more and more knowledge exponentially. And that’s something we’re going to have to adapt to, we’re going to have to learn because the change is going to be very strong, but I’m in a hybrid world, where the human being is valuable, where that intuition, that human interaction still serves, and what humans do is to use technology as a support.

Ernesto Weissmann: I have one last question and with this we’ll close. I think we’re at a time when people have more freedom to decide than years ago. Young people in particular today can access more alternatives and there is more openness to many things. Globalization has also brought closer possibilities that didn’t exist when we were younger, etc. But there is also more information. So, all this makes deciding today more important than ever, but also more difficult, more complex, more possibilities, there is more uncertainty too. So, if you had to advise new generations, what would you say are your tips? More for personal decisions, I think of it, in this context of so much change, so turbulent.

David Cabero: We are less prepared than ever to decide, because today social networks and technology influence us and we don’t realize it. You can manipulate elections if you want. So, we are less prepared to understand that technology and that world that we face. I think there is a big question that many people don’t ask themselves enough or with enough depth, which is the consequence of decisions. We have trivialized the consequence of making decisions. We see it with climate change, we see it with everything, so in the end I get into a trend that is positive or negative. Negativity or not, and you have to accept it.

Ernesto Weissmann: When you say we’ve trivialized it, it’s that we don’t observe carefully, in the case of climate change, the long-term consequences. Let’s say, we think in the short term.

David Cabero: It’s like everything. I quit my job because I don’t like it. Well, the consequence is that at some point you have to go to the next job, and you have to explain why you left the other one. So, and with this I’m not saying that people shouldn’t quit their jobs, I’m not saying what you have to do, it’s that we make decisions, but let’s analyze what the consequences are, because making decisions has been trivialized a lot. When you’re in absolute career mode, in what we call immediacy, well, you decide and you shoot, and the important thing is to decide and shoot. No, sometimes given the importance of the decision, sometimes the important thing is to think. You don’t have to overthink, but you have to think, and then my only thing, apart from everything we’ve said during this hour, the only thing I would say is think about the consequences and assume them because then it’s, “I made a mistake, but I don’t accept it”.

And the consequence is bad luck. No, no, this isn’t about bad luck, bad luck weighs very little over the course of a career or a life. Here it’s about accepting consequences and taking the risk you want to take and learning. If you don’t learn, well, you’re going to make the same mistake again and you’ll have to accept the consequence again even if you say no. So that’s the game that would make them think about the consequences of their decisions and accept them, and then when they come about, assume them. The consequence has come, which was the bad thing, the evil, the negative scenario. It has arrived, I accept it and I learn. That’s what I would tell them.

Ernesto Weissmann: Spectacular. Well, thank you very much for your time, for your experiences, for sharing with us the lessons you’ve learned. I loved talking to you, as I always do. I could stay much longer. So well, thank you very much once again for joining us. It has been a great pleasure.

A pleasure as always discussing with you, Ernesto.

Ernesto Weissmann: Conversations like the one we just had with David help us understand how decision-makers think, how they are responsible for helping their teams and organizations achieve better results. And that’s why I find it so fascinating, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I invite you to tune in to the next installments of Decision Leaders, where we will listen to other protagonists tell us how they think and how they live and execute their decisions. Until next time.