Oldendorff Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 47
THE POWER OF
FAST DECISIONS
Oldendorff gives people the power to act – and ensures that all other
parts of the company are supporting each decision instead of blocking it.
In 1987 Henning strode into the
Lübeck crewing department office
with a smile on his face and a large
white box under his arm. The box
contained a Wang PC, and one of the
first business computers anyone
in the office had seen. Henning
was fascinated by the advent of
computers, having previously used
the programming language BASIC to
write a voyage calculation program
on a small “Sharp” pocket computer,
which featured a printed graph of
the optimum speed that would give
the best voyage result.
The intrigued onlookers included
the 26-year-old Bertram Sartoris,
who had been hired two years
earlier to support the crewing
department. His job involved the
managing and identification of crew
members – which in turn involved
using thousands of dog-eared
cards that carried names and work
records of each crewman, written in
a smudgy, pencil scrawl. Bertram’s
job was to be to put the shiny new PC
to work – and turn crewing digital.
The Oldendorff technology journey
began that day, and Bertram was
the person charged with leading it.
“Typically, Henning didn’t tell me
how to do it. He just trusted me to
do the right thing.”
Over the course of the following
years, Bertram oversaw the
development of the first systems
to make the teams more efficient.
With their secretaries and oldschool ways, this was not of great
interest to the traditional chartering
directors. But the Concept Carriers
team knew what they wanted and
knew that Bertram could help them.
He recalls how he took a practical
approach to IT. “Most companies
took a fairly conservative view.
I gave the guys what they needed
to do their job.”
NO LITTLE EMPERORS
In many companies, separate
divisions, such as IT, HR, legal and
finance, sometimes have their
own agenda and jealously guard
their area of expertise by blocking
initiatives. They will say: “You can’t
do it that way. We can’t afford it.
We wouldn’t advise it.”
You can understand why. It’s a
perfectly natural instinct to want to
be respected for your knowledge in a
certain area. But Oldendorff doesn’t
do politics like that. The people in the
commercial department bring in the
revenue, so the other departments
want to support them to make the
deals work.
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They don’t want to stand in their
way but push it forward, with
whatever expertise or support
they can offer.
GO FOR IT
This means we can act fast. We’ve
always given individuals the
autonomy to act without checking
with their superiors. We delegate
to the point of abdication. To us
that’s normal, but it also works on a
divisional level. Many departments
have set up their divisions to move
quickly, act confidently, and make
things happen.
Time and time again, Oldendorff
has been able to act before
others. As Henrik Christiansen
explains: “There are controls, of
course, which is why the Oldendorff
board meets three times a year
to discuss strategy. In addition
the board can approve large
investments and contracts within
24 hours at any time. But there is a
can-do attitude in all areas of the
business that enables us to seize
the opportunities that come along.
Sometimes we get it wrong, but at
least we fail fast. And the reason
for failure is rarely that another
company beat us to the punch.”