The ability to have positive relationships,
to build consensus,
to gather solutions and people,
it is not a goal you can set and then try to achieve,
it is a character trait,
and if you have it you will enjoy doing that.
You are absorbed by what you are doing,
you will not even think about it.
You do it because it is nice, you enjoy doing it,
you feel joy and enthusiasm for what you are doing,
you receive a professional recognition, with success,
with satisfied clients and happy colleagues,
or motivated people around you,
you keep on perfecting your style, your attitude,
your behaviour.
Therefore, for me it is not a goal you set
and then you make plan A and plan B, plan C,
competence A, B or C.
You throw yourself into it and you build it by doing things.
The main quality is to really believe in yourself,
in what you do,
to be convinced that you are ready to conquer the world,
that nobody can stop you,
that you have a strong motivation, almost a positive rage, I'd say.
In my personal case,
a missed opportunity has had a considerable weight on my life.
An investment bank hired me in Amsterdam,
I was a financial analyst,
I was doing my job well, I had no plans of going back to Italy.
Then I received one of those offers that are difficult to refuse:
an Italian bank, the Banca Popolare di Luino e di Varese,
whose main office was in Milan, in Piazza Cadorna,
appointed me head of the studies office,
I had a permanent manager contract in a bank,
basically the dream of 90% Italians.
5 days after I quit,
because my instinct was telling me
that I would not learn anything there.
A certain Alfredo Ambrosetti, I didn't even know who he was,
he contacted me, he was in charge, for Barilla,
of internationalization strategies, he was in its board of directors,
and in Amsterdam I was in charge of the European food department,
I was offering him a concrete solution.
He told me something that I still remember,
he said: "If you stay in the field of finance,
you'll become the greatest technician in the world,
but I'll teach you how to manage the entire comb,
not just one tooth.”
He was a fascinating man and he convinced me,
so I ripped up a permanent contract
to sign one with VAT registration number, with no certainties at all.
I had to fight against my father, but I eventually did that.
It was partly due to instinct, partly to motivation,
or to the belief that I was doing the right thing.
Life then develops and stabilizes,
and you start making a daily fine-tuning.
Believing in yourself, having a strong and deep motivation,
having a sense of duty and of commitment in what you do,
not doing things with superficiality, going deep,
building contents,
developing well and deeply the context elements:
these are distinctive and useful characteristics.
Being good at relationships,
being able to build and maintain positive relationships
with people and between people, it is essential,
especially in relationship economics,
where being able to connect points is a characteristic of success,
they obviously are important abilities,
and you build them with passion, too,
because you enjoy that.