Small Business Awards 2018

g Sintetica S.A. Centred Organization’, based on responsibility and meritocracy more than hierarchy upon rigid, closed and internal structures. Our culture of total respect and the focus to the individual person shall be considered as our fundamental heritage. The people are the real stars of our business and the biggest resource we count on to grow and develop the company. At Sintetica, we seriously take the obligation to meet the highest standards of business ethics and integrity, and make meeting those standards the responsibility of all our employees. That is why, when hiring new employees, we look for ‘smart’ people who share our thirst for diversity, our respect for traditions and our aim to be a global leading company.” Augusto’s ‘human-centred’ organization model, based on a deep cultural change, requires an innovative managerial philosophy, which places responsibility and merit on centre, changing organizational models and behaviours at all levels. As such, Sintetica’s environment, which is dynamic and highly innovative in terms of ideas, projects, products and operational/management solutions, is not in line with idea of managing people according to definition and activities’ control. On the contrary, the company environment gets along much better with an approach based on increasing people’s sense of responsibility with regards to clear objectives, by exercising greater delegation and autonomy in the management of their duties. Managers, therefore, are moving from a role of command and control to a more coaching one, in order to manage people, enhance talents, through delegation and accountability for results, and to reward their merit. The growing complexity and the company marked growth rate form the background for the ongoing organization process. Managers are moving their mindset from the control of activities and how these activities are carried out, to an approach based on the control of results and accountability for results, so as to create peripheral decision-making autonomy, based on the conscious risk assumption. Augusto explores how he has created this model and aims to implement it for the benefit of his organisation. “To sustain and encourage the change, I designed also a novel model of governance, open, dynamic and inclusive, with the scope to maintain continuous adherence between the strategy and the operations on going, adapting the one to the others and vice-versa with all the organization involved. Inter-functional, interconnected and multi-level teams (called routines), supported with digital tools and apps, have been created and are operating to accomplish this critical task. “The Inter-functional Management Routines (IMR) consist of groups of people whose level of responsibility is not necessarily homogeneous, coming from heterogeneous functions, able to harmonize operations with the strategy in the hinge sectors for the development and growth of Sintetica. Basically, an IMR pool which, thanks to the exchange of critical information, decides and acts “easily” by continuously combining strategy and operations, and maintaining a live coordination throughout the entire organization. They reach a horizontal dimension thanks to inter-functionality and the exchange of decisive information; but also, a vertical dimension, thanks to the multilevel composition and the mechanism of the peripheral decisional autonomy present in the organization. Rebuilding strategy and operations means acting, changing one or the other, correcting routes, abandoning paths, all in the shortest time possible and with the highest involvement of responsibility in the organization. The expected result is maximum agility, and I am looking forward to supporting my staff through these changes to ensure that we create a culture that will stand the test of time and drive more of the world’s leading experts in anaesthetics and drug production to work alongside us.” This unique approach comes directly from Augusto, who explains how he developed the model to ensure that his business is able to hire and retain only the best possible talent in this highly competitive industry. “Personally, I believe in a company culture that promotes creativity and informed risk taking. In this respect, it must also promote a good feeling for all employees that work here, who should always feel safe when they are in work.