The strength to lead is found within.
Techniques can be learned, and they matter. But those who lead a company or a group of people today need, more than ever, to learn to look inside themselves. Here are a few ideas, from my books and from my work with managers.
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“What exactly do you want to do when you grow up?”
Early in my work as a business consultant, I asked this question to the managers and department heads of a large company I worked with. They were managers with an average age of between fifty and sixty and a great deal of experience. I gave them an hour to answer and handed each of them five sheets of paper and a pen. They all got by with three to five lines; only the owner of the company filled a full six pages, and I assure you that over the next seven years he achieved more than 80% of the things he had written on those sheets.
It seems a trivial question, and yet being able to give a clear answer to it is the watershed between those who succeed in life and those who inexorably fall under the law of accident: without a destination, choices become improvised and end up contradicting each other.
“Everything must start from deciding on a destination: darkness sees nothing, while light makes out the finishing lines.”
All'Alba e al Tramonto, p. 17 To go deeperBuy the book -
A goal is a measure
A real goal must have some very precise characteristics: first of all it must be concrete, then it must be measurable, and finally the time by which it is to be reached must be defined. For example, if I set myself the goal “Earn a lot of money”, it can never be a real goal, because for some people “a lot” means a hundred euros, for others ten thousand: it is a vague word. But there is more: if I reach my goal well ahead of time or, on the contrary, overshoot it by a long way, I can't say I was capable, because it means I wasn't able to foresee the timing of each phase. Even before it is a finishing line, defining my goals correctly and being able to reach them tells me how much I am really capable of.
“[…] having goals makes it possible to understand what measure one has, so it is not important whether or not the goal is reached, but that, through a reference point to be reached, one manages to take one's own measure.”
Gocce di consapevolezza, p. 70 To go deeperBuy the book 
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Really listening
It happens to everyone: someone on our team is talking to us and, halfway through the sentence, we have already decided what they are about to say. In our mind a voice keeps repeating “I've heard this one before, it's like…”
When we behave like this, we are not good managers, because we put every new moment into the drawer of old things we've already heard, and in this way we lose the nuances, which are often exactly what we needed in order to then decide correctly.
The ability to listen can be trained, and it starts with noticing when you are not listening.
“If, while someone is talking to us, we mechanically think about something else, without managing to concentrate on the other person's words, clearly we cannot listen with deep attention, or all the way through, to the person who is speaking to us.”
Gocce di consapevolezza, p. 30 To go deeperBuy the book -
The little things make the difference
It's a saying of Gualtiero Marchesi, the great Italian chef. I had the honour of meeting this great man once, at a business lunch. As soon as he came out with this line, among many others, I immediately asked him to explain it, and instead he showed it to me, at the table, three months before he died. He had two identical champagne risottos prepared and added a few grains of pepper to one of them: when I tasted the risotto without the pepper, it was an excellent risotto, incredibly good, but when I tasted the one with a few grains of pepper, my taste buds opened up and it was an explosion of flavours. He had tried every one of his dishes countless times, correcting even the seemingly insignificant details.
The same is true in a company: the difference is often made by the details nobody asked for.
“One must therefore make an effort to learn that form is a constituent part of substance.”
All'Alba e al Tramonto, p. 104 To go deeperBuy the book 
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Presence, Constancy, Will
A team member, a client, a business partner are all looking for the same thing: someone they can count on. For me, reliability rests on three abilities, in this order: without Presence there is no Constancy, and without Constancy there is no Will. You can be very capable, but if your head is somewhere else, or if you lose your course at the first obstacle, trust doesn't last.
“Presence is the ability to be in the things that happen. Constancy is the ability not to lose oneself, to stay on the line of one's intentions. Will is the ability to be able to change something, to be able to transform things, to keep one's purpose over time.”
All'Alba e al Tramonto, pp. 130-131 To go deeperBuy the book
Professional Master Training
It is the path to Excellence into which I have condensed everything I have studied and mastered in order to run any company with excellence. Four long, intensive weekends between January and May, which I lead myself at the Borgo del Monte Antico. You learn to communicate, one to one and in front of an audience; to organise your time and delegate; to manage your team the right way and without conflict; to build an unassailable strategy and develop a winning vision; and finally to change your own and other people's limiting beliefs and the habits that hold us back on the Way of Success.
- Dates 15–17 January, 19–21 February, 9–11 April, 7–9 May 2027
- Group no more than 30 participants (only 12 places left as of 30 October 2026! – Hurry!)
- How to join by application
The 28 volumes you will receive when you take part in the PMT
Tap a cover to enlarge it.
One idea at a time, for managers.
“Il Filippo Pensiero” also comes in a version for managers: reflections like these, practical ideas for working life and news about upcoming experiences, such as the Professional Master Training.
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