ELITE interview to Michele Frisoli, CEO of Manta Group. The company counts on over 30 years of experience in the Aeronautics, Automotive and Industrial Maintenance industries.

What does “entrepreneurship” mean to you?

The word entrepreneurship is one of the most distinguished and complex words I know because it concurrently embodies strategic vision, risk propensity, corporate structure, analytical skills, intuition, responsibility and problem-solving.

What is the biggest experience or lesson gained on your growth journey so far?

I have learned many of the most important lessons from my colleagues; I always try to learn from their feedback, which allows me incredible moments of learning and reflection. All too often, we take things for granted and think that everything will keep going according to plan because "that's the way it should be." However, that’s not always true. I remember when one of the most brilliant blue collars at our plant told me, “We don’t see you that much on the shop floor lately. We would love to go back to the good old times”. We had previously spent months together side-by-side, understanding how we could do things better to increase efficiency. Once we implemented new ways of working, and I realized the team was able to continue independently, I left them (and their manager) to handle the daily activities, as it should be. I realize now that my absence after the critical phase of brainstorming and working with them could have a negative effect. I appreciated his honesty and his genuine way of communicating that “we don't need you always to be here, but let us occasionally know that you still believe in us and that we are doing a good job. Top management appreciation is important to us.”

How is your company acting as a game-changer in the landscape?

As a company, we focus in parallel on competitiveness, innovation and sustainability. The combination of these aspects allows us to have a stronger awareness of who we are and who we want to become. In a complicated landscape like Italian manufacturing has been over the past few years, we managed not only to be competitive and capitalize on newly acquired competencies but also to build on human capital. Today we can offer highly qualified services thanks to investments made in new machines and R&D, but mainly thanks to the continuous focus on people's satisfaction and fulfillment. At times this means making difficult choices, but it has enabled us to reap many long-term benefits, including a high retention rate as well as vertical growth and mobility of the most talented and committed team members.  

What Should Your Life Motto Be?

My life motto is "the difference between success and failure is found not in the dream but in the dreamer." This phrase is written on my office walls and I believe it is the basis of success in any context. It doesn't matter how we measure success, be it centered around financial, personal, competencies or work targets; what matters is defining the objectives we want to achieve, facing them with the appropriate mindset as well as being open to new opportunities. 

I find that in the world of business, we often confuse being concrete with being focused on how we have always gotten things done. Instead, I encourage my team and myself to explore new approaches to reach our targets. Tangibly this means adopting new strategies and techniques to think out of the box, investing in education through leadership and management courses, meeting professionals working in different contexts, and learning from other industries and relevant academic research. Also, it can include getting involved with local and national industry associations and surrounding ourselves with the mentors and successful professionals that we can learn from and who can help us elevate our problem-solving abilities, both at a personal and corporate level.

What kind of ELITE entrepreneur do you want to be known as?

I would define myself as a “hybrid” entrepreneur that loves new challenges, welcomes risks, but tries to face them with a pragmatic approach. I would include the word “hybrid” because, in every phase of my professional life, I try to learn from different teachings that are sometimes antithetical with each other. During my teenage years, I worked in the agricultural fields with my grandfather, a risk-averse but perfectionist farmer, and from him, I learned that everything we do must be precise and beautiful. As a McKinsey consultant, I learned about the importance of team building, structure and planning. From my father, a man who has entrepreneurship in his blood, I learned (and I keep learning) about risk propensity and “gut feeling." That's why I see myself as a crossbreed—a second-generation perfectionist entrepreneur with a managerial education. ELITE is helping me to capitalize on my entrepreneurial style, most notably it is teaching me how to “smooth corners” and communicate more effectively with the financial community.