“No excuses, no matter what” — that’s Michael Stumpp’s mantra as he leads his BASF chemical company team and organization. Sit in on one of his team meetings and you’ll quickly understand the value he places on trust and truth.
Stumpp has been a leader in creating a culture of safety at BASF. For Stumpp, safety means two things — the physical safety of workers in BASF plants and a culture where people feel safe to speak truthfully. The two are linked — without open and honest communication, physical safety is jeopardized, even impossible.
Safety at all costs
An avid mountain hiker, Stumpp uses climbing as a metaphor for safety in the workplace. Stumpp suffered two tragic personal losses in climbing, including his friend Wolfgang Gullich, one of the world’s best climbers and a Sylvester Stallone stuntman for the movie “Cliffhanger.” Gullich was killed in an accident — not while performing treacherous and challenging stunts — an automobile crash while driving down the mountain after a day’s work.
Stumpp lost a second friend on what should have been an easy walk down from a daunting and steep mountain climb.
These painful personal losses drove home for Stumpp the need to continuously and relentlessly focus on the culture, behaviors, habits and practices of safety. It became clear to him that safety isn’t something to be focused on only during perceived dangers, but at all times.
As a result, he has fostered an environment that prioritizes truthfulness, information sharing, trusting in others’ intentions and collaborating transparently. The results speak for themselves: among multiple global teams, Stumpp’s teams continually out-think, out-perform and out-innovate.
Stumpp credits his leadership approach in part to tools he learned from Bright Side Inc. more than 15 years ago. He has incorporated the Bright Side leadership principles of Fun, Faith & Fire® into the BASF culture in order to make safety a priority and to consistently achieve business goals.
Make a difference
“Fun is the joy of learning, the joy of making a difference, the joy of relationships as well as the enjoyment of creating a safe environment where truth is valued and celebrated,” Stumpp says.
“It is the enjoyment of bringing people together for engaging town hall meetings or collaborating with clients to innovate new applications for BASF products.”
Stumpp creates fun events to inspire his teams to take on daunting tasks. He even inspires team members to run marathons together to demonstrate that marathons can be fun, collaborative events; a great team metaphor for tackling and accomplishing the seemingly impossible.
He expresses Faith as trust, beginning first with self-trust. Trusting our vision, strategies, superiors, team and, of course ourselves.
“Faith deteriorates when there is a lack of self-awareness resulting in habits of blame, excuses or self-denial,” Stumpp says.
“Ultimately, faith is trusting in the process, knowing that if my team members and I speak the truth about failures and humbly embrace and celebrate learning, then results will be achieved.”
That means taking lessons learned and immediately putting them into action.
“Safety, whether it is safety of the work processes or creating a safe environment for truthfulness, also requires Fire,” Stumpp says.
“Fire means capturing and harnessing the positive emotional energy of leaders at all levels,” he says. “It’s the passionate commitment of leaders that fuels an organizationwide commitment to accomplish change and maintain the rigorous discipline of safety.”
By applying the three leadership principles, Stumpp has consistently led many global teams through many different challenges, always exceeding their targets. His method is to maintain a balanced and observable approach to leading with Fun, Faith & Fire® — no exceptions, no excuses.
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