BMW design leader Oliver Heilmer and Steelcase EMEA president Alessandro Centrone join Stanford lecturer Amy Wilkinson to explore what effective leadership looks like in an era of constant change.
When everything is in flux, from markets to technology and customer expectations, corporate structures need to become more flexible as well, the DLD26 expert panel makes clear.
Heilmer describes how BMW broke away from siloed, sequential processes to build its new model generation, Neue Klasse. “It’s not just new cars, it was kind of a shift in mindset”, he explains.
Having cross-functional teams attracted top talent because “you just got the best because they were intrinsically motivated, and everyone was able to understand each other’s problems.” This, in turn, led to better outcomes, Heilmer says.
Centrone highlights the growing complexity that leaders face, from AI-driven workplace shifts to a privacy crisis in offices. “People need space, whether it’s visual privacy, whether it’s acoustic privacy”, he emphasizes.
Centrone also takes on the common myth that “more meetings equal better collaboration.” The real collaboration, he stresses, happens “outside of the meeting rooms in social moments, in moments of interaction.”
