Andy Cowell initiated an initial restructuring of Aston Martin F1, becoming CEO and director. The former boss of Mercedes’ HPP engine division explains how he goes about understanding his team’s needs at the moment.
“It’s all about trying to understand people, what their strengths are, how they can contribute to the overall goal, and then putting the pieces of the organization back together.” Cowell said.
“Everyone has to play to their strengths, so it’s about identifying them, seeing how they fit in and how they can contribute to the car. It’s up to me to make sure we have the strength and the balance in the team to get the best reward in terms of lap time.”
The engineer thought about his organization by ensuring that no position overlaps with another, in order to optimize the team as much as possible: “I think it comes down to people playing to their strengths and playing the role that allows them to have the most positive impact on the car.”
“I like to use the analogy of a 1000 piece puzzle. Each team member is a piece of this puzzle, but they need to know exactly what their responsibilities are and what those of others are. This organizational clarity ensures that the pieces of the puzzle fit together well, without overlaps or gaps.”
“Any overlap or gap is simply inefficient. An efficient race car means plenty of downforce, minimal drag; efficient organization means good communication, no waste.”
“People tend to get upset if they’re doing the exact same thing as someone else, because that means one of them is wasting their time. Likewise, if you’re doing a job and it remains unresolved while waiting for the next person to take charge, it is also a source of frustration. Organizational clarity helps avoid this kind of inefficiency.”
-The organization of the team has changed for several reasons, but the main one is to succeed in optimizing the way in which instructions are distributed, in order to better structure each department and, ultimately, improve the performance of the cars.
“Exactly. The changes are intended to improve organizational clarity and performance. This is why we have decided to evolve the aerodynamics, engineering and performance departments into separate teams, dedicated to the circuit and the technological campus of AMR.
“The trackside team will be led by Mike [Krack]who becomes the director of the trackside team, and the second will be led by Enrico [Cardile] as technical director, both reporting to me on their activities.”
“This restructuring allows Mike’s team to focus on optimizing the car’s performance at each Grand Prix and Enrico’s team to focus on the complex challenge of creating a new car racing.”
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