Factory Floor Leadership Never Office

"There's only one office in the factory that is always empty, that of Leonardo. He's never at his desk. You can understand it even now, peering inside his ground floor room, that place is not lived in. It is tidy and clean, with old technological tools from the Eighties, a model of his first private airplane, a huge television turned off, a couple of framed photographs. It's clear at first glance that it's not a usual workplace. The office is not for him."

""I don't have my own office, I'm always in those of others, around the factory, and I talk directly with everyone, explaining why and how we do things this way. I go to my department heads and ask them as well: 'Why do we do it this way?' That way they learn and know how to pass it on.""

"In the morning there's no way to arrive before him. Often he's up when it's still dark. When he's alone, he goes around the departments, checking the workshop's machines."

"Leonardo is a trench man, a factory man. He always has a host of employees following him step by step, taking notes while he talks, invents, discusses with a department head, consults with a model maker, questions a planner."

"assure you it was not planned. I spend my days moving from one part of the factory to another to see how everything is going. If I'm not in the warehouse, I'm in design. I'm interested in the whole process but… how I enjoy seeing what our artists produce! It's what I love most about this whole complex"."

"later. "You see it's true that I don't have an office—he told me Amancio in one of our conversations—. I've never had one. My work is not among papers, but in the whole factory." Indeed, that is how I met him, as I have told before, among hanging clothes circulating on the carousel of his distribution centre."

"Amancio is a man of habits. This is how he describes one of his preferences every day, for years: "My favourite route is to take a walk through the design area. I have always liked sitting among the most creative ones and listening to what they propose, most of them very young, who spend time travelling the world and seeing all trends in the media, not only in clothing but also in lifestyle. I learn a lot from listening to them and, if they ask for my opinion, I give it, but they are good professionals and know very well what they are doing.""

"the world, the owner of Inditex told me that he always clearly saw that customers should never be lost sight of. He had stood out in that shirt shop for his way of attending to those who came in. That serious and hardworking boy, always ready to lend a hand to whoever needed him, is the same character who today, at seventy-two years old, knows how to pay attention to those who require his opinion to solve a problem or address an important issue in the dizzying pace of international expansion that the company is moving at."