Productive Dissatisfaction as Permanent Engine

“He has retained the tone of his young man's voice. Who suggested that dissatisfaction is the essence of talent? He remembers Thomas Mann making his hero Gustav Aschenbach say this in Death in Venice.”

“Until his removal from the executive presidency of insurer Generali in April 2010, he held a record of longevity at the head of one of Europe's most prosperous financial groups, founded in Trieste in 1831 and which counted writer Franz Kafka among its fleeting employees. An inveterate bridge player, the man is as complex as his career is atypical.”

“The business that is satisfied with itself—with its product, with its sales, which looks upon itself as having accomplished its purpose—is dead. The actual burial may be postponed; but it is dead because it is not going forward. To my mind, nothing can ever be good enough; I am always dissatisfied; I preach dissatisfaction. I can always see where something might be better; and therefore our business is never at rest—and I never want it to be. The throbbing heart of business is the intense desire to do better. When that desire ceases, the heart stops beating.”

“Yet our culture is one of never being completely satisfied with our results, and we are always looking to do better. We are operating in a rapidly shifting environment where volatility and uncertainty are here to stay, and where consumer trends and habits are changing at an ever accelerating pace. We must therefore be nimble and quick to anticipate new tastes, demands and behaviors, by nurturing a start-up mentality despite being a top-five consumer goods company. We must promote out-of-the-box thinking to bring consumers what they truly want today, tomorrow and in the future.”

“What drives entrepreneurs like Wild on? I have identified this in my book because once an entrepreneur is satisfied with what he has achieved, he stops wanting to become better. Set bigger goals! I referred to this with the term "productive dissatisfaction". Wild calls it "constant dissatisfaction", "when an entrepreneur is not satisfied with what has been achieved, but is always in search of new challenges".”

“Winners live in the future. Every entrepreneur must be future-oriented. But the direction he takes, and the measure of his success, depend not least on the size of his goals. Wild writes that he actually lives in the future: "My thinking, my commitment, my investments had and have distant goals in sight. These are concrete goals that are supposed to make our future safer both in the company itself and beyond."”