Furnas president, Flavio Decat, delivered a lecture about his professional career, particularly his experience ahead of Furnas presidency, the main energy company in Brazil in the evening of August 19, 2014. Dozens of people attended the event hosted in FGV headquarters building, in Rio de Janeiro, including students, academics and managers.

Flavio, who is very experienced as a manager in large energy companies as Eletronuclear, Gasmig, Eletrobrás, among others, talked about how important motivating people is to ensure business success. “People only work when motivated. Bringing a group to assume that goal, to live that strategy, is a main asset of any manager who wishes to be a leader, who wants to succeed. Motivating is making people feel happy. Happy with what they do,” he said.

He also talked about a restructuring for Furnas to adjust to the new business models. “People were living as if the world was restricted to Botafogo neighborhood for 15 years. Worse: they were unmotivated. Rescue Furnas employees’ self-esteem was a goal, a mission. The first thing I did was removing springs from doors. We are support to work with our doors open. All directors were moved to my floor. The idea was to drop that vertical thing and operate per process. In management per process or per project, which I wanted to implement, people needed to leave their shells,” he explained.

During Flávio’s management as president of Furnas, 85 positions were eliminated and a lighter management structure was adopted to work properly, more efficiently and faster with less people. “We created a lighter management structure, which is the position of process or project coordinator. That position that doesn’t need a room, a secretary and everything that follows him when you create a formal body,” he said.

MEX Lectures Cycle on Leadership and Strategy is a partnership between FGV/EBAPE and FGV/Energia, organized by professors Carlos Otavio Quintella and Marco Tulio Zanini. This is an activity of the Executive Master’s Program in Corporate Management by FGV/EBAPE (MEX) that will gather leaders from large public and private organizations from July to October, 2014. The idea is to provide insights on the dilemmas and challenges for management in Brazil.