Guest Session on 'Building Trust' by Mr. Folker Mittag
Date : 31st January, 2019
Today at SIIB, the students of the batch of 2018-2020 witnessed an intriguing guest lecture by Mr. Folker Mittag. He worked for seven years as a computer specialist for TEXACO in Europe and Africa. The company allowed him to study despite working at the University of Hamburg Controlling, Business Administration and IT. He received as a special diploma as a “Student on the job”. Subsequently, Mr. Mittag worked as an assistant to the Board of Directors at 3K Moebel in Benshein/Germany for more than a year. Thereafter, Mr. Mittag served in various positions including Financial Director in the UK, Director or VARTA Sweden and as a Director International Controller of VARTA Batterie AG Group of Companies in Germany. Mr. Folker Mittag addressed the students of SIIB on building trusts in organizations. The first advice he gave to the students was to think logically before getting into an argument. In order to build one’s trust a person has to have good relationships with his peers. Mr. Mittag kept the audience captivated by sharing his experiences in his work and personal life. He also emphasized that the current generation is very reliable on the internet due to which they take things for granted. The younger generation and the generations to come will start to take information for granted as it is easily accessible and by this they will start to lose trust on each other. The main aspect of doing business is to build trust among employees and organizations. In an organization, trust should never be taken for granted and in order to rebuild trust, one should always accept their mistakes and apologize for it. Mr. Mittag advised the students to always take responsibility of their mistakes and be accountable for it because doing this will gain the trust of your employees. He told the students to be creative, accountable and always have a positive mentality. Mr. Mittag ended the talk with a quote by Georgy MacDonald, “To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”
