Corneliu Bodea, CEO of Adrem Group, a services and solutions business for the energy and industrial sector, was invited to “Biz Power”, a show produced by Marta Uşelu and broadcast exclusively online on www.stirileprotv.ro.
31 years ago, Corneliu Bodea founded a company and built from scratch a company that has grown and has now reached over 250 million lei and over 1,000 employees.
He is one of the most respected and elegant entrepreneurs in Romania, a man recognized for his authenticity, but especially for his ability to speak on an equal footing with any of his colleagues.
Corneliu Bodea’s professional career is unexpectedly spectacular and full of leadership lessons.
Marta Uşelu: What is it like to have 1,000 employees?
Corneliu Bodea: “Pleasantly nice. I consider that I have 1000, over 1,000 colleagues. And I’m glad to be able to generate this context in which they can carry out a large part of their lives, because it’s not like that, the job, the place where we work, represents, unfortunately, some would believe too much in our lives. And I’m glad, it’s a pleasant feeling.”
Marta Uşelu: What do you think is the essential quality for an entrepreneur to achieve success? There are many people who struggle every day, who try all kinds of solutions, options, plan A, plan B, and look, they are not successful and many give up. What do you think an entrepreneur needs to achieve success and be happy with his idea and with this passion that he puts every day into what he does?
Corneliu Bodea: “Yes, I think that first of all, entrepreneurs have to show authenticity, because an entrepreneur doesn’t do something, he is a creator of context. He doesn’t do something that someone else tells him to do. He is the one who says what to do, what is done, he is the one who creates the context. Consequently, you can’t be anything other than authentic in order to be able to last as an entrepreneur for a long time. On the one hand, on the other hand, authenticity also helps you in your leadership position. Because an entrepreneur has to be a leader to a greater extent, maybe than an executive, a CEO.
Because he has to show an image, a dream, to his colleagues and be able to bring them to the realization of this dream. Without authenticity you can’t do that. Then, you definitely need respect, because in order to last a long time as an entrepreneur, you have to create an extremely fair relationship, with multiple stakeholders, let’s say, whether it’s employees, colleagues, partners.
The entrepreneur walks on a very thin thread, in general, and that is why he must know how to walk in such a way that he does not break relationships behind him. That is why he must show respect. Too often we come across entrepreneurial attempts that lack respect and it is, I think, one of the main reasons why some businesses fail.
Then: determination and resilience. You have to be resilient. You have to have the ability to recover, because on this path of entrepreneurship there are many turning points, many blows, you receive many blows and you have to be able to get up from the bottom”.
Marta Uşelu: You know that it is said that everyone climbs a mountain or wants to climb a mountain. Very few know how to go down it and know how to resist nicely when they go down. Everything has changed in the last few years, and you have seen it, the changes of the last 10 years are completely different from the first 20 years when you started.
What characterizes you? Have you always had a strategy or have you always been able to shape yourself after every change, after every novelty that has happened in our daily lives? Are you a person who has a plan or are you a person who is very hung up on everything new.
Corneliu Bodea: “I am a man with a plan, so also an analysis that I do together with my colleagues now in the company, professionally, psychologically, that is, to define the psychological profile from a professional perspective, puts me among those who have a strategic approach to things, because there are several types of approaches, in general, the two: tactical or strategic.
So I am a person who plans and who respects the procedure, something that sometimes also brings disadvantages, because living in times as unpredictable as today, it is possible that those who are used to structuring their activity and plans based on a medium and long-term strategy, are surprised by events like we had – the pandemic, the energy crisis, the war – to be surprised by such black swans. Although, well, the creator of the black swan idea, Professor Taleb, told us that the pandemic was not actually a black swan. But I mean unpredictable events. And then, more and more people value tactics and responsiveness, which I think is not very smart in the long term.”
Marta Uşelu: Let’s talk a little about power. Do you have an experience, do you know what power means? What do you think? It’s a way you feel or it’s a status that comes with success, with money. What does power mean to you?
Corneliu Bodea: “For me, the power is the ability to do what you set out to do. A broad sense, not necessarily in a material sense. I think there are strong people that we don’t notice. And they show this power by the fact that they can choose to do what they want, to follow their passion. Maybe the most powerful people in the world are the least noticed, such as artists, for example, or researchers or writers. There are people who have this power to do what they want. From this perspective, I don’t consider myself a strong person or someone who has power, because although I follow my passion, I wanted to, I discovered that it is my passion in creating context, in creating activity, so being an entrepreneur. I am too little, unfortunately, free to choose what I want to do.”
Watch the full interview with Corneliu Bodea in the VIDEO recording of the show “Biz Power“.
Source: Pro TV
