Markus Blocher: "For innovation and creativity to thrive, people with experience and knowledge need to come together in person and work with one another."

When you were a kid, what did you want to be?

I wanted to drive a post van because of the cool triad horn (laughs). Later on, I wondered whether I should do an apprenticeship and tried my hand at being a baker and confectioner. I have always been curious and wanted to know and understand more. First time round, I didn't get into secondary school because my French and German exam results were not good enough. After a third year in middle school and an extra push in languages, I finally managed to get into a secondary school specialising in mathematics and natural sciences. After an exchange year in the USA, when I returned to my old class, I again struggled with French and I derived my vocabulary from the English I had learnt. When I sat my oral school-leaving exam, my French teacher said: "What you say may not be grammatically correct, but people will understand what you mean."

Today, what would you say schools need to deliver?

Reading, writing and arithmetic provide capable people with a good basis for integration and equal opportunities. This requires demanding quality public education from passionate full-time teachers, who focus on regional language (written and spoken), mathematics, natural science, technology and information technology (MINT). We cannot accept a situation where children only succeed if their parents have a superior level of education, they are educated at home or have private lessons. Teaching is not a part-time job; it is a commitment and requires 180-percent dedication. In my opinion, too much emphasis is placed on languages and minor subjects. More people also need to be encouraged to take up MINT apprenticeships. It is in these technical professions where we have a real shortage of experts. At the end of the day, a combination of experienced professionals and knowledgeable university graduates is what makes a company successful.

You studied and gained a doctorate in chemistry at ETH Zurich. What inspired you to study at ETH?

Mathematics and the natural sciences were always my strong points. Being a chemist seemed to be a gainful prospect. When you start to study chemistry, you don’t really know what chemistry is and even after gaining your doctorate, there is still a lot that you don't fully understand. The huge benefit of studying chemistry is that there is a close link between theory and practice and ETH was a highly regarded university. When I started at studying, ETH was just celebrating Richard Ernst receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. After graduating, I was initially interested in doing my PhD in the USA. I had a number of opportunities to do so but I found that no other university was as well equipped as ETH, and that in the USA you still have to attend lectures while working on your PhD thesis. I had reached a point where I wanted to research and educate myself in areas of interest to me. My now-wife was also embarking on further education at the time and I didn't want to jeopardise our relationship. So ultimately, it was a decision in favour of my current family and seven children.

Now you are CEO, Chairman of the Board and majority shareholder in Dottikon ES. How did ETH prepare you for these positions?

Universities have two jobs: to teach and to conduct research, in other words to broaden our knowledge and make new discoveries. Teaching deepened and broadened my knowledge. Research honed my analytical mind, observational and testing skills and ability to arrange concepts into models. I am grateful to my professors, lecturers, assistants and mentors for that.

Pier Luigi Luisi was my PhD supervisor and he was just about to retire at the time. Like many chemists, he had become more philosophical with age and was investigating the origin of life. He knew many very interesting and indeed controversial people who he was happy to put us into direct contact with. That broadened my horizons. His right-hand man, Peter Walde, taught me the scientific aspects. He was key to my decision to work on my PhD in this research group. He regularly and subtly made mention of other research work in our conversations and got me interested and curious. This produced a continuous stream of new offshoots and inspiration for my research. I worked independently – continuously and by myself. I was driven without being stressed. During this time, I also voluntarily attended the business management lectures given by Armin Seiler at ETH. These intensive courses provided me with the necessary basic knowledge about economics.

I have never made things easy for superiors (laughs). It is in my nature to lead rather than be led. I acquired my independent, critical, facts-based, analytic and conceptual way of thinking at ETH. Of course the practical aspect of chemistry is useful today but at external page Dottikon ES we have lots of chemists who are far better than I am.

And what did you do after you had gained your PhD?

After my PhD, I moved into consultancy. It kind of happened by chance. I was invited to a three-day workshop. All the attendees were university graduates from different disciplines. We were put into groups and given a case study. It is amazing to see what can be achieved when common-sense people from different backgrounds work together constructively. I was rejected after an initial round of introductions: "Customers are like well-cooked spaghetti, you have to pull and not push them." The partner who had encouraged me to apply in the first place stood up for me and got me another introductory round. Finally, I was accepted. I later found out that the partner had had to vouch that I wouldn't put off any customers.

I never planned to spend more than two or three years in consultancy. If you do it for too long, it changes your personality. I worked very hard but I also learnt a great deal. I would do it again. After almost three years, I had hardly any time to start applying for jobs. Then one day my father rang me up and said he needed a project manager. I was just finishing a project and had various potential absences ahead of me, such as parental leave, holidays and military service. So it transpired that within a week I made the move to EMS-Chemie. I was responsible for a project which first needed the entire group strategy to be redefined. When the position of senior manager at what was then EMS-Dottikon, now Dottikon ES, suddenly became vacant over a weekend, the leadership was transferred to me, much to my surprise.

At Dottikon ES, I was once again facing similar strategic matters to those I had had to deal with as project manager at group level. There were never-ending discussions about how the business was to run. I repeatedly came to the conclusion that the entity in Dottikon could develop better if it were a separate entity. I also believe that having too many people from the same family in one company is not good for business. When my father was elected to the Bundesrat (Swiss Federal Council) in 2005, the entity was unbundled as a spin-off of EMS, leading to the current situation, which sits very well with me.

I believe that at the start of your career, you need to learn to look at facts and figures and ask critical questions in order to understand, analyse, come to conclusions and then act. Common sense with a keen analytical mind, which remains objective, is the best place to start. If something goes wrong, you have to correct it quickly and shift direction. The best route is found through trial and error. And this includes hard, proper work as well as perseverance, but also good luck, as Louis Pasteur said: "La chance ne sourit qu'aux esprits bien préparés." (Chance favours the prepared mind.)

What challenges does Dottikon ES face at present?

After the spin-off, the company strategy and culture were re-aligned. That took around ten years. We implemented a performance leadership strategy which positions us as a development and production partner as well as a specialist in hazardous reactions and we consistently pursue this strategy today. We firmly believe that this is the right approach. The results speak for themselves: We are recording positive growth. We are solving our customers' problems and thereby create added value. Our customers are therefore enjoying success and we are growing with them. As our customers grow, they need more products. In order to increase capacity to cover customer demand, over the next seven years we are investing 700 million Swiss francs in Dottikon. This is a lot of money and a huge challenge because you always have too few resources for growth. Managing a decline may be very emotionally draining, but it’s much easier.

We are building new plants which we operate and maintain. To do this, we need engineers from a whole range of disciplines from mechanical engineering, process engineering and electrical engineering, not just chemistry. Obviously, we need chemists too; for research and development, piloting, production and quality control and management. We often take on graduates straight from university. They simply have to bring basic knowledge of their subject with them and have understood the basic principles. We teach them the rest. If they can demonstrate practical work, that is an advantage.

The geopolitical situation has changed, strategic fronts run along the geographical regions of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia. The high degree of global specialisation and concentration of today’s value chains brings with it huge potential for destruction in the event of a major conflict. This risk pinpoints the need to reduce geopolitical dependence and realign vested interests accordingly. Competing parties are therefore striving for economic divesture and driving this forward accordingly. Re-industrialisation has started and will shape the environment over the next ten years. More and more production will again be based in Switzerland too. There is a shortage of well-trained production professionals. The job in our production plants is very challenging: Through their work, our employees have influence and responsibility for reactors containing products worth over a million Swiss francs. There is very little margin for error. Employees are a company’s most important resource. A company is only as good as its employees. You can buy plants and equipment but you have to gain good employees.

It is all about empowering the right employees. And that means challenging and encouraging them. I want our workforce to grow with the organisation; both horizontally and vertically. This is the only way in which the company can cope with the imminent growth and imminent challenges. Experience is important because we operate in an environment where great significance is attached to quality. We have employees with a wealth of experience. They know what they are doing and they understand the long-term impact of their decisions and work. They are committed to solving problems sustainably and thereby produce added value in the long term. This safeguards the future of our company and jobs.

What does a typical day for you entail?

Every morning, there is a plan of what needs to be done. But just about every day, you encounter the unexpected and have to deal with it. So the plan has to be adapted during the day to make sure that the right things are done right at the right time. Leaders spend 60 percent of their time working with the staff on content and helping them to develop. For innovation and creativity to thrive, people with experience and knowledge need to come together in person and work with one another. Directly and openly discussing the facts, different points of view and convincing arguments are needed to generate good solutions and make the right decisions.

If you were about to start university again, what advice would you give yourself?

I still believe that it is right to complete the basic military training for higher ranks. Nowhere else will you learn more about people than in the military. You spend twenty-four hours a day together, dress the same and have to do the same things. You cannot be distracted by anything material, paint over anything or hide away. Everyone sees everyone else’s true personality and abilities. People come from different backgrounds and are assigned; I am not able to pick anyone. I have to recognise and accept people for what they are and what they are able to do. It is all about deploying them for the right jobs and making the most of their characteristics and abilities. If you do this consistently, you learn that as an entire team you are able to jointly complete challenging work. This requires respect for one another and leads to mutual appreciation. A good team complements one another but is still compatible.

I also wouldn’t change anything about my exchange year and studies because I learnt a lot. To me it is important that when I do something I always do it right. Either you learn a lot of theory, which is demonstrated by good grades, or you do a lot of practical work, gain experience and learn a lot about life, which is ultimately reflected in knowledge of human nature and the ability to get jobs done. It is certainly not wrong to do both. It doesn't matter whether you choose an apprenticeship, gain practical experience, take on second-chance education or go to university and acquire practical experience at the same time or afterwards; the main thing is that you do something. It is important that you are driven by interest in the subject matter and do not pick a course just for your CV or the money alone. You can learn something from every situation provided you do it right.