An interview with Manfred

I am Manfred Gawlas, Head of Corporate Communications at the BAUR Group. I'm from Lower Franconia and have found my professional happiness in Upper Franconia. My wife and I have two wonderful daughters who have long since grown up and are now in professional life.

Another coincidence finally led me to the BAUR Group: the then Managing Director of Marketing at BAUR was an old Quelle colleague with whom I was still in contact. She recommended me to the Managing Director at the time, Albert Klein. One thing led to another and I moved from Frankfurt to Upper Franconia.

I started at the BAUR Group in May 2014 - so that makes 11 years and 3 months.

Right at the beginning, I was given the task of fundamentally modernizing all aspects of corporate communications, in terms of structure, content and personnel. I worked intensively on this project for almost three years. I was therefore proud when I was able to complete the project and the development work was successfully completed. There were also numerous wonderful events: I can remember wonderful New Year's receptions or - with journalists in mind - press conferences. What I always particularly liked, and what I also attached great importance to, was the relationship of trust with the managers, but also with each individual colleague, because that always reflected that I was in the right place here. This relationship was also evident with my colleagues in Hamburg, as we maintain an intensive, constructive and cooperative partnership with the Otto Group's Corporate Communications department.

The great thing about the BAUR group was that we always laughed a lot among our colleagues. Even when times were tough, the atmosphere was almost always great. An experience that was perhaps not so funny at the time, but in retrospect led to a lot of laughter: in 2018, Corporate Communications organized a big employee party with over 2,000 participants and a great team. However, we ran into a problem with the famous paragraph 117 - the administrative offense of unacceptable noise. So the police "rang" at the time, but unfortunately we hadn't registered an event manager. When the police asked for a contact person, it was me, which meant that I also slipped into the role of event manager. So it happened that I was suddenly reported to the police! So I had to make a statement and an investigation was initiated. After a while, the Burgkunstadt public order office informed me that I would only receive a verbal warning, but the next time I would not get away without a fine.
To put it in a nutshell: the outstanding thing for me was the human factor. We often worked hard on our topics, but we were always talking about private matters and had a hell of a lot of fun at work.

I have now been working in corporate communications for 33 years and can fortunately claim to have been spared a massive and consequential communication error that caused high costs or even damaged my reputation. Small operational mistakes, on the other hand, happen all the time. I remember when I was responsible for all the written material at a press conference, I noticed an embarrassing typo on the cover page of all places. This meant that at two o'clock in the morning I removed the cover page from one hundred manuscripts that had already been printed out, recopied the cover pages and stapled the manuscripts again. In future, we proofread even more carefully. Nevertheless, mistakes are part of the job, because where there is a lot of work, they happen.

My plan is not to plan much at first! My circle of friends advises me to let time take its course and not to make any new commitments straight away. But it's clear that I'm going to pursue my hobbies more - music on the one hand, because I play in a band. Perhaps one or two gigs can now be added. I'm also a "ranger", which has also proved to be a good corrective to my strenuous professional life. What's also very important to me are the activities with my friends: experiencing more together, playing more Schafkopf - there's certainly a lot to come.

I used to take my cue from older colleagues and ask them exactly these kinds of questions. When I am asked this question today, I can only answer: Be loyal and have integrity. There should be no gap between your words and deeds. This is not always possible, but it should always be the aim. Striving for a personality of integrity makes many things easier and opens doors - you will benefit from it.