The driver
A difficult but necessary cultural change

How nice it is to form part of company projects that aim to increase the well-being and safety of employees and their families!

A project such as Emotional Driving is a great opportunity to positively influence society. Each one of us can generate in our surroundings more appropriate behaviors and attitudes and in this way improve road safety and other aspects of daily life.

Human beings, however, need a lot of therapy to be able to change their culture. In general, we learn more from our errors, but often this too doesn’t work. Changing attitudes is not at all easy. Much educational effort must be made, and one also needs an open mind to change and this, in most cases, is the most complicated thing. We human beings are very resistant to change, we are lazy about it and it frightens us. This is why such a project needs a solid base to be able to change us.

Many initiatives have been set in motion in the development of Emotional Driving: the Leading The Change platform, which invites us to participate in online activities; roadshows that have brought us all closer in a much needed way, providing us with the possibility of experimenting sensations related to driving; and we have also received a great gift in the form of talks by people who are or have been involved in road safety.

I am fortunate to have participated in various roadshows organized in Spain and which left me with many experiences, many lessons. They made me see that I needed to change some dangerous attitudes and I am now more careful. Thus, the first thing I want to do is thank Gonvarri and everyone who has made this project possible. Because I travel 50,000 km a year by car and often with my family, my gratitude couldn’t be more sincere. And on a personal level, I take away with me the fact of having met Gustavo Almela and Julio Garcés, whom I include in my personal archive of people who are truly worth knowing. Their generosity made an impression on me.

When I think about the fact that the project may have also affected the rest of the employees in the Gonvarri Iberia region (some 750 people) in a similar way, in addition to the great potential of the multiplying effect of including our families and friends, I’m left with the pleasant feeling of having done something very good for society.

Furthermore, we can apply this culture of safety while driving to safety at work, by which we achieve another multiplying effect. At Gonvarri, safety has been for many years a cornerstone of our management. The company’s progress has been exponential and the greatest effort has been focused on cultural change; this is where it meets up with Emotional Driving.

Procedures, instructions, upgrading machinery, are not enough. It’s necessary to get inside people, inside all of us. And that is VERY DIFFICULT. Encouraging cultural change is risky and can only be successful through a great project that acts as a guideline and aligns all employees.

Emotional Driving has managed to hook us all through the nature of its messages, its positive effect on our families and by its participatory dynamic. It has meant an enormous step forward in our change of culture and its effects will unquestionably be lasting.

I personally thank Gonvarri for having given us employees the opportunity to participate in this idea and to help us have a safer attitude while driving and, therefore, in life.