Perspective sensitivity: Lucio Oliveri’s perspective

Giulia Terracciano: Today we are joined by Lucio Oliveri, Managing Director of Direzione Lavoro, an organisation active in employment services that is currently undergoing significant growth and evolution. This interview arose quite naturally from our first meeting some time ago. Since then, Lucio, I have kept pursuing you because right from the start a theme emerged that struck me deeply, and one I wanted to explore with a wider audience: managerial sensitivity, which we later termed forward sensitivity.

Before getting there, however, I would like to take a step back and pick up the thread of our first conversation. You shared that sensitivity has accompanied you since your youth, whereas wisdom is a quality you learned to recognise primarily through the feedback of others.  What is the relationship, in your view, between these two dimensions?

Lucio Oliveri: I believe sensitivity is an innate trait: either you have it, or you don’t. In my case, it has always been there. When I was young, people often came to me for advice, even when I did not necessarily have more experience or knowledge than they did. Over time, I realised that it was probably about an ability to listen, notice, and pick up on things that went beyond what was openly said.

Wisdom, on the other hand, is not a quality I am sure one can attribute to oneself: I recognise it mainly through the feedback people have given me over the years.

For me, the connection between the two is fairly simple: sensitivity allows you to notice things; experience helps you interpret what you have noticed. And when those two meet, in my view, you have wisdom.

Often in organisations, sensitivity is viewed as a personal, almost private trait, whereas you define it as the ability to “notice”. How important is it for a leader to perceive what is happening internally before attempting to interpret external dynamics?

It matters immensely. It is probably one of the aspects I learned latest in my managerial journey.

When you are young and carry responsibility, you often think your job is mainly to make decisions, solve problems, and provide answers. Then you discover that a crucial part of the role is understanding, first and foremost, what is happening to you as you navigate that situation.

If a situation raises red flags for me, I need to understand whether I am picking up on a genuine signal or simply projecting a past experience.

I believe self-awareness acts as a kind of filter. If it isn’t working properly, we risk reading others through our own reactions.

And for those in leadership, that can become a serious problem.

Sensitivity begins with oneself, extends to the other person, and then broadens to the whole system. In your experience, when does a relational quality become a genuine managerial capability?

When it stops being just a personal trait and begins to produce conscious, repeatable behaviour. Being empathetic, listening, and showing sensitivity towards others are important qualities, but on their own they do not necessarily make a manager.

Managerial capability emerges when that sensitivity enables you, for example, to understand when to step in and when to take a step back; when to push someone and when to support them; when to hold someone accountable for a result and when to first understand what prevented them from achieving it.

To me, managerial sensitivity is precisely that: reading and understanding before judging, and only then deciding.

You have spoken repeatedly about the need to read what remains unsaid, especially in client relationships. Today, many companies express a problem without being able to define it accurately. How vital has the ability to interpret a need become, even before formulating a solution?

It has become essential. In our sector, client relationships were long driven by the ability to respond swiftly to a specific request: “I need these profiles, in this quantity, by this date”.

Today that is no longer enough. Clients often approach us with a problem, but not necessarily with a clear question.

They might tell you they cannot find people, but the real issue may lie in how they organise work. They might tell you they struggle with retention, but the underlying challenge could be leadership, professional development, or internal organisation. Therefore, a proper diagnosis of the situation is required.

For me, being a consultant also means having the courage to ask one more question, even when it would be easier just to take the order and proceed. Sometimes, the greatest value we offer a client is helping them see a problem they feel, but have not yet fully articulated.

An organisation’s future rarely arrives unannounced: it sends signals first. Which weak signals in the labour market are you observing most closely today?

There are several, and what is interesting is that many do not stem from numbers—at least not immediately.

I see, for instance, people with completely different expectations regarding work compared to a few years ago; above all, I see varying demands across different generations of candidates. At the same time, I see companies struggling more to source specific skills, which means they must learn to be more attractive employers, rather than just better recruiters. I also see clients increasingly asking for help in solving organisational challenges.

And then there is an issue I consider crucial: the pace at which skills and professions are evolving. New capabilities are required in far shorter timeframes than we have ever seen before.

You used a very evocative phrase when addressing the risk of treating a candidate as “an invoice with legs”. What truly changes when transitioning from managing an application to building a relationship with a person?

Practically everything changes. The expression “an invoice with legs” is intentionally provocative, but it stems from a very real observation: in our industry, there has always been a risk of looking at an individual through the lens of contract value, billable hours, margins, and invoicing.

Naturally, these metrics are part of our business, and a company must generate results. But when you meet an individual, you must take into account aspirations, capabilities, motivations, career paths, and even their current stage of life. This applies equally whether we are speaking to a candidate or to an employee we have already placed.

What is remarkable is that, ultimately, this care towards the candidate does not conflict with business goals. Quite the opposite. If you understand the person more deeply, you increase the likelihood of a successful match, thereby generating value for the client as well.

You mentioned that acting as a consultant cannot remain the personal gift of an “inner circle”, but must become a shared capability across the organisation. What does it take for individual expertise to become a collective asset?

This is probably one of the most significant managerial challenges I face today.

An organisation cannot rely solely on a handful of exceptionally skilled individuals. If the best consultant, the top business developer, or the most experienced manager carries the entire value on their shoulders, we have a strong individual, but not necessarily a strong organisation.

To turn individual expertise into a collective asset requires methodology, dialogue, training, tools, and processes, alongside a genuine willingness among people to share what they know.

Yet it also demands something less technical: we must foster a culture where sharing knowledge is not seen as losing power.

Forward sensitivity is the ability to read in the present the initial traces of what might become relevant tomorrow. In your view, how much does this influence the capacity to anticipate market shifts rather than merely reacting to them?

It has a huge impact, though I would clarify one thing: I do not believe forward sensitivity means predicting the future. Rather, it means noticing that something is shifting before that change becomes obvious to everyone.

If we wait until an emerging client need is fully established, we are probably too late. If we wait until an organisational friction shows up in the numbers, we have already lost part of our window of opportunity to intervene.

Forward sensitivity prompts you to ask questions earlier: What is shifting? Why is the client communicating in this manner? Why are people starting to voice certain expectations? What lies beneath a recurring pattern of behaviour?

It is not about forecasting tomorrow. It is about learning to recognise today what will manifest tomorrow.

In your view, what is the distinction between intuition and managerial wisdom? When does a perception cease to be just a feeling and become a sound basis for decision-making?

Intuition is vital. It often precedes rational reasoning, and particularly after years of experience, it carries insights we cannot yet fully articulate. However, we cannot make decisions based on intuition alone.

For me, managerial wisdom arises when you have the humility to test what you have perceived. I may sense that a team member is facing difficulties or that a client’s attitude is shifting. But then I must verify, ask questions, and look for tangible evidence.

Wisdom prevents you from mistaking what you have perceived for objective truth; this is especially critical for seasoned leaders, as experience can be a great asset, but also a fertile ground for bias.

Is there also the opposite risk: that experience dulls sensitivity by leading us to interpret novel situations through familiar categories?

Absolutely. In fact, I believe it is one of the greatest traps for a senior leader.

Experience brings speed: you recognise situations, anticipate issues, and have seen many scenarios before. Yet for that very reason, you might conclude too quickly: “I’ve seen this before.” But it may not be the same situation; it might merely look similar.

Over the years, I have learned that one of the most useful questions to ask is: “What if this time is different?”. It does not mean second-guessing everything you know. It means not allowing your experience to become a cage.

If you had to pinpoint one capability that senior managers must continually cultivate, regardless of their track record, what would it be?

The ability to listen, but more specifically: the ability to challenge one’s own initial reading of things.

With experience comes confidence, which is positive. But you must be careful not to grow overconfident in your own interpretations. In my own path, I have learned that the first solution that comes to mind is not always the right one. A senior leader must continue learning, including from younger colleagues, and must master a skill that is not always easy: projecting authority without needing to always be right.

If sensitivity enables perception and wisdom provides meaning and direction, what responsibility does a Managing Director bear today in cultivating an environment where both qualities can thrive across the organisation?

They bear an immense responsibility, because an organisation’s culture is built not merely by what is said, but above all by the footprint left by “how” things are done. Therefore, a Managing Director’s duty is also to foster consistency.

If I tell people to take ownership but then micromanage every decision, I create dependency. If I say I want collaboration but reward only individual achievement, I breed competition. If I say people are our priority but focus solely on figures, the true message will be quite different.

A Managing Director must create conditions where people can exercise autonomy, engage in open dialogue, make mistakes, and learn, while maintaining absolute clarity that accountability for results remains central and proportional at all levels.

In short, I believe managerial culture is built by aligning words with organisational behaviours.

To bring this full circle: how would you define forward sensitivity?

It is the ability to notice earlier. Before a problem becomes glaring. Before a metric reveals that something isn’t working. Before a client can articulate a precise need. Before an employee explicitly says they are struggling.

It does not mean presuming to know exactly where we are heading. It means observing, listening, connecting disparate signals, and maintaining the curiosity to understand what might happen and what our counterparts are truly expressing.

Perhaps that is precisely what prompted me to reflect so deeply on the balance between sensitivity and wisdom:

sensitivity allows you to see what is not yet clear; wisdom helps you not jump to conclusions about what you have seen.