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Advent started uneasily for Hans Dieter Pötsch, the chief overseer at Volkswagen.
Once again, the 69-year-old should smooth things over in the group.
And settle a dispute that CEO Herbert Diess, 62, instigated.
Instead of contemplative hours, the powerful men at Volkswagen spend a lot of time in small group discussions.
A meeting of the innermost circles of power had brought no result on Tuesday evening.
Next week, the Supervisory Board will meet regularly for the last time this year, by then at least one compromise formula should be foreseeable.
But they don't exist yet.
CEO Herbert Diess wants to install new managers on two board positions that are due to be filled.
The works council blocks its candidates
Source: Martin UK Lengemann / WELT
On the surface, the conflict revolves around the top staff: Diess wants to install new managers on two board positions that are due to be filled.
The works council around Bernd Osterloh, however, blocked its candidates.
It requires a longer, orderly process in which the sections of the departments are redistributed.
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Both sides are concerned with power in the group.
Since the dispute became public, a lot has been in motion in Wolfsburg.
Pötsch now has to do the trick of designing a personnel sheet that defuses the conflict.
Corona has increased the pressure to transform
The fact that the Supervisory Board originally wanted to take its time until the beginning of next year for this decision is due to the scope: It is not just about shifts in the management level, but about the strategic orientation of the group in a particularly critical phase.
The structural change in the automotive industry is getting very fast, the stresses caused by Corona have significantly increased the pressure to transform.
VW is investing 150 billion euros in the next five years - and must remain profitable at the same time.
And finally, it is also about who could one day succeed Diess as CEO.
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The manager himself puts it this way: "As I understand it, you want to give the whole thing a continuity and perspective by setting a strategic course," he told Wirtschaftswoche, followed by a reference to his employment contract, which runs until 2023.
"And I plan to fulfill this contract."
With the statement, Diess apparently wants to capture speculation about his job.
He had - as a vote of confidence - demanded an early contract extension from the supervisors, it had been said the week before.
"Even the end of Diess is now possible," read an article in the "Handelsblatt".
No alternative to Diess
The supervisory board did not want to know anything about this.
"The Porsche and Piëch family stand behind Herbert Diess with no ifs or buts," said a spokesman for Porsche SE, in which the shares of the family owners are bundled, WELT.
The other parties involved, the state of Lower Saxony with its blocking minority and the employee representatives, know that the CEO is currently difficult to replace.
And that they have no alternative to Diess in the short term.
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However, two men on the board are already considered possible crown princes: Porsche boss Oliver Blume and Markus Duesmann, boss of Audi.
Blume, born in Braunschweig, has had a flawless career in the VW Group.
From starting at Audi in 1994 to positions at Seat and VW, he followed Matthias Müller to the post of Porsche boss in 2015.
At that time, Müller was needed in Wolfsburg as a group manager.
Duesmann, on the other hand, has only been on the group board since April, comes from BMW like Diess and is supposed to catch up on the big gap in software.
To do this, he first has to build new structures.
As a possible candidate, the “Manager Magazin” rumored HR manager Gunnar Kilian, who was previously Secretary General of the group works council under Bernd Osterloh - and because of this closeness for the capital side, is likely to retire.
Strategy is undisputed
For the time being, Herbert Diess will probably remain at the helm of the company.
There is no disagreement about his strategy in Wolfsburg.
Employees are just as convinced of the car manufacturer's radical shift to electromobility as its major shareholders.
It is also undisputed that the company has to digitize itself quickly.
What is irritating Diess is the high speed at which he wants to pull through the change.
In addition, his attempts to break the Wolfsburg culture of consensus and to reduce the influence of the works council did not go down well there.
There is a dispute about the VW principle.
In addition, it is foreseeable that there will be a dispute over costs in the company in the coming year.
The core brand Volkswagen with its expensive plants in Germany produces too expensive compared to other parts of the group.
If VW is to generate more profit overall, costs must also fall there.
The question is whether the “future pact” with the works council, which is responsible for a medium-term workforce reduction, will suffice.
“Increases in efficiency are necessary and should not be underestimated for the continued existence of a company, as many examples prove again and again.
Here at Volkswagen we still have some catching up to do, ”Diess wrote to the works council on the 75th birthday of co-determination at Volkswagen.
A message of peace looks different.
Badly positioned for “diversity”
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On Tuesday evening, he presented his ideas for more efficiency and more speed to the Presidium of the Supervisory Board.
Whether the supervisors follow his ideas will also be reflected in the redesign of the board.
This is unlikely to happen before Christmas.
"Everyone is working on a constructive solution and is trying hard to achieve it," said those around the supervisory board.
In addition to new names, it is also about which tasks are linked to a board department.
Diess wants to quickly fill the post of Chief Purchasing Officer Stefan Sommer, who resigned in June.
The works councils have long been demanding their own IT board.
In addition, it is being discussed whether “Integrity and Law” still has to be a board department after the diesel scandal has largely been legally dealt with.
However, this department is held by the only woman on the executive committee, Hiltrud Dorothea Werner.
Your contract will run until 2022. If it is not extended, Diess will need at least one other female manager.
Because when it comes to diversity, Volkswagen is in a bad position.
German men sit almost exclusively in the management ranks of the group and on the executive boards of the subsidiary brands.
The fact that VW is a global company and that a legal quota for women in management is currently being discussed in its home country is not even reflected there.
Only at Audi and Scania are women allowed to have a say at the top.
So far failed because of the Wolfsburg structures
In the past few months there have been opportunities to make the ranks of managers more colorful.
Diess has set a personnel carousel in motion in the group, the speed of which is second to none.
Since the beginning of the year, the heads of Seat, Skoda, Audi, MAN, the Traton truck holding company, VW Commercial Vehicles, the Volkswagen brand and Lamborghini have been replaced.
There were also changes within the board of directors, including the departures of top managers Jürgen Stackmann (sales) and Thomas Ulbrich (e-mobility) on the VW brand board.
The new bosses have to keep pace with Diess' pace.
The CEO no longer only speaks of the turn to electromobility, but also of autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and the change to a "digital company that reliably operates millions of mobility devices worldwide".
All points that VW cannot redeem today.
In a kind of manifest on LinkedIn, Diess wrote: “The world's largest car manufacturer is in the midst of the greatest transformation in economic history.” In addition to this transformation, he also wants to break up the old Wolfsburg structures - and admits that he has failed because of this.
It is hardly to be expected that the public attack on the “Wolfsburg System”, a carefully balanced balance of power between family owners, employees and the state government, will lead to change.
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After a similar public debate, the Supervisory Board had significantly trimmed Diess' sphere of influence in the spring.
He had to hand over the chairmanship of the core brand VW to Ralf Brandstätter.
At the end of this week, too, a personal signal came from Wolfsburg, this time from the directors of the CEO: His head of communications Peik von Bestebostel, who had already worked with Diess at BMW, is leaving the company on January 1st - “as part of a planned Age regulation ", as it is called.
His successor will be Nicole Mommsen, who moved to Volkswagen from the investment bank Goldman Sachs in August.
You and your boss will certainly not have a quiet Advent.