It sounds clichéd, but to get the best from your people, you have to show respect for them. This can result in surprising decisions. There was a time when some people regarded workers in England as lazy and careless, but I recognized that England has a very strong appreciation of craftsmanship and tradition, so we purchased a high-end footwear company, Church’ s shoes. People in Italy thought this was crazy.

Our first challenge was to decide what to do with the factories. Church’ s owned a plant in the middle of Northampton that employed 600 people, and the smart move appeared to be to relocate it out of town, which would give us more space at less cost. But when I visited the factory, I saw that people’ s lives were organized around its location. Most employees lived nearby and would go home for lunch. If we moved them out of town, we’ d be robbing them of an hour at home and forcing them to bring sandwiches to work. Their quality of life would be compromised, and they wouldn’ t be getting anything in return. So we kept the factory in town.

That decision has paid dividends. We retained nearly all the company’ s very hardworking and talented people, who have rewarded us with increased productivity. And we’ ve proved a larger point: English workers are both cheaper and more industrious than Continental workers.

You could say that work is about duties. People have a duty to work hard for me, but I have a duty to respect them as individuals. Another duty I have is to help them learn. That’ s a duty I owe to the company as well as to my employees, because a company whose managers take seriously the obligation to help their people improve will be a lot more competitive. Prada is rather good at developing talented employees. Many of our senior managers joined us as young people, and many of the people who have left us have gone on to launch successful businesses of their own.