Zago and the visitor’s parable on the construction site

A visitor entered the construction site where a cathedral was being built in the Middle Ages. He met a stonecutter and asked him: “What are you doing?”. The other replied grumpily: ‘Can’t you see, I’m sweating cutting stones’. Thus he showed that he considered that work unpleasant and worthless. The visitor passed on and met a second stone-cutter; he too asked this one what he was doing. “I am earning a living for myself and my family,” replied the worker in a calm tone, showing some satisfaction. The other went on again and found a third stonemason and asked him the same question. The latter answered joyfully: “I am building a cathedral”.

This is the story (taken from Roberto Assagioli’s ‘The Recipe of Happiness’) that Zago Moulds Solution, a leading Padua-based manufacturer of complex moulds for footwear, chose to emphasise their pride in contributing their work to the realisation of a greater work. In fact, only the third stonecutter understood the meaning and purpose of his work, which he performed with passion and enthusiasm. “As we often like to say at Zago, projects are not always simply what we expect them to be, projects are what they are; the way we experience them makes the difference. The way we design, think, choose, build, makes the difference,” reports Marina Zago, Marketing Director.

And again: “At Zago we try to remind ourselves every day, making PU injection moulds, that the shoe maker who entrusts us with one of his projects knows that at Zago we will not only comply with the necessary ISO standards and the functionality of the mould, but that we will also passionately embrace the moulding challenge of telling an emotion in footwear”.