He knows his team. Some of them for many years. And often, he can tell when something isn’t quite right - when someone seems a little off, even if he can’timmediately say why. Just in case, he leaves his office door open. Most of the time, it is. His name is Bernhard Thieke. He has worked at the DMK dairy in Neubörger, a small town in Lower Saxony’s Emsland region, since 1987. And he is one of those rare figures in modern working life: someone who genuinely means it when he asks how you’re doing.
Now 57, he started out as a dairy technician, went on to qualify as a master craftsman and later managed production. Today, as Business Development Plant Manager, he is responsible for investments, new filling lines, packaging development and the plant’s strategic future. He works closely with marketing, sales and development – and knows almost all of the 120 employees, many of them personally. Who volunteers with the fire brigade – as he has since 1993 – who has children, who might be having a tough day, even if they don’t say it.
In a way, he lives two lives – and yet they are one and the same. He steps in when others step back: into burning situations, difficult conversations, or shifts no one else wants to take. Sometimes literally. Sometimes metaphorically. For him, there’s no real difference. In the fire service, too, you’re on call around the clock -weekends, holidays included. “In both cases,” says Thieke, “only what works as a team works at all. One has taught me the other.”
What the fire service teaches
In 2006, a Transrapid train derailed near Neubörger. Thieke and his colleagues pulled survivors from the wreckage - and recovered many who didn’t make it. In 2023, the river Ems burst its banks, flooding the entire municipality. For hours, firefighters tried to persuade elderly residents to leave their homes - people who simply couldn’t believe how bad things would get. “Orders don’t help in those moments,” says Thieke. “You have to listen, explain, convince. Just like at work.” His first major incident - a road accident, a person looking at him, the last face they would ever see before closing their eyes forever - is something he still carries with him. “Those images stay with you. You develop a deep sense of humility about life.” That humility, he says, is something he brings with him to the dairy every single day.
“At the fire service, you never send someone inexperienced in alone. I take the same approach at the plant.”
One principle runs through both worlds: experienced and new colleagues belong together. In the fire brigade, a seasoned firefighter always stands alongside a younger one - to protect, but also to teach. Thieke has made sure the same applies at the plant. “Young colleagues shouldn’t be worn down mentally. We learned that early on in the fire service. And what applies during a flood applies on a filling line as well.”
What the dairy teaches
At Neubörger, DMK produces a range that may seem unassuming from the outside but is impressively complex behind the scenes: set yoghurt, fruit yoghurt, thermised products, sour cream, crème fraîche, Greek yoghurt, specialist ingredients for dressings and private labels, as well as flammkuchen cream for both domestic and international markets. The plant is small – but highly flexible. It can handle very small batches as well as large-scale production, with short distances, flat hierarchies and a level of production depth that larger sites often lack.
What makes that possible, Thieke explains, is simple: “We have the hardware. But without the people standing here every day who believe in the product, it would be nothing.” It may sound like management rhetoric – but in his case, it’s meant quite literally. His father was a dairy farmer. Thieke has milked cows himself, understands the dependency on feed, weather and everything that shapes an animal’s life. He knows how sensitive milk is before it even reaches the dairy. “It’snot an abstract industrial product. It comes from a living being.” That respect for the raw material, he says, should be felt all the way to the final filling line. That’s why he asks the people who work on the machines every day when something needs improving. How can losses during changeovers be reduced? What could work better when converting a line? “They know the equipment like the back of their hand. Why wouldn’t I ask them?” He is continually impressed by the ideas that emerge - and by the effect of being asked. “When people are part of the solution, they show up differently at their machine the next morning.”
“When people are part of the solution, they show up differently at their machine the next morning.”
What remains after 39 years
Over nearly four decades, Thieke has experienced thirteen different leadership styles. Four company names: Öing, Nord-Westmilch, Nordmilch and finally DMK. Mergers, restructurings, new plant management. Today, the site is led by a female plant manager - something that would once have been unthinkable, he says, without any hint of nostalgia, just matter-of-factly. In leadership workshops, he has reflected on his own strengths and weaknesses -with curiosity and without ego. “I’ve learned a lot about myself. Including the uncomfortable parts.” The most uncomfortable? He finds it hard to draw boundaries. He is reachable after hours, for colleagues who simply need to talk. He answers the phone, even on public holidays. His office door is always open - not as a signal, but because he means it. Sometimes he asks someone how they are, they say “all good”, and the next morning they’re sitting in his office. “I can just sense it,” he says. “My greatest strength - and at the same time my greatest weakness.” He has two children, both at university. He has encouraged his son to read the world the way he does: through the behaviour of the people in it. The young man is currently studying in Japan. His father watches from afar - and is proud. What he has passed on is not a career strategy, but a mindset: stay curious about people. Ask before you judge. And understand how someone ticks before you try to lead them. It applies when responding to a fire in the Emsland. It applies on the yoghurt line in Neubörger. And it applies at two in the morning, when the phone rings because a colleague can’t sleep. Bernhard Thieke answers. He always has. And he sees no reason to stop.
