Mandela’s release is announced – 20 years ago today

1989 was a momentous year all around the world. I wrote about it last year, as each month we rolled through the “twenty years on” anniversaries of everything from Tiananmen Square (June), the Ayatollah’s funeral chaos in Iran (June), hands across the Baltic Way (August), the Berlin Wall (November), Prague’s Velvet Revolution (November), Ceaucescu trial and death (December) and the banning of the Communist Party in Russia (December).

In my home country, South Africa, it took a few extra weeks, but we added our own amazing memory to this list.

On Friday, 2 February, 1990, FW de Klerk, the State President opened Parliament for the new year. In his “State of the Nation” address he stunned the world, and all of us in South Africa, by very calmly and simply saying the following:

“People serving prison sentences merely because they were members of one of these organisations, or because they committed another offence which was merely an offence because a prohibition on one of the organisations was in force, will be identified and released.”

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Good leaders share the pain with their teams

This coming year is likely to see continued difficulties in most companies. Recovery is on its way, but it will be slow, and profits are likely to be low. In this environment, many companies are going to ask staff to forego salary increases (and even possibly accept decreases) and bonuses.

Unfortunately, their bosses are unlikely to do the same.

In the past two decades or so, a two-tier system of reward has emerged, where people at board level and in senior executive teams are treated differently from general staff. When cuts are made, they are asked to contribute much less. Paradoxically, this often happens precisely because the senior executives “pretend” to be treated equally. But let’s be honest: to ask someone earning £ 1,000 a month to take a 10% cut is not the same as asking someone earning £ 12,000 a month to do the same. The more you earn, the more you should be expected to cut. That would be fair.

Worse still, senior executives are not rewarded for the health of the company (which affects long-term growth), but rather for short-term results. They typically attract performance bonuses for cutting costs out of the system – and that can involve pay freezes and redundancies for general staff.

In some companies this year, the basic salaries of all staff will be frozen, including the CEO and senior Execs. But the Execs will have access to bonuses, whereas most other employees cannot look forward to the variable performance pay available to their bosses. Their rewards are not treated the same. This, too, is not fair.

I read a recent report on a particular company that is experiencing just this, and the conclusion was succinctly stated: “Equity is a quality rather like justice. Justice must be seen to be done; equity must be experienced; it must run through an organisation from top to bottom.” I’d put it this way: A good leader shares the pain with his or her followers. If you don’t, they may just stop following.

I still believe that the real people carnage of this recession lies ahead of us, not behind us. What are your thoughts?

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2010 will be an important – but bad – year for green business

Cop15, the global conference in Copenhagen last year, produced about as much as anyone could have expected (a lot less than was hoped) – a fudged solution that requires much further discussion and negotiation. And in the UK, the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (the renamed Carbon Reduction Commitment) initial deadline for creating baselines was pushed out a year to April 2011. It’s unlikely the USA will be able to get to a final cap and trade agreement into legislation during 2010 (the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 must still pass through the Senate). While China made positive noises before Cop15, it seems that they were really sticky in Copenhagen and were a big reason that the final agreement did not include any operational terms.

With all of these issues in mind, it seems clear that 2010 is likely to be a year of talks and discussions, but very little action. For companies involved in green industries this will be frustrating. Many of these companies are startups, gearing up for the expected demand in sustainability issues (technology, consulting, business processes, engineering, energy, and much more). But many of them won’t survive another year of waiting and delays in implementation and client demand. It seems likely they will have to.

Companies that are keen on implementing green strategies (for whatever reason) have probably started to do this already. Companies looking for an excuse to delay implementation, however, will have plenty of excuses in 2010. They’re likely to keep delaying. They’ll do so until they’re forced to change (and that’s the main reason I support emissions trading legislation!).

So, 2010 will not be a good year for those involved in the sustainability industry. But it is an important year nevertheless. It’s important to continue lobbying. It’s important to continue to search for the best solutions and the best processes that will not only produce the best outcomes, but will also be compelling for those who are not yet convinced that anything needs to be done. It’s an important year for science – more must be done to show the scientific evidence of climate change and the need for changes in our lifestyles. And it’s an important year for venture capitalists, who must try to separate out those startups that truly have something to offer from those that are just taking a chance on the bandwagon (remember the shakeup in the online IT industry just 10 years ago?).

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Death and Twitter make for a horrid exchange

Yesterday, in South Africa, Manto Tshabalala Msimang died from a liver complication that had been plaguing her for some time now. She is a former health minister, and her time spent in that role was fraught with controversy because of her seeming lack of will to embrace ARV’s to treat HIV. Because of this stand, she has been accused of causing the death of thousands of South Africans. Some have even suggested she should be charged with crimes against humanity.

I think it’s important to note, especially in a South African context, that feelings about her were held by a cross-section of South Africa. The debate was fully inclusive and representative.

Yesterday as the news of her death began to seep into the media conversation (both non-non-traditional and non-traditional) Twitter began to heat up. There’s some speculation as to where it started? Just Curious does provide a view of the time-line and the heat generated by 5FM radio jock Gareth Cliff.

To get a view for yourself, see the search for ‘Manto’ on Twitter. Click here.

However you re-construct it, I was hit by some of the following:

• Death is a human thing. It’s not owned by one culture or one people group. Who dares to say that one group does it better than another? It’s very human. It reminds us all that we too one day will enter into it’s domain (www.we’lldietoooneday.com). Showing death some respect, and compassion to the family of those who have lost is not only right, it’s human.
• When someone dies, I find it pretty difficult to say anything to anyone. Silence seems to be not only an appropriate response, but the most gentle and caring. A hug, a gesture, just simply being present in the space of those who have just lost, seems to work best. It’s awkward, and it’s clumsy, but I find it works.
• If you do decide to speak, what words are sufficient to speak into what has just happened? You can’t do it in a sentence. So you end up bumbling along making a whole lot sound like not much at all.

So when the news broke on Twitter, and some people put their views out there, it did become terribly messy. There was huge emotion surrounding Tshabalala Msimang when she was alive. Those emotions were all still there after she had died. You can imagine what people end up saying when all you have is 140 characters? It’s blunt, it’s raw, it’s so in your face. There’s no place to explain, expand only express and explete.

The conversation one day later is whether people were right or wrong to put their views out there? Gareth Cliff has become the poster child for who did it bad.

I do think the exploration should be shifted slightly. It’s not about whether people put their views out or not? That’s inevitable. It should rather be around the forums we use and the timing of our comments? Would it have hurt to hold a negative, critical view for a day or two in respect of the family (at the very least)? Is Twitter a good forum for putting out such strong and potentially damaging emotions and thoughts?

The forums we use and the timing to speak by are age old questions. But they do need to be re-discussed from time to time. Especially in a world in which communication channels and platforms are changing as fast as they are.

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Who owns the moon?

This is not a frivolous question. China is making great strides towards a presence in space – as is India. Russia, the UK, the EU and the USA are already there. And it’s not all about national pride and the “because it’s there” motivation. It is highly likely that there are some very useful and very valuable minerals on the moon. And right now, it could very well be a “first come, first served” scenario for their usage. Oh, and let’s not forget that Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is also in the mix and should soon have the ability to launch and relaunch space vehicles at will. So, this will soon be a government and private interest issue.

Can you own property on the moon? This question may have to be answered sooner than you think.

Earlier in 2009, a NASA probe crashed into the moon’s surface and discovered frozen water – they claim lots of it. This makes establishing a base on the moon a lot more feasible. There are lots of reasons someone might want a moon base. There would be military benefits and scientific ones, too. But most important, there would be commercial ones too. There are some amazing mining opportunities on the moon, including huge quantities of helium 3 which could be used to generate clean energy on earth.

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Seth Godin on How to protect your ideas in the digital age

I have never done much to try and protect my intellectual capital. Some of my friends who are in the same profession – authors, speakers, consultants – agree with me, and others think I am nuts. My view is that the best way to keep ahead of the pack is not to protect what I have done, but to simply do more and better than anyone else does.

Seth Godin recently wrote about this issue on his blog, and he sums up my thoughts precisely.
Read his blog here, or below.

How to protect your ideas in the digital age

If we’re in the idea business, how to protect those ideas?

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After Shock: the five trends disrupting business in the next 5 years

Download a copy of this article in PDF format – right click here. The contents of this article can be presented as a keynote or a workshop for your team. Contact our UK or South African offices to find out how.

As the world slowly emerges out of recession over the next few years, it will become increasingly clear that this was more than just an economic downturn. Disruptive forces are significantly reshaping the world of work. Some of these changes have been brewing for a decade or more – and now this recession has exacerbated their influence and speeded up their effects. Companies that have survived the downturn need to shift their focus to surviving the upturn. We are not ever going to “get back to normal” – a new normal is emerging for everyone, everywhere.

Understanding the forces that are driving this disruptive change will give an organisation the insights needed to adjust their systems, structures and methods and gain a significant competitive advantage in the next 3 to 5 years. It is therefore essential to provide not just senior leaders, but all staff throughout your company, with a framework of thinking about this “new normal”. You want them to work together to take advantage of the opportunities that will emerge.

There are at least five key drivers of disruptive change that every organisation in every industry needs to track. These are the T.I.D.E.S. of change. (It’s a corny acronym, I know, but hopefully it will help with both remembering the framework, as well as making it easy to use on a regular basis in team meetings and informal conversations throughout your organisation). Here then are the key drivers of disruptive change in the next 3 to 5 years, and some questions to ask yourself and your teams as you plan to respond to them:

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The James Martin 21st Century School – understanding the future

I am a huge fan of James Martin. Not the celebrity chef. Nor the inventor of the aircraft ejection seat. Nor any of the other famous James Martins. I am a huge fan of James Martin the futurist and author of one of the best books of all time, “The Meaning of the 21st Century” (see a previous post about the book here).

I recently discovered that a think tank “school” has been created at Oxford university, and named in his honour. It’s the James Martin 21st century school. It seems to be a fantastic institution. You can see an 8 minute video of the Dean of the school, ex-South African, Ian Goldin, speaking recently at TED. Follow the school at Twitter/21school.

The school’s aim is to tackle the toughest challenges of the 21st century, and provide input and resources for the Oxford university community on these issues (see the list below). They aim to formulate new concepts, policies and technologies that will make the future a better place to be. Very nice!

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The Hand of God – Part 2.

I watched in horror last night has one of the world’s finest footballers, Thierry Henry cheated in order to secure his country’s participation in FIFA’s World Cup next year. His blatant handball allowed France to score the goal that broke Irish hearts and shattered the potential upset that would have dumped the previous finalist out next year’s showpiece. Simply stated: France don’t deserve to be making the trip to South Africa!

Something is wrong when this kind of act is allowed to go unpunished and the stain that it will surely be on Henry’s otherwise great career will be something he will have to live with for the rest of his days.

While his is a massive moral failure, there is another equally damning failure in this sad scenario: That of the beautiful game’s powers that be. Their obstinate refusal to allow the use of technology that would all but eliminate such unfairness and ensure that we all can sleep easy, is stupidity at best and plain arrogance at worse. Whilst other sporting codes have found ways to ensure greater fairness through employing technology, football stubbornly remains in the Dark Ages by denying what we all know could not only ensure the right decisions are made but that everyone is left in a better place for it.

If Henry gets what he deserves as a result of his indiscretion, no let’s call it what it is, his cheating, he might live to wish there had been technology available that could have ensured immediate justice was done.

Where is he now? Most likely having a consoling drink with one Diego Maradona. They deserve each other.

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Cleaning up the game (ban Henry from World Cup, and boycott Gillette?)

For the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about corporate corruption. It can probably be traced back to Enron, and the spate of corporate scandals that emerged at about the same time. More recently, the economic downturn has exposed some amazingly brazen corporate scandals, topped by the grand theft masterminded by Bernie Madoff.

Quite rightly, industries and countries alike are moving to try and cut out corruption at its source. The biggest danger is not rogue individuals (you can never stop them – the best you can hope for is to catch them early). The greatest danger is that corruption and rule breaking become endemic and “the accepted way” of doing business.

I remember as a young articled clerk at KPMG being stunned to be told by audit manager that a certain client account I was looking at was “for bribes”, because this was the “cost of doing business in the homelands” (the homeland states were puppet “countries” set aside for blacks in the old South Africa). Top multinationals, with the knowledge of their auditors, were involved in bribing corrupt local officials to make sure the wheels of industry kept turning. Maybe there was no other way. Maybe it was “how things worked”, but it didn’t help Africa, did it? We need to remove the CULTURE of corruption.

And there’s only one way to do this: immediate, brutal retribution when people are caught. One strike, and you’re out!

The reason I thought about this was because I watched the World Cup Qualifier between the Republic of Ireland and France last night. Ireland looked good to beat France, and force the game to penalties. This was a monumental result for them. But, in the dying minutes, Thierry Henry received a long ball just next to the goal, controlled it with his hand, and presented it to Gallas for an easy goal. Henry obviously knew he handled it – he handled it twice. In fact, he might as well have caught the ball and thrown it into the net. See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qZJrOcgkYM (see especially at 39 seconds!).

The best that FIFA could do now would be to ban Henry from the World Cup. He clearly cheated. He did it knowingly, willfully, and has fundamentally created personal advantage at extreme loss to others. This is corruption, and football is filled with it! They should use digital referees – why they’re scared of it, I don’t know. A quick replay, after the Irish appealed would have been enough to disallow the goal – and send Henry off! But, now that it’s obvious what happened, they need to send the strongest message.

But they won’t. Because it’s France. Because it’s Henry. And so, corruption will remain. And then we are surprised when it becomes endemic. There is no surprise here at all.

Ban Henry from the World Cup. That will send the right message.

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Nike’s considered sustainability programme

Nike has some aggressive sustainability targets. Nike CEO Mark Parke believes that corporate responsibility is no longer a staff function at Nike. It’s a design function, a sourcing function, a consumer experience function, part of how we operate.

Lorrie Vogel is the general manager of Nike Considered, Nike’s in-house sustainability think tank says that the long-term vision for Considered is to design products that are fully closed loop: produced using the fewest possible materials, designed for easy disassembly while allowing them to be recycled into new product or safely returned to nature at the end of their life. By 2011, 100 percent of footwear will meet baseline Considered standards, apparel by 2015 and equipment by 2020 – creating better performing products while minimizing environmental impact by reducing waste, using environmentally preferred materials and eliminate toxins.

Wikipedia says that the “Nike Considered line utilizes materials found primarily within 200 miles (320 km) of the Nike factory which reduces the energy used for transportation, diminishing the resulting climate change impact. The manufacturing process reduces solvent use by more than 80% compared with Nike’s typical products. The leather comes from a tannery that recycles wastewater to ensure toxins are kept out of the environment, and it is colored using vegetable-based dyes. Hemp and polyester are used to make the shoe’s woven upper and shoelaces. The mid-sole is cut to lock into the outer sole, reducing the need for toxic adhesives. The shoe’s outer sole includes rubber made from recycled factory rubber waste. Considered is part of a larger effort Nike has been undertaking for several years to reduce waste, eliminate toxic substances, and otherwise lessen the environmental impact of the world’s largest athletic shoe manufacturer. The company has a publicly stated goal to “Minimize or eliminate all substances known to be harmful to the health of biological or ecological systems.”

You can read a recent interview with Lorrie on CleanTechnica’s blog and I’ve sourced an excellent MIT case study for you on how Nike is becoming more greendownload an MIT case study, alternatively contact me and I will send you the report

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It’s (still) good to be good

One of the trends we’ve been tracking for some time is the rise of the ethical consumer. This growing group of customers do not simply look at your product or service through the traditional lessons of price, availability and value for money. They’re increasingly asking tougher questions, including: who made this?, how much are they paid?, how much are they paid in relation to how much your CEO earns?, how much damage did you do to the environment to make this and get it to me?, and so on.

A new report indicates that the recession has not dampened these consumer’s demand for an ethical component to their purchase. Doing good is still increasingly good for business. Read more here, or see the extract below.

Most consumers will swap brands for a good cause

Thursday November 12, 2009

Despite the recession, consumers are still spending with companies and brands that have a clear social purpose, according to third annual Edelman Good Purpose Consumer Study which surveyed 6,000 people in ten countries.

In fact, 57% of consumers globally feel that a company or brand has earned their business because it has been doing its part to support good causes (with Asian countries coming in highest, with China scoring 85% and India scoring 84%).

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The future for banks and a better way to pay bankers

POSTED 10 November 2009; UPDATED 11 November 2009

One story is going to run for the next 3-5 years at least: how to fix the banking system. The big media headline grabbing story is how to regulate bankers’ pay. It appears as if bankers don’t know how much their image has been tarnished, or how important trust is in their business – at least if their announcements of monumental bonuses to be paid out at the end of 2009 is anything to go by. The spoof magazine cover in this picture is just one example of how bankers are now less trusted than estate agents! (OK, that’s unfair on agents).

Whether or not they actually go ahead with this is irrelevant – the fact that they might have is enough. Change must come to banking and financial sector. It will come in the form of greater regulations in the background (linked to Basel II and other related legislation that will be coming). But in the glaring public eye, bankers’ remuneration is a key issue that will need addressing.

The CEO of Booz & Company wrote a great piece for their latest S+B ezine. Read it online here, or an extract below. Then, they followed that up with a further article about how banks need to change – read it here or an extract below.

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The military needs to change

In our latest presentation, “After Shock“, we talk about the five drivers of disruptive change that are shaping the new world of work. One of these is institutional change.

The institutions of the world are the pillars of our society – things like the financial system, the political system, family structures, religion and so on. The military is one of these foundational systems. We cannot think of one system that is not currently undergoing a crisis of change. And these are not small crises either – the rules and structures of these systems are being radically rewritten. From the Pope announcing that Anglicans can be Catholics again (October 2009) to the Parliamentary expense scandals and the BNP being elected to Parliament in Britain (2009), and of course the banking crisis that will most likely lead to new rules and regulations in the next 3-5 years.

The military is changing too. No longer does the country with the biggest army and the most impressive weapons automatically win. America was the first to discover this as they rolled their military into Baghdad and had President Bush declare “Mission Accomplished”. That seems so long ago now, and yet this week saw more deaths in Baghdad. Terrorism, leaderless cells, counterinsurgency and “winning the peace” are now military institution issues.

Here is an excellent review of British involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the Spectator, arguing that the generals just don’t get these changes and share blame with the politicians for what is happening.

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What it means to “be British” – a response to Nick Griffin

Like 8 million other Britons, I watched BBC’s “Question Time” on Thursday night. Nick Griffin, the head of the British National Party (a right wing party who restrict membership to white’s only and want to keep Britain “British” – by which they mean white, Caucasian) was given a place on the stage alongside other panel members. Click here to see a list of uploaded YouTube clips of the hour long Question Time.

Besides the fact that the BNP’s central issue of race is abhorrent, it is also an impossibility for them to actually enforce (or even define). They want Britain to be for those who “aboriginal” Britons – for the “original inhabitants”. They claim that this goes back 17,000 years, and is irrefutably about white people (not English speaking, of course, but they come very close to claiming this in their made up histories on their website). They want a complete halt to all immigration, and a return to a white Britain.

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Halliburton, rape and mad Republicans

I cannot tell you how much I wish I was wrong. A large part of my job is to try and track trends – especially those issues that will shape the new world of work. Every now and again our team at TomorrowToday gets to check in and see whether we were right or not. Obviously, we want to be right – our reputation and ability to get work from clients depends on it.

But, today I wish I was wrong. You see, in April 2005 I did one of the most in-depth pieces of investigative journalism I have ever done, and put together an article entitled: Would You Work for Halliburton?. It’s worth a read – as we chronicle the nasty habits of this nasty company. In the article in 2005, I suggested that Halliburton would have trouble hiring the right kind of people to turn their company culture around, and that the future might be bleak for them.

It turns out I was horrifically accurate in this assertion.

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Star Workplace Article

I was published in The Star (South African newspaper) earlier this week on ‘diversity’. I’ve had a few requests from people who wanted to read it, but couldn’t find it online.

Our PR company (SimonSays Communications) scanned a copy and sent it through today. It’s missing one or two lines through the middle : ), But I’m fairly certain it’s still readable.

Click here to see the image (it’s a .jpg)

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Now it gets interesting – music industry, file sharing, Lily Allen and Dan Bull

For a while now, we’ve been using the music industry as an example of an industry that has not understood the radical shifts taking place in the new world of work. Our new presentation, After Shock, focuses on the five drivers of disruptive change every industry needs to face. The music industry has to especially deal with new technology, institutional changes and shifts in societal values.

Up until now this has been a backroom boardroom (and courtroom) battle. But it has increasingly been making its way to the frontline. Most recently, Lily Allen, UK’s fresh faced young music phenom, has stated that she is “quitting music” because of of downloads of her songs. Read The Sydney Morning Herald’s reporting of this. (No-one really believes her, of course). Funnily enough, the blog she made the announcement on was taken down within days because she was accused of copying an article without attribution (talk about an own goal).

Now, another musician has used the tune of Lily Allen’s chart topping “22″ to support his own take on the subject. Rapper, Dan Bull, has cleverly summed up how many rational thinkers see the issues in a song he released on YouTube. (See the lyrics and the video below).

Now, it gets interesting. Front line artists are entering the debate – and not all of them have understood they’re standing on shifting sand. They may alienate their fans. It’s time to be careful and to understand the TIDES of change…

I don’t think I have much to add to Dan Bull’s lyrics – I’ve highlighted the bits below I think are the most important. Enjoy.

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12 ideas that’ll have you thinking a little differently

I picked this link up off of Twitter (@tomorrowtodayza if you’d like to follow us). It’s from Wired and it’s a list of 12 counter-cultural ideas from various ‘experts’ in a variety of fields. If anything else it’ll certainly have you thinking differently for a little while. Had me!

Warning: The ideas expressed here may be dangerous. For this year’s list, we walked right past the usual suspects and went looking for trouble. We wanted radicals, heretics, agitators—big thinkers with controversial, game-changing propositions. We found a prison reformer who wants to empty jails, an economist who thinks foreign aid hurts more than it helps, and a military theorist who believes the US should launch preemptive cyberattacks, right now. Then there’s secretary of defense robert gates, who wants to win wars, not just prep for them. Risky? Sure. But this is no time to play it safe.

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The emergence of Neuromarketing

Traditional market research has it’s limitations when one considers the influence of the ‘observer’ on the ‘observed’ when attempting to understand people’s true thoughts and feelings on the product/brand/service being researched. If we could just get into their heads to withdraw a pure brain impulse without the constraints traditional market research introduces in the mechanisms it uses. Enter Neuromarketing…

Neuromarketing is the practice of using technology to measure brain activity in consumer subjects in order to inform the development of products and communications–really to inform the brand’s 4Ps. The premise is that consumer buying decisions are made in split seconds in the subconscious, emotional part of the brain and that by understanding what we like, don’t like, want, fear, are bored by, etc. as indicated by our brain’s reactions to brand stimuli, marketers can design products and communications to better meet “unmet” market needs, connect and drive “the buy”.

FastCompany posted an article recently that explores the issue and the companies that are using this new ’science’. It also suggests a few shortcomings and some interesting ethical concerns.

Neuromarketing is only poised to grow in use and influence. But as the practice makes its way out of the lab and into the real world, at the grocery aisle, onto your computer perhaps…a debate, well beyond marketing, will rage.

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Be the Change You Want to See

Watching last night’s Champions League play-offs proved to be a disheartening experience for one particular incident I witnessed. It was in the game between an impressive young Arsenal side and that of Celtic. The game loaded in Arsenal’s favour following their 2-0 away win, then tilted completely to Arsenal’s favour through a piece of prime play-acting…or for want of a better term, ‘cheating’. Eduardo,  the unfortunate player who had his leg shattered in a sickening tackle, contrived to win the Gunners a penalty that wasn’t. This kind of thing happens all the time in top flight football you might argue. And of course you would be right. However that doesn’t excuse the practice. In Eduardo’s case it took the con to new levels and whilst arguing that it was the referee who should have picked it up and it was the ref who gave the penalty, that is to miss the point.

The only way this practice can be stamped out is for managers to come out and condemn not just the practice (as most do) but to shame their own players who engage in it. Arsenal manager Wenger’s response didn’t go far enough in this regard. be sure that at some point in the long season ahead his side will be the victim of such unfair practice and when that occurs, best not cry or moan Mr. Wenger, as you are so apt to do.

Such play-acting and conning the officials has no place in football. Post match citing might be one answer but it has gone unchecked for too long and discredits the Beautiful Game. As Rugby Union has found out, cheating cannot be tolerated and what makes what Eduardo did any different from the infamous blood capsules episode in recent rugby history?

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Competing rights and freedom claims

In a world of increasing complexity, we will continually need to deal with competing claims and rights (and the flip side, too, of responsibilities). America, as the sole superpower, must currently find a balance between “bringing freedom to the world” and protecting its own national interests. It is internally engaged in raucous debates about the competing rights of people with and without healthcare options. Companies must find a balance between shareholder demands for profit, customer demands for service and staff demands for work-life balance and a reasonable wage.

There are many ways to deal with this issue of competing rights. Here is a fun way…

I grew up in a cat loving family, and some of my favourite childhood pets were cats. But I have married into a family with a chronic genetic allergy to cats, and so we can’t have them at all. I am caught between two worlds – one that loves cats, and one that does not. I therefore had a good laugh at this article in the most recent Spectator magazine. It tells the story of a cat, a python and some enraged neighbours who don’t understand the limits of their rights. Enjoy it, and reflect on the bigger issue behind it.

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How (not) to do business like Jack Welch

Since leaving GE, Jack Welch has refused to retire gracefully or quietly. He has continued to stay vocal and keep his profile in the media, especially by writing and disseminating business advice. I suppose one shouldn’t begrudge him this – after all, he was branded “Manager of the Century” by TIME magazine, after nearly a quarter century in charge of one of the world’s largest companies.

But, does he deserve to be heard so much? Especially now that the model of leadership he espoused has been shown to lead to disaster. In my mind he is an example of much of what we don’t want in the future world of work.

An article which put my thoughts into words was published a while back in The Economist. It was responding to reports that Jack Welch will be lending his name to a new online MBA course. It highlights some of the concerns I have with a “winner takes all”, “profit at any price” ruthless leadership style Jack Welch espoused at GE. It also hints at probably the biggest issue that all such leaders have – they leave no legacy. When they leave, the empire they created collapses. When Welch left GE, he was asked what his legacy would be. He said that this was a question best asked after his successor had retired. That is the right attitude for a leader to have – the long term view. Unfortunately for Welch, it currently looks as if his legacy is a bad one!

Read The Economist article at their website, or an extract below.
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Nine Reasons Why You Must Improve the Environmental Performance of Your Business

Whether or not you’re convinced by science and media reports on global warming, there is no doubt that our planet is under pressure at the moment. Things must change, and the governments of the world – not to mention increasingly vocal activists – have started to put pressure on companies and individuals to reduce energy usage and become more environmentally friendly and sustainable. Yet many businesses continue to ignore these issues, relegating it to a low priority task team, or simply paying lip service to it as a PR exercise. This is short sighted and potentially damaging. And it doesn’t make business sense, either.

There are significant advantages for the companies that take energy efficiency and business sustainability seriously. You don’t have to be a do-gooder to develop processes and systems to improve the environmental performance of your business. There is a strong business case for doing so.

Here are nine reasons why you should take these issues seriously, and see business improvement as a result. Doing well by doing good is possible. And desirable!

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Affirmitive Action is Dead in South Africa – or is it?

Sipho Ngcobo wrote an interesting article on Money Web this last week, reflecting on the reality the African National Congress (ANC) faces around service delivery, or lack of it, in South Africa currently. He suggests that the pressure the ANC is under for 2011 local government elections and 2014 national elections will mean them compromising on affirmative action policies in favour of ensuring the right people are in the right places.

I do think he writes as more of a warning to the ANC to get it’s house in order than possibly the reality of what will actually happen. But I also do think that we need to appreciate that in emerging market economies this is a situation we’re all facing. It’s certainly not unique to South Africa.

As Ready, Conger and Hill point out in their Harvard Business Review article, ‘Winning the Race for Talent in Emerging Markets’, there is a severe lack of appropriately qualified and experienced people to fill management positions (at various levels). In the four large emerging market economies, Brazil, Russia, India and China, there simply isn’t enough supply to meet the demand. In countries like South Africa we should appreciate that if these four power-houses are struggling, then it is appropriate for us to be feeling some pain.

In the Harvard Business Review article, they set out their findings in an interesting graph that shows supply and demand for management using a scale that goes from entry level, to middle management, to country leadership, and tops out at regional leadership. Their research suggests that:

• Brazil has no supply to meet the demand from middle management upwards.
• Russia is struggling to meet the demand in all four levels
• India is battling from the first level (entry level) upwards
• China is only slightly better off, but still struggling to meet demand from entry level upwards.

One should be cautioned against assuming that academic qualification equals appropriate skills for management. I mention this because when I bring up the Harvard Business Review article people often query the number of MBA’s in India and therefore the accuracy of the data? Education is but one element that determines management ability. Those who fill management positions will certainly confirm this.

Sipho Ngcobo, in my opinion, is on the money with the challenge that the ANC faces. What the ANC does to avoid this crisis will be interesting to learn from? When the pressure is on for delivery and performance, especially in emerging markets in a world with a skills crisis, a compromise is certainly worth exploring between affirmative action policies and ensuring the right bums are in the right seats on this bus called service delivery.

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The Bruno Movie – unhelpful cultural analysis

OK, so maybe the title of this post is a bit over the top. But the new movie from Sacha Baron-Cohen (aka Ali G, aka Borat), which portrays him as a gay Austrian television presenter, has the stated aim of providing cultural analysis. His goal is to shed light on inconsistent prejudice. Lofty goals indeed. Unfortunately, he fails to do so. In fact, he may do the opposite of his intention.

Probably the best review I have read of the movie comes from Toby Young of The Spectator. See what you think…

Status Anxiety
Toby Young
Wednesday, 8th July 2009

As funny as Bruno undoubtedly is, Baron-Cohen’s film is fundamentally dishonest

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Can I help you pack Sir?

An amazing article appeared in the Business Day on the 8th July 2009. It was a Business Day interview with the former Anglo American deputy chairman, Graham Boustred, 84. It was an interview at his request in order for him to share his views on the current state of Anglo American. What follows has one suspiciously looking for the candid camera equivalent of the print media! Boustred states that Xstrata’s proposed bid for Anglo American is simply a mechanism for getting rid of current Anglo CEO, Cynthia Caroll who he goes on to describe as “hopeless”and implies that she is sexually frustrated. The then illuminates why it is difficult to find a female CEO: “It is because most women are sexually frustrated. men are not, because they can fall back on call girls, go to erectile dysfunction clinics. If you have a CEO who is sexually frustrated she can’t act properly”.

Boustred talks about the possibility of having an exit strtaegy should the wheels come off in South Africa. His prefered safe haven? The Isle of Man. His reason being that on the Isle of Man “there are no Muslims, no blacks”. There were compelling other reasons such as a good health care system but these are all too sane to be taken seriously.

The tone of Boustred’s ranting as reported is self-centred, arrogant, dogmatic, bigited and plain insulting. He represents a perplexing case study in past leaders grown old and begs the question of just how much of the present characteristics and opinions were in evidence during his leadership reign? He is aptly described in the interview as an “old man of South African business” where his world is “an anachronism that is growing smaller all the time”.

Oh yes, and the answer to Anglo’s current “disaster”? Well, for Boustred to return of course! reading to full article will have you queing to help the pensioner pack.
 

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The 100 Euro Note

Received this via e-mail today. Would anyone care to comment…..?

“It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.

He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.

The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that in these hard times, gave her “services”
on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is doing business today and the main reason thatthe rest of the world is now ‘messed’ up!”

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The Meaning of the 21st Century

One of the most important books I have read in the last year is James Martin’s “The Meaning of the 21st Century” (Buy it at Amazon or Kalahari). The subtitle explains: The Megaproblems of the 21st Century.

You can hear me talking about it on a ClassicFM book review show.

I recently came across the author’s website, and found this excellent summary of his book. From James Martin’s own website:

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How to cut costs and keep your employees

The million dollar question I hear you sigh as you see the subject of this blog. Let’s face it, there are no easy answers, no silver bullets and certainly no one-size-fits-all approach to cutting costs and keeping a high people-morale during an economic un-boom, such as the one we’re wading through at the moment.

But there are some stories worth hearing, if not for anything but simply to celebrate that someone may be getting it right in their context. They know their people and their culture, and they’ve successfully created a solution that snugly fits both.

Click here to read a short article of some of these stories. The one that most impacted me was the ‘Ricardo Semler‘ type approach of the opening story in the article:

Go to the people and ask them! Sounds so simple. But so very difficult to execute.

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