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Archives for July 2011

Smart Lord Sugar…

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Nice move by Lord Sugar to choose Tom Pellereau as his business partner.  Seriously nice move because Tom’s skills complement those of the Lord Sugar rather than replicate them.

So many people go into business with people who share similar skills, values and attitudes leading to a very lop-sided business indeed.  Perhaps half a dozen people who understand the product or service, but NONE who really love marketing, sales, financial management, compliance or governance.

And I don’t think that Lord Sugar is a product man.  At least not any more.  He is now a ‘sales and marketing man’ a distribution expert. Someone who can get products into the hands of the masses.

I just hope that poor old Tom is given the chance to develop products that not only make him wealthy, but also make him proud and enhance the lives of the people who buy them.

This would indeed be progress.

A Plea to LEP Board Members

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Do you ever question the belief that more economic growth is the only route to recovery?

That we can consume our way to a ‘better’ future by simply consuming more stuff, more quickly?

Do you ever consider that perhaps it is time to at least be open to the merits of leading in a different direction?

I am neither anti-capitalist, nor anti-growth but recognise these are double edged swords rather than cure-alls.

Working with Danone recently they introduced me to their compass test of business development, where any change has to meet the challenges of the four compass points.

  • N = Nature – can the proposed development be sustained in a one planet scenario? Does it fit with the laws of nature?
  • S = Social – will it lead to a socially just and improved situation?
  • E = Economic – will we see a return on investment? Usual investment and payback protocols apply and can be flexed
  • W = Wellbeing – will the proposed project increase health and wellbeing for the most people

Yes, the E matters. But not at any cost. So please encourage the LEPs to explore scenarios much more interesting than just the accrual of GDP.

Be more than just mere ‘whipping boys’ for the Treasury, and help us to find a genuine New Deal.

Stating the Bleedin’ Obvious…(unless you are policy wonk or their lackey…)

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  1. Not every small business or micro-enterprise owner needs a mentor.
  2. Mentoring is NOT the only helping relationship.
  3. Good mentors are rarely trained in ‘mentoring’, nor are they picked from a register.
  4. Successful mentors are usually selected from within the pre-existing network of the mentee.  They are spotted and developed as someone from  whom the mentee really wants to learn.
  5. Mentoring is an intermittent rather than a continuous relationship.
  6. Access to good mentors is usually restricted and respectful rather than a tradeable commodity.
  7. The success of the mentorship is usually down to the mentee rather than the mentor.  Good mentees know how to choose a mentor and manage the relationship with them to get the learning and the introductions that they need.
  8. The commoditisation of mentoring is not a good thing.
  9. Mentors are not coaches, advisers, consultants, counsellors or facilitators.  People looking to learn and develop themselves and/or their organisations should think carefully about the kind of ‘help’ they need.
  10. We should help people explore what they want to learn and how they are going to learn it – rather than prescribe yet another ‘cure-all’ that happens to be ‘affordable’.
  11. We should focus our efforts on building social learning contexts and helping people manage their learning processes rather than setting up registers and schemes.
  12. If the national association of image consultants got their lobbying act together I am sure we might all end up being encouraged to use a national register of image consultants in pursuit of GDP.

If you are interested in implementing ill thought through policy and exploiting it as way to make a few bob please do not get in touch.  If on the other you are serious about building a context in which people  can really learn then I would love to hear from you.

Just leave a comment below.

Danone Think Tankery

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Last week saw a trip down to London to join a dialogue with

  • Myriam Cohen-Welgryn, Danone Vice-President Nature,
  • Laura Palmeiro, Vice-President Nature Finance,
  • Bernard Giraud, Vice-President Sustainability and Shared Value Creation and
  • Laurence Foucher Danone New Media Manager.

The Danone team were joined by

There was no clearly mapped out process or agenda relying instead on getting some interested people into a convivial setting and seeing where the conversation went.  In both cases I suspect that some real learning accrued on both sides.

Once again Danone showed an incredible openness in sharing with us some of their projects and challenges relating to food security, poverty alleviation, health and sustainability and showed how several projects had moved on from our last round of discussions with them.  Highlights for me included investments from their 100m Euro ‘Nature Fund’ to support the development of Cooperatives of  Ukrainian Farmers to supply the high quality milk required to keep the Danone Production lines in full swing.  Danone invested in milking equipment to be shared by small farmers through the cooperative structure and animal welfare standards and husbandry.  These investments were made with no requirement to tie framers into contracts with Danone.  Also Danone say that paying these farmers cooperatives a fair price for milk ensures the long term stability of supply which is more important to them than any short term profits that might be gained through price squeezing.

I was also intrigued by  their research into the fatty acid content of milk and how this can be correlated with the production of methane allowing accurate offsetting of methane production based on the actual methane production of each herd.  Now I am not an expert on off-setting and have a lay persons suspicion of how much can be achieved through this methodology.  Can we possibly plant enough mangrove, mangoes and other carbon fixing crops to ever truly offset production?  The whole conversation about carbon trading was one that left me a little cold.  I am far from convinced that putting a price on carbon is really the way forward.  Especially now that it can be speculated upon.  I am of the school that thinks the next great bubble to burst will be the carbon market….I hope I am wrong and am certainly no expert in this field.

But perhaps most impressive part of the conversation for me was around needing to re-connect consumers to the production process, the reality of farming and food production.  A simple realisation that for Danone, and the rest of us, ‘Nature IS our business’ and simple tools for ensuring that this realisation is that the heart of innovation in the company.  So for example they are using a wonderfully simple compass to provide a test for new developments:

N = Nature – will the development respect nature?

S = Social – will the development lead to improvements in society?  Fair wages, good governance etc

E= Economic – will the project work economically? (I was impressed by Danone’s willingness to flex their normal investment rules to allow projects that would only work with a more generous interpretation of ‘payback periods’)

W= wellbeing or health – the Danone mission is to improve health for the greatest number of people through food.  If the project does not fit the mission then it will not move forward.

My guess is that this compass will be well understood throughout the business and used to assess new business developments and ensure that balances and tensions are effectively managed.

It is a strange phenomena for me to rub against a corporate whom I like, respect and trust.  Generally I am always lifting up the carpets looking for where the dirt has been hidden.  And still questions remain for me at least about the bottling and distribution of mineral water in rich countries (Danone are behind both Evian and Volvic I believe).  But whenever I meet Danoners – be they ‘top brass’ or ‘frontline’ I am always impressed by their passion, openness (‘we have many challenges and we don’t have the answers but we will experiment…’) and commitment to co-invention of ideas and thinking through conversation.

I am already looking forward to the next conversation…when we hope to get some more skeptics involved