GEOFFREY QHENA
Issue 18
A NOBLER GAME THE GROWTH OF SEVENS RUGBY INTO THE UNKNOWN BREXIT AND SA TOXIC WORKPLACES …AND HOW TO ESCAPE THEM
R39.95 incl vat
• Fourth Quarter, 2016
DEVELOPING THE FUTURE
ENTERPRISE RESILIENCE – WHAT IT MEANS AND WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE Enterprise or organisational resilience is not a new concept. Companies have always tried to create a business that is sustainable, adapts to market changes, is flexible and thereby successful in the long run. SO WHAT IS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT “BECOMING A RESILIENT BUSINESS”? Why is resilience suddenly such a buzz word? The truth is, the idea of resilience is not new, but the threats a company faces and needs to address have multiplied. Growing regulatory requirements and evolving security risks, as well as complex supply chains make it increasingly challenging for organisations to thrive. Nations, companies, markets, supply chains, and infrastructure interdependency means that the failure of any one part of the chain can have devastating consequences to operations. As such, addressing the resilience challenge faced by organisations is more important today than ever before. BUT WHAT DOES RESILIENCE REALLY MEAN? There continue to be a wide range of definitions of resilience, its component parts, and the tangible benefits that may flow. Resilience is about the state of an organisation being one that is able to identify, analyse, and implement plans to be better able to recover or ‘bounce back’ from disruptive events, but it is also about the organisation’s ability to adapt to change in both the short and longer term. However, Control Risks increasingly sees a growing impetus to move on from definitions to actively building resilience. But organisations face the challenge that resilience enablers such as business continuity, risk, and technology professionals often have a very different view on how to interpret and implement resilience at a corporate level than the organisation’s board. Regardless of whether one agrees with the common definitions or not, the principles of resilience are becoming common parlance. Control Risks’ “The state of enterprise resilience survey 2016/2017” supports the view that organisational resilience ultimately requires a collaborative effort between many management disciplines. Only if collaboration between management disciplines is achieved, together with the ability to identify and successfully manage risk, can an organisation become truly resilient. Key challenges identified in the survey: Lack of relevant skills or talent slows down the implementation process Reliance on centralised governance instead of multi-disciplinary risk meetings Resilience programmes are seen as a task too huge to tackle and are not broken down into smaller projects
DOWNLOAD THE FULL SURVEY REPORT AND RECEIVE KEY RECOMMENDATIONS http://bit.ly/2dhbtpG
ARE YOU READY FOR THE RESILIENCE JOURNEY? THE STATE OF ENTERPRISE RESILIENCE - SURVEY 2016/2017
92% 37% 70% 47% 92%
of respondents agree with the core principles of the draft of
ISO 22316
felt that their organisations lacked the relevant skills to drive resilience
of respondents see reputational damage as the impact of most concern
state that cyber threat is a primary concern
However,
agree that cross-functional working and sharing of information is a key principle of resilience
Control Risks has been supporting clients to build organisational resilience with the capability to anticipate, prepare for, respond to and recover from disruptive events. We have developed both preventative strategies and adaptive capacity in client organisations to enhance their resilience.
48%
remain reliant on centralised governance and oversight
If you want to talk to the authors or learn more about our resilience capabilities, please contact
enquiries@controlrisks.com
contents Issue 18 • Fourth Quarter, 2016
Issue 18 • Fourth Quarter, 2016
features
P.20
GEOFFREY QHENA Developing the future
GEOFFREY QHENA
Issue 18
INTO THE UNKNOWN BREXIT AND SA TOXIC WORKPLACES …AND HOW TO ESCAPE THEM
P.56
R39.95 incl vat
• Fourth Quarter, 2016
DEVELOPING THE FUTURE
A NOBLER GAME THE GROWTH OF SEVENS RUGBY
A NOBLER GAME The growth of Sevens rugby
ON THE COVER Photo: Gareth Jacobs
P.28
INTO THE UNKNOWN Brexit and SA
P.46
TOXIC WORKPLACES
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
…and how to escape them
ACUMEN IS ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN APP for your iPad or iPhone in the Apple App Store, as well as in the Google Play store for your Android device.
P.20
et cetera
p.02 Contents p.04 Contributors p.8 From the Editor p.10 Network
opinion
p.14
An Overcrowded Ark
p.16
Educating Entrepreneurs
GIBS Dean Prof. Nicola Kleyn says business has to evolve to fit a "tiny, fragile and crowded" world. Expert Phumlani Nkontwana believes entrepreneurs need a more consistent approach around the globe to their education.
p.17 Will We Ever Win the Struggle
Against Racism in South Africa?
Columnist Dan Moyane wonders why white South Africans still use the k-word.
dialogue
p.18
Business and academic leaders emphasise the importance of trust for both government and business.
south africa
Driving Trust
p.24 Through African Eyes GIBS Marketing senior lecturer Dr. Tendai Mhizha looks at how SA companies operate north of our borders. p.26 Is South Africa in
Future Shock?
Prof. Nick Binedell wonders if we are going to be able to cope with our future.
p.32 In a Galaxy Far, Far Away Sarah Wild gazes beyond our solar system, looking for exoplanets.
P.68
P.42
future
p.36 The Very (Businesses-like)
Model of a Modern US General
Former Head of the US Army, General George Casey gives his views on strategy, training and trust.
p.42 Leadership in Adventure Kerryn Krige draws leadership lessons from her Adventure Racing experience. p.48 Raising Rhinos Jacques Marais examines the pros and cons of legalising trade in rhino horn.
general management
p.54 Ethical Leadership and
Cultural Orientations
p.82 The Quest for Innovation
(a.k.a The Search for the Holy Grail)
renew
Trendspotter Dion Chang heads to New York, looking for innovation.
p.84 Floating City & p.85 Love-locked in Cinque Terre Travel expert Caroline Hurry visits La
Serenissima and then takes a stroll in the Cinque Terre.
p.86 The Finer Things Mid-heels and a white bag for Her; Linen shirts and a hip flask for Him.
GIBS Doctoral researcher Danna Strydom examines ethical leadership and how it affects followers.
p.65
Change Just isn’t Enough
p.88 Forward Motion Jacques Marais meets the Icebreaker, while Stephen Smith celebrates the VW Golf's 40th anniversary.
dynamic markets
p.90 Techno Gadget guru Aki Anastasiou looks at the new iPhone and one of world's best TVs.
Prof. Roger Martin says social entrepreneurs set out to change the very way things are done.
p.68 Doing Business in...Zambia Africa expert Dianna Games analyses the prospects of success in Zambia. p.73 Top Six Things to See & Do in Zambia And once the business is over, Dianna Games tells us where to go and relax in Zambia.
entrepreneurship
p.76 Back to the Future Cara Bouwer takes a ride with GridCars and EVE.
strategy p.80 The Power of a Checklist Prof. Adrian Saville explains why investors need a basic checklist.
p.92 Books Phil Knight on Nike; how to craft a great TED talk and how the next three years will shape SA's next three decades. p.93 Wine John Maytham's latest selection includes the superb Tokara Director's Reserve Bordeaux-style white blend. p.94 Afropunk Rules! Musicologist and social commentator Victor Dlamini heads to Brooklyn's Afropunk Festival.
looking backwards
p.96 Best Eaten Cold Sam Cowen reports on the office battlefield.
4
contributors
DAN MOYANE is a seasoned broadcaster with 35 years of experience under his belt, having worked as a news reporter, editor and presenter. His broadcasting credentials include Radio Mozambique’s English Service, BBC, Talk Radio 702, SABC and eNCA. Currently he anchors Morning News Today on eNCA on weekdays from 6 to 9am. He has been responsible for corporate communication and corporate social investment at MMI Holdings since 2009. PHUMLANI NKONTWANA practices
entrepreneurship education at Allan Gray Orbis Foundation and the GIBS Enterprise Development Academy in South Africa. In his private capacity, he runs a small but dedicated management consultancy working directly with entrepreneurs to provide growth-orientated solutions to start-ups and small businesses.
DR. TENDAI MHIZHA
DION CHANG is an
innovator, creative thinker and visionary. He is a sought-after trend analyst and, while his feet remain firmly planted on African soil, he uses a global perspective to source new ideas, gauge the zeitgeist and identify cutting-edge trends. He contributes to various print publications and online portals as a freelance journalist and social commentator.
DIANNA GAMES is chief
executive of Africa @ Work, an African business advisory and consulting firm. She is a leading commentator on business issues, trends and developments and has travelled extensively around the continent over the past two decades, tracking business developments in Africa’s key markets. Dianna is also the Africa columnist at Business Day and Honorary CEO of the SA-Nigeria Chamber of Commerce.
lectures on Marketing, Strategy, Personal Development and Leadership at GIBS. She has a PhD in Business Science from the University of Derby in the UK, as well as a Masters in Strategic Management. She has worked for the Edgars Group, Wella and within the Global WPP group extensively and still leads a 25-year-old Pan African market research agency, Research Bureau International.
VICTOR DLAMINI
is a writer, columnist, communicator and portrait photographer with a deep interest in social issues. He collects art and music, especially jazz. He graduated cum laude in English at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg.
SARAH WILD is a freelance science journalist, specialising in South African science, technology and innovation. She has worked as science editor at Business Day and the Mail & Guardian, and in 2015, she won the CNN-MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Award for innovation.
DANNA STRYDOM is a
doctoral researcher at GIBS and non-executive director of JSE-listed Amalgamated Electronic Corporation Ltd. He was MD of ADT Security for 12 years and before that of Chubb in SA and the UK. Danna holds an MBA from Henley and M. Sc (Eng) and B. Sc (Eng) from Wits University.
HEUER MONZA
Available at TAG Heuer Boutiques; Sandton City & V&A Waterfront. Also at selected fine jewellers nationwide. For further information please call 011.669.0500. www.picotandmoss.co.za
6
contributors
KERRYN KRIGE is senior
programme manager for the Network of Social Entrepreneurs at GIBS. She is co-author of the book The Disruptors, social entrepreneurs reinventing business and society.
editor Chris Gibbons Gibbonsc@gibs.co.za managing editor Zenzile Hlongwane HlongwaneZ@gibs.co.za cover photography Gareth Jacobs layout and production Contact Media and Communications (Pty) Ltd
PROF. ADRIAN SAVILLE
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
is Professor of Economics and Competitive Strategy at GIBS, and Chief Strategist at Citadel. He has lectured and taught widely in both South Africa and around the world, has received the Excellence in Teaching Award at GIBS on nine occasions since 2007, and in 2012 was nominated for the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Business Professor of the Year Award. While completing his doctorate in economics, he formed an investment vehicle which became the forerunner to the investment business Cannon Asset Managers, now part of the Peregrine/ Citadel stable.
CARA BOUWER is a freelance
journalist and editor. She’s been published in a variety of local titles including Business Day, Private Life, Destiny and Sawubona. She cut her teeth at Penta Publications in the early 1990s before moving on to Business Day where she made history by becoming the newspaper’s youngest sports editor and the first woman to hold this title on a national daily in South Africa. She later became the paper’s chief subeditor.
designer Quinten Tolken proofreader Angie Snyman
PROF. NICK BINEDELL is
professor of strategy and leadership at GIBS and was its founding Dean (2000-2015). He lectures frequently at the Rotterdam School of Management and was recently a Visiting Professor at London Business School.
GAYE CROSSLEY holds a B. Com from Wits University. She has lived in a variety of countries including England, Ireland, Bahrain, Australia and New Zealand. A fulltime freelancer for six years, she has a keen interest in sustainability issues. After involvement in several entrepreneurial start-ups, she has a deep respect for those who have succeeded in SA’s challenging business landscape.
publisher Sean Press Pressman@contactmedia.co.za Contact Media and Communications (Pty) Ltd 011 789 6339 advertising sales Damian Murphy Damian@contactmedia.co.za 082 888 1137
contributors Aki Anastasiou Prof. Nick Binedell Cara Bouwer Dion Chang Gaye Crossley Sam Cowen Victor Dlamini Wendy du Plessis Dianna Games Caroline Hurry Prof. Nicola Kleyn Kerryn Krige Jacques Marais John Maytham Dr. Tendai Mhizha Dr. Jonathan D. Moch Dan Moyane Phumlani Nkontwana Prof. Adrian Saville Stephen Smith Cheska Stark Danna B. Strydom James van den Heever Sarah Wild marketing director Howard Fox Foxh@gibs.co.za contact Acumen 26 Melville Road, Illovo, Johannesburg P O Box 787602, Sandton, South Africa, 2146 011 771 4000 Acumen@gibs.co.za
Brought to you by:
Disclaimer: Acumen is the official publication of the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). All material is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced externally, wholly or in part, in any form without the written consent of GIBS. The views and opinions expressed by the contributors to this publication are not necessarily the views and opinions of the publishers, GIBS or its associates. While every effort has been taken to ensure the completeness or accuracy of the published information, errors and omissions may occur. The publishers, GIBS and its associates cannot accept responsibility for any loss, damage or inconvenience that may arise from the unauthorised use of this publication.
8
editor’s note
IT’S THE JOBS, STUPID! Words Chris Gibbons
What lies at the heart of the relationship between business and government? Your answer to that question will likely depend on where you sit on the political spectrum and to a greater or lesser extent where you fit in the social hierarchy.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
A Marikana rock-driller living in a shack near the mine and at the mercy of the mashonisas would probably answer differently from a captain of industry living in a Sandton mansion, and with a holiday home in Plett and a pied-à-terre in Chelsea. Members of government themselves might also give you a range of different opinions, and not only here in South Africa. Witness the extraordinary speed with which Britain’s new Prime Minister Theresa May, formerly a loyal member of David Cameron’s cabinet, has undone key pieces of Cameron’s work. Weren’t they supposed to have been on the same side? In country A, the relationship between business and government might be harmonious, while in neighbouring country B, there might be cripplingly violent strikes and civil disruption. But central to the matter is something fundamental: business and government need each other because, together, their purpose is to safeguard and increase jobs. Jobs are the priority because when people are employed, not only do they put food
on their families’ tables, they also pay taxes. The taxes become revenues which lead to infrastructure like roads, dams and electricity supply, as well as education, healthcare and social security networks. The companies that employ such people also pay more in taxes on their profits; the virtuous circle turns. It’s one of the reasons why this edition of Acumen features South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation and its CEO Geoffrey Qhena. Can a developmental finance organisation like the IDC contribute to companies in such a way that jobs are at least preserved? And can this happen in an age of increasing technology and automation? The IDC is also important because it is one of several very large State-Owned Enterprises that have been in the news as a result of concerns over governance and ongoing funding. That in turn has prompted even broader questions about why South Africa has such organisations, how they function and how much they are either costing or benefiting the taxpayer? An equally intense debate is taking place in conservation circles about whether or not to trade in rhino horn. Poaching of rhinos has increased dramatically over the past few years, and one side of the argument holds that current efforts to reduce demand for rhino horn in the Far East and to protect these magnificent creatures locally are not working.
Therefore, something needs to change. But what, exactly? Photojournalist and regular Acumen contributor Jacques Marais has just been on an extensive trip to document the debate and concedes that his eyes have been opened. De-horning a rhino is a painless process, and for obvious reasons it deters poachers. But then shouldn’t the horn, once removed, be sold to someone who wants to buy it and the proceeds used to fund further conservation and protection of the rhinos? Once again, that’s the kind of virtuous circle that creates jobs. Finally, a caveat: not every job is endurable. Sometimes a workplace can become so toxic that you need to leave to save your sanity. Almost always this is down to one or two poisonous individuals. More often than not, they are in positions of power within the organisation. Read an analysis of the problem in this edition by Dr. Jonathan Moch, who will help you understand what to do if you do indeed have such a problem
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10
network
NETWORK Words Acumen Contributors
Our regular look at GIBS’ events and guests.
Team Brand SA
BUSINESS SCHOOL OSCARS FOR GIBS’ FACULTY MEMBERS
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Faculty members who lecture on a core module of GIBS PGDip (Postgraduate Diploma in General Management) programme entitled Human Behaviour and Performance, have recently been awarded the prestigious Aspen Institute Business and Society 2016 Faculty Pioneer Award. Dubbed “the Oscars of the business school world”, these awards celebrate educators who demonstrate leadership and risk-taking and focus on a curriculum that helps contribute to resolving the world’s ‘grand challenges’. The GIBS Human Behaviour and Performance module, taught by Professor Margie Sutherland, Dr. Ngao Motsei, Morris Mthombeni, Jonathan Cook and Anthony Wilson-Prangley, aims to expand delegates’ knowledge on bringing different people together to drive performance. This framework helps leaders to refine the crucial management goals of performance and inclusion. The faculty members on this programme were recognised for developing coursework that helps students understand and respond to the human complexity of the world
GIBS MBA TEAM WINS GLOBAL COMPETITION A team of GIBS MBA students has taken joint 1st place in a prestigious international competition, whose final was held recently in France. The Zurich Enterprise Challenge is open for highly qualified and motivated MBA, Masters and PhD students globally. Hosted by Zurich Insurance International, the challenge presents an opportunity for students to work with one of Zurich’s leading multinational clients on real-life corporate challenges. This competition aims to identity the very best talent among the group of young people who want to start a career in the world of risk management. The competition is structured over three phases with only twenty teams progressing from stage one to stage two. Stage two progressed over a period of four weeks, and during this time Team Brand South Africa collaborated with senior executives from Kuehne & Nagel’s corporate head office in Switzerland. Team Brand South Africa is a team of four final-year MBA students from GIBS: Elicia Demont, Thomas Kgokolo, Jamal Sahib & Ewald Beukes. They were required to deliver an executable strategy proposal, presented in a 30-minute video, together with a written report and a risk & opportunity analysis framework. Team Brand SA ousted 78 other MBA and PhD teams from top universities around the globe to make it to the final stage which took place at the Zurich Insurance Global Risk Management Summit, where the team presented their risk mitigation and strategy proposal to 100 top global business executives. This year the Zurich Enterprise Challenge had over 230 candidates applying from 49 universities worldwide. Team Brand SA’s joint 1st place was announced at a gala dinner in Cannes at the closing of the Risk Summit.
around them. The module combines theory from sociology, social-psychology and organisational behaviour and includes a practical element involving visits to places of symbolic importance as well as learning through dialogue, theatre and story-sharing.
network
11
DIGITAL DISRUPTION “Digitisation is not a digital strategy; you need a business strategy for a digital world.” A very clear message from speaker after speaker to delegates at GIBS’ sell-out Digital Disruptors conference in August. “We think we have to ‘do’ digital,” said Alison Jacobson, Managing Director: Digital Advisory Services, Dimension Data Group. “So we start producing mobile apps and portals on top of our old analogue business and we say ‘we are doing digital. There’s a guy called John, he runs digital. And Mary in Marketing is doing social media.’ But is the rest of the business leveraging that data for insights? ‘No, no, no – that’s marketing!’ That’s not going to save you, guys.” Jacobson explained that “Our philosophy is that to get there, you have to be digital. If you want to be more like Google, you have to be more like Google. This is not an IT conversation. This is not about digital strategy. This is about strategy. This is about your business strategy. The world is digital. You will know you are at an immature point in this transformation if you have a business strategy and you have a digital strategy. That’s a problem, a recipe for disruption. You will be disintermediated. “Can your business produce continuous innovation at the pace of digital change? Which means very, very, very fast,” she warned.
GIBS ACHIEVES AACSB ACCREDITATION GIBS Dean Professor Nicola Kleyn congratulated the team responsible for achieving the accreditation and then outlined its importance: “The international Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business is the longest-serving global accrediting body for business schools that offer undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees in business. There are AACSB-accredited business schools in 52 countries across the globe. Achieving accreditation involves conducting a rigorous internal review, engaging with an AACSB-assigned mentor, and culminates in a peer review. During this multi-year process, we were required to demonstrate a commitment to aligning with AACSB’s accreditation standards. These standards drive excellence in strategic management and innovation; the active participation of students, faculty and staff in the affairs of the school; learning and teaching; and academic and professional engagement. “This is a significant achievement and you have all been part of enabling us to now refer to ourselves as an AACSB-accredited school. Whilst every person who makes the School what it is, special thanks to our mentor, Dr. Mike Page, all the past and current project leads, Anastacia Mamabolo, Hayley Pearson and Zara Cupido as well as all our clients and students who interacted with the AACSB. Thank you to all!”
Luke Mckend
Google South Africa Country Director Luke Mckend took it a stage further. “As a consumer I don’t think about the technology I use as a ‘phone’ or a ‘laptop’ or a ‘TV’. It all just runs through whatever I do. If as a business you’re not thinking systemically about technology that runs through your entire business, you’re missing the point. This is going to accelerate and it is happening much faster than we imagine.”
THE DISRUPTORS
GIBS book The Disruptors – Social entrepreneurs reinventing business and society continues to do well, both locally and internationally. A reprint has been requested from our agents in the US, and the writing team have events in Durban, PE, Cape Town, Stellenbosch and New York. “The book’s success shows how we are moving from relying on business to generate economic value, and charities to generate social value, and are instead exploring the world that exists in the middle – the blended environment of social entrepreneurship,” says co-author Kerryn Krige, Senior Programme Manager at the Network for Social Entrepreneurs. The eBook is available from Amazon, Kobo and all other major eBook retailers.
12
network
GLOBAL CHALLENGERS
AN ERA OF GLOBAL CHALLENGERS
Despite predications of the end of globalisation and a move to increased market protectionism, the notion of a globalised economy is far from over.
BCG published its first list of global challengers in 2006, which tracks 100 global challenger companies in order to highlight the achievement of these firms.
“We are entering an absolutely new phase of globalisation,” Dinesh Khanna, leader of the Global Advantage Practice at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Singapore and co-author of the 2016 BCG Global Challengers Report, told a recent GIBS forum. Khanna said emerging markets were more influential and integrated into the global economy than they were a decade ago. Global challenger companies, corporations from emerging markets who are not satisfied with just being leaders in their domestic markets and who had experienced incredible growth during the past ten years, had proved to be “amazingly resilient” , with many graduating to become global sector leaders.
Dinesh Khanna
“We underestimated in the original report the future potential of the global challengers,” Khanna said. The 2016 report found these emerging market firms had experienced an average 13% compound annual growth rate between 2009 and 2014, compared to 4% by their mature market peers over the same period. “The challengers have been able to grow without sacrificing their profitability, and have created exceptional value,” Khanna said. Global challenger companies came from various emerging markets and from diverse sectors. South African companies included in the list were Aspen Pharmacare, Bidvest, MTN, Naspers and Discovery. Nick Binedell, Professor in Strategy and Leadership at GIBS, told the forum that South Africa’s turbulent, dramatic and often difficult environment for business was a possible contributor to the resilience and innovative capability of these firms.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Stavros Nicolaou
While factors such as the slowdown in the BRICS economies and structural adjustment in China have placed a dampener on growth, the underlying fundamentals that fuelled global integration, including technological innovation and institutional frameworks, haven’t changed, Khanna argued.
Stavros Nicolaou, Senior Executive of Strategic Trade Development at Aspen Pharmacare said the only way to survive and grow in the current competitive environment was through innovation. Aspen had developed an area of specialisation and remained agile by cutting red tape and bureaucracy and having a lack of hierarchical structures. Dr. Jonathan Broomberg, CEO of Discovery Health, said his company was characterised by “vivacious and tremendous ambition. We have a strong culture in the company and a devotion to a purpose, which is making people healthier. We encourage ongoing innovation and invest in that innovation.”
There are now multiple poles driving the global economy and the main engine of globalisation is still functioning, he said, with some emerging market economies growing at a healthy rate of between 4% and 5%. “Growth has diverged, but it hasn’t disappeared.” Manufacturing-focused emerging markets are still performing well in comparison to their commodity-based emerging market peers. “Finding growth will be more difficult, and among emerging markets, more nuanced,” he added. Dr. Jonathan Broomberg
.
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THE COURAGE TO GROW IS BUSINESS.
14
dean's note
AN OVERCROWDED ARK Words Professor Nicola Kleyn
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Population pressure is forcing change to basic capitalism. The first time I heard the story of Noah’s ark, I remember being incredulous. No matter how wise Noah was, how would he get them into the ark, let alone stop some species from devouring others? Where would their food come from? How could those who really needed space eke out their existence in the cramped confines? How would the cheetahs feel about not being able to run? (At that point I don’t think I’d realised cheetahs were unlikely to be roaming around the Middle East.)
stable world. But … the world is more like an ark – tiny, fragile and crowded. Consuming, borrowing and utilising are the engines of prosperity in a big, empty, stable world, but the engines of crisis in a tiny, flexible and crowded one.” And it doesn’t look to be changing any time soon. The 2014 OECD projections for global growth between now and 2060 stand at a meagre 2.7% and a slew of new writings are questioning the significance of the corporate obsession with growth.
On reflection, these were quintessential management questions. Reports tell us there were miraculous events associated with the story of Noah’s ark, but his ability to sustain a number of species through difficult times seems to have been a function of his management and leadership skills, rather than divine intervention.
Haque, along with a host of other thought leaders, are challenging the world to unlearn some of the key tenets that have formed the mainstay of business education in a “game reserve” world. Placing the demands of shareholders and investors alongside, rather than above the needs of other stakeholders is not new for most South African organisations. The emphasis on stakeholders has been a key foundation of various iterations of the King Report on Corporate Governance to which all companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are required to adhere.
Sometime later in my educational journey, I encountered business economics as it was taught in the 1980s. I learned that the story of Noah and the ark was irrelevant when it came to the corporate world. Business, I was told, had only to focus on delivering returns to shareholders. Government would regulate their activities and ensure that overly extractive behaviour was curbed through a range of punitive measures. As long as you ensured your business was increasingly competitive and operating within legal constraints, your job as a leader was largely done. In a manner far more developed than my childhood musings, writer Umair Haque[1] likens the profound shifts he believes are required in our model of capitalism to moving from operating in a game reserve to living in an ark. He notes, “Industrial era capitalism was built for a big, empty, 1
The primacy of multiple stakeholders is however just one aspect of the shift. The stringent roles assigned to the traditional stakeholder groups of any business are in flux. Consumers are the new producers, the assumption that governments will guard the interests of citizens and future generations seems to be increasingly invalid, and the idea that business should not have to concern itself with emerging (often global) wicked problems of a social nature is constantly questioned. On the local front, South African business has received deep criticism of its failure to transform and ensure that owners and key actors in corporations align with the racial
In his book The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business, Harvard Business Review Press, 2011.
composition of the country. Such calls are valid in and of themselves, but are also symptomatic of the growing expectation on business to become a vanguard of positive social change that benefits not only today’s marginalised populations but future generations who have yet to inhabit the ark. So how does business progress in an ark environment? We’re going to have to get a lot better at both conceptualising and negotiating a shared future across stakeholder groups. Our costing models are going to have to evolve to take into account those external costs that we’ve been managing to defray to future generations. And we’re going to have to sit down with those sectors of government who also care to think about the welfare of future generations to co-create and innovate. Sooner rather than later
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16
opinion
EDUCATING ENTREPRENEURS Words Phumlani Nkontwana
So you want to be an entrepreneur and you would like to learn more about how to be successful? Naturally, you would head off to a business school, like GIBS. But there’s a problem: what you learn about entrepreneurship at GIBS might be quite different from what you are taught at any other SA business school, or Harvard or Stanford or London, for that matter.
“Go to any business school in the world and ask economists what ‘marginal costs’ are and you will find a consistent answer,” says Bill Aulet, Senior Lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and author of the groundbreaking book Disciplined Entrepreneurship.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
The same does not seem to be true when it comes to entrepreneurship education. The field of entrepreneurship education is not in harmony about what content needs to be taught, how that content needs to be taught and in what format or through which channel that content needs to be delivered. Indeed, these pedagogical challenges are at the core of many entrepreneurship centres in Europe, East Asia, the US and Africa. Aulet’s argument and motivation for writing his book was inspired in part by the laissez-faire approach to teaching entrepreneurship that seems to characterise the field. His book is an attempt to put some structure into and professionalise entrepreneurship education. His remarks came earlier this year at a gathering set up to address these challenges, the 14th European Entrepreneurship Colloquium (EEC) organised by the European Forum for Entrepreneurship Research (EFER), brainchild of the legendary Dr. Bert Twaalfhoven, and co-chaired by Harvard Business School (HBS) and MIT. I had the pleasure and privilege of attending the Colloquium, joining 56 other practitioners from 26 countries
around the world. We represented 46 entrepreneurship institutions over six days between HBS and MIT. The EEC 2016 goals were to enhance entrepreneurship course and programme design across various curricula; provide a better understanding of the role and operation of labs, incubators and accelerators in entrepreneurship education; provide insights about growth, scalability, financing and management of dynamic enterprises and, finally, enhance the use of participant-centred action learning case teaching skills.
will promote and celebrate strategic collaborations in this space.
One important takeaway was the observation made by HBS’s Prof. Thomas Eisenmann that entrepreneurship education is moving online. HBS is experimenting with this on a few business courses. The big idea here being to create blended teaching by finding the right balance between online and classroombased learning.
• Refuse the temptation to use off-theshelf pedagogy. Instead, take into account the kind of businesses students want to create and how fast they want to create them.
So what does all this mean for practitioners in South Africa? One of the key learnings for me was the need for entrepreneurship practitioners to work and collaborate with stakeholders in the ecosystem. In this country we are well-placed – both the Global Entrepreneurship Network and SeedStars Indices for 2016 rank South Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem as the best on the African continent. Organisations teaching entrepreneurship education need to work collaboratively to strengthen the ecosystem and maximise impact. South Africa needs eChampions that
Let me end with six useful takeaways for South African practitioners to ponder. These insights came mainly from Profs. Willis Emmons, Thomas Eisenmann, Joe Lassiter (all HBS), Prof. Walter Kuemmerle (formerly HBS) and Bill Aulet (MIT Sloan): • Create an environment that welcomes entrepreneurs. Use the mantra “come in, we’re open!”
• Engage entrepreneurs with the community. • Design programmes that will answer the student’s question: “How will what I learn today help me do things better tomorrow in my business?” • Think landscape, engagements, output and impact in programme design. • Finally, bridge the “Knowing-DoingBeing” gap. I have no doubt that if we can balance the teaching issues outlined above with the needs of the ecosystem, we can legitimise and vastly improve the education of our entrepreneurs
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WILL WE EVER WIN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST RACISM IN SOUTH AFRICA? Words Dan Moyane
Perhaps you have asked yourself this question at some point in your life since 1994 or maybe it does not bother you at all. I have asked myself this question since I was a teenager growing up in Soweto. Today I still ask myself this question amid all the ongoing racial abuse against black people that makes news headlines from time to time.
shoot with a pellet gun in his back garden. When his mother occasionally made tea and cookies, she would serve both of us. We would sit on the veranda floor and enjoy the cookies together. To me as a nine year old, this was normal because in my home in White City Jabavu, Soweto, my mother would also do the same sometimes for me and my friends.
When I was nine years old, I became a direct victim of racism for the first time. I was called a kaffir to my face. What hurt me the most was that I was abused by someone I had regarded as a friend. Kobus was his name and he was a few years older than me. My mother was a domestic worker at his home in Melville, Johannesburg. My mother did parttime ironing for his mother, and they seemingly treated each other with respect though the relationship was that of a maid and a madam. Kobus and I used to play in the garden when he was back from school, Orban Laerskool (Orban Primary) in Melville. My father worked as a labourer at Orban doing everything from gardening and cleaning to fetching the school’s post from the Auckland Park post office at the instruction of the Principal, Mr. Reyneke. I spent many days in Melville playing with Kobus when my school in Soweto, Vukani Primary, was on vacation. Those days, Bantu Education schools had a different academic calendar from schools catering for white children. So Kobus and I used to play together and he taught me how to
One day Kobus, then a teenager, refused to play with me after he returned from school. He called me a kaffir and instead of shooting at birds with his pellet gun, he shot at me as I ran, ducking from the pellets. One of them hit one of my legs, as I ran into the house, screaming “Tannie! Ma!” as I called for both his mother and my mother at the same time. His mother, whom I referred to as Tannie (aunty), was livid and gave Kobus a hiding that I had not witnessed him ever receiving while my mother attended to my wounded leg. After the hiding, Kobus’s mother told him never again to refer to me as a kaffir but that he must call me by my name. She told him that he would get another hiding from his father later. I do not know what happened later but I never saw or played with Kobus again until in the mid-1990s after I returned home following 12 years in exile. I looked for Kobus with the help of my parents and I tracked him down in the Brits area. I thought reaching out after so many years would be good for both of our sakes. I was surprised that he remembered me when
I called him and we met at a restaurant in Randburg. We spoke about what had happened to us since the 1960s after he racially abused me and shot at me with his pellet gun. Typically, I had ended up involved in the anti-apartheid struggle and he had been conscripted into the SADF to fight against ‘terrorists’ on the border with Angola. He made it clear to me that he was right-wing and did not share in the rainbow nation dream. He did not think it would come to fruition and his views about me and my fellow blacks had not changed. I am sharing this story about my life because each time I hear of a Penny Sparrow or watch a Vicki Momberg abusing a black police officer, I ask myself what will it take for my fellow white South Africans to change and stop calling me and my fellow black South Africans kaffirs?
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dialogue
Prof. Lynn Paine
Nhlanhla Nene
DRIVING TRUST Words Wendy du Plessis
Trust is the new competitive differentiator for business. That’s according to several business and academic leaders, who spoke at a recent GIBS Ethics and Governance Think Tank event. Think Tank founder Gideon Pogrund told the gathering that while we live in a world where trust is in short supply, the trust deficit is especially serious in South Africa. This is a symptom of a deeply polarised society, and threatens the conditions for our future success. The panel included Nhlanhla Nene, former Minister of Finance and Resident Advisor at Thebe Investment Corporation, Laurie Dippenaar, co-founder and Chairman of FirstRand, Zyda Rylands, CEO of Woolworths South Africa, and Lynn Paine, Professor and Senior Associate Dean, Harvard Business School.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT
NENE: Business and government must espouse common values and focus on the same things in order to build South Africa. I don’t think we’ve done enough to find each other, because when we get an opportunity we use it for finger-pointing instead of trying to be able to see the other party. Trust begets trust. Government and the private sector need to nurture their symbiotic relationship, as there are many with a vested interest in the success of the partnership and many of us who are keen to build our moral values and our country. There are things you can’t exchange for anything. Trust is one of those, as is integrity. DIPPENAAR: In government we now have two factions – those that are actively promoting corruption and those that are fiercely fighting it. The bad guys will actively promote corruption and anybody that stands in their way gets removed or undermined. It's almost impossible to fix this problem without getting rid of them. However, it is important not to generalise about
government corruption, as departments such as National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank manage themselves ethically and have clean track records.
DIPPENAAR: (On Amendments to the Financial Intelligence Centre Act): “As a member of the G20 Financial Stability Board and the Financial Action Task Force, South Africa applies international best practice on anti-money laundering and the prevention of financing of terrorism. It was recommended that we incorporate certain aspects into the Act after a 2009 review and include procedures for politically exposed persons, whereas now we merely operate under guidelines. If South Africa does not pass the Bill, we can be removed from the Financial Action Task Force, which will make our relationships with other international banks very difficult. In this event, local banks will likely investigate any politically exposed person with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. I’m not certain that the people objecting to this have actually done their homework and understood the situation.
NENE: Corruption is a very successfully co-ordinated project. Even with sophisticated corporate governance guidelines for the private sector, and codes such as the Public Finance Management Act, corruption cannot be legislated away. While some middle managers are victims of corruption, others are active proponents of it.
dialogue
Laurie Dippenaar
BUSINESS AND TRUST
NENE: Trust between business and its clients is so critical that if you slip, you get punished very quickly. In politics it takes five years before you get really punished. You can feel the pinch but you don’t get the real punishment. RYLANDS: Building trust is a journey that starts with an incredible set of values, and is earned over time. While creating an ethical and trusted organisation starts with leadership, it cannot just be leadership that gives effect to the execution of the strategic vision. You must do it deliberately and execute through the business, so that it becomes a part of everyone’s job and their performance contract, creating the correct collective accountability. Our reputation is outsourced to ordinary people (our staff) every day. You have to train and recruit for it. The more personal values and the organisation’s brand values are aligned, the more it will result in increased staff retention. PAINE: It takes a trustworthy person with a particular set
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Zyda Rylands
VALUES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN RULES . . . ” RYLANDS: Messages encouraging ethical behaviour by leadership need constant reinforcement to build trust. Leaders cannot simply abdicate after they have spoken. You have to act and check at all levels of the organisation. Leading by example permeates everything and you must be consistent in everything you say and do. DIPPENAAR: Leaders should attach tremendous value to the tone they set. Everything the leadership does filters throughout the organisation. Every action is a signal you send out.
of skills and competencies to build an organisation that is also trustworthy. Senior executives need a high capacity for responsibility under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. They need to be able to make ethics a central part of their decision-making process in complex situations with conflicting responsibilities.
PAINE: While business leaders have economic, legal and
DIPPENAAR: Values are more important than rules as they
RYLANDS: Sometimes we miss the opportunity to talk, to help the youth to find their own solutions to their own problems. Finding ways to work with people and engage with the youth should be the focus of our collective efforts.
TRUST AND ETHICS
NENE: Young people need us to firstly trust them with their future and to work with them to build that future. We all have been there. We were a very difficult bunch. Unfortunately when the environment is as it is now, it is very easy for some of these violent (university fee) protests to flare up, as there are people who can potentially find fertile ground. Government’s proposal is actually something we can work with; but it seems some people have already taken a decision that they are going to oppose everything
will guide people how to act in every situation. Staff will in turn reward the organisation with their trust. Trust is often taken for granted, but when it isn’t there, there are dire consequences.
PAINE: Many business leaders attempt to deal with ethics by
outsourcing it to consultants. That doesn’t work at all. You have to get to the level of the people making the decisions. Often misconduct can be a result of a lack of competency – you have to build values and competency together. Creating an open environment where people aren’t afraid to bring things forward is also important in order to assist them to be able to solve problems they encounter.
ethical responsibilities, they need to make decisions that are simultaneously sound in all three of these components in order to build a long-term sustainable organisation. Ethics can encourage us to think in new ways and can force creativity and innovation.
TRUST AND YOUTH
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GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Geoffrey Qhena
DEVELOPING THE FUTURE Geoffrey Qhena, in conversation with Chris Gibbons
Set up in 1940 to offset the decline in trade between South Africa and Britain as a result of World War II, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) is a critical development financial institution. Acumen spoke to CEO Geoffrey Qhena and began by asking him, in basic terms, exactly what the IDC does?
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The IDC funds viable businesses within key sectors of the economy in order to stimulate the country’s growth. These include both start-ups and/or expansions. In addition, we also fund entrepreneurs who want to buy into existing businesses. However, we do it differently to a development finance institution. We place emphasis on economic merit in terms of profitability and sustainability as opposed to relying solely on collateral and/or the existing balance sheet. We also assist companies in distress. WHY ISN’T THIS LEFT TO THE BANKS?
The key difference is the extent of risk we are prepared to take. Banks ordinarily would rely largely on collateral, or security and historical performance. So they look at your business: if you’ve got sufficient collateral, chances are you are covered. Whereas with us, we look largely at the sustainability of the business. Also we come into the business much earlier. Particularly new ones. Even when some companies experience difficulties we come in to help them turn around. So it’s the level of risk appetite and longterm partnership approach we take, that’s the key difference. COULD WE CHARACTERISE THIS AS A FORM OF STATE INTERVENTION, A STATE SUBSIDY IN THE MARKETPLACE?
It depends. If we use intervention positively then it is, because we’re owned by the South African government. This is how the state helps stimulate the economy in areas where commercial funders would not ordinarily be able to participate. SO DOESN’T THAT IMPLY ADDITIONAL COST TO THE TAXPAYER?
Well, in IDC’s case, if you look at whether we go back to the state for funding – no. If you then asked, couldn’t the state have used that money for something else, I would come back and say that for those people who would have been unemployed except for our intervention, the state would have to cater for them one way or the other, in terms of the UIF or similar. So to me, it is not a cost. In fact, it’s an investment by the state. ANOTHER CRITICISM OF STATE INTERVENTION, AND ALSO OF BROADER INDUSTRIAL POLICY, IS THAT IT INVOLVES PICKING WINNERS AND LOSERS. DO YOU AGREE?
We have sectors in which we operate, so if you just look at the IDC in isolation, we will be doing certain sectors. But also look at how we link with government’s policies, like industrialisation. So there would be sectors which as a country we’re good at, which we need to support. We know their impact, either in terms of job creation, or in terms of them being able to attract foreign direct investments and increasing job creation potential. AN EXAMPLE: THE IDC HAS BACKED SOUTH AFRICA’S FLEDGLING FILM INDUSTRY, WITH SOME SUCCESS. BUT WHY NOT SIMILAR INDUSTRIES LIKE LOCAL TV PRODUCTION, OR PERFORMING ARTS LIKE THEATRE AND BALLET. HOW DO YOU MAKE THAT KIND OF DECISION?
The IDC’s founding legislation specifies that our interventions should be in those industries where there’s economic merit. That is where there’s an opportunity for the business to be both profitable and sustainable. The investment needs to be sustainable so that it creates jobs that last beyond the funding period. If you look at the film and TV industry, we do support those, but when it comes to other segments of the creative industries, such as theatre and the like, these are areas that rely 1
See page 76, Back to the Future.
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...IT IS NOT A COST. IN FACT, IT’S AN INVESTMENT BY THE STATE” largely on government grants or other non-profit organisations. In those instances, we say, let them be supported by grants, because they would not necessarily be sustainable on their own. And because we go out and raise funding externally, we need to be comfortable that the ones that we lend to have the ability to service our facilities. THE IDC HAS BEEN HEAVILY INVOLVED IN INVESTMENT IN THE MINING SECTOR. WHY? SURELY THIS IS A SECTOR THAT IS BIG ENOUGH AND UGLY ENOUGH TO LOOK AFTER ITSELF?
Firstly, we will not necessarily fund every player in all the sectors that we cover. But even in those big enough, like mining, you want to encourage new players to enter the industry. So you need somebody with a long-term view who will be able to ride the commodity cycle with you. In fact, what we’re also doing is ensuring that there is an element of value addition and beneficiation as part of the investment. Also, we know that the mining sector goes through cycles, it is commodity based. We also know that mining still contributes in terms of job creation. HOW HAS THE ORGANISATION EVOLVED POST 1994?
Where IDC has played a role post ’94, particularly referring to transformation is to say how do we bring black entrepreneurs into the economy? We’ve been instrumental in that. We also brought in new industries like tourism. Investment in the tourism sector was very minimal at that stage because industry was only defined as manufacturing. Another new industry is renewable energy, which has picked up very well. If I look at the growth of the IDC’s activities over the last three years, it has been in the renewable energy sector. WHAT ARE THE OTHER MAJOR SUCCESS STORIES FOR THE IDC OF THE LAST 20 YEARS?
Investing outside of South Africa. Previously the IDC was only in South Africa. But looking into the rest of the continent, we’ve had numerous projects, some in manufacturing, others in energy. We know energy and infrastructure are what the continent needs. We also know that South Africa’s economy on its own is relatively modest, and as we support some of these companies, we want them to be able to grow and then find other markets. So, going into the rest of the continent is also one of those successes. WHAT ABOUT FAILURES, THERE MUST HAVE BEEN ONE OR TWO? NOBODY BACKS EVERY WINNER IN EVERY RACE?
We have had failures. If you are in a financing space you would also have those. I recall as we take early stage positions we backed an electric car. I was impressed, I drove the thing, but we had to write off the investment because I think we were just too early. Nor did we have the backing of strong partners. So that was one failure that stood out.1
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YOUR OWN PERSONAL BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY AND BACKGROUND, HOW DO THOSE INFORM THE IDC’S DECISIONMAKING PROCESS?
I grew up in a township, where, difficult as it was, you found entrepreneurs, people who produced things, manufactured things, people who were passionate. So I like to back people who are passionate about what they want to do. I believe if you’re passionate you don’t spend any nights without finding solutions. You know you put everything you have there. So it gives me comfort as a funder to say if things don’t work out you would have given it your best. I always say to people that if the funder is more worried than the entrepreneur then there’s a big problem. So that’s what drives me. So if we have people who are committed, that also informs this issue of black industrialists. For me it’s the commitment and the passion that people display. Then we would fund it. We know some of them would work and some simply won’t. THE IDC PROVIDED COUNTERCYCLICAL FINANCE DURING THE 2008/2009 FINANCIAL CRISIS. DID IT HELP?
It did. Although there were successes and failures. In some instances we looked at our own clients but we also looked at clients which were sick but were not ours, and we absorbed them. An example which I’m not sure people know about is the Ford Ranger. Do you recall when Ford was having problems not just here in South Africa but also in the US? The IDC invested approximately a billion rand to assist the company with the refurbishment of the production facility in South Africa, and that decision resulted in SA retaining the OEM and the Ford Ranger was manufactured in the country. Another example is a company called Bell Equipment, which is probably the only yellow OEM in South Africa, which went through challenges. We came in, we helped it, it’s still around, and it is increasing its exports as we speak. We have also had others which we tried to save but it didn’t work.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
ONE OF THE IDC’S KEY MANDATES IS TO BACK LABOURINTENSIVE INDUSTRIES. ISN’T THAT ALSO COUNTERCYCLICAL, GIVEN THE WAY MANY OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD ARE SHIFTING TO ROBOTS AND MECHANISATION?
If you look at it narrowly, you would say yes. But we know there are industries where labour will still be required. Look at textiles: you can modernise, you can bring in some aspects of ensuring that you are innovative and competitive, but at the same time you can also continue to ensure that employment is sustained. Our reality is that unemployment is high in South Africa, currently at 26.6%. This is unsustainable, so there needs to be a bias towards supporting job-intensive sectors. FROM A GOVERNANCE PERSPECTIVE, HOW DO YOU KEEP THE IDC HONEST? NO DOUBT YOU COME UNDER PRESSURE FROM ALL SORTS OF QUARTERS TO BACK THIS OR THAT SPECIAL PROJECT?
Geoffrey Qhena
You’re right, when you’re dealing with money you have to be honest. First we have an independent board. Although it’s approved by Cabinet, it’s independent. That board is made up of entrepreneurs themselves, or business people that sit on other boards, that help us. We have processes in terms of what we approve. We certainly don’t have a case where just one person approves a facility. The issue is not only one of inappropriate influence but you might just like the project and think it’s the best
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relationship we’ve had with Futuregrowth has been a good one. I think we’ll be able to find each other. FOLLOWING FUTUREGROWTH, MOODY’S HAS PUT THE IDC ON REVIEW FOR A POSSIBLE RATINGS DOWNGRADE?
Geoffrey Qhena
thing you’ve seen. So in some of our credit committees we have external people, who don’t work at the IDC, to advise us. But also to keep us honest, we have a hotline for whistle-blowers. They can contact the hotline, which is administered by a reputable audit firm, and if we have to follow up we will. We also have to report to Parliament at the beginning, what we’re planning to do, and at the end, what we’ve done. In that interaction, with all the political parties, there is robust debate so that we can ensure that we indeed perform as anticipated. ON THE SUBJECT OF GOVERNANCE, WHAT ABOUT FUTUREGROWTH’S DECISION TO STOP LENDING TO THE IDC AND CERTAIN OTHER SOES?
Well, in fact we’re engaging with Futuregrowth. For me, what was dissapointing was that the engagement did not happen before the pronouncement. They are one of our key funders and they have participated in our processes, in our public bond issuances. Our processes have not changed. If there are issues that they’re worried about, it will be obvious when we engage with them. We’re rated as an entity as well, so it is important that our governance is up to scratch. We have borrowings of over R27 billion and some of that is from international players, some from local players, and if you don’t get your governance in place, then you won’t be able to access that. So it is important. The
Reading Moody’s statement, it’s really linked to Futuregrowth, because they refer to “other funders withdrawing their facilities”. In our case there is only one that’s done that: Futuregrowth. We’ve engaged with our other funders, and there is no indication that they’re uncomfortable with anything. Naturally, we are going to engage with Moody’s, too. In fact, just before we issued our results we engaged with them, so they know what our process is. I suppose as a rating agency also they would be worried to hear that some of our funders were uncomfortable. But I also feel maybe they’re within their rights to do the review but I would have hoped that they would have engaged with us first and then only issued their review warning. We’re playing open cards because we need to continue to go out into the market to raise funding, and the fact that we are rated gives the other funders, particularly the international ones, some comfort. LASTLY, HOW DO YOU SEE KEY CHALLENGES FOR IDC GOING FORWARD?
The key challenge is how quickly the economy recovers. Not only in South Africa, but Europe. As you know, South Africa trades its manufactured goods mainly with Europe. Recovery also has to happen in the rest of Africa, since we’ve also seen some slowdown following China’s re-prioritisation of its growth drivers. This is vital since regional integration is one of our key strategies. There’s been some recovery but not enough, because some of the companies that we fund export to Europe. So if recovery does not happen quickly enough, we would see some of the entrepreneurs we would want to partner with pulling back a bit. Globally, if the economy is not recovering quickly enough, it will have a direct impact on us. Also the level of drought that we’re experiencing. We’re seeing that it does not only affect agriculture. Sometimes we concentrate on that, but it also affects mining and a number of other related industries. If the drought continues, it might lead some of our existing clients to slow down and maybe we’ll have to give them some kind of moratorium. The IDC still has a relatively strong balance sheet, we still have the appetite, but the external factors have to help us to play our role
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. . . YOU NEED SOMEBODY WHO WILL TAKE A LITTLE BIT OF A RISK. . . ”
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THROUGH AFRICAN EYES Words Dr. Tendai Mhizha
Companies looking north for growth often fail to take the time to understand how Africans see South African businesses and business people, and act accordingly. Earlier this year, Acumen reported on a symposium given by Harvard Business School’s Professor Richard Vietor, who was in the country to update his case study on South Africa1. Broadly speaking, his thesis is that South Africa is paralysed because it lacks strategic focus. What was clear was that many participants at the symposium felt that the obvious focus area for South Africa Inc., the big goal that would revitalise the local economy, was expansion into the rest of Africa.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Of course, the “Africa Rising” narrative has been punted quite extensively of late. One has to qualify this optimism by pointing out that Africa is a big place with many diverse markets. It remains terribly vulnerable to commodity fluctuations, a lack of skills and finance, and global economic headwinds, among others. Nevertheless some African economies do indeed offer significant opportunities.
. . . THE ACTIONS OF THE COUNTRY’S NATIONALS DO FEED BACK INTO THE STEREOTYPES ASSOCIATED WITH THE BRAND ” The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) has long seen Africa as South Africa’s obvious strategic focus, and EY’s Attractiveness Survey2 placed South Africa as one of the continent’s top-three sources of foreign direct investment in 2013.
COLLECTING THE STORIES I started to wonder whether it was not time to start collecting the stories of failure and success in order to try and distil some essential lessons that would help South African businesses
Dr. Tendai Mhizha
improve their chances of success. As someone from north of the Limpopo myself, I felt that one of the keys to unlocking a successful strategy lies in understanding how other Africans see the South Africans who come to do business with them. The national brand has a foundational role to play. Brand South Africa’s Dr. Petrus de Kock is engaged in an extensive research project on this topic and has already completed fieldwork in Kenya, Nigeria and Angola3. The South African national brand has grown in value since 1994, and is now the most valuable on the continent, and 32nd in the world. National brands have value in presenting a coherent image of the country, but are not created solely by governments. In my experience, in fact, a business’s image is not affected by politics or government actions in its home country – unless, of course, they lead to an international boycott. But the actions of the country’s nationals do feed back into the stereotypes associated with the brand. Like all forms of prejudice, it’s much easier to confirm existing stereotypes than to change them. Research also indicates that consumers are influenced by the country of origin of any product or service. Although the Brand South Africa research is far from complete, the report backs on Nigeria, Kenya and Angola already show some commonalities. On the positive side: in Nigeria, the management and corporate governance expertise of South African businesses are highly valued, while Kenyans tend to see our products and services as reputable, reliable and often good value for money.
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On the negative side, the Brand South Africa research already highlights that South Africans are seen by many of their African peers as somewhat arrogant and insensitive.
EQ IS PIVOTAL
This is a key point, and it may even be the key point. It’s a truism that business takes place between people, something that’s particularly important when forging business ties across cultures. This personal factor is particularly important across Africa, if I may risk a generalisation. It seems that this point is well-understood when it comes to crafting a strategy for entering a new market. South African companies typically do their initial homework well. The business development team sets up the appropriate relationships with the new partners very successfully, and the venture is launched – only for it to fall flat down the line. Why? Obviously there is no one answer but it’s clear from the Brand South Africa research that the attitude of the second wave of South Africans plays a big role. I explored this angle with Njombo Lekula, MD for International Business at PPC. He personally, and PPC as a company, have a deep experience in Africa, with PPC investing heavily across the continent. He agrees that South African companies tend to be good at the business development phase, but that the wheels often come off in the second phase, when the business development team flies back to Johannesburg and the operational team takes over. This is because the operations team is typically chosen for its expertise in particular areas. Scant attention, if any, is paid to their personal qualities or engagement skills. I believe that these subject matter experts can often rub the local partners and staff the wrong way because they are simply focused on achieving excellence in that particular area, and pursue that goal to the exclusion of all else. This has also been Mr. Lekula’s experience. The same point comes through in Brand South Africa’s research. On the one hand, South Africans are admired for their ability to
get things done and for their business and technical skills, but on the other hand their tendency to separate business and personal issues is often misunderstood. It is a double-edged sword4. Without the full buy-in and commitment of the local team in host countries, the new company has little chance of success.
THE ROLE OF TRAINING
The basic lesson is plain: care must be taken to sensitise operational staff to the nuances of the local culture and, particularly, business etiquette. Indeed, a formal induction and ongoing development process may be needed not only in the specifics of the local environment, but in softer engagement issues more generally. One example of the kind of pitfall that opens up for the unwary is that of organisational structure. In many African countries, the corporation is typically much more hierarchical than is usual in South Africa, where the organogram is often fairly flat and the general ethos is just to get the job done. A South African with that approach can easily ruffle the feathers of African colleagues inadvertently, by expecting them to do what is necessary in a given situation rather than sticking more closely to what is appropriate to their rank and seniority. A complicating factor is that this hierarchical internal structure is often paired with a considerably greater need for external market flexibility than South African businesses find comfortable. South Africans are often nonplussed by the convoluted ways that interactions with government bureaucracies, opinion leaders and partners must be negotiated, and supply chains constructed. These observations are made at the beginning of a more ambitious research project, which will form part of a bigger GIBS research programme into multiple aspects of business across Africa. We hope and expect that the project will present South African business through African eyes, and thus help us to take our rightful place on the continent. However, I am confident that the importance of matching technical and business competence with emotional and cultural competence will emerge as one of the critical success factors
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SCANT ATTENTION, IF ANY, IS PAID TO THEIR PERSONAL QUALITIES OR ENGAGEMENT SKILLS ” James van den Heever, Getting Unstuck, Acumen 16, pp 34-35. EY’s Attractiveness Survey: Africa 2014: Executing Growth. Dr. Petrus de Kock, Researching the Nation Brand (South Africa In(c) Series Research Report #1), 18 September 2014 4 Petrus de Kock and Judy Smith-Höhn, Angola & the Need for Cultural Competence (South Africa Inc Project Fieldwork Report), 19 November 2015, pp 11-12. 1
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IS SOUTH AFRICA IN FUTURE SHOCK? Words Prof. Nick Binedell
The man who invented the term ‘Future Shock’ and wrote an eponymous bestseller, Alvin Toffler, died earlier this year. But even in the modern era, his idea retains its power and remains apposite. Looking at the data, there’s no question that we are in an era of enormous human progress. For example, across the whole world, we now live, on average, 30 years longer than our grandparents. Some believe this only applies in developed economies, but that is misleading. It’s an average for the whole world. This era of human optimism is being driven by science, engineering, and the use of technology in new and hugely impactful ways. If we just, for a minute, think about the leading companies in the world, who are in a “space race” to own major markets, and consider the rivalry between Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Huawei, Samsung, IBM, and Intel, we have an outline of the supercharged, cash-flush and enormous enterprises that are changing the way we work and live.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
In 1979, Alvin Toffler, who died a few months ago, wrote a book called Future Shock. He described Future Shock almost as a pathology, a human condition caused by the accelerating rate of change. He predicted individuals, institutions and even societies would be unable to cope meaningfully with the rate of change and he went on to describe in detail many of the challenges that we are currently grappling with. Future Shock became a global bestseller. Toffler wrote other books but his first was the one that had the biggest impact, because he was able to articulately describe in everyday terms these trends and dynamics – economic, social, political and, of course, technological – that were fundamentally changing the way humans lived. He described in clear terms the human brain, how it functions, and how that brain, the human body itself, the things we use in day-to-day life like cars and airplanes and so on, as well as the institutions that we’ve built, will simply be unable to keep up with the rate of change around us and all of its possibilities.
Prof. Nick Binedell
Medical scientists are now predicting that this next generation, currently under 30, may live 30 years longer than their parents. The fact that their parents are living 30 years longer is an unprecedented, exponential increase in the rate of longevity. If we add to that population growth from the 7.5 billion people we now have, and predictions that that number might reasonably easily get to 10 billion in the next 50 or so years, and the fact that people might live 30 years longer, it creates both an opportunity and a tremendous challenge for the world.
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How would it be possible that we could live meaningful lives on a sustainable planet with limited resources without radically changing the way we think, the way we work, and the way we live? Toffler described the immediacy of this profound and abrupt change as ‘Future Shock’. Geologists are now describing this era in geological terms as the Anthropocene. Based on hard scientific data, they have abandoned the 200 000-year-old world of the Holocene and now have injected Anthropocene into the literature of geology. Why Anthropocene? Because the scientists believe that for the first
THE WORLD IS LITERALLY, FOR GOOD OR BAD, IN HUMAN HANDS” time in history, the physical planet – the rock, the earth, the soil, the sediment – is being affected more by human behaviour than by natural forces. This is a new epoch. The world is literally, for good or bad, in human hands. That will be a Future Shock because if managed well it will change everything and, if handled badly, even more so. I was in the UK in June during the Brexit vote. On the night of the vote, YouGov, a very credible and professionally run polling agency said at 12 o’clock midnight, as I headed home in a taxi from a dinner, that the result would be 52% voting Remain, and 48% voting Leave. I spent the rest of the evening watching the news in my hotel room as the numbers swung and finally, as we all know, the result was the opposite of that. A few days later, the analysts were able to tell us that people in London voted to stay in, people out of London voted out. Young people voted in and old people voted out. High-income people voted in, and those less well off voted out. Whether this was a mistake or not, time will tell. But what was so interesting is that there were clear pockets, segments of society, which had made up their minds over a long campaign, to vote a particular way, a choice which will have very interesting consequences. My view of the Brexit vote is that it was exactly what Alvin Toffler talked about: the shock of European and global integration for an island that was once an empire has simply become too much to bear. In Britain, whether it’s migrants, social services, the role of the state, the effect of the Great Recession, unemployment, education, the restructuring of the economy or perhaps just modernity itself, it may just be too much. Has Britain become a victim of Future Shock?
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What about South Africa? The recent local government elections are seen by many as a tipping point. Who knows? The next national election in 2019 will give us better data. But South Africa has shown a great deal of resilience and many analysts and scholars are surprised we’ve made as much progress as we have. Given basic conditions from the 1960s to the 1980s and their structural dynamics – the power relations, the attitudes, the cultural frameworks, and the discrimination, etc. – many in the world were surprised that South Africa was able to take a giant leap forward when it did in 1990 and then again in 1994. Reality is now different, South Africa has matured, the data is more visible, and South Africans are restless about what is next. Whether we are suffering from Future Shock is hard to tell. Yes, we are suffering from it because we’re inward-looking, we’re looking through the rear-view mirror, we don’t have clarity about a holistic way of looking forward, and people are uncertain about how they fit in and what they should do. No, because we have jumped over a major period of history and created a modern, constitutional democracy with a resilient and robust private sector, a large middle class that is organically getting on with dayto-day life, and finding out what it is, in spite of our differences, that we like about each other. This despite all our other problems. South Africa is a multicultural society in a non-racial democracy with a great deal of resilience, and our relative youthfulness gives us every chance of absorbing many of the future shocks that are going to come our way. Our only danger is that we remain too inward-looking, not embracing these new technologies and capabilities, and operate too much as an island. We need to make
. . . THE RATE OF LEARNING MUST BE HIGHER THAN THE RATE OF CHANGE . . . ” sure that we are connected in every way possible: economically, culturally, technologically and politically, to a world that is moving faster than we are, and to realise once again that the rate of learning must be higher than the rate of change, or you’ll get left behind.
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That was Toffler’s message, as prescient as it was in 1979 and as relevant as it is in 2016
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INTO THE UNKNOWN Words Chris Gibbons & Sarah Wild
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Dame Judith Macgregor
Government and business in South Africa are watching and waiting to see exactly what Brexit – Britain’s exit from the European Union – will mean for trade and investment relations. At this stage, very little is certain.
“Brexit was a shock to the government – David Cameron thought he would carry the vote,” said Britain’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Dame Judith Macgregor, speaking at a recent GIBS Forum. She told the audience that although the impacts were immediate, including sterling’s fall against the dollar and the euro, as well as the resignation of Cameron as Prime Minister, “the economic turbulence, sharp as it was, settled down remarkably quickly.”
want clarity on exactly what’s going to happen, I can’t give it this evening,” said Macgregor.
Britain’s new Prime Minister, Theresa May, “has made it clear – and I would like to make it clear – that Brexit means Brexit,” said Macgregor, immediately adding that “It’s a clear mandate, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be an easy mandate to take forward.”
“The liquidity of South African markets, the size relative to other African markets, and so on. On the trade side, that’s probably true, too, but I would want to look at the numbers a little more closely. The reason that I think that’s important is because we don’t quite know what the trade arrangements will be post-Brexit.”
And that’s about as far as anyone, including Europe’s leaders in places like Brussels, Berlin and Paris, are able to go. “This is a very big issue for the European Union – unprecedented – and both sides need to reflect very carefully on the impacts of that for their trade, prosperity… it is still early days. If you
Peter Draper, Managing Director of the Tutwa Consulting Group, is one of South Africa’s foremost international trade experts. He agrees with an assessment by ratings agency Moody’s that South Africa’s financial sector is the most exposed in sub-Saharan Africa to Brexit.
For Draper – like everyone else – that’s the crux of the matter. “It’s why various people – including ourselves – have come up with various scenarios or different possible models for what it
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could look like. Each has its own complexities and each is subject to its own political economy, both on the British side and the European side. Both of those are, in essence, moving targets so it’s quite difficult to predict how the mix between the two political economies will play out,” says Draper.
SQUARING CIRCLES
Macgregor and Draper agree that what the British diplomat calls “the biggest question mark” is “the extent to which we [Britain] seek to remain as fully as possible members of the European Single Market, but at the same time reconcile the message from parts of the referendum which were that the migration issue and the seemingly uncontrolled migration of EU citizens was something that had certainly resonated as part of the campaign.”
. . . THE CONTOURS OF A NEW AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE UK AND EU ARE EXTRAORDINARILY UNCERTAIN” – ALAN BEATTIE, FINANCIAL TIMES, LONDON, SEPT 19, 2016
What are the key British objectives, asks Draper? “If you think it will be a key British objective to remain in the Single Market, or to have very close to Single Market access, then that suggests a close relationship with Europe that could include, for instance, continuing to contribute to the EU budget, allowing limited forms of immigration and so forth. In exchange for which they would get continued access to the financial services market – very important for the City of London, and that’s called a financial services passport. But they would also get duty free and more importantly rules of origin free access into the Single Market for their goods or goods produced in Europe.” But that’s not the only scenario, according to Draper. “Some of the more ardent Brexiters are saying they’re not too concerned about continued access to the Single Market, so they’ll probably be quite happy with a free trade agreement that gives them complete flexibility so they wouldn’t have to pay in to the EU budget and they would be free, essentially, to negotiate deals with whoever they want.”
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EUROPE’S CHANGING, TOO
Draper also notes that Europe’s political landscape is changing, reminding us that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has just suffered an electoral setback in her home province. He adds that there is an “interesting new grouping of Eastern European nations looking for a more flexible European model”. As a result, says Draper, “it’s very difficult to predict how it’s going to play out on the European side either, and particularly whether they will play hardball with Britain or not”. Whatever the outcome, South Africa needs to keep its eye firmly on Europe, which is far more important to this country from an economic perspective than Britain, according to Draper. “Within the EU as it currently stands, the bulk of our trade is with Germany. They are our biggest trading partner, our biggest export destination and our biggest source of imports by some measure. Britain is second on both counts. Our exports to the UK are about 4% of our global exports, which sounds small, but it’s substantial and important.” However, on the services side of the economy, it’s a different picture. “There, the UK is our largest trading partner, and a lot of that is financial services – think of the relationship between the cities of Johannesburg and London,” says Draper.
FDI
Another important dimension for Draper is that Britain is “by far and away South Africa’s biggest global investor – and I’m looking at foreign direct investment into the South African market. That incorporates both manufacturing, minerals and also a whole range of service-related activities. When Brexit happens, we need to be equally, if not more concerned, about what happens on the foreign direct investment side of the equation.” Draper’s fear is that “all investors looking at South Africa are recalibrating their thinking constantly, as our political economy unfolds. It’s very fluid for all sorts of reasons. British investors are no exception, they are certainly watching us closely. But in addition to that, they now have a whole range of other things to think about in terms of their global footprint.” He explains that if Britain decided to go it alone, “just leaving Europe and getting out altogether”, then Britain would have to reestablish all its global trading relationships. Top of the list would be the United States and then Europe, although not necessarily as part of the Single Market. Then Britain would “look to countries in Asia, and China, Japan, India, Australia.” South Africa, he warns, would fall “quite substantially down the list”.
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With this kind of recalibration taking place in Britain, and with “South Africa’s attractiveness as a market diminishing because of our political economy problems, I think you could see diminished interest in investing in South Africa. The two could combine in potentially unpleasant ways for us,” says Draper.
or will need to negotiate a new free trade agreement with South Africa. We are certainly very much open to feedback and are talking to all of the institutions involved, even now, about what could be the areas of opportunity or advantage for both of our countries.”
Ever the diplomat, Dame Judith Macgregor leaves the door firmly open.
With some understatement, she concludes that all of this “has to be set against the fact that this timetable is still uncertain”.
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“As and when we do know what the shape of our relationship with Or as Tutwa’s Peter Draper says, “It’s very difficult to Europe is going to be, then we’ll know whether we are in a position predict.”
BREXIT, SOUTH AFRICA & SCIENCE
Most British and European scientists did not want Britain to leave the European Union (EU), according to a poll in prestigious journal Nature. The split, when it came in June this year, left researchers reeling: there were co-mingled projects, finances and researchers. As Britain now stands half-in-the-door and half-out, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the region’s science and research system.
many of its member states are European, and it has a British director-general and an Italian board chairman.
But where does this leave countries like South Africa, whose science system – to some extent – hinges on international collaboration?
Over and above the SKA, there are many European and British collaborations in South Africa.
Scientific articles are an important output metric of new knowledge in the science system, and South Africa’s system – since it is comparatively small with a total budget of about R25.7 billion in 2013-14 – relies on collaboration with countries that have deeper pockets and larger bases of human capital and expertise. According to the most recent science, technology and innovation indicators, South African universities – which is where most new knowledge in the country is generated – co-published the most papers with academics in the United States, followed by Britain and then Germany. Although a European country is only third, when EU countries are considered as a bloc, it is the largest co-producer of academic papers with South Africa.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
BIG SCIENCE, BIG BUCKS
Science and research are increasingly becoming international: while academic publishing is one example, big science is another. From the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope to the Human Genome Project to the International Space Station to the Large Hadron Collider, big science projects have big budgets that are funded from the coffers of multiple nations. Few individual countries have the budget to bankroll the infrastructure required for big science. The SKA is the big science game in which South Africa has the most skin: it is a co-host with Australia, the project’s headquarters are in Manchester in the United Kingdom (UK),
SKA Board Chair Giovanni Bignami was quick to assuage fears for the project, and the UK government reinforced its commitment – which is just as well since it is one of the major funders.
The Newton Fund is the UK’s flagship programme here: the two countries have jointly committed R140 million annually to boosting science and collaboration. “[The project] is based on a set of joint priorities and involves matched effort,” John Wade-Smith, British High Commission African Head of Science and Innovation, told Acumen. “The UK contribution in 2016-17 is set to be in excess of £6.5 million and we expect this to rise in future years.” Similarly, South Africa is a major collaborator with the EU. It is the most successful country in Africa with respect to access to Horizon 2020 project funding, accounting for about a third of all African participation. Horizon 2020, a European Union research and innovation programme, has made €80 billion available over seven years (2014 to 2020). Tugela Matubatuba, Deputy Director for strategic partnerships in the Department of Science and Technology, said that the status of the country’s collaborations with Britain and the EU were unchanged: “Research and development, science and technology are not yet affected by Brexit, specifically for South Africa’s science collaboration [with them] since the negotiations have not been finalised.” Wade-Smith echoed these sentiments as “the decision to trigger Article 50, which will start the formal and legal process to leave the EU, will not happen before the end of 2016. Until our departure from the EU, we remain a fully paid-up member state with all the rights and obligations that entails.” [Repeated attempts to contact the EU officials in South Africa were unsuccessful.]
NMBM, Executive Mayor, Athol Trollip
KfW Development Bank Senior Project Manager, Gabriele Götz • •
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IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY Words Sarah Wild
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
In the last quarter-century, the hunt for planets that might resemble earth has intensified dramatically. Known as exoplanets, they may – just possibly – hold the key to the future of humanity. Sutherland – a small Karoo town known for its astronomy and being alternatively the coldest and hottest place on the evening weather report – is a hot bed of exoplanet hunting.
every kilometre of a return journey between Cape Town and Johannesburg.
On top of a hill, about 14km away from the dusty town with its one main road and glut of B&Bs for stargazers, is the South African Astronomical Observatory’s Sutherland site. Since the 1970s, the observatory has had telescopes on the site – they have burgeoned to more than 20, and a number of these telescopes are hunting for exoplanets.
More than 2 000 of those were discovered by the intrepid Kepler spacecraft, which was launched by the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2009. The spacecraft, with a price tag of about $550 million, went out of commission in 2013, but not before it had identified about 3 600 exoplanet candidates.
HUNTING EXOPLANETS
Three decades ago, we thought that the planets in our solar system were all the planets that the universe had to offer. We were very, very wrong.
“When I was in high school,” says South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) astronomer Rudi Kuhn, “the only known planets were the nine in our solar system.”
The first exoplanet – a planet not in our solar system, but orbiting another star – was detected and confirmed in 1992. The word ‘planet’ is still technically reserved for those orbiting the Sun, while all the others are ‘exoplanets’.
Kuhn, for his PhD, was involved in the construction of a small telescope to “hunt for transiting exoplanets”, the KELT telescope. “It finds possible exoplanets, and then we try to verify those exoplanets with larger telescopes,” he says.
At present, there are almost 4 700 candidate exoplanets, of which 2 330 are confirmed. That’s about an exoplanet for
The KELT – which stands for Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope – comprises two telescopes: KELT-North in the
PHOTO: ESO/M. KORNMESSER
Artist's impression of the planet orbiting Proxima Centauri
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United States and KELT-South in Sutherland. It really is very little: it has a telephoto lens with an aperture (opening to capture light) of about 4cm, which is about the length of your pinkie finger. It effectively takes photos of the large portions of sky. David Buckley, who is also an astronomer at SAAO, says: “It’s used to look for the slight dip in the brightness of a star due to the planet going around in front of it.” These dips are called transits and lots of small telescopes around the globe are using this technique to find exoplanets. But sometimes exoplanets can take years to go around their star, which makes the chance of an astronomer looking at the correct moment very slim. “You increase your chances statistically by surveying thousands or millions of stars in one shot, and then hopefully through statistics, you’ll find planet transits,” Buckley notes. That telescope has already detected two new exoplanets, with another handful waiting to be verified.
ON A SHOESTRING
Sutherland is “one of the few places in the southern hemisphere where you can do exoplanet research,” Kuhn says. “Although we’re competing with people with bigger budgets, we can do the same things on a smaller budget.” This also forces the country’s planet hunters to “push the boundaries of [what is possible] with the technology”. In 2012, SAAO astronomer Dr. John Menzies was part of an international team which found that planets are the rule, rather than the exception, in the Milky Way. SAAO’s contribution to the research – which included more than 40 collaborators – was made on a 1m optical telescope. For comparison: the feather in the Sutherland site’s cap, the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), is a 10m telescope, housed in a three-storey building. The 1m telescope is very modest in comparison. “Wherever you look, you’re likely to see a planet,” Menzies said at the time. They used a technique called microlensing: when an exoplanet moves in front of a background star, it causes the brightness of the star to dim very, very slightly. After careful observation, astronomers can identify whether that dimming was caused by a planet, or another object. This is different to the transiting technique, which is when an exoplanet passes in front of its own star. The Sutherland site’s pride and joy, SALT, also has exoplanethunting capabilities. It has a high-resolution spectrograph, operational since 2014, which can observe planets by the motions of their parent stars.
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. . . ASTRONOMERS CLAIMED THAT THEY HAD DISCOVERED THE ELUSIVE NINTH PLANET. . .” Another telescope on the Sutherland site forms part of the Korean Microlensing Telescope Network, which is a partnership between South African and South Korean astronomers. This is a dedicated planet-hunting telescope, with others in Chile and Australia forming a southern network. With the Polish telescopes Solaris-1 and -2, which are both completely robotic, Polish scientists are looking at phenomena that were once thought impossible. The Polish initiative is observing exoplanets around binary stars. “Astronomers didn’t think a few decades ago, or even more recently, that you could get a stable orbit of a planet around binary stars, but there are now many examples,” Buckley says. These systems comprise two stars in orbit around each other. Scientists monitor when these stars, from our perspective on Earth, eclipse each other. If there are no exoplanets in the system, the stars eclipse like clockwork, but if there’s an exoplanet, it changes the eclipse times ever so slightly. Astronomers can detect these small changes over time and then infer the presence of exoplanets.
BUT WHY?
Asked why planet hunting was necessary, Menzies said: “When we thought it was only the solar system, we had one example [of how planets and solar systems are formed]. We could say: “Here’s an idea of how it started”, and no-one could say whether it was a good idea. “Now that we have more planetary systems, we can develop a theory of how planets are formed, where everything came from, and how it got there.” But while planet hunting does offer an exciting new field of astronomy – swashbuckling with a telescope – the real bounty is habitable exoplanets, and these are much harder to find. While it is likely in an infinite universe that Earth is not unique, it is not easy to find its twin. Exoplanets are just planets, not necessarily like Earth. Our blue and green globe has a cushioning atmosphere of nitrogen, with a soupçon of oxygen so we can breathe, and a magnetic core creating an invisible field that protects us from unrelenting cosmic radiation. It is situated in an area called the “Goldilocks zone”, the perfect distance from the sun, so that it is neither too hot nor too cold and can have liquid water. If the Earth was closer to the sun, water would evaporate; if it was further away, water would freeze. We have carbonbased life on Earth because we have water. This is why planetary
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The Sutherland astronomy site has more than 20 telescopes, and a number of these are used for hunting exoplanets.
scientists – and most people who heard – got very excited last year when streaks of liquid water were found on Mars. This “Goldilocks zone” makes habitable planets difficult to find because it’s quite close to its parent star, and thus difficult to see. So far, we only know of about ten potentially habitable planets, with some teetering on the outer envelope of conditions that could support life.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
The most exciting discovery came in August this year, when astronomers at Queen Mary University in London announced the discovery of Proxima Centauri b, a planet orbiting close to a star 4.22 light years away. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our solar system, and was discovered in 1915 by the Director of the Union Observatory in South Africa, Robert Innes. Lead scientist in the Proxima Centauri b search, Guillem AngladaEscudé, said at the announcement: “Many exoplanets have been found and many more will be found, but searching for the closest potential Earth-analogue and succeeding has been the experience of a lifetime for all of us… The search for life on Proxima Centauri b comes next.”
ARE THERE ACTUALLY NINE PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM?
While we are looking out into the wider universe to discover exoplanets, there is also more planetary exploration to be done closer to home. Earlier this year, astronomers claimed that they had discovered the elusive ninth planet in our solar system.
“Planet Nine”, as it is imaginatively being called, has been “discovered” through mathematical modelling. Pluto, everyone’s favourite planet that is not actually a planet, lost its ninth planet status in 2006, because it was decided that it was too small and was a dwarf planet. Brown and Konstantin Batygin, a Caltech Assistant Professor of Planetary Science, noted that objects in the outer reaches of our solar system, which appeared to be moving in a co-ordinated fashion, were attracted by a giant celestial object. They estimate that it is about 10 times the mass of Earth, with a very elongated orbit that sends it into the outer reaches of our solar system. “Although we were initially quite sceptical that this planet could exist, as we continued to investigate its orbit and what it would mean for the outer solar system, we became increasingly convinced it is out there. For the first time in over 150 years, there is solid evidence that the solar system’s planetary census is incomplete,” Batygin said. But it still has not been observed. Asked why Planet Nine hadn’t been seen, SAAO planetary astronomer Amanda Sickafoose said: “It doesn’t get closer than roughly 250 [astronomical units].” One astronomical unit is the distance between the sun and the Earth, and the closest Planet Nine comes to us is 250 times that. “It spends the majority of its more than 10 000-year orbit much farther away from us,” she said. “Currently, the most distant solar system object that we have imaged optically is roughly 100 astronomical units away.” This means there may be even more planets out there
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PHOTO: SARAH WILD
THE SEARCH FOR LIFE ON PROXIMA CENTAURI B COMES NEXT”
“This would be a real ninth planet,” Mike Brown, Caltech Professor of Planetary Astronomy, said at the time in an article on Caltech’s website. Brown is the author of the book How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. “There have only been two true planets discovered since ancient times [Uranus was first observed in 1781 and Neptune in 1846], and this would be a third. It’s a pretty substantial chunk of our solar system that’s still out there to be found.”
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THE VERY (BUSINESSES-LIKE) MODEL OF A MODERN US GENERAL Words Gaye Crossley
Transferring the skill sets of war to a business environment is not a new concept. Over the years books like Sun Tzu’s The Art of War have become a businessman’s bible. Military icons through the ages, from Napoleon Bonaparte to Horatio Nelson and Ulysses S. Grant, have given inspiration to business leaders the world over thanks to their ability to motivate and inspire, tackle challenges and confront the unexpected. Now, 16 years into the new millennium and military leadership skills are still being transferred to the business world. General George Casey, a retired four-star general in the United States (US) army, has applied his 40 years’ experience as a soldier into the business world, to help corporate executives understand leadership dynamics from a military perspective. Casey has much to share, particularly insights gained during his time heading the US Army in Iraq from 2004 to 2007, and his role as the US Army’s Chief of Staff from 2007 to 2011. As Chief of Staff, he led one of the world’s largest and most complex organisations, with more than 1.1 million service men and women and a budget in excess of $200 billion. Speaking at a recent GIBS forum, Casey discussed his time in Iraq and leadership in what he calls a ‘VUCA’ world – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
A VUCA WORLD “The VUCA paradox,” says Casey, “is that you accept the fact that your environment is going to be volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, but you do not accept that external factors will determine your results. You create a strategy, and you action it.” When he arrived in Iraq, Casey found that leaders deployed to the war were responding to their situation in one of three ways. There were those who stopped planning for change – it was coming at them too fast and too furiously – so they simply started reacting. Then there were those who were so cowed by the complexity of Iraq that they just stopped acting. Finally he says: “There was a much, much smaller group that imposed their will on the environment, built a deep understanding of that environment, and then created a strategy for success.”
Interestingly, Casey notes that those leaders who were functioning well in Iraq’s extreme VUCA world had something in common: “My impression is that they all had some type of experience in dealing with unconventional environments. They had spent time in Special Forces, or time in another country. A little experience goes a long way.”
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Strategy is an area of excellence where business can learn from the Army, says Casey. He advises: “The Army understands strategy and understands vision. Figure out what you really want to achieve, and then decide on no more than five things you have to do achieve those goals.” But in a VUCA world nothing is simple, and Casey stresses the importance of flexibility; although not so much that you move off course. “You know something is going to change. What I tried to do was to make sure my strategy was broad enough so that we could make adjustments within the strategy without changing the whole strategy.” The biggest strategic change under Casey’s command in Iraq concerned who would actually run the security of Iraq. “We discussed this for months. Were we going to take over security or were we going to give it back to the Iraqis? That was a really tough decision,” he explained. The decision was further complicated by the fact that the Iraqi governments (three of them during Casey’s tenure) wanted the US military out, however the Iraqi defence force desperately wanted the US Army to stay and help.
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General George Casey
ENGENDERING EMPOWERMENT Handing over the role of security to the Iraqi defence force required more than just a handing over of the reins. “It was a case of training. We had to convince them they were capable, and then give them the training to make them capable,” explains Casey. Training is, in fact, a cornerstone of Casey’s leadership philosophy: “I don’t see the investment to building the team from businesses that I see in the military. You have to invest in your people, then you have to build an environment where everybody feels like they are an integral part of that team.” But Casey sees training as having another very valuable outcome: “For me it is the essence of getting people to come on board [with my strategy] and gets them to commit to a common goal. I also found the best way to win their loyalty was training: 15% of my time was dedicated to training generals – professional development.”
Of course, management is not solely about empowering generals; Casey noticed how the new breed of soldiers, the so-called Millennials (born roughly after 1980 until 2000), responded to leadership. “Millennials want to be inspired and they want feedback on what they are doing. As a leader you need to make the time and they need to make the time. But getting them to commit to professional development is probably the most important thing.”
ART OF COMMUNICATION Effective leadership also calls for effective communication. “We don’t always communicate as well as we think we do,” says Casey. Being able to take a strategy or vision and make it a common goal for all involved is critical for any leader’s success. “Once the strategy is done, that is when you start to get buy in. [In Iraq] it wasn’t so much that people were opposed to what I was suggesting, but it was rather that we needed a common understanding of what I was looking for.”
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FIT FOR LEADERSHIP
“As a leader you have to be intellectually, emotionally and physically fit. When you allow yourself to get run down you are not as effective.” – General George Casey. Casey’s four tips to staying in top leadership shape:
General George Casey
To achieve this common understanding, Casey spent a lot of time making sure his message was spread across the organisation. “I would brief the three-star generals and give them a week to develop their own plans, then I would go back and they would brief me on those plans. We called this a brief-back.” But Casey went even further to make sure his message was clearly received: “I went two levels below to the colonels who were actually going to execute the plan. So I worked on three different levels and I had personal dialogue with each of the commanders.” So essential was this approach that he spent a significant amount of time working on developing this understanding and communicating with his leaders. “That is how I ensured that my vision and strategy trickled down through the organisation. I spent three-and-a-half years drilling that into the team,” he recalls.
CASEY’S TAKEAWAY GEMS
An evening with Casey yields other gems too; such has his take on measuring success. In order to determine whether or not you are on the right track, Casey says leaders need to constantly ask: “Are we still making progress towards our strategic objectives?” Casey’s approach is to ask the following questions:
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
• What are we trying to accomplish? • What will tell us if we are accomplishing our goals? • How do we measure this? In an affirmation of the need for diversity in boardrooms, and in leadership roles in general, Casey also shared his personal experience of the importance of harnessing different ways of thinking in any organisation. Casey, who had the honour of promoting the first woman to the position of a four-star general in the US Army, recalls: “She had an instantaneous impact; she didn’t look at issues like we did. That was when I started thinking about diversity, diversity of thought, because if we are trying to solve our problems in a VUCA environment, we need that diversity of thought.” And finally, the key to true leadership is knowing that you can’t do it alone. As Casey concludes: “The art is for the leader to recognise that they don’t have all the skills and that the team complements you with their specific skills.”
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1. READ: Reading gives you fresh ideas, especially if you read something completely different to that which you are working on. 2. EXERCISE: Get into the habit while you are young, because it doesn’t get any easier. 3. SLEEP: You have to sleep, you have to rest to take care of yourself. 4. THINK: “I needed daily time to think. Each day I would spend 20 minutes thinking about what I would do for the next two to three days, and then I would organise myself for the day,” says Casey. “In my time off I would write about where we were, and where we wanted to go over the next four to six months. I realised that if I wasn’t thinking about the future – everybody was so busy doing what I wanted them to do in the present – [then] nobody else was.
CHOOSING A LEADER THE CASEY WAY
General George Casey believes that when choosing a leader – be it in business, politics or the military – you need to prioritise vision, courage and character.
VISION: “The power of the leader is to point the way. To do this they have to see things other people are not seeing. I look for people with keen intellects and who look outside of their own organisations [for inspiration].” COURAGE: US baseball player Yogi Berra once said: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Making decisions in the face of adversity and when you are trying to juggle risk is extremely hard, says Casey. It takes courage, and it takes courage to act. CHARACTER: “Core army values are respect, selfless service, honour, integrity and personal courage. Every soldier from private to general knows they have to act in accordance with those values. People need to trust them to do the right thing. Trust is the glue that binds the whole organisation together.”
ON CASEY’S BOOKSHELF
• Blink – Malcolm Gladwell • Great by Choice – Jim Collins • The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 – David McCullough • Black Flags: The Rise of Isis – Joby Warrick • The Wall Street Journal
You are not a business plan. Not an interest rate. Not an application number. Not to us. You are an entrepreneur – a visionary, a nation builder, a job creator. You’re looking to take your business to the next level. At Business Partners Limited, your success is our success, which is why we offer up to R50 million tailor-made SME finance solutions. You are not a loan. And with our 35 years’ experience in exclusively supporting, mentoring and financing SMEs, you’re not alone either. Connect with us today. You have so much to gain. 0861 763 346 | Cape Town 021 464 3600 | Durban 031 240 7700 | Johannesburg 011 713 6600 | Pretoria 012 347 3208 enquiries@businesspartners.co.za | www.businesspartners.co.za
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David Hughes
MAZDA LEADING GROWTH IN SA’S CAR MARKET Everybody knows someone who once owned a Mazda. Today, the brand has been resurrected to its full glory as the fastest growing car brand in South Africa. An hour with David Hughes and you can see why he was the man picked to turn the Mazda brand around in Southern Africa. The Mazda mantra is “customer service”, and Hughes embodies it, not only because he’s charming and personable, but he’s customer-centric by nature, the opposite of the corporate yes-man. After a long tenure with Mazda Australia, Hughes was considering giving up the working life when he was offered the challenge of moving to South Africa to turn around a limping
brand that hadn’t yet managed to quite separate itself from its former owner, Ford, which sold its shares in Mazda in 2009. Mazda Southern Africa started operations in October 2014, and by the end of 2015, despite the tightening economy, Mazda’s sales in South Africa numbered 9 067, almost double the 4 939 units sold in 2014. This year has already yielded even better results, and although he prefers the word “opportunity” to “target”, Hughes expects sales to tally 11 000 to 12 000 by the end of it.
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“The Mazda market is up by 40% in 2016, in an industry that is 16% down. We are the only car brand in South Africa to increase its market in the last two years,” says Hughes. The reversal of Mazda’s fortunes began with a solid investment in the brand, establishing its own facility in Midrand, an 8 000sqm warehouse space. “That in itself was an achievement. We moved into the premises May 2014, after construction began only three months earlier, and until then I was living in a tin shed in a field, and trying to convince the then 38 people we had to come and work for us,” he smiles. The next job was to downsize from 127 Ford dealers who were selling Mazda, to 50 Mazda-dedicated dealers, and infuse in them a passion for the brand, and a culture of caring for the customer. “We took 35 of the dealers to Japan and they got to drive the products, to get a better understanding of the brand.” says Hughes. Looking after the customer is paramount to Mazda’s new culture, and to this end the units are priced properly. “As a customer you can be sure you paid the right price, and we now have a programme for courtesy cars for when the car is in for a service. We are very customer-centric,” says Hughes. Whereas previously 80% of Mazda sales were BT-50 bakkies, this ratio has been inverted and today 80% of its sales are passenger vehicles, retailed directly to private consumers. Mazda does not do rentals or fleet business, because this tends to drive resale prices down, and stock is kept at numbers that meet demand only. “We don’t push metal. We’ve established a proper ordering system so our allocation of production is kept just above the demand. We are a value-add proposition and don’t discount, which is disrespectful to customers. So what we did was go back to basics,” he says.
Not least, Hughes has made the most of a gap in the car market in between entry level and premium, the market that Hughes calls “premium alternative”. “We’re in that space in Australia, and this accounts for Mazda’s success over there. People come to us from the bottom and the top, which is a good place to be in a downturned market. So yes, we have definitely hit the sweet spot in the South African market,” says Hughes. Most of the Mazda range is still made in Japan, and Mazda is continually working to improve its models, with its ‘KODO – Soul of Motion’ design direction shaping the dynamic style and premium presence of Mazda2, Mazda3, Mazda6, Mazda MX-5, Mazda CX-5, Mazda CX-9 and the Mazda CX-3. “SKYACTIV, a series of technologies developed by Mazda, is aimed at increasing fuel efficiency and engine output with the design of new engines, transmissions, body and chassis. Rather than go the hybrid or hydrogen route, Mazda made the decision to reinvent the petrol and diesel engine instead. By 2018, these cars will be so advanced they will take things to a new level. The future will not only be protected, it is looking very bright, innovative and exciting,” says Hughes. Meanwhile, production for the South African market for the BT-50 will move to Thailand once the current model completes its life cycle and is refreshed. The new look BT-50 is expected to be launched early in the new year, and repositioned as more of a premium, recreational vehicle than a one-ton workhorse. “Our task now is to restore the BT-50. It won’t ever be 80% of our mix, but rather 10% to 15%,” says Hughes. In South Africa, the Mazda brand has always been respected – “if you peel back the veneers, everybody knows someone who once owned and loved a Mazda,” says Hughes, so the product itself is easy to sell. “It’s an extremely recommendable car. I myself drive a CX-5, which is now No.1 in the SUV segment in the private buyer market in South Africa. And my whole family drives a Mazda,” he says. It was only three years ago that Hughes had opted for a cruise ship on the Mediterranean as his preferred mode of transport. “My wife and I were on a four-week cruise, docking in a different place every day. It was fantastic, and I said to her, ‘let’s do this for the rest of our lives’. I was convinced my working days were over before I got the call from head office in Japan with this project proposal,” he says.
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Before he took the job, Hughes asked his bosses the question, “can I make a difference?” In answer, the difference he has made to the Mazda brand is nothing short of phenomenal
David Hughes
Facebook: MazdaSA Twitter: @Mazda_SA Instagram: @Mazda_SA Web: Mazda.co.za
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Agree on your goals
LEADERSHIP IN ADVENTURE Words Kerryn Krige
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
A retired Adventure Racer and now a member of the team at GIBS reflects on the leadership lessons she learned along some very hard and even dangerous paths. I stopped Adventure Racing in 2010 with shredded feet, missing toenails, the skin on my back rubbed raw from carrying my gear, and with a nerve injury I am reminded of daily. But it is hard to leave a sport that takes so much of you. And because so few of us deliberately put ourselves towards a race of exhaustion and extremes, Adventure Racing gives us an opportunity to understand what it is that gets you to achieving your goal. It is one of the purest environments to see leadership and teamwork in practice, and to glimpse that curious driver of individuals and passion. The more I learn about business, the more I realise how many truths are exposed in the brutality of Adventure Racing. Here are six lessons.
AGREE ON YOUR GOALS
“Why? Adventure Race? After days of pain and suffering, constantly convincing yourself to keep pushing – don’t give up, don’t give in, put your head down. It all comes together
when you cross that finish line and you get that deep-felt sense of achievement. It erases all pain. You’ve pushed yourself and achieved your goal. And it makes it all worthwhile” – Team Keyhealth-Jabberwock Cobus van Zyl on goals and achievement The top teams agree that having a team that races to the same goal is at the heart of success. And they stress that success is not about winning. There are too many variables in Adventure Racing – as there are in building any company – to focus on first place. Success is pushing your team so that they constantly and consistently achieve. This is the step out of the 9am-5pm mentality, and is about building a group of people that strive to achieve the goals you set them, and want to constantly push themselves past their everyday limits. The lesson is to set goals together that are achievable, building a team of excellence and high performance.
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LEADERSHIP IS WORKING TOGETHER
“The top teams all work together within the team. You’re not afraid to ask for help, or to say when you’re suffering. All team members will go through a bad patch at some stage in a long race. The essence of the sport is that very seldom all members struggle at the same time and we can ‘carry’ each other through those tough times. The less-experienced teams’ members often try to prove themselves to each other, and are therefore performing as mere individuals moving along. They struggle to ask for help as they see this as weakness resulting in them being less efficient,” says Ryno Griesel, one of South Africa’s leading trail runners and former member of Team Cyanosis. The nature of Adventure Racing means it is a microcosm of a long journey, and there is a finely tuned understanding that everyone makes mistakes, will be tired, in pain and exhausted. Great teams support each other through their individual moments, so that everyone crosses the line together. The lesson is that excellence is achieved collectively rather than individually: the top teams are teams, the back teams a collection of individuals. We see this in leadership as our thinking moves away from the mythical hero leader who supposedly single-handedly creates organisational magic, to a deeper appreciation of the team of people and the complexity of their working together, that achieves greatness.
WHAT IS ADVENTURE RACING?
Adventure Racing takes teams of four through a race course of up to 800kms, which athletes race non-stop, for up to ten days. Each course is unique, with mountain biking, paddling, trail running and rope sections which teams must navigate with just a map and compass, and little – if any – insight into the terrain. Teams are self-sufficient, and carry their own food, water, cold-weather and safety gear through the various legs of the race, as they search out checkpoints. This is not a race of ready-made trails, bunting, water tables and cheering supporters. Teams get lost, battle remote wilderness, uncertainty, extreme weather, injury, sleep deprivation and deep exhaustion. Teams often talk of their sleep monsters, the hallucinations they experience in the race, when tiredness and fatigue shift reality. If one team member quits, the entire team is unclassified, making the finish line an enormous achievement for anyone who starts a race. Adventure Racing teams are typically made up of three men and one woman, making it one of the more inclusive endurance team-sports. The winner is the team which crosses the finish line first, having collected all the checkpoints.
Leadership is working together
information available on the map, and balancing it with what you know about your terrain, and your team. Finding your way through a forest where you can’t see your way, is different to wading through the featureless landscape and energysapping terrain of a swamp. This again is very different if you’re navigating at night when you can’t see, to daytime. The lesson is that navigation is more than map reading – it is about making decisions. And even if it is the wrong decision, the team is behind you. “It is not always the shortest route that gets you to your next checkpoint – you’re weighing up terrain, contour lines, altitude gained or lost, weather, light, injuries, team strengths and weaknesses, constantly thinking ahead,” says navigator Cobus van Zyl of Team Keyhealth-Jabberwock. “The best route is not necessarily obvious with the limited information at hand, experienced navigators use all the information available continuously weighing up different options – and at some point you make a call. And even if it’s the wrong call, the team is with you.” Interestingly, the navigator isn’t always the captain of the team. Great leadership is about knowing who is best at what, and enabling them to do it.
SUPPORT THE PERSON WHO KNOWS WHERE YOU’RE GOING
In Adventure Racing your navigator is your strategist, using the tools at hand – compass and map – to plan the best way for the team to reach the next checkpoint. Navigation is not just about route choice – it is about understanding the nuance of
Support the person who knows where you’re going.
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REST AND RECOVER
Adventure Racing ultimately is about who crosses the line first, which means it involves strategic decisions about sleeping. In theory, the team who doesn’t sleep should move the fastest, as there is no wasted time. “But downtime is everything. Teams who push themselves over such long periods without planned sleep breaks will eventually pay the price,” says Race Director Stephan Muller. “Their team implodes, they fight, they make navigational errors, they get injured and mentally will start to struggle. Planning when to rest is critical to winning.”
Rest and recover
Most teams will try to rest at night, when navigation is slower, the risk of getting lost or injured is higher and temperatures cooler. This is the time of sleep monsters, hallucinations that show you a different reality, alongside the very-real risk of falling asleep on your bike and crashing. The lesson is to know how unsustainable it is for people to push themselves, relentlessly. Elite performance happens only when there is rest and recovery. Leadership is knowing when to rest, and knowing when to push, and to agree on this with team members.
EVERYONE HAS A ROLE. DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH
There are typical roles for people in Adventure Racing teams, and it creates a structure that holds when exhaustion kicks in. The team captain is often the navigator and strategist. Great teams have a second navigator – a co-pilot, who can step in when the main navigator is just too tired to continue or may not be the best navigator for that leg. Mountain biking requires a different set of map-reading skills as you’re covering distance faster, than say, paddling. Then there is the packhorse – the mule, whose value is strength. They carry people’s equipment, tow tired teammates, and take on extra loads.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
All teams must have a woman, which creates an interesting dynamic and underpins the value of diversity. “We are typically viewed as slower,” says Janneke Leask, who has raced with many of South Africa’s top teams, “but our endurance kicks in later. We pace the team and ensure it doesn’t burn out.” Academics have been trying to understand the role women play in an Adventure Racing team for years. Their role isn’t as obvious as the task-driven roles of packhorse and navigator, and they are regarded as an intrinsic glue, bringing humour, compassion, and oversight on the well-being of the entire team. The reality is that the Adventure Racing team is the purest form of equality – over such a long distance and with so many disciplines no-one is better than anyone else. And so it is in diversity – both in gender and skill – that the team finds strength. We know through the work of Edmonds et al. (2009), that teams made up of specialist single-sport athletes don’t do well, because they don’t work well together. Their expertise in one discipline becomes a weakness.
Everyone has a role. Diversity is strength.
The lesson is that team members are selected for the value they bring in making the group work. They need to be individually competent and able to race at a certain level, but this is assumed. The harder choice is building a competent team with diverse character traits that blend and balance each other.
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PASSION ON THE FRONTIER
The thing about Adventure Racing is that it is just a race. And ultimately, you cross the finish line and go home. You’ll have fewer toenails, you’ll limp for weeks, stairs will be an enormous effort and people at work won’t be able to conceptualise what you got up to on your annual leave. “Passion is a great motivator,” says Race Director Heidi Muller. “I have seen teams in deep despair, and that secret ingredient of passion keeps them together and focused on achieving their goals.”
Passion on the frontier
The great Adventure Racing teams understand that they are on the frontier – they participate in a sport that few understand and with little obvious kudos. What makes them return to the start line year-on-year is an intangible return on their hours of training: and it is simply that they learn and grow. Each Adventure Race is unpredictable and different, giving team members an opportunity to learn about their boundaries and horizons, and to push past them. “We should never underestimate what motivates people – deep commitment comes from each individual, appreciating what they will learn through the journey about both themselves and their teammates. It creates a glue.” Adventure Racers are seldom full-time athletes, balancing their training regimes with the everyday. Ryno Griesel is an entrepreneur and chartered accountant, Cobus van Zyl spends his days as a systems engineer working on the Rooivalk helicopter, Heidi Muller is one of Joburg’s most sought-after event organisers. This makes passion all the more important, as it sparks dedication and commitment. The lesson is to take the time, to build teams that are driven and passionate about a similar cause, connected by an agreed goal, and are therefore dedicated to pushing themselves past the ordinary, and hold the frontier of delivery. “Each member of the team loves what we do. We’re outdoors in places many people haven’t seen. We’re finding our way. Testing ourselves. You cannot believe the magic that happens when you’re all together, slogging it out. And it wouldn’t happen without commitment and passion, because you get so much in return,” says Cobus van Zyl.
CONCLUSION
In my work leading social entrepreneurship at GIBS I see the parallels with Adventure Racing daily – the power of passion as a motivator to achieving goals, the entrepreneurial zeal that makes teams so resilient, the equality of diversity, the deep value of having a map as you navigate through unknown terrain. But also the negatives: the burnout that comes from pushing for too long at your limit, the singular thinking that comes from working on your own outside of a team. These lessons are simple, but powerful reminders of the value of working together, having a map and compass that allows you to move forward and not always on the shortest route, the importance of taking time out, setting goals together that push limits, building diversity and focusing on passion as the fuel of great teamwork. Adventure Racers may be missing toenails, but they understand the enormous potential of working together.
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With particular thanks to Ryno Griesel, Cobus van Zyl, Heidi Muller, Janneke Leask, Stephan Muller and Ian Adams
LOCAL HEROES
Expedition Africa is a 500km race and is an international qualifier for the Adventure Racing World Series. It is highly regarded and draws the world’s top endurance athletes. South Africa’s teams are extremely competitive. Merrell Adventure Addicts is 4th on the Adventure Racing World Series rankings with teams Keyhealth Jabberwock, Featherbed Painted Wolf and Cyanosis constantly in top positions on the Adventure Racing circuit. Expedition Africa is part of the World Series in Adventure Racing and the global racing calendar.
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POISONOUS PLACES Words Dr. Jonathan D. Moch
What is a toxin? What are toxic workplaces? What is the antidote?
TOXINS
The venom of a snakebite or the sting of a bee, the bite of a mosquito or the sexually transmitted HIV, can cause havoc to the hosts. Toxins can induce severe pain and body swelling, cerebral malaria or AIDS – mild discomfort to pyrexia, amputation of a limb or life-support in an intensive care unit; not uncommon: death. Physical toxins make the news – Chernobyl, Zika, Ebola, bird flu. As a professional witness to the tragedy of the power of toxins, it often left me gutted. More recently, in my pivot to psycho-education, it is the drugs of cocaine, crystal meth, alcohol, heroin acting as toxins that disrupt the minds, brains, bodies, and relationships of the host, the addicts; even ghastly painful premature death. Still it leaves me gutted, powerless to intervene. There is yet a third area of toxicity affecting the human condition, leaving victims sick and wounded. Perhaps, here I can influence change.
TOXIC WORKPLACES
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
My thirty years in clinical psychiatry suggest toxic personalities and behaviour are prominent in workplaces, deeply affecting staff morale, wellness and productivity. Jeffrey Pfeffer writes in Leadership BS1 that workplaces, leaders and corporates are toxic! Toxic behaviour is certainly prevalent in many organisations. However, there are also great companies to work for – Fortune. com often prints such tables. Unfortunately, toxic companies, and their consequences, make the news – SAA, SABC... So Pfeffer overextends, somewhat. But suppose Pfeffer is correct that modern institutions are dysfunctional. Could the ‘toxin’ metaphor be a useful mental model? Yes. My answer is drawn from my medical files on three executives who consulted me for depression, as well as a company I surveyed for stress levels2. A gastroenterologist referred Patient X, a 40-year-old male executive director complaining of periodic stomach cramps. The cramps typically occurred on a Sunday, or on the last day of a holiday. Careful questioning unpacked a severe cognitive
dissonance between his values and those of the CEO of his company. Patient X was driven by a high ethical mindset; the CEO was a narcissist and a cocaine addict, surrounded by meek sycophants. Ugly clashes between the two were common. After lengthy deliberation, I suggested G.O., my code name for “Get Out”. Eventually, after much sweat and tears, he did. I can report that there are now no more stomach cramps, nor evidence of depression, and he is happier in his new non-toxic, consultant role.
CAN COMPANIES IMMUNISE THEMSELVES AGAINST WORKPLACE TOXICITY?” Patient Y, a CEO, also of impeccable moral standing (confirmed by her husband and sister), became aware of ‘creative accounting’ on her listed company’s balance sheet, shortly before the financials were made public. For months she could not sleep at night, became frightened of the legal and reputational consequences if found out, slipping into anhedonia (lacking pleasure) and exhaustion. Patient Y was not keen on prescription antidepressants, preferring a course in “common sense” psychotherapy. The finance department refused to restate the truth, as it would materially affect the share price. A toxic culture permeated this division: the CFO had an untreated attention deficit disorder (read: poor decision-making and superficial thinking) and the COO was a bipolar depressive, with wild swings in mood and destructive relationships. I triggered the G.O. Code, and she sojourned to a secluded game reserve to weigh the cost-benefit
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of possible choices. She listened to her inner voice and left for a lower-paying position. Patient Y is now earning a significantly higher real return than if she had kept her CEO status in the toxic C-suite. Patient Z is a bit more complicated, but not that uncommon these days. A 43-year-old female senior manager, with significant international experience and graduate degrees from Ivy League universities, she consulted me because of her psychological dilemma, with evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder. A major position had opened in her company, but her future direct manager (COO) had sexually harassed her – verbally and emotionally – for many years. She had given 20 years of her life to building the company into a world-class outfit. The doublebind was a major blow to her motivation and purpose-driven value system. Fortunately, patient Z was resilient, and bounced back soon after I again suggested tripping the G.O. lever. Patient Z went cycling and hiking for a few months to grieve the loss of a long-held dream, recovered, regrouped and now leads a vibrant influential NGO. A synopsis of post-traumatic growth. A number of years ago, Company A was a leading listed company, the top in its sector by market capitalisation. I surveyed the stress levels of its leadership. After each director received his or her result I presented the principles informing the stress score. There were 90 managers in the room, including the board, chair, CEO, CFO... I described the danger of the distress zone. One female director raised her hand, and trumpeted: “I like to keep my staff in distress. Keeps them on their toes!” There was applause from the group, a ringing endorsement of their (toxic) corporate work culture. Except for two people present. Their chief scientific director, and the founder – the majority shareholder – who both stared at me, impassively. All I remember saying, softly but clearly, was “Be very, very careful. A little added stress can push your company into burnout.” I still visualise my right index finger pointing at them. Many laughed at my remarks. I turned around, fleeing the toxic room, unsettled.
Needless to say, a major competitor entered the sector, causing widespread panic within the company, which almost went bankrupt. The entire executive was fired within six months, including that female director, and after a couple of years the Prof. returned to her former work. When introduced to my wife, she recognised the surname, and softly responded: “Your husband pulled the trigger on my former multinational!” I knew exactly what she meant. So in all four cases, there were toxins in the executive team. There was no antibiotic or antiviral available, except to remove the cause of toxicity (case 4), or leave the toxic environment (cases 1,2,3).
THE ANTIDOTE
Is there a vaccine? Can companies immunise themselves against workplace toxicity? Surely! Charles Duhigg in his book, Smarter, Faster, Better, writes (page 65): “…By the summer of 2015, the Google researchers working on Project Aristotle, had been collecting surveys, conducting interviews, running regressions, and analyzing statistics for two years… Scrutinized tens of thousands of pieces of data…. Written dozens of software programs to analyze trends (how the best teams work) ... Bottom line: What matters is … having a voice and social sensitivity…. But most important of all teams need psychological security.” I agree. In all four cases of workplace toxicity described above, severe psychological insecurity was core: the venom. Their pathways to health were psychologically secure work environments. This is the vaccine required to combat workplace toxins that invariably will appear along a career path. ‘Antibodies’, derivatives of the ‘vaccination’, can then quickly zap the toxic behaviours. Going forward, psychological security in teams (marriage, family, corporation) may be the primary differentiator in moving from ordinary to extraordinary. If you cannot get rid of the toxin, GET OUT! It may save your life
. . . TEAMS NEED PSYCHOLOGICAL SECURITY” 1 2
Reviewed in Acumen 16, p. 91 For reasons of privacy, their demographics are scrambled but not the symptoms or outcomes. Dr. Jonathan D. Moch is a Psychiatrist, with special interest in psycho-education.
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GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
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RAISING RHINOS Words & Photographs Jacques Marais
Rhino conservation is a rather (t)horny issue, with vehemently opposing viewpoints on either side of the ‘great horn trade’ debate. This ultimately divisive stand has become as big a threat to rhino survival as the actual poaching scourge.
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I’m a photojournalist; not a conservation expert. I believe passionately that in order to be an expert in any given field, one needs to dedicate a large part of your lifetime to said subject, while at the same time understanding this learning process may never truly stop, hence the cliché “the more you learn, the less you know”. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the 19th century German philosopher and cultural critic, puts this way more succinctly than I could in his declaration: “There are no facts, only interpretations”. Unfortunately, the sordid truth – especially in our digital information age – is that interminable opinions are being proffered, often without any tangible reasoning or research. For six days in September this year, I travelled with a group of international journalists on a fact-finding mission to visit Southern Africa’s key rhino conservation areas. The tour was funded by the neutral Comanis Foundation, a Swiss-based agency committed to the global promotion of a range of educational and developmental projects, primarily focused on conservation within Southern Africa. The emphasis of the #RhinoFacts Tour was to meet with as many conservation specialists and rhino custodians as possible and – based upon their professional input – to generate balanced reporting to reflect (or where necessary refute) current thinking. As such, I was joined by a host of local journalists, as well as some international media specialists and film-makers. A wide range of rhino experts took time out to meet with us, allowing us an in-depth view into a dark underworld where rhino horn sells for a reputed US$60 000 per kilogram. To this effect, a poacher in Africa can walk away with up to R200- 300 000 in his pocket after the cold-blooded slaughtering of a rhino in any given game reserve or national park. No wonder then that 6 000-plus rhino have been killed since 2009, with the unofficial tally for 2016 currently standing at around 700 for the year to date. (A staggering 2 390 rhinos were killed in 2014/15 alone, which constitutes nearly 12% of the total South African population of these gentle pachyderms.) To put poaching figures in perspective, the increase from 2007 (a total of 13 rhino deaths) to 2015 (a staggering 1 175 killings) amounts to a horrifying 9 000% jump. This must be seen as
Left: A southern white rhino grazing in one of Swaziland’s Big Game Parks.
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irrefutable proof that current conservation structures in place can no longer effectively ensure the survival of these key megamammal species. The time has surely arrived for fresh thinking, and an increasingly strong pro-trade lobby has been at the forefront in driving the potential legalisation of trade in rhino horn. Although their arguments make absolute rational sense, many rhino conservationists and related charities (some utterly dependent on the rhino crisis for their continued funding) are sure to oppose this concept vehemently. The efficacious excuse of the #NoTrade lobby so far has rested on the foundation that “no-one knows whether legalising limited trade in rhino horn will work in reducing poaching”. A glaring fact, however, is that the opposite truth applies to the current ban on trade, which has seen poaching figures skyrocket, while rhino numbers dwindle.
Private rhino owners (John Hume’s ranch in the North West Province alone is home to more than 1 400 rhino, far more than in the whole of Kenya); the heads of elite anti-poaching units; national parks head rangers; provincial reserve managers; Big Game Parks rhino custodians in Swaziland ... all of them agree unequivocally that the current thinking around rhino conservation is flawed, and must change in order to ensure the survival of the species. This is obviously an extremely contentious issue, but one thing has become abundantly clear and that is the argument against the legal trade in rhino horn has to be reconsidered. Two disparate cliques – one acrimoniously opposed to changes in this conservation stalemate, and the other pragmatically supporting “sustainable, rational utilisation of wildlife” – hold sway, in effect relegating the real arguments around rhino survival to a veritable sideshow.
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Left: Free-ranging rhinos on John Hume’s ranch in the North West Province at one of their feed stations; supplementation is necessary because of the crippling drought. Above, right and below: John Hume’s staff – under the watchful eyes of a veterinarian – dehorns his rhinos every 12-18 months to deter poaching. The horn is then marked, catalogued and stored in the hope that CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) will eventually lift the ban on trade.
The conservation playing field is not the most level of places, and the current game of blamemongering is creating a complex and multilayered web of lies, half-truths, misinformation and myths. John F. Kennedy famously said “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic”, and this holds true as these ‘rhino wars’ continue to escalate. As for me, I feel I’ve gained critical insight into the #ProTrade versus #NoTrade debate during our #RhinoFacts Tour, but more than ever, I realise just how much more there is to learn. In the end, we need to be less judgemental of opposing views, and more accepting of the distinct probability that a true solution lies
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RHINO CONSERVATION EXPERTS – QUOTES IN THE MEDIA: Dave Cook, former Natal Parks Board Deputy Director “It is my contention that a legal trade in rhino horn will do for white rhino in 2016 – and beyond – what a concession in the form of a legislative amendment permitting SU in the private sector, did for the species in 1971. Swaziland must be allowed to put this to the test.” Enrico Di Minin: Economist, University of Helsinki “Similarly, given long-established cultural beliefs, consumers are unlikely to reduce their near-future demand for rhinoceros horn. Under current management the southern white rhinoceros population could go extinct in <20 years. Instead, our results suggest that a legal trade in horn that does not require killing any rhinoceroses could cover higher protection costs, allowing the rhinoceros population to increase in size.” Ted Reilly: CEO Big Game Parks, Swaziland “At present 100% of the proceeds from the sale of rhino horn are taken by criminals, while rhino custodians pay 100% of the costs of rhino protection and production yet they desperately need funds to cover these costs.” John Scanlon: Secretary-General, CITES “The history of the (annual CITES) convention has shown well-regulated legal trade can work for people and species, but it’s very species- and region-specific”.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
somewhere within that no-man’s land separating these two schools of thought. A potential pragmatic solution may lie in legalising onceoff regulated horn sales, and with any dehorning exercises focused on rhinos outside of major reserves. This would see anti-poaching efforts focused on primary wilderness spaces, where eco-tourists will continue to see these gorgeous beasts in all their horned glory within those protected national parks and reserves. Bottom line, there can be no single and flawless solution, so perhaps it is time for the various parties to stop their emotional grand-standing and instead engage in constructive debate. This will hopefully unite rhino lovers from both sides of the current divide and ensure the future of these beautiful and gentle beasts. More information at www.comanis.ch or www.rhinorage.org
Top left: Armed game rangers and strong support from the Swaziland government safeguard the Big Game Parks rhinos against the worst of the poaching onslaught. Top right: Somiso, a 6-month-old orphaned white rhino calf, can drink more than 20l in milk formula daily; this costs conservation authorities up to R6 000/month. Bottom right: Young black rhinos in the holding pens of KZN’s Ezemvelo Wildlife authority; excess rhino stock are sold in order to fund their escalating conservation costs.
Dr. Richard Leakey: Chair, Kenya Wildlife Service “You don’t want to be a world leader that’s got dirt on the ropes, and if wildlife trade becomes a really dirty matter, the Chinese government isn’t going to have that tarnishing their image.” Tom Milliken: Rhino Expert, Traffic “What we are seeing is the conflagration is spreading to other rhino populations,” said Milliken. “What’s happening [in Namibia] is the same kind of poaching brand that South Africa has represented. There’s the presence of the Asian syndicates, there’s some degree of corruption in the private sector and there’s other evidence of government officials being corrupted and involved.” Jo Shaw, Rhino Programme Manager, WWF-SA “Local communities can help tackle wildlife crime, but only if they see themselves as active partners in conservation with a real stake in protecting wildlife, not just as pawns in a fight between law enforcement officers and international criminal syndicates.” John Hume, world’s biggest rhino rancher Hume has been quoted as saying he would buy rhinos from the devil if it would save them: “I don’t deny that. I have nothing to hide, and a lot of those rhino would have been dead today”.
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Michael Knight: Chairman, IUCN African Rhino Specialist Group “Anyone who looks at these figures can see that the status quo, which focuses on demand reduction in Asia, is not working, and yet conservationists are going after it like a religious faith. There is no example I can see that what we’re doing right now is helping, which makes me think it must be time to try something new.” John Hanks: Environmental Consultant/Author “Our current approach isn’t sustainable. These animals are only alive because Western governments and private individuals fund our hugely expensive protection efforts. But one day, their attention will turn elsewhere and the money will run out and we can’t keep begging. The animals need to pay for themselves. It’s simple – once they have a sustainable value, it makes more sense to have them alive than dead. It may not sit well with animal rights groups but that’s because they’re not seeing the bigger picture.” Pelham Jones: Chairman, Private Rhino Owners’ Association “Of the 5 000 rhino that have been poached in South Africa since 2009, 1 000 have been killed on private reserves … It makes me so angry when people from NGOs sit around drinking chardonnay in their fancy apartments and tell us we’re greedy for wanting a legal trade, when we’re out in the bush every night risking our lives. I want to stop the demand for rhino horn as much as anyone, but until that day comes, we private landowners need money from legal sales to help keep the animals alive.” Patrick Bergin: Chief Executive, AWF “The only way to stop this crisis is to stop the demand. And a legal trade destroys that approach. If African countries start openly selling rhino horn, they send mixed messages that perpetuate the myth of medicinal value.” Xolani Nicholus Funda: Chief Ranger, Kruger National Park “It’s a war. That’s our frustration. The rhino war – it’s like drugs. It involves lots of cash and bribery.” Edna Molewa: Environmental Affairs Minister, South Africa “We have done all in our power [to stop poaching], and doing the same thing every day isn’t working.”
A DOZEN RHINO FACTS & FIGURES 1. Current South African black rhino figures – 1 893 (36% of total population of 5 285). 2. Current South African white rhino figures – 18 413 (90% of total population of 20 254). 3. In 1971, there were 0 rhinos on private land; now 5 000+ are privately owned in SA. 4. John Hume, the world’s largest rhino rancher, owns 1 452 rhinos on his 8 000ha ranch. 5. Rhino horn grows back in 4 years and dehorning is a proven poaching deterrent. 6. There is no pain during dehorning, similar to cutting one’s fingernails. 7. #NoTrade regulations mean the only people profiting from rhino horn are criminals. 8. The massive stock piles of legal horn can be sold to fund antipoaching operations. 9. Rhino poaching in Namibia increased by 33% from 2014-15 (24–80 rhino deaths) 10. Rhino horn trade is legal in South Africa, but a CITES ban prohibits export. 11. The 31-ton stockpile of rhino horn in SA could generate up to $2 billion. 12. Rhino horn is just keratin – the same stuff as your fingernails, with no medicinal value
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ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND CULTURAL ORIENTATIONS Words Danna B. Strydom
Ethical issues in both business and public organisations have sadly become a regular news topic. No surprise then that this has led to calls for more ethical leadership. Most recently by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng who in a talk at GIBS described ethical leadership as a national imperative. But what exactly is ethical leadership and how does it impact follower behaviour? Ethical leadership is characterised by two aspects: a moral person that does the right thing and also a moral manager that takes proactive efforts to influence the behaviour of others. So, firstly, they always do, and are seen to do, the right thing themselves in their daily lives, and they also encourage followers to do the same through communication, reinforcement, and decision-making. Doing the right thing is not always that simple. We all progress through different stages of moral reasoning development, according to Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. This means that depending on someone’s stage of cognitive moral development, different people may make different decisions when confronted with similar ethical situations. As leaders develop in moral reasoning, their dominant model of leadership may change since different philosophies of ethics can be associated with leadership approaches. For example, transformational leadership appears to be most closely connected to deontology, while transactional leadership seems to be more related to teleological ethics, and directive leadership to ethical egoism.
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ATTRACTIVE, CREDIBLE
To be seen as ethical, leaders must be attractive and credible. People typically look to others for ethical guidance and tend to model the behaviour of attractive and credible role models. If the leaders display power and status, that makes them attractive role models and more likely to be emulated. However, leaders also need to demonstrate care and concern and treat others fairly, as well as be trustworthy and practice what they preach. Ethical leaders enforce practices, policies and procedures to uphold ethical conduct. They regularly communicate what is acceptable and unacceptable and reward and punish employees accordingly. Reinforcement plays an important role in modelling effectiveness – people notice what is rewarded and punished and learn from this to change their own behaviour. By role-modelling and rewarding appropriate behaviour, ethical leaders help create an ethical climate. Research has shown that people who work for
a manager who displays ethical leadership are more likely to be engaged and do more than what’s strictly required from their role specification. I wondered if this applied in developing economies as well and what effect it might have on the followers’ cultural orientation? My GIBS DBA research study aimed to test this in an African context and to answer the question: how is this affected by power-distance and individualist-collectivist culture orientations? Power-distance orientation defines to what extent people accept unequally distributed hierarchical power in institutions. Someone with high power-distance orientation is very respectful of authority and keeps his or her distance from managers. A person with low power-distance on the other hand respects authority but is happy mixing with the bosses, no matter how senior. Individualist oriented people put their own and their immediate family’s interests ahead of broader social group goals. They place greater value on independence, autonomy and personal achievement than the importance of their roles in groups. For collectivists, their identities are to a large extent derived from the groups to which they belong. In other words,
TO BE SEEN AS ETHICAL, LEADERS MUST BE ATTRACTIVE AND CREDIBLE ”
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SOUTH AFRICA PROBABLY HAS A RELATIVELY LOW LEVEL OF MORAL REASONING . . . ” group-level goals, values, norms and needs have precedence over those of the individual and achievement motivation is socially oriented.
AN AFRICAN VIEW
The study used a multinational service industry enterprise that has operations throughout South Africa and in some African countries to ensure that the sample population included enough variety in cultural orientation of the individuals. The results confirmed that there is a strong positive relationship between ethical leadership and ethical climate. By ethical leaders acting as role models, as well as setting and communicating what is acceptable behaviour, they influence followers to behave accordingly. Suitable behaviour is further encouraged by rewarding acceptable behaviour and penalising or punishing unacceptable behaviour. Interestingly, the study found that this relationship between ethical leadership and ethical climate was dampened by powerdistance orientation. Followers with a high power-distance orientation tend to prefer not to engage with managers, expect one-way, top-down communication and maintain greater social distance from managers. They expect their managers to be more distant figures within the organisational hierarchy and may think that copying the behaviour of managers is inappropriate. High power-distance orientation employees are less likely to interpret and learn ethical codes by watching what their manager does, as postulated by social learning theory. Low power-distance orientation employees, on the other hand, perceive managers to be socially closer and prefer frequent, open communication with managers and are more receptive to the social learning mechanism that propagates ethical leadership. The study also confirmed a positive relationship between ethical leadership and organisational citizenship behaviour (engagement). Ethical leadership reinforces pro-social behaviour that is fair to other stakeholders. This appeals to individuals with collectivist orientation, so the relationship was found to be strengthened in the case of employees with collectivist orientation and dampened for employees with individualist orientation. Individualist employees are known to respond less favourably to the inspirational aspect of transformational
leadership and ethical leadership works on a similar mechanism. They respond more strongly to transactional leadership where they know for sure what’s in it for them. Ethical leadership does include some social exchange with the reward and punishment of behaviours but this is often not certain enough in the individualist’s mind. A positive relationship was also found between ethical leadership and performance. In the study, the performance measure used was the actual result from the company’s performance management system based on quantitative measures. Interestingly, the relationship between ethical leadership and performance was strongly mediated by organisational citizenship behaviour (engagement). The higher performance was explained by their higher level of engagement. So, through this moderated mediation mechanism, the relationship between ethical leadership and performance was also stronger for collectivist oriented employees and dampened for individualist oriented employees.
WHAT THIS MEANS
What are the implications of these findings for management? South Africa probably has a relatively low level of moral reasoning as evident from the destruction of public property during protests and attitudes exhibited during driving and high levels of crime. This means that organisations cannot just expect managers to exhibit suitable levels of ethical leadership because they may not have the inherent moral reasoning to do so. Developing moral reasoning in mangers will require extra effort to communicate what are suitable and unacceptable behaviours, and most importantly, why. Secondly, due to present and historical inequality, there are probably many employees with higher power-distance orientations. This means that leaders need to take extra effort, over and above the role model mechanisms typically advocated, to make sure that leadership at all levels engages with employees to create suitable ethical climates. To convince individualists that it is in their self-interest to behave appropriately, leaders must be uncompromising in their reward and punishment of suitable and unacceptable behaviour. Follower cultural orientation clearly matters in terms of leadership effectiveness
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A NOBLER GAME Words Cara Bouwer
In a world where sporting leaders are picking up the pieces in the wake of corruption and bribery scandals, Sevens rugby stands out as a beacon of competition, spirit and inclusivity. Why is that? Dipping into social media reaction to rugby’s return – after a 92year absence – to the Olympic lineup at the Rio Games in Brazil highlights the winning formula of the seven-a-side version of the game. “Women’s rugby 7s is so legit and I got hooked during the Olympics,” tweeted @thrace.
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On Instagram, @imags_mario from New Zealand declared: “You don’t need flash equipment to be the best in rugby sevens” somethings [sic] skills, talent and HARDWORK money just can’t buy from a shop!!!!” USA Sevens Rugby weighed in on Facebook after the Games, amidst the buzz that San Francisco will host the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament, by proclaiming: “Apologies to fans, but this is the real beautiful game.” Mike Stonier, Executive Development Manager at GIBS, is another fan of the quicker, slicker, more gender inclusive version of the game. “It’s pretty global and they are working hard to grow it as a sport in a sensible, developmental way,” he says. “It appears to be clean and well run and it’s played very competitively but in a wonderful, refreshing spirit.” So what are the lessons other global sporting codes could learn from Sevens? Is it really that different from the pack? World Rugby Media Manager James Fitzgerald, whose organisation is responsible for running both the 15-man game
as well as Sevens rugby, is coy about holding Sevens up as an example to the rest of the sporting world. Rather, he told Acumen from Dublin, Sevens is learning from the challenges of other sports and putting in place regulations and education programmes to enforce what he calls ‘rugby values’. “The rugby values are something we promote hugely and very enthusiastically. We are conscious that the words we use – integrity, respect, discipline, passion and solidarity – are just words unless you give them meaning and unless people can actually live those values. It’s not a PR campaign we are running with the values, they run through everything we do, whether it’s 15s or Sevens,” says Fitzgerald.
ENFORCING VALUES
One of the challenges of growing as quickly as Sevens rugby has – “we now have 7.7 million players around the world, from 5 million five years ago”, says Fitzgerald – is that new players might not necessarily be aware of these values, which is why the World Rugby governing body has taken a keen interest in educating new players, highlighting anti-corruption, anti-doping, player welfare and respect on the field. “We have a campaign called Keep Rugby Onside which is mostly an educational tool, informing players of their responsibilities and what they can and can’t do, and also making sure that the game is protected. The other aspect is monitoring, there is no point having rules and regulations if you don’t police them,” explains Fitzgerald.
PHOTO: WORLD RUGBY
Men's Rugby Sevens Series
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“In addition, every single player at that [top] level has gone through the Keep Rugby Onside education programme, all U20 players go through that as well; before they even get to play senior rugby to help them recognise when people are approaching them, and how to report anything suspicious,” explains Fitzgerald. This is an important move since underhanded approaches to young players are often subtle when it comes to match-fixing, spotfixing and the like. Given the body’s awareness programmes and monitoring, Fitzgerald says there isn’t a problem in rugby, at least at this point. “We have learned from the experience of other sports in this area and we are determined to not let this happen in rugby. It is a question of prevention rather than cure. We don’t think there is a problem of corruption in rugby, but we can’t be complacent.” Vigilance is key in a high-stakes sporting world which has been publically rocked by doping and corruption scandals from cricket to cycling, football, tennis and, most recently, the Olympics, with a particular focus on the Russian team which was later banned from participating in the Paralympics after only having a marginal presence at the Olympics. “We have seen the damage it [doping and corruption] can do to the sport,” admits Fitzgerald. “It’s important that our players know what is going on and what to watch out for. And they should know that if they do decide to go down this road we will catch them and it won’t end well for them if we do.” There is an argument that Sevens – because it is played in regions like Asia and the Middle East which are big illegal betting markets – is more susceptible to corruption, admits Fitzgerald,
Women's Rugby Sevens Series
THE DIGITAL EXPLOSION HAS ALSO BEEN VERY GOOD TO SEVENS RUGBY” but as far as they are concerned World Rugby’s Regulation 6 is solid. Regulation 6 deals with anti-corruption and betting. It was strengthened in 2012 to bring it up-to-date with modern best practice, learning from the experiences of other sports and helping to safeguard rugby against those who would harm its integrity. In some respects technology, not sport, has driven these adaptations, given the challenges around digital gambling. “Until relatively recently you had to go into a high-street bookie to place a bet, or at least make a phone call, but now it can be done instantly online from anywhere in the world,” says Fitzgerald. But the digital explosion has also been very good to Sevens rugby.
SOCIAL MEDIA’S DARLING Today many younger fans are actually consuming the game through social media, streaming on their tablets and on their phones and not being as constrained by viewing on a traditional TV set, says Fitzgerald. “This has been a really interesting aspect of Sevens that has developed in about the last five years.” Of course, some individuals still prefer to watch on the TV at home, but as digital experts know only too well, users of social media are far more passionate and engaged; and they hold brands to account. Is this the case with Sevens?
PHOTO: WORLD RUGBY
The body rolled out a comprehensive monitoring programme during the 15-a-side Rugby World Cup 2015, which Fitzgerald says proved successful. Plus they entered into a memorandum of understanding with the UK’s gambling commission and the police to share information around any suspicious activities.
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“I think that’s the same for all sports,” says Fitzgerald. “That disconnect between us and those who observe us and what we do has more or less gone, and people have direct access to us. It makes things more dynamic and quicker to change because we get a very clear sense of what works and what doesn’t work. What it probably does is it removes the middle man; it removes traditional media to a large extent as a filter for our message. Now, more and more, we can directly engage with fans. It makes it more unforgiving but on the other hand more dynamic. And the feedback is honest.” He points out that this social engagement is not the preserve of Sevens. “The 15s game has certainly mirrored this, but Sevens, I suppose, exploded on the scene at the right time for social media, while 15s had to adapt.” The new, social media-driven world has changed the way World Rugby communicates, and to whom it communicates. Perhaps this is the lesson for older sporting codes, where the likes of world football body Fifa saw the resignation of president Sepp Blatter amidst corruption allegations in early 2016 and the International Olympic Committee came under fire for its handling of the Russia doping scandal. Are older, more established sporting codes more susceptible to corruption? It’s hard to say, although they do attract more money and high-level sponsorships, as Transparency International has noted. But when it comes to consumers, and sports fans, perception is everything. And right now Sevens is seen as the fresh-faced, clean kid on the block. It’s why big sponsors like banking group HSBC have come on board as the title sponsor for the men’s and women’s series, making Sevens a commercially viable sporting code. Some would argue it’s about time. Sevens is, after all, not a new invention, it has been around since 1883, when Scottish butchers Ned Haig and David Sanderson first dreamed up the seven-man game as a fundraising event for their local rugby club. For a long time, Sevens acted simply as an ‘add-on’ to the 15-man game, a fun way for players to keep fit during the summer.
THE EVOLUTION OF SEVENS
Around the time that rugby turned professional, in 1995, Sevens was emerging as a sport in its own right. “By 1995 we already had some well-established Sevens tournaments around the world, particularly Hong Kong was already very, very popular,” says Fitzgerald, “and most unions ran various Sevens events up and down their country. So we had a really strong awareness within the rugby family.”
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Over the years the organisers have worked steadily and methodically to develop Sevens in its own right, not by moving away from the core of rugby but by celebrating the skills and unique talents needed to excel at Sevens. The realisation of the International Rugby Board’s dream to restore rugby to the Olympic programme is just the latest step in a move to globalise the game and Sevens certainly has the modern-day appeal to open up the sport to both players and fans of all ages, races, sexes and cultures. Like Twenty20 cricket, Sevens has injected new life and energy into the sport. A Twenty20 cricket fan himself, Fitzgerald welcomes the comparison. “There is a lot to compare; it’s a more dynamic sport and definitely shorter and requires probably a less nuanced understanding of the game to appreciate it. There is always a bit of razzmatazz and a party atmosphere around both compared with their longer-form cousins, and there is probably a younger profile of the people engaged in it, certainly playing and also in terms of fan engagement.” Looking to the future, and Sevens success on the Olympic stage is likely to spark further interest in the game. “It’s probably going to have less of an impact on traditional rugby heartlands like South Africa, England and New Zealand,” admits Fitzgerald, “but what our unions are telling us is that in countries where rugby is less well known, governments are getting excited about it and that is bringing more money into the game and raising the profile.” You only need to consider the impact of Fiji walking away with Olympic gold on the future of the sport where growth outside the traditional bastions of rugby is of paramount importance. Acumen spoke to Fitzgerald before the Rio Games, before Australia walked away with gold in the women’s competition ahead of New Zealand and Canada, and before South Africans celebrated an exciting bronze from the BlitzBokke, behind Britain and the golden Fijians. “We would anticipate that rugby will be one of the highlights of the Rio Games,” he said, and he was right. Those who had never watched Sevens before fell for the pace of a game comprising two compact halves of just seven minutes each, and all done and dusted in just 14 gutsy minutes. As new convert @JacobFrost17 posted on Twitter: “Just watching the Olympics, I’d much rather play sevens rugby more than full.” The challenge now is to keep Sevens’ nose clean while catering for the youngsters keen to play the game and those even keener to support it. “We are preparing our unions and they are really up to the challenge,” says Fitzgerald. Time – and Twitter – will tell if they can keep the buzz alive and the sport squeaky clean
IT APPEARS TO BE CLEAN AND WELL RUN . . . ”
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NYDA CEO Khathu Ramukumba
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NATIONAL YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AGENCY SEEKS NEW WAYS TO “CATCH” THE UNEMPLOYED Youth education and skills development is surely South Africa’s most pressing challenge. And at the helm of dealing with it, on the government’s behalf, is the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA). The numbers are sobering. Every year, 1.1 million to 1.2 million children are registered in Grade 1, but by Grade 12, approximately 500 000 remain. So more than 600 000 schoolgoers never make it to matric, with little or no prospect of employment after that. A Chartered Accountant by training, NYDA CEO Khathu Ramukumba has these figures, and more, on the tip of his tongue, but what he’d rather talk about is the strides that his organisation is making to address the problem, with the limited state resources at its disposal. As part of implementing some of the decisions taken by the last Board of Directors, Ramukumba has responded to this growing malaise by refocusing the NYDA’s away from enterprise finance towards education and skills development. To this end, money has been redirected to providing scholarships for learners who excel at school, while the YouthBuild Programme for out-ofschool youth, which offers skills in construction, has been scaled up, along with second chance opportunities for matriculants. The aim is to place 22 830 learners in education opportunities over a period of five years, which will be made up of those young people who will be assisted to rewrite their matric (21 978) and those will have their university studies fully funded through the Solomon Mahlangu Scholarship Fund (852). “Education, looking at where and how it is failing the youth, is a key issue. For the matriculants who fail, for instance, through
the NYDA NSC 2nd Chance Matric Rewrite Programme we run weekend classes, so then their chances are greatly improved when they rewrite their matric exams. We provide them with 52 hours of classroom training per subject registered.” says Ramukumba. Looking at the needs of the economy, Ramukumba is keenly aware of the tendency for matriculants to view university as the only post-school education option, and his organisation is doing its bit to correct this misconception. “It doesn’t help to go to university and get a degree that is not useful in the economy.
MONEY HAS BEEN REDIRECTED TO PROVIDING SCHOLARSHIPS FOR LEARNERS WHO EXCEL AT SCHOOL”
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So we have intensified our career guidance programme, and for those who have dropped out, skills like brick-laying, painting, welding and plumbing can be learned through the YouthBuild Programme,” he says. At the root of job creation, however, is entrepreneurship, and the NYDA is historically concerned with optimising the potential of bright young minds. It continues to do so, Ramukumba assures, with grant funding of up to R100 000 that can be used to incubate a business plan, or simply as a capital investment that could launch a business into being a sustainable enterprise. “Our budget R410 million annually, so it is limited, but we also don’t want to duplicate funding for entrepreneurs that is offered by other government departments or funding agencies. Given that most start-up businesses fail because of the burden of loan repayment, with the NYDA Grant Fund, the recipients are free of repayment obligations and are assisted to build and sustain their businesses, thus creating job opportunities. “The aim is to set young entrepreneurs on a sustainable path, as ultimately, these are future employers who grow the South African economy. For us as a government-owned entity, our real return on investment is ensuring that a young person can contribute to and improve the economy,” says Ramukumba. In partnership with Mara Mentor, the NYDA also provides nonfinancial support in the form of e-Mentoring. “An app has been created, allowing young people even in far-flung areas to develop business expertise and learn important life skills by connecting with their peers and mentors. “Technology is key to us making a bigger impact, and we are busy developing a NYDA app so people can apply easily for grants and other services online rather than having to travel to submit documents, plus we are turning all our offices into Wi-Fi hotspots. The outreach vehicle that we will be launching soon will also be a Wi-Fi hotspot and will be equipped with computers to enable young people even in rural communities to access our services.” says Ramukumba. The NYDA also works with NPO's and other organisations in partnership such as Harambee, Lullaway and Mr Price Foundation to address youth unemployment. “This helps us to ensure that young people who are outside the formal economy can access jobs, and are appropriately matched to these work opportunities,” says Ramukumba.
AT THE ROOT OF JOB CREATION, HOWEVER, IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP . . . ” Other NYDA partnerships include Primestars Marketing, a programme that provides real-life entrepreneurship training to learners from disadvantaged schools across South Africa through cinema, and the Flemish government, with a programme designed to promote youth volunteering in civil society organisations. The rationale underpinning volunteering is that it increases the chances of employment, as it helps people to network, develop interpersonal skills and gain professional experience while serving their communities. As the head of the NYDA and the driver of these and other initiatives, Ramukumba says he is always open to suggestions as to how to “catch” youths that slip through the net, and is currently running a request for proposals from the public on how to address unemployment more effectively. “I believe the best way to tackle these challenges is through partnerships and working together. In the last year we have leveraged R109 million from our various partnerships,” he says. Most importantly, Ramukumba has dramatically stemmed money lost to irregular expenses, trimming it down from R133 million to R265 000. “For the last two years, for the first time, we have had clean audits. It’s about applying proper internal processes and good governance, which I implemented from the moment I came to this office. It is also essential for the credibility and sustainability of the NYDA that we are shown to be trustworthy partners,” he says. Not least, the NYDA is soon moving office to smaller premises in Midrand, which will save the organisation about R800 000 a month in rental and expenses, money that will be reinvested in its youth programmes. To a CA like Ramukumba, this is a gratifying redirection of funds to a cause he is wholly committed to.
TECHNOLOGY IS KEY TO US MAKING A BIGGER IMPACT. . . ”
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NYDA HELPS MARULA YOUTH CO-OPERATIVE LEAD RURAL DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY OF YOUTH & PROJECTS SUPPORTED IN THE 2015/16 FINANCIAL YEAR R256m in development project disbursements
R29m disbursed in grant funding to youth and youth owned enterprises
R107m value of funds and resources leveraged from third parties (donor-funding)
Co-operatives play an important role in poverty alleviation and help to reduce inequality by empowering people
(members and their communities), by offering them a dignified and sustainable way to make a living. The National Youth
Development Agency has demonstrated its commitment to supporting co-operatives by setting aside R10 million in
Grant Programme finance for youth-owned co-operatives, particularly those in rural areas. As part of non-financial
business support, the NYDA also assists young people by means of the Youth Co-operatives Development Programme,
whereby the Agency provides support in conducting gap analysis and needs assessment, to identify performance gaps and factors that affect co-operative performance. Marula
63 412 received nonfinancial Business Support Development Services (mentorship, vouchers and Entrepreneurship Development training)
3 672 jobs created and sustained through grant funding, co-operatives and business development services
673 youth and youth owned enterprises supported through the NYDA Grant Fund
products, such as lotions and soaps, from marula plant extracts. The co-operative is run by 30 young people who
belong to the six different co-operatives collaborating on this project. Young, inexperienced farmers often struggle to keep their businesses afloat, owing to relatively high input costs,
compared to profits. The NYDA through its rural development arm is addressing this problem of small farm inefficiencies. This
is our way of focusing on youth unemployment challenges and
reaching out to the youth in rural areas, who often feel neglected, in terms of availability of opportunities. The Agency are on a
mission to enable rural youth to take control of their future.
The young people from the Marula Co-operative represent all youth who have received a hand up and used it to invest in
Co-operative, located in Thohoyandou, is one of the
their future and, in turn, their communities.
establishment, the co-operative has created over 100 jobs,
Marula Co-operative is just one of the many success stories
project. Marula Co-op manufactures cooking oil and beauty
performance target achievement for the 2015/16 financial year.
co-operatives that have been funded by the NYDA. Since its
thanks to the NYDA, which injected R1.2 million into the
@NYDARSA
National Youth Development Agency
of how the NYDA achieved another Clean Audit and 96% in
0800 52 52 52
www.nyda.gov.za
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TECHNOLOGY IMPROVES HEALTHCARE DELIVERY The application of technology can transform healthcare in Africa, improving the lives of people living in the remotest of places who need it the most.
Janie Basson, Business Development Executive
and track in real-time the custody and distribution of medical supplies as they flow from distribution centres, hospitals and clinics all the way to the community health workers. It has been implemented in the country’s central warehouses, 30 district pharmacies, 43 district hospitals, two referral hospitals and more than 500 local health centres. These facilities are using the system to create, collaborate and manage purchase orders, as well as to record daily consumption.
Since up to 40% of the total delivered cost of medicines in Africa is made up of supply chain, distribution and other non-core costs, transformation in this area is essential, stresses Janie Basson, business development executive at Resolve, an Imperial Logistics Africa group company.
The Ministry has gained unprecedented visibility and control across its end-to-end supply chain, while reducing its total cost to deploy, maintain and support this supply chain. Reduced waste and improved efficiencies as a result of more efficient supply chain management are further benefits that will be realised.
“The key challenge is visibility across the value chain, from planning to execution. Access to electronic data to make effective, timely, informed decisions is one of the critical hurdles for many African Ministries of Health to overcome. The environment is often one in which infrastructure is inadequate, computer literacy skills are very limited and there are no standard processes. This means that if an efficient public health supply chain is to be achieved, an innovative and comprehensive approach is required.”
The Rwandan Ministry of Health has significantly improved the delivery of critical medical supplies throughout the country by implementing this innovative electronic logistics management information system. Using cloud technology, the country’s public health supply chain has been transformed.
Basson says that the application of technology is starting to transform healthcare delivery in Africa, giving more people in remote areas access to treatment. “Technology solutions like those being delivered by Imperial Logistics Africa group company, Resolve, through its hosting and support of US-based technology solutions providers ONE Network Enterprises, are helping African Ministries of Health, and making a real difference in the lives of patients.”
“This mobile app helps clinics and remote healthcare facilities to manage patient records, dispense medicine, manage laboratory reports, manage stock, access remote medical resources and conduct field surveys. All this is accessible from a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet, ensuring improved visibility at the point of healthcare assistance, and not just across the preceding supply chain.
ONE Network and Resolve successfully designed, built and implemented a computerised logistics management information system that provides health commodity logistics data and order processing functionality for the Rwandan Ministry of Health. It encompasses demand planning, supply planning, inventory management, transport management and reporting. Rwanda was the first country to implement a nationwide chain-of-custody pharmaceutical supply service for HIV/AIDS medications and other healthcare products. As a result of this system, the Rwandan Ministry of Health is now able to manage
A mobile healthcare solution developed by Resolve is another technology offering that is improving healthcare service delivery in Africa, Basson says.
“The new mobile application truly is ‘last-metre’ technology that will transform healthcare delivery in remote areas in Africa. It will help providers understand their complete supply chain, allowing them to make informed decisions that will take their healthcare systems forward,” she concludes. 10 Skeen Boulevard Bedfordview 011 677 5000 Imperiallogistics.co.za GPS Coordinates 26°11’44.48”S | 28° 7’49.89”E
general management
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CHANGE JUST ISN’T ENOUGH Words James van den Heever
Social entrepreneurs aren’t motivated to make things better, they are motivated to change them completely, Professor Roger Martin told a packed auditorium at GIBS recently. Social entrepreneurship is becoming more and more popular as a new generation of idealists looks for ways to combine business’s ability to develop game-changing ideas with the need to change the way things are. The fact that business schools like GIBS now run social entrepreneurship courses shows just how much this combination of strategy and social responsibility chimes with the contemporary zeitgeist. In today’s world, being smart isn’t enough – being good is also a goal. Here’s the kicker: we no longer believe the two are mutually incompatible. Given all this, it wasn’t surprising that it was standing room only in the GIBS auditorium recently to hear Roger Martin talk on the subject, as part of the GIBS Forums series. Professor Martin is one of the leading business thinkers in the world, the Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship at the Rotman School of Management in Canada. He is also a trustee of the Skoll Foundation, which was set up by one of eBay’s founders to support social entrepreneurs driving fundamental change.
Professor Roger Martin
THIS JUST CAN’T BE
In Professor Martin’s view, the defining characteristic of social entrepreneurs, as opposed to providers of social services or social activists, is that they are simply not interested in changing things for the better. Confronted by a status quo – or equilibrium, in his phrase – that is simply unacceptable, the social entrepreneur realises that the only real solution is to change the very way things are done. For example, Kailash Satyarthi, a human rights activist fighting child labour in India, became a social entrepreneur as he returned from a raid on a company that freed 20 children, only to see a group of labour brokers taking a fresh group of children onto a train. He realised he had to change the fundamental dynamics of the situation and ultimately founded the Rugmark standard. The carpet trade is a big user of child and slave labour. Rugmark harnesses the desire of carpet buyers not to buy goods made using this kind of labour, creating a “pull” that carpet producers cannot resist.1
Social entrepreneurs are not alone. Professor Martin identified business and government as two poles of a continuum of entities driving fundamental change. Government seeks to provide a universal benefit to all its citizens using laws to mandate behaviour that benefits society, while business seeks to provide a benefit to a limited universe of those willing to pay for it (customers) in order, at least partly, to make money.
. . . NO PROJECT CAN BE SUSTAINABLE IF IT RELIES ON DONOR FUNDING . . . ”
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Social entrepreneurs occupy a middle space, borrowing elements from both as they see fit. It’s thus possible for a social enterprise to have a for-profit component these days, something that he would probably not have accepted a few years ago, Professor Martin says. “But if the aim is to transform a miserable equilibrium permanently, then I guess it is social entrepreneurship,” he said.
WHAT MAKES FOR A SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR?
The one thing we all know about entrepreneurs is that the success rates are not very high – the successful entrepreneur is usually described as a “serial entrepreneur” which, of course, means there were a lot of failures first. There’s thus considerable value in trying to understand what successful social entrepreneurs have in common. Professor Martin bases his analysis on the recipients of the Skoll Awards, presented annually by the Skoll Foundation to social entrepreneurs “whose innovations have already had significant, proven impact on pressing global problems”, to quote the organisation’s website. He discerns four distinct stages in social entrepreneurial success:
UNDERSTAND THE WORLD AS IT IS
Successful social entrepreneurs do not jump into action when they see an abhorrent equilibrium. Rather, they invest time in understanding what forces underlie the status quo, because only by manipulating those forces can transformation be effected. Balancing the tension between abhorrence of the situation, and understanding what enables it, is just one balance that social entrepreneurs must strike; they must also move between being an expert and an apprentice, and between commitment and experimentation. “Many can’t resolve these tensions,” Professor Martin says.
ENVISION THE TRANSFORMATION
Having thoroughly understood the existing situation, and committed to changing it, the social entrepreneur has to develop the clever concept that will change everything. The great danger, of course, is simply to come up with improvements.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Riders for Health offers one example of how a profound understanding of a situation can lead to a simple solution that effects the necessary sea change. The miserable equilibrium was that medicines and medical personnel were often not able to reach remote areas in Africa. The improvement route would have been to raise money for more vehicles or more personnel, but Barry and Andrea Coleman realised that the real problem was actually the state of the roads. Their solution was a fleet of motorbikes – an innovation that changed the game by reinventing the supply chain, and reduced costs.
BUILD A MODEL FOR CHANGE
In this stage, the social entrepreneur has to find a way to change the cost/value equation that currently underpins the status quo. This is essential because no project can be sustainable if it relies on donor funding: either the costs have to be reduced or increased value generated. 1
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS MUST ... MOVE BETWEEN BEING AN EXPERT AND AN APPRENTICE” Obviously, it is very hard to get this right, but without it the change will be only temporary. Fairtrade coffee manages to introduce new value into the system by asking coffee drinkers to pay a little extra for coffee sourced responsibly, which changes the economics for farmers. By contrast, Imazon addressed the problem of illegal logging in the Amazon by reducing costs. The challenge was an area so vast that loggers can construct roads and operate for years before law enforcement agencies stumble upon them. Increasing patrols is prohibitively expensive given the distances involved. Imazon’s breakthrough idea was to repurpose publicly available satellite imagery to pinpoint where illegal activity was happening in real time, and then provide the co-ordinates to the law. Imazon changed the economics of illegal logging totally because loggers no longer had years in which to recoup their investment in road and other infrastructure.
SCALE
The final component of successful social entrepreneurship is the ability to scale the solution. Without this step, the project will remain small, and its impact thus limited. It has to be faced that many projects remain small because they cannot create an economic model in which the costs are reducing – a factor that Professor Martin says is essential for long-term sustainability. Given the audience, Professor Nicola Kleyn, Dean of GIBS, asked Professor Martin what role business should or could play in relation to social entrepreneurship. His conclusion was that while it could certainly put cash and effort into solving social problems, and encourage its employees to do the same, it should also embed driving social change into the way it does business. But, as regards social entrepreneurship, he said, the best course is probably to look for social enterprises that have the right characteristics, and that make sense for their particular business. Examples are Unilever’s support of sustainable fishing standards, and the adoption of the Rugmark standard by Target and Fairtrade coffee by Starbucks.
.
“Corporates don’t have to be instigators, they can be adopters instead,” Professor Martin concluded. “There are few economies of scale in innovation.”
Sally R. Osberg and Roger L. Martin, “Two keys to sustainable social enterprise”, Harvard Business Review (May 2015), available at https://hbr.org/2015/05/two-keys-to-sustainable-social-enterprise.
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DOING BUSINESS IN ZAMBIA GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Words Dianna Games
When Zambia’s new president, Edgar Lungu, entered the presidency as an elected leader on 13 September, he was handed a poisoned chalice. The 59-year-old politician, who had earlier served as a caretaker president after his predecessor died suddenly, fought tooth and nail to keep the top job in the 2016 poll. Lungu managed to oust his closest competitor, amid claims of rigging, but with just 50.53% of the vote, compared to 47.63% for challenger, Hakainde Hichilema. This was not the overwhelming mandate he had hoped for and he needs to address the many serious challenges the country faces. The bruising battle came at a bad time for this country of 16 million people who were already facing tough times before the
polls. Now the dust has settled, Lungu has to walk a long, hard road to get Zambia’s economy back on track.
COPPER
The challenges are myriad. A long run of depressed global commodity prices has hit this resource-dependent country hard. Zambia, Africa’s second-biggest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo, relies on copper for about 70%
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Konkola Copper Mines Plc, Nchanga
dynamic markets
of its foreign exchange earnings and almost 30% of government revenue. Low copper prices have had a knock-on effect on the local currency, the kwacha, which has lost 26% of its value to the dollar in the year to August, after a similar knock in 2015, according to financial news agency, Bloomberg. This in turn has hiked the cost of imported goods on which Zambia relies. Consumers have been hard hit. Inflation had tripled to more than 20%, year on year by July. Annual food inflation alone rose to nearly 29% that month over the period. Money has become very expensive. Interbank rates in early 2016 stood at a massive 26%. And the sting in the tail has been job losses running into thousands, mostly from the once-lucrative mining sector. About 54% of Zambians live in poverty, according to the Central Statistical Office. Zambia has had a succession of new faces and parties at the top. Yet, despite this apparent good record of democratic expression, it is a country that is far from having realised its enormous potential – economically or socially. With a seventh president in the hot seat, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been called in to bail out an economy that has slumped dramatically in recent months and which still relies on donors for about a third of its budget. Zambia’s current challenges are partly due to global influences, low commodity prices in particular, and drought. But the underlying problem is years of economic mismanagement, which have left the country unable to effectively deal with economic shocks.
TOO MUCH BORROWING
Top of the IMF’s list of tasks is dealing with Zambia’s mounting debt. The government of the late Michael Sata, emboldened by the recent commodity boom and investor attention, borrowed heavily on international markets with a promise to build infrastructure. Zambia’s 2013 Eurobond issue was successful beyond the government’s wildest dreams. It was oversubscribed more than 10 times. This demand prompted a second bond issue the following year – and then a third, with yields rising significantly
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THE CHALLENGES ARE MYRIAD ” as the risk premium increased. The country is now saddled with dollar-denominated debt of more than $3 billion. According to the Ministry of Finance, Zambia’s total debt stands at $9.75 billion – $6 billion in external debt and $3.75 billion in domestic debt, up from $3.5 billion in 2011 – an increase of 176%. The money raised has not all been used wisely. Some has gone towards paying a rising government wage bill – an abiding problem for populist leaders trying to buy votes with unrealistic promises. A lack of diversification has increased revenue dependence on mining, itself undermined by government policy flip-flops, particularly with regard to tax and royalty obligations, that have had the effect of deterring new investment in the sector. This has also led to increased mistrust between miners and the government, which is using taxes to get greater revenues out of mines but has overreached itself at times, causing the industry to fight back. Zambia’s manufacturing industry remains in the doldrums, with a lack of competitiveness resulting from the country’s landlocked position. This has been exacerbated by unsupportive government policies, poor infrastructure and taxes and levies on imports and exports. Zambia ranks 152nd out of 189 countries on the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2016 rankings for trading across borders – a disappointing performance for a landlocked country reliant on regional trade.
VISITORS AND FOOD
Zambia’s competitive advantages – agriculture and tourism – have had a patchy record. The failure to build a productive, broad-based agriculture sector continues to drive rural poverty. There are pockets of commercial success but most farming still remains small scale and vulnerable to political experiments and interference in pricing, tenure and other issues. The high costs of doing business have made tourism relatively uncompetitive in the region. A dearth of infrastructure, regulation, poor health and other ancillary facilities and a lack of transport links to international destinations and between tourism attractions are other challenges. Although 33% of Zambia’s land is dedicated to 19 national parks and 34 game management areas, only three parks have been developed to any appreciable levels.
KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON
A key cross-cutting challenge for businesses in Zambia is the shortage of power. The 2008 financial crisis reduced the urgency
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Zambian President Edgar Lungu
. . . A COUNTRY THAT IS FAR FROM HAVING REALISED ITS ENORMOUS POTENTIAL . . . ” to create new energy sources as mining companies had been by far the biggest users. When production ramped up again, the shortages were worse than ever as other parts of the economy were also growing. The reliance on hydropower, particularly on Lake Kariba, has become a worsening crisis in the wake of the 2015 drought. The daily power deficit is estimated at between 600 MW and 700 MW, with forced power rationing weighing on the business sector and necessitating power imports, with adverse consequences for both the fiscal position and economic growth. The government has tried to persuade miners, by far the biggest users of the grid, to invest in their own generation. In February this year, it hiked power tariffs for mining companies by 26% to nudge them in this direction. For many, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Already battling to remain viable in the price environment, their costs rose overnight and pushed several mines into care and maintenance. There are other issues that have undermined progress in Zambia – bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, government overspending on unproductive political projects and costly subsidies among them.
THE IMF AND CHINA
Talks with the IMF were started by Sata but lost momentum after his death. Lungu has now picked up the baton. The country is looking for a $1.2 billion lifeline. Already battered by economic hardship, Zambians are worried about what an IMF deal will mean. Many remember the 1980s when the IMF put in place
onerous requirements designed to rejuvenate an economy hammered by widespread nationalisation coupled with poor governance. President Lungu has already pledged to remove or reduce energy and agricultural subsidies as part of a loan deal. This will have significant implications for inflation and will be painful in the short term. Agricultural productivity has risen on the back of subsidies but there are fears that it has also created dependence. China has been both a blessing and a curse in Zambia. Demand for copper from China, which accounts for more than 40% of global copper consumption, fuelled nearly a decade of growth in Zambia. But this has also made the country more vulnerable to China’s fortunes. The two countries have long historical ties politically and China is one of the biggest investors in Zambia, landing many lucrative infrastructure contracts. But Chinese companies are not immune to crisis, nor are they in Africa for altruistic reasons, which is sometimes assumed because of their strategy of offering attractive infrastructure offsets in return for commodities in good times. A Chinese-owned company was among the first to bail out when the going got tough, and 1 600 workers were sent home. Vedanta Resources and Glencore are others that have suspended operations, with nearly 7 000 jobs lost.
SEEN IT ALL BEFORE
None of these trends are new in Zambia. Kitwe, the biggest mining town on the Copperbelt, was built as the first service town to the mining industry in the 1930s and has seen many boombust times as have many other towns in the area, highlighting the lack of economic transformation. Zambia has been able to mask its deep-seated governance and economic challenges with a veneer of growth. It was one of the stars in the “Africa Rising” firmament, based on growth rates of more than 6% for a decade, fuelled not only by high copper prices but also by other improvements in the economy.
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CHINA HAS BEEN BOTH A BLESSING AND A CURSE. . . ” Development Agency recently announced that an increase of 45.45% in FDI inflows had been recorded in the four years from 2011 to 2015, rising from $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion, albeit most of it in mining. Zambia has an opportunity to build its tourism industry on the back of the weak kwacha and to set itself up as a manufacturing and distribution hub for its immediate region by improving the operating environment and improving policy in this regard.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
It borders eight countries and is a member of both the Southern African Development Community and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa with trade and tariff advantages from both trade blocs.
Kariba hydroelectric dam
Consultants, analysts and experts praised the government for its vision and improving governance. But now that the tide has gone out, its underlying problems have been exposed.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
There have undoubtedly been gains. The mining boom has been a catalyst for wider growth in infrastructure which, in turn, was a catalyst for rising demand for goods and services. New roads were built or upgraded, hotels and shopping centres opened up and demand for local – and imported – products escalated. Construction became the fastest-growing sector.
Investors have mostly found Zambia to be reasonably easy to access and set up in. It is small, navigable and the governments have tended to be open to repatriation of profits by foreign investors, apart from a brief period of foreign exchange controls a few years ago. One former central bank governor of Zambia said the government had recognised that “Not telling investors what to do with their money has proved to be the best incentive to get it.”
THE FUTURE
Zambia is, or should be, at a crossroads. The economy’s performance depends on what happens to the copper price. The World Bank’s outlook for Zambia is underpinned by an assumption that copper prices will remain soft through 2016 and 2017. In line with this it predicts growth of just above 3% this year, edging up to 4.2% in 2017 and 5% in 2018.
The proximity of South Africa to Zambia, similar business culture and language, overall familiarity with the environment and the success stories from South Africa, have made it an attractive destination for South African companies, regardless of its ups and downs. Zambia has long been one of South Africa’s top trade partners in Africa.
But there is a lot the president can do to make it easier and cheaper to do business in Zambia that is not dependent on the IMF, commodity prices or any other external factors. This is down to policy choices and tackling unnecessary regulation and onerous requirements and processes for companies to operate.
South African banks, franchises, hotels, supermarkets and clothing stores are all over Lusaka in particular but in some other centres too. South African goods dominate the shelves and South Africa is a key provider of, and conduit for, mining equipment.
Lungu has made all the right noises following the election. He has plans to improve industrialisation, encourage Zambia’s hub status, improve the business environment, build infrastructure and create partnerships with the private sector to improve the lives of Zambians.
Most of the development of the past few years has been in Lusaka and in the Copperbelt. Urbanisation has been, and continues to be, a key driver of growth and opportunity.
OPPORTUNITIES
There is inherent opportunity in Zambia in spite of and because of its many shortcomings, which are themselves potential market gaps. Foreign direct investment continues to flow. The Zambia
It is possible, but unlikely, that he will chart a new course. His performance as a caretaker president was unimpressive and his overzealous efforts to get votes in the 2016 poll were shameful and destructive. Bravery and efficiency are required to transform a country of much promise into a modern force in the developing world. It is not yet clear if the new president is a man of courage and vision
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TOP SIX THINGS TO SEE & DO IN ZAMBIA Words Dianna Games
VICTORIA FALLS
NATIONAL PARKS
The views of the Falls from the Zambian side are slightly different from those in Zimbabwe but equally spectacular. It is worth the walk to the Victoria Falls Bridge, which links Zambia to Zimbabwe, for great views of the Falls and the Batoka Gorge into which they spill, as well as access to adventure sports such as white-water rafting and bungee jumping.
Another popular area is the Lower Zambezi National Park on the Zambezi River about two hours’ drive from Lusaka. There are many lodges and camps but they tend to be expensive and there is little available at the low end. Many local people go up there on fishing trips and for weekend excursions to break from city life. The river is probably the main attraction but there is also a wide variety of wildlife.
These abound in Zambia but one of the most popular, arguably, is the South Luangwa National Park. This vast, unspoiled area teems with game and there are many accommodation options from camps to lodges, situated on the banks of the Luangwa River. It is quite remote and although it can be reached by road it is a long drive from Lusaka and it is easier, although expensive, to fly in.
PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK
Visit the Victoria Falls at the old town of Livingstone, established in 1905 as an industrial and cultural centre, which was the old capital of then Northern Rhodesia. The capital was moved to Lusaka in the 1930s. The town is a day’s drive from Lusaka but there are daily flights of just over an hour from Lusaka and regular flights from Johannesburg.
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REMOTE PLACES OF INTEREST LAKE KARIBA
This is another popular spot for locals to go fishing, to enjoy boat cruises and to camp in the bush on the lakeshore. The main town is Siavonga, which faces the town of Kariba on the Zimbabwean side of the border. There are spectacular views from the Kariba Dam wall and it is possible to drive across in light vehicles. The main traffic passes through the border post at Chirundu on the main highway between the countries, a crossing that is best avoided.
Western Province, known as Barotseland, is remote – on the Angolan border – but an unspoiled place to enjoy the bush. It is home to Liuwa Plains National Park, the least visited park in Zambia just because of its location. To get there requires taking a flight to the town of Mongu, the capital. It is best known for the Kuomboka traditional ceremony held annually by the Lozi tribe, a colourful festival on the river to commemorate the end of the rainy season. Another place of interest is the source of the Zambezi River in the remote Mwinilunga district in North-Western Province near the border where Zambia, Angola and the Congo meet. The Zambezi Source National Monument is located there but not much else. This is for diehard travellers. Kasaba Bay on Lake Tanganyika in Northern Zambia is another. The government has big, but as yet unrealised, plans for tourism. It is a beautiful spot and there are several accommodation options, such as Kasaba Bay Lodge, which was originally built as a retreat for the first president, Kenneth Kaunda.
Most people end up in Lusaka as it is the capital and commercial hub. But there are not many attractions in the city. It is the site of many shopping malls, mostly built by South Africans with South African anchor tenants, and people spend a lot of time socialising in the restaurants and pubs around the city, most of them in the malls. Popular places include Rhapsody’s, Zambean Coffee Co. Restaurant, Hot Wok, Bombay Lounge, the Sugarbush Café Restaurant and the Lilayi Lodge on the outskirts of the city. There is also the popular O’Hagan's pub in the Woodlands Shopping Centre. There are curio and food markets on weekends in various places, although the bigger markets are monthly. Chaminuka Game Reserve is an hour-and-a-half drive from Lusaka and popular with tourists. It has plenty of game, a boat cruise for visitors and a restaurant. A big attraction is being able to touch and mix with the cheetahs on the property.
COPPERBELT
Most people go here on business but it is an interesting area and if you have time, take a drive through the various old mining towns and along the road on the border with neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, if the security situation allows. The area has an interesting history, reflecting the fortunes of Zambia’s economic ups and downs over the years. There are various places to stay, for example at Lake Kashiba and the Nsobe Game Camp. Accommodation options are in short supply in the main mining towns. There are regular flights daily from Lusaka and direct flights from Johannesburg to Ndola
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PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK & GETTY IMAGES
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
LUSAKA
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entrepreneurship
BACK TO THE FUTURE Words Cara Bouwer
In his book, Made in America, author Bill Bryson recounts the contribution to the US car industry of one Carl Graham Fisher, who drove the building of roads across the country, including the first coast-to-coast highway. Like Fisher, the approach being touted by Pretoria-based electric vehicle – or EV – company GridCars is that it is not sufficient to make EVs available to South Africans, you also have to create the infrastructure to support the industry.
Winstone Jordaan
History tells us that with the invention of the starter motor and the discovery of oil in Texas, the US car market became dominated by petrol cars, pushing electric, as well as alternatives like steam and biofuels, into the cold for over 100 years. But now, says GridCars founder Winstone Jordaan, we are heading into another electric age. “The future is electric, there is no doubt in my mind,” he told Acumen from GridCars’ factory, housed in Pretoria’s CSIR campus.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
This view is supported by Carel Snyman, Senior Manager in charge of green transport at the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI). “The timing right now is perfect,” Snyman told Acumen. “There have been peaks in interest in alternative transportation over the years, but the most viable are EVs.” On the same day he made this pronouncement, Snyman met with National Treasury. “I was telling them we could drive on solar energy in South Africa,” says the man who was previously responsible for Eskom’s Electric Transport Programme. At a time when Eskom CEO Brian Molefe’s ‘anti-renewables’ pronouncements are priming the country for a policy debate on the future of renewable energy, the idea of ‘driving on sunshine’ is certainly topical. “It’s often said that Eskom doesn’t have enough energy, Eskom does have enough energy,” says Jordaan. In fact, Molefe recently stated that the utility had ‘surplus capacity’. Enough to power an EV revolution? “Eskom doesn’t have enough energy at the right time,” points out Jordaan. “Eskom has a distribution problem or a balancing problem. In principle, in the middle of the night we have plenty of electricity. We’ve done calculations to say that if we charged electric vehicles overnight we could charge one million EVs every single night without any impact to Eskom.”
EVE 3 Progress 96b
Notes Jordaan, who is currently enrolled at GIBS as part of the Enterprise Development Academy programme: “Right now the problem is people just plug the cars in whenever they like, and charge at central points. It’s part of a learning process.” Educating consumers starts with observations like this: “The cost of electricity per kilometre versus the cost of petrol per kilometre is between a tenth and a fifth. So if you were paying R1 000 a month for your fuel, you’d be paying R100 a month [driving an EV].” Another consideration, says Jordaan, is the fact that the cost of petrol and diesel is outside our control. South Africa’s yearly fossil fuel consumption is about 20 billion litres, he notes. “The import cost is around R135 billion and the retail value R280 billion, roughly the same as the income we make from selling all our resources. Just think if that went up by 20% next year?”
entrepreneurship
But electricity is produced locally, “so the more vehicles we can displace from our fleet of 9-million into EVs the better we can introduce economic stability and certainty”. Being part of the solution is a driving mantra for Jordaan’s approach to building the industry in South Africa, which Snyman says has only between 300 and 400 EVs on the road currently, either BMW i3s or Nissan Leafs.
THREE-PRONGED APPROACH
Like Carl Graham Fisher in the US, Jordaan is playing a long game with a focus on building the infrastructure to support EVs. “There are three things we do at GridCars,” he explains, “we write software, we build charging hardware and we build vehicles. We cycle between the three, depending on the interest.” To be anything but flexible at this point would be foolhardy. “We have to be agile. We have to be able to focus on the different aspects of the industry and focus where the industry is lacking.” Ultimately Jordaan sees GridCars as a vehicle manufacturer of their commuter car, EVE; but there is no point creating something for a market that’s not ready. “In order to build this industry we have to have hardware, charge points, and if you don’t build all three legs at the same time then you’ll never have stability,” he says. “Other people were not prepared to build those things, so that’s where we stepped in.”
THE END GAME
During the interview, I had the pleasure of test-driving EVE. She proved a nippy ride that cornered neatly and handled hills with aplomb. GridCars also has a three-wheel delivery vehicle, which packs even more of a punch. Largely a metal frame with an engine currently, EVE needs close on R100 million in development. This substantial cost is one of the reasons why South Africa’s much-hyped Joule EV never saw the light of day. Optimal Energy, the firm behind Joule, went bankrupt in 2012 after spending R350 million. The legacy of Optimal Energy continues to impact GridCars. “Every time we ask for funding we’re told ‘look what happened to Joule’, so we’ve had to get to this level on our own. We are now at the point where we don’t have to justify that we are not a flash in the pan [with revenue being generated by the software and hardware arms]. We really know this technology and we’re going to build something that will, ultimately, become a commercial vehicle on the road.” Does South Africa really need a locally produced EV? Absolutely, says SANEDI’s Snyman. “If we don’t produce here we’ll be colonised by people coming from elsewhere and then building what we can locally and then selling to us. We have a window of opportunity where Africa can start pulling itself up from its boot straps,” says Snyman, whose role is to help create a favourable environment “for these vehicles to enter and be competitive”; hence ongoing discussions with the DTI to reduce import tax on EVs.
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THE COST OF ELECTRICITY PER KILOMETRE VERSUS THE COST OF PETROL PER KILOMETRE IS BETWEEN A TENTH AND A FIFTH” Jordaan’s EVE is not as fancy as existing models or the Tesla Model 3 EV, which is due in South Africa in 2017. EVE is a true commuter car. Designed for one person, it would be 100% electric with a range of 80km. Range, admits Jordaan, is still the biggest challenge to EV manufacturers. Fortunately, there are about 60 charge points between Pretoria and Joburg alone, he tells me, plus numerous points in office parks and shopping centres, like Melrose Arch. BMW, with whom GridCars has worked to establish public charging points, “actually has an App in their vehicles with a spider graph around you which shows how far you can drive in any direction with your current charge level, and it shows charge stations within that range. Great for city driving.”
NUTS AND BOLTS
The interview wrapped up in GridCars’ workshop, where conversion was underway on a single-cab bakkie from full petrol to full electric. As Jordaan and his mechanical engineer, Marius van Vuuren, explained the complex process, a good humoured picture emerged of a small company populated by people doing something they love. They enthused about buying new vehicles and taking them apart; very Big Bang Theory I thought, a view supported by Jordaan’s disclosure that he is, by education, a physicist. “Like Sheldon Cooper?” I ask. “Yes,” he says, rolling his eyes. A graduate of Rhodes, Jordaan studied physics, mathematics and computer science, all of which have served him well on this journey which started “when I was about 10”. He got serious around 2002 and started GridCars six years ago: “From 2010 I started not just putting money in but also paying others to work for me and grow the business and get us to the point where we can start being profitable.” There is a big picture view to GridCars’ plan of action, a ‘Fisheresque’ approach if you will, and Jordaan is confident it will pay off. “The future does lie with EVs, there is no doubt. The debate for me lies in timelines,” he says. “Be it in three years or 20 years, EVs will claim their rightful place in the automotive landscape.” So watch out for EVE
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TO BREAK THE RULES, YOU MUST FIRST MASTER THEM. THE VALLÃ&#x2030;E DE JOUX. FOR MILLENNIA A HARSH, UNYIELDING ENVIRONMENT; AND SINCE 1875 THE HOME OF AUDEMARS PIGUET, IN THE VILLAGE OF LE BRASSUS. THE EARLY WATCHMAKERS WERE SHAPED HERE, IN AWE OF THE FORCE OF NATURE YET DRIVEN TO MASTER ITS MYSTERIES THROUGH THE COMPLEX MECHANICS OF THEIR CRAFT. STILL TODAY THIS PIONEERING SPIRIT INSPIRES US TO CONSTANTLY CHALLENGE THE CONVENTIONS OF FINE WATCHMAKING.
ROYAL OAK OFFSHORE CHRONOGRAPH IN PINK GOLD AND CERAMIC.
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THE POWER OF A CHECKLIST Words Professor Adrian Saville
The real power of an investment checklist comes when you have to take an investment decision in a noisy moment or during a time of panic or crisis – think Nenegate and Brexit! The checklist reminds you of principles established in unstressed times with a clear head, and it allows for the application and enforcement of those principles. While the elements of a checklist will vary from individual to individual, along with geography and asset class, there are some good founding principles.
1. Start by reminding yourself that a
track record, whether good or bad, gives no assurance of future return. Returns are the consequence of investment philosophy and process and whilst past returns can be a guide, they are never a guarantee. In short, you don’t ever want to make an investment decision – to buy or sell – on the basis of past returns.
2. If returns are the consequence of
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
investment principles, then what you invest in should be guided by an investment philosophy. A checklist means that you buy into a philosophy that holds water, and which is coherent and consistent.
3. If you agree with the philosophy
and it makes sense for what you are
trying to build, then the next item on the checklist requires that there is a coherent, repeatable process behind the investment you’re going into.
4. Then, does the investment comply
with the principle of WYSIWYG – that “What You See Is What You Get”. Just because an investment says, for instance, that it’s a money market fund is no guarantee that it is actually a money market fund without any caveats or qualifications. A great case in point was the Bear Stearns Income Fund, which was offering a slightly higher than money market yield in the early part of the noughties going into the global financial crisis. Whilst a money market or income fund is normally a low-risk investment, the manager of this fund was taking perverse risk by using derivative instruments to achieve a slightly elevated yield – by slightly, I mean no more than a fraction of a per cent.
. . . BE SURE THAT WHAT’S WRITTEN ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE CAN IS ACTUALLY WHAT’S ON THE INSIDE OF THE CAN”
When the crisis struck the derivative instruments effectively wiped out the entire value of the fund. In short, this was anything but a safe, high-yielding cash portfolio – rather it was a highly leveraged derivative instrument vehicle. A critical item on the checklist is that you need to be sure that what’s written on the outside of the can is actually what’s on the inside of the can.
5. The next element in the checklist is
to recognise that philosophies and processes are always the consequence of individuals or teams. So whilst I’m suggesting that we don’t give undue weight to a track record, we rather give weight to the experience, record and history of the individuals and teams responsible for looking after the asset. I would venture that there is no substitute for experience. Has the investment manager walked through some tough times, been stress tested and challenged by turbulent settings? And have they emerged in sound shape?
6. The next item is independence.
One of the most risky attributes of any investment is where the decision is compromised by a lack of independence. Your investment manager or team needs to be able to allocate assets and make decisions without, for instance, being beholden
strategy
to a shareholder looking over their shoulder or be compromised by a conflict of interest.
7. For more sophisticated investors and products, your checklist needs a due diligence component. This requires that we actually go and kick the tyres, see that the brass plaques are screwed to the wall and that there are bums on seats. Check that the capital that is being allocated sits in a watertight investment vehicle where all the risks have been mitigated, so that if, for instance, an investment management business fails, your investment remains safe by being “off balance sheet”.
8. Then, remember that fees can be a silent but pernicious corroder of investment performance. Check what you are paying for the result, and not just the return, but the return net of all total expenses. Look for the acronym TIC – Total Investment Cost. What is the total cost of being invested in this
vehicle, including any advisory fees, brokerage fees and management fees? Nor should you confuse performance and fees. A fantastic investment performance with high fees is a far better result than a very average investment performance with rockbottom fees.
9. A final element on the checklist is diversification, and this aspect is particularly valuable in moments of panic or euphoria. In moments of euphoria, we often want to concentrate our investments, putting all of our capital on a single great idea. In moments of panic, we often want to pull our capital out completely, not recognising that assets will generally right themselves and when they right themselves, they will continue to be very powerful compounders. The checklist reminds us of the importance of being consistent in our diversification and sticking to our investment principles through the cycle. This means that if you get into
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a stressed environment, you don’t sell all your equities and rush to cash, and if you get into an euphoric runaway market you don’t shift all of your cash into equities. Both trends will reverse and, when they reverse, all of the benefits of diversification are undone.
10. Finally, not so much a checklist item but just a reminder that if you have all of the above elements in place, then they will go a long way to bring into force one of the most important principles or platforms for successful investing. It doesn’t start with the question “How much can I make?” but rather with “How much can I lose?” What this checklist does is set us up to be consistent, disciplined, clear-minded and effective in our application through all investment cycles and through different investment settings. That, in turn, allows us to start out in the investment action by protecting first against downside, which makes us so much more powerful in capturing upside
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JUMP THE QUEUES
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future
THE QUEST FOR INNOVATION (A.K.A THE SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL) Words Dion Chang
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
In a digital era, innovation has become the lifeblood of 21st century business. It can define, or more importantly, redefine the future trajectory of any company. Earlier this year I went on an innovation tour of the top-performing companies in New York City, across multiple industries. The aim was to find the golden thread linking all these game-changing companies. It was not what I expected. In 2011, then Nokia CEO Stephen Elop sent an internal memo to the company’s employees, which was later leaked. The now famous “burning platform” memo went viral and has since become the blunt warning to all companies not to be complacent in an era of constant and rapid disruption. These are some of the insights in that memo, which today apply to all companies, regardless of industry:
its feature phone assets to FIH – a subsidiary of Taiwanese firm Foxconn Technology – and HMD Global for $350 million. HMD now has access to FIH’s manufacturing and engineering capabilities, mobile technology, and distribution network. Nokia no longer manufactures its own devices but instead is left with licensing its intellectual property. These, one could say, are just the pitiful, remaining ashes of that burning platform.
“We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven’t been delivering innovation fast enough. We’re not collaborating internally. Nokia, our platform is burning.”
SPEED IS ALL
“While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.” In 2014 Microsoft eventually purchased Nokia’s mobile device unit for $7.2 billion, only to change tack in May 2016 and sell
So while BlackBerry has experienced a similar burning platform, it’s not just mobile or tech companies that are susceptible to the lick of these game-changing flames. Every industry is in the firing line, and it’s not a case “if ” but “when”. However, keeping an eye on future disruption is, ironically, seen as a luxury for most companies. A cruel combination of a sluggish and volatile global economy, coupled with disruptive technologies (which can change business models overnight), and the very real “rise of the machines” (which are already eroding jobs), makes simply surviving these turbulent times a badge of honour. Sadly, keeping afloat, or simply improving what you’re doing, is no longer enough. We’ve moved into an era where it’s no longer about big versus small, but fast versus slow. In many industries – like banking – the realisation that your biggest threat is no longer from within your own industry creates this ubiquitous quest for
future
innovation. However, companies that do manage to innovate are few and far between. The innovation tour of New York was illuminating, specifically because I visited companies across all industries: from advertising agencies to architectural firms to cutting edge retail operations. It was an intense week. I visited just over 50 companies, but the golden thread was evident – and surprising. The quest for innovation, it seems, is generally misdirected. Some large corporations have the luxury of having an innovation hub as a separate department, dedicated at looking for ways and means to innovate the business. But innovation hubs can, oddly enough, be counterproductive because inevitably, the task and responsibility of innovating is left to that department. It’s presumed that they will devise a silver bullet that will magically change the trajectory, and therefore the fortune, of the company. The rest of the company then sit and wait for this holy grail to be discovered, divorcing themselves from the process.
WHERE IDEAS COME FROM...
All of the innovative companies in New York create an enabling environment for good ideas to emerge – from anyone in the company – and that requires a very different form of leadership and management. This brings into question the operating systems (OS) of corporate business, many of which are legacy companies, whose badge of honour is having been in existence for 70 or more years. However, we’ve crossed over into a new world order and, as a Yale University report states, “a Fortune 500 company in 1920 had an average lifespan of 67 years, whilst today that lifespan has been reduced to 15 years”. Legacy companies adhere to a rigid 20th century management template. They are hierarchal and siloed, and as a result, are lumbering behemoths: a far cry from the agile OS of companies spawned in a digital era. Hierarchal structures are fast becoming a relic of 20 century business, especially because they inhibit creative thought. You no longer want to climb the corporate ladder to eventually become “the king of the castle”. Instead, you should rather strive to be the “centre of the circle” with your teams orbiting around you, which short circuits decision-making. Flat management structures allow for ideas to emerge from any employee, no matter what their position is in the company. But for ideas to emerge, departmental silos within companies have to be removed. There needs to be a free-flow of communication inside a company. In many large corporations the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, which means employees have less of an understanding of the company’s evolving OS, and in a disruptive era, a company’s OS should be constantly evolving, or be regularly appraised. th
Without a holistic understanding of a company’s OS, the employees remain mere cogs in the system and have no clue in which direction the company intends to grow, or pivot. Without this clarity, the workforce becomes detached from the company’s purpose, and therefore can’t connect to their jobs with any passion, and passionate employees are the key ingredients for innovation.
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Steve Garguilo, leader of Creative Engagement at Johnson & Johnson – a company that believes innovation is every employee’s job – says, “If people are working on something they’re passionate about, that they feel ownership on and autonomy around, they’re absolutely going to be more engaged. We find that when people are following passions, even if it’s for a portion of their work, it absolutely affects the rest of their work.”
...AND WHERE IDEAS GO
When good ideas do arise, employees then need the backing and support from decision-makers, not only financially but in terms of resources as well as commitment. In many cases innovation fails because a decision-maker, who championed an idea and kick-started a process of change, leaves the organisation, only to be replaced by someone who does not share the vision or appetite for change, and derails the process. The cost of this derailment doubles for the company: there is a financial cost as well as an emotional cost as employees feel increasingly demotivated. In terms of employees, innovation also requires a very different skill set. New, agile businesses are increasingly using the mantra of, “hiring for attitude and retraining for skills”. If your OS is to become adaptive rather than rigid, then hybrid skills are needed. Agile companies search for critical thinkers and problem solvers (business in a digital era brings with it far more complex challenges) with soft skills such as communication, ownership, and teamwork, and a waning reliance, or need, for academic credentials. Gerald Seegers, Director of Human Resource Services at PwC Southern Africa, notes that, “The gap between the skills of the current workforce and the skills businesses need to achieve their growth plans is widening. Chameleon-like employees who apply their skills whenever and wherever they’re needed are now in high demand.” Current corporate mindset does not encourage “chameleon-like employees” nor value hybrid skills. They understand the need for innovation, but don’t realise that they are standing on a gold mine of innovation: their workforce and company culture. But accessing and mining that resource requires a rethink, and restructuring, of leadership. The future of work looks nothing like our current 9-to-5, forty-hour work week. Work-life flexibility has replaced the quest for work-life balance. Remote working, compressed work weeks, work swarms and gig workers are just some of the new work options that are more suited to the digital era and the knowledge workers that now feed it. Contrary to the concerns of management, allowing people to work differently boosts productivity and increases engagement, which in turn makes for happier and more creative employees. And that’s when innovation sparks, naturally. Generally, corporate structures don’t allow for new ideas to emerge from within, and specifically for those ideas to bubble upwards. Traditional corporate culture believes in the trickledown effect.
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It’s not surprising that the flow of innovation is, at best, a mere trickle
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FLOATING CITY Words Caroline Hurry
The aesthetic past is always present in Venice, an archipelago of decaying beauty slowly succumbing to the sea.
Venice
A veritable Gomorrah of frowsy furbelow, Venice – its temples and palaces, according to Percy Bysshe Shelley “like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven”– is a magnet for poets, lovers, tourists, pigeons and thieves.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
And here, you have to hand it to them. The San Marco pickpockets – among the most skilled in the world – nimbly lifted 100 euros from my purse, while I paid for a T-shirt – making it the most expensive in my wardrobe. The tanned gondoliers are more upfront about parting tourists from their money – 70 euros for my husband and me – but Venice wouldn’t be the same without a glide in one of these sleek, black boats, each with unique trim and curvy oarlock. You can see the wooden oars being carved in a shop just behind San Marco’s Piazza, a tourist tabernacle of mosaic and marble, where sunlight bouncing off the golden angel atop the bell tower bathes domes and spires in an iridescent benediction. We drank coffee, listening to the melodic strains of a string quartet.
Burano
In this exquisite city that seems miraculously built on water, the light is an alchemist blending slimy brick, dirt and battered agate, into rosy tones and romantic dereliction. Capital of Italy’s northeastern Veneto region, Venice comprises an archipelago of 117 small islands separated by canals and linked by more than 400 bridges. Boats bustled along the rippling emerald Grand Canal, as we ate gelato, explored the Rialto Bridge, fish market, Lido boardwalk, and Bridge of Sighs, the name given by Lord Byron who suggested prisoners would sigh at their final view of Venice before being taken down to their cells. “Under the day’s azure eyes” (Shelley’s prose) we traversed an emerald lagoon across to Burano to find the gaily painted houses of a fishing community and little old ladies sitting outside their cottages making lace. Our waterbus tour also stopped at Murano, famous for its glass since the
San Marco's Square
11th century when their craftsmen were the only Europeans able to make the mirrors, enamelled glass (smalto), glass with threads of gold (aventurine), multicoloured glass (millefiori), milk glass (lattimo), and imitation gemstones, evident in all the shops scattered along the little cobbled streets. We enjoyed glass-blowing demonstrations at a factory where skilled artists honed their talents into a myriad of shapes and colours a few feet from us. Naturally, I treated myself to a Murano ring as a souvenir. Despite the daily invasion of tourists that flood Venice, many districts retain their village sensitivities with butchers and bakers rather than the ubiquitous Venetian mask and glass shops, but even at peak visitor times, you’re never more than a bridge and an alley away from more secluded squares (campi), 16th century Gothic palaces and wine bars. I couldn’t imagine living here for too long – think of the damp – but dreamy Venice is a poetic antidote to a surfeit of reality.
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LOVE-LOCKED IN CINQUE TERRE Words Caroline Hurry
Higgledy-piggeldy hamlets on the Ligurian coast provide a hilltop haven overlooking the Med. Italian sweethearts scratch their names on a padlock and fling the keys into churning waters, hence all the locks festooning the Rialto Bridge in Venice, the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, and the Cinque Terre. Mary Shelley took her pledge of fidelity even further. When her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned in the Bay of Spezia in 1822 sailing home from Lord Byron’s casa, she carried his heart – snatched intact from his funeral pyre on the beach – everywhere with her. Said organ – in an advanced state of decomposition, I’d imagine – was found wrapped in a page of poetry among Mary’s possessions, a year after her death in 1852. The troubled poet apparently refused help from a passing boat. Was it suicide? I wondered, as we took a train from the Bay of Spezia for the Cinque Terre, a UNESCO Heritage Site.
compared with lively Monterosso or Riomaggiore with its colourful harbour. Manarola, which seems to lean into the sea, is probably the most picturesque, while an inland hike to Vernazza’s 13th century Reggio Sanctuary will take you along ancient donkey tracks, past tiny shrines and chapels. Pastel-hued apartments, churches, and castles rub stone shoulders with olive groves, vineyards and lemon orchards that bisect ancient terraced cliffs where butterflies flit amid pink oleanders and palms. You can hike vertiginous paths that link the villages and afford breathtaking views – the dell 'Amore pedestrian street joining Riomaggiore and Manarola has reopened after a landslide in 2012 – but why bother when the 19th century railway line that cuts through coastal tunnels, gets you there in minutes?
Strung along a rugged stretch of coastline, all five car-free, medieval villages are within a two-hour walk from the other. Corniglia is the quietest,
On part of the railway line between Rome and Genova, at least one train goes in both directions every hour, stopping at Riomaggiore, Monterosso and La Spezia, but only regional trains stop in Manarola,
Vineyard, Cinque Terre
Manarola
Corniglia and Vernazza. Every station offers a free printed timetable. We descended the Monterosso station steps down to the beach promenade along the Via Fegina, passing fruit and gelato stalls before strolling through a mural-festooned pedestrian tunnel to Monterosso’s old town where alleyways – caruggi – offered cool respite while a piazza with al fresco tables under umbrellas, invited lazy limoncellocharged contemplation. At Monterosso’s Punta Mesco, just north of the beach at Fegina, a century-old statue of Neptune looms over the bay. His arms and trident were lost to bombs during World War II yet still he clings to a boulder, seemingly part of the Cinque Terre landscape. If you have the energy to climb hundreds of steep stone steps, it’s easy to strike out on your own. All the well-marked paths offered gasp-inducing vistas. On a day trip in November we found the area relatively quiet but apparently from April to October the five villages heave with tourists, and pickpockets at the stations are spoilt for choice
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Love locks
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THE FINER THINGS Words Cheska Stark
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
HIS CHECKLIST 1.
Boat shoe, R999, Country Road Boat shoes are all about the situation that you wear them in – casual, cool, summer days. Pair them with shorts or chinos.
2.
Weekender bag, R3 599, Trenery Crafted in rich Italian suede with leather trimmings, this bag makes heading out of town that much cooler.
3.
Golf shirt, R1 399.95, Tommy Hilfiger A goft shirt is a staple that you can never have too many of and this one is ideal to add to your collection.
4.
Wallet, R450, Old Khaki Up your look by getting a whole new wallet – the cool threading gives it an updated feel and it’s always a good idea that your everyday accessories are modern.
5.
Persol Sunglasses, R3 190, Luxottica This Persol pair has a half-and-half frame and is bang on-trend now so embrace the look and wear them everywhere.
6.
Linen shirt, R1 499, Polo This linen shirt’s pattern may be a little out there for some, but look again – we aren’t asking you to pair it with red pants (although you could, of course), but with a great pair of jeans or chinos and you will seriously be the part.
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Hip flasks, R250, cocktail shaker, R299, Woolworths Bring something fun into your home for the silly season. This cocktail shaker and hip flasks are super stylish – especially that amazing rose gold; so, go on, add one to your man cave.
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Jeans, R2 499.99, Scotch & Soda Scotch & Soda has really got this right – the shape, the colour and that perfect turn up. The lighter colour is a great new wash for summer, freshening up your summer look.
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HER CHECKLIST 1.
Little Black Dress, R1 299, Witchery The one item of clothing every woman should own: a killer little black dress. (Think Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.) This wardrobe classic’s elegant shape suits any figure while its ideal length will get you into work or out afterwards to Christmas parties and beyond.
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Mid-heels, R1 199, Trenery It’s all about the mid-heel this summer, so go for it! This 100% leather pair is perfect for dressing up or down.
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Peplum top, R799, Country Road If it is a slimming line that you are after (and aren’t we all) then this broderie peplum top is for you. The magical thing about a peplum is that it clenches the waist – your slimmest area – and then flows over, hiding the rest.
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Clutch, R1 199, Mango OK, the secret is out: white bags are hot this season. Seen all over the catwalk, now it’s your time to turn that trend into reality. While an oversized white bag may be a little over the top, a cool white clutch, like this one, is easily incorporated into your existing wardrobe.
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Limited-edition Hand Therapy, R150, Crabtree & Evelyn Available in three festively fragranced limited-edition scents, this richly restorative hand cream conditions with shea butter and ceramides. Its intensive, ultra-moisturising formula leaves hands feeling soft, nourished and delicately scented.
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Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, R3 490, Sunglass Hut Updating your sunglasses every season will give you a fresh, modern look. These Dolce & Gabbana ones tick all the boxes: one: cat-eye shape – you can’t go wrong with cat eye. Two: Half frame, half not… this is bang on-trend right now, and three: interesting arms, just to add an extra little interest.
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Printed scarf, R199, Poetry Adding a usual accessory to your look is an easy way to add some interest. This printed scarf does just that, without being too out there.
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Espadrilles, R700, Espadrilles.co.za These shoes may not be work- or office-friendly but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a place in your wardrobe. Espadrilles are the casual shoes for summer – worn with shorts, jeans, dresses or skirts
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FORWARD MOTION Photographs Jacques Marais Words Jacques Marais and Stephen Smith
With or without an internal combustion motor, here are half-a-dozen ways to get ahead (and stay ahead) of the pack. Funky or fun. Far-fetched or absurd. Classic or alternative. Acumen’s motion maestros check out six incredible ways of having fun while moving from point A to point B…
HUMAN-POWERED
ON YOUR FEET: ALTRA MEN’S SUPERIOR 2.0 SHOE WHAT IS IT: The Altra Men’s Superior 2.0 Shoe is designed specifically for trail running, hiking, backpacking and off-road racing. This low-profile, flexible shoe moulds to your foot, both above and below – like a moccasin, enabling you to glide lightly over the terrain while protecting you from impact with superior cushioning.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
WHY DO YOU WANT IT: The FootShapeTM toe box lets your toes relax and spread out in uphill and downhill trail conditions, while the fully cushioned Zero DropTM platform helps you maintain proper form across long distances. TrailClawTM outsole technology features canted lugs beneath your metatarsals for ultimate grip in gnarly terrain. A StoneGuardTM rock protection plate shields your feet from sharp rocks, but can be removed.
ON YOUR BODY: ICEBREAKER MEN’S TECH T-LITE SHORT-SLEEVE SHIRT WHAT IS IT: The Icebreaker Men’s Tech T-Lite Cadet is the ultimate travel shirt, and I can vouch for this. This technical garment is made from natural, lightweight 150gm merino fabric, and can therefore be worn either as a single layer in summer or an organic base layer when cooler weather demands. WHY DO YOU WANT IT: The Tech T-Lite now features core-spun fabric, constituting soft merino wool fibres wrapped around a nylon core, thus enhancing durability and longevity. The natural merino weave means you can wear it several times between washing, so no more searching for a laundromat while on your road trip.
DESIGN USPs: An additional 3mm of foam added to the midsole gives this shoe a more aggressive tread. The weight has been reduced to a mere 247g by using lighter foam and reducing the overlays on the upper, but without sacrificing any flexibility. This malleability, combined with the wide forefoot and low heel keeps your footing stable despite the soft underfoot feel.
DESIGN USPs: The ultra-light fabric comprises 87% merino wool with 13% nylon core-spun, thus weighing in at a mere 163g. The garment can be machine-washed and dries fast even in the shade. Add to this the UPF 30+ rating and you get a T-shirt that provides excellent protection against harmful ultraviolet rays.
GO GET IT : Contact Altra Footwear for a list of retailers – Info@altrafootwear.co.za
GO GET IT: A list of retailers is available at Adventureinc.co.za
PRICE: R 1 999
PRICE: R 879
OVER YOUR SHOULDER: THE CLIK ELITE ESCAPE 2.0 CAMERA BAG WHAT IS IT: The Clik Elite Escape 2.0 is a versatile multi-adventure pack suitable for the outdoor photographer who goes where others rarely dare to tread. Get it and go seek your own unique adventure. WHY DO YOU WANT IT: The Escape 2.0 is perfect for anything from lofty peak ascents, to canyon rappels and trail expeditions. You’re guaranteed rapid access, flexible organisation, mobile comfort and high performance, with dual full-length zippers allowing rapid access to pack space. Partially unzip to access your camera body and attached lens, or fully open to reveal the entire contents of the pack and enable a mobile workstation. DESIGN USPs: A spacious organiser top pocket with double-access points allows entry from the top when closed, or from underneath when the pack lid is open. An ergonomically shaped, curved back-panel imparts amazing fit and balance, alleviating pressure points on back and distributing weight effectively for an optimal centre of gravity. Shoulder straps, layered with ultrabreathable PercoFoamTM, allow ventilation and aid moisture dissipation, while virtually eliminating heat, sweatiness and pressure spots. GO GET IT: Available from Nativesport.co.za PRICE: R 3 680
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FOR THE HEAD
FOR THE HEART
FOR THE PLANET
MOTORISED On the motorised side, we look at three machines similar at first glance, but with many a difference under the hood, so to speak. Read on and see which appeals to your soul... We’ve mixed things up a bit this month, with a selection of (fairly) affordable cars that should appeal to just about everyone! FOR THE HEART: VOLKSWAGEN GOLF GTI CLUBSPORT WHAT IS IT: Basically, VW decided to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original GTI by creating the most powerful, fastest GTI ever – enter the Clubsport. WHY DO YOU WANT IT: The regular Golf GTI is an incredibly well-designed and manufactured vehicle, but has become a victim of its own success – there are just too many of them around to be noticed. The Clubsport manages to stand out, no matter what other cars are in the crowd. DESIGN USPs: At its heart the Clubsport is a Golf 7, which means it’s a practical hatchback that can seat five and still have room for their baggage. But that’s where sensible ends, thanks to 195kW and 380Nm being wrangled out of the familiar 2-litre turbocharged petrol engine. On top of this, the engine is capable of an ‘overboost’ function, delivering 10% more power for bursts of 10 seconds! A bespoke bumper kit, side skirts and rear black diffuser add a unique look, aided by 18-inch alloy wheels, and improved down force at pace. GO GET IT: The Clubsport is priced at R541 520, and a 5-year/90 000km service plan and 3-year/120 000km warranty are standard. Visit Vw.co.za for more information.
FOR THE HEAD: HONDA HR-V
FOR THE PLANET: RENAULT CAPTUR DCI
WHAT IS IT: The HR-V is Honda’s compact SUV that builds on the success of the larger CR-V and the smaller family hatch, the Jazz.
WHAT IS IT: Renault’s Captur is a sexy little urban crossover, with raised ground clearance (200mm) and a vague SUV look about it. The dCi is the turbo-diesel version, recently launched in South Africa and capable of incredible fuel consumption.
WHY DO YOU WANT IT: You’ve had a baby and your family no longer fits into your Honda Jazz. Or, you’ve taken up mountain biking and your kit no longer fits into your Jazz. Or your kids have finally moved out and you no longer need the extra space of the CR-V. Basically, if you’re looking for a compact SUV, the HR-V should be on your shortlist.
WHY DO YOU WANT IT: The Captur looks and feels great, it’s spacious and very well specced for the price, in terms of both gadgets and safety. One feature that shows the engineers were thinking when they designed this lifestyle vehicle is the zip-off seat covers. When your seats are dirty, zip off the covers DESIGN USPs: As a compact SUV, the HR-V and pop them in the washing machine. And doesn’t do anything radically different from so that you can carry on driving your Captur, there are more seat covers underneath them! most of its competitors, except for in the back. There Honda has used their ingenious DESIGN USPs: The fantastic turbo-diesel ‘Magic Seat’ system, which quickly and engine in the dCi Captur is another reason to easily gets the seats folding properly flat buy one. With over 1 million units made every – I don’t know why no-one else can do it year, this engine is also used by Nissan and this well. The HR-V is available with either even Mercedes, and it is brilliant. With power a 1.5-litre (88kW/145Nm) or a 1.8-litre output of 66kW and torque of 220Nm it goes (105kW/172Nm) petrol engine, with only a very well, but if you are careful with your right CVT (continuously variable transmission) foot you could still achieve fuel consumption gearbox – basically an automatic. Claimed figures of just 3.6L/100km, and gas emissions fuel consumption is 6.2L/100km and of just 95g/km. That’s good for your wallet and 6.8L/100km for the 1.5 and 1.8 respectively. the planet! A 5-speed manual gearbox is the only available pairing with the diesel engine. GO GET IT: You’re looking at R328 900 for the 1.5 Comfort or R389 200 for the 1.8 GO GET IT: Captur prices start at R249 900, Elegance, including a 3-year/100 000km while the dCi Dynamique is R289 900. Prices warranty and 4-year/60 000km service include an impressive 5-year/150 000km plan. Visit Honda.co.za for warranty and a 3-year/45 000km service plan. more information. Visit Renault.co.za
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TECHNO Words Aki Anastasiou
MOTOROLA MOTO Z
The pioneers of the mobile phone are back! Price R12 000-R 13 000. Moto Mods from R5 000. Motorola’s Martin Cooper, also known as the father of the mobile phone, was instrumental in introducing the world’s first truly portable phone device. Back in 1973, he introduced a prototype known as the DynaTec. It weighed 1.1kg, was 13cm deep, 23cm long and 4.45cm wide. With 30-minute talk time, it took 10 hours to charge. (Please, if you had one, don’t tell your colleagues – you’d be giving your age away.) In 2016 Motorola is a completely different company. Bought by Chinese giant Lenovo in 2014 for $2.9 billion, the pioneer of the mobile phone industry is resurfacing with some amazing innovation. Pushing the innovation boundaries is the new Moto Z – the world’s thinnest premium smartphone, it comes in an all-metal design with a 5.5-inch Quad HD screen, a zippy fingerprint reader built into the home button, a 13-MP camera and 30-hour battery life. But this is not where the innovation ends. It’s modular – you can add accessories, just like you would add and connect Lego blocks on top of each other. These are called Moto Mods, literally sticking together like two magnets, thanks to the innovative connectors at the back of the Moto Z. Motorola has partnered with legendary Swedish camera manufacturer Hasselblad to give the phone an advanced imaging experience as well as 10X optical zoom. There is also a Moto Mod partnership with JBL to turn your phone into a mini boom box, but the Mod that impressed me the most was the Insta-Share projector. The phone instantly turns into a movie projector with up to a 70-inch size and amazing clarity. These Moto Mods are impressive and easy to use – they don’t come cheap but the quality of the products make them a worthwhile investment.
IPHONE 7
New camera, faster processor and you can shower with it
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Price – Come on, do you really care? You’re going to upgrade anyway. Apple’s latest iPhone may look like the previous version but don’t be fooled by the exterior. Under the hood is Apple’s A10 Fusion chip which makes this new phone lightning fast and more efficient on the battery. The camera enhancements are especially significant on the 7 Plus model which comes with a dual camera system that includes a wide-angle lens as well as a telephoto offering fast-zoom functionality. They have a waterproof IP67 rating which means they are water-resistant as opposed to being waterproof. Basically it means you should be able to shower with it for 15 minutes before it stops functioning. Apple has also decided that the future is going to be wireless and has taken away the headphone jack. The new headphones plug into the lighting port. Audiophiles, don’t stress, Apple will be including a convertor plug for those wanting to use their own high-end headphones. The new iPhone 7 is beautiful and sleek and has more rounded edges. Should you upgrade? Absolutely! The new processor speed and camera enhancements are worth it. Expect fireworks at next year’s iPhone launch. They celebrate their 10th birthday and having already passed the 1 billion phones sold to date, I’m expecting something extraordinary from Apple next year.
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LG 55-INCH 4K TV (OLED55E6V)
The 4K television you’ve been waiting for Price R50 000 Now that you have digested the price, let me tell you about this gorgeous television. The truth is that most of us have been waiting for a reason to upgrade our exitsing Plasma, LED or HD Ready televisions. But 4K has been expensive up to now. You will find OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen technology in all your top high-end devices like the Samsung S7 and top of the range iPads. On my recent trip to IFA, Europe’s biggest tech show, I stood under a tunnel made up of LG’s 4K OLED televisions. It felt like I was in the Karoo stargazing. I was completeley mesmerised with the effect they created of a starlit sky using televisions. This is what OLED delivers so well. Vibrant colours that are so natural you see them and a perfect, rich black. This is possible because every single LED is individually controlled and has 20 levels of brightness. This is what makes the experience of watching television on an OLED television so much more appealing. Apart from the amazing visual experience LG’s built-in operating system WebOS 3.0 is integrated with most online services like YouTube and Netflix and has a plethora of functionality to share content on the screen. The sound on the new LG range has been designed by Harmon Kardon giving the viewer a premium audio experience. The contrast ratios are literally jaw-dropping. Couple that with the lifelike colours and this television is difficult to resist
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FITBIT CHARGE 2
New design, more features – no excuses now. Price R3 000 Fitbit activity trackers have come a long way since they were first introduced in 2012. The story on how it all started is fascinating. I was recently in Berlin and had the opportunity to meet James Park, Fitbit's co-founder. He told me that it was the Nintendo Wii that inspired him to design the activity monitor. The Wii remotes had accelerometers and sensors built-in that detected hand movement and translated this onto your television screen during game play. Park then came up with the idea to translate those movements into an activity tracker and that’s how Fitbit was born. Today, they have sophisticated algorithms that give you a fascinating insight into how active you are. The new Fitbit Charge 2 is designed to inspire you to get moving through some smart health metrics embedded into sensors. The new device has a bigger, brighter display making it easier to read off your wrist. The Charge 2 is constantly reading your heart rate and now has multi-sport tracking. This feature allows you to track seven different sports that include running, weightlifting and even yoga! Another new feature is the guided breathing sessions. By reading your heart rate, the tracker can then help you relax with a series of breathing exercises. This might come in handy when filing your tax return.
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BOOKS Words Chris Gibbons
SHOE DOG
PHIL KNIGHT SIMON & SCHUSTER UK I R 335 It’s 1962 and a “shy, pale, rail-thin kid” has had what he calls a “crazy idea”. It came to him while studying business at Stanford, California, although he himself hails from Portland, Oregon. He’s noticed that Japanese cameras have started gobbling up the market that was the traditional preserve of the Germans; maybe Japanese athletic shoes could do same?
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
He sells his car, borrows $1 000 from his father and hops onto a plane for Tokyo and a meeting with with Mr. Onitsuka, maker of the famous Onitsuka Tiger running shoe. Can he persuade Onitsuka to export to the US, using him as agent, and between them, can they undercut the mighty Adidas? The “rail-thin kid” is, of course Phil Knight, founder of American mega-brand, Nike. He did the deal with Onitsuka, but was eventually forced to go it alone and create his own company. Along the way, he also forged another legendary partnership with University of Oregon star track coach, Bill Bowerman, a co-founder of Nike, and the man credited with inventing the so-called ‘waffle’ sole for running shoes. Shoe Dog is Knight’s story, personal, revealing, and a glimpse of that ‘can-do’ attitude which has made so many American entrepreneurs so famous and so wealthy. Take this one with you to the beach, you won’t regret it.
MAKE OR BREAK
RICHARD CALLAND ZEBRA PRESS I R 220 Business does not operate in a vacuum, so it’s vital that business leaders understand exactly what’s happening in South Africa’s political and social sphere. Richard Calland, one of the sharpest observers of the ANC, gives us a very precise and disturbing overview of the battle that’s playing out for the ruling party’s soul. In essence, the central question he asks is simple: will President Jacob Zuma or Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan prevail? If it’s the former, Calland postulates that there will be more state capture, crony capitalism and a ratings downgrade. If the latter, then the country may be back on track towards economic stability and a much brighter future. He is scathing in his assessment of Zuma, but acknowledges that he remains a deeply cunning and dangerous opponent. How will the ANC handle the succession from Zuma, and to whom will the mantle pass? How will the ANC deal with its recent setbacks in the local government elections? Will the Constitutional Court rule that Zuma should indeed face corruption charges? What line will the new Public Protector take? These and many others are all critical questions that will be answered during the three years that remain of Zuma’s term in office, but Calland is adamant that how they are answered will shape South Africa’s future for the next three decades.
TED TALKS – THE OFFICIAL TED GUIDE TO PUBLIC SPEAKING
CHRIS ANDERSON HEADLINE UK I R 220 We live in the age of the TED Talk: the short, unforgettable speech delivered in compelling, sometimes heart-rending fashion by well, almost anyone with a tale to tell. The TED Talk has become a global phenomenon, driven by Chris Anderson, an Oxfordeducated Brit who took over the not-for-profit organisation in the early 2000s. It’s no exaggeration, then, to say that he has probably seen more great speeches than almost anyone alive. Perhaps less wellknown is the fact that Anderson himself has coached, trained and helped many of the TED speakers. This, then, is his guide on how to craft a great speech. It’s not easy, it requires hard work, self-criticism and a fair bit of practise, but if you follow Anderson’s guidelines, you may well never again deliver a dull presentation. How does he do it? I’ll give you a clue: it almost always starts with a story
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WINE Words John Maytham
Acumen’s wine expert picks three of the best at three different price points: Everyday, Dinner Party and Out To Impress. EVERYDAY Grande Provence, or to use the full name, Grande Provence Heritage Wine Estate, is a favoured stop-off for visitors to the Franschhoek Valley. Especially those who utilise the increasingly popular hop-on, hop-off wine tram that makes it so easy to drink without having to worry about driving. GP is a beautiful farm, the restaurant is acclaimed, and the art gallery and outdoor sculptures a very welcome add-on. It helps that under the recently departed General Manager and Cellar Master, Karl Lambour, the wine quality showed a steep improvement. His replacement, Matthew van Heerden, has the pedigree
to keep that trend positive. One of Lambour’s final projects was the introduction of a chenin blanc and muscat blend that was fermented, with a covering of viognier skins, in Tuscan clay amphorae. The resulting wine is rich and complex and aromatic. It’s also expensive, selling from the cellar door at R600 a bottle. But there is a wine in the entry-level Angels Tears range that also features chenin and muscat that makes only the slightest dent in the credit card. It’s sweet (16g/l RS), but the sweetness doesn’t cloy, and the aromatics and palate weight make this a very decent companion to Asian food. R38.
DINNER PARTY There are very few certified organic wine producers in South Africa. You can leave one hand in your pocket as you count them. That’s not because there isn’t an appreciation of the general principle that organically treated soil and vines produce very high-quality grapes. Rather that the full certification process is time, and cash, consuming. As a winemaking friend ruefully put it, “The problem with going green with wine is that it can put you too easily in the red.” Many producers farm organically as much as they can and reserve the right to use non-organic methods in the face of looming
disaster. One of the few that has taken the plunge into full certification is Elgin Ridge. Amiable Brits, Brian and Marion Smith, ploughed the proceeds of the sale of their UK IT business into a farm on the Elgin Ridge and have farmed it organically from the first plantings in 2007. The ploughing of the vineyards is done by Maddox, an even more amiable Percheron. Their award-winning 282 sauvignon blanc (named after the altitude of the vineyard) repays their faith amply. It’s pure and full of ripe fruit flavours with a well-integrated acidic line keeping it dew-dawn fresh. R120.
OUT TO IMPRESS White blends are in a relative minority in the South African fine wine scene, which is still dominated by sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, and, to an increasing degree, chenin blanc. But blends there are, and some truly excellent ones. There are three broad categories: the Bordeaux blend which is of sauvignon and semillon; chenin blanc-based blends; and the Rhône style which is most associated with the dynamic Swartland wine region. The Tokara Director's Reserve White has been, for nearly a decade, one of the leading examples of the Bordeaux style. And the
latest release, the 2014, continues that tradition. The percentages vary from year to year – in this vintage it’s 69% sauvignon. It’s a stunning wine, from the lustrous golden colour through to the heady mix of baked quince and apple and marzipan on the nose, to a palate that is rich and creamy and beautifully balanced. And to top it all, the finish is long and savoury. An added attraction is that this is a wine that ages beautifully. I recently opened a bottle of the 2007 vintage, and it was still full of youthful energy and primary fruit, but had gained depth and complexity through the bottle maturation process. R240
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AFROPUNK RULES! GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
Words Victor Dlamini
Brooklyn is the new birthplace of what’s cool in New York City. Certainly in the last decade or so, there isn’t a place with the kind of cultural importance that Brooklyn has assumed in post9/11 New York City. And Afropunk, as the Afropunk Festival is widely known, was founded the year after 9/11. From its modest beginnings in 2002, this festival has turned Commodore Barry Park into one of the most important cultural parks in the United States. In the last week of August, there’s a deluge of the trendiest, coolest, hippest Afropunks. If you don’t believe me, consider this for a moment. No sooner had I walked into the park than I ran into the movie director Spike Lee, hands steady on his camera as he took a series of portraits against a nondescript wall. But his subjects were clearly dressed for Afropunk. Which is to say dressed in ways that both inspire and confound. Whether it’s a dashiki, or a pair of jeans, or a simple T-shirt, Afropunks seem to know just how to add the kind of twist that stops you dead in your tracks. There is no
dress code at Afropunk. Which is another way of saying the dress code at this festival is a measure of how defiance trickles down to popular culture. One of the great advantages of being a photographer at such festivals is that you get the chance to ask people personal questions. Once they’ve agreed to be photographed, there’s a tacit understanding that it’s not rude to be pointedly personal. Which is why I was able to find out just how big Afropunk really is in the global black culture calendar. Those who’ve caught on to its frequency are prepared to embark on what is clearly a cultural pilgrimage. Earlier in the day I’d met two friends who had travelled from French-speaking Canada to the festival. It was their first time at Afropunk, but they were certain that it wasn’t their last. There was also a lone traveller from North Carolina who said she would be coming back the next year. There were of course plenty from nearby cities like Washington D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
They come from all over the world. At this year’s edition of Afropunk I was astonished to meet so many Africans who had travelled to New York City just to attend this festival. There was a group from Lagos, another one from Accra, and another one from Johannesburg. On the Saturday evening the South African group held an impromptu dinner at the restaurant named for Madiba on Dekalb Avenue. Across from me was singer Thandiswa Mazwai, writer & editor Lerato Tshabalala, magazine editor Yoli Zama and a host of other South Africans. Across from our table was the actor Malik Yoba who was ordered to join our table. Such was the camaraderie that no-one even bothered him for an autograph. There were other big-name actors at the restaurant, and because South Africans are not shy, many of them were asked to come over to our table. They didn’t come because they were ordered to by a bunch of South Africans, but because of the vibe that Afropunk creates.
DAZZLING LINEUPS
In 2015 Afro Punk hosted the magical Grace Jones. As well as Lenny Kravitz. This year there was Ice Cube. There was also Saul Williams, who straddles genres whilst still enchanting audiences. Then there was Janelle Monae, George Clinton, Skunk Anansie, Flying Lotus and Angel Haze amongst others. Each year the organisers seem to somehow know which musicians and performers capture the zeitgeist. For anyone who’s ever seen Busi Mhlongo, Philip Tabane, The Muffinz or Mfaz’Omnyama on stage, you know that punk has its roots in the music of Africa. For anyone who watched the movie Cadillac Records it was a reminder that this has always been our music. And our style. Chuck Berry, Etta James, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf. They were there at the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll. Creating this pulsating style of music, bringing an electric energy to the urban song. The 15-minute walk from the York Street station to the park was a splash of colour. Of style. And glorious attitude. Here were the most beautiful people you’ve ever seen. Walking with what the young call swag. Lots of it. Swaying to the rhythm of the music on their iPods and phones. Or simply the joy of being alive.
Mmabatho Selemela, Lerato Tshabalala and Thandiswa Mazwai
At a time when the images of people rely so heavily on what they see reflected of themselves in the media, there was something decidedly anti-establishment in how those at Afropunk represented themselves. There’s a sense that these are the individuals who shape their own identity. It is not a common identity that brings them together, but rather an embrace of the spirit of difference. Eschewing any kind of narrow identity, there’s instead this spirit that unites young and old, men and women. Long may Afropunk last. And it is no surprise that other cities have caught on to the magic of Afropunk. With festivals in Paris, Atlanta and London adding to the original New York. Miles Davis gave us Birth of the Cool in 1949. The rebirth of the cool is taking place across the bridge, in Brooklyn
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BE DIFFERENT
When you arrive at an event, a long queue is normally a big turn off. But at Afropunk, it was no ordinary queue. This was a study on just how funky black people are. At a time when everyone seems to wear the same things, bought from the same shops, here was a space of difference. It was as if those who’d come to Afropunk had received a memo that said, “Be different. Be inspired. Be yourself.” Against the backdrop of a brutal gentrification that has sapped much of the energy of Brooklyn, and replaced it instead with the insipid symbols of high-street America, it was wonderful to see the absence of the big brands that spell the doom of cultural independence. To see young guns selling T-shirts you won’t see at the big chains. And to see the official Afropunk merchandise in brilliant shades and unique fabrics. And those who rocked it didn’t look like staid officials. Instead they looked like edgy fashionistas.
Power of Print
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looking backwards
BEST EATEN COLD Words Sam Cowen
On the office battlefield, even the smallest victory counts. I used to work with a very nice man who arrived at work on time every day and left work not one minute before he was due to go. He performed all his duties conscientiously and never complained about anything. He was a perfect employee. Except he stole newspapers. Not just any newspapers. Those of our immediate Boss. Every afternoon the late edition of the newspaper would arrive and be placed outside the Boss’s office door and every afternoon before he left The Nice Man would take it home with him. He had no need of this newspaper. We worked in a newsroom where newspapers were plentiful. He could have taken several and we would never have noticed. But he didn’t. He took the one outside our Boss’s office. One day I asked him why. I explained all of the above. I suggested he might want to stop it in case he was caught. I even offered him mine.
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
He would have none of it. He wanted THAT copy. “But why?” “So he can’t read it.” “Seriously?” He was serious. “I like thinking about him looking for it.” “Why?” “Because he broke my mug.” “OK?” I still didn’t understand. “Maria saw him. When I was on leave
three months ago? He broke it and threw it away.” “And what did he say when you asked him?” He looked at me with incredulity. “Well, nothing, because I didn’t ask him.” He didn’t ask him because he didn’t want the confrontation. Well who does? It’s unpleasant and it feels silly and petty. It’s only a mug for goodness sake. And he hummed and hawed about not wanting to make a scene and what’s done is done and can’t be undone, but really he didn’t want a showdown over a mug. Newspaper theft was much more satisfying. He could, and did, fantasize about how annoyed our Boss must be. It was passive aggressiveness in its purest form. So unhelpful. So unnecessary. So satisfying. I don’t judge because I did something similar. I worked with someone whose very existence interfered with my breathing. He liked to ‘tell on’ and he always managed to be there for those ‘tell on’ moments, like when you photocopy reams of information on the lesserspotted Amazonian Snow Toad for your child’s school project on the company photocopier.
“Sam, have you still got my purple pen?” he would ask anxiously. “No, I put it on your desk days ago,” I would lie happily, enjoying his discomfort. I didn’t stop at the pen. I ‘borrowed’ a sharpener, a pencil and a ruler. I needed none of them. Oh, the joy. We both knew I was lying, but neither of us was going to say anything. He took to putting his pens in a drawer when I approached his office door and I thrilled to the sight. That’s silly, you’re probably saying. I would NEVER do that, you are sure. Why not just have a fierce conversation and clear the air? Well, because there’s no certainty you’ll win an argument BUT the stolen pen is forever.
“Wow that’s a lot of info! Are we going to hear a lot on air about that toad?” he’d chirp, knowing full well that the chances of the Snow Toad making it within a hundred miles of a radio show were as slim as the chances of me writing him a Christmas card. And I would smile outwardly and tremble internally with rage.
Before you judge, ask yourself what you would do. Picture this: Bob from accounts is running towards the lift. He’s just turned down your expense claim for the third time. Which action would make you feel better instantly?
So I borrowed a pen from him and never returned it. He was a stationery freak. He knew his ring binders from his flip folders and his highlighters from his fineliners. It was his weak point. And I attacked it.
b. Jabbing the ‘door close’ button with your finger and watching his frantic face as he misses the lift by seconds.
a. Scheduling a meeting complete with receipts, claim form and rationale for your expenditure.
Yes… I thought so. Case closed
.
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