Little gems from Big Apple

The annual World Business Forum is attended by over 5 000 people from over 60 countries, and is a platform for the current trends and ideas in business around the world. Jason Haddock, Head of Business Intelligence and Innovation at Saratoga, attended the event held in New York in October.

He says it is a brilliant opportunity to hear some of the most influential speakers in the world discussing globally relevant topics, as well as to improve his own business and leadership knowledge. As a person who is directly involved in shaping the strategy of Saratoga, it was also a great place to get a global view of innovative ideas in this area. New York is also just a great city to visit!

Speakers at the event range from political speakers, such as former US president Bill Clinton, to well known experts in their field, such as Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks) and Seth Godin (Author and Marketing Guru).

Haddock identified three meta-themes from the various presentations, namely: authenticity, the imperative to take social rather than operational risks, and the influence of technology.

Haddock points out that many of the speakers touched on a need for both leaders and companies to become more authentic in the way they function and interact with the communities they service. Howard Schultz offered a very unique view in how he built authenticity into the core values of Starbucks, when he took over in 2008, as the company faced falling profit; even to the point where he shut down every branch globally in order to `re-educate` staff according to the core values he wanted them to embody. Schultz has spoken about this need in a number of other interviews and describes authenticity as being transparent and honest in order to gain people`s trust, as this is what engenders loyalty.

Haddock observes that South African companies still behave in a very insular way and that very few organisations are successfully embracing "authenticity" to its full potential. "Companies still tend to focus on their product or company instead of looking at creating value and building communities around them. Authenticity is now the defining feature of leading companies in the world - in South Africa we need to learn to fully embrace an authentic approach."

When it comes to risk, Malcolm Gladwell defines two different types of risk, which are: operational risk - the type of risk where you are putting it all on the line - versus social risk - where you are doing something uncomfortable. He believes the greatest leaders will limit their operational risk but will be willing to take enormous social risk, even at the expense of losing friends and colleagues as a result. The leaders who do this "identify what they believe to be the right course of action, and they follow it regardless of the social consequence." Gladwell believes the world needs more leaders who are prepared to be social risk-takers.

Haddock also notes that Gladwell suggested that part of the reason the world economy is in global recession is because too many people in business have been taking operational gambles - risky investments using other peoples` money.

The two examples of risk-taking, which Gladwell spoke about at length, were anecdotes from Emil Freireich and Ingvar Kamprad. Emil Freireich risked his own career in creating an experimental cocktail of drugs to find a cure for a common form of childhood leukaemia, while Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA founder) was treated as a traitor by his fellow countrymen for moving the manufacture of his products to Poland while The Cold War was at its peak. Both of these men took major social risks, but comparatively the operational risk was very small. In the case of Freireich, the operational risk was slight because this type of leukaemia was 100% fatal, and in Kamprad`s example, he saved on furniture production costs because the materials needed were easily available.

Jack Welch was one of a number of speakers who pointed out the importance and need for companies to really embrace technology in order to stay competitive, and that these days it is no longer a hugely expensive endeavour.

Welch spoke about his time at General Electric and how the company would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on technology projects, which ran for periods up to as long as 18 months and delivered very little, if any, value to the company.

He then went on to discuss some examples of companies, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter that literally started out in a garage, but were responsible for creating innovative technology, without huge expense, that then launched them to where they can start challenging the market space of some of the bigger entrenched fortune 500 companies. These small companies are brilliant examples of how technology has helped levelling the playing field between large and small companies.

In summary of his entire experience there, Haddock feels it was a hugely beneficial conference to attend, not only in terms of gaining insight from such great speakers, but also to improve his own abilities as a speaker.