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“Magic is the revelation that results from a profound change in perception” ~ Wayne Visser
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The Business Poet – Chapter 3
The Business Poet – Chapter 3
On Profits
The head of finance wanted to get straight to the heart of the matter, and said, Speak to us of Profits.
The old man smiled a wry smile, consulted his notes, and answered, saying:
“Just as nature cannot survive without water, so commerce depends on profits to quench its natural thirst for capital.
“Profits are the refreshing crystal water that collects in rock pools in the mountainous terrain of business.
“Used wisely, profits are a source of life and rejuvenation – channelled effectively, profits have the potential to sustain a tropical forest, or to green a barren wasteland.
“But if the flow of fresh water through the pool is blocked, the water becomes stagnant and a breeding ground for disease.
“If profits are excessively horded, rather than fairly and productively distributed, the dam of popular discontent will eventually burst, causing indiscriminate damage to all who happen to lie in its flood path, and leaving behind scars where the integrity of the commercial system has been eroded.
“Like the water cycle in nature, profits are part of a larger cycle of financial resources circulating through enterprise and society.
“A farsighted business will seek to understand and contribute to balance in the whole system, looking both upstream and downstream for any signs of impending drought, excessive damming activity or pollution of the water supply.
“The wise manager will be acutely concerned about the looming crisis of economic desertification in many marginalised areas of the world, which threatens to disrupt the entire water cycle unless it is reversed.
“Profits are one measure of success in business, but only one of many.
“Only a fool would try to argue that the water cycle is more important than the oxygen cycle or the carbon cycle, when in truth they are wholly interdependent.
“Likewise, pursuing a business model that emphasises profits ahead of people or the planet only serves to undermine the very fabric of the economic system and will end in ruin.
“Decisions about how and where to channel profits are best made by those who are intimately familiar with local needs and conditions.
“Effective water management demands first hand knowledge of nuances in the landscape, variations in geological patterns and micro-climatic moods, together with an understanding of the intimate needs of the resident populace.
“Beware, therefore, of the vagaries of scattered shareholders, absent landlords and remote executives.
“The destiny of something as precious as water is far too important to trust to the hands of the self-proclaimed ruling few, or the self-indulgent faceless many.
“Let those who have helped to build the waterways and nurture the rain and negotiate the open sluices, drink also from the fountain of profits, as just reward for their tireless labour.
“But do not forget to also extend the life-giving chalice to those less fortunate, who do not share the privileges of prosperity, for whatever reason.
“Remember those who live in the desert of deprivation, with no oases on the horizon to relieve their parched existence.
“Remember those who are surrounded by great rivers of abundance, but have not been granted the drinking rights of the employed.
“And share your profits generously with those who are dying of thirst, for giving without expecting to receive in return profits the heart and the soul, and there is no greater wealth.”
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The Business Poet – Chapter 2
The Business Poet – Chapter 2
On Work
A loyal employee representative from the trade union, who had never been afraid to speak his mind, was the first to take up the challenge and, continuing in the style of The Prophet, said, Speak to us of Work.
Everyone’s attention turned to their former leader whom they held in such high esteem, curious and expectant, to see how he would respond. He smiled as he recalled jotting down his thoughts on the meaning of work, and in his mind he knew exactly in which notebook and on which page he would find the passage. He thumbed the pages and soon had his forefinger marking the appropriate place. He looked up, cleared his throat, and with a strange feeling of hearing the echo of his own thoughts, began to read:
“Conventional wisdom says that some live to work, while others work to live, but both extremes are undesirable.
“Those that lose themselves in their jobs, or titles, or careers, are lost indeed, for they filter life’s rainbow through the prism of work and declare the world one colour, with themselves the master of a single hue.
“Those who find themselves chained to employment, whether from desperation or fear, are prisoners of the darkness who see life’s bright rays, at best, through the bars of impotence and boredom.
“Both types are victims of insecurity and false identity, for work does not define us, but gives us the opportunity to define ourselves.
“Career choices do not dictate our worth, but allow us to celebrate our worth.
“Job titles say more about our sense of self-importance than our ability to do important work.
“Employment does not equate to the contribution we are making to society, nor the potential we have to make a positive difference in the lives of others.
“It is a strange irony that the most valuable work is least valued in our material world, while the most selfish pursuits are glorified and richly rewarded.
“We live in an age of inverted values.
“As with Nature, so too with work: the smallest, humblest and least visible are the most pervasive, productive and critical – the very foundation on which the balance of life depends.
“The modern economy is an attempt to create a neatly manicured garden, sterile and devoid of the disorderly profusion of wild growth.
“Unshapely jobs are severely pruned every season and non-conforming workers are weeded out and discarded on the refuse pile of the unemployed.
“Surviving staff are fertilised with financial incentives, trellis-bound through management-by-objectives, and sprayed with market mantras to increase resistance to the buzzing, biting pests of social and environmental activism.
“For society to blossom, diversity must be allowed to flourish: budding talents must be nurtured and the acorn latent inside the oak tree must be cherished.
“Only when survival is not dependent on growing in the limited garden of formal employment will we witness the true bounty of human nature.
“Only when we create an environment in which the tender tendrils of youth can climb towards the warmth of their inner calling will we reap a full harvest of what is possible.
“True work is service in action, creativity in motion, meaning in the making.”
Merlin looked up from his entranced soliloquy, somewhat anxious, unsure how his words had been received. But he needn’t have worried. The human collage of nodding heads, smiling faces and appreciative whispers was a picture of support and encouragement. So, they continued.
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The Business Poet – Chapter 1
The Business Poet – Chapter 1
On Letting Go
It was time to leave. A bitter-sweet time. Merlin Wood felt sadness, but also contentment. The business he had conceived and birthed and nurtured was mature enough to stand on its own feet now. To live out its own life.
He gazed around the room at the people who were gathered for his farewell. For so many years, this had been his family. Together, they had endured; they were survivors, through thick and thin. They had been triumphant in their successes; downhearted in their failures. He did not know them all intimately, but he felt a shared sense of belonging. To many, he had been close enough to know when there was cause for some or other personal celebration. Others had trusted him enough to unveil their insecurities, to let their pain show.
But now, it was time to let go; to entrust them with the business. Ironically, the way he saw it, the company was not the legacy he was leaving at all. In fact, on the surface of it, there was not much remarkable about the business itself. It was not the biggest, nor the smallest. It was profitable, but not excessively so. It sold good quality products, but nothing spectacular. He had always maintained that the value of the business was not in its bricks and mortar, or its cash-flow or dividends. The real value was in the way in which the business lived and breathed and kept its people alive and passionate.
That was the real gift he had given them. And that was why he was leaving behind his scruffy notebooks in the boardroom cabinet – those dog-eared, tea-stained A4 pages on which, over the years, he had jotted down his ideas. Scrawled untidily were the lessons he had learned along the way: about how to make a business ‘fit for human beings’; about how to survive in commerce and still sleep soundly at night; about how to create a company that served society, instead of the other way around. So many thoughts …
It was almost time for the ritual reading. He liked rituals. It was one of the things he had tried to embed in the business, and his farewell was not going to be the exception. He always marvelled at how simple rituals were able to imbue an occasion with meaning. The little ritual he was going to perform now had been conceived by the incoming board of directors. They had suggested that he read extracts from his notebooks to the family, friends and staff that were assembled, in the spirit and style The Prophet, that masterpiece by Lebanese mystic and poet, Kahlil Gibran, whose writings he so treasured. He thought it was a fitting way to go. If nothing else, it would be fun.
As his friends and colleagues began to take their seats, spreading out like a fan from where he sat behind his favourite knotted wooden desk, he traced his fingers around the worn edges of his notebooks, as if caressing the contours of a beloved’s face. On the cover of each book was written ‘My little book of thoughts, wishes and wisdoms’ – numbered one to seven respectively. Flanking the notebooks were two simple, white candles, unlit, tall and upright, like royal guards of honour. He allowed his awareness to drift over the animated whispers that were rippling around the room. It had a soothing effect, as if he was holding a spiral shell to his ear and eavesdropping on the secret, bubbling conversation of an imaginary ocean. Gradually, the fresh breeze of anticipation subsided and a quiet calm settled over the gathering. He took the emergent silence as his cue to begin.
The lights dimmed and the match he struck flared noisily in the dusky hush that had descended. He lit the two candles – symbols of the life of the company – and invited all those present to approach this time together in the spirit of a fireside dialogue beneath a star-spangled night sky. Then he spread his arms wide and, quoting Gibran’s famous invitation with a hint of playfulness in his voice, said:
“People of Orphalese, of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving within your souls.”
There was a murmur of laughter, and Merlin could see people visibly relax, perhaps relieved that the ceremony that had just begun was to be enjoyed, rather than taken too seriously.
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Sri Lanka Notes 2015
26 April 2015
As I write from my study in Cambridge, with grey skies outside, still languishing from jetlag and a bout of flu, my reflections on the past week in Sri Lanka are sunny and positive.
Upon arrival in Colombo on Sunday, we were driven about 5 hours to an eco-hotel in the north called Kandalama, compliments of Aitken Spence. Set in a tropical forest and overlooking a lake, the hotel is an inspiration in sustainability. The hotel windows are literally draped with jungle vines and families of monkeys are regular visitors to the balconies. The hotel has been designed for minimal environmental impact (already achieving zero waste to landfill, for example) and maximum social benefit, working with the community and local interest groups to overcome initial resistance to the project. After sunset, as we swam in the pool sculpted out of natural rock, with bats swooping and insects warming up their nocturnal voices, it felt heavenly. This was followed by a relaxing massage before we collapsed into our beds.
As it happened, we had slept even less than normal on the 11-hour flight, as a man in the seat in front of us on the plane had some sort of seizure. Indira’s nursing instincts kicked in and she was very helpful to a doctor who was on board, as he set up an impromptu ER station and treated the man (Sam), hooking him up to a drip, oxygen and heart-rate monitor. Fortunately, by the end of the flight, he seemed to have revived fully and was extremely grateful to Indira for her quick thinking response, telling me, ‘She saved my life’.
The following day, Monday, we left around 9 am for the journey back to Colombo. En route, we visited the ancient cave temples of Dumbulla, which are adorned with Buddha sculptures large and small and paintings on the cave walls depicting the life of the Buddha. On the walk up to the caves, Indira sat with a flower vendor and learned how to fold open the lotus petals. Further up the path, a cheeky monkey then stole one of the blooms right out of her hand. The rest she left as an offering in front of the giant reclining Buddha, as a symbol that as the flowers fad and die, so our physical bodies are in an impermanent state of being.
Somehow, these ancient caves, said to date back over 2,000 years, felt far more sacred and special than the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, which we visited later that day in Kandy. According to legend, the actual tooth of the Buddha is housed here; and it is ‘revealed’ daily during a religious ceremony, where hundreds queue to get a few seconds glimpse of the vessel holding the tooth. I can’t help but think that this fixation on a physical relic is completely contrary to the Buddha’s teachings about the impermanence and insignificance of the body as a vessel for the soul, and his discouragement for worshiping anyone or anything. But I guess human beings like to have something to cling to, a crutch for their beliefs, or a symbol of their aspirations.
We also stopped at a spice farm along the way to see the plants from which we get cinnamon, cloves, lemon grass, curry, pepper, vanilla and so on. One surprise was to see how the cashew nut grows, attached to the bottom of the fruit. Another was to see how curry powder is made by crushing various spices together, of which the curry plant is only one. The aroma is a sensual delight.
The next three days were taken up by the programme of CSR Sri Lanka, which had me talking to CEOs, senior government leaders, CSR managers and business teams about ‘transformative CSR’. I also spent time with the board of CSR Sri Lanka discussing their strategy, and attended Indira’s talk on social enterprise, which was extremely well received by an audience of young change-makers. The attendance and feedback from my sessions was all good and there seems to be enthusiasm to work more with both of us in the future.
On our final afternoon, Friday, we drove about 2 hours out of the city to visit the Bodyline factory, where they make almost all of Nike’s sports bras, as well as supplying Victoria’s Secret. The scale of these factories is immense, with one work area housing around 1,500 women. A few things impressed me about the operation. First, they have located the factories in rural areas, rather than centralising them in the cities. Second, they have a strong programme for supporting the opportunities of women, called Go Beyond. We spoke to two beneficiaries of this empowerment process and were encouraged by what we heard. Third, they are starting to integrate sustainability, with carbon footprinting and a sustainability index KPI, although I sensed a lack of strategic focus. Finally, they have shown that it is possible for an emerging economy facility to be world-class in their manufacturing techniques and innovation.
I am so pleased that Indira shared the trip with me. She is realising her own power to inspire, and the worldwide opportunities to work with leaders in fascinating cultural contexts. I was also glad to be addressing non-CSR specialist audiences – CEOs and government leaders – and to see more of Sri Lanka’s beautiful country and people. I foresee us being involved in making a documentary film here, perhaps centred on the story of Kandalama, or post war progress.
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Kosovo Notes 2015
8 April 2015
Monday was a long day, with a bus from Cambridge to Heathrow that left at 1 am and a flight via Vienna that left London at 6 am and arrived in Pristina at noon. From the airport we drove an hour or so to Prizren, where we spent the rest of the day and night with them. Prizren seems a fairly quaint old town, nestled beneath the snowy hills and dotted with mosques and churches and threaded with cobbled paths.
Now, I am writing from the downstairs room of Indira’s childhood home in Peja. Outside, the sun is shining and the skies are showing the first patches of blue since I arrived on Monday, two days ago. The room is cosy, heated by a wood-burning stove. Last night, we fell asleep to the crackle of the burning logs and the flicker of flames. I am happy to be here, meeting Indira’s family and discovering the place where she grew up.
Yesterday, we walked around Pristina’s central square and visited the NEW BORN sculpture, which gets painted with different colours and designs every year – such a wonderful symbol, reminding us that transformation is not a one-off event; we must be born again and again and again, constantly renewing ourselves. There a statue of Mother Theresa in downtown Pristina. Not many people know that she was Albanian.
In the evening, we had dinner at the Symphony restaurant with Indira’s niece and her husband, who is a well known musician in Kosovo. As always, I am attracted to the arts, feeling some kind of natural affinity.
I look forward to exploring Peja over the next few days, especially walking or driving in the mountains. Right now, Indira is making pancakes and I can hear a goat bleating from one of the neighbour’s yards.
10 April 2015
Yesterday, we took a drive through the spectacular gorge of the Acursed mountains of Peja. It truly is scenery to fall in love with. The previous day, we walked the 4 km path along the river, past the old Catholic nunnery. In the afternoon, we had lunch at Ujvara e Drinit. It was a wonderful family get-together in another beautiful spot in nature. After lunch, we walked up to a gushing waterfall.
Later in the evening, we watched a football match (Barcelona was playing and beat the other side 4-0). On our way out of Peja yesterday, we stopped to visit Indira’s mom’s grave, which has nice views of the mountains. In the afternoon, after arriving at Prizren, we drove into the mountains to the Sharri Hotel. The snow is still thick there and we enjoyed more spectacular views. Today, we will have breakfast in town and take a little walk before heading to the airport.
I am really pleased that I have visited Kosovo now. I look forward to coming back often; perhaps even owning a little piece of paradise in the mountains.
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Masterclass: Transformational Leadership for Sustainability
Masterclass: Transformational Leadership for Sustainability
24 June 2015, Johannesburg, South Africa
The Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) invites you to an exclusive masterclass with globally recognised sustainability expert Dr Wayne Visser, Transnet Chair of Sustainable Business at GIBS and Senior Associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Dr Visser will share the latest research, standards and cases on what makes the best sustainability leaders effective as change agents in their organisations and in society.
Masterclass benefits:
- This session combines theory and practical case studies and after attending you will be able to:
- Identify the characteristics of good leaders for sustainable business (traits, styles, skills/competencies and knowledge);
- Assess what makes leaders effective change agents, and self-assess what type of change agent you are or need your organisation to employ; and
- Understand the new ISO standards (Annex SL) and the specifications of Clause 5 on Leadership.
Who should attend?
- Learning and development practitioners, HR directors, heads of procurement, as well as management representatives for sustainability, environment, occupational health & safety, social responsibility and quality will benefit from this masterclass.
Masterclass outline:
- Drivers of Sustainability Leadership: Internal and external context; and the rise and fall of sustainability leaders.
- Characteristics of Sustainability Leaders: Traits, styles, skills and knowledge; competency frameworks; and actions of sustainability leaders.
- Sustainability Leaders as Change Agents: Change frameworks by Kotter, Visser, Ainger and Gladwell; and purpose-inspired leadership types.
Masterclass details:
- Date: Wednesday, 24 June 2015
- Time: 08:30 – 12:30 (a light lunch will be served after the event)
- Venue: GIBS Campus, 26 Melville Road, Illovo, Sandton, South Africa
RSVP
Please click here to confirm your attendance by 29 May 2015. For further information contact Bongiwe Ramaboea on 011 771 4161 or ramaboeab@gibs.co.za.
Please note that there is no charge for this event. Regrettably this invitation is not transferable and seating is limited.
Poetry Quotations
These quotations are taken from poems I have written, dating back to 1987.
Quotations
1987
Mists – Mists swirl, yet on my feet I stand – your hand in mine.
1988
Awake – Live the dream for soon it dies – life’s a dream, before we rise.
Life’s Dream – Life’s a dream, it seems to me, in which we choose our destiny.
Life’s Dream – We decide and we create; we walk the path and call it fate.
Life’s Dream – As we walk, we learn and grow, until in time we finally know that all is one and one is all.
Explore – Something calls me to explore, but locks and chains still bar the door.
Footprints – Sets of prints upon the sand – perhaps in time, in time I’ll know, where those footprints are to go.
Keep Up the Smiles – Who knows what and who knows how – the future rests on here and now
People – Cannot package, seal and brand – people, one must understand.
Release – Loved ones never leave your side – in your love, they rest and abide.
Reach Out and Touch – Reach out and touch someone in need – broken lives, hearts that bleed.
Reach Out and Touch – Give not to them advice nor creed – reach out and touch someone in need.
Dare Not – If I don’t dare, how would my loss compare to what I might well gain if my courage were sustained?
Pressure – Though pressure builds and workload piles, never forfeit joys nor smiles.
Pressure – Never lose your hold on hope – you have the means and you will cope.
Pressure – Never lose your will to win – have confidence in strength within.
Pressure – Know that as you persevere, what you strive for will draw near.
All Seems – Without, within, this world of dreams – life is never what it seems.
Un-Doing – I know the when, the why and how, but what becomes of here and now?
I Love You Mom – The freedom you’ve given is the freedom I need – you’ve allowed me to grow, having sown the seed.
I Love You Mom – You give of yourself and don’t count the cost – and the love that’s been gained will never be lost.
I Love You Mom – Consider each day of the year as a celebration of love with the ones you hold dear.
Perspective – There’s a crispy freshness in all that you do when your perspective changes to one that is new.
I Believe – I believe in you, I believe in me; I believe in all that we can be.
I Believe – I believe in sunshine and in rain; I believe no loss, for all is gain.
I Believe – I believe in the night and in the day; I believe that each finds their own way.
I Believe – I believe in seasons and the turn of tide; I believe in each sunset and each sunrise.
I Believe – I believe in life and in the living; I believe in receiving and in giving.
I Believe – I believe in peace and love divine; I believe in your way and in mine.
Only Love – Only love – it’s all that matters, all that binds, all that fulfils, all that finds.
Only Love – It’s all that holds, all that contains, all that is, all that remains – only love.
Mystery – There is a mystery which is you, a mystery which is me – and a mystery which is you and me.
1989
Quest Divine – Onward inward, still in mind – so much to do, so much to find.