Page 24 - The Art of Leadership (preview)

the art of leadership

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For every successful entrepreneur in America, many have tried and failed. Quite

a few tried repeatedly until they succeeded. Quite a few who succeeded

continued to create and start up new companies as serial entrepreneurs. This
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was the way America’s great companies were built.

science. However, they did not commercialise Eventually in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher have led the world in patents, striving to pro-
their discoveries. Or as the writers on entre- set out to change the fundamental values and duce something new or do something better,

preneurship put it, they did not turn their attitudes of the British people towards old and faster, cheaper, increasing their productivity.
inventions into profitable goods or services new wealth. She privatised the nationalised Having created a product that sold well in
that people would buy. Why was the capacity industries and encouraged private enterprise. America, they would then market it world-
to commercialise their innovations lacking? Unlike most of her generation, she did not wide.
I believe it is because of their culture. Long consider “profit” a dirty word. The results The Economist of February 1999 featured a

years of empire over two centuries developed proved convincingly that the same companies, profile of an elderly Japanese entrepreneur
a society where old wealth and the landed when run by persons appointed and answer- who noted that “self-made men attract ridi-
gentry were held in high esteem. The new rich able to majority shareholders, were more cule and condescension in snooty Japan”.

were regarded with some disdain. The bright profitable than when they were run by boards These were also the social attitudes of the
aspired to be successful and admired for their or statutory corporations. British upper-class before Margaret Thatcher
intellectual skills as lawyers, doctors, profes- The difference between British and American challenged and set out to change them.
sionals… people who used their brains and values cannot be more profound. The United When I saw America’s amazing recovery in
had clean hands, not engineers or people States is a frontier society. By and large, there the last decade after it lost so much ground to

who worked hard and had to dirty their were and are no class barriers. Everybody industries in Japan and Germany in the 1980s,
hands. They play it with words. Their values celebrated getting rich. Everybody wanted to I appreciated the full meaning of Americans
were shaped by the attitudes of old wealth be rich and tried to be. There is a great urge being “entrepreneurial”. But for every success-

and the landed gentry. The new rich were not to start new enterprises and create wealth. The ful entrepreneur in America, many have tried
embraced in the upper reaches of society. US has been the most dynamic society in and failed. Quite a few tried repeatedly until
Only their children could aspire to be wel- innovating and in starting up companies to they succeeded. Quite a few who succeeded
comed after going through the necessary commercialise new discoveries or inventions, continued to create and start up new compa-
public schools and universities, and after their thus creating new wealth. American society nies as serial entrepreneurs. This was the way

new wealth had matured into old wealth. is always on the move and changing. They America’s great companies were built. This is

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