1
00:00:01,235 --> 00:00:04,714
Everything I do, and everything I do professionally --

2
00:00:04,714 --> 00:00:08,699
my life -- has been shaped

3
00:00:08,699 --> 00:00:14,523
by seven years of work as a young man in Africa.

4
00:00:14,523 --> 00:00:18,044
From 1971 to 1977 --

5
00:00:18,044 --> 00:00:21,924
I look young, but I'm not — (Laughter) --

6
00:00:21,924 --> 00:00:26,857
I worked in Zambia, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Somalia,

7
00:00:26,857 --> 00:00:31,074
in projects of technical cooperation with African countries.

8
00:00:31,074 --> 00:00:34,192
I worked for an Italian NGO,

9
00:00:34,192 --> 00:00:40,342
and every single project that we set up in Africa

10
00:00:40,342 --> 00:00:43,786
failed.

11
00:00:43,786 --> 00:00:47,930
And I was distraught.

12
00:00:47,930 --> 00:00:52,178
I thought, age 21, that we Italians were good people

13
00:00:52,178 --> 00:00:55,560
and we were doing good work in Africa.

14
00:00:55,560 --> 00:01:02,573
Instead, everything we touched we killed.

15
00:01:02,573 --> 00:01:07,676
Our first project, the one that has inspired my first book,

16
00:01:07,676 --> 00:01:10,564
"Ripples from the Zambezi,"

17
00:01:10,564 --> 00:01:13,129
was a project where we Italians

18
00:01:13,129 --> 00:01:19,050
decided to teach Zambian people how to grow food.

19
00:01:19,050 --> 00:01:23,399
So we arrived there with Italian seeds in southern Zambia

20
00:01:23,399 --> 00:01:26,879
in this absolutely magnificent valley

21
00:01:26,879 --> 00:01:30,132
going down to the Zambezi River,

22
00:01:30,132 --> 00:01:33,760
and we taught the local people how to grow Italian tomatoes

23
00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:36,551
and zucchini and ...

24
00:01:36,551 --> 00:01:38,746
And of course the local people had absolutely no interest

25
00:01:38,746 --> 00:01:41,661
in doing that, so we paid them to come and work,

26
00:01:41,661 --> 00:01:45,796
and sometimes they would show up. (Laughter)

27
00:01:45,796 --> 00:01:48,523
And we were amazed that the local people,

28
00:01:48,523 --> 00:01:51,610
in such a fertile valley, would not have any agriculture.

29
00:01:51,610 --> 00:01:54,818
But instead of asking them how come they were not

30
00:01:54,818 --> 00:01:58,840
growing anything, we simply said, "Thank God we're here." (Laughter)

31
00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:03,508
"Just in the nick of time to save the Zambian people from starvation."

32
00:02:03,508 --> 00:02:06,968
And of course, everything in Africa grew beautifully.

33
00:02:06,968 --> 00:02:09,626
We had these magnificent tomatoes. In Italy, a tomato

34
00:02:09,626 --> 00:02:13,235
would grow to this size. In Zambia, to this size.

35
00:02:13,235 --> 00:02:16,056
And we could not believe, and we were telling the Zambians,

36
00:02:16,056 --> 00:02:18,528
"Look how easy agriculture is."

37
00:02:18,528 --> 00:02:21,539
When the tomatoes were nice and ripe and red,

38
00:02:21,539 --> 00:02:24,967
overnight, some 200 hippos came out from the river

39
00:02:24,967 --> 00:02:28,970
and they ate everything. (Laughter)

40
00:02:28,970 --> 00:02:33,554
And we said to the Zambians, "My God, the hippos!"

41
00:02:33,554 --> 00:02:39,235
And the Zambians said, "Yes, that's why we have no agriculture here." (Laughter)

42
00:02:39,235 --> 00:02:45,487
"Why didn't you tell us?""You never asked."

43
00:02:45,487 --> 00:02:50,575
I thought it was only us Italians blundering around Africa,

44
00:02:50,575 --> 00:02:53,319
but then I saw what the Americans were doing,

45
00:02:53,319 --> 00:02:56,055
what the English were doing, what the French were doing,

46
00:02:56,055 --> 00:02:58,648
and after seeing what they were doing,

47
00:02:58,648 --> 00:03:02,007
I became quite proud of our project in Zambia.

48
00:03:02,007 --> 00:03:06,996
Because, you see, at least we fed the hippos.

49
00:03:06,996 --> 00:03:11,243
You should see the rubbish — (Applause) --

50
00:03:11,243 --> 00:03:13,737
You should see the rubbish that we have bestowed

51
00:03:13,737 --> 00:03:15,537
on unsuspecting African people.

52
00:03:15,537 --> 00:03:17,113
You want to read the book,

53
00:03:17,113 --> 00:03:22,044
read "Dead Aid," by Dambisa Moyo,

54
00:03:22,044 --> 00:03:25,051
Zambian woman economist.

55
00:03:25,051 --> 00:03:27,421
The book was published in 2009.

56
00:03:27,421 --> 00:03:31,995
We Western donor countries have given the African continent

57
00:03:31,995 --> 00:03:36,988
two trillion American dollars in the last 50 years.

58
00:03:36,988 --> 00:03:40,813
I'm not going to tell you the damage that that money has done.

59
00:03:40,813 --> 00:03:43,001
Just go and read her book.

60
00:03:43,001 --> 00:03:51,364
Read it from an African woman, the damage that we have done.

61
00:03:51,364 --> 00:03:57,331
We Western people are imperialist, colonialist missionaries,

62
00:03:57,331 --> 00:04:00,645
and there are only two ways we deal with people:

63
00:04:00,645 --> 00:04:05,034
We either patronize them, or we are paternalistic.

64
00:04:05,034 --> 00:04:08,138
The two words come from the Latin root "pater,"

65
00:04:08,138 --> 00:04:10,368
which means "father."

66
00:04:10,368 --> 00:04:14,221
But they mean two different things.

67
00:04:14,221 --> 00:04:17,582
Paternalistic, I treat anybody from a different culture

68
00:04:17,582 --> 00:04:23,385
as if they were my children. "I love you so much."

69
00:04:23,385 --> 00:04:27,892
Patronizing, I treat everybody from another culture

70
00:04:27,892 --> 00:04:30,290
as if they were my servants.

71
00:04:30,290 --> 00:04:36,361
That's why the white people in Africa are called "bwana," boss.

72
00:04:36,361 --> 00:04:39,944
I was given a slap in the face reading a book,

73
00:04:39,944 --> 00:04:44,911
"Small is Beautiful," written by Schumacher, who said,

74
00:04:44,911 --> 00:04:47,869
above all in economic development, if people

75
00:04:47,869 --> 00:04:52,424
do not wish to be helped, leave them alone.

76
00:04:52,424 --> 00:04:55,251
This should be the first principle of aid.

77
00:04:55,251 --> 00:04:58,937
The first principle of aid is respect.

78
00:04:58,937 --> 00:05:01,465
This morning, the gentleman who opened this conference

79
00:05:01,465 --> 00:05:05,266
lay a stick on the floor, and said,

80
00:05:05,266 --> 00:05:09,524
"Can we -- can you imagine a city

81
00:05:09,524 --> 00:05:13,446
that is not neocolonial?"

82
00:05:13,446 --> 00:05:17,599
I decided when I was 27 years old

83
00:05:17,599 --> 00:05:21,806
to only respond to people,

84
00:05:21,806 --> 00:05:26,230
and I invented a system called Enterprise Facilitation,

85
00:05:26,230 --> 00:05:29,605
where you never initiate anything,

86
00:05:29,605 --> 00:05:33,827
you never motivate anybody, but you become a servant

87
00:05:33,827 --> 00:05:37,388
of the local passion, the servant of local people

88
00:05:37,388 --> 00:05:41,786
who have a dream to become a better person.

89
00:05:41,786 --> 00:05:46,195
So what you do -- you shut up.

90
00:05:46,195 --> 00:05:49,907
You never arrive in a community with any ideas,

91
00:05:49,907 --> 00:05:54,346
and you sit with the local people.

92
00:05:54,346 --> 00:05:56,538
We don't work from offices.

93
00:05:56,538 --> 00:06:00,504
We meet at the cafe. We meet at the pub.

94
00:06:00,504 --> 00:06:03,819
We have zero infrastructure.

95
00:06:03,819 --> 00:06:07,146
And what we do, we become friends,

96
00:06:07,146 --> 00:06:11,906
and we find out what that person wants to do.

97
00:06:11,906 --> 00:06:13,764
The most important thing is passion.

98
00:06:13,764 --> 00:06:16,004
You can give somebody an idea.

99
00:06:16,004 --> 00:06:17,626
If that person doesn't want to do it,

100
00:06:17,626 --> 00:06:21,307
what are you going to do?

101
00:06:21,307 --> 00:06:25,853
The passion that the person has for her own growth

102
00:06:25,853 --> 00:06:27,579
is the most important thing.

103
00:06:27,579 --> 00:06:32,136
The passion that that man has for his own personal growth

104
00:06:32,136 --> 00:06:33,801
is the most important thing.

105
00:06:33,801 --> 00:06:36,888
And then we help them to go and find the knowledge,

106
00:06:36,888 --> 00:06:42,357
because nobody in the world can succeed alone.

107
00:06:42,357 --> 00:06:45,076
The person with the idea may not have the knowledge,

108
00:06:45,076 --> 00:06:47,214
but the knowledge is available.

109
00:06:47,214 --> 00:06:51,073
So years and years ago, I had this idea:

110
00:06:51,073 --> 00:06:55,239
Why don't we, for once, instead of arriving in the community

111
00:06:55,239 --> 00:06:59,942
to tell people what to do, why don't, for once,

112
00:06:59,942 --> 00:07:04,767
listen to them? But not in community meetings.

113
00:07:04,767 --> 00:07:09,681
Let me tell you a secret.

114
00:07:09,681 --> 00:07:14,026
There is a problem with community meetings.

115
00:07:14,026 --> 00:07:17,732
Entrepreneurs never come,

116
00:07:17,732 --> 00:07:20,904
and they never tell you, in a public meeting,

117
00:07:20,904 --> 00:07:24,520
what they want to do with their own money,

118
00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:28,349
what opportunity they have identified.

119
00:07:28,349 --> 00:07:33,273
So planning has this blind spot.

120
00:07:33,273 --> 00:07:37,564
The smartest people in your community you don't even know,

121
00:07:37,564 --> 00:07:45,404
because they don't come to your public meetings.

122
00:07:45,404 --> 00:07:49,364
What we do, we work one-on-one,

123
00:07:49,364 --> 00:07:51,077
and to work one-on-one, you have to create

124
00:07:51,077 --> 00:07:53,752
a social infrastructure that doesn't exist.

125
00:07:53,752 --> 00:07:56,324
You have to create a new profession.

126
00:07:56,324 --> 00:08:01,828
The profession is the family doctor of enterprise,

127
00:08:01,828 --> 00:08:05,399
the family doctor of business, who sits with you

128
00:08:05,399 --> 00:08:08,524
in your house, at your kitchen table, at the cafe,

129
00:08:08,524 --> 00:08:12,562
and helps you find the resources to transform your passion

130
00:08:12,562 --> 00:08:14,955
into a way to make a living.

131
00:08:14,955 --> 00:08:20,276
I started this as a tryout in Esperance, in Western Australia.

132
00:08:20,276 --> 00:08:22,528
I was a doing a Ph.D. at the time,

133
00:08:22,528 --> 00:08:26,851
trying to go away from this patronizing bullshit

134
00:08:26,851 --> 00:08:30,663
that we arrive and tell you what to do.

135
00:08:30,663 --> 00:08:35,243
And so what I did in Esperance that first year

136
00:08:35,243 --> 00:08:39,869
was to just walk the streets, and in three days

137
00:08:39,869 --> 00:08:42,763
I had my first client, and I helped this first guy

138
00:08:42,763 --> 00:08:47,308
who was smoking fish from a garage, was a Maori guy,

139
00:08:47,308 --> 00:08:50,613
and I helped him to sell to the restaurant in Perth,

140
00:08:50,613 --> 00:08:53,743
to get organized, and then the fishermen came to me to say,

141
00:08:53,743 --> 00:08:56,729
"You the guy who helped Maori? Can you help us?"

142
00:08:56,729 --> 00:08:59,893
And I helped these five fishermen to work together

143
00:08:59,893 --> 00:09:04,029
and get this beautiful tuna not to the cannery in Albany

144
00:09:04,029 --> 00:09:07,862
for 60 cents a kilo, but we found a way

145
00:09:07,862 --> 00:09:13,213
to take the fish for sushi to Japan for 15 dollars a kilo,

146
00:09:13,213 --> 00:09:14,735
and the farmers came to talk to me, said,

147
00:09:14,735 --> 00:09:17,024
"Hey, you helped them. Can you help us?"

148
00:09:17,024 --> 00:09:19,950
In a year, I had 27 projects going on,

149
00:09:19,950 --> 00:09:22,102
and the government came to see me to say,

150
00:09:22,102 --> 00:09:24,489
"How can you do that?

151
00:09:24,489 --> 00:09:27,815
How can you do — ?" And I said, "I do something very, very, very difficult.

152
00:09:27,815 --> 00:09:33,468
I shut up, and listen to them." (Laughter)

153
00:09:33,468 --> 00:09:41,690
So — (Applause) —

154
00:09:41,690 --> 00:09:46,295
So the government says, "Do it again." (Laughter)

155
00:09:46,295 --> 00:09:49,453
We've done it in 300 communities around the world.

156
00:09:49,453 --> 00:09:52,988
We have helped to start 40,000 businesses.

157
00:09:52,988 --> 00:09:54,660
There is a new generation of entrepreneurs

158
00:09:54,660 --> 00:09:57,189
who are dying of solitude.

159
00:09:57,189 --> 00:10:03,348
Peter Drucker, one of the greatest management consultants in history,

160
00:10:03,348 --> 00:10:07,900
died age 96, a few years ago.

161
00:10:07,900 --> 00:10:09,680
Peter Drucker was a professor of philosophy

162
00:10:09,680 --> 00:10:11,644
before becoming involved in business,

163
00:10:11,644 --> 00:10:14,521
and this is what Peter Drucker says:

164
00:10:14,521 --> 00:10:20,185
"Planning is actually incompatible

165
00:10:20,185 --> 00:10:24,434
with an entrepreneurial society and economy."

166
00:10:24,434 --> 00:10:30,677
Planning is the kiss of death of entrepreneurship.

167
00:10:30,677 --> 00:10:33,372
So now you're rebuilding Christchurch

168
00:10:33,372 --> 00:10:36,853
without knowing what the smartest people in Christchurch

169
00:10:36,853 --> 00:10:41,511
want to do with their own money and their own energy.

170
00:10:41,511 --> 00:10:44,709
You have to learn how to get these people

171
00:10:44,709 --> 00:10:47,706
to come and talk to you.

172
00:10:47,706 --> 00:10:52,534
You have to offer them confidentiality, privacy,

173
00:10:52,534 --> 00:10:56,318
you have to be fantastic at helping them,

174
00:10:56,318 --> 00:11:00,312
and then they will come, and they will come in droves.

175
00:11:00,312 --> 00:11:03,207
In a community of 10,000 people, we get 200 clients.

176
00:11:03,207 --> 00:11:05,779
Can you imagine a community of 400,000 people,

177
00:11:05,779 --> 00:11:08,021
the intelligence and the passion?

178
00:11:08,021 --> 00:11:11,552
Which presentation have you applauded the most this morning?

179
00:11:11,552 --> 00:11:17,512
Local, passionate people. That's who you have applauded.

180
00:11:17,512 --> 00:11:22,783
So what I'm saying is that

181
00:11:22,783 --> 00:11:25,250
entrepreneurship is where it's at.

182
00:11:25,250 --> 00:11:28,396
We are at the end of the first industrial revolution --

183
00:11:28,396 --> 00:11:31,709
nonrenewable fossil fuels, manufacturing --

184
00:11:31,709 --> 00:11:36,166
and all of a sudden, we have systems which are not sustainable.

185
00:11:36,166 --> 00:11:38,813
The internal combustion engine is not sustainable.

186
00:11:38,813 --> 00:11:42,134
Freon way of maintaining things is not sustainable.

187
00:11:42,134 --> 00:11:45,222
What we have to look at is at how we

188
00:11:45,222 --> 00:11:51,240
feed, cure, educate, transport, communicate

189
00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:54,791
for seven billion people in a sustainable way.

190
00:11:54,791 --> 00:11:58,685
The technologies do not exist to do that.

191
00:11:58,685 --> 00:12:02,053
Who is going to invent the technology

192
00:12:02,053 --> 00:12:08,551
for the green revolution? Universities? Forget about it!

193
00:12:08,551 --> 00:12:11,444
Government? Forget about it!

194
00:12:11,444 --> 00:12:16,698
It will be entrepreneurs, and they're doing it now.

195
00:12:16,698 --> 00:12:19,593
There's a lovely story that I read in a futurist magazine

196
00:12:19,593 --> 00:12:21,266
many, many years ago.

197
00:12:21,266 --> 00:12:23,486
There was a group of experts who were invited

198
00:12:23,486 --> 00:12:28,114
to discuss the future of the city of New York in 1860.

199
00:12:28,114 --> 00:12:30,604
And in 1860, this group of people came together,

200
00:12:30,604 --> 00:12:33,551
and they all speculated about what would happen

201
00:12:33,551 --> 00:12:35,405
to the city of New York in 100 years,

202
00:12:35,405 --> 00:12:36,881
and the conclusion was unanimous:

203
00:12:36,881 --> 00:12:40,822
The city of New York would not exist in 100 years.

204
00:12:40,822 --> 00:12:43,083
Why? Because they looked at the curve and said,

205
00:12:43,083 --> 00:12:46,049
if the population keeps growing at this rate,

206
00:12:46,049 --> 00:12:50,185
to move the population of New York around,

207
00:12:50,185 --> 00:12:53,050
they would have needed six million horses,

208
00:12:53,050 --> 00:12:56,405
and the manure created by six million horses

209
00:12:56,405 --> 00:12:58,784
would be impossible to deal with.

210
00:12:58,784 --> 00:13:04,414
They were already drowning in manure. (Laughter)

211
00:13:04,414 --> 00:13:09,463
So 1860, they are seeing this dirty technology

212
00:13:09,463 --> 00:13:14,281
that is going to choke the life out of New York.

213
00:13:14,281 --> 00:13:19,410
So what happens? In 40 years' time, in the year 1900,

214
00:13:19,410 --> 00:13:24,013
in the United States of America, there were 1,001

215
00:13:24,013 --> 00:13:30,393
car manufacturing companies -- 1,001.

216
00:13:30,393 --> 00:13:33,999
The idea of finding a different technology

217
00:13:33,999 --> 00:13:36,361
had absolutely taken over,

218
00:13:36,361 --> 00:13:41,277
and there were tiny, tiny little factories in backwaters.

219
00:13:41,277 --> 00:13:46,909
Dearborn, Michigan. Henry Ford.

220
00:13:46,909 --> 00:13:51,280
However, there is a secret to work with entrepreneurs.

221
00:13:51,280 --> 00:13:54,674
First, you have to offer them confidentiality.

222
00:13:54,674 --> 00:13:57,012
Otherwise they don't come and talk to you.

223
00:13:57,012 --> 00:14:01,322
Then you have to offer them absolute, dedicated,

224
00:14:01,322 --> 00:14:04,774
passionate service to them.

225
00:14:04,774 --> 00:14:08,421
And then you have to tell them the truth about entrepreneurship.

226
00:14:08,421 --> 00:14:11,192
The smallest company, the biggest company,

227
00:14:11,192 --> 00:14:14,582
has to be capable of doing three things beautifully:

228
00:14:14,582 --> 00:14:18,833
The product that you want to sell has to be fantastic,

229
00:14:18,833 --> 00:14:22,657
you have to have fantastic marketing,

230
00:14:22,657 --> 00:14:26,026
and you have to have tremendous financial management.

231
00:14:26,026 --> 00:14:28,614
Guess what?

232
00:14:28,614 --> 00:14:31,028
We have never met a single human being

233
00:14:31,028 --> 00:14:36,675
in the world who can make it, sell it and look after the money.

234
00:14:36,675 --> 00:14:39,506
It doesn't exist.

235
00:14:39,506 --> 00:14:42,256
This person has never been born.

236
00:14:42,256 --> 00:14:44,748
We've done the research, and we have looked

237
00:14:44,748 --> 00:14:48,699
at the 100 iconic companies of the world --

238
00:14:48,699 --> 00:14:53,280
Carnegie, Westinghouse, Edison, Ford,

239
00:14:53,280 --> 00:14:55,883
all the new companies, Google, Yahoo.

240
00:14:55,883 --> 00:14:58,559
There's only one thing that all the successful companies

241
00:14:58,559 --> 00:15:02,047
in the world have in common, only one:

242
00:15:02,047 --> 00:15:06,582
None were started by one person.

243
00:15:06,582 --> 00:15:11,084
Now we teach entrepreneurship to 16-year-olds

244
00:15:11,084 --> 00:15:14,625
in Northumberland, and we start the class

245
00:15:14,625 --> 00:15:19,049
by giving them the first two pages of Richard Branson's autobiography,

246
00:15:19,049 --> 00:15:22,886
and the task of the 16-year-olds is to underline,

247
00:15:22,886 --> 00:15:26,514
in the first two pages of Richard Branson's autobiography

248
00:15:26,514 --> 00:15:29,669
how many times Richard uses the word "I"

249
00:15:29,669 --> 00:15:32,378
and how many times he uses the word "we."

250
00:15:32,378 --> 00:15:37,118
Never the word "I," and the word "we" 32 times.

251
00:15:37,118 --> 00:15:40,371
He wasn't alone when he started.

252
00:15:40,371 --> 00:15:45,415
Nobody started a company alone. No one.

253
00:15:45,415 --> 00:15:48,521
So we can create the community

254
00:15:48,521 --> 00:15:51,947
where we have facilitators who come from a small business background

255
00:15:51,947 --> 00:15:59,444
sitting in cafes, in bars, and your dedicated buddies

256
00:15:59,444 --> 00:16:03,116
who will do to you, what somebody did for this gentleman

257
00:16:03,116 --> 00:16:06,357
who talks about this epic,

258
00:16:06,357 --> 00:16:08,612
somebody who will say to you, "What do you need?

259
00:16:08,612 --> 00:16:10,551
What can you do? Can you make it?

260
00:16:10,551 --> 00:16:12,801
Okay, can you sell it? Can you look after the money?"

261
00:16:12,801 --> 00:16:16,555
"Oh, no, I cannot do this.""Would you like me to find you somebody?"

262
00:16:16,555 --> 00:16:18,643
We activate communities.

263
00:16:18,643 --> 00:16:22,687
We have groups of volunteers supporting the Enterprise Facilitator

264
00:16:22,687 --> 00:16:25,810
to help you to find resources and people

265
00:16:25,810 --> 00:16:28,799
and we have discovered that the miracle

266
00:16:28,799 --> 00:16:31,303
of the intelligence of local people is such

267
00:16:31,303 --> 00:16:35,010
that you can change the culture and the economy

268
00:16:35,010 --> 00:16:39,191
of this community just by capturing the passion,

269
00:16:39,191 --> 00:16:42,828
the energy and imagination of your own people.

270
00:16:42,828 --> 00:16:47,521
Thank you. (Applause)