What is business? What is leadership? How do you distinguish your business in an ever-more competitive world? How do you deal with a new normal that is anything but normal and in many cases is downright uncertain? These and other critical questions were posed and examined by the truly all-star roster of speakers at World Business Forum 2010. But regardless of the issue, if you listened to the presentations closely enough, there was a common thread holding them together... a whisper or implication from some, a bold call from others. Hey...it's the people. We're in business, but business is people. Leadership is about dealing with people and building relationships with people. The new normal is about how we, as people, cope with changed circumstances. Social media is about connecting with people. Sustainable energy is about the sustainability of people. (Ok, lions and tigers, too.)
From Jim Collins', Carlos Brito's and Jack Welch's exhortations to make sure you have the right people on the bus before you start to drive it to A.G. Lafley's, Vijay Govindarjan's and Brian Goldner's discourse on revitalizing down and out brands; from Renee Mauborgne's blue ocean strategies to Al Gore's and Charlene Li's takes on the new technologies of alternative energies and social media, the message was about the people. Joseph Grenny has spent a career analyzing how to influence people for positive change. And Martin Lindstrom makes his life work trying to figure what it is about people's subconscious brains that makes them buy what they do. And of course, the economists, Steve Levitt and Joseph Stiglitz, and political analyst/adviser, David Gergen, have spent lifetimes assessing how incentives, decisions and leaders impact people. And James Cameron...well, he is nothing without his people, be they designers, writers, actors, even the gaffers and stunt men.
Which left WBF10 to Nando Parrado, the ultimate person, to explain why. Crisis is a great leveler. When your plane has crashed somewhere in the Andes, killing your mother, sister and many of your best friends, leaving you stranded on a glacier at 14,000 feet without proper clothing or food, and where death surrounds and stalks you, who are you? When all your pretensions to success and civility are stripped away, what is the measure of you? In business terms, how will you react when the 'you know what' hits the 'you know where'? Parrado, whose story was made famous by the book and movie Alive, and whom we have highlighted before has a unique way of answering those questions.
While his narrative is putatively about crisis management (and we've all needed a good dose of that in the last few years), Nando Parrado's story is about being human--about redemption, second chances, courage, fath and....luck. He brought the WBF10 crowd to its feet after moving many to tears with his story, still heartrending nearly 40 years after it began to unfold. In the end, Nando just wanted to go home, to his father, to his home in Uruguay, to build his life again, to marry, to start a family and, yes, to build successful businesses. But, as successful as he has become, you drown in his humanity; you hear it as he breathes heavily, recounting the crash and then the avalanche that buried what was left of the airplane that was his home for 10 weeks. And you revel in his humanity as he recounts his harrowing, death-defying journey out of the mountains, on foot, with his friend Roberto Canessa, and then back to the glacier to rescue the remaining survivors.
You get a sense that Parrado is sometimes still on that glacier; he brings the esperience to life so vividly, you'd think it happened yesterdaym and not in 1972. Certainly, an experience like that forever marks one, "somatically," as Martin Lindstrom would say. Nando says that in comparison to what he's been through, anything difficult that happens in business is "just issues." But no matter how much we know that's true, too often we forget. Our businesses are important; they are, after all, our livelihood and they help "make the world go 'round." Even Nando admits he likes the good things in life--travel, fine food, etc. But they are, in the end, just material things, and without the people they have no meaning. Ditto our businesses. Without the people, they aren't worth a dime.
So by all means--get the right people on the bus; commit yourself and your team to excellence; drive a blue ocean strategy; explore new media and technology to connect, influence change, build a culture of excellence. But don't forget that you're doing it for the people--for your colleagues, your vendors, your customers, and for you and your friends and family. We'll have more on the Forum in the days to come, but for now, thanks to all the speakers and attendees, and thanks, Nando,, foe being so human.
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