Exclusive Interview: A 'crazy' formula for success

Can you outline the new set of competencies that companies and individuals will need in order to be successful?

The most difficult thing will not be finding new ideas, but escaping from old ones. Escaping from old ideas is going to be a very big challenge for everybody. The first thing is, how can we develop this new habit? It means you have to accept that people are going to try new things. You won't find solutions immediately. That's why, in my presentation, I speak about the "Why not?" mentality. Rather than having people who say "Why do we do this?", "Why do we do that?" it's better to have people who say: "Why not try something else?", "Why not do it?", "Let's try it." - "The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work."

We need to invent a new model. We need "Why not?" people. We need people with a lot of resilience. Resilience is the capacity to react and not to be stopped because something doesn't work.

In my presentation I give the example of President Abraham Lincoln. We know he was elected president of the US when he was 51 years old, and that he was a big success. But we don't know that before that he spent his life losing elections. He was only elected once. But before that, over time, he lost, I think, 10 elections.

I remember when I was a young economist I looked at those people who were successful in life. They all had one thing in common: they never succeeded in their first attempt. Most of them had big failures on their first try. Bill Gates is extremely unusual.

The last thing [we will need to have] is a sense of action. There are so many people who are over-analysing everything, and the more you analyse, the more scared you become. Because the more you analyse, the more problems you will find. There is a moment in life when you have to stop and just do it.

The world seems to have become more dangerous, so why should we become less careful?

You're right. But the problem is this: why are entrepreneurs so good? Because they don't think too much. If you think too much and you analyse, as you said, like an economist, you will find that there are dangers everywhere; that it can go wrong anywhere.

If somebody had come to me and proposed the McDonald's business model, I would have told them it was crazy; that asking people to queue in front of the kitchen to get their meal would never work, and was stupid. Ikea - asking people to assemble the furniture themselves - it's stupid, it will never work. Low-cost airlines - telling people they were going to fly, and was going to cost only US$50 dollars.

All these models did work because people did not think too much and just tried it. Any professor would have told you: no chance, don't do it. Any banker would have said: no chance, don't do it.

I tell my students that if a business idea is obvious and rational, then they should forget it. Don't do it, because the chances are someone else has done it before. So [I tell them] go for crazy stuff. If it is really crazy; if the thinking is not quite logical, then you have a chance. Otherwise, don't do it. Don't waste your time.

This is a problem with education. When you educate people, you ask them to give you back what you have taught them. And if they do it well, they will have good grades. The real issue in life is that you have to think differently. Precisely, you have to do things that others have not done before. That is how you get society going, also.

We don't teach [students] to be different: it's very difficult. We try at IMD, as a business school. But it's very different to tell people that there is no single answer, but ten different answers to any problem. In business, this is a rule of the game: there are 10 answers for any problem; 10 possible solutions that can work very well.

 I think the younger generation has wonderful opportunities because they can learn to work across different cultures. You have to learn that sometimes you see things in a very nice way in one culture, but they are not taken very well in another culture.

I think the advantage of [being able to use] many languages is that you think in a different way in every language, so you train your brain very well.

pichaya@nationgroup.com

Stephane Garelli was in Bangkok last week to give a keynote address to the Thailand Competitiveness Conference 2009, organised by the Board of Trade of Thailand, the Thailand Management Association, the Thai Institute of Directors and the National Economic and Social Development Board.

This is the second of a two-part series. The first part, concerned with economic recovery and the "new rules of the game" for businesses and countries, appeared on Monday.