94.7 Cycle challenge Sunday

I don’t know about you but I often wonder what motivates someone to go out and watch something like the 94.7 Cycle Challenge? 

Taking part makes sense. The idea of cycling down the M1 motorway this morning, crossing the Nelson Mandela bridge, past the zoo, through Randburg and along the N14 back to the start, is an adventure of note.

Fetching and carrying someone you care about makes sense too, as does cheering them along with …. how many thousands of other cyclists?

Maybe it’s the possibility of seeing some drama,  someone falling off perhaps—just like the attraction of Formula 1 and the risk of a crash?

It could also have something to do with all those people with er … very little on. Nothing quite like a lean, fit, tanned individual in some real colourful cycling gear.    

Then again there are also those who shouldn’t be allowed to wear that sort of gear in public.  A couple of years ago doing an Argus Cycle tour myself I was astonished to find out that over 50% of all participants were clinically overweight.

But how do you explain those thousands of people who set themselves up with their chairs and the braai’s; who for want of a better phrase ’park off’ on the side of the road to watch the Cycle Challenge go by? 

Perhaps it has something with absorbing the passion, the fun, the hard work, the commitment, the risk, the pain, the sweat and the tears? 

Being part of something marvellous? 

That’s the thing with human endeavour—you can never keep it all to yourself. 

Ask anyone who has faced a challenge and triumphed. 

Got a medal for participating or set a new world record. 

Who was inspired by someone who climbed a mountain and couldn’t see, swam a race and couldn’t walk, rode a bike without hearing. 

Have a great week.

 

Do you want to know how much I earn?

Why do companies hate the idea their employees talk to one another about their salaries? What, they wonder, do employers have to hide? 

‘Obviously I earn less than everyone else otherwise it wouldn’t matter that we spoke about how much we earn and who has what benefits’. 

Of course it is now fairly commonplace to know what the directors of a listed company earn. 

If you want to know how much the CEO of MTN earns just read their Annual report. 

Anglo, Naspers, Caxton, Massmart and Kagiso Media all set out what their senior executives earned in the past year, usually specifying basic remuneration from reward systems like bonuses and share options. 

Around the world financial sector executives are being made to squirm as regulatory authorities put their proverbial foot down as to what they may earn—even South African banking executives will have to comply as the world continues to reel from the aftershocks of the big crash of 2009.

This week the COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi had to face an uproar over his salary doubling to R500k per annum and SA Communist Party leader Blade Nzimande had to explain how come as Higher Education Minister he allowed a vehicle to be purchased for his use costing a million bucks (check out http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/article179134.ece for more information).

The private sector has been equally hammered as union demands have gone up—who said to increase their trade union levies to pay for someone’s salary increase? I am sure that isn’t the case and that this is simply a hard capitalist lesson in supply and demand.  With a skills shortage you had better look after the people you have otherwise you will lose them.

South Africa right now has money on its brain—who earns what, why, how often and most importantly why don’t I earn as much as they do?    

And why don’t I earn as much as I did last year? 

Imagine a list of all salaries in your company is circulated by mistake.

What would you do?

What should you do?

If you are interested in what I earn as Managing Director of RadMark (Pty) Ltd, somewhere in my blog is an ‘invitation code’ unlocking this information.  Email the code to me and I will email you back my salary details.  Enjoy the search and have a great week.

The need for sustainability ……

Ok so this is the last in a four part series on what we can learn from Napoleon Bonaparte’s quote ‘Glory is fleeting, obscurity is forever’.

Three lessons so far:

‘Glory, or fame, is not forever’ (Lesson 1);

‘The opposite of glory is obscurity’ (Lesson 2); and

Glory and obscurity are too extreme for most of us—we would prefer a middle ground between the two (Lesson 3).

Looking at this third lesson: the question I posed last week was this: If glory (fame) is fleeting, and obscurity is forever, then what about a middle ground where we don’t have to be incredibly famous, nor obscure for the rest of our lives? It wouldn’t have worked for Napoleon because he wanted glory—it was what drove him to conquer most of the civilized world.

For most of us however what we are looking for is a middle ground where we feel we matter; where we count and make a difference.

And then I concluded by suggesting that the middle ground we seek may be found in something called: sustainability.

Now sustainability is a hot topic right now.

It is commonly used when discussing environmental issues—the idea behind it is that whatever we do we are responsible for the impact we have on the planet we live on and the people who inhabit it.

So things like global warming, best farming practices, environmentally friendly industry all require that one considers the implications for the sustainability of life as we know it. And that means what we use today can be no more than what is needed for future generations tomorrow.

Let’s look for a moment at how sustainability applies to business—the idea this time is that there isn’t just a bottom line in business called profit.

In reality there is a triple bottom line, or 3BL, that covers people, planet and profit.

How you approach each will determine how sustainable your business is.

You may make a quick buck by producing a cheap product, but sooner or later the market will realize what you are doing and shun you in the future. That isn’t sustainable.

If your employees are encouraged to do unethical things like make promises you have no intention of keeping you are hurting them as well as your customers. That isn’t sustainable either.

And if you don’t protect the environment from air and water pollution, by only using things like eco-friendly production and packaging, you will damage the planet to such an extent that the misery caused by extreme weather patterns will mean people won’t be able, or prepared, to buy your product anyway. That too isn’t sustainable.

In Napoleon’s quote there seems to me a need to justify his actions. Glory, even just fleeting, was preferable to the horror of obscurity. For him.

Ironically had he been an obscure individual we wouldn’t even be discussing him today.

But equally so had it not been for his need for glory he would never have been banished to St Helena to live out the last of his days lonely, ill and depressed.

Many businesses round the world, particularly in the financial sector, feel the same way today—perhaps had they been more focused on sustainability we would all have experienced much less pain in the great ‘crash of 2009’.

I think the future will belong to those who understand the need for sustainability across the 3BL.

I wonder what Napoleon would have thought of that?