Sir Richard Branson – Notes from the WPC Vision Keynote

For the first time in three years, I didn’t attend the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, this year held in Los Angeles – but like many of you I did follow it on Digital WPC where a lot of the content was streamed live for all to see.

This years Vision Keynote speaker was none other than Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin business empire.

You can watch the video of Microsoft’s Jon Roskill speaking with Richard Branson over at Digital WPC.

Also in attendance at WPC (boy, I really missed out this year!) was “The Growth Guy”, Verne Harnish – author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Fast-Growth Firm and one of my favourite business guru’s.

(On a side note, The Rockefeller Habits is a *must read* for IT companies in my opinion. The concepts of “Daily Huddles”, a “One Page Business Plan” and measuring performance through metrics are key to the growth of any business – my own included – highly recommended. I spoke with Kate Hunt of Looks Cloudy about some of the topics in the Rockefeller Habits on their “Weather Report” Podcast this week).

If you don’t subscribe to Verne’s Weekly Insight newsletter – then it’s well worth doing so. You won’t find consistently better free content.

In this weeks newsletter, Harnish gave his thoughts on Richard Branson’s keynote at WPC, including some interesting observations:-

“Richard Branson — Sir Richard was Microsoft’s brilliant guest keynote speaker (another smart decision by Microsoft). Branson’s advice included (and stories I had not heard or read before):

1. Approach to life — “Screw it, let’s do it.” But you also have to be quite strict about cutting your losses and saving your money for the next venture.

2. Most important life lesson — “Forgive your enemies, the world is too small.” After beating British Air in a nasty court case, he invited the head of British Air out to lunch and made him a friend.

3. On taking risk — “Never bet the farm; always protect your downside.” When he launched Virgin Air, Boeing agreed to take back the airplane he purchased after one year if the business didn’t work. This limited his liability to half of Virgin Records’ profits, something he could live with.

4. Women in the workplace — “Be more accommodating – job sharing, part-time positions, unpaid leave…and job sharing creates more jobs and is good for people and the company.” An important message for Microsoft to hear!

5. Small is beautiful — “When we have 100 people in the company…we’ll split the company into two. When we had our record company division, we actually had 20 separate record companies in 20 separate buildings with 20 separate brands…then those people could feel their success directly.”

6. Next 15 years — “Africa is a huge opportunity.” He was heading back down there right after his keynote.

7. His hobbies — “Stop eating shark fin soup.” Branson is always trying to make a difference – this comment from his efforts to protect endangered species, one of his latest hobbies”

Branson is not the first I’ve heard to speak about the “Small is beautiful” mantra, but it’s a big pointer to hear him talk about it. The more work I personally undertake with bigger clients, the more I believe that many of the problems in larger organisations are caused through them being too big for communication to flow effectively or a case of talented individuals simply getting lost in the mix. Splitting businesses into smaller business units may help avoid these issues.

It’s points number 2 and 7 that especially catch my eye though – “Forgive your enemies”. Try not to burn bridges, but instead mend them – the world really is too small a place to carry a grudge. “Make a difference” – for me I’ve always tried to run my businesses in an eco-friendly way, minimising waste and working with suppliers who understand the benefits of working in the same way, but whatever you do, it’s possible to be run a successful business and act ethically.

An inspired choice by Microsoft for this years Keynote. I’m hoping that next years WPC – to be held in Toronto, Canada – which I’ll be attending, will include an equally impressive speaker!

 

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