Who should lead?
Studying for my History O-Level in 1979 at the age of 16 (you have to be British and above a certain age to know what an ‘O-Level’ was) I was struck by a curious sociological finding. The philanthropist and entrepreneur Robert Owen, an industrialist in 19th Century Britain, discovered that if he paid his workers more, and arranged for them to work shorter hours in safer conditions, his profits rose.
I didn’t get a top grade in History, I must admit, though I did pass. Yet the counter-intuitive finding remained lodged in my mind. The explanation behind how to gain a profit boost by increasing the cost base on your most important asset has its explanation in the fact that workplace economics is complex, emotional and three-dimensional, in contrast to the ideologies of conventional politics which treat it as a zero-sum game. At the time, in 1970s Britain, trade unions were displaying militancy over pay claims, while in the year of my O-Levels Margaret Thatcher rose to power with the aim of confronting them. How could the long-dead industrialist Robert Owen be better informed and more enlightened than political and trade union leaders a century later?
It is possible to be profitable and socially responsible and ethical, benefiting everyone! You can even look after the environment at the same time, which makes sense because, after all, the environment is where we live. There are some trade-offs at the edges, buy why is this not treated as the greatest discovery of modern times? Greater than aircraft, space travel, Chat GPT and the Pez dispenser.
A century and a half on, this enlightened practice of profiting business and society simultaneously is still not routine, or even common. To be fair, it is not easy. But the many, diverse, multiple benefits for all ought to make it a priority.
In the past three years, it’s been my privilege to work on a book that demonstrates how the principles can be applied in the apparently unpromising context of communities living in extreme poverty. My collaborator Barry Childs and his colleagues in Tanzania have spent 20 years developing a sustainable business model which rather ingeniously combines the better elements of private enterprise — innovation, growth, retention of profits for reinvestment and inheritance; with that of social development — the businesses form part of a wider cooperative initiative, including profit sharing with social projects. The strategic goal is to lift people out of poverty and enhance prospects for children. The impact on living standards, as confirmed by independent research, is considerable: better quality housing, huge improvements to diets, better attendance at school, more young people going to university.
And the Children Shall Lead Us tells the story of the Africa Bridge project, which has helped 37 villages, transforming prospects for thousands of people. The hope now is to encourage imitation of the model in other communities, not only in Tanzania, but in other countries and regions. The book is available from Amazon in the UK and US, and can be ordered from your local bookstore. Release date 8 April 2024.
