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Paul Harris | Carlos Slim Helu: In the money, but who would know it?
Mar 14th
Until last week few had heard of the new richest man in the world. Fellow Mexicans, however, know all about his clout, saying they live in Slimlandia
Until recently, articles introducing the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim have often run under some variation of the headline: “The richest man you’ve never heard of”. That is unlikely to be the case for much longer.
Slim was anointed last week by Forbes magazine as the richest man in the world, unseating Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He is worth a staggering $53.5bn, which is not a bad sum for a man born to an immigrant father in the teeming but desperately poor metropolis of Mexico City.
At first glance Slim’s unseating of Gates seems counter-intuitive. Gates is a product of the modern information age that has transformed the world’s economy in ways not seen since the Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile, Slim has made his fortune building an old-fashioned conglomerate empire with a finger in every pie from cement to telephones to restaurants.
Gates’ business hails from Seattle, one of the most cutting-edge cities in the world for technological innovation, and Gates himself lives in a lavish, ultra-modern home. Slim comes from the relative backwater of Mexico, a country whose economy traditionally bleeds poor workers north across the Rio Grande in search of riches. He struggles with computers, and even mobile phones, and still to a large extent relies on simple charts he drafts himself. He lives in a modest six-bedroom mansion that is luxurious by the standards of most of his fellow countrymen but small when compared to many much less successful Mexicans.
Yet now Slim sits on top of the global billionaire pile, an unlikely king who wields a power known only to a few, and most of them tend to have entire countries at their beck and call. And he has done it the old-fashioned way. He buys when prices are low, then watches his wealth accumulate. Then he buys again. He has been the master of the fire sale, swooping in to snap up bargains in the midst of panics and sell-offs. All of which actually makes the current state of the world uniquely suited to a man of Slim’s talents. For, in the middle of a recession, prices have rarely been lower. Slim is already buying again, snapping up stakes in Citigroup and the New York Times. In 2008, he became the largest shareholder in the newspaper and, in some estimates, helped save it from bankruptcy.
Do not look for Slim’s wealth to go down anytime soon or for him to disappear from the headlines. The world’s subeditors are now going to have to think of more original ways to describe a man set to become a household name.
Carlos Slim Helu was born the fifth of six children to Lebanese-Mexicans who ran successful small businesses in Mexico City. His mother, Linda Helu, came from a distinguished famil of Lebanese origin who had brought the first Arabic printing press to Mexico in the 19th century. His father, Julian Slim Haddad, was more of a classic immigrant-on-the-make who had arrived in the country in 1902 in order to avoid conscription into the Ottoman army.
In this marriage of the artsy middle-class girl with a working-class striver it was clear that the influence of his father won out. Julian had set up a dry goods store and then invested the profits in property during the Mexican revolution. He gave all his children a ledger and taught them how to keep track of simple financial transactions. Slim took that lesson to heart.
Slim started young. Even on the school playground he would carefully monitor the trades in baseball cards he made with other children so he could see if he was coming out ahead (he generally was). By 11 he had already bought his first government savings bonds. By 15 he had invested in Banco Nacional de México. He discovered a genuine fascination and obsession with numbers and the elaborate dances they play on a balance sheet. He could also see where those dances could be turned into making serious cash. He studied civil engineering at university and kept his passion for maths going by teaching algebra on the side. On graduation he became one of a clique called “los Casabolseros” or “the stock market boys”, young wheeler-dealers in the nascent world of the Mexican stock market. He started snapping up businesses, turning around a couple of companies, and then came the most important year of his life.
In 1982 Mexico plunged into economic crisis and, spurred on by a rising oil price, the government nationalised the banks. The country’s elite sold off their assets. There, waiting on the sidelines, as his father had taught him, was Slim. By the time the panic was over he had picked up dozens of companies at rock-bottom prices. Slim was now a major player and he only got bigger. He grew close to the rising star of Carlos Salinas, a modernising politician who became president in 1988. Wags dubbed the pair the “Carlos and Charlie show” after a local chain of rowdy bars.
But no one was laughing when a wave of privatisations began at what critics said were a series of undervalued deals. In 1990 Slim snapped up Telmex, the former state telephone firm. It was a sign of the times. Salinas’s privatisations created a new veneer of super wealth in Mexico. In 1991 the country had just two billionaires on Forbes’ rich list. Three years later, it had 24 and Slim was among the biggest. Just as Slim had often proved the value of knowing numbers, he also proved the value of knowing people.
His empire has grown since then, and is now vast in scope. He owns controlling interests in at least 222 different companies and minor stakes in countless more. By some estimates his firm accounts for a third of Mexico’s leading stock market index and some 7% of its annual economic output. By comparison John Rockefeller at the peak of his powers as a 19th-century industrialist was worth just 2.5% of American gross domestic product. The sheer scope of Slim’s holdings is breathtaking. It is virtually impossible for Mexicans to go about their lives without in some way contributing to his fortune. Some say Mexicans are really living in “Slimlandia”. They are born in Slim’s hospitals, drive on his Tarmac, smoke his tobacco. They build their houses from his cement, eat in his restaurants, talk on his phones, and sleep in bed linen made in his factories.
Many argue that creates an effective monopoly in too many industries, especially telecoms, allowing Slim to keep prices high. They see his tentacles stretching throughout the Mexican economy and complain that it stifles the county’s ability to generate small, independent companies. In Slim’s great power they see a suffocating blanket that helps keep Mexico poor and its people still looking to El Norte for their salvation. There may well be an economic truth to that argument (though Slim would argue against it). But there is also likely a hint of racial prejudice there. Mexicans have a mixed relationship with the world’s richest man. There is pride of having one of their own at the peak of the world’s financial pyramid. But there is distrust over his Lebanese background, though Slim himself says he knows no phrase in Arabic apart from swearwords.
Detractors aside, there is something universally appealing about Slim. The rich may be different to the rest of us, but Slim is a quite human billionaire. His modest mansion reflects none of the egomania so common among other industrialists and billionaires, including Gates. He owns no yacht, nor any home outside Mexico (what is the point, he says, when hotels are cheaper and less trouble). He does not spend much of his huge wealth and indeed is still known to drive a hard bargain for even day-to-day things. One friend has recounted a holiday spent with Slim in Italy during which the billionaire haggled for two hours to knock the price of a tie down by $10.
He is still a family man and has his family over for a communal meal every week, just like millions of other Mexicans. He married well – the Lebanese-Mexican Soumaya Domit Gemayel – who was the love of his life. When she died in 1999 he built an art museum and named it after her.
He is not a fixture in the gossip columns and has already handed off large chunks of the running of his businesses to his three sons. Not that he will ever retire fully.
In a life lived mostly on a curiously human scale, Slim has indulged a monumental passion for art. His home is not large but it is stuffed with sculptures by Rodin and paintings by Renoir and Van Gogh.
Yet it is still the numbers game that he loves most of all. Nor is that a game he will ever retire from. He sees his business not so much as a trading empire, but more like the works of art that adorn his walls. “Artists don’t just stop doing what they are doing because they have painted a beautiful painting,” he told one interviewer who asked about his retirement plans “They carry on until they die.”
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Doing good – by comparison
Mar 14th
A personal finance comparison site set up by Beat That Quote and Oxfam promises to donate two thirds of its takings to charity
Savers who take out a new Isa or switch providers could raise money for charity at the same time by using a comparison website set up by Oxfam.
Comparison sites are typically paid commission by whichever product provider the customer selects. This can range from a couple of pounds for a credit card to hundreds of pounds for a life insurance, pension or annuity product. CompareForGood.com – a collaboration between site Beatthatquote.com and Oxfam – will give more than two-thirds of the commission it generates to charity. The remainder will be used to run the site.
Compare for Good allows consumers to compare thousands of products, including loans, mortgages, credit cards, current and savings accounts, pensions, annuities and investments. Isas, for example, are arranged with instant access accounts at the top of the table, followed by those with a fixed term.
Compare for Good was developed by entrepreneur Ivan Massow, who set up an insurance advisory firm for gay men and people with HIV in the 1990s. He said: “We estimate that every household has two or three credit cards, plus two or more insurance policies – home, car, travel – that will need renewing each year. If people use Compare for Good to switch deals, that’s quite a lot of potential income for Oxfam.”
Charities have suffered a fall in donations during the recession, but Cathy Ferrier, Oxfam’s director of fundraising, said: “This website means people can support Oxfam even when money is tight.”
The site will soon be adding a utilities comparison service, enabling visitors to make sure they are on the most competitive tariffs. The 4%-8% cuts in consumer prices announced by the big six providers – npower, E.ON, Scottish and Southern Energy, EDF, Scottish Power and British Gas – during the past few weeks are much smaller than expected given the drop in wholesale costs, which have fallen by 60% since their peak in the summer of 2008, according to energy consultants McKinnon & Clarke.
But if you add these cuts to those made last year, E.ON has reduced bills by £112 in total, Scottish and Southern Energy by £97, nPower by £94 and British Gas by £170, says comparison website Uswitch.
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Bank charges: Overdrawn by 15p? Let’s call it £80
Mar 14th
One Alliance & Leicester customer’s penalty charge works out at 53,333%, finds Jill Insley
An Alliance & Leicester current account customer, charged £80 for going 15p overdrawn, is calling on the bank to introduce a “buffer” for those who mistakenly go into the red without permission.
Lewis Mathers, 20, from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, ran up an unauthorised overdraft for 11 days last November. Alliance & Leicester did not notify him immediately and he only noticed he had gone overdrawn on his monthly statement.
Since the amount was 15p he thought little of it. But the bank levied a £25 penalty and, because he used the account while overdrawn, the charges spiralled to £80. This is equivalent to a simple interest rate of 53,333% on the 15p, and two days’ pay for Lewis, who supports himself and girlfriend Charlene Jones, who has a heart condition, on a £200-a-week salary plus her £250-a-month disability living allowance.
Lewis’s father Nigel, a mortgage consultant, said: “We contacted Alliance & Leicester to let them know that they appeared to have made a terrible mistake but we were totally shocked when they said the charges were correct.
“We highlighted to them that the charges equated to a penalty interest rate of over 53,000% and an APR close to 2,000,000%, and that this could not be possible, but they simply said that if we were not happy we would need to put our complaint in writing. However, when we did this and asked them not to apply their charges while the account remained in dispute, they wrote to us stating that their charges were correct.”
When they continued to contest the charges, Alliance & Leicester said it would not refund them because of a Supreme Court ruling in November which said the OFT had no power to decide whether bank charges were fair or not. It said: “The Supreme Court decided, unanimously, that the level of banks’ unarranged overdraft charges could not be assessed for fairness. Therefore we do not believe that there is any legal basis on which the amount of the charges can be challenged or refunded, and hence the fees levied are valid.”
Mathers took his case to the Financial Ombudsman, complaining Alliance & Leicester’s charges were immoral and must be incorrect, but was told the service would be unable to help if his complaint related to the level of charges. Still, a spokeswoman for the service says all banks “should treat customers who are in financial hardship in a sympathetic and positive way and try to produce a resolution”. A low-income customer whose overdraft charges pile up because he is unable to clear the debt may be judged to be in financial hardship.
Eventually Alliance & Leicester agreed to refund most of the charges as a “gesture of goodwill”. But a bank spokesman said: “We believe that our fees are fair, legal and appropriate, and clearly explained. Customers have a responsibility to keep an eye on their finances, but if a customer believes they are going to go over their agreed limit, they should contact us to see how we can help.
“Mr Mathers was given plenty of notice of the fees being applied to his account, and as he was continually using his account to deposit and withdraw funds it would have been simple for him to have kept an eye on his balance and avoid the unauthorised overdraft fees.”
Although the Mathers are grateful the charges have been reduced, Nigel is still concerned other Alliance & Leicester customers will be caught out. He said: “If they want to be fair to customers they need to change their banking policy so that those who go overdrawn by very small amounts and/or for very short periods, should not be penalised at all, or should certainly not be penalised to the extent that they are.
“A large number of banks do allow a reasonable amount of flexibility in this area and offer an overdraft “buffer zone” or a time period whereby no charges apply. These other banks accept there will be certain where an account may go slightly overdrawn and do not feel the need to punish customers in those circumstances. I believe that Santander (which owns Alliance & Leicester) should look at those accounts and apply a similar policy so they can avoid treating their customers unfairly.”
A spokeswoman for Alliance & Leicester says the bank has no plans to change the structure of its accounts.
Draft dodging
A recent survey by Moneysupermarket.com found that 5 million Britons – or 10% of those old enough to have a bank account – are permanently overdrawn, while 12% drop into the red five times a year and 38% use their overdraft at least once a year. So which account suits what type of overdraft user?
• Occasionally overdrawn
Cheapest: The Halifax Reward current account is the cheapest for customers who go overdrawn by £500 for just five days a month, as the overdraft charge of £1 per day for debit balances under £2,500 will be covered by the £5 monthly payment the bank pays to account holders who pay in £1,000 a month. bank account £16.80.
Most expensive: Alliance & Leicester’s Premier Direct account is one of the priciest, costing £2.50 a month or £30 a year.
• Permanently overdrawn
Cheapest: Ironically Lewis Mathers might do better if his account was permanently in the red. Alliance & Leicester is one of the cheapest, costing someone in this situation £60 a year, according to Moneysupermarket.
Most expensive: Halifax’s fixed daily rate the makes it one of the most expensive, with borrowers clocking up £300 in charges.
• Accounts with buffers
Buffers allow you to go overdrawn by a small amount without incurring hefty fees. Coventry Building Society’s First Current account and First Direct’s First account both offer buffers of up to £250. The Co-operative Bank’s Current Account Plus has a £200 buffer while NatWest’s Current Plus account offers a £100 buffer.
Jill Insley
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Next Stop: Cowee Baptist Church – Franklin, NC
Mar 13th
I am excited to be speaking at Cowee Baptist Church (Pastor David Powell) in Franklin NC tomorrow morning during their 8:45 and 11:00 AM services! In the evening, I will be teaching the Financial Learning Experience.
Here is what I know to be true: We all have friends and family that struggle with financial issues. If you live in the general vicinity, I challenge you to bring somebody with you! You can find out more information HERE.
I can not believe that I get to do this!
Let’s move to Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
Mar 13th
Just another grimy, post-industrial town? Far from it – it’s the new Leeds, don’t you know
What’s going for it?
I’d never thought much about Huddersfield. Just another grimy post-industrial town, I guessed. But then I was listening to Radio 4’s The Food Programme, all about a co-operative of artisan bakers on the edge of town. Hmm, I thought. File that. And then I recalled Incredible Edible Huddersfield, the grow-your-own community movement à la Hugh FW. Double hmm. And then I cross-referenced this information with the Ofsted reports (really very good). Triple hmm. And then the Lady Wife drew my attention to its reputation for doughty Victorian civic buildings. And then I went there. The blind can now see! Huddersfield’s a marvel. A booming uni, the Pennines on the doorstep, a history of community-minded leftiness, a cultural scene especially rich in music and, let’s get materialistic, great, great property at lovely prices. Three words: the new Leeds. Two more: move there.
The case against
Has had more than its fair share of ring roads, cruddy 60s shopping centre. Redevelopment long promised for the centre.
Well connected?
Very. The M62 swings by and the M1’s 20 minutes away. But the real boon is the railway: Manchester (40 minutes) and Leeds (25 minutes); plus services to Barnsley, Bradford, Sheffield, Halifax. Direct, too, to Scarborough, York and Liverpool.
Schools
Splendid. “Good” primaries, says Ofsted: St Patrick’s Catholic, Moldgreen Community, St Joseph’s Catholic, Golcar, St John’s CofE, Crow Lane, Fixby, Moorlands, Nields, Paddock, Scapegoat Hill, Slaithwaite CofE and Wellhouse. “Good” primaries with “outstanding” features: South Crosland CofE, Repton, Rawthorpe. “Outstanding” primaries: Lindley, Newsome, Linthwaite Clough, Rowley Lane and Spring Grove. “Good” secondaries: Fartown, Rawthorpe, Royds Hall, Salendine Nook, King James’s and Almondbury; Moor End “outstanding”; independent Huddersfield Grammar well regarded, too.
Hang out at…
Good local restaurants and cafes, like Vanilla and the Dining Rooms. Me? I’ll have a pint of mild at The Rat & Ratchet, famed for its ales.
Where to buy
The south, north-west and west for best, everything from stone cottages to vast villas. Nice villagey inner urban spots, too.
Market values
Vast detacheds, £750,000-£1.25m. Sizeable detacheds, Victorian villas etc, £350,000-£750,000. Standard detacheds, £150,000-£350,000. Semis, £80,000-£400,000 (big Victorians). Terraces, £50,000-£270,000 (period cottages).
Bargain of the week
Fancy a Victorian mill, all 3,717 sq m of it? Stone built, west of the centre, bit of a project – £430,000, with Walker Singleton (01484 477600).
From the streets
Catherine McGrath “The place has spirit, real diversity and beautiful buildings to boot.”
Becca Spavin “Huddersfield station: a magnificent building with two real ale pubs on the platform.”
Neil Clakson “Coffee Evolution is a great cafe with a funky bar and good for people watching from the window. The monthly poetry nights at the Albert are an institution.”
Alison Munday “A busy town, kept vibrant by the universityand events like the annual Contemporary Music Festival (http://www.hcmf.co.uk/), the Kirklees Mela and the Huddersfield Carnival.”
• Live in Huddersfield? Join the debate at guardian.co.uk/letsmoveto
Do you live in Waltham Abbey Do you have a favourite haunt or a pet hate? If so, please write, by next Tuesday, to lets.move@guardian.co.uk.
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Teach First aims for top of the class
Mar 13th
You will progress faster than any other graduate programme. That is the promise one charity is making to encourage high flyers to pursue a career in teaching
They say those who can, teach; or at least that’s the catchphrase the government has long been using to entice graduates into the profession. But despite the fact that teaching has been presented as a recession-proof job choice, the government says it still needs more top calibre graduates to enter the profession.
A recent poll by revealed that many are put off by generalisations about teachers’ low pay and limited opportunities to progress.
While the Conservative party has been calling for teachers to be better qualified, Gordon Brown has reiterated the need for “empathy, understanding, passion”; all of which means one thing – motivated, hard-working graduates are in demand. Teach First, an independent educational charity, seeks to find said grads who can inspire and encourage pupils from poor backgrounds to fulfil their academic potential.
James Darley, director of graduate recruitment at Teach First, says: “There’s an educational disadvantage in the UK, whereby the wealth of a parent determines the quality of their child’s education. We can help change that by putting the best minds into the most challenged communities and help raise the achievements and aspirations of a child’s life.”
Teach First offers graduates a structured and rigorous two-year teaching and leadership development programme – the sort of training that most private sector companies have been forced to axe as a result of the recession. Darley points out: “It’s a scheme whereby you will progress faster than any other graduate programme – if you can deal with a classroom of 30 children disengaged with education, you can deal with a trading floor or an unhappy client.
“You have to not only have the subject knowledge but also be a good planner, organiser and leader and also think about humility and respect. If you are thrown into a community that’s very different to your own, you have to be able to get beyond that, get on their level and understand those children.”
The leadership development programme differs from the traditional teaching route of a degree followed by a post-graduate certificate in education (PGCE) because it instantly takes you out of the university lecture hall and straight into the classroom for hands-on experience, pretty much from day one. By this summer, the charity aims to have trained 2,000 high-flying graduates as teachers.
The programme lasts for two years, graduates receive a training salary of between £17,260 to £21,242, and, on top of that, the course modules count towards a master’s in educational leadership, providing another qualification (the MA is fully-funded provided it is completed within three years of starting Teach First).
The first year involves trainee teaching a 70%-full timetable and completing a number of assessments to acquire Qualified Teacher Status (the equivalent of a PGCE), while the second year involves more teaching in the classroom (as a fully qualified teacher) and completing the leadership element of the course.
After graduating from Oxford University with a history degree in 2008, 23-year-old James O’Donoghue spent a year gaining work experience in schools which spurred him on to apply for the Teach First scheme. Originally from East Sussex, he is now six months into his first year of the leadership development course, teaching history (as a trainee) in an inner city school in Birmingham.
“I’ve always believed that the best way to learn is to do, and I thought it was best to get hands-on experience straight away – the structure of the Teach First programme allows this,” O’Donoghue says. “Teaching isn’t easy, but I’m in a school that is really driven and a lot of people share the same ambition, which is to encourage the pupils to do well.
“I’m learning every single day and while it’s important to uphold Teach First’s message of being role models, you’ve got to recognise that the primary goal has got to be to get your basic teaching right – ultimately, it’s the quality of your teaching that will make the biggest difference to the kids in the classroom.”
For O’Donoghue, Teach First’s leadership development programme is a “very effective form of teacher training” but he stresses it’s not for everyone: “You have got to apply yourself – the nature of this course is so intense, and the stakes are sometimes exposed quite cruelly when it comes to performance. There is a lot of work, but there’s tremendous job satisfaction – for instance, my GCSE year 11 group was struggling, and were initially testing me out to see what they could get away with.
“But then, to get through that, to achieve mutual respect, to see them getting their heads down, asking for feedback, and taking a more long-term view – to knuckle down and work for a qualification that might not have been attainable before – is just incredible, and I’m so happy to see them working hard,” he says.
There are 150 places available on the Teach First leadership development programme for a June 2010 start to teach science, maths or ICT. Applicants require a 2:1 or a first and A-levels grade A or B in the subject they wish to teach (science applicants require at least two science A-levels at grade A or B). Apply online by 2 April at graduates.teachfirst.org.uk
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How business can learn from great leaders in history
Mar 13th
Nelson led from the front, Lincoln had a vision, while Mandela built bridges. When it comes to improving skills, history’s great leaders provide lessons for us all, says Jonathan Gifford
History is filled with the achievements of great leaders, but what were they so good at, and how did they achieve the things that made them great?
The short answer is: they were good at some things and rubbish at others. Some really great leaders did nearly all the things that leaders are supposed to be good at; some did only a few. Many were so brilliant at some things, it eclipsed the fact that they were indifferent at others. Which, let’s face it, is pretty much like the rest of us: strengths and weaknesses; talents and foibles; good days and bad days.
Whether you’re a manager or part of a team at work, history’s great leaders still provide lessons for us all. Here are five key attributes that we can work on by examining the past.
Leading from the front: Horatio Nelson
Anybody who takes on an arduous or unpleasant task is leading from the front: making that difficult phone call; volunteering for a tedious but essential task; or demonstrating that you are not asking other people to do anything that you would not do yourself.
Leading from the front what is what Nelson did; it defines him. He lost an eye leading a shore attack in Corsica, when a cannonball impact threw sand and stones into his face. In another shore attack, on Tenerife, he was so badly wounded that his arm had to be amputated. He won fame and glory by leading a boarding party to capture not one, but two, Spanish vessels in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. This is how Nelson gained the unquestioning loyalty of his men.
In one desperate skirmish against the Spanish at Cadiz, which led to hand-to-hand fighting on small boats, Nelson’s life was saved by his coxswain, John Sykes, who used his bare arm to parry a sword blow aimed at Nelson’s head. “Thank God, sir, you are safe,” said the badly wounded Sykes.
When Nelson devised his plan to attack the French and Spanish fleet off Trafalgar by sailing at right angles through the line of enemy ships, instead of lining up for the traditional exchange of broadsides, he knew that his leading ships would be exposed to enemy fire for a desperately long time without being able to return fire. It was customary to place the admiral’s flagship in the centre of the line; Nelson put HMS Victory at the head of the line. He stayed on deck commanding the battle (“No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy”) and was shot by a French marine from a ship that Victory had engaged. “Thank God, I have done my duty,” said the dying Nelson.
Taking the offensive: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Another leadership skill that originates mainly from the military. Who better, then, to illustrate this attribute than an unassuming, middle-class, Victorian lady from Suffolk?
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson took on the entire 19th-century medical profession in her simple desire to be allowed to practise medicine. There was a slight problem: none of the examining bodies would issue the necessary qualification to a woman. In many cases, the examining bodies’ ancient charters had simply never envisaged that they would be faced with this bizarre demand.
However, there was one loophole: the Society of Apothecaries’ charter admitted “all persons desirous of studying medicine”, and a qualification from the Apothecaries allowed one to practise medicine. After much deliberation, it was decided that “persons” did include women.
Garrett Anderson painstakingly assembled the necessary qualifications (no medical school would enrol her on a course). Belatedly, the society realised that she had every intention of gaining her qualifications and that they risked the wrath of the medical profession for having enabled a woman to get on to the medical register. They wrote to say that she would not be able to sit the examinations after all.
Her father threatened to sue, and legal counsel advised the society that its charter did not, in fact, disbar women. Garrett Anderson got her qualification, set up practice off London’s Edgware Road and founded the St Mary’s Dispensary for Women and Children. She became the first woman to receive her medical degree (from Paris University) and later helped to found the London Medical College for Women. She was elected to the first London School Board and, as a final flourish, became Britain’s first woman mayor, of Aldeburgh.
Garrett Anderson is a shining example of how we can take the offensive simply by not taking no for an answer; by accomplishing what we have set our hearts on in the face of entrenched opposition.
Changing the mood: Nelson Mandela
We all quickly recognise the pervading atmosphere, or culture, in any organisation; changing a bad culture can be the hardest thing that managers or workers are called upon to do. Nelson Mandela changed the mood of a divided South Africa that had just stepped back from the brink of civil war and which faced a future fraught with the likelihood of further inter-racial conflict.
Mandela, when standing trial on a charge of high treason for acts of sabotage against the South African state, said: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.
“It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Despite spending 27 years in prison, Mandela emerged with these ideals intact. In 1994, when the country’s first multiracial elections were held, white South Africans knew that the country’s black majority, disenfranchised for so long by the system of apartheid, would return a predominantly black government. They feared that a repressive white regime would be replaced by a repressive black regime.
In fact, Mandela set out on a symbolic campaign of personal forgiveness and set up the ingenious Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He ran the new multiracial government with a light but decisive touch and set the tone – relaxed, inclusive, cheerful – that would create a new mood in the country.
Boldness of vision: Abraham Lincoln
Leaders need to have a long-term view of where an organisation is headed. For most, that vision need not be dramatic or earth-shattering, but it must be something that people can relate to; something that gives them an understandable purpose. Great leaders from history work on a broader canvas than most organisations. Some have been able to offer a vision that has changed the course of history.
Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky in 1809. He educated himself from borrowed books, studying at the end of each day’s labours on the farm. He went on to teach himself law, passed his bar examination and became involved in politics. In 1856 he joined the Republican party, recently founded on an anti-slavery platform. He became the first Republican president of the United States in 1860.
The issue of slavery threatened to split the country in two: the America civil war was about to begin. When Lincoln started his presidency he was desperate merely to hold the United States together. The new nation’s radical experiment in republican government was in danger of fragmenting into a collection of loosely associated states; of ceasing to be a nation.
Lincoln preferred not to address the issue of slavery in states where it was long-established and sought at first only to prevent the spread of slave ownership into new territories, as America expanded to the west. But as the civil war progressed, he realised that the moral issue was in fact the core problem; that the pragmatic solution of merely holding the states together was no solution. The vision that he offered was suddenly clear in his own mind, as it would soon be in the nation as a whole: “a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Making things happen: Zhou Enlai
A leader’s vision may or may not be that different from the next person’s; what can set them apart is the vigour with which they pursue that strategy.
Zhou Enlai is one of history’s great workhorses. He could have become the chairman of the Communist party of China, but gave his backing to Mao Zedong. When the party came to power, Zhou served as premier of the People’s Republic of China for the rest of his life, and spent most of his time trying to reduce the damage done by the succession of foolish (and often murderous) programmes set in train by his boss, Chairman Mao.
Zhou argued early on that China needed the input of its intellectuals in order to modernise. Mao briefly espoused this idea, encouraging a campaign of criticism of the party by intellectuals. When the intellectuals obliged, Mao purged all “rightists” so viciously that this episode may have been merely a ploy by Mao to flush out his ideological enemies.
Mao went on to launch a series of disastrous programmes: the Great Leap Forward introduced agricultural collectivisation on a massive scale and created the world’s worst famine; it also diverted resources on a huge scale to the technologically illiterate idea of manufacturing steel in backyard furnaces. Mao’s cunning plan to exterminate sparrows (blamed for eating grain) led to a plague of locusts (sparrows eat locusts). Throughout this era, Zhou stayed in power, pursuing his moderate and pragmatic agenda and attempting to mitigate the worst effects of Mao’s policies.
Mao finally unleashed the anarchy of the Cultural Revolution, in which young people were allowed free travel around the country and encouraged to destroy the Four Olds: old customs; old culture; old habits; old ideas. Priceless historical artefacts were destroyed; teachers were beaten; senior officials were denounced and often murdered.
Zhou took to sending party members at risk to a clinic reserved for senior party officials. They were diagnosed with illnesses sufficiently grave to keep them quarantined until the “revolution” came to end. Zhou came very close to being purged but, as China’s industrial output plummeted, Mao backed off.
Zhou began to reassert his modernising agenda and instigated a diplomatic rapprochement with the United States. Zhou died in 1976, eight months before his chairman, Mao, who sent no message to his dying comrade. Zhou is seen as one of the fathers of modern China.
Jonathan Gifford’s book, History Lessons: What Business and Managers Can Learn from the Movers and Shakers of History, is published on 18 March (£14.99, Marshall Cavendish). Order a copy for £13.99 including free UK mainland p&p at the Guardian Bookshop or call 0330 333 68467
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Unthinkable? Hiring more tax inspectors | Editorial
Mar 13th
Improve the public finances in a fairer and more imaginative manner than slashing spending. What’s not to like?
Bingo! A particularly unpopular notion at an especially unlikely time. For the popular image of tax inspectors, one could do worse than turn to Lennon and McCartney’s song-cum-professional assassination, Taxman: “If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat / If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.” And it is true that eye-watering cuts in public services lie ahead. Yet hiring more inspectors would be a smart move in these straitened times – the kind of spending that could pay for itself. Most companies see the men and women who bring in revenue as being vital to their business. But at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs there is a chronic shortage of staff, which has got far worse in the cuts. The Guardian’s Tax Gap investigation last year quoted an HMRC source’s estimate that there were “less than 100 inspectors actually tackling avoidance, against thousands of professionals advising companies on how to do it”. Which is precisely the point: the government is outnumbered and under-resourced compared to the City accountancy firms that help businesses and wealthy individuals to reduce their tax bills. Inspectors still in public service know that they could almost double their salaries by turning private-sector poacher. Hiring more tax inspectors is about improving the public finances in a fairer and more imaginative manner than merely slashing spending. Governments often talk about getting more cash by tightening up on tax collection; but they can’t do that without the people.
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EHRC food factories report: Perfect storm has led to a race to the bottom | Felicity Lawrence
Mar 13th
That such conditions exist is a scandal, and all the more appalling for having happened under Labour’s watch
We are where we were: that’s the insiders’ view. The EHRC report has simply put an official stamp on what many of us have known – and been deeply worried about – since early 2000. A combination of factors – deregulation, globalisation, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the formation of new pools of labour thanks to the expansion of the EU – led to a race to the bottom in terms of labour standards. The food and drink sector, driven by the supermarkets, has been at the forefront of this. New technology that allows supermarkets to order at the last minute only what they know they can sell has resulted in an unprecedented casualisation of labour, not just in rich western countries but in the poorer countries, too. Labour standards have been driven down everywhere.
The impact has been obvious on the ground for a very long time. In the UK the effect is particularly apparent in rural areas – but because many of these areas are Conservative, the government for too long ignored the protests of local workers, or dismissed them as xenophobic hostility to migrants.
In factories and on big industrial farms there has been an incredible transformation of work – such things as 24/7 shift patterns, and the constant pressure to cut costs have turned what used to be decent jobs into terrible ones. These newly terrible jobs have usually been taken by migrants, often illegal. In this climate, abuse and exploitation flourish, and racial tensions grow as people see cheaper foreign workers being used to undercut local, more established workers.
In 2005 the unions began a massive programme of reorganisation – collecting facts and figures, attempting to organise casual and migrant workers, and campaigning on these issues. But because the whole industry is riddled with subcontractors, blame is all too easily shifted down the line. Labour legislation exists which outlaws practices exposed in this report, and this legislation has been strengthened – but too often it hasn’t been enforced, and regulators were deliberately not given sufficient resources to enforce it. The Gangmaster Licensing Authority (GLA) in particular is very underfunded.
Journalists have exposed individual examples of exploitation. The unions have been trying to fight it. Workers have expressed outrage. But government and industry have insisted that the abuses were isolated incidences. The abuse detailed in the report cannot be dismissed – the EHRC highlights that it is a systemic failure to protect people. It is a structural problem that has set labour rights back several decades.
When it comes to recommending what should happen, the report is weak. The EHRC seems shy of using its power to litigate and recommends that the industry puts its house in order voluntarily. This won’t work. The report also recommends giving more money to the GLA for enforcement, but in the current climate this is surely wishful thinking.
Voluntary measures haven’t worked, and won’t work in the future. The system is fundamentally wrong and needs to change. You have to regulate; you have to litigate and enforce. That such conditions exist in the UK is a scandal, and all the more appalling for having happened under Labour’s watch.
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Public sector job cuts hit women first
Mar 13th
Posted by Brendan Barber in Finance
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With four in 10 working women in public sector jobs, redundancies will make a work-life balance even harder to attain
The key election debate will be about the speed, scale and scope of spending cuts. This is a bit strange. It is the recovery of growth that will make the biggest contribution to reducing the deficit by getting tax revenues flowing again. Polls report just as much support for tax rises as spending cuts. But the test of economic virility has become the size of your spending cuts.
And virility is the right word here as spending cuts will hit women harder than men. So far men have been bigger losers in the recession job-loss stakes. This is not because women’s jobs are inherently more secure – indeed the chances of losing your job are about the same for men and women in hard-hit sectors such as retail, manufacturing or finance. But because those sectors that have suffered the most redundancies employ more men than women, the net result has been more male job losses.
But the public sector is different. Big spending cuts and job losses here will hit women, as they are twice as likely as men to work in the public sector. Indeed four in 10 women work in public-sector occupations. This has been particularly important in areas hit hard by private-sector unemployment such as the North East, Yorkshire and Humber and the West Midlands. In these regions male unemployment is more than 10%, and many families will now depend on a public-sector woman’s wage. If public-sector jobs are axed, many families could find themselves without anyone in work.
Women often work in the public sector because it offers relatively secure work, flexible working patterns and a chance to build up a decent income in retirement. The gender pay gap is smaller and the public sector offers more opportunities to combine a proper career with caring responsibilities. Spending cuts would inevitably threaten this – and thus set back the cause of gender equality.
Women’s pensions would be hit particularly hard. Those public-sector pensions of tabloid fury go largely to women. Two thirds of current public-sector pensions are being built up by women.
Cuts would also make the public sector a less woman-friendly place to work. While it is right to look to increase public-sector efficiency, unplanned job cuts will mean fewer workers doing the same amount of work, leading to stress and pressure to work even longer hours.
Politicians will battle hard for women’s votes during the election. Child tax credits already look set to be a battleground and both parties are keen to show their flexible working credentials. But it will be a policy that perhaps few would immediately associate with gender that will make the biggest difference to working women. The size and shape of the parties’ cuts packages does matter.
• An different article by was mistakenly published yesterday under the author’s name and subsequently removed. Comments on the original piece have been lost – apologies to those concerned