Today I want to share the transcript of the answer I gave to the question: What should business owners do to emerge stronger from this crisis?
Reference: Videocast of June 27, 2020, dictated to audiences of Coparmex, IMEF, and ILCE. Question from Carlos de la Fuente, president of IMEF CDMX.
I'm attaching the interview clip:
Answer:
Thank you Carlos for your question. Look, what the world requires is that the entrepreneur, and forgive me, I'm not going to make it easy for you, is that we think long-term.
The problem is that we come from a world where we thought that, as businesspeople, our job was to extract the maximum value from the system as quickly as possible. And in many cases, to funnel that money into tax havens. It turns out that in Latin America, this practice is a crime. In many companies, 60% of profits are taken out of circulation and hidden in tax havens. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Our goal as entrepreneurs is to create wealth for the four groups we touch and influence.
The first group is customers. We need to generate more value for them than we extract. Let me put this in perspective: What's the use of a food industry that generates an obesity and diabetes epidemic? What's the use of a financial industry that generates more poor people? And what's the use of an energy industry that pollutes the earth?
And so, we are at this moment where Covid-19 has slapped us, but that slap is just the first little slap, because global warming is coming, and if we don't do anything now, it will really make us pay, and heavily.
Now let's talk a little about young people, specifically Generation Z and Millennials. They bring a sense of purpose that is deeply rooted. They want to work for companies that have a vision for the future that they can connect with.
And then they say these young people are irresponsible, they work for a while and then they leave. I can tell you that's not true. I have young people working for me who don't just come and go because they see a deep sense of life's purpose in what I do.
So, if we imbue work with this deep sense of life purpose, we start to create an environment that they consider worthwhile. And this makes our collaborators give their all. But it's more than just dedicated customer service; they also need to see that we are benefiting society.
Right now, we're seeing what's happening in the world; let's take as an example what happened last October and November 2019 in Chile. All the macroeconomic indicators were perfect! Low inflation. High reserves. GDP growth, which quadrupled in 20 years. And yet, the hardest and most violent riots ever seen in the country's history occurred. What happened?
We are not looking at the local economy with a macroeconomic vision! And so, if we want to see a prosperous and viable future, we entrepreneurs have to include in our income statement both our clients and our collaborators, just as we have to see reflected in our income statement how to strengthen the local economy to make it rich and help ensure peace, equity, and development for all. And finally, we also have to learn to respect the land and do all of this in an economically efficient way.
Excuse me, it's not easy. I know.
But that's the doctor's prescription. Pain will come, yes. But if we do this right, we'll come out stronger.
I'm not sure if that answers your question.
Carlos: I totally agree with you. I knew you would leave us a message, not what we want to hear, but what we need to understand and what needs to be heard. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Carlos, for the question.
And you, my dear friend, I ask you, what do you think of this answer? Tell me how you see the solution.
I'm sending you a big hug and as always, I remind you that you are great and that life demands your greatness.