Want to help someone Shut up and listen Ernesto Sirolli

everything I do and everything I do

professionally my life has been shaped

by seven years of work as a young man in

Africa from 1971 to 1977 I look young

but I’m not I worked in Zambia Kenya

Ivory Coast Algeria Somalia in projects

of technical cooperation with African

countries I worked for an Italian NGO

and every single project that we set up

in Africa failed and I was distraught

I thought age 21 that we Italians were

good people and we were doing good work

in Africa instead everything we touched

we killed

our first project the one that has

inspired my first book ripples from the

Zambezi was a project where we Italians

decided to teach Zambian people how to

grow food so we arrived there with

Italian seeds in southern Zambia in this

absolutely magnificent Valley going down

to the Damacy River and we taught the

local people how to grow Italian

tomatoes and zucchini and and of course

the local people had absolutely no

interest in doing that so we pay them to

come and work and sometimes they would

show up and we were amazed that the

local people in such fertile valley

would not have any agriculture and but

instead of asking them how come they

were not growing anything we simply said

thank God we’re here just in the nick of

time to save the dam bein people from

starvation and of course everything in

Africa group beautifully and we had this

magnificent tomatoes in Italy a tomato

will grow to this size in Zambia to this

size and we could not believe and we

were telling the champions look how easy

agriculture is when the tomatoes were

nice and ripe and red organised some two

hundred hippos came out from the river

and they ate everything

and we say to the Zambian my god the

hippos and that lambda said yes that’s

why we have no agriculture here why

didn’t you tell us you never asked I

thought it was only asset aliens

blundering around Africa but then I saw

would the Americans were doing what the

English were doing what the French were

doing and after seeing what they were

doing I became quite proud of our

project in Zambia because you see at

least we fed the hippos you should see

the rubbish you should see the rubbish

that we have bestowed on unsuspecting

African people you want to read the book

read dead Aid by the Somali Zambian

women economists the book was published

in 2009 we Western donor country have

given the African continent King

trillion dollars American in the last 50

years I’m not going to tell you the

damage that the money is done just go

and read her book read reader from an

African woman the damage that we have

done we Western people are imperialist

colonialist missionaries and there are

only two ways we deal with people we are

the patronize them or we are

paternalistic the two words come from

the Latin root pattern which means

father but they mean two different

things but annalistic I tricked anybody

from a different culture as if they were

my children I love you so much

patronizing I treat everybody from

another culture as if they were my

servants that’s why the white people in

Africa are called Bwana boss I was given

a slap in the face reading a book small

is beautiful

written by Schumacher who said above all

in economic development if people do not

wish to be helped

leave them alone this should be the

first principle of aid the first

principle of aid is respect this morning

the gentleman who opened this conference

they stick on the floor and say can we

can you imagine a city that is not

neo-colonial I decided when I was 27

years old to only respond to people and

I invented the system called Enterprise

facilitation where you never initiate

anything

you never motivate anybody but you

become a servant of the local passion

the servant of local people who have a

dream to become a better person so what

you do you shut up you never arrive in a

community with any ideas and you sit

with the local people

we don’t work from offices we meet at

the cafe we meet at the pub we have zero

infrastructure and what we do we become

friends and we find out what that person

wants to do the most important thing is

passion you can give somebody an idea if

that person doesn’t want to do it what

are you going to do the passion that the

person has for her own growth is the

most important thing the passion that

that man has for his own personal growth

is the most important thing and then we

help them to go and find the knowledge

because nobody in the world can succeed

alone the person with the idea may not

have the knowledge but the knowledge is

available so years and years ago I had

this idea why don’t we for once instead

of arriving in

to tell people what to do why don’t for

once listen to them but not in community

meetings let me tell you a secret there

is a problem with community meetings

entrepreneurs never come and they never

tell you at them in a public meeting

what they want to do with their own

money what opportunity they have

identified so planning has this blind

spot the smartest people in your

community you don’t even know because

they don’t come to your public meetings

what we do we work one-on-one and to

work one-on-one you have to create a

social infrastructure that doesn’t exist

you have to create a new profession the

profession is the family doctor of

enterprise the family doctor of business

who sits with you in your house at your

kitchen table at the cafe and helps you

find the resources to transform your

passion into a way to make a living I

started this as a tryout in in esperance

in Western Australia I was doing PhD at

the time try to go away from this

patronizing that we arrive and

tell you what to do and so what I did in

esperance that first year was to just

walk the streets and in the in in three

days I had my first client and I helped

his first guy who was smoking fish from

a garage was a Maori guy and I helped

him to sell to the restaurant in Perth

to get organized and then the fishermen

came to me to say you the guy who helped

Morrie

can you help us and I have this five

fishermen to work together and get this

beautiful tuna not to the cannery in

Albany for 60 cents a kilo but we find a

way

to take the fish for sushi to Japan for

$15 a kilo and the farmers came to talk

to me say have you helped them can you

help us in a year had 27 projects going

on and the government came to see me to

say how can you do that how can you and

I said I do something very very very

difficult I shut up and listen to them

so so the government says do it again we

done in in 300 communities around the

world we have helped to start 40,000

businesses there is a new generation of

entrepreneurs who are dying of Solitude

Peter Drucker one of the greatest

management consultants in history

died aged 96 a few years ago Peter

Drucker was a professor of philosophy

before becoming involved in business and

this is what Peter Drucker says planning

is actually incompatible with an

entrepreneurial society and economy

planning is the kiss of death of

entrepreneurship so now you’re

rebuilding Christchurch without knowing

what the smartest people in Christchurch

want to do with their own money and

their own energy you have to learn how

to get these people to come and talk to

you you have to offer them

confidentiality privacy you have to be

fantastic at helping them and then they

will come and they will come in droves

in the community of 10,000 people we get

200 clients can you imagine a community

of 400,000 people they intelligence that

and the passion which presentation have

you uploaded the most this morning local

passionate people that’s who you have

uploaded so what I’m saying is that

entrepreneurship is where is at we are

the end of the first Industrial

Revolution non-renewable fossil fuels

manufacturing and all of a sudden we

have systems which are not sustainable

the internal combustion engine is not

sustainable free and we’re maintaining

things is not sustainable what we have

to look at is that how we feed pure

educate transport you know communicate

for seven billion people in a

sustainable way the technologies do not

exist to do that who is going to invent

the technology for the Green Revolution

universities forget about it

government forget about it would be

entrepreneurs and they’re doing it now

there’s a lovely story that already now

in a futurist magazine many many years

ago it was a group of experts who were

invited to discuss the future of the

city of New York in 1860 and in 1860

this group of people came together and

they all speculated about what would

happen to a city of New York in 100

years and the conclusion was unanimous

the city of New York would not exist in

100 years why because they look at the

curb and say if the population keeps

growing at this rate to move the

population of New York around they would

have needed six million horses and then

manure created by six million also would

be impossible to deal with there was

already drowning in manure so 1860 they

are seeing these dirty technology that

is going to choke the life out of New

York so what happens in 40 years time in

near 1900 in the United States of

America they were one thousand and one

car manufacturing companies one thousand

one they the idea of a funny different

technology it

absolutely taken over and there were

tiny tiny little factories in back

waters Dearborn Michigan Henry Ford

however it is a secret to work with

entrepreneurs firstly you have to offer

them confidentiality otherwise they

don’t come and talk to you then you have

to talk offer them absolutely dedicated

in passionate service to them and then

you have to tell them the truth about

entrepreneurship the smallest company

the biggest company has to be capable

doing three things beautifully the

product that you want to sell has to be

fantastic you have to have met fantastic

marketing and you have have tremendous

financial management guess what we have

never met a single human being in the

world who can make it sell it I look

after the money doesn’t exist this

person has never been born

we’ve done the research and we have

looked at the 100 iconic companies of

the world

Carnegie Westinghouse Edison’s Ford all

the new companies Google Yahoo there’s

only one thing that all this successful

company in the world having comments

only once none was started by one person

now we teach entrepreneurship to 16

years old in Northumberland and we start

the class by giving them the first two

pages of Richard Branson autobiography

and the task of the 16 years old is it

to underline in the first two pages of

Richard Branson autobiography how many

times Richard uses the word I and how

many time he used the word we never the

word I and the word we 32 times he

wasn’t alone when he started nobody

started a company alone

no one so we can create a community

where we have facilitators who come from

a small business background sitting in

cafes in bars and your dedicated buddies

who will go to you what somebody did for

this gentleman who talked about you know

this attic somebody who will say to you

what do you need what can you do can you

make it

okay can you sell it can you look after

the money oh no I cannot do this would

you like me to find you somebody we

activate communities we have groups of

volunteers supporting the enterprise

facilitator to help you to find

resources and people and we have

discovered that the miracle of the

intelligence of local people is such

that you can change the culture and the

economy of this community just by

capturing the passion the energy and

imagination of your own people thank you

you