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