Dr. T. Pearse Lyons, the visionary president and founder of Alltech, speaks about the animal agriculture industry and points out hope for the future in Part One of this two-part series. His comments follow:
Sustainability
Sustainability means different things to different people. For me it means sustaining the Alltech business. A goal of sustainability during turbulent times can bring out the best in people and it can bring out the worst. But most important, it can bring out character and it is character that will carry us forward.
Crises are Times for Leadership
Dateline: July 1989. There were three tragedies. The first occurred in a field in Sioux City, Iowa, when a DC-10 jetliner crashed and 111 people died. Just a few days later, we had a repeat. This time in Tripoli, Libya, a DC-10 went down; 80 people died. And just 24 hours after that another DC-10 left Rio de Janeiro en route to Toronto. The captain of that plane came over the intercom and announced, “We have lost our undercarriage; prepare for a crash.” Ladies and gentlemen, I was on that flight, and so was my 11-year-old son. That was a crisis. What are you going to do? I have never seen so many people saying the Hail Mary and praying. I have never seen so many people crying and weeping on a flight from Rio to Toronto. It was a crisis, but also, like now, it surely was a time for leadership.
Our Crisis: The Recession
Everywhere we look we see recession worries; we see gloom and doom. In fact, if you were to believe what you read in the newspapers, I think you might be tempted not to get out of bed in the morning
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The recession appears to be everywhere. Along with it are the dreaded “b’s”: bailouts and bankruptcies. When I came to the United States, someone once told me, “One of these days you are going to get a call early in the morning and somebody is going to say, ‘I need help, I’m in jail, I need a bailout.’” That is what “a bailout” used to mean. Now a bailout means something totally different. Banks are bailed out. Companies are bailed out.
And meanwhile whole nations are going bankrupt. In Great Britain, 340 people go bankrupt every day and 95 companies join them. In America, 5,945 people go bankrupt every day. Where are we heading when it takes 98 pages every single day just to list these poor unfortunates who have gone bankrupt? In the United States alone, people are losing their jobs at the rate of 600,000 jobs per month, which has left 24 million people unemployed. Worse yet, among the unemployed, some are so despondent that they do not even wish to apply for a job.
Yet the unemployment rate in the United States is dwarfed by the unemployment rate in Spain which now exceeds 17%. And in my old home of Ireland, the so-called Celtic Tiger is dead and has been laid to rest.
People everywhere cry out for one thing – leadership. But instead, what is our response? We print money and lots of it! If you were to weigh all of the $100 bills that are being printed, you would have 10,000 tons of $100 bills, individually weighing about 1 gram. That is $10 for every person who has ever lived on the face of the earth. It means a tower 60,000 miles high made of $1 bills. Is that the way out of a crisis? To print your way out and then wonder, “When and how are we going to pay for it in the future?” And yet our banks are closed to businesses and to new loans. When loans are not available, innovation stops. When innovation stops, companies are not formed. When companies are not formed, jobs are not created. Is this the way out?
Alltech had a wonderful idea … a rural community integrated biorefinery, a wonderful idea that could revolutionize agriculture, not just in America, but around the world. In fact, our government gave us $40 million in cash to make that idea a reality. And yet we cannot proceed because the banks will not give us the balance. Innovation and job creation stop when cash flow stops.
I am reminded of a line from a Bob Dylan song: “Oh, the times they are a changin’…” With changing times, come changing ways of doing things. Crises can bring out the best in people, so let us work to see how we can bring out the best in our team and how we can make that team sustainable.
The Power of Belief
The strongest power is the power of belief. If we believe in ourselves, we can make things happen. Without belief, nothing happens. Belief precedes performance. You cannot perform on a football field, a basketball court, a tennis court, unless you believe.
Imagine you are 10 years old sitting in a wheel chair. A crisis! You have braces on your legs and you cannot move. A few years later you get out of those braces. A few years later at age 14 you begin to run. A crisis … but not a crisis if you believe, and this young lady believed. She had confidence, and that is what we need to get through our crisis. This young lady did not see braces or a wheelchair; she saw Olympic gold. I mean how idiotic, how crazy, how stupid, how naïve, was that belief? She saw not discrimination but determination and she was not going to be held back. Wilma Rudolph went on to win not one gold medal from a wheelchair, but three gold medals and by 22 years of age, she was the fastest woman on the planet. All of these achievements were the product of her belief and determination.
Now imagine you are 27 years old and at the height of your career. The world is in front of you; the world is your oyster. But you are stripped of your title and you are almost stripped of your citizenship. But still you believe; you have confidence. Muhammad Ali, “the Greatest,” came back and at 32 years of age regained the heavyweight championship of the world. From there, he went on to even greater heights of achievement, because he believed.
I have one simple question for you: Do you really believe in your potential? If you do not, we can go nowhere. The “you” you see, is the “you” you will be.
Leaders
During normal times, we have managers. During normal times it does not take extraordinary skills to be a manager. But these are not normal times. We need leaders: people who instill belief; people who instill conviction; people who instill confidence.
So it is July 1989, and we were on that plane heading into Toronto, and my son says to me, “Dad, what do I do?” What do I say to him? I said, “Mark, don’t worry about it, it happens all the time. Where is your book?” After we landed, which is another story, his mum asked him, “What did your dad say?” “He said, ‘It happens all the time. Read your book,’ and so I did!” That was the leadership needed from a parent. It is no different from the leadership needed in a business.
Editor’s Note: Look for Part Two next month. This commentary is sponsored by Alltech. Through 29 years of research-driven product development, Alltech has created a range of natural solutions for the feed and food industries. For more information, please visit the Web sites at www.alltech.com.
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