Euroasia: Language, Culture and Travel

I was at the World Cafe event last night, where social entrepreneur Ray Avery of Medicine Mondiale spoke. This guy managed to bring down the cost of cataract surgery from $5K per eye here in Auckland to $6 per eye in Africa. He also discovered some way of mixing waste products from chicken and kiwifruit farms and created protein extracts for kids. Amazing. Ray is working on a number of projects that will revolutionise the medical arena. Ray demonstrated to us that what is lacking is not money, but bright ideas and perseverence. His products were borne out of necessity.

We have such talent living here, and I’ve not heard of him prior to the event. I’m embarassed. More needs to be done to get these success stories out there. Well done Asia NZ Foundation and AkCity for organising this awesome event.

Our discussions afterwards focussed very much on cultural diversity in Auckland, and how leaders can harness cultural diversity.

At Euroasia, we believe one way we can better understand people who are different from us is to learn their language. As it happens, Euroasia is putting on some free taster lessons next week. Feel free to tell your friends.

Tuesday 7 July: French, Japanese, German
Thursday 9 July: Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Italian
Time: 7.40-8.40pm
Venue: Euroasia, 10 Titoki Street, Parnell (next to Birthcare) – plenty of parking at Auckland Domain or along Titoki Street.
No prior knowledge necessary.

Register online for free lessons.

“One needs to work with what you’ve got and advocate strongly for what you need, but if all your energy is taken up in advocating for what you need, you might not get the best done with what you have.”

This was the response of Dr Lester Levy to a question on whether he was worried by the fact he’s taking over as Chairman of the troubled Waitemata District Health Board.  According to the NZ Herald, Dr Levy takes over tomorrow from Kay McKelvie, who, when she resigned in February, said the Ministry of Health had returned to its practice of not giving Waitemata its fair share of taxpayers’ money. She predicted a $35 million deficit would arise from under-funding for population growth and for buying complex health-care for Waitemata patients from the Auckland health board.

OK, most people would find this job too tough, but not Dr Levy. He’s putting his money where his mouth is, by taking up a pretty challenging job. I’m sure it will take all that he can muster in terms of leadership ability. For the last few years, Dr Levy has been adjunct professor of leadership at Auckland University’s business school.

I’ve had the privelege of attending a number of his leadership sessions, and I must say this guy is pretty good. Very inspiring speaker, and great story teller, and in so doing transforms leadership theory into practical insights.

He will now have to muster everything he knows and has been teaching about leadership, putting it in practice. All eyes will be on him, and somehow I suspect it’s the seemingly insurmountable challenges that have driven him to say yes to this job that no one wants.  He probably gets paid a lot more doing relatively safer jobs, speaking at the odd event, providing consulting services and holding directorships at organisations that undergo less public scrutiny. But true leaders don’t stop at that. They can’t help themselves but strive for more. It’s when complacency sets in that you stop becoming great. As Jim Collins puts it, “good is the enemy of great”.

Hence regardless of whether Dr Levy succeeds at turning the health board around, he has demonstrated what it really means to be a leader.

A group of us spent an afternoon last week at LanzaTech in Parnell. This little company tucked away in one corner of Auckland is doing some amazing things. LanzaTech has developed a technology to convert high volume industrial waste streams in the form of carbon monoxide into bio-ethanol using patented microbes.

Existing technologies work on converting corn or sugar cane into ethanol, and we all know that’s unsustainable. Which is why this new technology is so exciting. Exciting enough to attract Vinod Khosla, well-known founder of Sun Microsystems and legendary VC to put some money in.

It’s indeed heartening to see such an amazing company operating out of Auckland. The founder also said that he’s looking for a CEO. It’s courageous of him to be letting go of the reins at a critical time. It’s certainly not easy to decide that someone else is better at running the company you founded. When asked how will he ensure that the person he appoints will have the same passion as him, the response was “a business is not just built on passion and enthusiasm, but cold, hard facts”. “We need someone with greyer and shorter hair than me to convince people”. “No one’s going to give me $50m because I don’t have a history of spending $50m in a wise way”. Losing a bit of the humour as I translate this into text, but this guy is really witty. I don’t think I know that many scientists that are witty / funny as well.

He wants to get back into the lab to do what he’s good at, and let someone else who has learnt from his mistakes somewhere else to run the company. Sean reflects that he has “spent half the time trying not to get it wrong”.

Another question from our group: “What’s the greatest challenge of leadership?”

The answer came quickly: “Getting people to argue and still like each other afterwards”. Sean explained that his team members are PhDs and best in their field in what they do. It’s important that people not feel bad for suggesting an idea that’s not implemented, as well as feeling that it’s OK to criticise. “Getting it wrong is halfway to getting it right”. This is such an awesome insight.

I certainly hope that LanzaTech takes off. Then we’ll have a great story that will inspire a generation of young scientists at our schools and universities to strive for the impossible.