PAUL BACHER: Life lessons for leadership

Though my life has been filled with many blessings and privileges, at times it has been pretty rough and humbling. These times have taught me some important lessons about how challenges can be opportunities for growth, both as a person and as a business leader.

One of my earliest learning experiences took place when I was about 19. A friend and I started running stalls at a few of the flea markets around Johannesburg, and one year we took a large stand at the Rand Show. My partner designed Disney-character clothing and we planned to have them made by a factory in Durban.

The week before our show started, the factory terminated our arrangement in favour of making more clothes for a large fashion chain. This was a disaster for us, because it threatened the viability of the venture. The manufacturer’s costs allowed us to sell our products at a remarkable margin, hire quality students as sales people, pay them well and make a lot of money for ourselves.

We now had a tough decision to make. We would have to manufacture the clothes in Johannesburg at a far higher cost. We had two choices: keep the salaries as agreed and probably make no money, or share the lousy news, re-rate the salaries and then also make some money for ourselves.

In the end, we didn’t think about it for too long. We simply decided to measure success differently and we did not renegotiate the salaries. The store ended up making among the top turnovers at the show, but we made not one cent. We did not regret it. Our staff made good money and we were thrilled with their success.

I have carried the lesson I learnt then throughout my life — treating your staff even better than you wish to be treated is always the right thing to do. It is not always easy to do this. Genuinely caring for staff means showing up each and every day with authentic care and compassion. It sometimes takes you out of your comfort zone as you do things like visit staff members and their families in hospital. But if you do this, it brings out the best in everyone and creates consistent positive energy and effort in the workplace.

The power of ‘no’

Another thing I’ve learnt through hard experience is that you have to be prepared say some big “nos” to make way for some big “yeses”. I learnt this during the third year of my BCom. I had done very well in my first and second years. In my third year, I thought I could devote most of my time to community work, another of my passions, and still secure good grades. I spent more time on my various committees and projects than I did in lectures and nearly failed every subject. I thought I could do it all — get great grades and change lives at scale. But at the end of that year, I came to realise that I’d failed miserably at both.

Saying no is not easy, and as a leader it’s something you actively have to lead. You have to be able continually to challenge your staff to have a laser focus — to say no to the less important things, to have space to get the important things done.

My most recent life lesson comes from a personal space — the trauma of going through a divorce. As I came out of the that space, armed with the belief nothing happens without a reason, I started to question if I could take the lessons learnt from the hell I had been through and create something good, something helpful to others.

I then did what I imagine all entrepreneurs do when they have an idea: I conducted research into the average life of a mature single. It turns out that there are a lot of people in similar dark spaces, and this affects not only the way they function in their personal lives, but how they function at work, and as business leaders and as managers.

The solution was my new venture, Wholesome Spaces. Its only goal is to bring together people with wholesome values and perspectives, who are sociable in crowds. It’s not a dating play. It’s a space to meet new people and connect with others.

It was really hard to start this, and for some time it was hard to run these events, as being in this space with singles was a reminder and trigger for my painful and recent loss. But there has been much enthusiasm and this has spurred me to run more events. I started out with a mixed group of 13 people. Today there are 240 people in the group and it grows by between five and 10 people a week. Since the first event in early March of this year, I have run 85 events, so it’s clearly filling a need.

There is great power in each and every day. We have the ability to change our thoughts and choices, to learn from the shadows we inhabit at times and change direction at any given time. I have been involved in founding or co-founding 18 businesses and 22 non-profits, and for the first decade-and-a-half of my business life, I was blessed to build substantial wealth. Over time I have come to realise that I am more purpose-built for creating initiatives that do good in the world.

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying that “[t]here are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle”.

Real leadership involves directing a process of social influence that maximises the efforts of others towards the achievement of a greater good. I have come to see this particular life experience as a painful miracle, set up to develop the coping mechanisms and resilience to channel my energies into something for the greater good.

The overarching lesson from all of these experiences is that giving more than you get is not just a vague biblical value, it genuinely pays magical dividends in both business and in life, while connecting us to our soul mission.

• Bacher, a social entrepreneur and co-founder of the National Mentorship Movement, has started several businesses, including Netflorist. This article is an adaptation of a speech he gave at Wits Business School’s 100 Minutes of Business Talk in celebration of the centenary of Wits University.