X. What’s wrong with the ministry?

Nothing is wrong with the ministry, absolutely nothing. Seriously.

We are leaving Istanbul at around 6:30 in the morning to hit the road before the famous Istanbul’s traffic starts. I stay in Florya suburb, next to the aquarium, it’s my favourite place to stay in Istanbul while in the business trip. It’s on the sea shore, I can run in the morning along the embarkment, enjoy the sea view and there are many places to eat and shop at the mall nearby. Ural is coming to Crown Plaza to pick me up and we drive following the old road to the city centre, seeing the park, big market which is empty this morning, old Ataturk airport, new residential area on the right hand side, marina with the yachts and in 20 minutes approaching the Wall. I always feel breath-taking when I see the old Wall around Istanbul which has been built to protect old Constantinople. Famous double line of the Theodosian walls was built in the 5th century, it’s old and gigantic, but there is something more than that, it’s beyond the size and the age. It tells me the story of this place. Going along the wall around old city is like traveling with time-machine though times and cultures. You my notice all the possible architectural styles from old Roman, Greek to Byzantian and Ottoman and also you see the mixture, you see how one style is emerging and transferring to another one adopting the shapes and ideas. We are not going along the Wall this time, we are passing by and diving into the tunnel under Bosporus which will lead us to the Asian side of the city.

Asian side is welcoming us with the large modern shapes and wide roads. We are passing by the airport, named after Sabiha Gökçen — famous Turkish aviator, the world’s first female fighter pilot, and stopping at the Viaport mall. Here Cem is waiting to join us. We avoided the traffic and deserved a cup of coffee and a cigarette. From here 3 of us are in the car and Ural is driving us to the East, to Ankara. 4 hours’ drive. We are passing by Gebze the industrial zone, for some time the road is going along the Marmara sea side and then we are entering the Anatolian plateau. There are hills, mountains, forests, small towns and villages. We are talking the history, business and hobbies. In the mid way there is a big mall with the very straightforward name — Highway Outlet. Ideal place for lunch. Before the town Bolu nearby was welcoming all the travellers coming in numbers from Istanbul to Ankara and back, but since the highway has been built all the traffic is passing by the town without entering… So the mall is a way to keep the old habit and support the town. I love Turkish cuisine, with almost no exceptions it’s great wherever you eat it. Here we are taking doner and ayran and after 1h of break keep going, passing by tunnels, villages, forests and arriving at Ankara after sundown.

The ministry we are visiting next day is a modern glass building surrounded with the other governmental buildings. I expected strict security check, but no, nothing special, we have an appointment and after quick passport control they let us into the lobby. The hall is empty. We came well in advance and now waiting and investigating the exhibition on the ground floor. There is collection of nice old carpets, souvenirs, artefacts — all are gifts from different parts of the world. I even noticed some Chinese vase. It’s time to go upstairs and the security guy is showing us the way and we are already on the 7th floor in front of the big board room. The guy whom we are going to meet is one of the top officials and we have few specific questions to ask and issues to solve. He is coming to the room and immediately we feel how the energy and passion are filling the room. His assistant is making notes. He speaks perfect English. After brief friendly introduction and small talk we are coming straight to the point. One by one in a very professional way in one hour all the questions are answered and all the issues are solved or at least we got the ideas and directions what shall we do to solve it. Done. I left been impressed with the level of the person, his energy, expertise, professionalism and also the by the manner how we have been treated — in a very friendly, simple way, like peers. Nothing reminded “highly ranked governmental official”.

I had very positive experience with Ethiopian ministries as well: for few years I had many meetings with the ministries of Industry, Health, Investments Committee (EIC), Prime Minister office. All are very professional people, knowing the subject, willing to help you and taking care about Ethiopia, chasing the benefits for the country. You may want to ask me about corruption and I can tell you — while communicating with the ministries I didn’t experience any in 5 years. Yet the back side of Ethiopian ministries (as well as any ministry I guess) it’s a level of bureaucracy. I still remember these endless letters. EIC is writing the letter to Ministry of Industry asking them to write a letter to the Custom and at the same time writing the letter to the Ministry of Health and so on in circles. Another specific I discovered communicating to the people on different levels in the ministries — if your topic is deviating (even if deviation is negligible) from the guidance and established process — nobody but the minister himself/herself dares to take a decision. So you go from one level to another all the way to the top and then back to ensure the decision been taken on the top is executed well.

Let me repeat it again — nothing is wrong with the ministry as a structure. It works perfectly if you put great professionals with the high integrity in charge. The point is: ministry is not designed to be a business, it’s not an entrepreneurial entity and will never be. It’s perfect for maintaining, for steadily development, following 5 years plans (there was “5 years planning” system in Ethiopia at the time I was there). Ministry keeps the order.

Now is my favourite story about Christmas basket some of you may heard from me already.

I joint P&G in March 1998 and by Dec 1998 I felt myself quite mature Account Manager. In many companies there is good habit to present to the employees a Christmas basket as a gift to keep them feeling good, motivated and in a recognition of the company’s spirit. In some other countries, like China, for example, it’s not a Christmas basket but New Year’s “red envelopes” (it’s another story). So, in Dec 1998 I received my first Christmas basket from the Company. And it was a basket indeed. Wicker basket with many cool things inside. I remember the bottle of Champaign, red caviar (salmon eggs), salami, chocolate and many other things and on the top of it was a soft toy — big snake (1999 was a “year of snake”) and my daughter was playing with this snake for quite a while. Many years later Anna (head of HR) told me the story how it was seen from HR side. It was a real disaster. There were 300 people in the company or so and HR had to not just buy and assemble all 300 baskets, but also arrange the deliveries to remote cities where many sales account managers were located. On top of it there were rats in the old office on Taganskaya street in Moscow where we all were located, not visible in the day time rats were attracted by the food and damaged few baskets, so the HR ladies arranged a night duty in shifts. The amount of efforts was enormous, each basket costs finally around 350 dollars but as a reward every single employee felt the personal touch and being part of the family. When I was leaving P&G Russia in March 2011 (exactly after 13 years of service) it was a company of 7000 people and by tradition in Dec 2010 we all received our Christmas baskets. I do not want you to guess what was it, will tell you straight, it was a gift card of the sport shop valued 50 dollars (if I remember correctly we could choose between sport and perfumery shops). This is my story of transformation from entrepreneurial entity to the ministry.

Someone may see it as a complaining from my side. No, not at all. I’m realistic, it’s simply not technically possible to provide baskets with Champaign to 7000 people, it’s impossible to spend such a budget not even talking complexity. Also, as I made clear from the beginning — nothing is wrong with the ministry as such it’s just another type of activity requiring different people to be on board. The transformation is happening and going from start up to a maintenance, from chaos to the processes, from selling to replenishment, from family type of relationships to bureaucracy, from turning the business around to the steadily development and incremental growth. Of course, as in many other segments of our life (and as it was shown in one of the previous chapters) it’s not “black and white”, it’s continuum, it’s Gauss type U-Shape, so most of the companies are the mixture of both cultures, balancing the start-up and ministry, sometime it’s a healthy balance and sometime not at all balanced.

One day you may just find yourself in the ministry, not in a business anymore. Nothing wrong if you feel comfortable and keep going, but probably you may feel not good and would love to change.

When I’m thinking of the path companies are developing alongside with, the analogy with the stars are coming to me. Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of time. All stars are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust and over the course of millions of years, these protostars settle down into a state of equilibrium, becoming what is known as a main-sequence star. Nuclear fusion powers a star for most of its existence. This process causes the star to gradually grow in size, passing through the subgiant stage until it reaches the red giant phase. Once a star like the Sun has exhausted its nuclear fuel, its core collapses into a dense white dwarf and the outer layers are expelled as a planetary nebula. Stars with around ten or more times the mass of the Sun can explode in a supernova as their inert iron cores collapse into an extremely dense neutron star or black hole.

For me P&G was always a “star” company for many obvious reasons. Probably this is the explanation why the “stellar” analogy came to me. In a business world the oldest companies like P&G do exist for probably 150, very rare 200 years. I see them coming from the family owned private businesses to the bigger public companies, forming organically and through M&As capturing more and more market share and new markets, gradually growing in size. After some period of equilibrium, the “star” companies passing through the “subgiant” stage until it reaches the “giant” phase. And finally what we may see quite often in the corporate world the “star” company may end up as a “dwarf” losing many of its “layers” — parts of the business or becoming a “black hole” being sold out to the private equity funds.

To reach Khakassia from Krasnoyarsk you need to go straight to the South following Yenisey river in the direction opposite to its flow. In the beginning the landscape is hilly with a mid-size rocky mountains cliffing to Yenisey. Along the river there are many artificial lakes, water reservoirs and hydroelectric power stations. Artificial lakes are stanning, normally the river is wild, streaming in the rush among the rocks, yet at the lakes the surface is ideally smooth, quiet, like a mirror, rocks descending into the water, and you see the reflection of the rocks in the water.

I’m staying on the edge of a steep cliff and Yenisey in a good 400 meters beneath. On the viewpoint at the massive rock there is a monument — big few meters long sturgeon made from metal. A monument to the Yenisey sturgeon was created in 2004, after the novel “Czar Fish” by Viktor Astafiev whose home village Ovsyanka is nearby. The “Czar Fish” it’s a novel but also a name of the novels book written back in 1975 and full of stories describing the life of Siberian people and their relationships between themselves and the nature in a moral and philosophical aspect. That is, the attitude of heroes to nature is a means of identifying personal vices and human dignity. I didn’t find any translation of the Czar Fish into English (hope it exists somewhere), but the closest analogy coming to me while reading is “The Old Man and the Sea” written by Ernest Hemingway in 1951. Similar moral and philosophical aspects of the relationships, wild water (river and the ocean), gigantic fish (sturgeon and marlin), similar pace and the beat. Astafiev was 25 years younger than Hemingway, but both of them got a tragic war experience. Astafiev volunteered for the Soviet Army in 1942 at the age of 18 and was taking part in fierce fighting till the moment he was heavily injured in the end of 1944. And exactly in May 1944 the 45 years old Hemingway arrived in London and later accompanied the troops to the Normandy Landings (famous D-Day). You can feel the wisdom of the human who passed through the fight and the death in both novels.

The road is going downhill and soon the high rocks give a way to lower steppe hills. One of the hills is of a special shape, from far away it looks like a frozen wave. This is the holy praying place of the ancient Khakass the local indigenous people. Under the hill, stones laid according to the strict geometric plan — this is an ancient Khakass cemetery. Large field of stones. According to the legend the ancient Khakass were tall, red-haired and blue-eyed. They built cities, baked bread and raised horses. When the Mongols arrived, the majority took refuge in a fortress on the banks of the Yenisei, where two rivers confluence and there is a high hill with steep edges, which the Khakass surrounded with stones, making them impregnable walls. They held the siege for ten years. Taking the fortress, the Mongols massacred all the men.

Abakan is the capital of Khakassia. A small town of two hundred thousand people. But fashionable, you can’t say otherwise. Several good Irish pubs, many amazingly beautiful churches. There are many buildings dated from the beginning of the last century, two-storey wooden houses. I even managed to find and photograph a real barrack (they have been preserved in few places). In Abakan we are spending the night and next day driving further south to the Sayan Mountains.

On the way to the south, there is a low veil of clouds above us, and the higher we climb the plateau, the lower the veil is. But at one moment suddenly we are crossing the veil and now we are above the clouds, the mountains become visible in the distance and a bright blue sky just above the mountains and the sun falls on me! The Yenisei flows through the mountains along a deep rocky gorge. We are driving along the river via narrow path in between the rocks. The rocks are marble, pink (marble is mined here), trees are breaking through the marble. The bright sun is playing with the rays and pink bulges, the rocks come to life, the river glistens and I feel myself as if I’m in an ancient Greek palace. Far away I see the white peaks of the Sayan Mountains. Few more minutes, we are passing by Cheryomushki village and suddenly the colossus of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station opens up in front of us. It’s cyclopic construction and one can’t believe this could be created by human, it’s so powerful prehistoric, alien.

Now we are coming to the part of the story which is directly connected to the “ministry” topic of this chapter. On our way back to Krasnoyarsk we stopped by Shushenskoe village. Probably all Russians 40+ years old know this place, Vladimir Lenin was in exile here from 1897 to 1900. The village was preserved soon after Lenin died in 1925 and later became a museum. Now the place is surrounded by a fence, no one, of course, lives there, 26 courtyards have survived — these are several dozen buildings. Previously, the museum was dedicated to Lenin, but now it became the anthropology museum and talks about the life of the village 130 years ago (not escaping the Lenin of course). Our guide is a local young woman Ira, who tells us in details many stories about old times and the people who used to live here . We are visiting the houses of peasants of different degrees of prosperity, tavern (there they poured cedar vodka and gave us a snack with pickles and black bread), a store, a council, a prison. Many details have been preserved everywhere — these are all kinds of utensils and tools, all the insides of a tavern and a shop, a lot of small details, documents are in the council.

The place called council was a mind opening for me. In the beginning of XX century Shushenskoe was a relatively small village of 2000 people and the council was the only official place here with all the officials (court, archive, governor) sitting here. I’m standing in front of the massive table of the judge. There are few things of the table — inkwell, fountain pens, papers, notebooks, old watches and among all of this few huge books: “The Code of Criminal and Correctional Punishments of Russian Empire”. I’m opening the first page and start reading. It’s written in an old Russian pre-revolution orthography, but it’s easy to read and I understand almost everything. First, what strikes me it’s a volume — more than 2300 articles. Lately I read that this Russian Code in size was equal to seven foreign Criminal Codes (French, Saxe-Altenburg, Prussian, Saxon, Hanover, Braunschweig and Thuringian). So, it’s a few REALLY BIG books. Second, it’s an overwhelming complexity of everything. 80 types of religious crimes and misconduct, 20 state related crimes, many crimes against the order of management (disobedience to the authorities), crimes in the fields of state and public services, private obligations, property, life and so on and so on… Third, of course, the punishment part. It’s way too complicated with 11 kinds of punishments, divided into 35 stages, and on top of it the system of punishment is purely class-based meaning it is not the same for all people, it’s the subjects of the class, or the title of the person like nobles, burghers, peasants… The inequality of the estates divided the criminals into exempt and non-exempt from corporal punishment. For example, for the “withdrawn” punishments are imprisonment, and for the “not withdrawn” rods and whips. As a result, the privileged person and the commoner receive different punishments for the same crime.

I’m sure many people are asking themselves the same question again and again — “what makes the great Empires collapse?”, “why in 1913 nothing signalled the end of Russian Empire coming soon while it collapsed in a few months in 1917?”, “why in 1985 nothing signalled the end of Soviet Union coming very soon?”. One thought came to me at the moment I was studying the Code on the table in Shushenskoe — probably one of the reasons of such a collapse it’s a unbearable complexity of the system. This complexity is growing and growing with time reflecting the development of the system and growing sophistication of the relationships and then one day the whole system is collapsing not been able to bear the weight of the processes, procedure and regulations. Don’t you see the parallel with the big corporations migrating from the small entrepreneurships to agile companies and then further to big corporations, ministries and finally dying under the weight of inefficient processes and procedures?

I’m staying on the balcony, looking to the left, towards Mecca, below me is a block of dirtiest, yellow-dirty six-story buildings with the roofs terribly littered with all kinds of rubbish and a crowd of the same dusty-dirty satellite dishes. On a small balcony, a woman in burqa (you can see only her hands) is shaking out a rag onto the street, seems like she just cleaned up the floor in her apartments. Further down is a sleepy shop selling all sorts of things. I noticed a rake, bright orange and bright green wheelbarrows for earth or sand, some other wires hanging down. A little further- the minaret tower, then another and one more. Quiet, Saturday, this kind of silence happens only on weekends, a special “weekend” silence. You can hear cars honking here and there. In this city they always honk, this is a part of culture. So it’s all on the left. And what is beneath? There is a pool and many different people around, girls sunbathing in bikini, a young couple swimming in the pool. The man is bulky in a dark blue panties, woman is slim and from my balcony it is completely impossible to see whether she is wearing something or not. People around the pool are drinking and relaxing. I’m looking at the right, on the right there is the road, colours of earth and grass, the river and the other bank. River is muddy, buildings are tall and not completed, you can see construction keeps going, laundry is drying on the balconies. The river is Nile and I’m in Cairo. Cairo is lacking the romantics of Istanbul, coffee smells and paving stones of Rome, Cretan paints and Parisian roofs, but there is always something special here. This is something always different, some kind of spontaneous, mysterious and terribly attractive energy. Been here five times or more and sure will be back again and again. This is Cairo. When I’m in Cairo I sincerely want to learn Arabic.

Indeed the Cairo and Egypt deserves the separate chapter or even the book. I can spend hours describing the gardens and Lebanese restaurants of Zamalek, smell of coffee in a small coffee shops in Nasr city, city Of The Dead inside the city, Coptic quarters and beautiful St. George’s church, the Alexandria city, Giza Necropolis, Saqqarah, villages of Nile delta, Salah al-Din Castle, streets and famous Cairo market in the very centre of the city. All is full of energy and vibe. Yet right now I want to invite you to accompany me in my visit to the one very special place — the Egyptian Museum.

The working day is ahead of me, so I asked my colleagues to pick me up from the museum at around 10AM. It’s opening at 9:00 and I will have good one hour to explore it. I’m walking from the hotel to the museum (it’s 20 min walk) and at 9:00 sharp I’m in front of the doors, museum is just opening and I’m the only one visitor there at this early hour. I learnt that the museum is huge, with more than 100 000 items and been built in 1901 by the Italians to a design by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon. The building is nice indeed, unusual red colour and you can feel the influence of French Art Nouveau. There are two main floors in the museum, the ground floor and the first floor. I’m starting with the ground floor and quickly passing by the extensive collection of papyri and coins used in the Ancient world, artifacts from the New Kingdom — statues, tables, and sarcophagus. No, it’s not a “normal” museum, I do not sense “the museum” atmosphere. Entering another room full of sarcophagus, they are not “displayed” but dozens of them are laying on the shelves with the inventory numbers written on a paper tags attached to each piece of the collections. No explanations, no decoration, just rows and rows of shelves with sarcophagus. Another room with the rituals boats. The same story — rows with the shelves full of boats with the inventory tags. Another rooms full of another artefacts, one more, one more. I’m not sure I will be able to explain you the feeling — it’s like being at the warehouse where the owners put the stuff temporary and about to come back to take it. You do not feel like it’s an ancient stuff, it’s like been stores here for few days before going somewhere to be used. Hundreds of items. Hundreds of stories. Finally on the first floor in the last room I’m finding the item I’m was aiming for — the mask of Tutankhamun. It’s under the glass and special lighting. You look at it and you immediately feel it’s alive and looking from the distance of thousand years at you, at the rows of museums items, Cairo, Egypt and the whole humanity and keeps its secret.

I’m coming back the same way hurrying up, my colleagues are waiting for me outside. I’m passing by thousands of items been excavated from the tombs and the one thing is coming to my mind — it’s was really complicated world dedicated to the “after death life” with so many small details, processes and procedures (here I can refer to gigantic Saqqarah), that probably in the end of the day the whole great civilization was buried under the weight of this complexity…

My last story today is the story about Morocco and how the great entrepreneurial business idea was converted to equally great charity of the “ministry”. I have been to Morocco many times with different occasions, I still can’t say I saw a lot, Tangiers, Marrakesh, Fes are still waiting for me, but I have friends there and can talk about Moroccan cuisine (one of my favourite ones), people, ocean, medinas, souks, sailing boats, fogs for many hours. Yet, probably the quintessence of Morocco for me it’s the ornament and the doors. The very first time ornament is meeting you in Casablanca or simply Casa airport and it doesn’t let you go away till the moment you leave the country. On arrival in Casa you are coming to the large hall with the fountain in the middle and behind it there is a very nice mosaic wall covered with ornament. Those who ever saw Moroccan ornament will never forget it. It’s extremely sophisticated, nice, thin, creative, colourful and immediately sets the tone and the spirit for the entire trip if you are the traveller and I guess for the whole life if you are Moroccan. You are coming out of the airport and now the mosaic ornaments are everywhere. In cafes, on columns, on the facades of the buildings, on the doors. Always beautiful and stylish. And it creates a very special atmosphere. My second passion is Moroccan doors. It doesn’t matter where are you: in the modern expensive part of Casa, Medina, in the suburbs or Agadir or on the fish market in Essaouira — all the doors are painted in their own very special bright colours (from sky blue to the bright brown) and decorated with some ornament (some time quite simple, some time it’s a piece of art indeed). I even have a collection of pictures of the doors from Morocco I took. Few hundreds picture I made and then gave up, keep just looking at them and trying to imagine the people and their life behind these nice doors.

In 2008 I came to Agadir with the group of P&Gers from UK, Nigeria, Kenya, Argentina, Pakistan, Egypt, Switzerland, Russia and of course we were hosted by the great local Moroccan team. Agadir is beautifully placed on the ocean cost, we spent a night in the very good hotel enjoying hospitality of the local team and next day we went out to the east. I remember it was rather hot, dry, all around brownish, flat space to the horizon — drought. On the horizon far away there are mountains and somewhere behind Sahara. Under the feet there is pale brown mud, clay and dust rolled into large lumps and smaller lumps unrecognizable from stones. Wherever far my eyes can see there are many short standing along trees with almost no leaves left. And many goats on them (for those who never saw or heard about famous Moroccan goats on the trees — yes, I’m absolutely serious and just wrote exactly what I meant). Most of them are black, but from time to time I can spot a white one. They stand on the trees, climbing to the very top and eating the leaves, they just couldn’t find anything to eat on the ground. If you ask me how physically did they get there, I can’t tell you, I never saw Moroccan goats climbing up to the tree. But few times I saw the whole herd of black goats jumping down from the tree and it’s really amazing picture and also proves that those goats were not born on the tree and one day somehow climbed over there.

Finally our car is entering the village in 80 km from Agadir. I don’t remember the name of the village, may be Ouled Kerroum, but not sure. In a rainy season the village is on the bank of the Asif Tifnout river surrounded with the fields with the crops. But not now. There is unusual drought this summer, Asif Tifnout is gone being completely dry and the village found itself in the middle of the semi-desert. Village is small (I counted around 50 households) and looks complete empty. The fences-walls made of clay (absolute copy paste from ones on the Appian road in Rome), dry clay and the dust under the feet. Of course I immediately see many doors been embedded into the walls and all the doors with no exception are colourful (blue and orange) and covered with the ornament. Some doors are brand new, some are almost ruined, but still with the traces of ornamentation. There is no single sound and I just hear the wind singing it’s songs, whispering in between the walls. But village is not dead, absolutely not, our guide is knocking one door, it’s quietly opening and the girl in a long clothes, robe like, showing up. Her head is covered but not completely, no burqa. She is standing in the door and I see the whole big family behind — toddlers, teenage girls, adults. They are chatting with our guide and the ice is broken, they started to laugh, chat, joke, but still don’t allow me to take their picture hiding behind each other’s backs.

Indeed we have a business reason to come here. Our small group came to see Faress, which means “horse rider” in Arabic, — our local village distributor and learn from Moroccan team how to execute Village-D. Here I need to do a pit stop and explain what Village-D means and probably the whole concept of “Bob’s arm”. The originator of the “Bob’s arm” is a famous (in P&G world for sure, but even beyond) Bob Fregolle and firstly the idea of the “arm” started to come to life while he was running Distribution operations in Poland in 1990’s. The idea was very simple — Company decided not to go to sell directly to small traditional shops, but instead few partners distributors were chosen and they implemented classical cash-Van model, when Van with the stock on board was following its daily route and selling to the stores for cash. Without going into details it was (and still is) simple, efficient model. This model was then reapplied in many geographies starting from Balkans, Russia, Turkey, China, Africa and so on and so on. The pre-requisite for this model to be successful is very simple — it should be the market of traditional stores buying from you in cash. Yet, soon, one limitation was noticed — distributors were not efficient selling to the smaller towns located remotely from their warehouses. Simply it was too costly for them to go that far. Then Bob proposed Distributors to hire Distributors of Distributors, so called Sub-Ds. To cut story short, finally Bob became attracted by the idea that Company’s mission is to cover 100% of consumers and customers no matter how small and remote shops may be and that moment the idea of Village-D (Village Distributor) buying goods from Sub-D (Sub-Distributor) buying from Distributor buying from the Company was put on the table. The whole chain was named “Bob’s arm” helping to reach with its “fingers” every single shop on Earth and roll out has started.

Moroccan execution of Village-D was simply outstanding under the leadership of Omar Channawi. In the remote village we are talking about there were not any stores. Simply the village of 50 households was way too small for any outside businessman to be interested to build anything here. To get literally everything (with the exception of the food peasants were growing locally) villagers had to walk few kilometres to the nearest town Taroudant to buy all the necessities at a weekly souk outside the city walls (of course we had visited this souk and Taroudant town known as the “Grandmother of Marrakech” because it looks like a smaller Marrakech).

In the village nobody was happy. Then local P&G team from Agadir managed to find in this village a Faress — he was handicapped, living along and due to his conditions he couldn’t work in the field. P&G’ers made an agreement with him and converted one of the rooms of his house in to a small shop. They made a window in a wall, painted the interior and installed shelves. In parallel they introduced Faress to P&G Sub-Distributor at the weekly souk in Taroudant. Having P&G endorsement in hands Sud-D started to supply Faress in credit with the wide range of products — of course full P&G assortment, but beyond — canned oil, sugar, canned food, cereals, powder milk, pasta, etc. Even the delivery by car has been arranged (though, not sure who paid for this). So very quickly Faress from the single man became respectful owner of the shop supplying villagers with everything they need. He started to do charity providing schoolchildren with the exercise books and other school stuff under supervision of P&G. Indeed it became the story of empowerment of former disadvantaged person, he got married soon and he got a daughter. I still remember him, his energy, his passion, his smile and his gratefulness for what has been done for him. I have very strong good memories which makes me very proud of the Company and the fact I belong to such a great team.

Now, let’s look at the Moroccan story from the angle of this chapter. Was the idea of Cash-Vans Distributors a great BUSINESS idea — absolutely YES! It was scalable, self-developmental, simple, efficient, brining cash. 20 years after, Company is much bigger and heavier and coming with the idea of Village-D. Was it a great BUSINESS idea — absolutely NOT! Please do not get me wrong, it was GREAT IDEA, I love it, yet it was not a business idea. It was an idea linked to the humanity, helping hands, diversity, being great citizen, empowerment of disadvantaged people, giving back — all this things matter a lot for me, but purely from efficiency perspective in was just not a business idea. And for me it’s clear indicator of a company transforming from the relatively small entrepreneurship, from the middle size “star” to the “giant”, big ministry, which may afford many great projects to support humanity not directly linked to the business objectives.

Just a brief conclusion from this chapter. It’s up to you. You may feel great and you may do great things being with the business and with the ministry. Yet sometime you need to watch out and don’t allow the complexity and bureaucracy to kill all those good things ministry or business is generating. And, of course, some people are feeling better in the entrepreneurship, some in the ministry and for some it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t probably matter as soon as you choose whatever you are happy with.