ANOTHER DAFT APPOINTMENT

Gordon Brown's government appoints Sir Alan Sugar as enterprise czar

Following on from the less than distinguished contribution to government policy by Digby Jones, ex-President of the Confederation of British Industry, Gordon Brown's government has now turned to Sir Alan Sugar and elevated him to the House of Lords as the government's enterprise czar. Lord Jones when head of the CBI waxed lyrical about trades unions, business taxes and the allegedly iniquitous behaviour of the EU, remaining silent about the antics of the investment industry and the wanton destruction of large swathes of UK industry.
Sir Alan, many in Britain will know, has been starring in an engaging and very successful television entertainment called "The Apprentice", which has made the catchphrase "You're fired" famous. In the programme, Sir Alan demonstrates all the behaviours that ensured his company, Amstrad, once potentially in the same league as Nokia, Vodafone, Sony, Dell and Nintendo, never really made it to being a sustainably great enterprise. Founded in the 1960's, it was a leader for a while in personal computing, home entertainment and mobile 'phone markets, became a listed company but de-listed from the London Stock Exchange in 1997, through a complex series of deals with Betacom plc, before being sold to BSkyB in 2007. It remained essentially a one man band and failed to invest consistently in technology and organisation-building to give it a platform for durable growth. Sir Alan, shortly to become Lord, Sugar preferred, like so many British managers to grow through deal-making. Enterprise-building is not about deals and the ego of one man, it is essentially about creating organisations that engage the commitment and talents of many people to build platforms for growth and competitiveness in customer markets.

The problem with the messages put across by Sir Alan in his programme are that internally competitive, ego-centric behaviour is what business is really all about, when there is much evidence that less aggressive and more inclusive behaviour by top managers is likely to bring greater long-term success. The problem with the 'model' exemplified by Sir Alan is that domineering behaviour and growth through deals is hardly a way to build sustainable businesses.
Alas, Gordon Brown's government, like that of Tony Blair before him, seems to be susceptible to misconceived ideas about what business is all about and highly prone to going for spin and sound-bites rather than the substance of real enterprise. They would do much better looking in the direction of Finland (Nokia), the US or Japan to understand what it takes to build and sustain innovative enterprises.