Are you stranded?
I came across the term ‘stranded assets’ this week. It refers to (often huge) investments in things that lose their value rapidly, and can’t easily be reallocated, repositioned or reset. The classic example is fossil fuel businesses (oil, gas) and any other carbon-intensive industries such as steel and aluminium, cement and plastics, and greenhouse horticulture that are likely to be displaced by increasingly ‘net zero’ solutions over the coming years.
If you want an illustration of this, take a look at this:
Telsa makes 1/20th as many vehicles as the Big 5 automakers together, but its market valuation is 140% of their total value! You can multiply those factors out and see that Tesla is valued, per car produced, at roughly 2800% of the ‘traditional’ automakers. Or, another simple calculation: Tesla’s valuation is about $2.3m per car produced.
Now, you might say, “That’s ridiculous! Who’d invest in Tesla?” Well, plenty of people have. My question is, “Who’d invest in GM, or Mercedes?”
Perhaps they’re not yet a stranded asset, but comparatively speaking, they are.
Question: What aspects of your business could be considered ‘stranded assets’?
Self-reliance is an illusion
There’s a deep paradox in my life, and it’s this. For all but 5 years of my career, I’ve operated as a ‘lone wolf’: a self-employed consultant. I deliberately haven’t built an organisation (although I could have), I don’t want a team (although I constantly get asked to join one, or people ask to join mine), and I thrive on autonomy (my great delight is self-determining my hours of work, and what I do within those hours).
You can sense a ‘but’ coming, and here it is . . .
I spend close to 100% of my time helping people function collectively — in pursuit of joint objectives. Whether it’s as large as the UN or a government agency, or as small as a boutique health sector think tank, I’ve long been fascinated by this question: “How can people best combine their talents to achieve something far greater than they could do by themselves?”
Over 20 years, I’ve observed the most successful collective endeavours bring people together around just four insights. (If you’re interested in knowing what these are, I’m about to launch a video series about them - drop me a line if you want early access).
In my early 20s, I was a voracious reader of Ayn Rand, the mid-20th century Russian-American writer who celebrated rational self-interest and ethical egoism in novels such as Atlas Shrugged. Just as Margaret Thatcher didn’t believe in ‘society’, Rand didn’t believe altruism served any useful purpose.
I’m now the opposite: I believe rational altruism is THE driving force in all social systems (yes, even capitalism). Our 21st-century world will reward those who crack the nut of harnessing cooperative powers by linking self-interest (“Your life is better when others’ lives are better” + “If we destroy the world, there’s nothing for me”) with the interests of others (“I feel better when I’m connected to others” + “I get as much from helping others as being helped by others”).
Ultimately, all the grand challenges facing us (geopolitical, environmental, social, medical, economic) are all only improbable and solvable by coalescing large numbers of people around a greater purpose via rational altruism.
Question: How do you combine self-interest with altruism?
The stroke of a pen
I guarantee you’ve never heard of Admiral Human Rickover. He was famed in his time (1950s - 1980s) as the ‘father of the nuclear Navy’ and his obsession with quality and safety ensured zero faults in hundreds of nuclear-powered vessels for decades.
Rickover noticed in the 1950s that when submarines went into the Navy yards for refits, they came back riddled with faults, which took months, millions of dollars, and often litigation, to rectify. Shoddy workmanship was a systemic problem in contractor companies, whose management was focussed on profitability, not quality.
Rickover, therefore, issued a short, infamous, memo: “Effective immediately, the senior management of all refit contractors shall accompany the boat on the first test dive after refit”.
The quality culture improved overnight. Test dives went smoothly. Crew morale increased. There was no more tug of war between contractors and captains. Everyone was now playing on the same team.
Question: In whose interests do you have to make quality (or any other desired attribute) matter?
As you read this, I’m likely in the air (first time in two years!) on my way to Nairobi. I’m assisting the UN address three planetary crises: climate change, loss of biodiversity, and pollution and waste. Complex issues, multiple perspectives, limited authority. A recipe for a superbly talented global team to come up with some strong collective decisions around where their focus should lie in the years ahead.
I’ll report back next week.
In the meantime, click ‘like’ or the ‘heart’ below to let me know you’re paying attention. And, this week, notice the webs of altruism between you and all living things.
See you next Friday,
Andrew
Thank you Andrew. You certainly have my attention. I am intrigued by your autonomous support for collaborative action. This resonates
Would love to see the videos. On a different note, we were once stranded with an amazing chef. That, I'd recommend. Think the collective is at the core of our being, helping one another feeds the soul.