Muhammad Yunus: How Success Really Looks Like

Last week one of my dreams came true: I met Muhammad Yunus, my biggest inspiration and a social business guru, who travels the world, preaching social business to some of the most powerful people in the world (i.e. Obama, Clintons + corporate heads) and anybody else who would listen (people who actually start social businesses later on). This is how he reached a land far, far away, a city that for some still lays behind the iron curtain. I am talking about Moscow, of course, the capital of The Tsardom of Russia.

Anyways, sorry for the overflowing irony. The fact, however, remains that I am deeply thankful to Professor Yunus for visiting my country, where - let's face it - social business is not widely known. Ok, let's really face it - there's maybe 1000 people in Russia who know about social business and what exactly it is. Nevertheless, he comes to Moscow, advises our economic development minister, gives our famous TV hostess a "social business contest for youngsters" idea, patiently explains our journalists and financial heads what exactly social business is and why would it ever make sense for an entrepreneur to create a social business and for investors to fund it. Just to make it absolutely clear: Social Business Forum in Moscow does NOT look like any social business forum in US or Europe, there were maybe 100 people tops at the main, plenary session when Professor gave his speech.

So, let's cut through the chase and get to the point. When it comes to Q&A session, I raise my hand and ask a question about... You guessed it! Failure! I really think that all development peeps should be proud of me. Because, clearly, there are very few (if any) people in Russia who knows about the whole admitting failure idea. Actually, there are no such thing as development or foreign aid peeps there, except for those who work in the Ministry of Defense or Russian Diplomatic sector.

That is why Professor Yunus unfortunately did not give a detailed in-depth gazillion-hour long lecture on failure and how to deal with it, which he would totally be able to do, by the way. He created a huge number of social businesses both in Bangladesh and abroad. Clearly, it could not have been all success stories? I know of at least one real failure story that Professor Yunus could have shared with the audience: Grameen Phone, which was supposed to be owned by the poor - as in one of the two social business models described by Professor himself - but is now owned by the Norwegian company Telenor. According to Muhammad Yunus, Telenor heads didn't not want to satisfy their genteleman's agreement to transfer owndership rights to the poor. Failure with no happy ending so far, but a very important lesson-learnt:

Trust, but verify. Always.

Nevertheless, Grameen's latest venture is with Adidas, whose geniuses are working on a sneakers model that will cost only 1 Euro. Isn't that something?

What Professor shared with the audience was sort of obvious, but no less valuable because of it: his path to success was not an easy one, there were many mistakes made, many times one or the other venture was not working as it should have been, frustration was definitely a part of the process. Professor Yunus said:

"You can never start with a perfect social business model, you have to start with a tentative model and then build on it."

Words of wisdom and experience, of course. But how will a social investor feel about it? I am not sure, but most likely he won't be too thrilled, especially if you are not Muhammad Yunus. Another thing Professor Yunus noted:

"I was working on a couple of projects at a time. It helped me: when I had problems with one project and felt frustrated, things were going well with the other one, and it kept me going."

I am actually discovering that working on many projects at once really helps me in the same way. Of course, we all know that sometimes life presents us with bad news on all fronts...But you still have to keep going. That was the main message:

No giving up if you want to change the world.

By the way, he also mentioned that he never wanted to change the world. He wanted to change a woman's life, then a village, then a country, and only then the world. In other words:

Start small, grow big.

Finally, Professor tried to explain how his path to success looked like, zigzagging his hands. Yes, his path to success looked like this too:



I don't know about you, but it seems to me that I am somewhere in the beginning of the middle. Not a terribly nice thing to find out, but knowing that Professor Yunus' path had the same trajectory definitely makes it easier to handle.

How does your path to success look (or looked) like? Do you have some failure stories or lessons-learnt to share?

Russia and Putin: Do the two deserve each other?

Living in the US and in the periphery of your mind being aware of Russia's political tribulations via Twitter and other (mostly liberal) websites is one thing. But to live in Russia and to have main political news announced to you on state's channels is a whole new, happily forgotten experience for me. And it's not a good one.

If you think that Fox News and CNN are non objective, think twice. Because you don't know how a truly biased TV looks or sounds like! And it looks like that: United Russia convention gets 10 minutes air time in a news block, while the two main runner ups, Just Russia and The Communist Party of the Russian Federation get 2 minutes each. Another episode is the coverage of the public argument between President Medvedev and then Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin that on a state's channel was turned into a 5 minutes monologue by Medvedev, interrupted by one word from Kudrin. (I wish I were exaggerating.)

It is simply sickening. But the most offensive of all to a thinking mind is the realization that Putin and Medvedev must really despise the very people they are ruling. Would they so blatantly and fearlessly lie on public television if they were not sure that Russians were nothing but a herd of brainless sheep?

Just two days ago, in an interview to the heads of Russia's main TV channels, Dmitry Medvedev addressed the rumors about the predetermination of the upcoming presidential elections with these words:

“Any politician can lose an election, along with his or her political party. In our country’s history, as well as other countries’, that’s what happened more than once. Anything may happen. There’s no predetermination.” 

Any politician whose name is NOT Vladimir Putin  and who is NOT backed up by the all mighty United Russia. That's more like it. Nevertheless, Medvedev continued, traditionally insisting that only Russian people could decide who was to become the next president...

Are we, Russians, really nothing but a herd of brainless sheep ready to swallow any story fed to us from the top, ready to see our freedoms taken, our ideals crushed, our future predetermined?

I can't help, but wonder...

There is also this famous saying:

"Every nation has a government it deserves."

Hard to argue, of course, but I simply don't want to believe this. All I know is the feeling of helplessness. Helplessness, mixed with fear of speaking up against the powerful, historically living deep inside the Russian psyche. Do the two together make an excellent herd? You tell me.

The Darkest Hour

It happened exactly 69 years ago, on the night of the Summer Solstice: The Nazi Attack on the Soviet Union. The night before, the country's high school graduates were happily celebrating their graduation. Now, at the dawn of June 22nd 1941, all the celebrations died off and the Western part of the biggest country in the world was sleeping... only to wake up to a nightmarish bombing attack coming from an ally, Germany.

To say that the country was not ready for the war with Germany is to say nothing. Millions of Russians (Soviets if you wish) died only during the first days of the war, because they simply did not have guns to shoot with. "Get the guns from the enemy!"- that was the high commander's advice. The person in power, though, the notorious Stalin, was probably surprised by the attack more than anybody else. He thought USSR had at least a year to prepare..

Clearly, Stalin did not care as much about his people as he did about defeating Germany and showing everybody the advantages of the communist regime. However, today, looking back at the Great Patriotic War, I think if somebody even an inch softer than Stalin was in power, we might have been defeated, enslaved, and annihilated, and whatever else was in Hitler's plans. Who else other than Stalin would have ordered to shoot any soldier who tries to back up and flee the battle of Moscow?! Yet, the battle was won... Not to deny that it was Stalin himself that brought Russia to its knees in the beginning of the war, by simply killing off all "white" Russian generals and whoever else was not "red" enough.

Even despite all that, that war is the single most horrible and glorious part of Russia's history that I hope none of us will forget. For Americans, US has clearly won the war ( so what if it was the only one to ever use atomic bombs? No biggie, right?), Brits can make the same claim, French-not so much after their surrender in 1941. For me and for any Russian, at least I hope so, there was only one winner, the one that was bleeding with 22 million hearts lost forever. 22 million! Has any other country ever lost so many lives??? Can any other country even perceive this number??? No.

That is why WWII will be the most touching topic you'll ever ( and better not) discuss with me. Too much to forget (and we'll never forget), too few that still live to remember. There's never going to be enough words to express our gratitude to the veterans who fought for Russia 69 years ago... and shame to feel for Neo-Nazis and skinheads proliferating in the very same country today...Oh well, each country has its darkest and brightest moment. I hope that my country will be strong enough to reinvent itself one day like we did back in '45.