What I learned about people & ideas at an Amazon event today
By Marcus Hitzberger
Growing up in a small town in Austria, I never heard about this man before: French businessman Nicolas Doucerain. The personal story of failure and success that he shared today at the Amazon Academy Event in Paris deeply impressed me.
This is a guy who only sleeps four hours a night and already tested his entrepreneurial skills at the age of 11 to deliver croissants and baguettes on weekends. Dyslexic, he struggled with the French education system and dropped out of school when he was 16. His father gave him 6 months to find a job. Without even a driver’s license, he talked a manager of a local car dealership into hiring him (even suggesting an unpaid 3-months trial) to sell luxurious cars. Within a couple of months, the teenager became one of the brand’s best sales representatives.
The story goes on with his first company at 19 in IT recruitment, an impressive international expansion, and more than 40 percent annual growth over the next couple of years. A highflyer, a self-made entrepreneur, a success story.
But with the highs also came the lows.
When the fourth-largest investment bank in the US filed for bankruptcy in 2008, his business imploded. He didn’t anticipate the depth and length of the crisis. Things went south fast. He was faced with massive drops in revenues, the tough responsibility to lay-off longtime employees and the obligation to appear before the court for legal redress. The judge at the time told him that in these situations only 2% of the SMEs make it within a given timeframe and recover. The rest fail and judicial liquidation begins.
After the court appearance, he gathered his remaining troops and told them in an invigorating speech that his company will be one of the 2% that make it. From that day on, different working groups worked day and night to wrap their heads around restructuring the company, chasing new clients and bringing them back on track. Solid team members turned out to be less stress-resistant than initially thought and wallflower employees became the most valuable contributors during this heavy-lifting. The effort and the sacrifice on multiple levels paid off: his company made it.
Okay, one might say. So what? Here’s the thing: besides the “what”, I was especially touched by the “how” he did it. And the humble attitude he brought to light. For somebody who’s been in leadership and organizational development for over 7 years now, there are a lot of take-aways from this story: family is key, the right to get a second chance in life, the endurance to never give up or the capability to be resilient in today’s fast-paced business environment.
However, I think the most important things are the people around us and the ideas that drive us. It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur or a leader: surround yourself with topic experts and people who dare to question the status quo — you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. And: carefully pick the goal you want to fight for. Despite exponential progress, our time on earth is (still) limited. Which ideas / which ideals really deserve the investment — to be able to say one time further down the road: “It’s all been worth it”?
