The Struggle is where greatness comes from

September 4, 2022 Melanie Hawken

We have been reading far too much bad news from the global economy recently. So in an attempt to lighten our load, we reached deep into our collection of reading material thinking there must be something brighter. Sadly it seemed as if fate was working against us as nothing light and entertaining appeared, rather an article by the legendary investor and co-founder of the massive tech investing firm ‘a16z’ Ben Horowitz appeared. This was guaranteed to be serious stuff from a business guru who never lets a fear of telling it straight get in the way of any positive mood he might have at the time - so much for our wish for a bit of light reading! He is the author of one of our favourite business books - ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ (here) which is described as follows: “There are lots of people talking about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one.” Note the ‘brutally honest’ - you have been warned!

The Problem with ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance)

August 26, 2022 Melanie Hawken

We were in London this week, the global centre for Insurance, in discussions with a seriously senior insurance guru in charge of major Financial and Professional Lines. What that means is that he insures major financial and corporate customers (the Fortune 500/FTSE100 types) for (amongst other things), securities lawsuits (those bought by shareholders) and external class action suits. Heavy duty stuff.

It’s in the Nurture, not the genes!

August 20, 2022 Melanie Hawken

We have been looking back at the incredible Lionesses who have previously graced the cover of our Lioness Weekender Magazine recently, and amongst the many fascinating questions posed to these inspirational leaders by Melanie in their interviews, there is always one asking how they got the entrepreneurial bug. More often than not the answer includes the fact that one or both of their parents were an entrepreneur. This got us wondering - is there any correlation to this or was it just luck (some who enjoy the 9-5 stability and simply do not understand the drive of a late night entrepreneur struggling with cash flow and supply bottlenecks, might argue ‘bad luck’ of course), that creates the entrepreneurial drive.

Let’s Collaborate - what’s the worst that could happen?

August 14, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Totally shocked at the news that we won’t see the incredible, inspirational, the one, the only Serena at Wimbledon again, let alone in other Tennis Tournaments around the globe after the US Open, given her announcement of her impending retirement, or as she says (here): “Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”. What a career, what an inspiration - 23 major singles titles; four Olympic gold medals; 319 weeks at No 1 in the world rankings; to say nothing of the drive to follow their dreams she gave to millions off the court, that they too could break glass ceilings and follow their passions - no matter the obstacles.

‘Me time’ is NOT a waste of time…

July 22, 2022 Melanie Hawken

“You notice a lot of small things when sitting having an early morning coffee, watching the world go by…” and as so often is the case as we open our emails at the start of yet another busy day, we are greeted by Melanie beginning her essential guides to business, life and the Universe in her Good Morning Lioness daily blog, with a serious hint.

Think not ‘Après nous, le deluge’ …but the Spaceship Economy

July 10, 2022 Melanie Hawken

The date was March 8th 1966 and one Kenneth Ewart Boulding stepped forward to present his paper at the 6th Resources for the Future Forum on Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy in Washington, D.C. (here).

Let’s talk Debt!

July 3, 2022 Melanie Hawken

We saw a fascinating statistic recently regarding job applications and the differing actions of women vs men. In job applications according to an original study by Hewlett Packard and discussed by the Harvard Business Review (‘HBR’) back in 2014 (here) and continually confirmed in more recent studies such as from LinkedIn here, men will apply to jobs if they feel they match 60% of the requirements on the job application. Women? They will apparently agonize for ages over the last 5% on the way to 100% certainty.

Embrace Meaning

June 26, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Last weekend we asked you to reach for your inner Steve or Elon a.k.a. ‘war leaders’ (ok, we did say ‘not too much Steve or Elon’ - as these are 100% ’power, drive and complete belief’ that would completely exhaust many of us mere mortals on the best of our days), to keep ourselves and our decision making focused and processes nimble for what looks like difficult times ahead. As troubles rush towards Africa in the form of inflation; lack of staple foods, cooking oils and fertilizers (see here); ongoing droughts in East Africa; western Central Banks raising interest rates and cutting off at the kneecaps the fix of cheap money that has kept the globe hooked (and a rush to higher yielding investments - such as in Africa), it could create recessions, civil unrests, and so on.

Are you tough enough to make the difficult decisions AND show you care?

June 18, 2022 Melanie Hawken

“People want to know that the person leading their [company] is tough enough to bring them through, but they also want to see that the leader gets it, understands how anxious, confused and worried about the future they are.”

…from the great book ‘Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons’ by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Head of the WTO, and exactly captures what we as leaders need to show in the coming months (possibly year) as events across the globe, inflation, possible Stagflation as we discussed (here) and especially the war in Ukraine and supply chain disruptions, continue to impact our countries and communities.

Are you part of something big and important? (Part 2)

June 12, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Last week we painted the background to Mission Statements. A Mission Statement is far more important than many realize as it gives you, your employees, your customers, and your suppliers something to focus on and believe in when they come into work or when they deal with you. It is a concrete manifestation of why they work for you and why they deal with you. It is the ‘Why’, not the ‘What’ or ‘How’ that makes the difference.

Are you and your employees part of something big and important?

May 28, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Last week we perhaps seemed a bit dismissive of some of the great male business leaders of our time. We pleaded with Business Schools to think outside the box and recognize that if we put these leaders on a pedestal then it is no surprise if business and investment decisions are made with a ‘strong pale male’ benchmark in mind.

Redefine Genius!

May 22, 2022 Melanie Hawken

We were recently watching a TED Talk (here) by the brilliant leader and Lioness, Temie Giwa-Tubosun of LifeBank where she wrote as an introduction “…while genius is evenly distributed, investment isn’t.” This fundamental truth (both the genius bit and sadly, the investment side as well) got us thinking.

Why a safe and healthy workplace matters

May 13, 2022 Melanie Hawken

“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.”

This quote was used by President Obama in his eulogy for Senator John McCain and was written by Ernest Hemmingway in his book, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’. Although the book was based in the Spanish Civil War, the title of this incredible book was taken from John Donne's series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness (written after a near fatal illness). If one accepts the spelling that was used at the time (and as usual the use of the gender-specific pronoun to describe all humans, common throughout history), this is one of the most powerful thoughts on our place in this world. Written in 1624, it will be forever true:

Do you eat your own Dog-Food?

May 7, 2022 Melanie Hawken

The year was 1988 and a manager at Microsoft called Paul Maritz was fed up at the glitches being found by software customers of theirs purely because although being tested before release, the software simply wasn’t being used in the real world under real life conditions by themselves. He wrote a memo about the need to trial new networking software internally - not just test, but really use in a day-to-day environment. In the subject line he wrote “Eating our own dog-food” and this was picked up by a testing manager who named a test server ‘Dog-food’ and from there the phrase grew through Microsoft and then on into the industry (see here).

Saving the Earth - one game at a time!

May 1, 2022 Melanie Hawken

With so much going on in the world in the form of Covid shutdowns in China; continued Supply Chain issues; higher prices pushed even higher thanks to a war in what is clearly the world’s and if the massive import needs are anything to go by - Africa’s largest bread-basket otherwise known as The Ukraine; and of course the push-pull within Central Banks over raising interest rates to counter inflation or keeping low to keep recessions at bay (see our warnings on Stagflation here and here); one could be forgiven in our rush to lower electricity pricing by firing up coal fired power stations, for forgetting that the Globe is still suffering.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst

April 17, 2022 Melanie Hawken

No one can be in any doubt now about the impact the Russian attack on Ukraine and subsequent horrific war is having on our day-to-day lives. Two countries that provide a huge amount of the world’s basic staples such as wheat, sunflower oil and many other food essentials, at war, was always going to be felt in our weekly shop, no more so than in Africa given its massive imports of those basics. Many in the West have never experienced inflation of this kind, although for our Lionesses in Zimbabwe, there is still a long way to go as they sadly know only too well. The battle scars gained through having to cram Trillion Zim$ notes into their pockets and then fight their way to the front of the queues at the shops will never go away…

It gets better - just persevere

April 10, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Following on from our article last week about changing the flow of Luck through working on the ‘little things’, this week we look at how this can actually be achieved. We’ve all heard the adage - ‘How do you eat an Elephant? - One bite at a time!’, to show that even the most monumental task can be brought down to bite-sized chunks and indeed at that level the chances of success if you persevere is far greater than sitting in front of a massive ‘Nellie’ and wondering what next?! This has been recognised through time and it is certainly no wonder that one of the most famous and well-known Chinese sayings is "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.

‘Luck’ flows in one direction

April 3, 2022 Melanie Hawken

As far as business is concerned, ’Luck’, ‘Hope’, ‘Fear,’ are all four letter words (you know, the ones our Mothers always told us not to use), for a reason. In business we have to avoid relying, or getting carried away, or even dragged down by them. ‘Luck’ more often than not, is simply down to ‘Timing’ - good or bad, and timing we can work on (see our article here). ‘Hope’ is often involved because of bad planning on our part (and we have all been there at some point in our lives). ‘Fear’ is our sub-conscious telling us that we need to be more careful in the future before committing too far.

Just when you thought prices would return to normal…

March 27, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Lionesses of Africa prides itself on being apolitical as our central role is to guide, train and create a safe community for our incredible and inspirational membership where they can work with, and learn from, each other, but sometimes world events overtake and impact us in a way previously never imagined. The terror of war, any war, be it (as recently seen) in Syria, Ethiopia or now Ukraine is simply unimaginable for those of us sitting safe in other countries watching on CNN.

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