A translation of commence

I spoke to him nearly every day, using him as a sounding board. He seemed to me the kind of business expert who could enhance our thinking. He gave us good advice on the Virgin One account. His name was Gordon McCallum. He used to work for the business consultancy McKinsey & Co., and I knew he?d been doing some work for Wells Fargo? to do with consumer banking and financial services and major retailers including JC Penney. I trusted him. I knew a lot about him ?but it suddenly dawned on me one day: ?Gordon? Do you work for us??

?Yes,? he replied.

?I mean, are you an employee??

?No, Richard, I?m not. I?m still working as a freelance consultant atthe moment.?Oh.?Well,? I said, ?you?d better come for a job interview. See you tomorrow at the house.? And I put the phone down. I can?t remember much about that night but I must have had fun;when Gordon turned up at my place in Holland Park, at 9 a.m. sharp,I was still in bed. In fact, I couldn?t seem to get out of it.

So I tucked myself under the sheet and called him up and said: ?Well, I?d like to offer you a full-time job.?It was not the kind of meeting he had expected, but he rose to the challenge. ? What kind of job???What kind of job would you like??Finally Gordon cracked. In all his years at McKinsey he had never come across this technique as a way of identifying corporate talent. He burst out laughing, but he wasn?t put off. ?I?d like to help Virgin develop a much clearer business strategy for the brand and help you expand it further internationally.?This made a lot of sense. It was what I?d been hoping for. ?What would your title be?? I said, and leaned over to grab my dressing gown.He thought about it. ?Something like Strategy Director??

?Fine ? we?ll call you the Group Strategy Director of Virgin.?We sorted out the money, and the deal was done ? and I went off to have a shower.Is this any way to do business?Absolutely.At its heart, business is not about formality, or winning, or ?the bottom line?, or profit, or trade, or commerce, or any of the things the business books tell you it?s about.

Business is what concerns us. If you care about something enough to do something about it, you?re in business, and you?ll find ideas in this book that will help you. This is a business book for everyone, whether or not they imagine themselves to be ?business people?. Making the most of Gordon?s considerable talents and playing fair by him was not a ?business decision? I had to make ? it was simply my business, my concern, my affair. I?m no less a businessman when I?m in a dressing gown ? and I?m certainly not more of one when I put on a suit. This was brought home to me pretty sharply in July 2007, during an hour-long session at the Aspen Ideas Festival. I was being interviewed by Bob Schieffer, the former CBS news anchorman of the Evening News. This is the man who moderated the 2004 presidential election debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry. Bob knows his stuff, so I expected a grilling.

He could see that underneath my brash exterior I still harbour some nervousness about speaking in public, so he started off warm and generous, getting me nice and relaxed, conversing about all kinds of matters from terrorist extremism to space tourism, before he delivered his sucker punch. I had left school at fifteen to set up a student magazine, and Bob asked me why I had gone into business.I just stared at him. I suddenly realised I had never been interestedin being ?in business?. And, heaven help me, I said so, adding: ?I?ve been interested in creating things.?Now, feeble as that sounded on the stage at Aspen, that?s the gist of my thinking about business. It shouldn?t be something outside of yourself. It shouldn?t be something you can stand away from. And if it is, there?s something wrong.Over the years, the Virgin Group has made it its business to run railways, build a spaceship, launch a new airline in Africa, and help fight Aids and HIV. These are our concerns. Not all of them are?businesses? in the usual  sense ? and the journalists who have accused the Virgin Group of making no business sense are right, but in the wrong way.

The greatest and most unusual achievement of the Virgin Group is that, unlike most businesses, it remembers what it?s for. Business is creative. It?s like painting. You start with a blank canvas.You can paint anything ? anything ? and there, right there, is your first problem. For every good painting you might turn out, there are a zillion bad paintings just aching to drip off your brush. Scared? You should be. You start. You pick a colour. The next colour you choose has to work with the first colour. The third colour has to work with the first colour and the second. The fourth colour . . . You get the idea.You?re committed now. You absolutely cannot stop. You?ve invested.

There is no reverse gear on this thing. People who bad-mouth businessmen and women in general are missing the point. People in business who succeed have swallowed their fear and have set out to create something special, something to make a difference to people?s lives.

Are the colours just right? Are the planes polished? Do the crew look good? Are they comfortable? Are the seats OK? What?s the food like? It costs how much . . .?