Apr 22, 2024 | Governance, Innovation
Suddenly, everyone is interested in batteries.
When mobile devices took off after the launch of the iPhone, the demand for batteries with a longer life than the then existing chemistry could deliver took off as well. Panasonic held a dominating position in this new market, being the major supplier of batteries made using Lithium as the power store.
Then along came Elon Musk. The first Tesla cars, the initial roadster and early models of the series 1 and 2 sedans used what was in effect just large-scale Panasonic batteries. Individual units were linked together with cooling tubes assembled into the pack to dissipate the heat generated by the lithium, which otherwise led to spectacular fires.
Musk in collaboration with Panasonic envisaged a ‘gigafactory’ in Nevada that would supply the packs. As has become a pattern, Panasonic found the task of working with Musk all too much, and were bought out. However, to the point, an essential part of a lithium battery is a range of rare minerals, amongst them Cobalt.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hardly democratic, holds almost all the worlds known reserves of Cobalt. Rapid development was inevitable, as was the corruption of local power brokers, and the human rights blindness of the major corporations. Cobalt is a dangerous material, yet much of it is mined by kids in holes with a pick and shovel, dying like flies. There is a registration process designed to monitor and outlaw these practices, but they are useless.
The challenge of replacing Cobalt is therefore the focus of much scientific attention. It is the chemistry of batteries that will deliver a power to weight ratio that will guarantee longer charge life, in everything from your phone to your car, and all the other uses to which Lithium batteries are suddenly being placed.
The world as a choice of three strategies, which should be mutually exclusive:
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- Find an alternative to cobalt, and quickly.
- Find alternative sources of Cobalt, leaving the DRC out of the picture.
- Internationally strengthen and enforce the existing regulations on the mining and processing of Cobalt to remove the incentive for the current corruption and exploitation that occurs.
The first two options are clearly the best. However, the challenge of replacing Cobalt requires a scientific breakthrough that while probable, is yet to be made, and the DRC remains the primary supplier. The third option seems to be beyond our joint capability.
The first to find and commercialise a solution will reap the rewards.
Apr 17, 2024 | Change, Leadership
The following is a post that I drafted at the beginning of the Corona epidemic but did not post.
It is a personal reflection on ageism, that becomes increasingly relevant as older, retired workers I see around me now going bonkers from boredom. Few want the pressures they had as youngsters climbing the slippery corporate pole, or struggling to manage and grow an SME, but they do wish to remain useful, relevant, and earning a bit of pocket money.
By ignoring this growing cohort, we are also ignoring the wisdom of hard-won experience, and 4 years later, thought it worth the question.
At 34 I landed my first job as Marketing Manager of a stand-alone business, a significant FMCG manufacturer.
The business was an absolute basket case, and in the middle of a major investment in new facilities in Western Sydney that was financially and operationally irrational. However, the move of location encouraged a number of the marketing personnel I inherited to leave. This gave me the opportunity to recruit people who I thought had the skills and mindset to contribute to the massive task of rebuilding.
The process was a standard one for the 1980’s, via a head-hunter who provided a big list of potential people against the brief I had provided. Amongst the guidelines was a requirement that he find people who had a different background and skill set to my classic FMCG marketing history. On that list was an older bloke, late forties, who fitted pretty well the profile of what I was looking for, and who in addition, was desperate for the job. His previous employer had ‘re-engineered,’ which was one of the management fads at the time, and he had been a victim of that ‘re-engineering’.
I had several conversations with him over a couple of weeks, and eventually decided against hiring him. At the time, I rationalised this decision as being sensible, as he was late forties, seeking a job for which he was overqualified in a number of ways, working for someone who was significantly his chronological junior. I assumed he would move on as quickly as he could, leaving me with a problem I simply did not need.
Even at the time, in the back of my brain, I also knew I was intimidated by someone so much older, with far more experience across a range of areas where mine was lacking. How would it look, risking being shown up by someone who formally reported to me?
Over the subsequent 10 years as we dragged the business kicking and screaming into the 20th century, as Marketing Manager, but also controlling several other functional areas for 8 years, then GM for 2 years, I reflected on my decision about this man. How much would his experience have contributed, even if just for a short time, as we transformed the business from the basket case it had been, to the much larger and very successful business it had become.
Almost exactly a decade later, I found myself ‘re-engineered’ after ongoing differences of opinion with the Managing Director of the corporate of which we were a division, reporting at the bottom line.
It was then that the frustration and desperation he must have felt really hit home. I discovered I was too experienced to be a Marketing/Sales manager, but too inexperienced to be a General Manager/MD. It is also possible that the reality is that I am not as ‘pretty’ as some, and believe strongly in expressing views in as frank and open manner as possible. This is a toxic combination in an interview process for a corporate role.
It also seemed that at 46, and dispirited, which I had become after 18 months of relentless looking, I was too old.
Ageism had a face, and it looked back at me every morning as I shaved. In no way was that ageism deliberate, or even more than partially recognised at the time, but it was there, lurking in the background.
As a result I started to take seriously some of the conversations, advice, and a few paid ‘quick fixes’ I had delivered over the 18 months of ‘gardening leave’. The paid ones utilised not only my skills and experience, but attitude. None evolved into a long-term job. However, they paid some of the bills piling up with a young family, which was at the time gnawingly stressful.
I look on now and consider the manner in which the carnage being wrought by the Corona Virus will impact on a huge number of peoples lives. I shudder at the number who are experienced, qualified, and who will not be able to regain employment that leverages those skills.
At 68, I think I am in a better place to make a contribution than I was at 45, 55, or even 65. (I am now 72, and the observation holds)
I wonder how many Millennial, or Gen Y managers will want to risk being shown up by someone who has seen and survived a bunch of booms and their subsequent busts over a long commercial life? Just as I feared I would be shown up back in 1985.
Despite the progress made over the last 25 years in recognising the value to be contributed by genuine diversity, I fear that as we start the long road to recovery, ageism will again rear its ugly head. It will leave huge amounts of experience, resilience and capability withering in the lines of unemployed, or at best, underemployed.
Apr 15, 2024 | Governance, Leadership
We lost an intellectual giant last week, Daniel Kahneman.
Psychologist and Nobel prize winner in economics, he along with long term collaborator Amos Tversky, created what has become known as ‘Behavioural Economics’.
So what you say.
In 2010 Kahneman published research that demonstrated that income was strongly correlated with happiness at lower levels, but above a seemingly modest level (US 75K at the time) it had no effect.
In 2021, a Wharton academic Mathew Killingsworth published a paper that came to the opposite conclusion.
In order to reconcile these conflicting outcomes, Kahneman teamed up with Killingsworth and a third, neutral researcher to establish the truth.
The result was a case of diminishing returns.
It found there were substantial gains in happiness up to 200k income, but after that, diminishing returns kicked in. The ‘happiness curve’ flattens out, eventually delivering no increase in happiness with an increase in income.
This seems to make sense to me.
At a point, an increase in income does not increase happiness (I aspire to discovering that point) it just becomes a scorecard, no different from the one used on a golf course.
Given this instinctively sensible outcome, should Dr Chalmers add a level to income tax?
At a point above an income level few will ever see, impose a further meaningful tax rate on the increments?
Despite the inevitable screams, they will not miss the money, and you never know, it just might make those few happier.
Apr 8, 2024 | Change, Leadership
The only way to solve a problem, particularly a significant one is to understand the cause of the problem and eliminate that cause.
Rip the band-aid off.
Taking a short-term action to address a symptom of a problem is just kicking the can down the road. The problem will return unless the root cause is addressed.
In a previous life working in a regulated industry, I observed many problems that were never addressed. Simply, they were papered over with a short-term fix that looked good as action had been taken. However, they only served to compromise performance and leave the problem to someone else. The industry ended up with a huge pile of band-aids obscuring and complicating the identification of the root causes of the problems that continued to emerge.
Deja vu is upon us.
The current housing crisis is an outcome of decisions made progressively over the last 40 years. Some were made with the best of intentions, others for purely political reasons. However, the chickens are now crapping all over the hen house in the form of a housing crisis that will not be solved by sticking another band aid, or even a couple of boxes of them, over the symptoms of the problem.
The solution hides in addressing the cause.
Progressive governments have given investment in real estate significant tax advantages. This diverts that investment from alternative more productive uses, leaving us with the current shortage of housing, and stratospheric rents.
Ripping the band aid off now will be extremely painful for tax advantaged investors, but is essential.
There is a budget due in a few weeks, I expect more band-aids.
The current government when in opposition lost an election by proposing some sensible but relatively painless, to most, measures that started to address the root cause. The then government, now the opposition, was relentless in painting the sensible moves as robbery by the government.
It was as stupid and false as to claim that electric vehicles would kill the weekend.
Most of us would be better off with changes being made, our children and grandchildren most certainly would be.
Unfortunately, the battle for political power outweighs consideration of real debate, long term perspective, and benefit to the majority.
The longer we leave it, the greater will be the pain when the time comes that we have no option but to rip down the mountainous pile of band-aids.
Apr 5, 2024 | Governance, Strategy
Democratic governments have always spent time talking about creating regulations to control monopolies, or at least the profits that can accrue to the monopolist.
In Australia, it has only been talk, and choices to sell public natural monopoly assets to private industry for short term cash. The new monopolist then exercises monopoly pricing power, while the seller governments bleat about market power, as Sydney airport, and electricity distribution have clearly demonstrated.
Elsewhere the examples of action beyond the exercise of the Legislative power to break up monopolies are few and far between. In the US, powers under the Sherman Act were used to break up Standard Oil in 1911, and AT&T in 1984. There was a failed attempt to break up Microsoft in the late 90’s, and currently there is much bleating about the power of Tik Tok, yet to see concrete action.
Beyond those examples, and a few fines of digital platforms under European legislation, little progress has been made. We may see some action in the US to separate the ownership of TikTok from its Chinese parent at some point.
Dictatorships tend to go the other way, with the person at the top holding the whip hand and amassing the profits.
Monopolies are huge profit generators.
Governments feel compelled to control them (until they sell them). So, it seems like a pretty good idea to me to find a market niche, or product category where you can hold a monopoly, or dominate such that you have price setting power.
Be the only solution to a problem, control the best itch scratcher available, and the profits will flow.
I suspect this may be a bit politically incorrect, but think about it.
Creation of something that is so good, so far in front of the competition, so irreplaceable, that there is no viable alternative is surely the objective of all commercial enterprises.
