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January 21, 2005

Twin Brothers - Viability and Contibution

Yesterday, Rich and I had lunch with a most extraordinary person, Sidney Rittenberg. Calling him a China expert would be a most inaccurate and ungracious understatement of the scope, depth and significance of his experience and of his sagacity. (See his fascinating autobiography, The Man Who Stayed Behind, and also recent stories in the LA Times and New York Times for background.)

Amidst our wide-ranging conversations on business, technology, history and politics, we talked about the importance of culture and values in building great, long lasting companies, about how important it was, not just to be focused on the money but on a real vision of how what you do will make something better and on what kind of people you hire and what motivates them. Sidney then said something that really stuck in my head:

"Yes, the twin brothers of viability and contribution. Unless what you are doing is set up and made to be a viable enterprise, it won't survive. But unless what you are doing makes a real contribution it won't attract people, won't stay vibrant and won't last over the long run"

Great input for any endevour, including starting a company, running an existing one or even managing a government government.

Here's some links to more interesting Sidney Rittenberg material: a good short bio, another book, a transcript of an interesting speach about contemporary China, and an audio of a talk he gave at University of Washington about the Cultural Revolution and its subsequent effects upon Chinese society.

Posted by johnza at January 21, 2005 04:41 PM

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