Sir Richard Branson - The Virgin Way: How to Listen, Learn, Laugh and Lead

CONTENTS

This is a book on leadership from someone who admits he has never read a book on leadership in his life.

Over forty years in business Richard Branson has never shied away from seemingly outlandish challenges that others considered sheer lunacy including his own colleagues on several occasions. He has taken on monsters like British Airways and won, and giants like Coca-Cola and lost.

Now, in The Virgin Way, Richard gives you an inside look at his strikingly different swashbuckling style of leadership. Learn how fun, family, passion and the dying art of listening are key components to what Bransons employees have always described (with a wink) as the Virgin way.

This unique perspective comes from a man who dropped out of school at sixteen, suffers from dyslexia, and has never worked for anyone but himself.

Famous for thinking outside the box an expression he despises Branson asserts that, Youll never have to think outside the box if you refuse to let anyone build one around you.

This is Leadership the Virgin way!

SIR RICHARD BRANSON is a hugely successful international entrepreneur, adventurer and icon, and is founder of the Virgin Group. His autobiography, Losing My Virginity, and his books on business, Screw It, Lets Do It, Like a Virgin, Screw Business as Usual and Business Stripped Bare are all international bestsellers. He is also the author of a book on aviation, Reach for the Skies. He lives on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, is married to Joan and has two grown-up children Holly and Sam.

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First published in 2014 by Virgin Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing

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Copyright Richard Branson 2014

Richard Branson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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Try everything once.
Except incest and folk dancing.

Sir Thomas Beecham

From my very first commercial venture at age sixteen with Student magazine, right up to todays far loftier adventures with such things as Virgin Galactic and space tourism, I have always had one paramount philosophy: if a new project or business opportunity doesnt excite me and get my entrepreneurial and innovative juices flowing, if its not something with which I sense I can make a difference while having a lot of seriously creative fun, then Id far rather pass on it and move right along to something else that does excite me.

This same line of thought flows into my attitude towards writing books: if I dont enjoy writing them, then the chances are pretty good that nobody is going to be too happy reading them. The simple fact is that if you dont enjoy what youre doing and the people with whom youre doing it, then there is no possible way that you are ever going to do it as well as something that you do enjoy. As some wise person once said, Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it! So unless you plan to give it a better shot in your next life assuming you are lucky enough to get a second chance then why risk wasting any of your limited time on this earth doing stuff that doesnt light your fire?

I am constantly amazed at how many people appear to live their lives either always looking in the rear-view mirror or talking about how things are going to be different in the future. There is nothing wrong with cherishing and enjoying memories and hopefully learning from past experiences just as planning for the future is something we obviously all have to do as well but what about today? All too frequently now gets lost in the frenetic shuffle to rush ahead to tomorrow. Face it: these are the good old days that youll be looking back on twenty years from now so why not move heaven and earth to enjoy them while youve got them?

Mahatma Gandhi is one of my all-time heroes, and a quote from him that I think I first read in a school history lesson has stuck with me ever since: Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. This good advice has been popularly abbreviated to, Live every day as if it were your last, which is a wonderful sentiment even if it has frequently become a worldwide rallying cry for never-mind-the-consequences hell-raisers. I remember well the one time (as an apprentice hell-raiser) I tried using the latter version on my mum as an excuse for some mischief or other. But Mum, I implored, I was only doing what Gandhi said I should do. Unimpressed, she gave me a straight-faced reply of, Pull that trick again, Ricky, and today could very well be your last!

Actually the best quote on living every day like its your last belongs to Steve Jobs, who in a commencement speech he made at Stanford University in 2005 said, If you live every day like its your last, someday youll almost certainly be right. It would be funny but for the fact he courageously gave the address just twelve months after he had been diagnosed with the cancer that would kill him six years later.

As fallible human beings we all make our share of mistakes and get ourselves into the kind of predicaments that result from making the wrong choices, but in the vast majority of such situations we all have the ability to pause, take stock and say, Sorry, but Im really not happy with this so Im out of here. I recognise that in a lot of instances particularly when friends and family are involved this may be easier said than done and taking any such drastic action usually calls for a lot of courage. However, as the old adage goes, when you make mistakes at least try to make them quickly.