Richard Branson is an unusual “british bloke” full of energy, ideas and a real zest for life. To tell you the truth, before reading this book, I did not think much of him. I felt like he was the typical entrepreneur that likes to show off and dare to do adventurous things just because he can afford them. Somehow I found myself reading some of the pages of the book during one of my frequent “walking-about” at the bookstore and I found the writing very intense, down-to-hearth and concrete: real life! real business! no nonsense!

There are four key values that Branson uses to guide his Virgin empire: 1) service 2) fun 3) entrepreneurship 4) reputation. Let’s explore them briefly from his perspective:

 

Service

Branson business philosophy starts from this: focusing on what people need, on how services and products can be improved to make them more practical, comfortable and enjoyable. With this in mind he ventures in several business fields (it all started with publishing - during the 1960s an outspoken and controversial magazine for students “Student” focusing on real issues close to the day-to-day needs of his target audience; from that it developed into a recording company and on to an airline, and on to book publishing, car selling, railroads, soda manufacturing and selling etc.). It all evolves around the basic idea to offer something innovative to serve the needs of people and it all starts from listening to people in order to find out what they need! Brason’s “straw poll of one” is part of Virgin’s legend... For example Branson himself is used to ask airline passengers what they would like to experience improved to their flights... out of one of these unusual pollings came out the idea to have massages in Virgin Atlantic business class. The service seem to be very appreciated!

 

Fun

Fun, pure adrenaline and energy flowing is a big part to the DNA of Bransons’s business activities and personal life. The book is filled with adventures and publicity stunts around the globe on speedy “boats”, air balloons etc.. The key idea is that life has to be fun and enjoyment and business needs to find ways to help the process! From Branson’s perspective aiming to have fun in business and in life is just a way to stimulate people to become aware of their energy and how to express it in a positive way. Fun becomes a process, a way to value the people, their talents, their dreams, their uniqueness. According to him business activities that from the start do not promise to generate lots of fun are not worth the effort!

 

Entrepreneurship

This is a key value to Branson’s strategy to manage and develop his business group. Virgin’s empire is made of well above 20.000 people yet it is all structured within smaller operations that do not exceed 60 people! All of this might sound complex to manage and probably it would be for any traditional corporation; Branson’s just wants to make sure that the people working at Virgin never lose the individual ideas, energy and commitment associated with a start-up operation. This way Virgin is not actually a corporation but a network of smaller companies that cooperate together driven by shared values evolving around the concept of service above described. All of this might sound messy from an administrative and finance perspective and at time certainly it is (Branson writes about several thrilling stories involving banks and loans) but is how they always manage to come out of these complex situations that makes the network and the people even stronger in their endeavors!

 

Reputation

Branson considers reputation (his own reputation and the one of his business group) a key asset to safeguard with focus and care. He feels that when you are “making waves” in the way that you do business, in the ideas considered impossible to realize by many but that you are able to implement, when you attack the privileges of business monopolies, you are subject to receive unfair publicity and you need to make sure to defend your reputation in a timely straightforward and transparent way. Losing your reputation can undermine all of your efforts to truly bring forward innovation and service to business.

All in all this is a very enjoyable and thought provoking book. It stimulates you to dare to become aware of yourself (as a person and as a member of a business) and assert the uniqueness of your ideas, your talents and energy. This way you are bound to go through some tough times, some up and downs, yet in the end you will perceive that you are making a real difference in what you do. This is the core of Branson’s philosophy.