Even though I have been an ardent supporter of others, I must admit the truth: Lionel Messi is undoubtedly one of the best footballers of our time — his skills, discipline, bold determination, and sustained application are worthy of all his praise and accolades.

But he also has something else — the best shoe technology. Modern laceless soccer boots with high-tech scientific innovation to support him in running at high speeds while manoeuvring tackles down the pitch. Messi’s shoes were developed by his sponsor adidas — the world’s second-largest athletic clothing manufacturer, after Nike.

You may be wondering what has sparked my interest in athletic shoe technology. It is not the shoe technology, but the vision of adidas set by its former CEO Herbert Hainer, in 2001, which turned the German company around, which inspires me.

Before Hainer took over the company was losing market share with lacklustre sneaker designs that were no longer appealing. However, rather than financially padlock the company to try to reverse losses while aggressively pushing employees to efficiently sell more apparel, Hainer did the boldly unthinkable. He did not pursue a path using his profit and loss statement as the lead. He, instead, reframed the company’s vision to be all about helping athletes fulfill their potential.

He backed up his vision with action. And when the company’s investors would complain that profit margins were lower than Nike, he would say adidas’s product development costs were higher because they would make the best-athlete performance product.

“The goal wasn’t to be the biggest and the richest, it was to start creating products that help athletes… If we help them make their dream come true — winning an Olympic gold medal, the French Open, etc — then we have achieved more than just revenue numbers,” he said.

As Hainer planned, the company grew during his 15-year tenure. By the time Hainer retired he had successfully invigorated the adidas brand, increasing its market capitalisation from US$3.4 billion to over US$30 billion. His bold leadership set the company on a new mission and got the people to rally behind his vision.

Oliver Bäte, the CEO of the world’s largest insurance company, Allianz, once said: “Nobody gets galvanised by, ‘I need to double net profit.’ Sorry, even my top team doesn’t. So the question is: What can you rally people behind?” (CEO Excellence, March 2022)

Fortune favours the bold

People are always mobilised by courageous, compelling, and contemporary ideas they help create. However, thinking big and thinking globally can be daunting to many people, especially if they have only operated in small circles. Furthermore, most of us have been raised to ‘play it safe’, or that ‘a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush’. In other words, we were not taught to be risk-takers, especially in times of uncertainty.

This is where effective leadership comes in. The world’s most successful leaders and CEOs have different mindsets. They can quell anxiety, reveal the bigger picture, and explain why it is essential to pursue it; seeing uncertainty as an opportunity to shape the future fate of a company or organisation.

Recently McKinsey & Company published that the best CEOs applied boldness in their direction setting, vision, strategy, and resource allocation.

Jamaica has been pursuing the same path for a long time without real, meaningful results for our people. Yes, all the statistics indicate that our macroeconomic indicators are heading in the right direction. Our balance sheet seems to be on the right track. Yet significant economic growth still eludes us, and we have not been able to grow the per capita income of our people or their purchasing power for far too long.

I have argued that we have been pursuing the same industries over the years without taking substantial risks to invest in new and innovative ones to give us a global competitive edge. Value-added agriculture, medical/wellness tourism, and Jamaica as the creative entertaining hub of the world as three industries we should aggressively build out.

For example, the creative economy contributes approximately 6.1 per cent to the global gross domestic product (GDP), averaging between 2 per cent and 7 per cent of the GDP worldwide. The United Nations estimates that the creative economy industries generate annual revenues of over US$2 trillion and nearly 50 million global jobs. Half of these workers are women and in areas engaging more people between the ages 15-29 than any other sector. Television and the visual arts make up the major areas of the creative economy in terms of revenue, while visual arts and music are the largest industries in terms of employment (www.thepolicycircle.org).

Over the years, successive governments have viewed culture as a mere season of ad hoc activities intended to make our people feel nice, but not as a serious industry requiring stimuli that could significantly grow our economy and better our people’s lives. Both poltical parties while helming the Government have reluctantly acted with conviction and financial devotion towards strengthening and developing our people’s creative skills and deepening our cultural infrastructure.

Worse, there is no glimmer of hope on the horizon, as evidenced by the 2023/2024 Estimates of Expenditure. A closer look reveals no real recurrent increases for programmes, nor capital expenditure for new projects; that is, blue pages.

Why? If we keep saying Jamaica is a cultural powerhouse, where’s the streamlining, the incentives for investments, and the bold vision? We have done it for the business process outsourcing (BPO) and tourism sectors.

The world is massive, with 7.8 billion people, and Jamaica, with .038 per cent of the population, is relatively minuscule in the scale of things. Yet, our size has never prevented us from making a mammoth impact on the world stage with an influence more than thousands times our population.

Thanks to our national heroes, reggae musicians, athletes, academicians, and leaders, Jamaica’s brand is powerful. However, we have not monetised this value to Jamaica’s benefit as we should have, and now, because of our inaction, new stars have emerged from Asia and Africa on the world stage. We would do our heritage a disservice if, by our inaction, we did not build on the tremendous legacy they provided for future generations.

Aristotle said: “Excellence is never an accident.” Jamaica needs a CEO with a bold mindset who understands that we can change the world and improve the lives of all Jamaicans. So, let’s stop leaving our innovation to chance. It’s time to get bold, Jamaica.