A MORI survey out this month might give anyone who flunked out at school a sickening feeling - at first sight anyway.
The survey, conducted for international human resources consultancy DDI, claims that 90 per cent of Britain's top business leaders were already showing the way at school as head boys and girls, or else excelling in the sports field. (You know, those impossibly perfect all-rounder types many of us lesser beings spent many a lunch hour trying, and usually failing, to find a flaw in.)
So does this mean there's no point in the rest of us trying? That we should all just pluck out the prefects from Bradford Boys, Ampleforth and Crossley Heath and plonk them onto the boards of tomorrow's top firms?
I don't think so. This is one area where just because X equals Y, Y does most certainly not equal X. I know many of the top performers at my school were supposedly destined for great things, but they were last seen wandering further and further into the fields of obscurity. In fact I would say one of them failed to get into his chosen university precisely because he spent so much time doing head of house duties.
I would also suggest anyone else who thinks successful leaders are easily identifiable from an early age need only look at our 42 under 42 feature this month. What I find fascinating about the kind of entrepreneurs featured is the very varied careers they have had. The respondents from the MORI survey were all from large corporations, and so no doubt followed their success on the school sports field by greasing up the corporate career pole.
Many of our entrepreneurs, on the other hand, left school at a relatively early age (something they would have in common with Paul Sykes, say, or Lord Kirkham) and were willing to try their hand at anything.
Their success, I think, lies in the ability to spot an opportunity and run with it. They are also keenly aware that, despite their still relatively young age, success does not come overnight. Many of them, in fact, have been very prepared to learn from their mistakes.
No less a person than Henry Ford would have understood where they are coming from. People tend to forget that although Ford achieved meteoric success with the Model T in 1909 he had actually first started making cars in 1896, some 13 years earlier. And contrary to popular belief there was nothing new in what he was doing. He did not invent assembly line production, nor was the Model T particularly revolutionary in its capabilities. However, it was a very well designed car that, combined with Ford's decision to produce it in a way that others had already tried, proved a business proposition that was unstoppable. In other words, seeing an opportunity and running with it. It doesn't take a school prefect to do that.
Going back to the survey, I am rather surprised that an organisation with the standing of MORI should be prepared to publish a survey that is based on only 105 respondents. Most statisticians will tell you that surveys are usually of little value unless the number of respondents is somewhere near ten times that level. Given that we are at the start of what looks almost certain to be an election year, when we will soon be overrun with polls, that is something to bear in mind.
I know MORI was only quizzing chief executives and board directors, but there must be more than 105 of them in Britain. I hope so, anyway. Otherwise the old school tie network must really have a greater stranglehold than anyone thought.
Peter Baber, deputy editor
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