The dish above is Chicken Tikka Masala, a perfect example of borrowing or stealing an idea from another country, and then evolving it.
As someone who has worked and travelled internationally for decades, including for most of that time working in an entrepreneurial business seeking ideas to implement in one country or another, often the easiest way to find an opportunity is to identify something being done in one country and then take it to another one where it isn’t happening.
I remember about 30 years ago being in Edinburgh and being shocked there were no specialist pizza delivery stores. I thought “I could set up a Dominos in a warehouse minutes from the town centre and deliver with bikes and mopeds to a huge population”, but I was too busy with businesses in Cayman to take the time to invest in Edinburgh at the time.
Little did I know that Dominos had already arrived in the UK by then, just not in Scotland. The story goes that an entrepreneur from Luton called Arshad Yasin flew to the USA to the annual Dominos franchisee convention and, when he eventually got to talk to someone senior in Dominos corporate, asked for a franchise for one store in the UK. Dominos had not at all been thinking of international expansion at all, but they offered him the master franchise for the UK. Ever the entrepreneur, he said “yes”. Though he sold that master franchise a few years later, he now owns 23 stores of his own and made millions from that first entrepreneurial decision to say “yes” to taking on the master franchise.
In a similar vein, in the early 90s real estate franchises were unheard of in Cayman, but, as a business, we knew they were the future. We then, similarly, went to the Century 21 annual convention in the USA and, similarly but slightly differently, asked for a master franchise for the Caribbean. It turns out someone already had one but was not making the most of the opportunity. I remember standing outside a house in Liverpool on a scorching summer’s day while helping a family member move into their new house. My phone rang and it was a call to agree on the terms of the deal to buy that master franchise. A few minutes later the deal was made and we not only owned the franchise for Cayman but the whole Caribbean, one of the best investment decisions we made that involved “borrowing” an idea from another country.
I am reminded of all of this by the every curious Rory Sutherland (listen to his #WhatComesNextLive guest slot here) in his latest weekly article for The Spectator: “The case for theft-tanks“, in which he concludes:
If there is a politically interested billionaire reading this, I suggest that you fund not a thinktank but a theft-tank. The idea would be to travel the world stealing good ideas from other countries and encouraging their implementation here. If I can discover one good law on a four-day visit to Israel, imagine what you could do in a year.
I used to think it was the generation of new ideas that was important. Actually the transfer and translation of ideas is much more important overall. Food in Britain has not improved only because we have improved British food. It’s because we’ve stolen the best recipes from everyone else.
As I wrote in “CASE – Copy and Steal Everything“:
Picasso said (and Steve Jobs quoted him often): “‘Good artists copy; great artists steal”
Bringing the leadership qualities of being Hungry, Humble, Brave and Open to these phrases to define them for leaders:
- Good leaders copy. They are open and humble to learn from others and utilise what works, not needing to have all the answers themselves
- Great leaders steal. They are not only open and humble enough to learn from others, but brave and hungry enough to be compelled to make the ideas their own by building upon them, evolving them. Oh, and they also love it when others then “steal” their ideas, as they practice abundance.
Are you a magpie? Do you “CASE”?
What ideas have you come across in your travels that you could copy, steal, and then evolve to fit your needs?
Right, I’m off for a Chicken Tikka Slice, an example of fusion fast food resulting from copying.
By the way, how many of you are aware that the ubiquitous Tikka Masala was invented in, of all places, Glasgow?