Xuelin and I are most grateful to Mr Hu Zhirong for organizing this event and inviting such a wonderful mix of people and experiences.

You all know from your experience that no successful business was ever built by a legal document. It is people who make a successful business. So it is with an economy too–no successful economy was built by a constitution it was built on that constitution by people. So people are central to success both to national and business success.

We are familiar with the concept of investing: where you take some capital and invest it in a company in the hope that in future it will repay you an income or profit at some point in a the future. Well my talk to you to day is about how to become an investor in people, because it is people who are central to our future success. I want to suggest five ‘Es’ of effective investment in people:

Education: I do not need to dwell on this point long because Chinese culture with its deep Confucian roots recognises that our minds have incredible capacity to absorb new information, skills and to be able to reason. It is suggested that we only use 10% of our brains capacity in our lifetimes. Just imagine what it could do for your company, your country and the world if we could just increase that to 20%. That can only be done through education. Xuelin and I have achieved all that we have through education and that is why we are in Beijing to walk to give more young people the opportunity to unleash the phenomenal capacity they have.

Enterprise: Often we misunderstand enterprise and narrowly define it as a business or profit making entity, but enterprise is a state of mind. It is constantly looking for ways of delivering improvements to the way things have been done in the past. In that sense it is as critical for asurgeon or a government official to be enterprising but that requires a system that encourages fresh thinking about old problems. Where would we be today without the inventions of paper, printing, the compass, the wheel, the combustion engine, telephone, the Internet, penicillin or the electric light bulb etc. Part of investing in people is giving them permission to experiment and search for new solutions to modern problems, in short, enterprise empowerment.

Experience: My university tutor would often say ‘You can only build a pyramid as high as the base is wide’ by which he meant if you have a narrow base of experience on which to build your life then that is a limiting factor. Therefore to broaden your experience before you start to build is a key to success. Xuelin and I have undertaken charity walks in twenty-five countries and those experiences, encounters and insights are a reservoir from which we drink and refresh our souls. I feel sad for many young people today who feel so constrained to  constructing the right CV–the right school, the right college, the right Internship, the right first job etc. Part of investing in people is opening their eyes to the amazing world around us and helping them to understand themselves and their place in it.

Expectation: Eton College in England is one of the most prestigious schools in the world. It is said that each year the Master assembles the new pupils in the Great Hall and begins, “This college has been educating students for nearly six hundred years–it has produced 19 British prime ministers during that time, great scientists and business leaders” he pauses and looks into the faces of the nervous new students and says “but we expect you do better”. Imagine what such high expectations do for a child. In my experience the reason why children from poor families succeed less than those from rich ones is nothing to do with intelligence, genetics or diet and everything to do with the expectations they have for themselves and those which people around them have. The best investment in a young life is to raise their expectations of what they are capable of achieving.

Encouragement: I remember giving a speech as a member of the Conservative Party’s Youth Committee to our Party Conference in 1983. There were about 3000 people in the hall and our prime minister, Margaret Thatcher was on the platform listening. As a young man, feeling inadequate to the task. Afterwards I was called to see Margaret Thatcher and I was terrified that I must have done something wrong. She said to me that she wasn’t sure she agreed with the arguments I had made in my speech about the economy but she said I was impressed that you spoke without notes–how did you keep to time and memorise it? I mentioned that I couldn’t read very well so rather than stumble over words on paper I memorised them all. She said, “That is quite a talent for a young man, you must use it more.” The entire encounter lasted less than two minutes but those twelve words changed my life and are the reason I am standing before you today. Could we be an encouragement by investing in a young life and in doing so honour those who did the same for us?

Education, enterprise, experience, expectation and encouragement. Five ‘Es’ that can transform a life and will be the best investment you will ever make.