Limity vznikají v naší hlavě/Limits arise in our head | Stanislav Bernard | TEDxOstrava

Good day. I heard that the theme of today's meeting is joy. You've just seen a brief overview of our work from 1991 to today. We've been in business for nearly a quarter century. At the beginning was a bankrupt brewery, purchased under unimaginable financial conditions. It had a residual value of 9.5 million CZK, and we bought it for 52 million CZK, 100% on credit, when interest rates were 10%. By the late 90s, with so-called sliding packages, rates jumped to 18-22%. At that time our turnover was about 100 million CZK and our debt was 52 million. Economists know that's a deadly cocktail.

I claim, after these experiences, that practically anything is possible in the world. The limits of what's possible and what isn't arise within us, in our heads, primarily in our minds. Not so much in the heart, because the heart has no limits — when you love someone, you love them to the point of madness. But the mind, the intellect, constantly invents stories, constantly doubts, constantly tells itself 'that won't work out.' We could be angry about it, but essentially we have nothing to be angry about, because even the mind isn't ours — it comes to us from somewhere in the universe. But the truth is that it can limit us very, very much.

Why could you see this video here? Why did what happened happen? I attribute it to a special state of mind I experienced after the revolution. At that time, a film was shown throughout the country called 'Freedom,' and that film so captivated me that I threw myself headfirst into something I knew nothing about. I had a partner, a co-owner, Pepa Vávra, whom I met completely by chance — though the question is whether coincidences exist. He was working in Ostrava. We met in a completely different context, and then he came with the news that a brewery in Humpolec was being auctioned. He was from there; I had never been there in my life. So when we went to the auction, we somehow miraculously won it for the value I mentioned — five times the residual value. Then we threw ourselves into it, and suddenly it started working. On weekends I drove here, so every week I spent 6 to 8 hours behind the wheel, depending on traffic and the season.

I can tell you I was happy. It didn't occur to me that we were living on the edge of bankruptcy. It didn't occur to me — or rather, I didn't think about it. My mother lived in a family house, so I mortgaged it for the loan. Essentially, I didn't deal with the question of risk, didn't deal with the question of luck or misfortune. I was simply in that moment, and in that moment I dealt with what needed to be done.

Notice that when I started with the introduction about the mind, the mind has one peculiar property: it constantly distances us from the present moment — the only moment in which real life takes place. Notice what the mind thinks about: it thinks about what's happening right now. Here there are, I don't know, 250 people, and each of us is focused on something — that some Bernard is talking. Many of you, if you notice what your mind is doing, will realize it's somewhere in the past, in memories, or already planning what you'll do when you get home this afternoon. This is a perfectly normal trait — let's not hold it against it. But that's how it behaves, and I want to say that it truly distances us from the only moment in which we truly live. It's interesting to engage with the stories our mind tells, because we all know we've experienced many interesting stories that get told at parties — everyone laughs, and each time the story is a bit different, depending on how much alcohol has been consumed. The same applies to the future, when we dream about what will happen and what will succeed. However, it's good to realize — and few of us do this, I barely did it myself for most of that time — that life truly happens here and now. So that's just an aside.

Maybe I could ask about the presentation. I mentioned we have a section there. Try to play it. I'll tell you — I don't know where it is. And now, one more thing. Click on something, and once more — try clicking on number three, 'Company Mission and Corporate Values,' and we can... I don't have a remote. Is there a remote here? Excellent.

I'll just make a short aside. We thought about why the Bernard company exists — Rodinný pivovar Bernard — when there's a constant surplus of beer on the market, large companies always have spare capacity. So what's the point of one small brewery, or today 300 microbreweries? They exist because we are not programmed for one single program, one single product, one single aroma, one single taste. Each of us is an absolute original. Currently there are about 7 billion people in the world, maybe 12 billion in the future — I don't know, if we survive — and each of us will always be an absolute original. That's why this mission exists: 'Vlastní cestou k poctivému českému pivu' — 'Own path to honest Czech beer.' That's the slogan we naturally follow. Czech beer is one of the best in the world, and if we make it honestly, it will be one of the best in the world. Our people came up with this about eight years ago, and since then it's been confirmed many times. Most recently about ten days ago, when we won first place at one of the world's largest beer tasting competitions in London with Bernard Hemian, winning the Belgian-style ale category. We brew that ale for one year. I'm not saying this to boast — I'm saying it because what our people felt, that we want to do, is being fulfilled. We have many first, second, and third places from London, Stockholm, Chicago, Melbourne — I don't know where, it doesn't matter. Simply put, Czech beer is great, and when it's made with love and passion, it's great worldwide.

Now, about the values. These are — this is intended for an HR conference, which we're not here for, but please. We gave our people the opportunity. We said we're now such a large company that we need some rules. 'Rules' is an unpleasant word for me, but at least something to give us some orientation milestones or points to guide us. We said, fine, corporate culture, corporate values — here you see them. It's five words. And I'll tell you, if we had decided to come up with them in the office, we'd have it done in an hour. We gave this opportunity to our employees. And the discussions about the company mission — which, as you saw, is 'Own path to honest Czech beer' — and the discussions about those five corporate values lasted a year and a half.

So those of you focused on performance will say, 'What idiots, a year and a half chatting in the company about five words.' I'll tell you that year and a half brought change, and I felt that change in the company. Before, we were an absolutely ordinary company with the classic gossip, envy — I'm deliberately listing the negative things, as in every collective, every family, every sports club, and God forbid every political party. Because we were growing, we started with about 30 people in 1991, now we have about 190 employees, plus 25 in Rajhrad at the malting plant you saw in the presentation, and we're still growing. So it was clear we needed some rules, but the foundation is that we gave this opportunity to our people. Because if we had come up with it ourselves in an hour, it would be very efficient but ultimately useless. If you were the employees and I told you 'this is what we'll follow,' you'd say 'fine' and ignore it. But if you discuss it among yourselves for a year and a half, talking about what's missing in your work, what annoys you about your boss, what annoys you about colleague Franta Novák who gossips about you and wants to climb over your back — eventually these five words remained. Notice we deliberately placed them in a pentagram and deliberately included the connecting lines, because these values work synergistically. If one doesn't work, none of them work. It's a closed, harmonious cycle. But on the other hand, when this works, suddenly the company becomes breathable. That was the change I mentioned — during that year and a half, I directly felt the atmosphere in the company changing. And because the people came up with it themselves, these are their values. They're not the values of some Standa Bernard or Pepa Vávra, two co-owners, or someone from management. These are our people's values.

Of course, sometimes someone violates them — we're only human, logically. But then it's enough to remind them. And I can tell you that today our people themselves watch over these values. When someone comes from outside — first, we select — when we hire someone, and we hire many people each year because we're growing fast, though we want to and though we don't want to — that would be a separate debate, but they told me I only have a little time. When we hire, say, 15-20 people a year, they're already selected according to these values. We won't take someone into the company even if they're an Einstein in some field, if they don't resonate with the openness, positivity, cooperation, trust, and so on. We simply won't take them, even if they're Einstein, because it's not just about professional knowledge — that's important, but many people have it. And if someone doesn't have it but has these qualities, they can learn the expertise. It's incomparably more important to create positive people who truly value openness and are able to tell each other unpleasant things to their faces.

When I said this at a lecture in autumn, my former classmate from elementary school came up to me — he holds a fairly high position at Vítkovice — and said, 'Standa, it was beautiful what you said, but honestly, I don't believe you. My experiences with Vítkovice are such and such.' I won't discuss Vítkovice, but I told him, 'Tome, I wasn't telling you fairy tales. I was telling you the truth.' And I can tell you that today — I don't know if there's still something left — there are three more directions we also follow: focus on employees, which relates to the values; focus on customers, which is Baťa; and growth of company value. When we came up with this, we had roughly, for your reference, a turnover of 100 million and zero profit. After about seven or eight years, this year we'll have a turnover of over 600 million, and profit will be — I don't know, I'll guess — 80 million net. But that's just to illustrate that it works.

We held a gala evening for our people where we announced the best explanation of these values. The truth is we constantly remind ourselves of this, and people live by it. When we hire someone poorly, which has also happened, within about two or three months signals came: 'Sorry, we don't want to work with that person because they tend to appropriate some ideas,' which is bad, and so on.

So I dare to claim that our company, our family brewery, is not so exceptional because we win first places in quality, or that today we're one of the most profitable breweries with about 15% profitability, growing on a declining market — third year in a row now, currently by 17%, though that's not the primary goal, nor is profit the primary goal. I dare to claim — and not even that we have great relationships with customers — but I dare to claim that the greatest achievement we've achieved, and I say 'we' because it's far from just the work of Standa Bernard, it's the work of all those people — is that we managed to create an island of positivity that radiates outward. Consider: we supply 2,500 restaurants today, practically all chains except discount ones in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and we have — I don't know how many — a huge number of suppliers. Just now, in the 100x100 meter area, three construction companies are working simultaneously, plus I don't know how many technology suppliers. We're investing about 130 million now, and so on. But that's not the topic. What I perceive as our greatest achievement is what was accomplished in creating an environment where people don't come to work with fear. They go knowing they'll have to do something — no work, no cake — but at the same time, if they don't know something, if they have a problem, they can discuss it with a colleague, or they can come to the boss and say, 'Sorry, I don't know how to do this, help me.' On the other hand, it's not the rule that if someone comes and says 'I don't know what to do,' the boss tells them how to solve it. Without that, it doesn't work — the person must always bring their own solution. But simply put, I don't know how much time I have left. I'm at the end.

So I'll try to conclude by telling you that I truly consider this our greatest achievement. Because life is absolutely unpredictable — no one knows what will happen in half a second, we know nothing about it. So why ruin the time we have here with mutual gossip, rivalry, envy, and all these qualities? Why not dedicate this time to positivity and joy? Thank you.