Gavin O’Connor is MD of Mettle Ltd. He spoke to us about our bad questions, becoming a revolutionary and lording it in the kitchen
Katy Chance
Describe your management style. What a kak question. Well, I just deal with the issues and I’m very operational; I like to be on the ground and in the market.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Geez, is there a book of bad questions that you get these from?
No, they’re all my own work.
Okay. Well, my strengths are that I deal with issues and my weakness is that my style can be seen as confrontational.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Fidel Castro. Che Guevara. A revolutionary. I wanted to change the world. If you’d told me that I’d end up working in finance I would have shot myself. Now I realise it’s really the most interesting, challenging and creative thing there is. I’m an artist by nature, I did a BA then an LLB. I even thought of doing advertising, thinking it was creative. Actually it’s facile with no depth. I ran away from the army and wandered round the States for a while then I came back and did law but most lawyers are really just clerks who shuffle paper. I was sort of approached by the financial world and now I’m actually paid just to think and come up with new ideas that work.
Favourite books?
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, also Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. I don’t read management books all the philosophy you need about life and the human condition you’ll find in the great novels.
Favourite food?
You won’t believe this, it’s my own.
I love cooking. It’s totally creative and I love hundreds of people in the kitchen with me, with them doing all the dirty work and then cleaning up while I just oversee everything. Sort of like a culinary berlord.
Favourite getaway?
I have a place in Jongensfontein. I go there twice a year and every third year I go on sabbatical for a few months. I just read and fish and walk, I don’t cut my hair or shave, there’s no electricity and I turn into a bum.
Any embarrassing moments in business?
My skin is so thick few have had a lasting impression on me, but once I was hanging on for a guy on a speaker phone he was taking ages so I mentioned to someone that he was probably on the crapper. Then a voice from the other side of the phone said quietly: “No I’m not.”
What’s your favourite piece of classical music?
You know, I just like the tunes but don’t ask me who’s playing them. I like to listen to that oke, you know, what’s his name … Mozart. That’s it. I once paid R350 to sleep through a Wagner concert.
What are we getting right in business and the economy?
Essentially we are getting most things right except that management is very poor and has no depth. I think the government is doing a great job. The Ministry of Finance is very solid, Trevor Manuel’s budget was great, I’m a big fan. I believe we’ve got huge skills to sell to the rest of the world as we have such first-hand knowledge of working with emerging markets. The brain drain has weakened the management pool which is why it’s so bad. Now we’ve got management that just buggers around and blames the workers. The unions, in my opinion, have been incredibly responsible for the past five years. I’d be marching the streets, myself.