This is my assignment on Entrepreneurship class, and I think it would be great to share it to the world about my take on Jamie Oliver’s story and struggle upon his believe to form a better world.
1. Introduction
I saw Jamie Oliver a couple of times on the TV and I was not that interested to his show at that time. Until I saw him giving a speech in TED, and it was TED award speech at YouTube which was uploaded at early 2010. It wasn’t about that it was broadcasted by TED nor about its award, but about the speech itself. Everyone can see his passion in his eyes, how fluent and influential he was in the speech, how he made the audience to sit at the corner of their chair and listen carefully. He was not talking about his recipe, but about his passion for a better future through his own way, through foods.
Jamie Oliver is the world-wide famous host of The Naked Chef (BBC) and several TV shows. He is known for his passion to make people enjoying their time at the kitchen, and even to grow their own food. His program is aired at more than a hundred countries, translated to more than 30 languages, and he produced the best-seller cookbooks not only in UK but also around the globe. He is the founder of Ministry of Food, a foundation with the same passion, specifically targeting people with obesity to create a bigger awareness of healthy living with the right diets.
Talking about profitability, transparency, and socially responsible Jamie has made use of his fully. He is fully responsible for several TV shows which for sure have brought him a big income and several other profitable shows like Ministry of Food foundation (a campaign for healthy diet against obesity) and Jamie’s Kitchen (a show to teach young people who were not in full time education or employment). Talking about transparency, there is little about his venture financial report in the news, however, doing project with governments and funded by them (and TED) to do social project can be perceived as trust to its cleanliness in terms of their operation to their target market. The last one is the criteria about its business sustainability, which I think is unquestionable. The background of Jamie’s Kitchen was to give back to the society, all the profits in fact, were given to the charity and it was followed by the camera. Jamie has made several other programs for his passion to get the health back to the society by his own way, and he’s proud of it.
2. Business Description
The markets he is targeting actually are the parents, who are responsible for the foods of entire family. The next one is young people as his ‘giving back’ program. Another target that he tapped into is the education system, since he believes that a better future will be created through healthy generation, and the less number of junk-food consumed by young generation today. He wants to make them realize the effect of how bad it is. The last one is government, and by tapping to this target, it means that his program, his passion, and his goal in life will be disseminated and fully supported by the legislation. Even he once said that (at TED award speech) any government, judging from the circumstances of obesity and sugar level that are consumed by kids in their schools, are found to be guilty of child abuse by agreeing on the sugar that are put on their milk. He simply put it into the closing statement of his speech there, that his target are kids, families, and people everywhere to cook again and fight obesity.
The process he puts inside the business are mostly by educating his target audience about how important it is to start to take a big care of it. He uses statistics, stories, and himself as a chef and food-expert to create an awareness of the cost of ignoring the importance of food. He does not stop there, it was not all about health, and he was talking about how food actually binds the members in the family together. Intellectual and emotional way to disseminate his passion about a better future is the strategy he puts in place, including the education to scale this out.
The USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that he proposed to the market is his own philosophy that “food and healthy eating has always been about enjoying everything in a balanced and sane way. “ He does believe that actually we don’t really need to be afraid about our diet. Yes there is sugar and bad cholesterol in our foods, yet we are able to balance them with the nutrition needed in our body, that we should eat a proportionate portion of our diet. The value adds is that once the market knows how to cook, they will know how to transform raw ingredients to the best food in an effective, cheapest, and fastest way. By cooking like this, is always be cheaper compared to buy food from outside, and it adds creativity to the market in terms of eating in a balance way with loads of variety and odds indulgence now and then for every treat, of course when treat is not a daily occurrence.
3. Personality and Situation Analysis
There could be a genetic factor playing its role in Jamie’s development. His parents, Trevor and Sally still run their own highly respected pub/restaurant The Cricketers in Clavering and was frequently found helping out in the kitchens. His fascination for food continued to grow and at 16 Jamie left school and completed his training at Westminster Catering College. After spending some time working in France, followed by a stint at Antonio Carluccio’s Neal Street Restaurant, London Jamie joined the acclaimed River Café where he worked for three and a half years alongside Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers.
However, it didn’t stop there. Jamie, as stated above, was pursuing his own way. His bold decision to quit school and later did his training in catering school was believed to be unpopular among teenage those years. He left school, the education system failed him, as it failed too many people around UK and the world, and it simply cannot tap into unseen potential on students. Anyway, later in his path, it became his own enemy, where kids nowadays can’t even focus to even more than one percent to things in front of them, and instead more focused on their gadget and look bored with their handhelds.
Having struggled academically himself (Jamie has dyslexia and left school at 16 with just two GCSEs), he now wants to help this group of young people through an intensive reintroduction to learning, with the offer of support for those who want to re-enter education, Dream School has born.
The series looks at the young people’s educational problems and attempts to uncover whether they are down to personal circumstance, society, or the education system itself. It also examines how the new teachers get on as they try to translate their real-life expertise into the realities of the classroom.
The experts include scientist Professor Robert Winston, historian David Starkey, barrister Cherie Blair, journalist and political aide Alastair Campbell, actor Simon Callow, musician Jazzie B and Olympic gold medalist Daley Thompson.
The put his audacious time to tap into those kids. The education system was again, tried to fail him down, looked down at him, by not allowing the advertisement to be aired because it was too straight forward against the chalk board-based education system which has failed enough of UK youngster and trying to hold them back in their classes. The teachers were against it, since they believe that Dream School was filled with people who are failed to survive at the ordinary education system. Given that the intake of Dream School is representative of the 50% of students who have failed to achieve five or more GCSEs at grade C or above, Brooker immediately insults half of the population, Brodie (The Guardian) said at his point against Dream School.
Considering all the facts above, all the difficulties he had gone through, and to see him eventually awarded by TED to run his altruist campaign is an inspiring journey of one’s worth admired, Jamie is believed to have an internal locus of control, by not letting the environment and failures brought him down. He instead, kept pursuing his dream, to make people enjoying their time in the kitchen, and back to the warmth of healthy family.
The source is the dissatisfaction, and yes, he made it personal. It was not about the pursuit of revenge of the dependency of the good old times employment, nor nine to five work hours. He has been independent since a long time ago, and it was not that the things that burn his soul, it is about his compassionate towards the community and his dream about a better future. Another thing is, he is lucky enough to have a pair of parents who are in the same field, to be his model, to encourage his familiarity of being an entrepreneur, a successful and passionate one.
By being clear about his vision, Jamie has his own achievement that he is trying to reach, and he keeps pursuing it. Day by day, he is into the same dream, to keep his dream alive, and yes, this is the sign of the high need of achievement. The achievement however, is defined differently from one person to another, for some, maybe it’s some recognition in national television, for some, maybe it’s financial advantage, but for Jamie, what he wants to achieve is stated clearly in his mind, as stated above, back to the warmth of healthy family.
We have to understand that risk-taking behavior is appeared at the entry point of being an entrepreneur, yet, it is not sufficient to survive the venture and amount the success for a long term. To sustain the existence of the business, one needs to know him or herself, on the other hand, still having a confident to tap into the uncertainty of the future. To have a belief in himself, and yet able to know the limitation of self, the self, the strength, the weaknesses and use the knowledge to further the development of the venture.
4. Prognosis
Martin Addison, Director of Video Arts, said:
“Jamie’s Kitchen: Fifteen lessons on leadership and teamwork takes a fresh approach to training that is totally inclusive and relates to people regardless of their position within a team. It makes compelling viewing as it charts the emotional highs and lows of what was a very ambitious project but above all it emphasizes the importance of personal contribution and motivates people to achieve their full potential.
“Organizations are already aware that leadership and teamwork skills are keys to their success. Their challenge is finding a way to change the behavior of enough people to achieve critical mass and make a real difference. We believe that the broad appeal of Jamie’s Kitchen: Fifteen lessons on leadership and teamwork will result in better leaders and better teams, which can only mean more effective organizations overall.”
The quotes above were taken from Jamie’s Kitchen’s review by the director of its program. The program is about leadership and teamwork believed to be able to create a critical mass for the future leaders. The reason behind it all is the understanding that leadership is an activity, it is not a position. Thus for one to learn about leadership, it takes a real activity, a real example of a set of behavior, hands-on experience instead of classical class-room method.
Jamie Oliver takes on this was “The biggest lesson I learnt was that each individual needs a different approach. Some learn quickly and others need a bit more time to grasp things. Some will take to one role happily while others might have to be given a little nudge. Spending time to nurture each trainee’s talent is always important“. He said also at the other time that it is about acknowledging our strength and weaknesses, and not letting our own wants and needs get in the way of our development.
Maybe yes, the personality he has had caused by some displacement from the traditional education system, he had a dyslexia, and maybe that’s why he tries to reach out kids who are victimized by the existence education system. However, I do believe on something more powerful than just negative push behind his formed character. It is a burning soul to reach out, to contribute to the world, based on his own internal dialogue to create a better world.
The programs above are believed as his way and lengthen hands to create a better world. To disseminate his passion, his believe, and his understanding that people are deserve to get a better life, by the warmth of the family, by the better food presented on their table, and by having more qualified leaders available within communities.
Tags: Cognitive, entrepreneur, inspiration, life, opinion
Tonight I heard a comment from my girlfriend in the middle of our conversation that “I’m not matured yet”. My mind suddenly uttered something that I didn’t really think before with “It’s our decision to make, not time…just like praying or fasting, we may not like to do it, indeed we decide to do it”. To be honest, it was not the first time I heard such saying “I’m not matured yet”, “I want to enjoy my young age”, “This is my time to have fun”.
niqisfreax
my life, my fly, my fall 