Disclaimer: this article is not an endorsement of any illegal activities
In 2014, Google achieved revenues of US$66bn[1], which works out at an average of US$1.26 billion per week. Incredible money by anyone’s standards. In the 1980s, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was estimated to be making about about US$420m a week[2] at the peak of his empire – incredibly, a third of Google’s revenues. It’s not difficult to see why Escobar is thought to the wealthiest criminal in history.
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| Pablo Escobar: Unwitting management guru |
While stories of Escobar’s dealings are currently doing the rounds thanks to the excellent Netflix series, Narcos, there’s an element to Escobar which demands attention in its own right: his genius for management. Yes, the man was a vicious criminal whose fortune was made on the back of hard drugs and violence. But while he’s not the only thug who chose that career path (for want of a better word), he’s the only one to make $30 billion. What were Pablo Escobar’s tenets of management?
Delegate
Pablo Escobar is now just the face of the organization that we know as the Medellin Cartel. It wasn’t as though he was the one turning the cocaine plant into powder, however. He had Cockroach do that for him (before his untimely demise). Likewise, there were middle managers which hired smugglers of every persuasion to get drugs to their end market. From production to sale, Escobar never even had to touch the product he was selling.
Nurture Talent
Escobar snuffed out radicalist group M-19 in his customarily vicious manner but spared their leader, Ivan ‘the terrible’ Torres. Torres provided Escobar with the sword of Simon Bolivár but that wasn’t the reason that he wasn’t killed like his colleagues; rather, Escobar saw a talent for mayhem in Torres that could be exploited in Colombia – and appointed him, bizarrely, as head of Escobar's imaginatively-titled Death to Kidnappers.
Lobby
The Medellin empire wasn’t possible without lobbying just about every part of the Colombian system (Lobbying being a rather kind word for it in many cases). The police, army, government at every level, customs officials, media and judges were all paid handsomely to either turn a blind eye, protect, or in the case of media, promote Escobar’s business. Of course, if you didn’t bow to Escobar’s lobbying – well, you’d lose more than his vote.
Loyalty
Escobar is reported to have said, ‘only those who went hungry with me and stood by me when I went through a bad time at some point in my life will eat at my table.’[3] As loyalty goes, it’s not quite stock options but Escobar is not the first leader of a successful organization to preach about the importance of loyalty: Terry Leahy devoted a chapter to it in Management in Ten Words,[4] while Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has said: ‘If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.’[5]
Manage cash
$30 billion in cash is not easily kept under a mattress. Narcos shows the extent to which Escobar went to hide the extraordinary quantity of physical dollar notes that were being generated by cocaine sales. So much so that a constantly-updated map was required to show where it was all hidden. $2,500 was spent every month on rubber bands alone (before Alibaba, admittedly) to tie up all the cash. Primitive treasury management? Certainly. But the cash pile still amassed $30 billion.
Exploit media
Mass media (and evidently, including this publication too) are guilty of giving Pablo Escobar an easy ride, even after his death. In researching this article, the number of media outlets that referred to a modern-day Genghis Khan (he was responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 people[6] – more than the troubles in Northern Ireland) as a ‘Robin Hood figure,’ or a a ‘folk hero,’ are astonishing. It does go to show how creating a mystique around you, your business or your brand does wonders for how the media will let you away with anything. Having the dashing Wagner Moura play you is no harm either.
[6] http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2015-07/30/pablo-escobar-facts?fb_comment_id=889127907839213_899352423483428#f3ede28484