A leader can inspire change for the better so profound and far-reaching that he deserves to be called a genius. Jock Campbell, Chairman of Bookers in the 1950s and 1960s, comprehensively transformed his company in Guyana and thereby improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. He re-organized, virtually re-invented, the sugar industry – converting a run-down, ramshackle, inhuman, paternalistic, expatriate–dominated business into a modern, innovative, forward-looking, productive and dynamic enterprise basically run by Guyanese for the much-improved good of Guyanese and Guyana.
He had negotiated the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement which laid the foundation for improved sugar prices. Wealth creation rapidly increased with sugar production rising to more than 360,000 tonnes sugar per annum. It was a remarkable transformation.
In doing all this he consistently and enthusiastically practised what he preached – that any business had a four-fold responsibility to people all equally important : to shareholders, to employees, to customers and to the community in which the business operates and finds its meaning.
At the height of his powers, when I was lucky enough to know and work closely with him, Jock Campbell exuded a life force which lifted others to exceed ordinary effort in pursuit of goals which he encouraged them to embrace as their own. In his presence you felt the urgency of wanting to get worthwhile things done at once if not sooner.
Jock was a man of immense charisma – derived from the Greek word kherisma meaning a divinely conferred power – which indeed captures something of what is involved since it implies that the charismatic person attracts and deserves devotion. From the moment I was employed by him in 1955 in London straight out of University to when he retired as Chairman of Bookers in 1967 – and beyond to his death at Christmas in 1994 I was a devotee. And so I remember him now as the man who told us in no uncertain terms that no person is ever redundant, only jobs, and we were never to forget that. I remember him as the man who often reminded me, and others, that it was important to pay attention to one man’s grievance as well as to Three-Year Plans. And I vividly remember him as the man who when he retired as Chairman of Bookers asked me to keep an eye on six old pensioners who had given him good service in his younger days and make sure every Christmas to send them a card and a gift on his behalf – which I faithfully did until one by one over the years they died. That last Christmas I only had one card and one gift to send and my last communication from Sir Jock was a Christmas card of his own, scribbled in his distinctive hand, wishing myself and family the blessings of the season and, in a postscript, thanking me for again doing him the small service of sending that last old pensioner his greetings and gift for work done so long ago and still so well remembered.
Over the years I had many conversations with Jock on the subject of socialism. He strongly supported Labour in Britain and he believed in much of what socialism stood for. But he did not believe in its utopian fantasies. In a letter to me once he quoted approvingly a saying of the American Irving Howe: “There is utopia and utopia. The kind imposed by an elite in the name of an historical imperative, that utopia is hell. It must lead to terror and then, terror exhausted, to cynicism and torpor. But surely there is another utopia. It cannot be willed into existence or out of sight. It speaks for our sense of what may yet be.” Jock Campbell himself had a profound sense of what should be attempted and what might be achieved in the cause of a better society. All his life he strove pragmatically to improve the lives of people whom his decisions touched.
I believe Jock Campbell was a leader of genius and exemplary in what he achieved. He was also the finest of men – of high intelligence, exploding with ideas, fun-loving, exciting one’s interest in so much in life, a loyal and inspiring friend. He exercised power with compassion. “Never, never,” I can hear him now as I write, “never forget the importance of small causes.”
