Miloš Zeman: "Small people do not like big projects" - J.A.Bata: "These are not bricks, these are human thoughts" - "We cannot let any hands be idle" - "Thank you, my friends, thank you for your work, for your loyalty, for your trust."
The J.A. Bata podcast this time on a very important topic, with a very important guest! In 2019, former President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman awarded the highest state decoration - the Order of the White Lion - to Jan Antonin Bata in memoriam. And it was with the former president that I talked not only about the reasons for the awarding of this order, who nominated him, where Miloš Zeman still sees the supporting ideas of the Bata company, which are, however, almost a hundred years old, but also about whether there are companies and people today that he perceives with the legacy of Bata. Who would he nominate for the Order of the White Lion this year? How does he perceive the contemporary world and its themes? And what would he say to students and what is his wish for our country? Find out all this in today's exclusive podcast, a pleasant listening wishes Petr Kopčil. For more information, visit www.janantoninbata.cz and www.nfjab.cz
From the interview: while Tomáš Bata is rightly adored, Jan Antonín Bata lacks this adoration and has even been wronged in his own way. By the way, it was also wronged by some members of the Bata family, so the idea was to correct a historical injustice.
Instead of an employee, a collaborator is a symbolic expression of the entrepreneur's attitude towards the people who not only report to him, but who share his work. It is one thing to have a theoretical idea and another to put it into practice. Poland has built a motorway network, the Czech Republic has talked about it rather than built it. That is the lack of visionaries, not fantasists.
Jan Werich: "We have few clowns, but we have many jesters."
We have few visionaries, but we have a lot of clowns who hate the very word vision, and unfortunately we have a lot of them in important positions. The outstanding economic figures today are more in the USA than in Europe. If a country is led by top businessmen, it can prosper.
Bertold Brech: "It is an unhappy country that needs heroes, and it is also an unhappy country that has no heroes."
Similar is true of entrepreneurs. We hardly have any entrepreneurial personalities, and this is also true for Europe. Bata would have felt insulted if someone had offered him a subsidy. If European agricultural subsidies were abolished, I would be the first to argue for the abolition of national subsidies.
Do you think it is still possible to raise the issue of the non-return of Bata's assets?
It has nothing to do with the Benes Decrees. One of the motives for awarding the Order was a feeling of injustice towards Antonin Bata. A wrong is confiscation of property, but often a greater wrong is the failure to recognise merit. A great idea is great precisely because it has a successor.
I think I've exhausted the selection of candidates in 10 years. People of this type are not born overnight. they have to take root and suddenly appear. I don't see a new personality yet, but I don't rule out the possibility of one appearing in a few years.
A message to the young, Bata-style?
I'd like to wish them a very simple thing. Stop making excuses, stop making excuses for adversity, for bad competition, for being disliked and disliked and for being screwed over by everyone. If you stand for something, or even a lot, then go for your goal and if you lose sometimes, pick yourself up and move on.
And the Czech Republic and the people?
Well, I would wish these people first of all a wise government, because of course not everyone can do politics, someone has to work too. In any case, I would wish them not to be ruled by amateurs, because an amateur is the worst thing that can happen to you in life. An ambitious, self-important ignoramus.
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I'm adding: He's only wrong about Sir Winton saving more people than J.A. Bata did from the Nazis. Of today's successful businessmen he recalls Babis, of the earlier ones Čuba and Slušovice, otherwise Bata was said to be the only one - he omitted Emil Kolben, the Czech Tesla.
Countries and individuals can fall. The important thing is to pick yourself up, move on and not be ashamed of your life.
JŠ
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