There was a rich tradition at BCC of holding conferences, and meetings to review corporate and personal development. These occasions brought together the members of the BCC family in a celebration of a collective effort and a vibrant corporate identity.
BCC's corporate identity was described as having six sides to it, just like the BCC hexagon. These were summed up as:
- purpose, dynamism,
- a healthy flow of energy within the company,
- the challenge to succeed in life,
- the challenge to succeed in the banking world and, last but not least,
- profit.
Creating a culture and language to communicate BCC's high aspirations
On 14-16 February 1981, the first of a series of '81' conferences was held in London. During the following months, similar ‘81' conferences were held in various regions around the world. The purpose of those meetings was to create through action, motivation and humility, a BCC culture and language by which BCC could communicate its high aspirations for the future and, specifically, an outstanding profit performance in 1981.
‘81’ became the symbol for BCC's collective effort and laid the foundation for BCC Group Annual Management Conferences from 1982.
BCC Group Annual Management Conferences
BCC was a mission, and the ecology of the Conferences reflected this in expanding its global presence and growth in business.
Beginning from 1982 the BCC Annual Management Conferences brought together hundreds of managers and selected officers from around the world to make them fully aware of the global dimensions of the BCC organisation and the strength of BCC's collective talent. A manager was not considered a manager unless he created successors who were better than himself or herself. Equally, a manager was not a real manager unless he or she allowed himself or herself to be equally managed by the persons whom he or she is managing.
The primary purpose at the annual management conferences was for the BCC President, Mr Agha Hasan Abedi, to manage the culture and ethos of the organisation and create through action, motivation and humility, a BCC culture and language by which BCC family members would share their high aspirations for the future. Every individual member of management was required to also have a vision of the identity, the dynamics and the inner dimensions of the BCC organisation, and the corporate environment as well as the purpose in which he or she lives.
Real Management
Contrary to the conventional management where a small number of senior elite are empowered to manage a large number of other supposedly lesser persons, in the view of Mr Agha Hasan Abedi, BCC President, the hierarchy of management in BCC should not flow from top downwards.
In what came to be termed as Real Management in BCC and by observers, it was not enough for the President just to make a financial profit. He persisted on the importance of also making a spiritual profit and having a sense of corporate social responsibility by being able to say "we have given more of ourselves than we have taken from others". However, the President's desire was that every participant must first build their management capability to see, individually and collectively, the endless and limitless existence of possibilities in the marketplace, to extend their reach beyond what they had ever thought possible, and collectively determine the quality and quantity of BCC's capability and performance.
At the BCC Group Annual Management Conferences, the BCC managers and officers were to able participate in the discussions and exchange their ideas and feelings with the President.
The conferences also created a matrix through which the managers and officers present and working in BCC countries worldwide were able to develop business across borders and continents. Having exchanged ideas face to face, they gained direct knowledge of the possibilities that exist when people work together in harmony, aware of each other’s skills and local marketplace that they were able to exploit later.
The last BCC Annual Management Conference was held in 1986 in Luxembourg.
- March 1986, Luxembourg
- 2-3 March 1985, Vienna, Austria
- 26-27 February 1984, Vienna, Austria
- 7-8 March 1983, Athens, Greece
- 20-21 February 1982, Geneva, Switzerland
Management Meetings
Regional and Country Conferences and Meetings
Smaller conferences and meetings were organised at regional and country level and focused on BCC's operations, expanding the bank's customer base, mobilising deposits to ensure lending capacity and building financial strength, and the increasing profitability of the BCC Group.
These continued until BCC's controversial closure in 1991.
Acknowledgement:
In-house Magazines