[Music]
so this is the photo of my family and
the tall pretty girl in the front row
she's my mom it was actually taken
shortly before her life would forever
change in 1975 the Communists took over
Cambodia the Khmer Rouge toppled the
government and they forced millions of
people into the countryside at gunpoint
and over the next four years roughly 2
million people died including my
grandmother and half the children in
this photo and what we now know as The
Killing Fields when the Khmer Rouge fell
in 1979 my mom was finally free but she
had nowhere to go her home had been
looted her family devastated and her
country destroyed so she walked like
thousands of other Cambodians their goal
is to get to a refugee camp in Thailand
and hopes that someone anyone there
could help them rebuild their lives and
in order to get there my mom grandfather
and her two surviving siblings they
relied on other people for help someone
carried the small children to hungry and
exhausted
to move on and others they would search
the forest for food hoping and praying
to avoid one of the millions of
landmines that been planted during the
war everything they did during their
flight
it was completely interdependent and for
them that interdependence it was a
matter of life or death after a few
years at the refugee camp my family got
some good news they were the lucky ones
chosen to be resettled in the United
States and this is a really big deal
because of the 21 million refugees day
less than 1% of them will ever be
resettled now when my family got here
they had no money no asset nothing but
despite the odds
they survived and not only that they
crushed it but really when you consider
the limited resources and opportunities
they've had so many refugees just like
my family has been so successful in this
country and in light of the biggest
refugee crisis we've seen since World
War two it really begs the question how
is that possible how do we get from
people like my mom a survivor of
genocide to people like me just one
generation removed enjoying privileges
like higher education Economic
Opportunity and so much more we got here
because of that interdependence and that
same key mentality that helped my mom
survive is alive in refugee communities
around the world today we hear so much
about refugees and almost all of it is
negative but there's another side to the
story here it's a story a triumph of
empowerment and what I call the
collective success mindset to believe
that each one of us has an important
role to play in the success of the
community and they're big lessons we can
learn from this
I believe the collective success mindset
we've seen in refugees can actually
improve the way we do business and
despite what you may think the refugee
collectivist mindset and the
self-interested foundations of
capitalism are not in conflict with each
other
they're actually complementary because
of growing up in my community has taught
me evening is that there doesn't have to
be a trade-off between value for you and
value for others which means businesses
they could be even more successful if
they took a page from the refugee
playbook and lesson on that first page
is to create cultures of empowerment
before I was born a young man named
sunny came to live with my family he had
spent years living one those Thai
refugee camps similar to the one my mom
had come from but my dad he been granted
political asylum in this country years
before so he took the me in and he
enrolled him in school because war had
wreaked havoc on sanyas life
never been to school and because sunny
had never been to school
14-year old sunny was placed in
kindergarten understanding how difficult
it was to start all over with nothing my
dad not only provided sunny with a home
but with counseling to accelerate his
learning both inside and outside the
classroom
and today that 14 year old kindergartner
he's an engineer and a proud American
citizen who works with our intelligence
communities to fight the real Paris if
you ask my dad his actions were neither
heroic nor charitable my community
rather they reflected his sense of duty
a duty that exists amongst established
communities of former refugees to
empower and help next place and this
lesson has really stuck with me so I
can't but wonder what if we had a sense
of duty to empower each other and help
business succeed it's actually not a
crazy idea
Jobrani founder Hamdi Ulukaya had
created a brand that dominates Greek
yogurt but even in all his success Luc I
recently did something remarkable he
voluntarily gave up the 10% of his
company to his workers and doing so was
the best decision you could have made
because some research shows that
employee owned companies they tend to
outperform the competition because with
everyone has skin in the game they're
far more likely to make sure the whole
succeed
what Chobani shows us is that business
doesn't have to be a zero-sum game and
what I mean is the belief that we're
burdened with costs when we help other
people it's just such an outdated
approach to the way value is actually
created instead when you empower others
the whole team advances leading me to
playbook lesson number two communities
can shorten the race when my mom has
resettled here she lived in close
proximity to other refugees so growing
up we go to grocery stores and hair
salons and other small businesses owned
by fellow Cambodians a lot of these
small business owners there are also
patrons and my dad's accounting practice
you see my parents chose to spend their
money at cam billion owned businesses
because they knew that money would
directly go back into helping the
community which would also help my
family now to outsiders us choosing the
patronized Cambodian owned business
looks like an unwillingness to
assimilate and as criticism isn't just
limited to my community refugees and
really all immigrants they get
criticized all the time for not
assimilating fast enough but here's
what's really going on what appears to
be a lack of assimilation is actually
the power of collective buying inaction
and this is really important because as
those communities become more successful
it actually shortens the assimilation
process for the next wave what this
means is as a consumer where you choose
to spend your money really matters what
if we chose to spend our money at
businesses that reflected our values if
enough it did so when that compel others
to follow suit the way we spend our
money could shorten the race because I
make the easier and faster for
businesses to adopt good policies and
make those policies norm and just
consider IKEA the company is taking an
offensive position and doing something I
think is really great by 2020 IKEA aims
to make 100 percent of the supply chain
sustainable in order to do this it's
having to radically alter the way
designs collects and recycles furniture
and this is leading to the development
of new business models I've done
correctly to get replicated by other big
companies around the world and when the
power of collective buying compels more
of them to do so we all win leading me
to the final page of the playbook
capitalism is best played as a team
sport when the economy crashed in 2008
my family's financial stability crashed
and burned with it in a flash my refugee
parents once again and found themselves
in a bad situation
so my community they rallied around us
like good defensive players they
protected us from taking more hits they
cook this meal
dropped off groceries and lenses the car
so we could drive to work in school
however big or small their efforts it
did so much just to make us a little
happier every day and give us the
strength to get back up on our feet and
get back into the game if you were in
trouble would your company step up to
help you and would you do the same thing
if your company was in trouble so the
employees and the management team at
Lincoln Electric the answer would be s
what's remarkable about this company is
that despite numerous academic downturns
hasn't laid off a single employee in
almost 70 years because when times are
tough everyone shares the burden from
the CEO down to the workers on the line
they make sacrifices by taking reduced
wages and hours because they know then
order to weather the storm it's an
all-hands-on-deck effort and when the
company is thriving everyone enjoys the
security and by the way does impressive
streak hasn't come at the expense of the
company today Lincoln Electric remains
highly profitable and be market leader
in its industry just like refugee
communities Lincoln Electric shows us
that we are all stronger when we think
and act as a team when we stick our
necks out just a little bit for the
person standing to our right in to the
person standing to our left we're far
more likely to get the help that we need
in return I stand here on the stage
today as a product of the collective
success mindset that ran through the
veins of my parents refugee community
and it's because of that mindset I went
to college and graduate school and now I
work in business so to me the idea that
capitalism and collectivism are actually
complementary it just couldn't be more
obvious just imagine all the value we
create if businesses could apply these
refugee lessons into the way they do
things today they could become
accelerators for good policies that
benefit all of us just by shifting the
mindset
from the individual to the group and the
world is moving in this direction big
companies like Airbnb Facebook and
Patagonia they've realized the value of
community and they're integrating into
the way they do things today but they
can't do it alone no one person or
company can because while good teams win
games its cohesive teams that win
championships so what if we adopted the
refugee playbook and worked as a team to
create a better feature for not just any
one person but for all of us thank you
[Applause]