Blessed Are the Risk-Takers

It was interesting to read the other day of Dr Tony Ryan's plans for his new Irish Academy of Entrepreneur-ship (more of which anon).

Despite great strides made by our business community, the word "entrepreneur" does not yet trip lightly off the Irish tongue, though the "chancer" definitely appears to have had his day. We are in a twilight zone, and many of us secretly regret the demise of the old Chancers' Academy, up there on the Oxmantown Road, where the more creative and ambitious among us learned the ancient Irish arts of flim-flam, putting one over, pulling a fast one, selling pigs in pokes, pulling the wool over people's eyes and taking them to the cleaners.

Still, we must move on.

I am as impressed as everyone else with the great wodge of cash (£221 million) which is coming the way of Esat Telecom chairman Denis O'Brien following the sale of the company to British Telecom. And like everyone else, I want to know all about the road he travelled, his earlier successes and failures, what obstacles he had to overcome, and what his general philosophy might be.

Or, failing that, just how he made his pile.

Much has been made in the media of Mr O'Brien's nature as a "risk-taker" in business as well as sport. We were informed in this paper the other day that skiing, golf and cross-country running all feature among his interests. According to a friend, "As long as there is a risk involved, Denis loves it."

This is not really very helpful. When Denis heads off to St Anton or Klosters, does the man sneak off alone to the dangerous black off-piste runs at night, or does he run the terrifying risk of consuming a fourth glass of glugg in dubious apres-ski company? What risk is involved in playing golf, other than being seen in public wearing a diamond-patterned sweater? Anyone could twist an ankle on a cross-country run, but is this a major gamble, the sort that marks out a man for corporate greatness?

Obviously this is not the kind of risk-taking that makes a man a multimillionaire. So, frustrated, we read on. Denis himself revealed in another article in this paper that the take-over episode was a game of "high stakes poker" while a colleague was quoted as saying that the whole thing was "a dance - you talk about everything except price."

So much for being enlightened - this puts us even deeper in the dark. If the principal operator (Denis) thinks he is playing poker, while his colleague believes he is dancing, how on earth does a major piece of business ever reach a successful conclusion?

And incidentally, why is the subject of price such a no-no when dancing? During a graceful polka or a waltz, may a man not mention the outrageous price of drink or the inflated cost of housing without upsetting a partner to the extent that she goes off in a huff?

No doubt all these questions will be answered when Dr Tony Ryan opens his planned new Academy for Entrepreneur-ship, especially since the committee seeking a director for the Academy is chaired by Denis O'Brien himself.

Dr Tony Ryan has stated that the programmes offered will be "radical and unconventional", and the purpose of the academy apparently is "to extend creative opportunity for ambitious young people". We can take it then that high-stakes poker and strategic dancing will be among the courses on offer.

However, controversy is already in the air, since the announcement of the new State-funded Academy for Performing Arts in Ireland was made on the same day as that of Dr Ryan's Academy. Competition for the most promising poker-players and avant-garde dancers is likely to be fierce.

This is not as daft as it sounds. The more sophisticated levels of business expertise clearly have quite a lot in common with the performing arts, particularly when it comes to high-wire trapeze skills, and Denis O'Brien would undoubtedly concur with that.

Similarly, the most exciting achievements in the performing arts always involve elements of the "radical and unconventional" risk-taking ventures of the kind favoured by Dr Tony Ryan.

Blessed indeed are the risk-takers. Still, you would almost miss the old days, when some well-known Irish people made themselves hugely wealthy without taking any risk at all, other than that of being caught.

bglacken@irish-times.ie