Yves Jongen, Founder of ION BEAM Applications about the importance of true leadership and social res
Yves Jongen is the founder of the Wallonia located medical innovation company ION BEAM Applications. They focus on cancer curing innovations. He shared his story with me and 700 other people on the ‘MAKE IT WORK: CREATIVITY, ENGINE TO SUSTAINABILITY’-event in Antwerp. Throughout the story he highlights the importance and benefits of social responsibility for every future entrepreneur.
When thinking about starting our company 30 years ago, Jongen started, we had to choose where we would do so. I had spent a lot of time in California, where innovation companies were and are still booming. It seemed at the time that Silicon Valley had the most fertile ground to rise our business from. But I also realized that I owed everything I had to Belgium, that payed for my education and so much more. So instead, I raised IBA from the ground of the poor economical Wallonia. And I have never regretted that decision.
Like most starting innovation businesses, we had not too much chance of survival, let’s say 50%, and we were well aware of that. Profit in that way, was very important for our existence, but was never the goal to start with. My first goal was to create a company where people would love to go to every morning.
He goes on, explaining how he wanted to realize such a company.
In the first place we hold a policy where we ONLY hire smart people, because they make the company. The next step is involving these people. From the start, our company hosted a weekly meeting where every employee was invited to, from the janitor to the engineers. In this meeting we would share all information about the company, how we were doing, how many profit or losses we were making, etc. By sharing this information, you involve the people in your company. Both the company and the employees share benefit of the fact that all information is available. Later on, when the company grew bigger, we let the employees elect a social representative to join us on the board. At one point in our existence we were making great losses and our company was at danger. We were forced to restructure and lay some people off if we wanted to keep the company alive. The management decided to let 75 people go. Before this decision was final you need to have social negotiations in Belgium. And so we did, the social representative looked me in the eyes and asked ‘How many people will we have to let go’, I answered ‘75’, He said, ok, we made our own calculations and came out on 78. In a few hours we agreed on who we would let go based on their social status. Completing these social negotiations so fast is exceptional and a result of our transparency management. The underlying principle: If you have nothing to hide, don’t hide it.
Yves Jongen’s most impressive example of the importance of employee involvement was yet to come.
At one time in its history, around 1996, IBA was considered as an acquisition target by a Canadian company. As IBA managers, we were very concerned that this Canadian company wanted to acquire IBA solely for profit goals. This would mean the closing of major divisions that we considered central to our strategy such as proton therapy. We asked our shareholders not to sell to this Canadian company, and they told us that if we came with another buyer at the same price, they would be happy to respond positively to our request. Almost all employees and managers (80%) decided to break their piggy bank and form a cooperative holding company. With these collective shares and a substantial bank loan, the employees holding company, named Belgian Anchorage, took a majority of the shares of IBA. Today, IBA’s employees and managers collective ‘Belgian Anchorage’ remains the largest shareholder.
Yves Jongen highlights how essential it was to keep the proton therapy alive.
Several international studies show that, in about 20% of the cancer patients treated in radiotherapy, proton therapy would lead to a better treatment, with less damaging side effects. But the situation today is that less than 1% of the patients treated in radiotherapy benefit from proton therapy. We see our mission to bring this number to 20%. To do this, we need to make proton therapy more accessible, less expensive and better known in the medical community. This is an essential part of IBA strategy in proton therapy.
My personal thoughts on the subject.
I think Yves Jongen brought a very interesting perspective on management. Social involvement of employees has a very negative sound to it for most Belgian entrepreneurs, but is actually an enormous opportunity. In my opinion, this mentality was created by a wrong labor system where people cost so much they soon become a bigger burden than an asset. Labor unions and employers' organizations are too politically involved what makes most negotiations very time and energy consuming. The common interest gets overshadowed by personal interests and exploitation. It’s a very complex matter but I think every company is very dependent on the wellbeing of its employees, and the other way around. These mutual interests should be promoted rather than discouraged. Yves Jongen and IBA prove that this is not a utopic idea. An important note in this issue is that Yves Jongen builds his belief in this system on the fact that he hires solely 'smart' people. Although that’s a very vague statement, I can understand that this way of management would be more challenging in a production company with low educated people.
Nonetheless concepts like transparency management, employee involvement and responsible leadership are definitely topics every entrepreneur should practice in their own interpretation.
