Britain is in the grips of an overly pessimistic mindset that is preventing it from taking the risks and making the reforms needed to reawaken its economy, the former chair of Deutsche Bank has said.
Dr Paul Achleitner said that while structural issues were largely behind the paucity of growth across Europe and the UK, “if you just sit here complaining about them, nothing is going to change”.
“People have to have optimism,” he told City AM. “Now, some of that optimism… may be overly optimistic, but it’s an attitude – it’s a can do attitude – and we need more can do attitude.”
Achleitner, who as well as serving as chair of Germany’s Deutsche Bank for a decade was a partner at Goldman Sachs and remains on the board of pharmaceutical giant Bayer, said incremental change “would not be enough” to turn Europe and the UK’s fortunes around.
Much of Europe has been locked in a battle to kickstart their economies ever since the 2008 financial crisis set off the worst banking and property crisis in post-war history.
Britain needs ‘to break things’ to succeed
The Eurozone and UK have both struggled to achieve sustained growth rates of more than two per cent, as ageing populations, burdensome regulation and bloated public sectors have weighed on the most productive parts of their economies.
Achleitner, who was speaking to City AM to mark the publication of his book Accelerate Your Experience, said UK businesses and the public sector have been “caught in the illusion of satisfactory under-performance”, where bosses are happy if they beat their competitor or previous year’s performance.
“If, compared to your inherent potential, this constitutes an underperformance, then more often than not, your potential does not get discovered,” he said, urging the Labour government to use its large majority to take more risk and push through more radical reforms.
“In the type of environment that we live, unless you actually break some things and make some bold moves, nothing is going to change,” he added.