About winning . . .

. . . Turning losers into winners

We need to hear from our development experts (e.g., from PMAP) to learn and understand more about “unfreezing”. They can likewise edify us on lateral thinking and force field analysis – to chart a new course?

Is it Filipino stubbornness (or “tigas ng ulo”) that has confined us to the cellar? How can we start to think like winners? First, we have to unfreeze – long-held, frozen beliefs won’t allow room for new ideas!

Individually we’re entrepreneurial enough to succeed in the market – but our real test as a nation is to compete successfully beyond our borders. Because winning globally is what lifts economies and nations. In fairness, thinking outside the box is unnatural because it does not provide an anchor for safety and stability. Can we just be parochial, socialists or in la-la land instead? Or has the world moved on – and we’re playing catch up?

The writer was fortunate to understand competitiveness from the fortified headquarters of a Fortune 500 company. And so to get into the competitive arena representing a poor and small ex-communist enterprise was a great challenge – that pumped the adrenalin!

Fast-forward 6+ years, this once backward entity-wannabe has already inflicted damage on two global behemoths – David is reality! But they had to get a fix on R&D, marketing, financing, infrastructure, logistics, border restrictions, tariffs, etc. – name it, and they had to hurdle them all! (We should hear more from Jollibee & Splash!)

We’ve already justified our failings for the nth time; it’s time to ask ourselves: How do we develop the heart and the gut of a winner? Beyond putting Pacquiao on a pedestal, we can learn from him!

To get his Eastern European friends to unfreeze, the writer asked them from the get-go to toss whatever “can’t-do” attitude they carried from their socialist past: we’re a poor country, our infrastructure is crumbling, our suppliers are unreliable – the cartons they supply for our packs are inferior, their printing is unprofessional, etc. (Filipino socialist-wannabes ought to be careful what they wish for? Western European socialists have the benefit of their first-world economies; third-world economies produce third-world socialists!)

That they had clarity of purpose – and were starting on the right foot – was why the writer took on the challenge: the owner wanted to win against the world’s largest entity in the industry. And so the writer said, “Terrific!” And added: “You must drive this business like crazy that not even a bullet can stop you!”

“So, we put in the hopper only items meant to win: only businesses where we have a competitive advantage; only equipment that gives us efficiency and healthy margins; only brands with the potential to deliver 50-gross margin points, and then some; only compelling products that travel across borders; only communication campaigns that are intrusive; only logistics that are cost-effective; only people that think like winners – we’ll relocate to the heart of the city so that banks and talents see us up close and personal. Question: What while we’re not there yet? We’ll work our butt off until we get there! Next question: What about the Ukrainian tariffs? That’s why we want 50-gross margin points, if that means buying a local company and then driving margins still! Next: But can we afford expensive equipment? That’s why only compelling products that travel across borders – banks line up to invest with winners! Next question – none?” Carry on – Philippines! (That’s an exercise in force field analysis.)

The writer covered Asia Pacific for a decade and saw firsthand why investors favored our neighbors over us. More excuses won’t help us; neither invoking emotions. Tangible problems demand tangible solutions: we should be aggressively soliciting capital, market, technology and expertise for industries that will give us competitive advantage – to focus infrastructure development and minimize white elephants like bridges to nowhere. Behave like one and an adolescent economy we shall endure! Behave like winners and winners we shall be!