The Eastern Europeans continue to amaze the writer; and one in particular blew him away. One of the roles the writer plays is to critique their business and budget plans. And recently when a former Russian (Ukrainian) rocket scientist came to present, he announced that he was making his presentation in English. Was this a joke? After the presentation he narrated that he took English lessons and in 6 short months was able to stand full of confidence in front of fellow country managers (and other managers) to present and defend his plans.
He runs a sub-region with a handful of small countries that cover 140 million people. The writer had serious doubts about his ability to develop into a business person and has now realized it was because of language that he was not coming across positively to the writer. How many can develop the market in a handful of countries in just a short couple of years, and be confident that he could grow the business exponentially? And in Western lingo, he has balls: he severed the company’s relationship with a business partner signed up by the parent company many years ago – because the partner was not meeting agreed sales goals! And signed up new ones instead!
This could be a simple lesson for us Filipinos. We may be English speakers but how many of us can do what this guy has done? How many of us can be as confident developing the market outside the Philippines, and have balls?
Which brings the writer to the endless analyses-paralysis we indulge in, or the zillion constraints to our economy? When are we going to wake up? Why do we keep on outsmarting ourselves? Constraints are in the mind – the lesson we learned from Eden or why man was driven out of paradise?
Has our sheltered culture turned us into perpetual adolescents – and are we thus perpetuating an adolescent economy?
Beyond the constraints that we perceive, we keep searching for the Holy Grail or the silver bullet that will fix our economy? There is no silver bullet – as the OECD tells member countries? Nor can we lower the performance bar by convincing ourselves that we can’t develop competitive advantage in manufacturing, for example – and why a Japanese rating agency is telling us to our face that we ought to? The writer’s Eastern European friends have more than rendered these excuses empty?
We all seem to be sitting on top of a totem pole dissecting our challenges? Who will do the doing? Let’s stop outsmarting ourselves and just start doing?
‘Perhaps HQ folks would get off their high horse once in a while’? That’s quoting an Asian manager (he’s Catholic) from many years ago speaking to the writer’s team from headquarters. How many Filipinos can say that to their bosses? Hierarchy will confine us to the cellar?
Calling the Catholic Church? Should we re-teach the fundamentals of our faith so that there is no confusion between human institutions and our faith? They are not one and the same – but they appear to be so given our holistic perspective?
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