Are we COWs or aren't we?

“Here is the working principle: Crises and major disruptions are not an abrupt departure from what anti-fragile organizations do continuously — solve problems. Rather than being controlled through rigid command structures, employees at all levels are trained every day to be quick problem-solvers.” [Brad Power, Make Your Organization Anti-Fragile, Harvard Business Review, 24th Jun 2013]

“We need to train them in problem-solving!” We were in China and in the newly built factory of my old MNC company 20 years ago; and our American engineer and project manager, pretty distraught, walked into the meeting room where I was with the Chinese general manager of the joint-venture. [Fast forward: those supposedly neophyte Chinese workers achieved the best ever productivity output among all comparable modern facilities we had including those in the West.] And it felt like only yesterday as I read Power’s article in the HBR. [And with my Eastern European friends we recently had a series of classroom sessions reminding ourselves that as managers problem-solving is what we do for a living. And the sessions will move on to other parts of the world where we do business.] Problem-solving, problem-solving, problem-solving – managers live, drink, eat, sleep and even dream problem-solving!

“[M]anagers should not be learning from today's fashionable role models. They should be learning from companies like Ford, GE, IBM, and McDonald's that have successfully responded to challenges and crises over time. The dismissal of yesterday's shining star in favor of today's (which all too often turns out to be tomorrow's flame-out) is very revealing of shallow business school analysis (focused on short-term context and results) and ephemeral journalism (focused on the latest headlines).”

In the Philippines, we are still figuring out what ‘inclusive growth’ really entails? “If we, therefore, want to have inclusive growth, we should not only encourage the establishment of enterprises but prepare and train Filipinos to be true entrepreneurs. . . entrepreneurs who are deliberate and purposive in their strategizing; entrepreneurs who are innovative and have the capacity for creative destruction; entrepreneurs who are whole-brained and have mastery of the self.” [Entrepreneurship: A roadmap to inclusive growth, Prof. Antonio M. Del Carmen, PhD, Business Mirror, 14th Jun 2013]

Is “whole brained and mastery of self” what we sorely miss and thus would explain our “crab mentality,” our tendency to leave things unresolved, say, energy or NAIA 3 to name just two? And that goes back to problem-solving? But whether it is about being deliberate and purposive and innovative or about problem-solving, they still have to be in context? For example, if we remain inward-looking and parochial, all our efforts to have inclusive growth would be limited, stopping at our borders’ edge and precisely why we remain an underdeveloped economy – and unable to stem widespread poverty?

It is that cognitive dissonance – the lack of clarity of what Juan de la Cruz is to the rest of the world – that has cut us by the knees for decades? To be deliberate and purposive starts with Juan de la Cruz being or not being a ‘citizen of the world’? It is what thinking outside the box is versus being inside the box like what we assumed our faith is about – i.e., “catolico cerrado”? Are we, aren’t we surprised that Francis has been adamant: “I’m not a Renaissance Prince.” He did not want “to be trapped” in “a large white throne . . . The most potent symbol to date of Pope Francis’ five-month papacy is an empty chair. The chair — a large white throne — was to seat His Holiness . . .” [A humble pope in an august office, Reuters, 25th Jun 2013]

The Vatican has been the greatest model [when it should have been Christ in the manger?] of a hierarchical system and structure which, unfortunately, we Pinoys have swallowed hook, line and sinker? But we embellished it with ‘nationalism’ to distinguish our brand from that of our colonizers, forgetting that one that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck can’t be different? In marketing parlance it’s called “me too".

Thus: “If we, therefore, want to have inclusive growth, we should not only encourage the establishment of enterprises but prepare and train Filipinos to be true entrepreneurs . . . entrepreneurs who are deliberate and purposive in their strategizing; entrepreneurs who are innovative and have the capacity for creative destruction; entrepreneurs who are whole-brained and have mastery of the self” . . . beyond our parochial confines, by being citizens of the world (COWs)?