Foresight is a rare commodity

Why are visionaries few and far between? Stephen R. Covey dissects it in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Moreover, Habit 2 is: Begin with the end in mind. It goes on to say, "Develop an outcome-oriented mindset in every activity [we] engage in. [Paradigms] are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world. If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm".

For example, our desire to overcome poverty has consumed us yet haven't stepped up to the plate with significant and primary changes in our world view. What changes do we need to be able to traverse the road from poverty to prosperity? As Lee and Mahathir counseled Deng, "Beg for Western money and technology."

That will be a scary change for Juan de la Cruz. It explains why we can't move beyond the rhetoric of opening the economy.

Consider: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism, rely on political patronage and oligarchy, that at the end of the day, ours is a culture of impunity.

Can we connect the dots? How does parochialism feed and nourish impunity? Let’s pause for a moment and figure that out. 

Why are we stuck in our dilemma, i.e., why are we: (a) underdeveloped (b) poor (c) the regional laggard? Before we get too far, let’s get back to the title of this posting: Foresight is a rare commodity.

We don't only have a big chunk of poor people we are an impoverished nation too. In a recent posting, the blog highlighted vital and critical elements, to distinguish analytics and big data, of our economic profile – i.e., GDP, exports, poverty, and FDIs – and how we lag our neighbors.

In other words, we are slicing and dicing a teeny tiny pie – focused on enablers while missing the drivers to prosperity – to accommodate over a hundred million people. Is the answer getting the Central Bank to facilitate lending to MSMEs and farmers to raise their productivity?

Before we proceed, let’s differentiate enablers from drivers. Monetary and fiscal interventions are enablers because yields don’t drop directly to national income or GDP. They also include infrastructure development. 

Drivers directly raise income. In the West, especially the US because of the animal spirits, they were able to evolve from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Recall that ours is a consumption economy reliant on OFW remittances.

In other words, industry is critical to drive and raise national income. In the 21st century, industry per se no longer bestows competitive advantage that fuels sustainable growth and prosperity. Enter innovation and global competitiveness.

We dissect the nuance by asking the question, what outcome do we want? See above, i.e., "begin with the end in mind."

How do we attain prosperity? The outcome we want is to become a wealthy nation. Recall the story of Eden: What did Adam and Eve set out to do? What did the pioneers set out to do in creating the New World? In other words, civilization brought about prosperity to humankind despite being marred by tribal-like conflicts.

What we've done instead is to seal our fate, conceded that we couldn't be a Singapore, for instance.

On the other hand, Vietnam – it is the same Vietnam that the American military wanted to bomb back to the Stone Age – is poised to be a bigger economy than Singapore. It is one of the major exporters to the US, and like real partners, the latter is expected to be the largest investor in Vietnam over the next couple of years.

It is like a broken record, our neighbors, one after the other, are moving from Third World to First-World nations. Not to be overlooked is that beyond foreign investment is technology.

“Theoretically, Facebook and Twitter should be banned from the Philippines because of their foreign ownership. Both entities broadcast news and opinion and influence cultural tastes. Our constitutional restriction simply looks antiquated and downright silly.

“State of the art technology also requires significant amounts of investments. We cannot hope to attract investors to risk capital in our tech sector with our outdated and even confusing bits and pieces of regulations.

“A recent study of PIDS, a government think tank, pointed out we are not ready to properly regulate the tech sector. Even the creation of DICT didn’t eliminate the conflict in regulatory functions with other government agencies.” [Keeping up with technology, Boo Chanco, DEMAND AND SUPPLY, The Philippine Star, 27th May 2019]

Technology goes beyond the tech sector and includes industry in general. That we are not industrial, but a consumption economy set us up to be a laggard in the tech sector.

Conversely, despite being a latecomer, Vietnam has leapfrogged industrialization by borrowing the playbook of the Asian Tigers and China. A quarter of its export receipts – which roughly equals PH total exports – is technology-based courtesy of Samsung and its $17-B investment in the country.

Technology is all around us, from the toothpaste or the soap or shampoo that we use, as well as detergents, and it goes way beyond. The bottom-line? The extent of our handicap measured against our neighbors is indeed confounding.

Agriculture is a sector that is near and dear to our hearts, driven by our compassion. The productivity of the farmers – the most unfortunate of the poor – their access to credit and farming inputs as well as farm-to-market roads, among others, don't capture an overarching vision that will pull us together.

Agribusiness is among our priority and critical industries. Today, when innovation and global competition are defining the 21st century, should compassion be the starting point in the development of a vision for this industry?

The writer is sitting in the offices of his Eastern European friends as he writes. His presence – sixteen years and counting – in this country, the poorest nation in Europe, stems from his Christian compassion and facilitated by American exceptionalism. However, to guide them craft an overarching vision for the enterprise during his first months, they had to understand and accept their reality.

Specifically, from a cottage industry that hadn't made a profit in 8 years, their effort over the ensuing few years must be to become a hundred-million-dollar enterprise. It was the most precise way for them to internalize, "Begin with the end in mind."

Of course, their jaws dropped. It takes this level of revenues for them to stand toe-to-toe against Western behemoths that have invaded their country. Innovation and global competition drive competition, they can't be driven otherwise.

That they have blown past this milestone years ago and recognized as one of the best and fastest growing companies in the EU even earlier is a testament to the habits – "effective," as Covey calls them – they have acquired in the process. How did they do it?

They kept figuring out and prioritizing the products and brands they had to develop – guided by the North Star of innovation and global competition – to get them to nirvana.

What is nirvana for Philippine agribusiness? What is nirvana for Philippine industry?

We are working on 42 industry road maps and are yet to figure out and prioritize – something that is alien to us given parochialism and insularity, if not the crab mentality, but crucial in the pursuit of development, i.e., to learn from our mistakes and build knowledge and experience  – the products that will deliver nirvana.

Will the numbers add up to make us a wealthy nation? Moreover, what are the "must innovations" – we must tap elsewhere in the world – and incorporate in these products that will make us win globally?

We will need money and technology. It is not about tapping our favorite "big boys," but scanning the world to win globally.

In other words, we must learn to view the world like an MNC because they have a track record on how to win globally. For example, before the writer retired from his old MNC-company, a small Chinese brand from Guangzhou, a state-owned enterprise, came to knock on their door.

"You are the biggest global brand in our business, and we want to partner with you. We will take a minority share, but our country needs lots of Western investment and technology to lift our people from poverty." It was an echo of the Deng mantra.

The partnership extended to another but more significant business but focused on their interest in securing an income stream in manufacturing. In short, it was a contract-manufacturing partnership because the Chinese knew MNCs market matter-of-factly to the broader regional and global markets. In return, the writer's MNC-company had one hundred percent ownership of the holding company.

It is not the first time the blog is sharing the story. It is how China traversed the road from poverty to prosperity. It is not rocket science. Does it come from their martial art heritage that they instinctively know how to use the size and bulk of MNCs to their advantage?

Do they recognize the distinction between drivers and enablers? What about analytics from big data? Recall the concept of sets and sunsets from "modern math."

How did Vietnam and Samsung find themselves together in bed to make the latter invest $17-B, not to overlook the technology behind their products, and deliver a quarter of Vietnam’s export receipts?

Aren’t the Vietnamese consumed by the desire to overcome poverty like we are, or the Chinese? The big difference is they, like the rest of our neighbors, have done it and we have not.

Gising bayan!

“Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.” [We are ruled by Rizal’s ‘tyrants of tomorrow,’ Editorial, The Manila Times, 29th Dec 2015]

“Now I know why Paul dared to speak of ‘the curse of the law’ (Galatians 3:13). Law reigns and discernment is unnecessary, which means there is little growth or change in such people. When you do not grow, you remain an infant.” [Faith and Science, Open to Change, Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, 23rd Oct 2017]

“As a major component for the education and reorientation of our people, mainstream media – their reporters, writers, photographers, columnists and editors – have an obligation to this country . . .” [Era of documented irrelevance: Mainstream media, critics and protesters, Homobono A. Adaza, The Manila Times, 25th Nov 2015]

“National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its currency’s value, as classical economics insists . . . A nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade.” [The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review, March–April 1990]

“You have to have a dream, whether big or small. Then plan, focus, work hard and be very determined to achieve your goals.” [Henry Sy Sr., Chairman Emeritus and Founder, SM Group (1924 - 2019)]

“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” [William Pollard, 1911-1989, physicist-priest, Manhattan Project]

“Development [is informed by a people’s] worldview, cognitive capacity, values, moral development, self-identity, spirituality, and leadership . . .” [Frederic Laloux, Reinventing organizations, Nelson Parker, 2014]