There is a bigger world out there.

We’re stuck in a world defined by poverty – because we can’t shift paradigms?

No one – except ourselves – can stop us from making the Philippines a “world-class enterprise,” far above the competition.

And it boils down to us in the Philippine elite and chattering classes if we do not upend the destiny of Juan de la Cruz – as we believe it is, i.e., a regional laggard, a laughingstock of our peers, if not the world.

Can we be the catalyst for change?

“Whatever the catalyst, we can be a champion for change and use it as an opportunity to exhibit leadership.

“But change is often met with resistance. It’s difficult to abandon the comfort of routine and venture into the unknown, and learning a new system takes time.

[Recall Kurt Lewin.] “He’s a social psychologist and based his change model on the physical properties of water. He proposed that one must first “unfreeze” existing behaviors to engage in “movement” toward the desired behavior, then “refreeze” in a new shape, making the desired behavior into a habit.

“His theory of force field analysis describes two opposing forces—driving forces and restraining forces—that either motivate or hinder change. When these forces are equal against each other, there is an equilibrium or status quo. Still, change occurs when “driving forces” increase to outweigh restraining forces or restraining forces decrease below the influence of driving forces.

“Its strengths lie in its simplicity, collaborative approach, and how it addresses resistance. Everyone affected is invited to participate in the process, thereby sharing ownership of the change, allowing resistors to voice their concerns, and building trust among each other and the new system.” [“Be a champion for change by using Lewin’s 3-stage Model of Change,” rdhmag.com]

It takes a village to traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly. The change we want is to be a “world-class enterprise.” And that’s why the blog proposes that we engage in brainstorming.

The terminology – “world-class enterprise” – is to aid us in shifting paradigms.

“Middle-income economy” connotes incremental thinking, if not status quo – or mental block. 

It feeds on our instincts: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.

Translation: Unsurprisingly, Bongbong will be the next president. Can’t we seem to get enough of impunity?

And so, from a Lopez [ABS-CBN network], it will be a Villar? Isn’t that an old movie, from one oligarchy to another? And Juan de la Cruz wonders why we’re underdeveloped?

It’s not easy for Juan de la Cruz, yet the blog often speaks to benchmarking against best-practice models. Eventually, we want to embrace the challenge of (a) matching and then (b) overtaking a best-practice model.

“Pwede na ‘yan,” which manifests our instincts, benefits us in the Philippine elite and chattering classes – but is a disservice to Juan de la Cruz; worse, it adds insult to injury.

We can’t seem to get enough of “pwede na ‘yan,” too?

We must abandon the status quo to become a world-class enterprise. Think of winning twenty-three championships like Tim Cone. And so we want to learn from him.

Can we pause – and ponder?

There is a bigger world out there. But we won’t find it given our caste system – and why we are parochial and insular. In the meantime, the world has left us behind.

Recall when the wife and I first came to Eastern Europe, and her horror: What are we doing in this godforsaken place?

Yet, I introduced our new friends to a best-practice model, i.e., Apple.

It was easy because at the first workshop I led, I heard the lament that they were “poor Eastern Europeans,” i.e., they appeared destined to the abyss. They went to bed with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the wrong partner.

Still, most wore “designer” jeans – and my observation went further; Europeans were chicer than the Americans – and carried smartphones.

“Please raise your hands if you are wearing a pair of designer jeans.” And most did – but with the simultaneous cry, “but they’re fakes.”

Raise your hands if you have a smartphone? And everyone did.

It was an apt opening to introduce Steve Jobs. They were an MSME and were a losing proposition going eight years.

Jobs was a college dropout, and Apple didn’t own any patents then. And the first one, in the name of his co-founder, Steve Wozniak, came ten years after Apple’s founding.

Yet, Apple went up against Big Blue, IBM.

“As with previous years, IBM led the pack in terms of number of patents granted in the year, 2020, at 9,130, with Apple at number 8 with 2,792 (although Jobs passed away ten years ago.) [“IBM leads US patent list for 2020 as total numbers decline 1% in the pandemic year to 352,000” | TechCrunch]

But there is a more glaring comparison, market capitalization. Apple stands at $2.754 Trillion; IBM is at $119.78 Billion.

The family lived in a neighborhood populated by Fortune 500 folks; one that became family friends came from IBM. For decades, IBM was the gold standard – “the best place to work,” the preferred employer.

I knew other IBM people too from my business network. They had to reinvent themselves to win in the personal computer business – which they eventually sold to Lenovo. They even created a separate entity, free from the IBM bureaucracy, to be as agile as Apple – to no avail.

The neighbor, who had kept his IBM stocks and options over the years, lost all of them. That was “some” wealth wiped out.

If we can’t relate to that, think of Vietnam lagging the Philippines as an economy in 2019. But they were already deep into attracting FDIs; unsurprisingly, ten years later, they overtook us. First, the Asian Tigers overtook us, then China. Who will come after Vietnam?

Do we shrug our shoulders?

With due respect to Bangko Sentral Governor Benjamin Diokno, we must not settle for “Things are looking up. But it will take five years or more to recover from that economic collapse.” [“Things are looking up,” Tony Lopez, Virtual Reality, manilastandard.net, 26th Jan 2022]

Consider: From 2009 to 2019, the Philippines delivered 6%-7% GDP growth, yet over the same period, Vietnam overtook us. And to add insult to injury, they put poverty in the rearview mirror.

Beyond poverty and jobs is prosperity. And that’s the way to shift paradigms.

We must traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly.

Whether agriculture, industry or services, we must be a world-class enterprise.

“If growth is 7 percent or higher, the economy creates an additional one million to make it two million jobs per year. Now, if only the banks could redeploy the P2.3 trillion pumped in by the Bangko Sentral into the system, then maybe the economy could create three million jobs a year.” [Lopez, op. cit.]

Did we not create over ten million jobs with the OFW phenomenon – and at dollar-denominated higher wages – yet Vietnam still overtook us?

“To expand FDIs and good jobs at home,” Gerardo P. Sicat, CROSSROADS TOWARD PHILIPPINE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROGRESS, The Philippine Star, 22nd Dec 2021.

“I mean “good” jobs. I do not mean the uncertain and low-paying jobs that we find in the ever-enlarging “informal market” when job opportunities in organized businesses are not expanding enough.

“Inevitably, that issue relates to the attraction of foreign direct investments.

“Turning the tide on FDIs. Suppose the next president can change the trickle of entry of FDIs into a deluge of capital inflows to match what has happened among successful members of East Asian economies. In that case, economic recovery can move faster.

“This would mean “good” job creation will accelerate, and Filipinos who have trekked to foreign lands to find jobs can come home and have a future in their own country!

“Reversing our mentality. That means reversing our mentality about FDIs. It means putting action where political rhetoric was once cheap. Can we now, finally, walk the talk?”

We must traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly.

Whether agriculture, industry or services, we must be a world-class enterprise.

Consider: We lag Vietnam in agriculture and industry. We are ahead in services, yet our BPO sector is predominantly “call centers” – because we haven’t moved up the value chain. We are vulnerable in this one leg of the economy – which drives the Philippine economy and relies on OFW remittances and call centers.

How can monetary and fiscal interventions suffice when the three legs of the economy are wobbly? We must distinguish between drivers and enablers, between outcome and outputs.

That’s why the blog teed up our desired outcome as “To traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly. 

Our neighbors have left behind, with Juan de la Cruz paying the price, as in abject poverty. And how do we attain prosperity?

As we now know, the answer is beyond a GDP growth rate of 6%-7%, which we did from 2009 to 2019, a good 10-year run. Instead, we must seek an incremental GDP of $200 billion to leapfrog the economic output of our neighbors, including Malaysia. It is out of the playbook of the Asian Tigers, China, and most recently, Vietnam. For example, Samsung Vietnam alone delivers more revenues than our eight top companies combined.

But we must first overcome our parochial and insular instincts?

The mantra of (a) poverty alleviation and (b) job creation isn’t wrong – but too narrow, short-sighted, and don’t hit the nail in the head.

In other words, we aren’t problem-solving.

It is unsurprising because we miss the analytics – or context – when analyzing. For example, we celebrated a manufacturing uptick when the Philippine economy relies on consumption, with services generating 60% of the economy and industry at a mere 30%. A manufacturing uptick will not make a dent in that scenario. See above; Samsung Vietnam alone embarrassed our top companies.

To win in agriculture, industry, and services, we must be a world-class enterprise. And our neighbors demonstrated that over decades, e.g., Lee Kuan Yew ran Singapore like a company.

The oil companies did come to Singapore unprompted. Lee Kuan Yew convinced them that Singapore was an excellent refining and storage location in the region.

“90% of crude oil volumes flowing through the South China Sea in 2016 transited the Malacca Strait, the shortest sea route between suppliers in Africa and the Persian Gulf and markets in Asia.” [EIA website.]

Singapore does not have oil, but it can be a world-class refiner and depot for the region.

Can’t we think that way, given our inward-looking bias? Recall the story of creation and the character of this universe, i.e., dynamism and interdependence.

But let’s get back to Steve Jobs.

Because of his powerful human sense, he saw Apple beyond personal computers. He wanted “to make a dent in the universe” by creating things that would stimulate people’s creativity. Think of the 2 million apps, and counting, for Apple products.

And so, he studied the consumer-packaged goods industry. He wanted to understand how they could continually create a portfolio of products that appeal to human needs.

Who does not like music, he asked? Unsurprisingly, he figured that “music is the way to the soul.” And presto, out came the Apple iPod. Competition came out with their versions, but Apple wasn’t standing still.

They combined the cellphone with the iPod, and the Apple iPhone was born.

When we go to an Apple store, we see how extensive their product portfolio is.

We like to talk about comparative advantage. IBM had the comparative advantage because of its history and heritage, yet Apple did them in.

Vietnam has no comparative advantage in smartphones manufacturing, yet Samsung Vietnam is the regional hub.

FDIs and technology bring competitive advantage beyond comparative advantage. Of course, when it comes to extractive industries like mining, it still applies. But we’re talking about the Asian Tigers, China, and Vietnam.

FDIs and technology made their economic miracles.

Consider: My Eastern European friends had all but a mixing tank and mixed ingredients to produce beer-bottle cleaning detergents. A year later, when they lost the beer brewery as a customer, they put the detergents in small bottles to sell to stores. But it was all manual labor. And zero scale, a cottage industry, and why they were unprofitable.

Today, they have seven state-of-the-art facilities that employ robots. And it did not take forever. After eight years of unprofitable operations and shifting gears to become a world-class enterprise, they started turning a profit three years later – and haven’t looked back since.

Because of their “growth mindset,” they continually update their product portfolio consistent with the dynamism of human needs.

Eleven of their brands are beyond million-dollar businesses, with more in the pipeline. They had zero comparative advantage in all of them. Yet, they killed a brand of the most significant Western competition – because they kept benchmarking their brands against the world’s best. Unsurprisingly, the EU competition commission recognized them as a model for Europe. Recall that in the beginning, they asked, “Can we even compete against the West?”

Let’s get back to the Philippines.

Does our respect for “comparative advantage” come from our inward-looking bias? For example, we celebrated the OFW phenomenon because we didn’t have the comparative advantage in manufacturing?

And so we took it for granted that Samsung would go to Vietnam instead of designing an incentive-based tax policy that would keep Samsung in the Philippines?

We can’t stick with CREATE and SIPP alone. They are too generic. That’s why we need Jon Canto of McKinsey to help us figure out how to design incentive models to attract priority FDIs, especially those prepared to leave China.

Think of Pareto. A tax system can have generic and strategically designed pieces if we prioritize the FDIs and attract.

It starts with defining the product portfolio that will generate scale and the corresponding margins – be it agriculture, industry, or services.

But it presupposes we recognize that to thrive in this universe, we must embrace dynamism and interdependence.

Before diving into the “how-to” – or development mechanics – we must shift paradigms. For example, strategic planning presupposes strategic thinking; otherwise, it is mechanical and linear. That is why we miss the “analytics” – or the context – even when we indulge in “analysis.”

For example, we need a marketing practitioner to help us in defining our product portfolios, be it in agriculture, industry, or services. See above; Steve Jobs studied the consumer-packaged goods industry because he wanted to understand their dynamism in keeping their product portfolios sensitive to human needs.

For instance, it is not enough to say that we can’t compete in rice production in agriculture. We are a significant producer except that we’re uncompetitive. We cannot merely exit rice even if we pursue other products that generate scale and healthy margins.

We must dissect why we are uncompetitive. Our rice-production productivity is a-low 70% which correlates to the extent of our irrigation system. In other words, 70% of our farms are productive because of irrigation, especially those in the central plains of Luzon. Upland farms rely on rain and aren’t as effective.

That can focus on our efforts to be a world-class enterprise in rice, i.e., the 70% with irrigation infrastructure, principally dams. But they must consolidate for scale – and pursue farm expansion as Thailand does – and gear up to employ and leverage technology. That also means creating a world-class quasi-government enterprise that is far above the competition to pull things together — and making the Philippines’ requisite ecosystem to win in the marketplace.

What about the BPO sector? The same thing, we must be a world-class enterprise, far above the competition. But then again, what will be the portfolio of services that will bring scale and healthy margins beyond moving the value chain?

Recall that we want to traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly. And if that is the desired outcome, we want an incremental $200 billion in GDP to be the output. That should guide us to prioritize whatever industries, products, or services we pursue.

There is a bigger world out there. We’re stuck in a world defined by poverty because we can’t shift paradigms?

Gising bayan!

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Let’s hold it right there – and dissect the phrase.

It is a “phrase attributed to Aristotle and misquoted by those seeking to understand one of the most mysterious properties of a system: Emergence. The quote also explains the importance of synergy and the foundations of Gestalt theory.

“And we can paraphrase it using the more modern Systems Engineering language: The System is something “besides,” and not the same, as its elements.” [INCOSE.com]

“Emergence can also describe a system’s function — what the system does by its relationship to its environment that it would not do by itself. In describing “function,” emergence suggests that there are properties that we associate with a system that are properties of the relationship between a system and its environment. [necsi.edu]

Recall that the blog often speaks to the story of creation and the character of this universe, i.e., dynamism and interdependence. And the photosynthesis phenomenon is an excellent example.

Consider: “The world of ecology, the fundamental nature of the biological and physical universe is relational. That when we change one factor, it has a knock-on effect. For example, the red knots migrate annually from Tierra del Fuego to certain Arctic islands north of Hudson Bay.

“They fly north some 9,000 miles each season; they stop in the middle of their journey on particular beaches along the Delaware Bay. There they always ate the recently-laid, protein-rich eggs of horseshoe crabs. Those eggs would give them enough energy to get to the Arctic.

“But good Americans decided that horseshoe crabs were ugly and not valuable for many things, but they do make excellent bait and attract eels and conch. So we started using them for fish bait and killing these crabs indiscriminately. It took about ten years to recognize that the beautiful red knot might soon be extinct!

“Researchers observed and studied and found multiple possible answers, such as climate change, along with coastal development. But one of the main reasons: people were killing the shorebirds’ “life source.” As soon as horseshoe crabs were more protected against use as bait, we saw a return of the lovely little red knot.

“The birds again had available protein they could eat on the shores of New Jersey and make it to the Arctic. But it’s going to take several decades for them to restore.” [Richard Rohr Daily Meditation, Center for Action and Contemplation, 19th Jan 2022]

Why does the blog keep raising our instincts? We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.

In other words, we can’t operate in a vacuum. Look at where Brexit is today or MAGA.

Or democracy. And why the blog submits that it is the mirror image of Christianity – i.e., the imperative of personal responsibility to pursue the common good. And why freedom-loving nations embrace dynamism and interdependence.

And the “common good” is an expression of synergy or gestalt. See above; the Aristotle quote.

Can we pause – and ponder?

Why do we struggle to embrace the common good?

Consider: “In contrast to the two commands of Christ, the Pharisees had developed a system of 613 laws, 365 negative “commands,” and 248 “positive” laws. By the time Christ came, it had produced a heartless, cold, and arrogant brand of righteousness.

“As such, it contained at least ten tragic flaws. (1) New laws continually need to be invented for new situations. (2) Accountability to God became accountability to men. (3) It reduces a person’s ability to discern personally. (4) It creates a judgmental spirit. (5) The Pharisees confused personal preferences with divine law. (6) It produces inconsistencies. (7) It created a false standard of righteousness. (8) It became a burden to the Jews. (9) It was strictly external. (10) Christ rejected it.” [https://bible.org/illustration/pharisaic-laws]

Does Padre Damaso come to mind?

Why does the blog often speak to the Pareto principle? It is how we get to the “vital few” versus the “trivial many.” It is how we can overcome our crab mentality.

It also brings to mind the academic world versus the real world – and “cognitive development.”

Given that experience explains how humankind can move across the continuum of binary and relative thinking, our lack of development experience explains why we can’t get to execute and realize the objects of Arangkada or AmBisyon – or the scores of industry road maps?

What about the MAP (Management Association of the Philippines)? Their theme for 2022 is “Push for change: Towards a better future for all.”

Do they also face the challenge of execution?

Consider: “Our Board will, as is customary, collaborate closely with the various MAP committees, which constitute the lifeblood of our organization.

“We have made some adjustments to our committee configuration to be more effective. For example, we merged certain committees to achieve a more coordinated approach to multifaceted challenges and avoid fragmented solutions.

“As a result, we now have just 22 committees, down from 26 last year. But this does not mean a reduction in committee leaders, as we have appointed additional co-chairs and vice-chairs to committees with broader mandates.” [“Push for change: Towards a better future for all,” Alfredo E. Pascual, MAP Insights, BusinessWorld, 17th Jan 2022]

Let’s turn to our neighbors. For example, they have moved beyond binary thinking because of their successes in traversing poverty to prosperity. They don’t debate the wisdom of FDIs, for instance.

See above; we can’t operate in a vacuum and attain the common good – when our hands are tied. While we continue to put up hoops that undermine our ability to replicate their successes, including invoking “nationalism.” Recall Padre Damaso – or fascism.

If it is not apparent yet, the blog offers an approach to get us closer to the vital few.

That our desired “outcome” is “To traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly.” And the “output” we can aim for – to make the exercise more tangible and bounded and real to Juan de la Cruz – is “To raise GDP by an incremental $200 billion.”

Let’s dissect that.

Recall the Theory of Change. We must learn to distinguish between “outcome” and “outputs.” The outcome is the “context," while outputs are the “elements.”

Recall too why the blog keeps raising our penchant for “analysis” while missing the “analytics.” It explains why we fall into the trap of “analysis-paralysis.” Our analyses don’t generate the desired outcome; worse, we don’t recognize our problem and instead celebrate our inaction. We like to pursue “feel-good” notions.

For example, why did we celebrate the manufacturing uptick when we know that we are a consumption-service economy? That 60% of our revenues come from services. A manufacturing uptick coming from 30% of the economy, i.e., industry, will not make an appreciable dent.

The evidence? Vietnam overtook us driven by one FDI initiative, Samsung Vietnam – to embarrass our top companies. Sadly, our caste system has taken away any sense of outrage from Juan de la Cruz. Translation: We can only sink more profound into the abyss.

Similarly, while 10 million Filipinos benefit from agriculture, it delivers only 10% of the economy. We cannot squeeze blood out of a stone. We must turn our thinking upside down – the 4 Cs to 21st-century skills: critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication.

The challenge is how do we then develop the “plot” and “elements” of the “story” – so that we can compose a beautiful story?

In the Theory of Change, we track or map backward from the desired outcome – to ensure that the elements will yield the “desired outcome.”

Recall the blog’s description of the 21st century: It presupposes innovation and global competitiveness. And the way to express that is “To differentiate PH and be head and shoulders above our neighbors.” The $200-billion puts us ahead of Malaysia. It is an intermediate goal – and will still have work to do because they are three times wealthier than we are per capita.

And given the three legs of the economy, we can drill that down to these incremental goals: Services, being 60% of the economy, can set a target of $120 billion; industry, $60 billion, and agriculture, $20 billion – being 10% of the economy.

As the blog pointed out several times, a $200-billion goal is more tangible than a 6%-7% GDP growth rate. Moreover, that global metric did not lift Juan de la Cruz from abject poverty despite a good 10-year run (2009-2019.)

And very important: The incremental $200 billion will help us prioritize the initiatives we want to pursue.

For example, can rice and coconut attain scale? What else is marketable globally? Note that we want an incremental $20 billion from agriculture.

We can’t prioritize if we don’t put a corresponding dollar figure to each.

Again, critical: Beyond the revenues we must generate, we must figure out the margins. We want healthy margins to ensure that the enterprise can give great returns up and down the food chain, including farmers.

That is why we must do our homework to define the portfolio of Philippine agribusiness.

Scale and technology drive productivity and efficiency – and thus margins. And they all come from investment.

What about the farmer? See above; we want to differentiate and be head and shoulders above our neighbors. That means the object is “To be a world-class agribusiness enterprise.”

Let’s hold it right there.

We can’t create a world-class agribusiness enterprise if we can’t move beyond binary thinking. Recall that in a prior posting, the blog pointed out that the farmer will be both a shareholder and employee of the enterprise. 

But note too that because we want to benchmark against Thailand, we want to double our land for rice production, for instance. That is how we pursue scale and produce enough for local consumption plus exports to boot.

The farmer’s equity will be his farm plus an equal value in the form of a “stock option,” for example. That means from the get-go, the farmer doubles his equity. Plus, he will operate the machinery required by the enterprise as an employee.

What is our most efficient quasi-government enterprise? Is it GSIS or SSS, or Land Bank? Whoever. The point is that we must figure out an enterprise that will tap the best of what the country can offer. There can even be private sector participation.

We want to differentiate and be head and shoulders above our neighbors. Translation: the enterprise will be better than the GSIS, SSS, or Land Bank.

It will be the yardstick of innovation and global competitiveness. For example, to ensure credibility, we will staff the board and management of the enterprise as we do the Supreme Court. It may not be perfect, but the appointment of justices to the Supreme Court is transparent and elicits acceptance from Juan de la Cruz.

The enterprise will tap the requisite investment, technology, and other non-human and human resources from wherever.

The object is to be a world-class agribusiness enterprise. The shareholder, i.e., the farmer, will get great returns, and the employee, too, i.e., the farmer, for operating the required machinery.

Think of Fortune 500 companies whose market values are rising while paying eye-popping salaries to their employees.

As the blog acknowledges, to turn our thinking upside down is easier said than done. That’s why we want to establish a North Star that we can rally against – “To traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly.”

Then we can do a similar exercise with services and industry.

And again, we need technology – and investment, mainly foreign because we don’t have them.

Question: How do we prioritize the FDIs we must attract? How do we then pursue them?

If they are in China, we need someone like Jon Canto of McKinsey.

Here’s a quote from a prior posting: “We can create a de facto group to brainstorm and craft how to traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly.”

“And the group will be as varied as can be – from the winningest basketball coach, Tim Cone, to Jon Canto of McKinsey, who proposes a radical, targeted design to attract FDIs from China to PH. Also, from IRRI to Arangkada to AmBisyon to someone like the late George Gorospe, SJ, whose treatise on “reality” reinforces the dynamism of this universe, among others. 

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

It will take a village to traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly.

Gising bayan!

We can’t keep shrinking Juan de la Cruz’s world

Let’s hold it right there.

We can’t be in denial mode and hope the world will give us a break. Darwin is reality. 

That’s why the blog never fails to bring up the treaties of the late George Gorospe, SJ, on “reality.” It is beyond our experience or any system that is a human construct.

Our caste system will keep shrinking our world, full stop.

Wittingly or not, Padre Damaso personifies who we are today – especially in the Philippine elite and chattering classes?

The problem magnifies because we take these instincts as “redeeming” values – and why they are hard to undo. They reinforce our defense mechanism – as in “pwede na ‘yan“ or the claim of “resilience.”

And they trap us in a vicious circle?

Consider: “Although rice is the main staple in the country, it is a highly political commodity. The Philippine rice sector has always been the center of the government’s agricultural policies.

“The focal points of the policies revolve around promoting rice self-sufficiency and providing high income to farmers while making rice prices affordable to consumers.” [Source: FAO’s FAOSTAT database online and AQUASTAT database online, as of September 2012]

Does the above make the point? We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.

We import rice while Thailand and Vietnam export rice. Yet, rhetoric is all we can show. We can’t provide high income to farmers. We can’t make rice prices affordable – and why consumption per person is less than our neighbors.

We can’t keep slicing the salami. Whether rice, the education budget, healthcare, or affordable housing, it boils down to how much we generate income-wise – per person – as an economy or nation.

The PH pie is too small to slice and dice for Juan de la Cruz.

We can’t shroud Juan de la Cruz with mere motherhoods and turn around and claim “resilience” – or “pwede na ‘yan.”

We can’t keep shrinking Juan de la Cruz’s world even if it benefits us in the Philippine elite and chattering classes. We are a consumption-service economy driven on the backs of over 10 million Filipinos toiling overseas absent families and the over a million call center workers.

That is why we have the most inequality in the region. Sadly, we take it as a given, if not a source of pride, because of our caste system.

In other words, our paradigm is out of sync with the century’s demands. Recall the challenge to leadership highlighted by the Harvard Business Review article referenced in a prior posting. 

For example, enterprises must seek to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crowd beyond the imperative to adapt to a digitized world. 

Consider: Benchmarking – which we are yet to embrace – alone won’t suffice. And it is not a one-time effort, given the dynamism of this universe. The object is to be head and shoulders above the competition.

Think of Tim Cone winning 23 championships — and why we can learn from him.

And that is why the blog discussed embracing a “growth mindset” in agriculture in a prior posting.

Let’s hold it right there.

Do we recognize that our “fixed mindset” failed us in agriculture? We must instead pursue an innovation-driven, globally competitive agribusiness industry.

We must learn – in short order – how to move across the “cognitive development” continuum of binary and relative thinking.

And that’s why the blog introduced “design thinking,” the latest version of brainstorming.

Thanks to Google: https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/what-is-design-thinking

“Design thinking is a process for creative problem-solving. It has a human-centered core. It encourages organizations to focus on the people they’re creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes. When you sit down to create a solution for a business need, the first question should always be the “human need” behind it.

“In employing design thinking, you’re pulling together what’s desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. The process starts with “taking action” and understanding the right questions. It’s about embracing simple mindset shifts and tackling problems from a new direction. It also allows those who aren’t trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges.

“Design thinking can help your team or organization: (1) Better understand the unmet needs of the people you’re creating for; (2) Reduce the risk associated with launching new ideas, products, and services; (3) Generate revolutionary solutions, not just incremental; (4) Learn and iterate faster.

“Design thinking is applicable no matter your role or industry. Whether you work in business, government, education, or nonprofit, design thinking can help you develop innovative solutions based on your customers’ needs.

“Design Thinking has been credited with innovations such as the computer mouse, Palm Pilots and Apple iPhones, and Pixar’s hit movies. And beyond developing new products and services, proponents insist it can even transform organizations.  

“A mantra of Design Thinking is that experts may not have good insights. Experts may get in the way of progress if they attempt to advance their ideas before users. While significant, as in the case of Steve Jobs, expert views are more often regarded inferior to the contributions of an entire group working together.

“It complements analytical thinking. If analytical thinking is deductive and linear, Design Thinking is abductive and non-linear. It “unrestricts” problems through brainstorming, or the more modern term, “ideation.”  It is iterative: its practitioners flip back and forth from design to prototype to redesign and will change their minds (“pivot”) frequently.  

“But it is not free-wheeling, endless creativity. Ideation and pivots are finite, and “practical costs” and technical limitations constrain final products. Risks are important yet managed. Metrics are defined and carefully monitored. It is not all abstract art.”

Here’s a quote from a prior posting. “The North Star – or our desired “outcome” – for Juan de la Cruz is “To traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly.” And to define its specific “output,” we will raise GDP by an incremental $200 billion to leapfrog the output of our neighbors, including Malaysia.

“And the $200 billion will come from the three legs of the economy: services, industry, agriculture.

“If we were a marketing-oriented enterprise, why shouldn’t we, when we are in a market economy, especially globally, think of Einstein and Jobs, who saw a world bigger than themselves? We must first have a product to market.

“Recall that “we must define the portfolio of our agribusiness industry, focus on “produce” and manufactured products that will generate scale – in revenue and margin.”

“For example, rice, beyond being our staple, has an export market, as demonstrated by Thailand and Vietnam. And coconut is a significant export generator for the Philippines.

“What else will meet the yardstick of generating scale revenue and margin-wise that we can and must pursue?

“In the meantime, let’s test where we are in agriculture versus the hypothesis of generating scale revenue and margin-wise?

“Although rice is the main staple in the country, it is a highly political commodity. The Philippine rice sector has always been the center of the government’s agricultural policies.

“The focal points of the policies revolve around promoting rice self-sufficiency and providing high income to farmers while making rice prices affordable to consumers.” [Source: FAO’s FAOSTAT database online and AQUASTAT database online, as of September 2012]

“If we only learn to benchmark, we will know that Thailand, for example, has over twice the land we have for rice production. By sheer scale alone, we must not be surprised if they are a significant rice exporter while we are importers, i.e., we have failed miserably to meet our desire of self-sufficiency.

“First, we want to double our land for rice production. We also want to consolidate what we have to attain economies of scale. And we want to focus on modern varieties with higher yields and differentiate and generate export revenues and healthy margins.”

“We need an “iterative” approach to problem-solving that intentionally seeks out people with different perspectives, knowledge, skills, and experience and has them work together to create a practical solution for a real-world problem” – aka Design Thinking.”

Can we pause – and ponder?

Recall that when the wife and I first came to Eastern Europe as a volunteer expert to represent USAID, the locals showed such deference that they assumed I was going to spoon-feed them. And when I did not, the deference turned into “outrage.” Because they did not yet appreciate the object of a “workshop” – i.e., they’re used to rote learning.

See above; expert views are often inferior to the contributions of an entire group working together.

Then consider: Juan de la Cruz values hierarchy and paternalism.

Think of democracy – it is an exercise in self-government that “personal responsibility” is imperative.

We don’t question it; instead, we ask, “How high,” when asked to jump. Our instincts are beyond deference; it’s abdication.

The bottom line: Design thinking is not in our comfort zone especially given, “A mantra of Design Thinking is that experts may not have good insights. Experts may get in the way of progress if they attempt to advance their ideas before users. Expert ideas, while important as in the case of Steve Jobs, are more often regarded inferior to the contributions of an entire group working together.”

Again, from a prior posting: “We can create a de facto group to brainstorm and craft how to traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly.”

“And the group will be as varied as can be – from the winningest basketball coach, Tim Cone, to Jon Canto of McKinsey, who proposes a radical, targeted design to attract FDIs from China to PH. Also, from IRRI to Arangkada to AmBisyon to someone like the late George Gorospe, SJ, whose treatise on “reality” reinforces the dynamism of this universe, among others. 

“But why should we create a de facto group to brainstorm and craft how to traverse poverty to prosperity rapidly? Why not leave it to the experts? But experts on what?

“Can we agree that nation-building takes a village? Do we buy the idea that democracy is self-government? And that “personal responsibility” is inherent?

“Then think of the “4 Cs to 21-century skills” – communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creative thinking.

“For example, we cannot keep talking to ourselves in the Philippine elite and chattering classes. We are among the fastest-growing economies, and over a decade, we attained the global yardstick of a 6%-7% GDP growth rate.”

Yet, Vietnam overtook us, no different from the Asian Tigers and China earlier.

We can’t keep shrinking Juan de la Cruz’s world.

And it comes from our caste system.

Wittingly or not, Padre Damaso personifies who we are today – especially in the Philippine elite and chattering classes?

The problem magnifies because we take these instincts as “redeeming” values – and why they are hard to undo. They reinforce our defense mechanism – as in “pwede na ‘yan“ or the claim of “resilience.”

And they trap us in a vicious circle?

Gising bayan!