‘Problem-solving is lateral’

It is not linear, it is lateral thinking. In the early 70’s Anaclecto del Rosario (May he rest in peace!) brought over Edward de Bono to present the latter’s Lateral Thinking model to his friends and clients. Anacleto was a pioneer in Marketing consulting and also introduced Philippine industry to Louis Allen’s fundamentals and principles of management. He thought that Filipino managers ought to keep abreast with emerging and best practices; and move beyond the typical linear approach to problem-solving.

For example, marketers want to win in the marketplace but must recognize that winning is not driven by one single factor like price alone, but by the dynamic of several factors: product, pricing, placement or presentation and promotion or communication. Thus figuring out how the dynamic works is a great exercise in lateral thinking (and Force Field Analysis is a good tool). Or why product development geared for healthy margins is fundamental to global competiveness – and it is predicated on investment, contemporary technology, systems and processes. (Unfortunately, the financial sector undermined the benefit of growing margins – i.e., they raise the multiplier effect of investment – by marketing copycat products that didn’t add value and that they didn’t understand, and dug a deeper hole by ignoring risk management. It was sham marketing at best; or pure, unadulterated greed at its worst – with a lot of help from politicians and consumers; and the world is yet to recover from the folly!)

One of Brazil’s largest miners explains to Charlie Rose (a respected American journalist) how their push for big-scale, high-tech mining and oil exploration elevated efficiency and margins, and thus competitive advantage. On the other hand, Cambodian and Vietnamese acquaintances tell the writer about one of Pol Pot’s claims to infamy: a failed small-scale farming mandate. And not surprising the Vietnamese are moving from small-scale to high-tech and bio-tech farming. Do we want small-scale mining (or farming) or in fact sustainable and high-value adding mining, for example? The commune system is not why China became an economic power – they opened their economy up and the great rush ensued! We have yet to internalize the positive impact of economies of scale – or do we associate it with our monopoly-cacique culture? And we have yet to embrace globalization – or do we associate it with foreign domination? Are we neither here nor there – and why the 21^st century finds us marginalized? To be small doesn’t mean remaining small and being a laggard – as demonstrated by Singapore or Hong Kong or Taiwan? Is our hierarchical instinct confining us to ‘smallness’?

Lateral thinking applies to governments as well? ‘Our tax revenues are limited but we have to support every sector of society, so let’s spread them around.’ Unfortunately, as we have seen, the outcome in the Philippines has been dismal – we can’t provide such basics as power, water, and rice, and a world-class airport or harbor?

Our tax revenues may be limited but sources of investment aren’t? With limited revenues we are confronted with unsustainable spending – which, unfortunately, is throwing good money after bad. Thus it is imperative to prioritize in order to generate the biggest bang . . . that will feed into and reinforce a virtuous circle. It is encouraging that there appears a growing consensus that the Aquino Administration can’t be everything to everybody; and urging them to exercise leadership: create a vision and establish a clear set of priorities!

The Administration hopefully would recognize the lateral sources of investments, revenues, technologies and markets – because if we don’t pursue the avenues that generate economies of scale and competitive advantage, we will be left with a very small, narrow, inefficient and uncompetitive playing field? Smallness Is not what will lift the third of us that are hungry?