Does assertiveness mean being disrespectful? While in Manila earlier in the year, a niece explained to me what the Filipino median age (23.5) means. “We are not disrespectful but we speak up, are assertive and not subservient.”
“Sixth grader who cut off Barack Obama: ‘I was just nudging him to get on,’” Nick Gass, Politico.com, 30th Apr 2015. “The sixth-grader who made Internet headlines on Thursday for his sharp interviewing style with President Barack Obama says he meant no disrespect.”
“I didn’t mean to cut him off. I was just nudging him to get on,” said Osman Yahya, 12 . . . The Bennett Middle School student from the Salisbury, Maryland, school district stole the show on social media when he stopped the president from giving a lengthy answer on his love for reading.
“I think you’ve sort of covered everything about that question,” Osman told the president during their interview, when Obama began to again speak of his love for reading.
“The interview with Obama came during a “virtual field trip” hosted by Discovery Education at the Anacostia Neighborhood Library in Washington, D.C . . . Osman, who said he is interested in pediatric medicine for a career, stressed that it was his job to keep the president from going on too long.”
Hierarchy in our culture implies not only rank or age but also expertise. And so we defer to rank, to our elders, to our experts. It would take a Chinoy to understand the nuance and where assertiveness is a must. For example, who are the world’s leader in the fast food business, the real experts? It brings to mind why benchmarking is imperative. Not even the best in the world can claim perfection.
“How Jollibee beat McDonald's in the Philippines,” Cathy Rose A. Garcia, ABSCBNnews.com, 11th Feb 2013. “With over 2,000 branches around the country, there is bound to be a Jollibee anywhere you go in the Philippines. Jollibee's continued success in the Philippines and the company's aggressive expansion overseas is making international headlines.”
“Jollibee's Filipino-Chinese founder Tony Tan Caktiong is now on the cover of Forbes Asia's February issue. Tan talked to Forbes Asia about how he started his business with an ice cream parlor and how his restaurant with a bumble bee mascot managed to beat American fast-food giant McDonald's in the Philippines.
“After opening the ice cream parlors in 1978, Tan said he decided to shift from ice cream to hamburgers when he saw customers wanted sandwiches. However, the entry of McDonald's in the Philippines in 1981 was a cause of concern for the fledgling fast-food chain. Tan recalled how they went to the US to study McDonald's operations, and studied how Jollibee compared to the American fast-food chain.
“‘We found that they excelled over us in all aspects – except product taste... It suited Americans but not really Filipinos. Our (food) tends to be sweeter, more spices, more salty. We were lucky as it was not easy for them to change their product because of their global image,” Tan told Forbes Asia. Jollibee worked hard to compete with McDonald's, from advertising to stores to service. And their hard work paid off.
“‘We were surprised customers ranked us higher in courtesy and service style. Maybe they felt we were warmer? And then they liked our marketing, promotion and advertising better. And then customers kept just coming back,’ he said. One advantage Jollibee had was offering hamburgers and other fast-food with a distinct Filipino flavor. For instance, Jolly Spaghetti has a sweet meat sauce with hotdog slices.
“But what is the secret to Jollibee's phenomenal success? ‘We keep things simple and fill a simple need: very tasty food at a reasonable price. To this day I repeat to my people what my father told me – you have to make sure your food tastes really good,’ Tan said.”
“Design thinking is only partially about design. It is more a thinking and problem-solving process. It is useful for systemic, ‘wicked’ problems with unclear solutions.” [Ricardo A. Lim, Notes on design thinking, Asian Institute of Management, 2015]
“The first thought about ‘thinking’ in DT is that the best ideas come from users and customers. DT practitioners must let go of their own narratives and biases. They must observe their users at work and play, and be able to accept a large amount of customer-user feedback and needs and continue to be open-minded, in spite of potentially painful insights. The essence of DT is that all design must be empathic, and centered around what humans need...DT is sometimes known as “human-centered design” or HCD. In DT it is rare that a super brain like a Steve Jobs comes along. Instead we rely on observations and stories of users to insight what they need.
“A mantra of DT is in fact that experts may not have good insights. Experts may get in the way of progress, if they attempt to advance their own 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.
“DT complements analytical thinking. If analytical thinking is deductive and linear, DT is abductive and non-linear. DT unrestricts problems through brainstorming, or the more modern term, ‘ideation.’ DT is iterative: its practitioners flip back and forth from design to prototype to redesign and will change their minds (‘pivot’) frequently.
“But DT is not free-wheeling, endless creativity. Ideation and pivots are finite, and final products must be constrained by practical costs and technical limitations. Risks are important and must be managed. Metrics are defined and carefully monitored. It is not all abstract art.
“People will line up for the latest iPhone 6's for days, and pay arms and legs to get it. Who can resist a fine German car, or a French handbag or a fine woven Persian carpet? But the majority of great designs are simple.”
How many Pinoy enterprises can replicate Jollibee? Not if we assume that we can’t be any better than the best and the brightest. And that being the regional laggard is a given. And not if we claim we have our ways and invoke Pinoy abilidad – and when it translates to: we’re already doing the best we can? “We found that they excelled over us in all aspects – except product taste... It suited Americans but not really Filipinos.” That’s a perspective. There is a benchmark of excellence to aspire for. [Still, down the road, we cannot be marketing to Pinoys alone even when 10 million of them are overseas. Globalization means the world is a market that is much bigger, above and beyond 100 million Pinoys.]
I consulted with a one of our largest enterprises 10 years ago and the managers assumed that they had no influence in the decision-making process. And yet they knew that a more efficient practice would give them an uptick in margins. They periodically would do a “fire-sale” that everyone accepted as a given. Thankfully, two of them expressed concern: how do we keep an eye on margins? And so we quickly put together a simple program. “We will do this as a pilot and demonstrate how simple it is. And then you as managers can keep running the program so that everyone involved in the process gains the knowledge and, more importantly, the confidence.”
And it is all about keeping it simple: “We keep things simple and fill a simple need: very tasty food at a reasonable price. To this day I repeat to my people what my father told me – you have to make sure your food tastes really good.”
And to ensure that every snack brand they want to introduce will pass the acid test, one of the largest (global) manufacturers employ outsiders/typical consumers in their panel of taste-testers. It is what Design Thinking or Human-Centered Design is all about: that the best ideas come from users and customers. DT practitioners must let go of their own narratives and biases.
But first we must learn how to assert. I keep my fingers crossed that our millennials will save us and not take being a regional laggard as a given.
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