Why is PHL the regional laggard?

Is that a more apt title than “Why PHL is not like Vietnam”? [BusinessMirror Editorial, 19th Apr 2021]

Or do we want to confirm our “fixed mindset”? There is a distinction between a “growth mindset” and a “fixed mindset.” Sadly, it’s a lot easier to rationalize “destiny,” especially given our caste system.

Recall Bill Gates: “Our genes influence our intelligence and talents, yet they can develop. Suppose you mistakenly believe that your capabilities derive from DNA and destiny rather than practice and perseverance. In that case, you operate with what Dweck calls a ‘fixed mindset’ rather than a ‘growth mindset.’ Our parents and teachers exert a big influence on which mindset we adopt—and that mindset, in turn, has a profound impact on how we learn and which paths we take in life.”   

There is logic in the premise that the distribution curve can represent a “bell curve in a universe.” What if we are a weakling in that universe? Then we are destined to be the regional laggard?

Yet, there is another dimension we can extract in a distribution curve, but it presupposes a “growth mindset.” And it’s called the Pareto principle, the “vital few” as against the “trivial many.” And it is anathema to our crab mentality and why we can’t figure out how to prioritize. In more ways than one, that explains the 1-% phenomenon because the conventional wisdom does not favor the “vital few.”

Likewise, our milieu that is this universe is a dynamic, not a static phenomenon.

In my early 20s, I was fascinated by what media reported about Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore. At that time, the Brits were in the final stages of pulling their troops out of Singapore. And so, I took my first overseas trip, destined for Singapore.

Fast-forward to the time I was a regional manager. I had a bias for Singapore and held most of my meetings in the city-state. Did I even imagine that Singapore would outrank the US in the global competitiveness ranking? I represent a US interest. I had a contrary bias that there was no way a tiny territory could best the Americans in global competitiveness.

Marcos was a strong man, and so was Mahathir. But Mahathir proved the better leader. Without going into a full-blown benchmarking exercise, one can see that Mahathir knew his vital few that he prioritized the rapid development of KL over his hometown. And when asked why he thought his training as a physician equipped him to be prime minister, his response is: As a physician, I live with “cause and effect.”

Benchmark. Benchmark. Benchmark.

“The purpose of benchmarking should be to get a broad background of an area of knowledge, plus knowledge of state of the art and who is advancing it, and what principles drive the challenge or problem.

“Benchmarking research is the process for rapidly learning the essence of the desired field of knowledge with interest in finding the leading edge.” [University of Delaware]

We will not be like Vietnam – or the other Asian Tigers – but if we ever learn that there is more to the world than our caste system, it will open our eyes and minds to look outward and forward and learn to benchmark. Benchmarking in business and industry does not mean an enterprise must strive to be a clone. 

During the infancy of Apple, Steve Jobs benchmarked his innovation and marketing efforts against the consumer-packaged goods industry.

Recall too that as a mentor to my Eastern European friends, we sat Marketing and R&D together – i.e., properly geared in our product development and innovation efforts – in every business unit. Innovation is not for “innovation's sake” but to respond to a human need and raise one’s wellbeing.

Unsurprisingly, they have become giant-killers, and so third-party raw material providers chose to partner with them. Three of their brands have attained state-of-the-art, and the fourth one is coming along.

Those familiar with the blog will recall the wife’s horror when we first arrived because they were the poorest country in Europe, and it showed. “What are we doing in this god-forsaken place?”

Why is PHL the regional laggard? Because of 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.

Beyond Vietnam, do we expect Cambodia and Myanmar to push us further down the abyss? We are sinking fast.

Of course, we in the Philippine elite class won’t mind because we are sitting pretty.

Or is that only if there is no pandemic?

Let’s switchgear and recall a recent posting: “In the end, a crisis brings out the best and worse in both people and government. The quality of decisions made are narratives of the ailments of our political institutions and processes. It is, therefore, part of our collective duty as citizens in a democracy to speak about policy failure.

“Because it is only through the storytelling of failure can the learning process of people, organizations, and institutions begin.

“Public policies are complex, and so are the factors that affect their implementation. There are several reasons why a ‘policy’ is considered a failure. For example, incomplete information at the time of the decision, the changing circumstances across its period, and the inability to think of ‘policies’ interconnectedness,’ i.e., designing something narrow and shortsighted.

“And then there are failures from factors that are structural — such as when the causal theory (i.e., what causes ‘Y’) that is the basis of the ‘policy’ is not sound, and when political institutions break down.

“The former refers to the extent upon which policymakers consider and use accurate and reliable evidence to inform their decisions. On the other hand, the latter is the magnitude by which political power takes policymaking hostage.

“In both situations, policy failures are not just the result of the limitation of information, technology, or even cognition; but it is a product of our ailing political institutions and systems which affect our political processes including policymaking.

“Like human beings, an organization can learn, too, and it does so in two ways. First, when we know what does not work, we can make the necessary adjustments and improve the policy tool (i.e., single-loop learning). Second, an organization can also learn from failure by rethinking the fundamental assumptions and values that support the policy’s logic (i.e., double-loop ‘learning’).

“But for failure to matter, it should be seen as a learning opportunity. All policy failures should induce policy change through a learning process — we often call this ‘reform.’ Chris Agyris’ work on Organizational Learning is helpful at this point.” [“Owning up to policy failure: Why does it matter (?),” Anne Lan K. Candelaria, Blueboard, BusinessWorld, 12th Apr 2021. Candelaria, Ph.D., is the Associate Dean for Ateneo de Manila University’s Loyola Schools’ Graduate Programs. She is also an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science.]

Disclosure: I was introduced to the works of Chris Argyris when I was in my early 20s by the late Anacleto del Rosario, considered the first Philippine marketing consultant — and also brought the Louis A. Allen management courses to the Philippines.

Here’s what the PANA website says: “In 1956, Robert Hinchman, Jr., Advertising Manager of Caltex, and Anacleto del Rosario took an active interest in getting advertising practitioners to form an organization patterned after the US Association of National Advertisers.

“Their efforts resulted in an organizational meeting held on 16th Oct 1957 at the Old Manila Overseas Press Club. Forty-five representatives from various businesses established the urgency of organizing the PANA.”

As a mentor, del Rosario also introduced me to Edward de Bono, whom he invited to the Philippines in the early 70s. De Bono is a “Maltese physician, psychologist, author, inventor, philosopher, and consultant. He originated the term lateral thinking, wrote the book Six Thinking Hats, and is a proponent of the teaching of thinking as a subject in school.” [Wikipedia]

Why does lateral thinking – or Edward de Bono – matter? Recall the “The Innovator’s DNA” by Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen; Harvard Business Review, December 2009. And “the ability to successfully connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas from different fields, is central to the innovator’s DNA.”

But let’s get back to Argyris. In the Sept-Oct 1977 Harvard Business Review, his article re “Double-loop learning in organizations” appeared.

“In an ongoing national survey of peoples’ belief in the ability of organizations to get things done shows that public confidence reached a peak in the late 1960s, and since then, it has been deteriorating. Simultaneously, information science, technology, and managerial know-how have continued to increase in sophistication.

“Why is it that organizations appear to be less effective as the technology to manage them becomes sophisticated? The answer is, I believe that the management theory underlying the new sophisticated technology is the same as the one that created the problem in the first place.

“Take New York City — the 1975 bankruptcy it faced — as an illustration. All new managerial committees and new leaders dealt with the troubled fiscal situation. They correct many single loop errors, but they have much more difficulty confronting the double loop question if we can judge them from the newspaper accounts.

“The newspapers have, for example, cited several instances where planned cuts in municipal service budgets remained pending a year later.

“I talked with several of the top city financial people, and it was not difficult to see the games they played with budgets and to identify some of the possible dangers.

“Double-loop learning will occur only when these officials examine and alter their willingness to play financial games, which they know are counterproductive, as well as their assumptions that they will remain in control. [Recall that at my 200-year-old MNC-company, I changed the planning and budgeting model.]

“This type of thinking is going on in all parts of our society. Doctors and lawyers know that medical and legal services are inadequate (especially for the poor) and that pressure is building to remedy the situation; yet, they have resisted setting up machinery to evaluate how their actions affect the distribution of their services.

“Someday, even our newspapers may suffer a reduction in their autonomy. I predict this because of what I found in the study of a leading newspaper. The top executive felt helpless in creating the conditions they insisted on the White House and state and city governments within their organization.

“And just as the current climates in those governmental bodies might lead to corruption and distortion, I found the same is true in the newspapers. Why should our nation protect the managers of a newspaper when they are unable to create the milieu they argue is necessary if the truth is supreme?”

In other words, “double-loop learning” will occur only when we rethink the fundamental assumptions and values that support the policy’s logic. That is why the blog keeps 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. 

Why is PHL the regional laggard? Do we want to confirm our “fixed mindset”? There is a distinction between a “growth mindset” and a “fixed mindset.” Sadly, it’s a lot easier to rationalize “destiny,” especially given our caste system.

Gising bayan!