Art for art’s sake

“Are we changing our paradigm? And the obvious riposte to that is: What is so threatening about a change in paradigm, unless one stakes one’s reputation with an obsolete model of things? And this, I fear, is the problem. Much of the resistance that advocates of a thorough overhaul of legal education comes not so much from theoretical objections, as from threatened egos and shattered self-assurances anchored on what many have quite speciously taken to be their badges of distinctiveness!” [Genuine outcomes-based education, Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, Pensées, Manila Standard Today, 24th Nov 2014]

                                     

Our saving grace as Pinoys is the challenge isn’t confined to PHL. In the West, industry has long raised the issue and at my old MNC company, as did countless global companies, we developed an extensive education and training curriculum in pursuit of continued people and organization development efforts.

“Outcomes Based Education . . . I argued, was one kind of an ‘integrating’ paradigm in ASEAN and even beyond! There is outcomes-based education, to which I fully subscribe . . . One reason for OBE is the frequently-raised (but hardly ever addressed) complaint of the mismatch between schooling and the needs of society and of industry. Our graduates . . . are loaded with knowledge and skills of which society has no need . . . OBE starts by asking what the needs of society and industry are and moves backward by constructing a curriculum and deciding on the course-content.” [ibid.]

“[T]he Japanese have this much to teach us: It is wrong to think that of the law school as principally orientated at producing lawyers . . . If our concept of legal education does not go beyond the production of lawyers, then given the fact that only about 25 to 30 percent each year of graduates who sit for the Bar Examinations ever make it through, then law school is a tremendous waste of human resource and human potential . . . That points to the fallacy of equating legal education with the production of lawyers. OBE then forces on legal education a very important question: How does Philippine society make use of its law graduates—whether they become lawyers or not? And knowing that, we shall be better able to restructure a responsive law curriculum.”

Disclosure: At my old MNC company I was part of the council that developed our education and training curriculum. And the initiative was driven by the need of global companies for succession planning and by definition, the imperative to excel in individual development efforts – i.e., knowledge, attitude, skills and habits. While a big piece of that is leadership, to describe the challenge in a universal sense, industry translated it for the benefit of the education system as: to develop people’s critical thinking, communication and teamwork skills.

In other words, OBE is not art for art’s sake. “Much of the resistance that advocates of a thorough overhaul of legal education comes not so much from theoretical objections, as from threatened egos and shattered self-assurances anchored on what many have quite speciously taken to be their badges of distinctiveness!” [ibid.]

The education community has their work cut out for them? And if it’s in fact a cultural challenge, it won’t be easy to overcome? In the meantime, industry will have to address their needs and invest in education and training. And especially my Eastern European friends, knowing full well that they're relatively new to free enterprise, and are doing it with doggedness. And one of the responsibilities I’ve taken on is that of trainer and coach – the overarching challenge being for the enterprise to attain sustainable growth. But is the industry perspective something that the education system doesn't necessarily embrace – being too narrow for purposes of higher education?

But then again, growth and development is integral to nature – and to individuals, peoples and nations. And if the barter trade was one of the earliest expressions to actualize development, how could economic development not be inherent to human development – even assuming that it is the outcome of the efforts of commerce and industry but, as importantly, good governance? And good governance goes beyond “daang matuwid” – i.e., it includes creating the environment and the platform of an ecosystem.

And in PHL it appears we have yet to get a full airing of what an ecosystem is about? Yet we want to be holistic and/or inclusive – but without a good handle on the requisite ecosystem, we are pulled in different directions (unable to focus on the vital few) and in the end hierarchy wins out, not surprising, given our cacique system and structure? For example, for decades given the dependence of rural Philippines – and where the bulk of the population is – on agriculture, we assumed that farm-to-market roads were a panacea?

But as the world now knows, infrastructure development demands much more – from power to roads and bridges to airports to strategic industries that are globally competitive, among others, as demonstrated by the Asian Tigers – if a nation is to satisfy the yardstick of an ecosystem. And at the industry level, an ecosystem – given the demands of global competition – is characterized by a commitment to investment, technology and innovation as well as people, product and market development.

The debate about agriculture taking precedence over industrialization must capture that the world has become highly competitive and global. That agriculture like any industry must develop the capacity to move up the value chain – into agribusiness and beyond basic produce. Irrespective of industry, basic products must pull its weight in the broader portfolio that in aggregate must generate sustainable returns – and which is what food security is about. For example, Greece is a major producer of olives yet branded olives – that find a wider global market and yield higher income levels – are synonymous to Italy. And precisely why we need progressive leadership to benchmark our perspectives and efforts against the rest of the world, and be truly competitive. There is no free lunch. And more precisely, nations can be parochial – and uncompetitive – at their peril.

And so the reality is commerce and industry isn't anathema to higher education because problem-solving is at the heart of an enterprise and that can’t be narrow by any stretch of the imagination? For instance, Einstein was a product of higher education but was also discriminating: “the value of education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.” Of course, unfettered capitalism is abhorrent, and is in fact a disservice to free enterprise being an expression of freedom and democracy. When I first worked with a group of ex-socialist Bulgarians, they were unequivocal in their need to traverse the path to a free market. But one would wonder if they were at home with the characteristics of an egalitarian enterprise – i.e., openness, transparency and diversity.

To make them tangible, we had to establish the core of the organization around R&D and Marketing led by a business unit manager that was also responsible for manufacturing. From the get-go it would undo any thoughts that one discipline or another is more superior hierarchy-wise. And it would pave the way forward into business planning and execution – i.e., pulling in and making the sales team to consciously interact with the core of the organization and ensure that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. In short, an organization must be a synchronized system.

Still, the need to develop their skills in critical thinking, communication and teamwork would be a constant. For example, the education system in both East and West given the construct of a course syllabus makes linear thinking the conventional thinking process. Yet problem-solving and the spirit of discovery go beyond – and thus the imperative to develop the skill-set around lateral thinking. That is to say, to make openness, transparency and diversity the default perspective – because they are a mandatory in the pursuit of critical thinking, innovation and creativity. But in PHL we take them for granted because of our hierarchical cacique system and structure? And more to the point, are our assumptions, beliefs and values compatible to openness, transparency and diversity? How do we explain the struggle to enact the FOI?

Simply put, without openness, transparency and diversity, how would critical thinking, communication and teamwork be nurtured and much less thrive in an organization or an economy or a nation? Why have we as a people failed to confront the challenges and problems that have stunted PHL progress and development? Is it because we are philosophical about the world and so we like to claim we're the happiest people? Or is it because our hierarchical system and structure makes us truly leader-dependent – making innovation and creativity alien to us? Or are we simply not a problem-solving culture? Or are we a very sophisticated people that art is for art's sake? Or does it boil down to the human condition – that it is all about me and myself?

Things don't just happen

That is paraphrasing Speaker F. Belmonte Jr. as he stressed the imperative for Congress to focus on amending the economic provisions of the Constitution if we are to indeed have a platform to attract FDI. But that would be truly revolutionary if we deliver against such a challenge.

As my wife would ask, talking about Bulgaria, as we were traveling on the 400-kilometer highway towards the Black Sea: “This is likewise a poor and even a much smaller country and won't ever have the traffic that we have between Manila and Baguio. And Baguio is not even that far. Can you imagine how efficient travel to Baguio would be, and we've been doing it ourselves for half a century, since our childhood days. Yet our big boys are getting the spoils and we assume everyone is happy – when we're only reinforcing that PHL is truly an oligopoly? It was only 10 years ago when we first went to the Black Sea via their old highway. Which brings us to NAIA; how can we Pinoys tolerate such backwardness?”

And a week later we were traveling from Sofia to Malaga and had a 7:20 AM flight via Paris. And it was just 11 years ago when we first arrived in the old terminal building, courtesy of their Communist rulers (which they upgraded into the current Terminal 1 for domestic flights; and they have a new Terminal 2 for international flights.) And checking in for our flight we noted they opened 8 counters and at the security check they had 3 X-ray machines running. In no time we were at the lounge enjoying our cappuccinos as we awaited our departure.

The previous evening friends hosted a dinner. And there were two sets of kids present: one attends the equivalent of our high school and the other, grade school. “I want to enroll in a university that has a program where I can be in London and the US; I'm European and London is a natural but I want to be in the US too because the world is meant to be small.” The grade-schoolers, beyond their local teachers, have a Brit, an American and a Dutch in their class. “Imagine, the very few English words I learned growing up that I picked up while playing with other kids, and they were gutter English,” volunteered the father.

Yet in this country the medium of instructions and business is still Bulgarian. But there are efforts to look beyond their borders. In other words, people can be nationalistic and not be parochial – because no nation can progress and develop apart from the rest of the world, North Korea being the obvious example? Their politics are not the best. They just formed the latest government after kicking out the previous two because of their frustrations with corruption. My wife and I once even joined the daily protests they held over several months until the world took note and the EU intervened. Things don't just happen.

In PHL we're finally recognizing that the OFW phenomenon is not to brag about (for example, Cardinal Tagle had pointed out its social costs to our elite class, and a recent editorial even raised it as modern-day slavery) despite being the engine of our economy – and how we created a handful of billionaires. Yet we remain parochial at the core? The reason we saw our OWFs as a positive was because despite our underdevelopment we had 10 million Pinoys with jobs that paid more than local ones. But how myopic was that? And I would include myself because I saw them no differently until international institutions lectured us otherwise.

We shut the rest of the world out to preserve our inward-looking, cacique hierarchical system and structure to the detriment of nation-building? And still we have no consensus, if not clueless, about what nation building is – because our assumptions, beliefs and values haven't changed? And foreign investors are keenly aware of that: “The European Union (EU) yesterday called on the Philippines to strengthen its justice system to sustain its economic growth, alleviate poverty and protect human rights.” [EU to PHL: Strengthen justice system to sustain growth, Pia Lee Brago, The Philippine Star, 29th Nov 2014]. Is that the kinder way of saying that we must emerge from the dark ages? And how long have we been talking about our restrictive economy? Things don't just happen, which was the moral of the Juan Tamad story?

Over dinner the adults were talking about something not that different. While looking at me one said: “I was with Vladi and we discussed that what he learned as sales manager and what we learned as a local Bulgarian company is irrelevant in his new region. He has half a dozen countries with per capita GDPs over 5 times more than ours. And so his focus is not on our economy brands. He is working with our senior-most managers to draw up the right business model, including developing products that will respond to their needs and lifestyles, and driven by an integrated marketing effort.”

Earlier in the day, one of the managers came over: “I want to update you on the discussions we're having with a potential partner. I am convinced that while we're meeting with the local representatives, the mindset is there. This group developed their business in the West and have enough Western players in the team. They understand the principle of partnership and I want us to do our homework so that both parties would truly value working together and succeed beyond the immediate future.” He's a protégé and I could not help but feel proud.

“You're starting on the right foot and the parameters you've covered with this group are a good foundation. The key is to jointly develop a business model that would satisfy our definition of success as well as theirs. And if indeed both of us appreciate the size and value of the business potential for the partnership, however either of us currently defines success, we must recognize that that may not necessarily hold true in that future scenario. And which goes back to your point of doing our homework; and it means rigorously testing and critiquing our own assumptions – but that will be a function of how sharply and confidently we spell out that future scenario. If we can demonstrate that with credibility, then we will show this group the way forward.”

Indeed, things don't just happen.

“How then, can the free flow of capital and investments, as well as the free exchange of professional services in the ASEAN, happen as far as the Philippines is concerned without our Constitution being amended?” [Biting the bullet of change, Rita Linda V. Jimeno,Out of the Box, Manila Standard, 24th Nov 2014]

“Assuming there will no longer be constitutional impediments come 2015, can the Philippines compete in light of its serious inadequacy in physical and technological infrastructures? Investors have stayed away because of peace and order concerns and the instability and slow process of our judicial system. There too is the nation’s heaviest baggage of all – politics.  While there should now be a frenzied scramble toward preparing for the ASEAN economic community in 2015, energies are instead focused on the 2016 national elections.”

“It is as it has always been: the Filipino people just have to bite the bullet.”

“We Filipinos like to think we’re among the intelligent peoples in the world, that we’re up-to-date on what’s going on the planet, that we’re knowledgeable about many things.” [We think we’re advanced, Leandro DD Coronel, Manila Bulletin, 23rd Nov 2014]

“What we don’t realize is that other nations are way ahead of us in demanding accountability and transparency in how the people’s money is used. We don’t realize how backward we are for tolerating the theft of our own money by politicians that we wrongly trust and give deference to as our leaders and betters.”

“That is the sad fact about a nation that in many ways is advanced but is also in many ways so backward as to not even know that it’s being led astray by its own leaders.”

Is this the best shot we Pinoys can make for the country we claim we care about? Are we simply a bunch of losers? I came to Bulgaria because a group of people said they wanted to emerge from the dark ages . . . Things don't just happen!

“Bureaucracy must die . . .”

“There’s no other way to put it: bureaucracy must die. We must find a way to reap the blessings of bureaucracy—precision, consistency, and predictability—while at the same time killing it. Bureaucracy, both architecturally and ideologically, is incompatible with the demands of the 21st century.” [Bureaucracy Must Die, Gary Hamel, Harvard Business Review, 4th Nov 2014]

Given PHL’s cacique hierarchical system and structure, do we then have a prayer to be relevant in the 21st century? At every level of our bureaucracy power is exercised not necessarily for good but for ill as evidenced by our culture of impunity? Is it surprising then that we rank poorly in doing business? We can only pity the efforts behind raising PHL’s competitiveness. And we think a good salesman and good advertising will sell PHL? As marketers know, such idiocy has no place especially in the 21st century.

The solar system gave us the fundamentals of an “ecosystem” – i.e., that it is a synchronized system. And even Einstein would thus acknowledge that there is a Higher Being. Things don’t happen by accident, to paraphrase Speaker Belmonte. For example, while the CB is doing the right thing – “BSP grants full foreign voting rights in banks” – to attract FDI, if we do a rigorous benchmarking exercise and figure out why we rank poorly in this regard among others, the bottom line is we have yet to get our act together, and be in sync!

“It is the unchallenged tenets of bureaucracy that disable our organizations—that make them inertial, incremental and uninspiring.  To find a cure, we will have to reinvent the architecture and ideology of modern management . . . Architecture. Ask just about any anyone to draw a picture of their organization — be it a Catholic priest, a Google software engineer, a nurse in Britain’s National Health Service, a guard in Shanghai’s Hongkou Detention Center, or an account executive at Barclays Bank — and you’ll get the familiar rendering of lines-and-boxes. This isn’t a diagram of a network, a community, or an ecosystem — it’s the exoskeleton of bureaucracy; the pyramidal architecture of ‘command-and-control.’ Based on the principles of unitary command and positional authority, it is simple, and scaleable. As one of humanity’s most enduring social structures, it is well-suited to a world in which change meanders rather than leaps. But in a hyperkinetic environment, it is a profound liability . . . A formal hierarchy overweights experience and underweights new thinking, and in doing so perpetuates the past.” [ibid.]

“Ideology. Business people typically regard themselves as pragmatists, individuals who take pride in their commonsense utilitarianism. This is a conceit. Managers, no less than libertarians, feminists, environmental campaigners, and the devotees of Fox News, are shaped by their ideological biases. So what’s the ideology of bureaucrats? Controlism. Open any thesaurus and you’ll find that the primary synonym for the word ‘manage,’ when used as verb, is ‘control.’ ‘To manage’ is ‘to control’ . . . Managers worship at the altar of conformance. That’s their calling—to ensure conformance to product specifications, work rules, deadlines, budgets, quality standards, and corporate policies. More than 60 years ago, Max Weber declared bureaucracy to be ‘the most rational known means of carrying out imperative control over human beings.’ He was right. Bureaucracy is the technology of control. It is ideologically and practically opposed to disorder and irregularity. Problem is, in an age of discontinuity, it’s the irregular people with irregular ideas who create the irregular business models that generate the irregular returns.”

“As we learned with the Soviet Union, centralization is the enemy of resilience. You can’t endorse a top-down authority structure and be serious about enhancing adaptability, innovation, or engagement.”

But even ideology can be unlearned as the Vietnamese are demonstrating? “Vietnam has emerged as one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia. It has an open Foreign Investment Law, offering up to 100% foreign ownership . . . Open policies of Vietnam have brought about low trade barriers, fast custom clearances, and simple administrative procedures, thus, shaping a dynamic business environment for Vietnam nowadays. As of June, 2014, more than 16,300 FDI projects were active in Vietnam, pulling in US$238 billion. Manufacturers like Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics, Inc., Nokia Oyj, and Intel Corp., have set up operations in Vietnam, another option after China.” [Phoenix-like Vietnam, Floro M. Mercene, Manila Bulletin, 16th Nov 2014]

But how do we Pinoys keep pace with progress? Will Binay be the next president? And will PHL media continue with same old, same old? And so come the election of Binay, we will read more of the same? He will be the salesman-in-chief? And we will read more about PHL oligopoly? More specifically, business headliners will be Ayala, SMC, MVP, SM, Tan, among the chosen few? It is this picture that is our normal that has convinced the world that we simply don’t get it? Of course, given the global economic slowdown since the financial crisis of 2008, underdeveloped countries like us are being given the second if not the third look by investors, but as Vietnam and even Myanmar have demonstrated, we ought to lament that we are only getting the crumbs of these investments.

“Given the impoverished state of Philippine print and broadcast journalism today, there are not too many journalists I turn to for the nourishment of spirit and higher faculties . . . Which only makes more painfully obvious the pallid and insipid hogwash that is made to pass for journalism by those are best licking boots in high places rather that pontificating on issues far in excess of their less than modest intellectual endowments! Inelegant turns of phrase, non sequiturs strung together in some contemptible poor excuse for argument, bits of science artfully combined with voodoo and a generous dose of lower Philippine mythology—these are the morsels these quacks who pass themselves off for bona fide journalists regularly throw the way of their hapless viewership.” [Cheap shots (!),Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, Pensées, Manila Standard Today, 17th Nov 2014]

History and PHL fortunes would have been different if it was Padre Damaso – or a representation of the padre – that was hanged instead of Rizal? That’s more than a century ago yet it appears in 21st century PHL, Rizal’s currency endures? In the meantime, beyond the Age of Enlightenment and even the moon, man has tapped and explored Mars and Comet 67P!

“Development requires higher levels of productivity and capabilities”

“Poverty eradication is a desired outcome of development but its achievement is permanent only with the movement of a significant proportion of the population from traditional, subsistence jobs to productive, modern employment . . . Development requires not just higher levels of income, nutrition, education, and health outcomes but in the first place involves higher levels of productivity and capabilities. Higher levels of productivity and capabilities are possible only with structural transformation of the economy.”[‘International system’ works against development, Ben D. Kritz, The Manila Times, 17th Nov 2014]

This blog has talked about the imperatives of investment, technology and innovation as well as people, product and market development given my MNC background and development-work experience in Eastern Europe. And indeed can relate to the above treatise, i.e., that higher levels of productivity and capabilities within an enterprise are founded on said imperatives. And while industry can be the engine of the economy, government must: (a) create the environment and (b) erect the platform of an ecosystem. And it starts with good governance – which is a reflection of a people’s culture – the converse being a culture of impunity; while accelerating infrastructure development and opening (not closing) the economy to technology and investment especially in this day and age of innovation.

It is not rocket science if we look at how the Asian Tigers did it. But do we Pinoys think in terms of an ecosystem – or of personalities and hierarchies? Community sense and the common good [ergo, nation-building] has to be inculcated in Juan de la Cruz if we Pinoys are to have a chance of embracing “a shared context of values and beliefs”? Of course, the Asian Tigers had leadership to boot while in our case, we contributed two if not three to the list of most corrupt leaders?

“The association of development with poverty reduction created for the donor community the pride of place in economic policy in developing countries. But this place can be at the cost of reducing the responsibility of donor countries in helping to maintain an enabling international environment for development in trade, finance, human resource development and technology.” [ibid]

Certainly donor countries could have done a better job. But then again, that is why the Asian Tigers are to be admired. They knew where they stood and were able to leverage what the West had to offer. They demonstrated what the science of the mind calls the “hardy mindset,” which simply means that they realized it was incumbent upon them to be on the right side instead of waiting for others to change. And the hardy mindset would also characterize successful people . . . and explains why there are winners and losers!

The following would be of interest to us Pinoys. “As business educators [De La Salle University] in a Catholic institution, we have started to reflect upon the relevance of conventional business thinking in our present context. While concepts like profitability, productivity and competitiveness have taken center stage since the Industrial Revolution, we have become increasingly conscious about concepts such as social responsibility, humanistic management, and sustainability as well. More recently, we have even drawn inspiration from Catholic social teachings, which emphasize human dignity and the common good in the conduct of human affairs, including business.” [Rethinking business, Raymund B. Habaradas, The Manila Times, 17th Nov 2014

“Needless to say, these developments have led to some changes in the content of some of our business subjects. In the basic management course, for example, we have already introduced ‘multistream management,’ which is a marked departure from conventional management thought. While ‘mainstream management’ emphasizes profitability and productivity and prioritizes the interests of shareholders, ‘multistream management’ highlights the importance of various forms of well-being of different stakeholder groups, including their employees. This means that management must not only know how to develop the physical, material, and social well-being of their employees but their moral, emotional, spiritual, and aesthetic well-being as well.”

What about the hierarchical and bureaucratic character of Philippine business and industry? Does Catholic social teachings also mean reinforcing this character? For example: “Managers worship at the altar of conformance. That’s their calling—to ensure conformance to product specifications, work rules, deadlines, budgets, quality standards, and corporate policies. More than 60 years ago, Max Weber declared bureaucracy to be ‘the most rational known means of carrying out imperative control over human beings.’ He was right. Bureaucracy is the technology of control. It is ideologically and practically opposed to disorder and irregularity. Problem is, in an age of discontinuity, it’s the irregular people with irregular ideas who create the irregular business models that generate the irregular returns.” [Bureaucracy Must Die, Gary Hamel, Harvard Business Review, 4th Nov 2014]

“In this environment, control is a necessary but far from sufficient prerequisite for success. Think of Intel and the extraordinary control it must exert over thousands of variables to produce its Haswell family of 14-nanometer processors. This operational triumph is tempered, though, by Intel’s failure to capitalize on the explosive growth of the market for mobile devices. More than 60% of the company’s revenue is still tied to personal computers, and less than 3% comes from the company’s unprofitable ‘Mobile & Communications’ unit.”

“Unfettered controlism cripples organizational vitality. Adaptability, whether in the biological or commercial realm, requires experimentation—and experiments are more likely to go wrong than right—a scary reality for those charged with excising inefficiencies. Truly innovative ideas are, by definition, anomalous, and therefore likely to be viewed skeptically in a conformance-obsessed culture.”

Can Philippine business and industry overcome its bureaucratic and hierarchical character?

“Hundreds of consumers standing in line at your local Apple store. Thousands of protesters rushing to flood the streets of Kiev, Istanbul, or Hong Kong. Millions of fireflies blinking on and off in complete unison. Even the unconscious beating of your heart. These are all synchronized systems.” [Get your organization to run in sync, Greg Satell, Harvard Business Review, 5th Nov 2014]

“So it is curious that the institutions we build—and put so much conscious effort towards—are so rarely able to synchronize. Despite our best efforts, most organizations operate disjointedly. Fortunately, research into network science has begun to shed light on how synchronization happens and how we can make our enterprises function more effectively. Three elements are key. 1. Small groups. Most leaders tend to think on a macro level. That shouldn’t be surprising, because our efforts tend to be focused on our responsibilities. So if we’re responsible for an entire organization, then we tend to think in those terms and act accordingly. However, actions are influenced at the grassroots. As Solomon Asch showed in his famous conformity experiments, we tend to adopt our views from our peer group. In fact, his research showed that we conform to those around us even when their views are demonstrably untrue.”

“2. Loose connections. Those close to us tend to have the same limited knowledge we do. They have similar experiences, are confronted with similar challenges and share many of the same personal relationships. So while our views tend to correspond to our peer group’s, the information most valuable to us usually lies outside of it . . . It is the combination of tight circles and loose connections that drives high performing organizations.  A study of star engineers at Bell Labs found that the most accomplished ones worked in a close-knit group, but also frequently reached out to people outside of it.”

“3. Shared context. In nature, the purpose of a system is hardwired. Nobody has to tell a pacemaker cell in the heart what it is supposed to do. However, in organizations it is incumbent on leaders to set direction [i.e., strategic intent.] Southwest Airlines has prospered by being ‘the fun low cost airline’ and seeks to be nothing else. Google strives to ‘organize the world’s information.’ Apple creates products that are ‘insanely great.’  It is the mission that drives the strategy, because that’s what defines what winning looks like. Yet a clear mission, although important, is not enough. There also must be a shared context of values and beliefs.” Simply put, in PHL, we can’t get our act together given parochialism and crab mentality in a hierarchical cacique system and structure?

“The power of distrust”

“Most of us did not appreciate the corrosive power of distrust, and how long it would take to heal the mental scars caused by it.” [The Legacy of Fear, David Brooks, The New York Times, 10th Nov 2014] “Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the biggest surprise is how badly most of the post-communist nations have done since. There was a general expectation back then that most of these countries would step out from tyranny and rejoin the European club of prosperous nations.”

Does it explain why People Power in PHL didn’t turn us around despite bravely standing in front of those tanks? And after Marcos we would contribute one if not two more to the list of most corrupt leaders? Today we’re even in two different camps: is Binay a sinner or a saint? And we are reminded Binay was one of those Cory appointees supposedly to undo the sins of Marcos rule? Fast-forward to today, what about Enrile or Revilla or the other Estrada? Simply put, we’re back to square-one?

“These failures include Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia, Serbia and others — about 20 percent of the post-communist world . . . These are countries with at least three to four wasted generations. At current rates of growth, it might take them some 50 or 60 years — longer than they were under communism! — to go back to the income levels they had at the fall of communism.” [ibid.]

And there are “nations like Russia and Hungary that continue to fall steadily behind the West — about 40 percent of the post-communist world by population. The third group includes those with growth rates between 1.7 percent and 1.9 percent. These countries, like the Czech Republic and Slovenia, are holding steady with the capitalist world. Finally there are the successes, the nations that are catching up. This group includes Poland, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. But . . . many of these nations are growing simply because they have oil, or something valuable to dig out of the ground. There are only five countries that have emerged as successful capitalist economies: Albania, Poland, Belarus, Armenia and Estonia.”

“Why did some countries succeed while others failed? First, leaders in some countries simply made better political decisions. Most of these countries enacted economic reforms, like deregulating prices and privatizing nationalized companies. Some nations like Estonia and Poland enacted reforms radically and quickly, while others tried to do them gradually or barely at all — with expensive security blankets for protected interests. The quick and radical group saw a slightly bigger output drop over the near term but much more prosperity over the long run.”

“Then there is the level of institutions. Many Western advisers focused on the headline reforms — writing new constitutions and creating stock markets. But . . . the Poles and Ukrainians . . . lacked the basic building blocks we take for granted. Before you have a stock market, for example, you have to have publicly available data about companies, credit records and accounting systems. Finally, and most important, there is the level of values. A nation’s economy is nestled in its moral ecology. Economic performance is tied to history, culture and psychology.” 

And even the Vatican struggles with change.

“Change is rattling the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, as the American bishops hold their annual fall meeting here this week. The vast majority of them were appointed by Francis’ two more conservative predecessors, and some say they do not yet understand what kind of change Pope Francis envisions and whether it is anything more than a change in tone.” [U.S. Bishops Struggle to Follow Lead of Francis, Laurie Goodstein, The New York Times, 11th Nov 2014]

“There is no bishop who is standing up and being the real leader of a Francis faction . . . They grew up in conservative families, went to conservative seminaries and have been told not to talk to theologians who are creative because they’ve been labeled heretical. Now Francis is saying let’s go in a different direction and let’s have a discussion. The last two pontificates, there was no room for discussion, and this makes them nervous and confused.”

If in the church – an enterprise supposedly for good – change is not a given, what more of PHL where there is so much distrust? And how does the brain work? The scandals in the Church run the gamut, you name it. And the scandals in PHL run the gamut.

“Research on the brain is surging. The United States and the European Union have launched new programs to better understand the brain. Scientists are mapping parts of mouse, fly and human brains at different levels of magnification. Technology for recording brain activity has been improving at a revolutionary pace . . . Yet the growing body of data — maps, atlases and so-called connectomes that show linkages between cells and regions of the brain — represents a paradox of progress, with the advances also highlighting great gaps in understanding.” [Learning How Little We Know About the Brain, James Gorman, The New York Times, 10th Nov 2014]

In other words, efforts to understand the brain have yielded little. That means there will continue to be winners and losers. And in the case of PHL, can we be a developed economy in 36 years [or by 2050] if countries like “Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia, Serbia and others . . . might take . . . 50 or 60 years — longer than they were under communism! — to go back to the income levels they had at the fall of communism”?

I’ve lived and worked with Eastern Europeans for most of the last 11 years and outside the group of people I’m involved with, my sense is [what my friends call] “the mentality” hasn’t really changed. And what would explain that in our limited group, which can be likened to an “experimental group,” people are leaving “the mentality” behind?

[But why in PHL we are where we are 28 years after People Power?]

My Eastern European friends resemble an experimental group because they categorically made the choice to traverse a totally different path. And so there is no distrust within the organization and among the people. And those who cannot embrace its vision and its ways have gone.

“After the years of disjointed neediness, the iron was beginning to enter her soul and she was capable of that completely justified assertion of her own dignity. You might say that this moment was [George] Eliot’s agency moment, the moment when she stopped being blown about by her voids and weaknesses and began to live according to her inner criteria, gradually developing a passionate and steady capacity to initiate action and drive her own life.” [The agency moment, David Brooks, The New York Times, 14th Nov 2014]

“So many people are struggling for agency. They are searching for the solid criteria that will help make their own judgments. They are hoping to light an inner fire that will fuel relentless action in the same direction . . . Agency is not automatic. It has to be given birth to, with pushing and effort. It’s not just the confidence and drive to act. It’s having engraved inner criteria to guide action. The agency moment can happen at any age, or never.”

If agency is not a given for individuals indeed it’s a much greater challenge for economies, peoples and nations. And that’s probably why in public administration, the idealists would make reference to MNCs for their ability to transcend borders, markets and cultures . . . and thrive. Of course, our ideologues want to think of MNCs as strictly Western. Yet we want to talk about the decline of the West, the Asian Tigers [and the Samsungs of the world] having given them a run for their money. Still, we take it for granted because our success model is that of an oligopoly. And so we value plutocracy . . . and political patronage . . . and crony capitalism . . . a vicious circle that we won’t shake off until we attain our own agency moment?

“Paki” system equates to rebid

Does that sound right or does it explain why the government’s PPP initiative – aka PHL infrastructure development that has been mired in rebids and controversies – leaves much to be desired? Justified or not, the preponderance of evidence especially to foreign investors translates to the issue of PHL chronic inefficiency, at best, or shady and fraudulent governance, at worst? But in our culture, compromise is a given? In other words, a compassionate culture must have a wide safety net? And how do we explain our culture of impunity? Did our “paki” system open Pandora’s Box?

Whether the accused or the accuser is errant or not, our top 3 officials – the president, the vice-president, the senate president – are all embroiled in the one common issue of transparency! And to make things truly opaque, beyond the “paki” system we throw in crab mentality to boot? Indeed, self-governance is beyond us?

The evidence: we get the least foreign direct investments. Because the global community is well aware that we are community-sense challenged and where personality trumps policy and why PHL is a “badly engineered” enterprise? That we have yet to emerge from the dark ages? How many contracts with foreign entities have we unilaterally cancelled – because we simply wanted the government to save money? But credibility is not on our side – given the Marcos loot and the two other presidents that made it to the list of world’s most corrupt leaders, and more recently the Napoles case that saw three senators incarcerated?

Did we not wonder when Vietnam and more recently Myanmar attracted more FDI? But then again, we are simply protecting our own? How out of sync are we with the rest of the world? Sadly, we like to invoke the high road because we have always been guided by our faith? That the West, if not the rest of the world, doesn’t get it?

Of course we’re a proud people. I also see that in my Eastern European friends. Over the last 11 years they have felt their egos crushed numerous times because they have a mind of their own. Yet they wanted an outsider to be around to tell them whenever they simply don’t get it. “We’re new to free enterprise, we need a mirror to give us a dose of reality.” Still they’re human, they have egos that are deflated whenever they realized they simply misread something.

In the case of PHL we don't like a mirror – because our elite class and plutocracy rule the nation and from their vantage point we believe we know best? But is that why we've been running away from competition that is fair and square? The evidence: we’ve invoked “Filipino first” to shut competition out? Of course we have created a few billionaires that can now buy brands and businesses overseas. But they grew up in a business environment that was protected? And during the period when our billionaires were gaining ground, our neighbors were zooming pass PHL?

How? In the same manner that Vietnam and Myanmar have shown us, the Asian Tigers seized Western investment and technology. And not surprisingly, both Lee Kuan Yew and Mohamad Mahathir lectured us to follow suit even when none of us liked to embrace Western culture. Early on Deng Xiaoping had sought their advice and not long after Deng himself pursued Western investment and technology.

In the process a Singaporean scholar concluded that the Asian Tigers have in fact traversed the trail blazed by the Europeans that started with the Age of Enlightenment. And which our own Jose Rizal espoused.

What is the point? Juan de la Cruz continues to struggle with these two elements that have played havoc in PHL human development: our “paki” system, which has undermined character-building as evidenced by our culture of impunity; and our inward-looking bias, which has turned us into a virtual turtle that sees retreating into our shell as a positive trait – even as the rest of the world has left us behind?

The evidence: “The Philippines recorded a trade deficit (with) most of the Asean countries. The Philippines’ role in internal Asean production sharing is very much limited. Due to the underdevelopment of basic industries materials and industrial machinery, the Philippines imports commodities, base materials and automobile parts and components from other Asean countries,” [Park Bun Soon, a professor at the Hongik University in South Korea] explained in his paper. The Philippines . . . was one of the lowest recipient countries of foreign direct investments among Asean members. Such investments were considered almost negligible compared to what the Philippines’ neighbors were receiving. Last year, FDI inflow in the country was the lowest in the region at $3.86 billion.” [PH performance ranked ‘poor’ in Asean region, Amy R. Remo, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6th Nov 2014]

The best minds . . .

Bring a pot of gold? “[IBM chairwoman and CEO Ginni Rometty] on Monday dropped her profit target of $20 a share for next year and abandoned the five-year profit targets . . . First introduced in 2007, the five-year ‘road map’ was a key factor in Mr. Buffett’s decision to invest in the company, prompting him to say that he did not know of ‘any large company that really has been as specific on what they intend to do and how they intend to do it as IBM.’ ” [IBM shares tumble as profits and sales fall, Financial Times, 20th Oct 2014]

“The road map is dead, which is a good thing . . . They’ve got to remake the company. It’s a multiyear effort, there’s still a lot of pain to get through . . . Only about a third of the company’s revenues come from growing parts of the tech market, with the rest stemming from older technologies that are facing contraction . . .”

But IBM’s got the best minds in the private sector? “International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) amassed more U.S. patents than any other company for the 21st straight year, helped by its push into big-data services, which glean insights by mining large quantities of information.”[Alex Barinka, Bloomberg, 14th Jan 2014] “IBM’s 6,809 patents in 2013 scored an annual record, the company said today in a statement. With inventors from 41 countries, more than 31 percent of the patents came from overseas. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and Tokyo-based Canon Inc. (7751) ranked second and third. While computer-related patents can take almost three years to process, the annual list shows where companies are seeking growth opportunities.”

Another American iconic brand, GM, doesn’t seem to be doing better: “Recalled GM cars remain unrepaired,” The New York Times, 3rd Nov 2014. Disclosure: In my old MNC company we had a technology center whose campus would embarrass the biggest PHL universities – well-manicured and all – and where we had a helipad to ferry folks to and from our Midtown Manhattan headquarters. We had PhDs across every science directly/indirectly related to the business and we had hundreds of them. Yet we still partnered with the best universities and entrepreneurial R&D labs. In a globalized world, to be inward-looking is the kiss of death?

I was relating this to my Eastern European friends while we were in New York recently and wanting to tap into the US science and technology community – and we did – as a way forward following a string of product development sessions. “Born in New York,” was how we labeled our efforts, only to find out that Tiffany’s shortly after would advertise the exact tagline. It’s a free country!

All the foregoing came to mind as I read: “Phl Economic Society holds 52nd annual meet,” The Philippine Star, 9th Nov 2014. “The Philippine Economic Society (PES) will gather the country’s top economic policymakers, market leaders, the academe, civil society and students to discuss and debate the theme ‘Forging Ahead: The Philippines as a Developed Economy in 2050’ . . . The theme addresses the forecasts of financial institutions such as HSBC and Goldman Sachs, which included the Philippines in their list of ‘new emergers’ and projected the Philippines rise to become one of the largest economies in the world in the next few decades . . . In addition to the plenary presentations, over 40 research papers will be read in 15 parallel sessions . . .”

And the last line reminded me of the then PhD candidate that I mentored [and she confidently hurdled her dissertation defense where I was proudly present] and we read through tons of research papers remotely from wherever either of us was courtesy of the digital world. “We’re doing this not only to see you earn your PhD but to see you succeed in your real-world efforts.” She didn’t disappoint. She moved from an MNC subsidiary to a headquarters global project and then was appointed regional manager covering several countries.

And what are we reading in PHL media? “Congress demands updated energy dev’t plan,” Myrna Velasco, Manila Bulletin, 8th Nov 2014.“Investors and array of stakeholders have been batting for a ‘more concrete energy plan’ that must be laid down by the department so they can also be guided forward on how to time their planned projects . . . The 2012-2030 PEP is not only outdated, but even the policy directions and investment terrains are not as coherent.”

And there’s more: “Phl growth seen threatened by impending power crisis,” Iris C. Gonzales, The Philippine Star, 6th Nov 2014. “The solid pace of the country’s economic growth is at risk from the critical energy supply, a global energy expert said in a forum organized by the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines . . . The Philippines....it is going to be the powerhouse in Southeast Asia but high growth makes energy supply a problem, said Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer awardee during the AmCham forum titled, ‘Quest for Energy Security: Perspectives for 2030 and Beyond – A Focus on the Asean Region.’ ”

And from the Europeans: “ADVICE FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION: Trade facilitation, customs modernization drive trade and growth,” The Manila Times, 6th Nov 2014. “The benefits of trade facilitation are enormous and might even be more important than a further reduction of import tariffs! For example, revenue loss from inefficient border procedures is estimate to be above 5% of GDP in some countries. Implementing the trade facilitation agreement that was agreed to in Bali last year would support trade in goods by improving transparency, streamlining customs procedures and eliminating red tape. Some studies (Peterson Institute) estimate the benefits to global GDP of such an agreement to be as high as US$ 960 billion. The OECD in its turn estimated that trade cost reductions from the Agreement would be over 15% for lower middle income countries like the Philippines. These benefits would come from measures related to documentation, automation and information availability as well as other simplifications.”

Aren’t these very serious indictments of Juan de la Cruz? If we can miss the simple, how do we do the complex? For example, beyond strategic planning which we seem to embrace is the imperative of problem solving and execution. And problem solving starts with problem-definition. And the science of the mind says we can't be spot on in our problem-definition if we carry our biases to our problem-solving. [Recall how ideologues brought gridlock to Washington.]

Problem solving is undermined when we defer to sacred cows, for instance, because it limits the reach of the brain. The evidence: PHL ranks poorly in innovation and creativity. Even design thinking in today's age of innovation is about problem solving. And the design school at Stanford demonstrates that. And their starting point is to assemble a cross-discipline group, which goes back to the egalitarian principle of openness, transparency and diversity. But we Pinoys like to talk among ourselves especially the elite class and plutocracy? Have we in fact subordinated the values of freedom and democracy to our culture of impunity?

And are we more likely to get it wrong from the get-go because the first imperative in defining a problem is to empathize with those facing a problem or a need? And understandably those in the elite class will define a problem from their perspective? For example, to empathize with a housewife is to feel for her and her needs (for user-friendly products for the home.) And if we translate that to the challenge of poverty, defining the problem – or to empathize with the poor – is not about giving alms. It is about rapidly developing a functioning and growing economy – given our per capita economic output is that of a poor impoverished nation. And thus alms-giving is unsustainable as we’ve witnessed with CCT – and is in fact patronizing and reinforcing of subservience and hierarchy.

It is also not about capping the returns on capital and spreading them to income earners. [If we trace the dynamics of investment, it has a far greater multiplier effect than consumption, and so capital – which is risk-taking, by definition – generates greater returns.] That may apply to Wall Street where because of greed – expressed in financial products designed to be opaque as opposed to transparent – the global economy imploded. While in the case of PHL, we simply shot ourselves in the foot, stunted economic development by deferring to our cacique masters. While Singapore, Malaysia and Deng Xiaoping solicited and embraced “Western money and technology.” In a globalized world, to be inward-looking is the kiss of death?

We can assemble our best minds but if we keep taking problem-definition for granted we will be prescribing cures to a misdiagnosed disease? See IBM and GM above.