The panacea of 'Intrapreneurship'
Borneo Bulletin via NewsEdge : ** NOTE: TRUNCATED STORY **
The letter written by Kay H entitled "Time for Brunei to think out of the box" (published in the Borneo Bulletin on Nov 8, 2008) highlighted a serious concern for our national socio-economic situation which in the long term may be too late to reverse when oil and gas have eventually depleted.
Even now the world economic and financial meltdown and its attendant global panic and frightening effect on the real economy has pulled down the price of oil from the high of US$147 per barrel in July 2008 to now hovering at US$70 per barrel. Consequently, this dramatic fall (and global economic recession) has made the oil- producing countries so jittery for obvious reasons.
To the point, to "think out of the box" is in fact the specific domain of risk-taking business shouldered by entrepreneurs - the risk takers. "Thinking out of the box" is all about how to be ever vigilant, and flexible and nimble in anticipating (not reacting, because you will be dead then!) and dealing quickly, in time for the inherent threats and risks in business: from gestation to its birth, growth and survivality. For example, the current impending demise of the three old giant US car companies - GM, Ford and Chrysler - if the US government has the nerve and stomach to refuse financial injections or other related support, is a live example of survivality.
(But then a story goes like this: During a high-powered Strategy Business Meeting of a giant dog food company, almost every member of the Board of Directors agrees that: the price of the product is competitive; the distribution system is efficient; the marketing is penetrating into wider areas; and, the packaging is very acceptable. But then with a palpable desperation the chairman is demanding to know why then its sales have been falling since last year! One assistant research officer coyly dared to stand up and trembling said: "Sir, the reality is those dogs just do not like the food!")
The market reality is: most Americans don't love GM, Ford, Chrysler cars. They prefer mostly those Japanese cars.
Thus, intelligence and skills are different from market reality.
Reality is experience - the greatest teacher through sweat, blood and tears. Just like those soldiers who have had experienced war. The bureaucrats do not face and feel these risks.
Having been genuinely spurred by the market reality, those Japanese competitors fully utilise their intelligence, skills and fear of failure by not only "thinking out of the box" but also by "acting out of the box", to confront reality. They are not arrogant. They welcome and seek market input.
Dell computer soared to the top of the PC industry in the 1980s and 1990s. Now Dell has discovered it is going in the wrong direction. The ailing PC maker has abandoned two of its core principles: exclusively online sales, and owning its own factories....(Newsweek Oct 20, 2008). Dell computer has decisively "thought and acted out of the box" quickly.
Confronting reality forces the entrepreneurs to think out of the box to survive. "Confronting Reality" is a book authored by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan (2004), which meshes with the strategic action of "thinking out of the box" and "acting out of the box".
"Thinking" and "high sounding sloganeering" without "action" is just an illusion (a make-belief success). In risk taking business, this is a quick demise.
In the mercilessly competitive world of business, the essential confluence of basic traits and conditions such as intelligence, skills and creativity (innate or acquired) tempered with and galvanised by experience of threats and risks, profits and losses due to change is a constant phenomenon.
Flexibility and speed of decision and action, as well as the ever presence fear of failure, are all combined into a very powerful force that causes risk-taker-entrepreneurs to always be on 24/7 alert - anticipating, pre-empting and not reacting.
"Never think that fortune and misfortune are far from you forever" (Japanese proverb). Thus, flexibility and speed are essential. Being rigid or "boxed in" is suicidal. This powerful focused force constantly makes those entrepreneurs on the alert, because literally business is an ongoing battle. Defeat is not an option. They constantly peer far beyond their daily routine. A powerful 150-km range (with 360-degree vision) radar of anticipation is certainly far much better than one that can only detect over a distance of 50 kilometres (with 20-20 degree vision).
"One inch ahead is darkness" (Korean and Japanese proverb).
Thus, it is only too obvious that in a very competitive world of business you are not only habitually "thinking out of the box" but also simultaneously "acting out of the box". Again, not only out of the box, but a series of "boxes" of various sizes and shapes made of various types of materials!
Different degrees of seriousness, different complexities and intensities, different degrees of intractability. No uniformity, no linearity. You can see the first bounce, but the second bounce is unpredictable.
In business, once you get "boxed in", you will not only suffer visual and mental claustrophobia but eventually will suffocate. Thus, once you are "boxed in", you will be in the coffin.
According to John Hagel III in his book "Out Of The Box", one of the essential liberating factors for success is using, utilising the instantaneous and global power and convenience of the Internet or web services. This breaks beyond the borders, reaching wherever, whenever they are customers. The threats, risks and challenges are not only more intense but permanent.
On the other hand, John O Keeffe in his book, "Business Beyond The Box", asserts that in order to break far beyond "out of the box", your organisation must have the ability to innovate, rather than just be administrative; challenge the status quo, rather than accepting it; to look at what can be, rather than what is; and, to play with boundaries rather than just playing within the boundaries.
Kay H cited "China" as a good example of a nation and a race which has succeeded to "think and act out of the box". Their 5,000-year history is replete with all sorts of challenges and adversities. Thus, to them challenges always breed endless opportunities.
They constantly "act out of the box" far beyond their national boundaries. They are a modern super high-tech version of the legendary Admiral Zeng He, by making direct investments in many countries.
This "acting out of the box" has caught the attention of many such as: Ross Terrill who wrote a book entitled "The New Chinese Empire" (2003); Ted C Fishman who wrote a book entitled "China Inc - How The Rise Of The New Superpower Challenges America and The World" (2005); Oded Shenkar who wrote a book entitled "The Chinese Century"; and, Clyde Prestowitz who wrote a book about the collective rise of China and India in his book entitled, "Three Billion New Capitalists".
Even the UK magazine, "Economist", last year had featured China on its front cover under the headline "The Neocolonalist", referring to China's direct investments in Africa.
It is obvious that as a nation and a race, China economically and politically has succeeded tremendously not only to "think out of the box" but acted decisively to "act out of the box" by being a true capitalist openly in spite of being a communist-socialist country.
The Chinese bureaucrats themselves have this inborn nature of entrepreneurship. Thus, they fully understand and appreciate business. They appreciate, they have strong empathy with the pains and sufferings of their private sector, the innate dogged-driven risk-taking entrepreneurs, who created thousands of Chinese millionaires.
(Of course, there have been and are many negative aspects to China's rapid socio-economic transformation: corruption, fake goods, contaminated food and baby milk, as well as unsafe toys.)
It is obvious that their bureaucrats are like ducks in the water and fish in the river in their pro-supportiveness of businesses. To them, "no boxes" exist. To us, the entrepreneurs are the nemesis.
The question we must ask is why has Kay H taken the trouble to raise this intractable national issue in public (though it seems under a pseudonym)?
Could our anti-business bureaucrats radically change their mindset and be pro-business just like their Chinese counterparts?
Certainly our fixed salary anti-business bureaucrats do not have that feeling of fear of failure. And certainly they have not experienced nor will they ever be exposed to the reality of experiencing the sweat, blood and tears of keeping a business afloat in this turbulent world of business.
(Last week, there was a great shock: DBS had to start retrenching some of their senior officers. Not even an efficiently managed Singapore has been able to "escape" the global economic recession and financial turmoil.)
So how do we expect our bureaucrats to be automatically pro-business just like their stellar Chinese counterparts, let alone to emulate them?
Certainly over the years His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam has made several Titahs on the same issue. (One example is the Borneo Bulletin news item "Better deal for the people", which was published on Feb 23, 2007, where His Majesty's Titah focused on improving the Public Service and calling for private sector support.)
It appears that as a sequel to this Titah, the Management Service Department of the Prime Minister's Office then launched the "Program Mesra Pelanggan" on March 7, 2007. But then what has happened? Still in the 'box'?
Perhaps at this juncture, it is still relevant to refer to what we submitted to the Borneo Bulletin, which was published on March 24, 2007, under the headline "Of 'Little Napoleon' and galloping bankruptcies".
And on the opposite side of this restraining, anti-business, lacking empathy bureaucrats is a heart-rending story about the vital importance of having a flourishing private sector, which is the creator of employment opportunities, the economic saviour. (Opinion letter entitled "How Listening to Radio Save My Life", which was published in the Borneo Bulletin on September 6, 2008)
The heart-rending story was about the existence of a successful company that had "saved" an unemployed man from being ruined by a deep despair and shame of being unemployed. (Borneo Bulletin news item "Liberating experience of 'happily employed man'", which was published on September 13, 2008)
This is a very fortuitous and very good example of how a company (private sector) "saved" a family. There may be hundreds of similar happy ending cases nationwide.
This is a very good example where those bureaucrats with strong national empathy should "walk the talk", get out from their "bureaucratic box" to get input - the "market" reality.
Recently, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister's Office delivered a Sabda in which HRH said that the government would make it easy to do business. (Borneo Bulletin news item "Government to make it easy to do business in Brunei", which was published on Nov 12, 2008)
Perhaps we could surmise what Kay H had in mind through asking: Couldn't our bureaucrats be able (or don't they have the capacity) to "think out of the box" and "act out of the box"?
What has been puzzling the long-suffering private sector is: Why are our anti-business bureaucrats so "business-sadistic"?
It appears the answer to this grandeur hallucination of bureaucratic power of control is provided by Dr Noel Ticky of the University of Michigan Business School.
Dr Ticky made a strong remark about this bureaucratic anti-business affliction during a seminar on "Leadership" to mark the 20th Convocation of Universiti Brunei Darussalam October 20, 2008 at the Empire Hotel and Country Club. During his talk, he made this stunning remark - "Bureaucracy is a disease on human nature".
Our fear is: Would it be like the bird flu pandemic?
But then even though the bird flu pandemic had been said to have originated from China, the ever fascinating thing is that their bureaucrats are/were obviously free from this "disease on human nature".
One obvious socio-economic public policy management outcome from China's strong, deep pro-business "thinking" and "acting" outside the box has been that the Chinese bureaucrats are in fact proactive 'intrapreneurs' working hand-in-glove with their private sector risk-taking entrepreneurs.
Currently, Shanghai and Beijing are ranked 8th and 9th respectively in the 'World Best Cities To Do Business' list, according to the Nov-Dec 2008 issue of the bi-monthly journal, "Foreign Policy".
Before long, Shanghai and Beijing will overtake Hong Kong, once the English Language is widely used in China and the rule of law is properly respected.
Isn't this development a semblance of what we have been just keeping sloganeering all these years about our "PPP" (Public Private Partnership)? Perhaps it is apt here to adduce this statement made by Herb Rubensten and Tony Grundy in their book - "Breakthrough Inc - High growth strategies for entrepreneurial organisations" (1999) - in which they said:
"Business (regardless of their size), non-profit organisations/government (regardless of their mission or policy orientation) and educational institutions, including governments (regardless of their location or strengths), all must be run in accordance with the same basic, fundamental laws of commerce and use similar 'business' strategy tool.
"In fact, over the next ten years the distinction among for-profit, non-profit organisations and educational institutions (including governments ones) will be of little relevance to anyone but lawyers and tax agents..."
Now considering the current global panic and fears of widespread recession, this apparently prescient statement accurately reflects the panic and fear that have jolted Western leaders and their respective ministers.
** NOTE: This story has been truncated from its original size in order to facilitate transmission. If you need more information about this story, please contact NewsEdge at 1-973-422-0800 or support@acquiremedia.com. **
<
No comments:
Post a Comment