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Trust is a must
Jean Lowrie-Chin
Monday, October 29, 2007
AS Chris Zacca told us about intangible wealth, I looked around the room last Wednesday morning and felt quite rich. It wasn't because of the net worth of fellow members of the group - a substantial gathering - but because of the ideas, the vision, the intent that were being discussed in earnest. Prime Minister Bruce Golding gave us a significant quotation: "We want to create an environment that is not only business-friendly, but business hungry."
Jean Lowrie-Chin
His host, Michael Lee-Chin, sounded a positive note as he described the transformation of the National Commercial Bank from a forlorn entity overstaying its time on the auction block, to a profitable institution five years after he assumed majority ownership. Lee-Chin asked us to view the old bank as a microcosm of today's Jamaica - with low morale, bureaucratic and uncompetitive. He believes that with the same energetic focus on training, motivation and the adoption of best practices, Jamaica's economy should have no difficulty in getting on track for eight per cent growth.
It is a hard road - PM Golding gave us the sobering basics: 72% of the Jamaican workforce does not have a single high school qualification and 76% does not have a marketable skill. He wants to introduce compulsory schooling up to the age of 18, offering trade training as an option.
As Golding spoke about a cultural shift in our thinking so that certain careers can be destigmatised, I reflected on the comfortable living made by excellent small contractors. When we have those car and household issues, we hold in high esteem the expert wielders of spanners, wrenches and hammers. The PM said we should adopt the philosophy that a student should not leave high school until s/he has a skill. "This is a dream I want the country to buy into," he offered.
NCB Group Chief Patrick Hylton reinforced this by explaining that his organisation's transformation resulted from "focusing on people, seeing individuals for what they could become and helping them to achieve it".
PAYE deductions for the HEART Trust add up to $4 billion per year, the PM told us, suggesting that HEART training programmes should be linked to market intelligence, and that they should start training workers on the shop floor. This is long overdue and we taxpayers should be chiding ourselves for not being more vigilant about the destination of our hard-earned dollars.
Purveyors of hope: (from left)PM Bruce Golding, Patrick Hylton and Michael Lee-Chin
We listened with concern as Golding described the significant dysfunction in our households, children living in cramped conditions and weak partnership between parents and teachers.
Then he touched on the touchiest point of all, the social and cultural repositioning of labour and the reform of our antiquated labour market practices, bearing in mind that "we are one of a huge variety of choices that investors have".
Here is the hard part: Golding's vision of "arriving at consensus, driven by a determined purpose . respecting the rights of employers and workers, building a platform of harmony and productivity at the workplace". The prime minister wants an environment in which businesses can expect a labour force that is "stable and predictable". He wants us to find "a channel to resolve disputes without interrupting productivity".
This takes us back to the "T" word: Trust, referred to by Lee-Chin as a must for growth. At a Scotiabank-sponsored Women's Business Owners Workshop last Thursday, organisational development facilitator Andree Nembhard referred to a book by Dr Lawrence Powell titled Probing Jamaica's Political Culture, which exposed the lack of trust in various aspects of national life. Nembhard defines trust as "a positive assessment of another's sincerity, competence and reliability".
This is a tall order for a country with a short fuse. This short fuse links to our very limited "intangible wealth", the poor quality of life of the majority of our people. PSOJ President Chris Zacca referred to research conducted by the World Bank, which states: "Intangible capital encompasses raw labour; human capital, which includes the sum of the knowledge, skills, and know-how possessed by population; as well as the level of trust in a society and the quality of its formal and informal social institutions.
"'The most striking aspect of the wealth estimates is the high values for intangible capital.," it continues, "years of schooling and a rule-of-law index can account for 90 per cent of the variation in intangible capital. In other words, the more highly educated a country's people are and the more honest and fair its legal system is, the wealthier it is."
Zacca rightly observed that it was no wonder then, that a Jamaican who would find little interest in working here would energetically hold three jobs in America. It certainly is time for those who spend so much time diagnosing what's wrong with America to focus on what is far worse in Jamaica and work to fix it.
While America is dealing with the terrorism of bombs, we are dealing with the insidious terrorism of corruption. Increasingly, people who aspire to high performance and integrity are being actively blocked by intellectually challenged fraudsters who use the little intelligence they have only to filibuster honest endeavour. Unfortunately, this happens in some of the biggest private and public sector organisations where devious systems are set up to preserve a sad status quo.
I have met several talented, honest Jamaicans who have been victims of such chicanery, now living abroad and enjoying the fruits of "intangible wealth". Small business owners have interesting histories to share of proposals filched and copied, bullyism from insecure minions and big shots who refuse to pay even small bills.
The development of human capital must, therefore, not only involve tools and books, but a fraud-proof rule book that will protect the innocent from the scoundrels whether they exist in the boardroom, Parliament, the offices of the union or the private corporation, the civil service or the security forces. Only then can we sail forth on the good ship of trust and confidence.
lowriechin@aim.com
Jean Lowrie-Chin
Monday, October 29, 2007
AS Chris Zacca told us about intangible wealth, I looked around the room last Wednesday morning and felt quite rich. It wasn't because of the net worth of fellow members of the group - a substantial gathering - but because of the ideas, the vision, the intent that were being discussed in earnest. Prime Minister Bruce Golding gave us a significant quotation: "We want to create an environment that is not only business-friendly, but business hungry."
Jean Lowrie-Chin
His host, Michael Lee-Chin, sounded a positive note as he described the transformation of the National Commercial Bank from a forlorn entity overstaying its time on the auction block, to a profitable institution five years after he assumed majority ownership. Lee-Chin asked us to view the old bank as a microcosm of today's Jamaica - with low morale, bureaucratic and uncompetitive. He believes that with the same energetic focus on training, motivation and the adoption of best practices, Jamaica's economy should have no difficulty in getting on track for eight per cent growth.
It is a hard road - PM Golding gave us the sobering basics: 72% of the Jamaican workforce does not have a single high school qualification and 76% does not have a marketable skill. He wants to introduce compulsory schooling up to the age of 18, offering trade training as an option.
As Golding spoke about a cultural shift in our thinking so that certain careers can be destigmatised, I reflected on the comfortable living made by excellent small contractors. When we have those car and household issues, we hold in high esteem the expert wielders of spanners, wrenches and hammers. The PM said we should adopt the philosophy that a student should not leave high school until s/he has a skill. "This is a dream I want the country to buy into," he offered.
NCB Group Chief Patrick Hylton reinforced this by explaining that his organisation's transformation resulted from "focusing on people, seeing individuals for what they could become and helping them to achieve it".
PAYE deductions for the HEART Trust add up to $4 billion per year, the PM told us, suggesting that HEART training programmes should be linked to market intelligence, and that they should start training workers on the shop floor. This is long overdue and we taxpayers should be chiding ourselves for not being more vigilant about the destination of our hard-earned dollars.
Purveyors of hope: (from left)PM Bruce Golding, Patrick Hylton and Michael Lee-Chin
We listened with concern as Golding described the significant dysfunction in our households, children living in cramped conditions and weak partnership between parents and teachers.
Then he touched on the touchiest point of all, the social and cultural repositioning of labour and the reform of our antiquated labour market practices, bearing in mind that "we are one of a huge variety of choices that investors have".
Here is the hard part: Golding's vision of "arriving at consensus, driven by a determined purpose . respecting the rights of employers and workers, building a platform of harmony and productivity at the workplace". The prime minister wants an environment in which businesses can expect a labour force that is "stable and predictable". He wants us to find "a channel to resolve disputes without interrupting productivity".
This takes us back to the "T" word: Trust, referred to by Lee-Chin as a must for growth. At a Scotiabank-sponsored Women's Business Owners Workshop last Thursday, organisational development facilitator Andree Nembhard referred to a book by Dr Lawrence Powell titled Probing Jamaica's Political Culture, which exposed the lack of trust in various aspects of national life. Nembhard defines trust as "a positive assessment of another's sincerity, competence and reliability".
This is a tall order for a country with a short fuse. This short fuse links to our very limited "intangible wealth", the poor quality of life of the majority of our people. PSOJ President Chris Zacca referred to research conducted by the World Bank, which states: "Intangible capital encompasses raw labour; human capital, which includes the sum of the knowledge, skills, and know-how possessed by population; as well as the level of trust in a society and the quality of its formal and informal social institutions.
"'The most striking aspect of the wealth estimates is the high values for intangible capital.," it continues, "years of schooling and a rule-of-law index can account for 90 per cent of the variation in intangible capital. In other words, the more highly educated a country's people are and the more honest and fair its legal system is, the wealthier it is."
Zacca rightly observed that it was no wonder then, that a Jamaican who would find little interest in working here would energetically hold three jobs in America. It certainly is time for those who spend so much time diagnosing what's wrong with America to focus on what is far worse in Jamaica and work to fix it.
While America is dealing with the terrorism of bombs, we are dealing with the insidious terrorism of corruption. Increasingly, people who aspire to high performance and integrity are being actively blocked by intellectually challenged fraudsters who use the little intelligence they have only to filibuster honest endeavour. Unfortunately, this happens in some of the biggest private and public sector organisations where devious systems are set up to preserve a sad status quo.
I have met several talented, honest Jamaicans who have been victims of such chicanery, now living abroad and enjoying the fruits of "intangible wealth". Small business owners have interesting histories to share of proposals filched and copied, bullyism from insecure minions and big shots who refuse to pay even small bills.
The development of human capital must, therefore, not only involve tools and books, but a fraud-proof rule book that will protect the innocent from the scoundrels whether they exist in the boardroom, Parliament, the offices of the union or the private corporation, the civil service or the security forces. Only then can we sail forth on the good ship of trust and confidence.
lowriechin@aim.com