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Trinidadian miracle?
Peter Espeut
IN 1998, BEFORE it was bought by Trinidad Cement Ltd. (TCL), Jamaica's cement company (Carib Cement) lost J$1.8 billion - an average loss of J$34.6 million each week. The Group CEO of TCL told me last Sunday that one month after they took it over, it started to turn a profit for them. What is going on here? Are the Trinidadians miracle workers? Or is something wrong with us?
Dr. Rollin Bertrand, CEO of the TCL Group and an old friend, was very clear: there was a disjoint between the structure of the company and its performance - management-speak for living beyond one's means. He tells the shocking story of visiting the luxurious corporate offices of the Carib Cement Company to discuss the takeover - at the time when it was losing J$34.6 million each week - to be greeted by a liveried butler, asking him what he wanted to drink from the well-stocked bar! The first thing he did, Rollin says, when his company acquired Carib Cement, was to move out of the plush New Kingston Corporate Office and relocate to the Rockfort plant. The company was living beyond its means!
Rollin was always outspoken and he has not changed. He pulls no punches, and does not mind being quoted. He believes that Jamaican executives pay themselves too much and their workers too little.
"The Jamaican corporate world needs to reflect on the compensation packages they pay themselves. Salaries are too high, and are not related to performance. The prosperity is an illusion. You can't continue to have a disjunct between salary and benefits on the one hand and performance on the other". He thinks that the Jamaican business community needs a "reality check".
This attitude to conspicuous consumption was not invented by the present members of the private sector. I reminded him that in England in the eighteenth century you could know who the Jamaican planters were: they were the ones driving around in the fanciest carriages and living in the stateliest homes in London and Bristol and Manchester and Liverpool. Instead of staying in Jamaica and managing their sugar estates, they left their businesses in the hands of attorneys (who often mismanaged and robbed) and lived abroad. It was that kind of high living that ultimately (with other factors) led to the downfall of the Jamaican sugar industry. Today's private sector owners and managers are cut from the same mould.
The fat-salary scandal in the Jamaican public sector is related to this. Public sector managers believe that their salaries, benefits and perks must match those in the private sector, when private sector salaries are much too high to begin with! Public sector managers have the same ethic of ostentation - with a vengeance!
There is a book that Rollin has given to all his managers: "Why Jamaicans won't work in Jamaica" by Ken Carter. I have never read it, but Rollin believes it is an important book for managers in Jamaica. Carter's analysis - as Rollin tells it - sounds a lot like my own views which I regularly espouse in this column. The average Jamaican worker is fed up with the corporate culture here. Management shows little respect for workers; they pay them little, yet expect them to produce; while the managers pay themselves big fat salaries, drive fancy company cars and have big car wash allowances, and have a long list of their personal expenses paid by the company. The workers see the disparity and are bitter, and don't give their all to the business.
Anyone who has been to oil-rich Trinidad, sees the opposite in the first half-an-hour after leaving the airport. Where are the Volvos and the Mercedes Benzs? Where are the equivalents of Norbrook and Barbican and Beverly Hills? The Trinidadian upper class is not as flashy as their Jamaican counterparts because the culture is different, because they have different personal values; so they pay themselves less and their businesses are more profitable because of it; and their workers are not as resentful; and they are beating the pants off of us in terms of competition!
Rollin reminded me that there was a time in Trinidad (recently) when business had it hard, a time of "austerity", he said. And Trinidadian business leaders made sure to demonstrate to their workers and to the society that they were suffering austerity too - how they travelled (economy class) and where they stayed. And their economy recovered.
How different is our present time of austerity! How is it that so many leaders of Jamaica's failed financial sector are able to live well overseas when their empires are in rack and ruin?
Trinidad definitely has a different business culture to Jamaica. Rollin is busily engaged in succession planning, rotating the top managers of his Jamaican and Trinidadian plants to increase their experience in the workings of the TCL Group. I wonder if a Jamaican manager would do that? It seems to me that Jamaican managers (and political leaders) so fear for their jobs that they stifle anyone who could possibly step into their shoes.
There is a lot wrong with our politics here in Jamaica, and we must not fail to point it out and work for improvement; but there is also a lot wrong with how the Jamaican private sector does business here, and how they relate to their workers. The Jamaican private sector needs to be challenged to make a fundamental change in their own work ethic and level of emoluments, as hard a task as getting this present crop of politicians to make a break with electoral fraud and corruption. Of course, the two are related.
The Trinidadian companies who have moved into Jamaica and make profits with failed Jamaican businesses: are they working miracles? No, I don't think so. They are just being good, modest, frugal businessmen. I wonder if the Jamaican corporate world is learning anything from them?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
Trinidadian miracle?
Peter Espeut
IN 1998, BEFORE it was bought by Trinidad Cement Ltd. (TCL), Jamaica's cement company (Carib Cement) lost J$1.8 billion - an average loss of J$34.6 million each week. The Group CEO of TCL told me last Sunday that one month after they took it over, it started to turn a profit for them. What is going on here? Are the Trinidadians miracle workers? Or is something wrong with us?
Dr. Rollin Bertrand, CEO of the TCL Group and an old friend, was very clear: there was a disjoint between the structure of the company and its performance - management-speak for living beyond one's means. He tells the shocking story of visiting the luxurious corporate offices of the Carib Cement Company to discuss the takeover - at the time when it was losing J$34.6 million each week - to be greeted by a liveried butler, asking him what he wanted to drink from the well-stocked bar! The first thing he did, Rollin says, when his company acquired Carib Cement, was to move out of the plush New Kingston Corporate Office and relocate to the Rockfort plant. The company was living beyond its means!
Rollin was always outspoken and he has not changed. He pulls no punches, and does not mind being quoted. He believes that Jamaican executives pay themselves too much and their workers too little.
"The Jamaican corporate world needs to reflect on the compensation packages they pay themselves. Salaries are too high, and are not related to performance. The prosperity is an illusion. You can't continue to have a disjunct between salary and benefits on the one hand and performance on the other". He thinks that the Jamaican business community needs a "reality check".
This attitude to conspicuous consumption was not invented by the present members of the private sector. I reminded him that in England in the eighteenth century you could know who the Jamaican planters were: they were the ones driving around in the fanciest carriages and living in the stateliest homes in London and Bristol and Manchester and Liverpool. Instead of staying in Jamaica and managing their sugar estates, they left their businesses in the hands of attorneys (who often mismanaged and robbed) and lived abroad. It was that kind of high living that ultimately (with other factors) led to the downfall of the Jamaican sugar industry. Today's private sector owners and managers are cut from the same mould.
The fat-salary scandal in the Jamaican public sector is related to this. Public sector managers believe that their salaries, benefits and perks must match those in the private sector, when private sector salaries are much too high to begin with! Public sector managers have the same ethic of ostentation - with a vengeance!
There is a book that Rollin has given to all his managers: "Why Jamaicans won't work in Jamaica" by Ken Carter. I have never read it, but Rollin believes it is an important book for managers in Jamaica. Carter's analysis - as Rollin tells it - sounds a lot like my own views which I regularly espouse in this column. The average Jamaican worker is fed up with the corporate culture here. Management shows little respect for workers; they pay them little, yet expect them to produce; while the managers pay themselves big fat salaries, drive fancy company cars and have big car wash allowances, and have a long list of their personal expenses paid by the company. The workers see the disparity and are bitter, and don't give their all to the business.
Anyone who has been to oil-rich Trinidad, sees the opposite in the first half-an-hour after leaving the airport. Where are the Volvos and the Mercedes Benzs? Where are the equivalents of Norbrook and Barbican and Beverly Hills? The Trinidadian upper class is not as flashy as their Jamaican counterparts because the culture is different, because they have different personal values; so they pay themselves less and their businesses are more profitable because of it; and their workers are not as resentful; and they are beating the pants off of us in terms of competition!
Rollin reminded me that there was a time in Trinidad (recently) when business had it hard, a time of "austerity", he said. And Trinidadian business leaders made sure to demonstrate to their workers and to the society that they were suffering austerity too - how they travelled (economy class) and where they stayed. And their economy recovered.
How different is our present time of austerity! How is it that so many leaders of Jamaica's failed financial sector are able to live well overseas when their empires are in rack and ruin?
Trinidad definitely has a different business culture to Jamaica. Rollin is busily engaged in succession planning, rotating the top managers of his Jamaican and Trinidadian plants to increase their experience in the workings of the TCL Group. I wonder if a Jamaican manager would do that? It seems to me that Jamaican managers (and political leaders) so fear for their jobs that they stifle anyone who could possibly step into their shoes.
There is a lot wrong with our politics here in Jamaica, and we must not fail to point it out and work for improvement; but there is also a lot wrong with how the Jamaican private sector does business here, and how they relate to their workers. The Jamaican private sector needs to be challenged to make a fundamental change in their own work ethic and level of emoluments, as hard a task as getting this present crop of politicians to make a break with electoral fraud and corruption. Of course, the two are related.
The Trinidadian companies who have moved into Jamaica and make profits with failed Jamaican businesses: are they working miracles? No, I don't think so. They are just being good, modest, frugal businessmen. I wonder if the Jamaican corporate world is learning anything from them?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
Now that's a challenge akin to Cutting the Gordian Knot ... no .... maybe Cleaning the Augean Stables.
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