Looking to the future - and urgently

I was recently in discussions with Singapore government agencies about what to do to face the current and future challenges of global competitiveness. They are concerned about the country in the year 2025, and are looking even further ahead, to 2040. The country has made extraordinary progress in recent decades. Despite its limited territory, it has enviable levels of economic and social development. It has the best airport in the world and the most efficient port. 

But they are concerned. They are fully aware that if they want a better future, building it must start now. They know that the small and medium-sized enterprise sector, particularly in services, is not very efficient. So the country's strategy is to dramatically increase the productivity of these sectors in the coming years. 

Thus, government agencies linked to the so-called Ministry of Manpower, a technical university and an agency focused on the development of small and medium-sized enterprises are working cooperatively to bring new knowledge, methods and practices around lean management to the country's organizations. 

Seeing this and examining our own reality, the situation we live in causes us deep discomfort.

We are sailing aimlessly, with no concern for the future other than the next legal measure. And clearly the water level is reaching a point that already seriously threatens our future. In other words, we are sinking, with no alternative in sight.

This column has sought to suggest new management ideas, methods, techniques and practices to help improve companies, which would thus be able to offer better products and services to their customers, as well as train and engage their employees.

With this, they could create a more solid management system, capable of bringing better financial results from a greater ability to provide value to increasingly demanding customers. But in this inhospitable environment in which we live, this concern with improving more and more seems to be less relevant.

Our current agenda is taken up with very important issues, in some way linked to building a new future. It is certain that we will have to clean up many inappropriate practices and many mistakes that were made in the past. It may get much worse before it gets better. But clearly, we must recognize that those who should be setting the course for society are not fulfilling their role. This has not been done for years, and clearly there has been an enormous failure. And not even those who should have the responsibility of pointing out a new path seem to be fulfilling that role.

One of the pillars of lean management is the idea of continuous improvement. In the case of our country, even with the enormous effort made by several companies and organizations, even with relative success in many cases, the country as a whole has been going through a process of “continuous worsening”, clearly measurable by all the main economic and social indicators. And this in a global environment of growing challenges and greater competitive difficulties for all countries and companies.

Society is exhausted. Companies and organizations, the part of the country that produces wealth and pays taxes, are being wrecked by reckless and incompetent policies. We are tired of trying to work and produce. And of watching the shipwreck, of speaking out about it and seeing no substantial change take place.

The “country of the future”, which it always will be, as skeptics of our potential say, needs to come together as quickly as possible around new principles and concepts, since the old ideas and practices have failed.

But it will not be easy. The mistakes were many. And the lack of concern for the future in recent years now makes us pay the heavy bill.

The sooner we resolve the current imbroglio, the faster the process of rebuilding and creating a new and better future will begin. But we need to reflect seriously, learn from the mistakes made and start a new journey, cleaner and more efficient, very different from what we have done so far.

The economic recovery must come together with a moral recovery and a recovery of our self-esteem. The path will be arduous and long.