“The Evolving Bargain”
By Willis Emmons
Harvard Business School Press, 2002
There is public ambivalence about industry deregulation and privatization. On the positive side, people welcome that they can gas up in many more gas stations sporting names beyond Petron, Caltex and Shell. They have a choice among Globe, Smart, PLDT, Bayantel, Islacom, Digitel and Eastern Telecoms for mobile and landline communications.
However, they are disappointed that water rates are rising, even adter privatizing the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System – giving birth to Manila Water of Ayala and Maynilad of the Lopez Group. Of course, they fail to note that water supply has greatly improved in many areas. Labor and transport sectors complain that prices of petroleum products keep rising, inspite of deregulation. But, they gloss over the fact that production cutbacks by oil producers worldwide push these prices up.
Policy makers cannot make up their minds about the wisdom of privatizing stateowned National Power Corporation. Is it safe to unbundled such a monolith into small privately owned power companies? Consumers want to know: Will it result in lower power rates and stable supply of electricity? While the debate rages on the purchased power adjustment (PPA), the fate of privatizing Napocor hangs.
The issue and concerns regarding deregulation and privatization have been confined to so called experts – or newly converted specialists after a month of training. The rest of us are expected to take their word for it, because we don’t know any better.
Take heart. There is a book to make you literate (at least) about these buzz words – “The Evolving Bargain.” Sub-titled “Strategic Implications of Deregulation and Privatization,” the author has decided, first, to set you on a higher mood as he takes you on a world tour where governments are deregulating industries and state firms are handed over to private hands.
A witty quote on privatization from a cartoon in the New Yorker does the job: “In a move secure to attract the attention of regulators, the private sector made a bid to acquire the public sector!”
This was prefaced by the author’s observation that “everything heretofore state-owned or regulated us now for sale – from postal systems (the Netherlands) to social security systems (Chile) to stock exchanges (the United States),"
Like the scholar that he is, Emmons made a distinction between two terms that sometimes are lumped together. “Deregulation,” he points out, “refers to an increasing reliance on markets, not governments, to guide economic activity…Privatization refers to an increasing reliance on private firms, not government enterprises, for the provision of goods and services.”
Think of the dynamism that took over the telecommunications industry after it was deregulated, and these points will aptly describe “easing or eliminating” of government restrictions in three major areas: a firms freedom of entry into a market, its freedom of action within a market, and its profitability (maximum or minimum) within a market.
But, why the disillusionment on what is supposed to be a shot in the arm for economy? The book addresses this with three “paradoxes”. In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires rising budgets, expanding manpower and increasing rules. That must also be the case for the Philippines’ telecommunications sector, with the National Telecommunications Commission becoming more active than in the past when PLDT rules the roost.
The second paradox states that free markets in a deregulated environment are actually possible government requires “mandatory access” to critical infrastructure. This would happen when Napocor’s transmission grid, serving as a power superhighway, is required to open itself to independent power producers. This was also the case of PLDT when it was required to share its gateway to the new entrants.
The third paradox is that deregulation does not necessarily mean greated competition. The author cites the case of the U.S. airline industry, deregulated in the seventies. In the nineties, the industry was still concentrated in the hands of a small number of players.” Observers of the Philippine economy say that this is also true for the oil industry still controlled by the “Big Three,” inspite of the entry of new players.
The book is a slow read, not because it uses convoluted language, but because the subject itself requires time for analysis and the instinctive impulse to relate successful and failed efforts in various countries to our own national experience. You come away understanding what has been happening to our own liberalization efforts, noting uncanny similarities in other economies.
Whether you are a policy maker, an industry observer, a leader of an employers’ group or a labor leader – you will find this book giving you an informed perspective of a movement in economies that seems inexorable. In short, we might as well be familiar with the “wave of the future.” We might as well swim, not sink.
Sunday, May 26, 2002
Sunday, May 05, 2002
Resonant leadership touches the heart first
“Primal Leadership”
Daniel Golman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee
Harvard Business School Press, 2002
When popularity ratings of leaders (including Presidents) fall, analysts focus on issues they failed to address – the economy, unemployment, peace and order and wrangling political factions.
Inspite of so much analysis, these political observers don’t go to the heart of the problem — which (pardon the pun) is the collective heart of the Filipino. This should be more than an emotional appeal on television, for example, that only succeeds in stimulating our lachrymal glands.
According to this book, this certainly is not a leader who is “clueless” — “who try to resonate in a positive tone, but who is actually out of touch and out of tune.” The book, “Primal Leadership,” makes important and eye-opening distinctions: There are resonant and dissonant leaders.
Emotions can, of course, be manipulated. The book describes leadership situations that are uncannily familiar to us.
In a boxed item on “demagogues,” the book’s description is close to home:
“Demagogues elicit negative emotions, particularly a mix of fear and anger: the threat to ‘us’ from ‘them,’ and the dread that ‘they’ will take what ‘we’ have.”
The book continues: “Their message polarizes people rather than unites them in a common cause. They “fan the flames” of ethnic hatred or a class war.
So, what is resonant leadership? This is one which is “attuned to people’s feelings and move them in a positive emotional direction,” the book points out.
Thus, a resonant leader is he who, “speaking authentically from his own values and resonating with the emotions of those around him, hits just the right chords with his message.” When a leader triggers resonance, you can read it in people’s eyes: They are engaged and they light up.”
You ask: Did a President’s “Ina ng Bayan” series trigger resonance? Did it so touch people’s hearts that they now say: Let’s follow our leader!
But, there must be some dissonance somewhere. Is there a gap between what is said and what is preached? These questions are actually meant to bring the President’s handlers closer to evaluating the campaign accurately so that a program of projecting the President truly delivers the authentic person in her. And thus “connect” with the people.
The book, based on leadership and organizational studies, suggests a way in evaluating one’s leadership style — and then go for the needed change. The authors prescribe the “five discoveries.”
The book could just have titled the process simply, but it has chosen to use “discovery” — for a reason. The introspecting leader goes through the process of “discovering or re-discovering” himself. Such “discoveries” cover the leader’s “ideal self,” then his “real self,” followed by his “learning agenda” and subsequent “experimentations on new behaviors and thoughts” – and finally, developing supporting and trusting relationships.
These may sound simple enough, but the authors have scientific discoveries, case studies and a successful track record with CEOs to make you believe them. There was this CEO, a hotshot in R & D as scientist, who was promoted to his “level of incompetence (according to time-tested Peter Principle) as R & D division head. His new job required from him leadership qualities, not technical expertise, that he was not prepared for. He failed initially. Until he went through the journey of five discoveries.
Many books have discussed this many times enough, but did not identify what these leaders lack except to generalize that they are not meant to be managers or leaders. It turns out — that all they need is to develop “resonant leadership” – one that touches the heart of people, and then the mind. Understandably, the authors believe that “leaders are made, not born.” That “nurture” can alter “nature.”
This is not your usual motivational book on leadership. It has scientific moorings, including a “neuroanatomy of leadership.” The authors go somehow technical when they discuss parts of the brain that respond to resonant leaders. This is a slow analytical read when you reach this part.
Leadership styles go by various names and titles depending on theories being advanced. Early on, we were taught about Theory X and Theory Y, the latter being the more enlightened approach. Parallel to this is the debate between what style is effective – one of a task master or a “process person.” These have been sufficient to persuade us to go for Theory Y or for the process.
Until this book came. This well-thought out study, coming from a school that has been producing hot shot MBAs that run “Corporate America,” brings you inside the brain – and there discover that the key to inspiring people in organizations, in armies or an entire country is lodged in the human heart.
Daniel Golman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee
Harvard Business School Press, 2002
When popularity ratings of leaders (including Presidents) fall, analysts focus on issues they failed to address – the economy, unemployment, peace and order and wrangling political factions.
Inspite of so much analysis, these political observers don’t go to the heart of the problem — which (pardon the pun) is the collective heart of the Filipino. This should be more than an emotional appeal on television, for example, that only succeeds in stimulating our lachrymal glands.
According to this book, this certainly is not a leader who is “clueless” — “who try to resonate in a positive tone, but who is actually out of touch and out of tune.” The book, “Primal Leadership,” makes important and eye-opening distinctions: There are resonant and dissonant leaders.
Emotions can, of course, be manipulated. The book describes leadership situations that are uncannily familiar to us.
In a boxed item on “demagogues,” the book’s description is close to home:
“Demagogues elicit negative emotions, particularly a mix of fear and anger: the threat to ‘us’ from ‘them,’ and the dread that ‘they’ will take what ‘we’ have.”
The book continues: “Their message polarizes people rather than unites them in a common cause. They “fan the flames” of ethnic hatred or a class war.
So, what is resonant leadership? This is one which is “attuned to people’s feelings and move them in a positive emotional direction,” the book points out.
Thus, a resonant leader is he who, “speaking authentically from his own values and resonating with the emotions of those around him, hits just the right chords with his message.” When a leader triggers resonance, you can read it in people’s eyes: They are engaged and they light up.”
You ask: Did a President’s “Ina ng Bayan” series trigger resonance? Did it so touch people’s hearts that they now say: Let’s follow our leader!
But, there must be some dissonance somewhere. Is there a gap between what is said and what is preached? These questions are actually meant to bring the President’s handlers closer to evaluating the campaign accurately so that a program of projecting the President truly delivers the authentic person in her. And thus “connect” with the people.
The book, based on leadership and organizational studies, suggests a way in evaluating one’s leadership style — and then go for the needed change. The authors prescribe the “five discoveries.”
The book could just have titled the process simply, but it has chosen to use “discovery” — for a reason. The introspecting leader goes through the process of “discovering or re-discovering” himself. Such “discoveries” cover the leader’s “ideal self,” then his “real self,” followed by his “learning agenda” and subsequent “experimentations on new behaviors and thoughts” – and finally, developing supporting and trusting relationships.
These may sound simple enough, but the authors have scientific discoveries, case studies and a successful track record with CEOs to make you believe them. There was this CEO, a hotshot in R & D as scientist, who was promoted to his “level of incompetence (according to time-tested Peter Principle) as R & D division head. His new job required from him leadership qualities, not technical expertise, that he was not prepared for. He failed initially. Until he went through the journey of five discoveries.
Many books have discussed this many times enough, but did not identify what these leaders lack except to generalize that they are not meant to be managers or leaders. It turns out — that all they need is to develop “resonant leadership” – one that touches the heart of people, and then the mind. Understandably, the authors believe that “leaders are made, not born.” That “nurture” can alter “nature.”
This is not your usual motivational book on leadership. It has scientific moorings, including a “neuroanatomy of leadership.” The authors go somehow technical when they discuss parts of the brain that respond to resonant leaders. This is a slow analytical read when you reach this part.
Leadership styles go by various names and titles depending on theories being advanced. Early on, we were taught about Theory X and Theory Y, the latter being the more enlightened approach. Parallel to this is the debate between what style is effective – one of a task master or a “process person.” These have been sufficient to persuade us to go for Theory Y or for the process.
Until this book came. This well-thought out study, coming from a school that has been producing hot shot MBAs that run “Corporate America,” brings you inside the brain – and there discover that the key to inspiring people in organizations, in armies or an entire country is lodged in the human heart.
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