‘Notes By EMA’ is a collection of the author’s personal views and gladly invites readers’ feedback for the collective enrichment and enhancement of discourse. These do not purport to represent the official views of the Aboitiz Group.
ENRIQUE ABOITIZ MENDIETA MAY 2021
As one thinks of what could be around the corner in a world that is wild, stable in its volatility, aggressively competitive, acceleratingly digital, and widely open to challenge, one must see that it is almost impossible to rely on past beliefs and maybe necessary to instill in our institution a structure that drives, uncompromisingly, certain behaviors.
There is little doubt in my mind that anything but the most open minds is our most serious threat. I used to think that Unintended Consequences were our most serious threat and that the only defense against Unintended Consequences was a GMT (Governance & Management Team) that was Always On (A&E 24x60x60 997). This defense, it is clearer and clearer to me, is threatened by a Culture that is On and Off all of the time. We have a culture that drives people to be On and Off as it is On and Off on the Smart Phone all of the time – in dinners, meetings, at the Gym, at Prayer, and at every event that requires any form of focus, meditation, reflection and of deep thinking. That On and Off Culture learns sporadically and is headed towards learning in clips. Hence the strategy of Always On (A&E 34x60x60 977) encompassing hard work into the mix.
Maimonides figured out a long time ago that the reason the Prophets had the clarity of thought to have a vision into the future is because they had time for the mind to be free and empty to allow creativity to enter. The ON & OFF smartphone ring fences the mind to be creative. Yuval Harari takes sixty days off to empty that mind to allow it to open and take in.
I am seeing that perhaps this hypothesis of Unintended Consequences being our most serious threat, is not complete. We have a superior threat to Unintended Consequence and that is minds that are not widely open because they are either shut by beliefs inherited and not thought through or by today’s On & OFF Culture.
Tolerance does not grow a deep enough root to be trusted. It can be taken away at a whim as history has taught us it has been.
The Strategy of the Great Initiatives of the past, be they religious or empires, Catholicism or Islam, Spain or Great Britain was Intolerance. Unite people through closed minds – follow and do not think (Cusi Regio – Euis Religio), God Guns and Glory and Make the World England). It worked for a while. The Nobel Prize for Longevity goes to the Roman Catholic Church who took a Man-made him God as well as Man (Homoousios), took it Catholicos, and just Adapted and Adapted and Adapted. She is in one of her most challenging periods of Adaptation as we think. No imperative has been more ingenious, creative nor adaptive than followers of the greatest visionary ever, St. Paul. Actually, the concept of Katholicos came before Homoousios was confirmed in 325 at Nicea. Just think of the cleverness of the latter and the ambition of the former.
The strategy of intolerance, as man was enlightened, dropped the ‘IN’ and evolved to Tolerance. We take pride as Filipinos that we belong to a naturally tolerant society. So what is the next move? As one thinks of tolerance one begins to question. Tolerance can not be trusted. You are tolerant of me. Power is tolerant of who I believe in. It is just not good enough. Tolerance does not grow a deep enough root to be trusted. It can be taken away at a whim as history has taught us it has been. The intolerance of the Jewish people evolved into tolerance a century ago and ended up in the Holocaust because one man decides to end that tolerance.
God does not care if you hate him or love him — just do not forget him. He made sure we never forgot him and the Jewish People were one of those instruments against oblivion. Sounds ridiculous — I thought so, too, when it was first mentioned to me.
Aboitiz, Family and Firm, has since the 1800s been one of those winners. In our present culture, country, nation, and economy we are among those in the lead of the infinite marathon.
The next step that evolution is forcing us to adapt to is real respect and trust that one does not have the answers, that one’s beliefs are always too narrow even if we think them wide and that we need enrichment through the ways of others no matter from where man, animal, plant or beyond. However, we think or do things is seriously incomplete. Trade spread Christianity and not the Apostle. Very little enriches the mind and the soul like trade and travel — it helps prosperity as it teaches.
It is the Narrow Mind that takes the number one slot over Unintended Consequences, as it prevents one from glimpses of those consequences and the preparation for them by being anchored and blinded by beliefs that were and no longer are. That is where our most serious threat lies and risk looms. The adaptation of beliefs is the strategy behind the adaptation to change. If we hang on to our beliefs as being sacred then we will eventually perish as all beliefs are disappearing before our eyes.
Values are embedded in evolution. It is not that we do not kill, steal, lie, or cheat because God says it is wrong and against our long-term interest as men. It is because it is against our long-term interest to kill, steal, lie, or cheat that we invented various gods that all tell us that to kill, steal, lie, or cheat is wrong. It is evolution that has taught us in the Name of God and survival.
This Infinite Game, as Sinek calls it, can be won and will be won by some. The Aboitiz family and firm has, since the 1800s, been one of those winners. In our present culture, country, nation, and economy, we are among those in the lead of the infinite marathon. We have thrived and not merely survived that Infinite Game precisely because we have seen it as an Infinite Game without even knowing it so. There is more in our long, long Basque genes than we think and/or appreciate, that drive our understanding of what it takes to win over the long run. We have been in this game for a very long time.
Innovate is today’s word to explain Adaptation to Change with a much higher sense of urgency because Disruption, which has also always been there, is right at our tail.
Reading this wonderful article on the difficulty that the American Military Institution is facing in its adaptation efforts I found this passage, which I think says it all.
What does it take to innovate? Innovate is today’s word to explain Adaptation to Change with a much higher sense of urgency because Disruption, which has also always been there, is right at our tail. What is Remix? It is making the most of past ways and believes to adapt and enrich.
The comment of “still in the PowerPoint Stage” is particularly apposite to what we all face to day. Power Point is license not to think — too much picture and too little prose. To explain things deeply in ten minutes or on one page takes a deep understanding of the situation. When one needs 30 pages for what can be expressed in a few, it tells me that one just does not have the comprehension and, therefore, the intellect necessary to teach us. PowerPoint enables the incompetent to hide behind graphs and large font.
Four simple ingredients — one as powerful and as necessary as the other — containing depth and understanding in one page. As I read and read this over, it is almost all there. Almost — as this will evolve as we adapt.
EMA
