Goals And Our Search for Our Promised Land!

By Joe Joson

11Share

I heard this joke on a radio talk show once: ‘When Christopher Columbus sailed to discover the world, he did not know where he was going. When he arrived, he did not know where he was. When he got back home, he did not know where he has been!’

Jokes aside, it pays to know where you are going if you want to proceed effectively, efficiently and expeditiously to your desired destinations. While headed towards a pre-selected destination, corrections are constantly made. No time, money and energy are wasted. Your focus is never taken away from the desired target. Hurdles will slow you down, obstacles might attempt to make you stop your forward motion. But these are all temporary, a plateau in a continuous upward climb. Once in gear, the forward, upward motion is constantly sought, no matter how slow.

Winston Churchill aptly put it this way: “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm!” This is the magic and power of goal setting. Once a goal is set, and a commitment is made, and if the goal is going to fill the need of many people, those who set it become fired up, driven and wide-eyed with enthusiasm anticipating success. They stop at nothing! A famous Admiral during WWII whose goal was to win his every battle against the Japanese said at one time while he was outgunned and outnumbered: ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!’ That is one heck of a ‘commitment’!
It has been theorized that humans are beings with naturally built-in homing devices. We home in on goals till the day we die! Our goal-seeking mechanism has been compared to a bicycle which keeps its balance as long as it is moving forward. It loses its balance when it comes to a full stop. We humans lose our balance or purpose when we stop setting goals or moving forward. A community, a nation without specific goals are no different! Call it hope or call it goals. We have to have them otherwise we stop living really truly meaningful, purposeful and productive lives!

So as a nation, as people, we must set goals! Small, medium and huge goals. Short term, intermediate and long term goals !

We must establish effective ways of achieving goals. Some of us have vague or non-specific goals. Somehow we want to accomplish something great but do not really know what it is. We want to travel and do not know exactly where we want to go. With these preconditions, we set out to achieve something and drift around not accomplishing anything significant. It is like a ship whose navigator set non-specific headings on his charts. The helmsman makes huge circles in the water getting nowhere. This could be the reason why while our Asian neighbors prospered we sunk into mediocrity and insignificance!
The effective goal setter or traveler first decides on one very specific goal. He prioritizes one objective among a list of goals. He then draws a map or blueprint on how to get to that one goal. He makes a very detailed plan. Turns to make, things to bring along, adjustments to make, people to enlist and join him on his trip. A kick butt management team to help chart the course. He leaves nothing to chance. He then makes a commitment that he will accomplish this goal no matter what. He then sets out and pursues his dream of dreams! He knows there will be obstacles ahead but he is prepared to pay the price, spend the needed time and weather the emotional challenges that come with the journey. He is then challenged to use all his God-given creative powers to achieve this goal. At this point he becomes ferociously driven and fired up. Nothing can stop him!

I am greatly encouraged by the emergence of a new group or breed of people in the nation. I see an increase in numbers of people who are showing concern for their motherland. Excellent! I am seeing many watchdogs come to life. The papers are full of people with endless numbers of ideas. A great number have laid out goals that they are now pursuing.
So we start with goals that are now within our reach and goals that are manageable. Again I have to borrow some ideas to stress a point. How do we manage a huge goal? We use the old decide, divide and conquer approach! We take a big project apart into workable pieces. Committed men and women work on each critical piece. Teamwork is a must!

So ladies and gentlemen, we have some exciting work ahead of us!! It is called nation building!! Impossible goals today are realities tomorrow! We would like to see a glimpse of our illusive Promised Land. One day we want to see the nation’s annual income from the combined businesses hit the MILLIONS of dollars. We would like to see millions lifted from poverty. We would like to see people , young and old march behind the corruption-busting President despite all the obstacles! We cannot afford to have personal differences serve as wedges among us in this effort. We must set these things aside! In a professional arena, where national issues are at stake, personal issues must be separated from professional issues! If our ship is sinking we cannot squabble over personal matters and let the ship continue to sink. We need to work shoulder to shoulder and save the damn ship or you and I will drown! And as we speak, our ship has multiple holes and we are up to our necks in water!

Goals! Plus a determined President running under a flagship of integrity, coupled with citizens who are equally honest and fired up about building a nation has got to be a great start!

I call on all of you to dare to step up to the plate! By remaining indifferent and silent, we help sink our Motherland!

Joe Joson
USA

President Aquino, A Rare ‘Window of Opportunity’

President Aquino, despite some miscalculations on his part, is one president who offers a rare window of opportunity for us as a nation.

It is not a common occurrence in the history of our nation to get a President elected in office whose main goal in life is to clean up corruption and rebuild a nation.  Indeed President Aquino is a ‘rare commodity’ for the Philippines.  His honesty, his resolve to fight corruption and his sincerity indeed do set him apart from the rest.  He continues to lead under the flagship of integrity.  He is one of a kind.  It makes one wonder how long we may have to wait for another one like him after 2016.

It has been said that a leader will never rise above the limitations set by his character. 

In a nation plagued by an eternal culture of mismanagement and corruption, his coming to center stage indeed presents a long-awaited, much-deserved break by the Motherland.  His character has served as a rare unifier for a good number of people in the nation.  His character is the driving force behind his popularity.  It takes courage for anyone to take this challenge of corruption head-on. Corruption busting is not for the faint of heart.  His approach to governance is a major departure from past leaderships’ style to govern. I sense that a lot of us have yet to realize this and thus have not come to appreciate it and taken advantage of it.

The President is not perfect.  Despite all the pats on his back and his popularity, Noynoy is still learning the ropes as a leader.  He has made mistakes and he will make mistakes.  He will get criticized , ostracized, insulted.  He will make people mad even.  But all that come with positions in leadership.   They also indicate that he is doing his job.  

The nation and its citizenry will do well to fully take advantage of his being President. Six years is not very long in terms of nation building. But if everyone across the board gives his remaining five years-plus proper focus and prioritizing , we may just yet create that much needed momentum to reverse the tides of the ongoing devastation brought about by mismanagement and corruption and  give the next administration plenty of headway to carry us forward.  We need to do our utmost as citizens and leaders to establish our beachheads now where we can launch and re launch continued efforts later to persistently, consistently shore up what we have built so far. 

Nation building is not just for  leaders or the economists with MBA’s.  Nation building takes a whole nation throwing its weight behind a purpose, behind much needed goals. Noynoy’s presence in Malacanang is short-lived.  His declared purpose and goals have been stated with total clarity. His vision is clear. He wants to rebuild a nation.  We can choose to wrangle over issues, we can choose to pull each other down.  We can choose to set traps for one another. We can all continue to talk while no one listens. We can choose to create chaos versus order.  After five years of these, we will be where we started from or perhaps worse. We lose.

As people, we need to give wisdom and common sense a foothold and take charge of our future and give this nation a much needed break, a much awaited boost. We need not come up with new laws, we need no new techniques, no new Constitution, no new Bills.  We do need new attitudes, new resolve, new commitments to put our nation first before our own interests.  We need to fully put into action the laws that abound on paper but are dead on enforcement.  Adding more laws without learning to enforce existing ones first is senseless.  Lawmakers who boast of multiple bills submitted or passed are only kidding themselves. Law enforcement more than ‘lawmaking’ at a time such as ours makes more sense.   We need to bring order where chaos, mismanagement and corruption reign.  All these take a whole nation to accomplish.

So, while this very rare opportunity at unity sits before all of us, this very rare chance that may not come our way again for decades,  we have this burden on our hands to make the right decision.  One wise guy once said, ‘I would rather attempt to do something great and fail, than to attempt to do nothing and succeed’ ….. in doing nothing. 

In my years of observing our Asian neighbors and their inherent ability to unite and prosper,  I can’t help but get reminded how miserably we fail to do the same.  Progress has been illusive for the Philippines for the most part.  I look at this failure to unite, our inability to move as one,  as yet another huge hurdle that we need to master and control if we are going to rise up as a nation.

I look at the sitting President as a very rare opportunity indeed. We can choose to rally behind him or we can choose to ignore him or kill his efforts.  It has been said that one’s results wholly depend upon those things that he does continuously,  consistently and persistently.  What we do now will define what will become of our nation tomorrow.  We choose our results.  Both failure and success are inside jobs, so I’ve heard.

Joe Joson

USA

Properly Managing The Philippines A Must

In one of my travels I ran into a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel who worked for the Voice of America in Tarlac, Philippines. He spent many years there and made a lot of observations. I asked for his opinion on one issue. I asked what he thought were the reasons why the Philippines is the way it is, lagging behind most nations in Asia with its economy. He told me he would give me just one reason. He said it is the lack of or absence of consistent and proper management in many areas.

Having spent almost four decades in the United States and having been exposed to many of its private and government systems and operations, it was easy to see what he was talking about. Indeed as one enters the Philippines from years of living in one of the most organized and managed societies in the world, one immediately sees the stark contrast. And we are not talking about the difference in wealth but the efficiency with which things are being run.

When the U.S. Naval base in Subic Bay, Zambales was still in operation I marveled at the heaven and earth contrast between what happened inside the base and the communities and government just outside the gate and beyond. Again we are not talking about the difference in wealth. It was also a great source of amazement to see the same citizens of the Philippines, which made up the bulk of the workforce, working inside the naval base performed with such remarkable efficiency and dependability.

So we look at yet another angle. Let us quickly take a look at the successful entrepreneurs or businesses in the Philippines. These are noticeably and mostly Chinese and other foreign-owned businesses.   Now, we step outside our nation and go to the myriad of nations where our citizens go and work. We exhibit the same remarkable ability to excel and be proficient, dependable and efficient.

So, we ask this very important question. Why are we NOT able to do the same things in our own turf and under our own style of management? Why is it that when we work under a different and obviously better management, we do not seem to have a problem flourishing as people? Here lies the glaring fact. Our ability to consistently organize and manage with any form of sustainability to move our society successfully forward is truly missing from a lot of areas in our government and even in the civilian sector. Which leaves us with total clarity on what needs to be done.

Joe Joson, USA

Transform Self, Transform A Nation!

Transformation is defined as a change in form, appearance, nature, or character. It is a conversion from one condition to another.  The word as applied to a human being is that process where the subject who  was either bad or good upon being transformed becomes the opposite of who or what he was.  Applied to a nation, the same meaning applies.

We would all agree that our nation is in desperate need for a positive transformation.

So how does a nation get transformed from one that is undesirable to one that is highly desirable?  I wrote earlier that our desired transformation is but a change of hearts away!  Indeed without transformation at individual levels , a transformation at national levels could hardly be achieved.

So, I will post just a couple of questions to challenge us intellectually, morally and spiritually.

Question 1 :  If someone guaranteed you success, if someone told you that you will not fail, what would be that one thing that you would undertake to help transform our motherland the Philippines?

Question 2 : If you were chosen to lead the undertaking above , what would you do different from what is being done now by everyone? This question applies to everyone across the board and does not just include people in leadership positions.

Joe Joson

USA

"The Game Grown Up Nations Play!"

It is not just enough for us to fight against and yell about corruption. It gets old pretty quick. We must do more than just complain about our social, political and economic ills. We have to offer solutions!  As we fight this despicable, backwards and loathsome social disease we need to also look  at our more successful Asian neighbors and beyond , then copy what they have done right to become  successful.  In short, we need not re-invent the wheel.  All we do is copy what has been done successfully , improve on their successes and beat the competition at their game!

Are we up to it as a nation?  Are we truly capable of imitating our financially successful Asian neighbors and perhaps even surpass their achievements?  We will never find out until we dare to play this game that grown up nations play!  As one wise guy said, ‘In order for you to win you have to be in the game!’  And what, you might say, is this game?   Folks, this game is  called the global economy! This is the biggest , most time-relevant , highest-priority , all-important  and exciting game that smart nations  play.  And the Philippines, with the right players at the controls, can truly compete , excel and win in this game of games! 

We are loaded with potential!  Like the Chinese, we have cheaper labor than most. Like the Japanese we are very tech savvy and highly trainable.  As the Taiwanese are industrious and creative, so are we! And when we set our minds on great goals to achieve,  who is going to say that we are less capable and aggressive than the Koreans in going for it? And I would venture out to say that after proper training, we speak the best English ever among the non-English speaking nations of the world!  And I am not pulling anybody’s leg when I say this.   I never stop to be amazed at the great proficiency and polish of our customer service reps at the many call centers of the nation.  These guys are a gem that I am truly proud of. Hats off to these miracle workers! When I talk to them, I hardly detect any accent to tell me I am speaking to a Pinoy or Pinay! Truly amazing!  Well, all of the above are just that, great potential. We have yet to apply these potential to something much bigger than ourselves.   Here is where great management , leadership and teamwork not just by the President but by all of us, come in!

The wise guys have told me that a group is just as good as the leader leading that group. I say that the leader is just as good as the group that he leads!  Try leading a bunch of totally incorrigible morons and see what happens!  So, it looks like both the leader and the people he leads have to be great leaders altogether!  Nothing beats the experience of leading self-leading and self-managing team mates!

Now let us look at our top leadership who are supposed to be at the helm or controls of our nation and ‘the game’.  I am talking about key leadership positions held by our men in Congress, the Senate,  the high courts, positions held by governors, generals , admirals, directors , department heads , financial experts, businessmen, mayors and so forth.   The President has proven his determination and resolve to really lead our nation long  before the last of  his first one hundred days in office were over.   I am all ears and standing by for the first shots from these quarters I mentioned above but one hundred days have passed, everything is still quiet.  I have not heard of nor read about any of these folks yelling and screaming about their ‘much awaited and expected’  all-out support to the Commander-in-Chief in moving this nation financially forward.  I am reminded of a classroomful of delinquent children who have been behaving very badly and the tough and no-nonsense teacher has just walked in .  Everyone is quiet,  watching  and trying to see what is coming down next.  This happens when you are perhaps guilty and you don’t know when your turn will come up to get yanked from your chair and get a royal ass chewing or worse. 

Or perhaps our leadership under the President are simply speechless .  What with the long and many years of practicing corruption and mis-management then all of a sudden you are placed in a position where you are asked to perform in  a way totally opposite to what you are used to doing! Well, that would make a lot of folks speechless indeed!  So, are we in a wait and see situation? Perhaps the President will get exhausted, lose his focus and give up?  Then back to ‘business as usual’? 

We are confident that we are wrong in these assumptions.  But we truly are all ears. We are waiting for our gallant leaders to step up to the plate.  And to give credit to the daring few, those who have started to streamline the economies of their provinces ,cities and towns and preparing to launch their ‘assault’ on the competition,  the fruits we seek are closer than we think.  Indeed the Chinese were on their way to great wealth ten to fifteen years after they embarked on their historic economic transformation by daring to venture into this global game of wealth acquisition.

I believe that our leaders are more than capable of turning this nation around when they decide to jump in and lead.  We as people are truly capable of rising above all this  mediocrity then boldly going for excellence!  The President is waiting. The whole nation is on standby.  The citizens are poised ready to be led and to lead!  It will be a great day in our history when indeed as people we commit to this noble cause, get truly fired up, move as one and join and dominate this  exciting race of races where every single citizen becomes a winner when the whole nation wins!  Again, one wise guy said that when you help somebody win , you too become a winner! 

Help this nation win and the rest are winners!

Joe Joson, USA