Thinking broadly on business trips

In my last entry, I mentioned a few places I've recently been to. Whenever, wherever I travel, for business or for leisure, I pick up impressions, and these then mix with earlier memories. They serve to embellish and enrich my understanding of the place and more meaningfully of its people.

Here are a few scenes and attendant thoughts, captured on the road, for posterity.

Johanesburg, South Africa. 

The legacy of Mandela still looms large. The country is in real trouble, economically and socially, after years of inept management and rampant corruption. A month after my trip here, the ANC did poorly, as expected, in local polls indicating the people are fed up and want better. Indeed, this beautiful lands deserve better. I suggested to the minister's advisors that they should capitalise on this outcome to lead an internal reformation, one committed to delivery on the ground. It's an uphill battle but at least the leaders and the people have an iconic hero they can think of and hopefully get inspired and motivated to do better. 

London, United Kingdom. 

I was here just as Theresa May got sworn in as the new Prime Minister, following a Brexit-induced departure of David Cameron. It's been 500 years since the British Empire, and a bit more than 50 years since it gave its colonies independence. For a country with such history, choosing to go it alone may seem surprising even surreal. But then again, isn't this is just another sign of the cycle of rise and fall of great powers. A reminder to us all that history will repeat itself until the lesson is learned! Yet for all these signs of turning inwards, Britain's half a millennium of global hegemony doesn't dissipate easily. First of all it has chosen to exit a difficult European Union construct, and not the global economy. London is still one of the major capitals of the world and will remain a magnet for talents, and that in turn will keep it strong. Indeed, it's one of the major advantages we seek to secure for this city as we report on what the new government needs to do.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

Going back further in time, Arabia was once the greatest civilisation on earth. It's a harsh land and like all hard places, tough people emerge. People who impose their will on inclement environments and change the world. They invented astronomy, particularly crucial to navigating the formless lands using the stars I the skies. They invented mathematics. They thrived as a hub on the Silk Road. Then they discovered oil. And in the century or so since, in an ill-conceived effort to share the wealth with the population, their people quickly degenerated. They have become used to getting something for nothing. Critically, the hunger and work ethic have been lost. Just look at how slow the queues at immigration counters clear, despite the impressive hardware all around them. The leaders, especially an ambitious young deputy Crown Prince, has now formulated a new vision for the country. We are helping him bring about the most ambitious transformation: that of the mindset and psyche of his people.

Berlin, Germany. 

Transformation is enormously difficultly. Unless of course the entire population have such discipline as the Germans do. They are tough people who get things done and are extremely detail-oriented in the process, so the learnings are captured and passed on systematically. Yet, they are compliant. Only in such a society can one enact large scale, and I mean nationwide scale change quickly. It is really felt here in Berlin where the Stasi (Ministry of State Security, of the now defunct East Germany) psychologically tried to rid its population of capitalist tendencies. And no more pronounced than preserved in this Stasi prison, now museum. [Note: I am intrigued by a remark from a colleague, T, whose parents managed to get out of East Germany before the wall came up, that all communist era buildings have the same smell. He's spot-on! I've been to a few places, here in Berlin, in Moscow and in Hanoi, and he is right. It's a strange mix of antiseptic odour that is trying to contain the salty tears, sweat and blood beneath.] It would be remiss of me not to add while they brought upon change (bad change, I should say), it didn't endure. The wall came down 25 years ago and Germany has progressed significantly as a European and global power.

There are many more walls to bring down to advance human progress. In ancient times, these walls were that of Mother Nature's: the climate, unpassable mountains and oceans, formidable predators. Now, it's made of extremist ideologies and insular nationalism. I am thankful my teams and I can play a small but important part in this: that of dealing with all disagreeable elements resisting change, making the right case for it and then helping in ensuring it happens.