Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

What is required for the world to believe that the Caribbean is the greatest address on the planet?

This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which asserts that the societal engines in the Caribbean (economy, security, and governance) are deficient and defective; in some cases we even feature Failed-States (think: Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico and others). But alas, we can improve and make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.

How?

The Go Lean book details the quest to make the Caribbean better; it features a how-to guide, a roadmap for elevating the region’s societal engines of economics, security and governance. Despite the 370 pages, it boils down to doing a few things and doing them well!

This is commentary 1 of 4 on the subject of transformations: how to move our region from this status quo to the undisputed title of “greatest address on the planet”. All these commentaries detail these issues, starting with:

1. Core Competence
2. Money Matters – “Getting Over” with “free money”
3. Caribbean Postal Union (CPU) – Delivering the Future
4. Civil Disobedience – Still Effective

What are the focus activities that we do, as a region, that by improving we would pronounce to the world that we are truly the greatest address on the planet?

The Go Lean book identifies 144 advocacies to improve life in the region. But we cannot “master all trades”; we must do better than anywhere else in the world in a few activities; these ones here are deemed our core competence:

The assertion is that the Caribbean region must at least do the above activities better than anywhere else in the world. Why?

Because we are competing with the world … and losing.

But if we do better, perfect our core competence – see VIDEO here of Transformations and Core Competence in the corporate setting – then our hard work will be recognized and rewarded by others wanting to share in our passions and profits. Or maybe even just to retain our citizens here at home. A previous blog stated this eloquently by quoting a Chinese proverb: “Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come”.

VIDEO:An Introduction to Prahalad & Hamel’s Core Competence of the Corporation – A Macat Business Video – https://youtu.be/KSUbSEvJ1Cs

Published on Nov 16, 2015 – Success in business comes from combining technological ability with organizational skills to gain a competitive edge. It is called “core competence.” Watch Macat’s short video for a great introduction to C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel’s “The Core Competence of the Corporation,” one of the most important business articles ever written. 

The book Go Lean … Caribbean sets to optimize the societal engines (economics, security and governance) in the Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation for the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). As a federation or federal government representing all 30 member-states, the prime directives of this roadmap is to elevate society by addressing these 3 focus areas:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The benefits of core competence feature a “snowball” effect. The better we optimize one functional area, the better the rest of the environment becomes. For example, the 2.2 million jobs that the roadmap sets to create. There is no need to actuate the economic processes for each job. No, we focus on our core competence, and the job multiplier effect processes the remaining new jobs. To reach the required transformations, this commentary identifies these core competencies for our economic engines:

Tourism / Events / Cruises

This activity is the Number 1 economic driver in the Caribbean region. But each member-state can only do “so much more” so as to generate marginal increases in their output. An old adage states that “one cannot get blood from a stone”; this is so true for the region: there are only so many beaches and coastal areas to explore for touristic opportunities. The Go Lean roadmap (Page 190) therefore takes a different, more elevated, approach to increase tourism: regionalism.

The book – and previous blogs – features empowerments that are not possible for any member-state alone, leveraging the full force of a bigger Single Market of 42 million people, across the 30 member states. The following are some regional highlights:

• New Transportation Options – Ferries to transport people and cars, including RV/Campers for Snowbirds for the Winters
• New Fairgrounds – New landlords for structures and amenities to allow for events/conventions not possible otherwise
• Cruise Tourism – Collective bargaining to force a new-better business model for cruises
• Sports Tourism – Employing the new fairgrounds and infrastructure
• Medical Tourism – Self-Governing Entities for medical research campuses generate new demand for a Caribbean supply

Specialty Agriculture

There are farming expressions, like “bread basket” of America, or Europe. But, these no not apply to the Caribbean, as we are not known for our agricultural productions … except for cigar and rum. Yes, these specialty agricultural products are deemed the “best in the world”. Following the strategies, tactics and implementations from the Go Lean book (Page 88), we can continue the greatness and exploit the reputation for even more profit; (jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities).

Cuba, the source of much of the heightened reputation for Caribbean cigars, has suffered with a 55-year trade embargo. Efforts are now being made to normalize trade with Cuba and the rest of the western world. There is therefore a lot of upside and growth for improved trade and production for this world-renown product. There will undoubtedly be a return on any investment in this core competence.

Energy

The Caribbean is the best-in-the world in certain pursuits; energy is not one of them, but it needs to be. At this juncture, the region is reported as having one of the highest energy costs on the planet. So we need to apply best-practices – detailed in the Go Lean book (Page 113) – to optimize our energy eco-system to go from the worst to the first – energy needs to become a core competence. Considering the successful models we have to emulate, we have all the resources we need to succeed ourselves:

• Solar
• Wind
• Tidal
• Fossils Fuels – Oil and Natural Gas in Trinidad, Guyana and Venezuela.

We simply need better stewardship and administration of the region’s energy policies to optimize the supply-and-demand metrics. The Go Lean book specifically states (Page 46) the mission as follows:

Harness the power of the sun, the winds, and the tides to power our home and the institutions of our industry and government. This embrace of alternative energy can supplement our traditional power sources and usher in energy independence. Independence in general means that we are finally ready to stand-up and be counted worldwide.

Security – Public Safety

To reach the required transformations, this commentary also identifies one core competence for our security engine: Public Safety.

The art and science of Homeland Security covers vast areas, including warfare, community policing, terrorism, domestic violence, penology & criminology, organized crime, trans-national drug and human trafficking and other activities. While progress in all of these areas in the Caribbean would be nice, these are not prerequisites for the societal transformation sought in this commentary – we are not at war. No, we simply need to optimize our Public Safety apparatus. We need to be able to assure safe conditions for our stakeholders:

• Visitors
• Trading Partners
• Special Protected Classes (minorities, elderly, disabled, women, children, re-patriots, etc.)
• Disaster Refugees

If we are able to raise the delivery level of protections to these groups, then our society will be recognized world-wide as a great place to live, work and play. This does not mean that we ignore the safety of the general citizenry; no, we simply accept that there will always be crime – bad actors – in every society, everywhere. So our remediation and mitigations for crime – need, greed and honor – must be omnipresent.

The following sample from the Go Lean book details the strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies of the Go Lean roadmap related to the core competence of Public Safety:

Governance – Senior Healthcare

To reach the required transformations, this commentary lastly identifies one core competence for our regional governance: Senior / Elder Healthcare.

Most Caribbean member-states feature Democratic Socialism as the official form of government; (Cuba practices Communism, and the US Territories feature the American brand of Capitalism, though the majority of the population receive some government assistance). This means that the 30 member-states have a government entitlement program for healthcare, and it is self-evident that senior citizens in every society consume more healthcare services than any other population group.

The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) details how the governing engines in the region can elevate their healthcare deliveries, and how the elderly populations can benefit. The successful executions of the strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies of the Go Lean roadmap, (see the following sample of these specific details from the book related to the core competence of senior healthcare), would allow the world to see how great a society the Caribbean would be. This lingering affects will reverberate in other aspects of society, like the repatriation of our aging Diaspora, medical tourists and other economic spin-offs – the book details 70,000 direct jobs created in the region as a result of these empowerments.

The Caribbean can truly be a great place to live, work, heal and play.

Previously, Go Lean blogs commented on transformations, showing the success of aspirations to be better and do better. Consider this sample:

The effort to elevate the Caribbean is defined as heavy-lifting, a lot of strenuous actions that are very complicated. But despite the complexity, a successful completion of some of the basic or core functionality can aid the region – these limited actions are considered “core competencies”. The successful execution of these core competencies would start the “snowball” and transform the Caribbean … to a better homeland.

Any transformation for the Caribbean must be permanent! The Go Lean book declares that for permanent change to take place, there must first be an adoption of new community ethos, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. The roadmap was constructed with the primary community ethos in mind, the Greater Good. This is a big deal; notice it is not a profit motive, nor a nationalistic motive, but rather a commitment to the “greatest good for the greatest number of people”.

Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this regional solution – the Go Lean roadmap – for the Caribbean to transform to a better society, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!