Vantage Point With KEITH COLLISTER The challenges of the accelerating pace of change requires “bold public leadership, a full commitment to entrepreneurial capitalism and a command focus on life-long education,” former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, told a Jamaican audience Wednesday.
Arguing that change now occurred at “warp speed”, Bush noted that what used to take a decade to develop now takes a year, and what formerly occurred in a year, now happened in a month.
Those countries that seize the opportunities brought by the shifting paradigms will emerge as the new economic powerhouses, he suggested, while those who resist, will see their incomes decline and hopes perish.
Bush, son of a former American president and brother to the current leader of the free world, George W. Bush, was in Jamaica as guest of the Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica Limited to deliver the Fourth Annual Scotiabank Lecture.
Referring to powerhouses that have emerged in the past, Bush noted that Korea had moved itself from one of the poorest countries in the world, with per capita GDP of only US$51 in the 1950s, to one of the world’s most successful economies today through a focus on education and industrial development.
Chile was bankrupt in the 1970s, but is now the most successful country in Latin America with the highest savings rate. Bush noted that Chile’s policy of running a budget surplus of one per cent of GDP was a point of envy to a fiscal conservative like himself.
He also noted that one of the most outstanding success stories in recent decades was Ireland, which had moved itself from being the poorest country in Western Europe to being admired as the Celtic Tiger – a positive comparison to the Asian Tigers of past decades.
“The question we should ask ourselves,” he said, “is: ‘Who will be the next Ireland?’”
BOLD LEADERSHIP
Bush, in his speech entitled “Confronting Radical Change to Bring Future Economic Rewards” delivered before a mix of business representatives, diplomats and politicians, also focused on bold leadership.
In today’s world, he said, good leadership matters more than ever before in determining a country’s economic success. The leader must make a bold public commitment to clear goals, coupled with providing the business environment for an entrepreneurial economy and lifelong learning.
An effective leader needed not only the gift of communication, but also intellectual curiosity, the ability tostick with a programme, and ‘humility to listen’.
He also advocated what he called big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAG), a phrase coined by leading business author Jim Collins in his bookBuilt to Last.
Living up to BNS CEO Bill Clarke’s billing of him as Florida’s ‘Education Governor’, Bush noted that his key BHAG while governor was to narrow the education achievement gap in Florida’s schools as measured by income, ethnicity and race.
He argued that transformational leaders needed a healthy disrespect for the status quo, continually asking the question ‘Why not?’ to remove myriads of obstacles to getting things done. This requires, he said, a commitment to do things better.
Governments also need to create a “field of dreams”, based on a philosophy of rewarding achievers and working to create more of them, transforming education and creating a dynamic business environment for entrepreneurial capitalism, Bush said, adding that while open markets, low taxation, and simple regulation were all necessary, the key factor in creating the best climate for business was the transformation of education.
In words that he thought were as relevant to Jamaica as they were to the United States, he argued it was no longer “an issue of whether education was good or bad; all should agree it needs to be radically better.”
ADVIcE TO JAMAICA
Responding to questions from the audience, his advice for small-island states like Jamaica was to look at the success of economies like Singapore, Hong Kong and Ireland, which had encouraged the acquisition of knowledge and achievement through hard work.
As an example of the right policies to follow, he noted that during his eight-year term as Florida’s Governor, government revenues had increased dramatically despite the fact that he had cut taxes every year, and the unexpected costs of numerous hurricanes. Over the same period, Florida had created over 1.4 million new jobs, trebling the national average.
In response to a question as to what it would take to get more U.S. multinational investment for Jamaica, Bush said today’s investors have global options, and that where they located their capital would be determined more by the quality of human resources than other factors.
keithcollister@cwjamaica.com
