Over the almost two decades that I have been back in this country, having been overseas for a decade before, I have often heard the term “we are at a crossroads.” However, viewed from the perspective of a generation which has left our shores, and yet remain offshore, it can be said that we have remained at a crossroads for too long. To my mind, this term is most appropriate today, at this very moment, when we are at a pivotal point in our recent history. In June, a few weeks after the end of the day-to-day military conflict, I recorded several sayings with a FM radio station.
 In one I said, “A new dawn is upon us. A new realization must now awaken us.” What I meant by that term realization is among other things, about building a New Sri-Lanka, which we can all call our home. A home that our academics, professionals and investing community, can look forward to coming back to. What we have earned recently is not a victory at a long and arduous battle, alone.
That would be the case if we view what happened in a static sense. Viewed in a responsible, dynamic and futuristic sense, more importantly, we have earned an unprecedented opportunity to ‘Rebuild our Nation’. A nation, which has endured considerable damage, great pains and constraints for three decades and more. A significant part of the damage has been inflicted upon us by a force whose ability to destabilize us is now substantially contained. A good part of the damage is also, self-inflicted by successive regimes. The focus of this writing today, will be on the next generation- a generation whose potential contribution has yet been unrealized.
The Next Generation leveraging the unrealized potential of the young and capable next generation is a responsibility, which has to be addressed with foresight and maturity. It is a fundamental characteristic of an aware, secure leadership. It is not a responsibility of a Government or Opposition alone, even though they are collectively, elected representatives of the people. It is also a shared responsibility among, representatives of business, the professions and civil society- key components of a nation’s leadership. What is sad indeed is whether these three key stakeholders of the future of our nation are passive passengers or proactive, positive and constructive partners and participants. On this score we have yet a long way, to go.
Product and Personal Life Cycles- An Analogy
We are all familiar with the inverted “U” shaped graph which conveys that an industry or product emerges, stabilizes, captures more markets, matures, then peeks and as other products are brought into the market place, the product begins to decline. Between five to seven ago, I enquired from a Human Resources Consultant whether anyone globally had developed what I call a personal lifecycle. I was advised that there were no such comparisons or analogies made between industry and product lifecycles with personal lifecycles.
I then presented a simple theory that if a nation, institution or corporate does not leverage the full potential of capable individuals or in more formal language, does not leverage available “in-house” intellectual capital, it will have foregone an opportunity to build sustainability. These repositories of intellectual capital I said, must be deeply conscious that whilst nations, institutions and corporates, can have second and third chances or chances to perpetuity, this is not the case with intellectual capital or the human being in whom such capital resides.
Human beings do not have a life up to perpetuity. When I career guide people I often tell them that they are 15, 17 or 23– just to take ages at random – only once. In lighter vein, I tell them that they can get married twice or thrice or even more but that you do not do a bachelors degree or a masters from different universities over and over again. The message I give is “choose your academic or professional career carefully, choose your course of study and your place of learning – your university carefully. Meet and talk with people, search and research your options– in essence do not be hasty and too quick on the draw, do not be superficial, do not adopt a quick fix attitude in your selection, and thus trifle with your future, only to lament later about a future that could have been yours.
After you select your course of study, then study and work hard and play hard if you wish. Yes, live a good life but a life that adds value to yourself and to your country.” But from a national perspective let me add to this and say “ A country must provide the enabling environment for learning, studying, working and even playing!” Personal “Best Before Dates” Therefore if a nation, an institution, corporate or even a political party does not make the best use of the talent, particularly young talent, when it can and indeed should, we may have by default robbed ourselves of an opportunity to benefit from and the individuals an opportunity to make, the contribution they would otherwise have. They would have past their “Best Before dates.” Not only many nations in many parts of the world, but corporates and even political parties often are victims of this phenomenon.
There are living examples in this country but on this score I shall say no more, for now. Whilst in New York in the late 80s I was privileged to purchase a book titled “The Grand Failure- the Birth and the death of Communism in the 20th century”, written by an advisor to President Carter – Zbigniew Brzezinski. He predicted the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the coming together of the Germanys’. His prediction was based entirely on the premise that the economic model followed by many of the Eastern European nations and Russia could not have been sustained.
Brzezinski used graphs and charts of economic and lifestyle related indicators of all of these countries between the period 1960 to 1985. What was interesting was that countries within the Soviet Union then, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary and East Germany, were compared with their corresponding “comparable” non-Soviet nations such as Austria, Italy, West Germany, etc. However, Brzezinski was only making the point that trade, economic growth and lifestyle related issues such as ownership of cars and telephones per capita showed a distinct difference. My concern however was not about economic growth cycles and product cycles alone, but the mediocre lifestyle an 18-year old in 1960s would have until he reached midlife – in essence this citizen would have lost a lifetime of an otherwise potentially happy and comfortable lifestyle.
India-A role model close to home
When India began its liberalization of exchange controls and gradually transitioned to a market economy in 1991 - 17 years after we did so in 1977 -, it had experienced in the many decades before a large exodus of qualified Indians. It is said that in the 1980s, 75% of India’s top graduates emigrated to America. Even in the decade of the 1990’s and before, 35% of the nation’s promising graduates moved abroad. But from 2002 onwards the period in India when the GDP began to grow, only 16% choose to leave. Indians no longer believe that the West is synonymous with wealth and opportunity.
When asked to predict which country was the most promising for success in 10 years, 72% of a sample of 600 IIT graduates named India. Only 17% cited the US, 5% cited Europe. In research published in 2007, it has been estimated that more than 40,000 Indian technology professionals returned from the UK and USA to take up work. India no longer talks of Brain Drain, but is experiencing reverse migration - Brain Gain. I look forward to the day when we in Sri-Lanka can experience this. Some may say I am a dreamer. Yes I am and will remain one if only to catalyze dreams and words to deeds. Let me close with the words of US President Bill Clinton when he said in his year 2000 State of the Union address “As long as our dreams outweigh our memories, we will be forever young. That is our destiny. And this is our moment.” |
E-mail