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On Caribbean Acquisitions

In 2001-2002 Framework Consulting conceived and executed the Caribbean Acquisition Project, a survey of 7 Jamaican companies that had been acquired by foreign entities. Given the historical failure of mergers and acquisitions to create new value (estimated at between 60-80% of cases), we felt that there was a unique opportunity to take advantage of the number of acquisitions taking place to learn some valuable lessons. Hopefully, the lessons learned could be shared with other companies.

Specifically, we were interested in finding out how companies were planning for the hardest phase of M&A’s — post-acquisition/integration. Many prior studies have shown that the cultural and organizational issues are the most difficult, and the ones that make or break acquisitions. Therefore, the Human Resource function has an important role to play, and our hypothesis was that the way the HR function was used or not used had something to do with the future success of the acquisition.

Several companies were approached — there were ten companies that were thought to be possible candidates at first. Five consented to be surveyed for the empirical part of the study, while informal and public data was gathered on the others. Each of them were outright acquisitions, rather than mergers. (Incidentally, there is a paper from our website entitled ‘Equal/Shmequal: It’s never a Merger of Equals” in which Amie Devero argues that Mergers always turn into Acquisitions.)

Now that I am in the process of writing up the results for publication, I am faced with a mountain of data, and no easy way to classify the findings that were discovered. It’s easily a case of having too many options to choose from, yet the complicating factors do make the choice that much more difficult.

The greatest complicating factor is that it is devilishly difficult, even years later, to prove that a company was successful or not successful based on the practices they used. The number of companies in the study is so small that statistically valid comparisons cannot be made to draw general conclusions. Also, the variety of companies in the study is so broad that direct comparisons are not possible.

While it is true that certain companies are enjoying greater success than others, even the successes have been uneven, and tend to depend on when the line is drawn to determine success. In a small data set such as the one I am working with, it makes things difficult.

Furthermore, the fact that different executives were interviewed for the study meant that while a good deal of useful information was gathered, in several companies there was no consensus view. In other words, the opinions were wide and varied and there is no way to reliably create something like a statistically “average” response for each company.

So, how best to proceed?

At one level there are the basic questions that the study set out to answer, and there is a mix of empirical and anecdotal information to back up the answers derived.

At another level there are the surprises — the discoveries that we didn’t expect. To be rigorous, this means going back and adding the questions in the form of new hypotheses and testing them against any empirical and anecdotal date we can find.

As I go through the process, I’ll share the early results — after all, in the age of blogging, information shared early will help fulfill the goals of the project long before the book for which it is intended is published (in 2007, hopefully).

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“Being Positive” — A recipe for failure

It used to be that the advice given to a new manager to “be positive” was good advice.

In fact, there was a time when movies used to be all about good things, and rarely attempted to get into the nitty-gritty underside of everyday life.

However, times have changed, and someone who attempts to “focus on the positive” is regarded with a well-earned sense of suspicion. This suspicion deepens, and eventually hardens into cynicism when times get difficult. Why is this?

Well, when the chips are down people who try to focus on the positive exclusively, eventually come to be seen as dangerous, because they tend to ignore reality in their attempt to be upbeat. And today’s followers, whether it be in politics, corporations or sports are more tuned in than ever into the nitty-gritty reality of life.

Blame television, the movies, video games, the news media… whatever. I prefer to think that there is an unwillingness to overlook the raw unvarnished truth, and that that is a sign of maturity and growing consciousness that I can see at work here in the Caribbean.

The message that is hard to swallow here is that the truth that people hunger to hear the most from leaders is not how a situation is a mess (although that may be true). Instead, they want to hear from the leader where they realize that they have contributed to the mess themselves, and have now had some kind of insight from which they can glean some hope.

This degree of authenticity is fast becoming the new currency of leadership.

Some are seemingly rich in it — Oprah’s apology after defending the author James Frey’s lies comes to mind.

Others are poor — George Bush’s inability to be able to remember any mistakes he has made on several public occasions comes to mind. PJ Patterson’s insistence on “solid achievements” in areas of minor interest, and inability to take responsibility for failures also comes to mind.

The psychologist Carl Jung said “Everyone carries a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.”

I would add to that and say that the harder a public figure tries to look good, the worse they look. Why? The tactic that most use is to try to find ways emphasize their good sides and play down their bad (i.e. shadow).

However, a leader that plays down his bad size as bluntly as Bush and PJ do only seem to drive up the suspicion of those listening that they are either

  1. hiding the fact that they know they have major failures
  2. are unaware of the fact that they have major failures

As we enter 2006, and as people increasingly insist on “Keeping it Real” this style of leadership is sounding more and more hollow.

The leaders of the future will not only know that they have a shadow, but they will have the courage to openly talk about it. The more they talk about it, the more people will recognize themselves and be able to relate to the leader, and if the leader can show that they have found a way beyond their shadow, that will inspire people more than any “positive talk” can.

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Business Week published an interesting article related to this topic available here.

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Going Wiki


Framework is becoming more and more wiki.

And, no, wiki has nothing to do with witchcraft (that’s “Wicca.”)

Instead, wiki refers to online collaboration – a way of creating new knowledge, meaning and information using internet based tools that allow up to millions of people to work together to share information in ways the benefit everyone.

For example, Wikipaedia is probably the best known application. Wikipaedia is an online encyclopaedia that is owned by millions of contributors, and therefore does not rely on the specialized knowledge of a handful of “experts.” This is an eminently good thing, as I can vividly recall going on a boring shopping trip with a friend in the U.S., and finding a very old encyclopaedia from 1907 or so.

It was fascinating.

I was flipping around the pages until I got to the entry for “Negro.” It had a line picture of something that looked like a cross between the ugliest black man I have ever seen and a massive ape. Furthermore, the explanation ran something like this:

“Negro: an inferior human, typically characterized by lazy, shiftless behaviour.”

It went on in this vein for an entire column. So much for the “experts” of that time.

After months of hunting around I finally found a wiki application that we could use on Framework projects. The application is PBwiki (the PB stands for peanut butter… of course.) The link to their tour is here and the home page on the site is www.pbwiki.com.

I recommend the application for its ease of use and everyday pricing (some of the alternatives were ridiculous). It is quite easy to use, in keeping with the democratic of those of us who are “going wiki.”

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Using Video to See the Man in the Mirror

Recently, I committed to co-writing a chapter for publication on a technique my firm has been using to work with senior managers in one world-wide company, and also a well-known Caribbean conglomerate. The training technique is one that can be high-risk for the person leading the session, as it involves delivering live feedback in a public session and encouraging other participants to do the same. At the same time, participants have reported that they are able to give and receive more real-time feedback than they ever have before, and some actually demonstrate the new skills they have learned during the training.

As a precursor to writing my portion of the final paper, I thought I ‘d express my thoughts in this blog, as a way of saying a few things about how the process works.
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One of the principles used in our training is to make training as real as possible for those with whom we are intervening. “Making it real” entails doing as little “theorizing”as possible, and engendering as much truthful confrontation as possible, while directing the confrontation towards action-based commitments. In short, we provoke “Action, Not Ah Bag Ah Mout” in the hope that practice will make perfect, rather than further explanations and rationales.

The area that we focus on in this training is that of Critical Confrontations, and the specific training we have the most experience with is in training managers to engage in effective feedback conversations with their employees.

Most training in feedback involves at the least some mention of the principles on how to best frame the right words. These principles are reasonably well known, and there are several excellent texts that describe the “right” approach to use. In most of our training sessions with executives, the majority have been exposed to these ideas prior to the sessions themselves. Furthermore, most training has evolved to the point where each participant is given an opportunity to practice these principles, usually using generic examples.

In our work with Caribbean executives, we have adapted an approach that was first pioneered by a colleague of mine, Grady McGonagill, and perfected at several international companies. In this approach, the following process is followed.

The Training Process

Before the training starts, up to 10 customized cases are developed based on the client’s culture, needs and kind of business. Many are based on actual events, or issues that involve some emotional content.

  1. Participants are divided into groups of 4-6 for training periods of 5-7 hours each
  2. Cases are selected depending on the group being trained
  3. A curriculum is developed to address the training needs, focusing on demonstrable behaviours rather than vague nostrums (such as “be positive”)
  4. At the start of the training itself, the theoretical principles of good feedback are shared
  5. Dyads are formed to give each participant an opportunity to play the role of Manager and Subordinate, and the Manager is given the choice of cases to work on
  6. Managers and Subordinates are given written one-page scenarios that describe the case and their role in the situation
  7. A 5-10 minute interaction between the Manager and Subordinate is video-taped without interruption
  8. The tape is reviewed by the group, and stopped frequently to give the group an opportunity to coach the Manager on his/her “performance”
  9. The Subordinate provides direct evidence of the experience
  10. The group looks for opportunities to deepen the theoretical principles of good feedback
  11. The group continues until every member has had an opportunity to play the role of Manager and Subordinate

New Elements

The following training elements are included in this training that are normally not included in this kind of training:

  • cases built on real-life issues
  • giving public feedback in real-time from the participants and the facilitator, using the principles bring learned
  • using a recorded video-tape as an impartial and factual basis for feedback (rather than memory)
  • asking the Subordinate to share their emotional state at different points
  • using recorded behaviour to “prove” that the principles work, demonstrate how difficult they are to use effectively, and to refine the group’s understanding
  • offering multiple opportunities for trainees to use the coaching being given on the spot in a repeat “performance”

These elements are quite difficult to incorporate effectively and precisely, as the facilitator must be seamlessly competent in a variety of disciplines, not the least of which is the ability to operate and trouble-shoot video-recording equipment.

Results
The public goals of the workshop are quite modest, yet it regularly accomplishes much more than advertised. Trainees are often able to demonstrate a solid progression of increasingly skilled behaviours during the few hours of the training, and are able to receive and use the coaching given from the group to make immediate changes. The knowledge that they increase their effectiveness that quickly in a difficult area some focused practice and coaching is one of the tremendous benefits, even for observers of the process. Anyone can improve, given the right conditions in which to do so.

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An Article that Resonates

A recent article published in Business Week caught my attention. It is entitled “The Secret of Oprah’s Success” and deals with some of the principles of communication that has made Oprah successful.

I found that the article echoes much of what we have been working on in our firm in terms of the kind of communication that is most likely to connect with employees.

One of the books that stuck with me when written years ago, although it is quite outdated, is called “You Are the Message”. The premise was that the best way to communicate was to be authentic, and this article (and the principles we work with) have only built on that idea.

The article is an important one, and makes me think that I should get the book, and this may be the first that actually builds on what Ailes wrote back in the early 1990’s.

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Management, Caribbean Style

Working here in the Caribbean sometimes has an “Alice in Wonderland” feel to it.

That feeling returned when I read the recent reports of two SuperPlus employees being beaten by their managers.

Here are the relevant links to the story:

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/1
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/3
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/4

Apparently, two employees were caught stealing liquor from the store in Mandeville. They were taken by a group of managers (and including at least one senior manager) to the home of one of the managers. They were bound up, and brutally beaten with a pickaxe and even bitten by a dog.

A demonstration ensued, during which placards were displayed calling for “justice.”

In response, the CEO of SuperPlus, Wayne Chen, (whose younger brother’s home is alleged to be the scene of the crime) responded with the following, from the Gleaner:

Yesterday, Wayne Chen, CEO of Super Plus Food Stores, described the alleged beatings as “unfortunate and regrettable”. In a statement, he said: “Super Plus Food Stores, as standard policy, treats with utmost importance, the welfare and well-being of its employees. The organisation does not condone, encourage or engage in any form of abuse of its employees.”

Mr. Chen promised that Super Plus would cooperate fully with the police to ensure the swift resolution of the matter. He added: “Super Plus Food Stores has a long history of excellent employee/management relations. Depending on the outcome of these investigations, Super Plus Food Stores will do what is necessary to ensure that its substantial record of employee development and welfare is maintained.”

As of today, the SuperPlus website: www.superplusfoods.com has no mention of the incident, and nothing has been said publicly of the incident by the CEO (that I can find). This chain is the largest of its kind in Jamaica with almost 40 branches.

There is a lot that can be said about this, including the non-reaction of the company’s owners, and how best to respond to crises such as this. The text-book answer given by the CEO was as insensitive and remote as those given by other CEO’s in a similar position at Enron, Ford or Arthur Andersen. The lack of further public communication speaks volumes.

One can only imagine the impact on the workers, who in true Jamaican style, have taken to the streets in protest. While this may not ever have happened in Trinidad or Barbados, the response was predictably quick, and angry and featured a call for justice.

There is nothing like a perceived injustice to get Jamaicans riled up, and into the streets with placards, taking industrial action and forming unions. A few years ago, a well-liked Vice President at Cable and Wireless was fired and this was quickly followed by a demonstration and the usual placards. He was not unionized, but the feeling to right an injustice is a strong one.

In the case of SuperPlus, I imagine that the CEO is scrambling to find a suitable way to respond. Unfortunately, in our Caribbean society, inertia can cause us to return to business as usual in an instant, just because it is the path of least resistance. After all, what does produce have to do with an employee beating?

In fact, the prevalence of vigilante justice and mob-beating in Jamaica makes me think that there may be many who are sympathetic to the “managerial beaters” and support what they did. Down the street on Constant Spring Road, I can just make out a spot where a man was killed by a mob after throwing acid on a female worker at the Tax Office one morning. It all happened about 50 yards from the police station up the road, and several of her co-workers apparently were involved.

On the other hand, we have the employees of SuperPlus, who I imagine are traumatized. I don’t know what kind of management intervention to make in a case like this, but I am sure that working at SuperPlus will never be the same again.

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Digicel Woes in Trinidad

The following article was printed in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner, and I thought it was a useful follow-up to my prior post:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060203/social/social3.html

Digicel woos T&T’s media
published: Friday | February 3, 2006

Barbara Ellington, Lifestyle Editor


Digicel’s head of public relations, Maureen Rabbitt, chats with Marlan Hopkinson of Trinidad’s Power 106 I95 FM. Mr. Hopkinson was one of five media representatives from the twin-island republic who visited the island as guests of Digicel last week. – RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

DIGICEL JAMAICA Limited last week hosted a five-member delegation of print and electronic media journalists from Trinidad and Tobago. The purpose of the visit was to give the journalists a first-hand look at their Jamaican operations and high level of acceptance it receives from the population.

When they return to Trinidad they will then be in a position to report to Trinidad on their findings about Digicel, who are currently waiting on interconnectivity licence to operate in Trinidad. They hope to be up and running in the twin-island state by April this year.

Since Digital’s entry into the Jamaican telecommunications landscape just under five years ago, they have aggressively gone after majority market share and toppled the previous monopoly owner Cable and Wireless from their number one spot. They have since gained a foothold in several other islands and last year bought Cingulair’s share of the Caribbean cellular market.

SEEN AS AGGRESSIVE

But the road to success in Trinidad has not yet been duplicated, particularly because Digicel is seen as aggressive and TSTT, the reigning cellular provider, is seen as an institution.

“Trinidadians have the attitude that ‘we have problems with TSTT, but it’s ours, so ease off, Digicel’,” Marlan Hopkinson of radio I95 FM told The Gleaner.

Mr. Hopkinson said further that TSTT has embarked on a massive multimillion-dollar campaign, using popular personalities to spread anti-Digicel rhetoric.

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I somehow don’t think that Digicel is seen, or has tried to portray itself, as a Caribbean institution. In the Trinidadian press, the descriptions of Digicel have said more about its obviously Irish roots and ownership, than the fact that the company was started in Jamaica by Irish entrepreneurs.

Also, Digicel (as far as I can tell from the outside) seems intent on hiring non-Caribbean nationals to its highest positions across the region, and therefore keeps reinforcing the image that it is an Irish company. In Trinidad, the whole Irish/Jamaican combination has not gone down well. It only added fuel to the fire created by the mess that the company made in the West Indies cricket sponsorship debacle.

A recent article I read (that I now cannot find) predicted that Digicel will not come close to gaining the kind of market share it did in Jamaica. We shall see.

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Small Market Marketing

Reflections on Small Country Customer Service vs. “Modern” Customer Service.

Recently, my colleagues and I have been giving thought to the idea that the Caribbean as a “single” market is a different animal from the mass markets of North America and the EU. Obviously, the size differences are tremendous — the CSME countries represent a market of only 6 million or so. What is not so obvious is that a single “geographic” market of 6 million
is also very different from a group of island markets, the largest of which has 2.6 million. In addition, island markets which insist on maintaining their political and cultural autonomy further emphasize the psychological distance.

The practical result is that managers in the region must think about customer behaviour quite differently. The way that First World managers think will not work in the Caribbean, if the hope is to increase the market share and profits. There are three hidden assumptions that underly the prevailing thinking of how customers in mass retail markets behave that just do not apply.

Myth #1: Customers are Customers for Just a Moment

In a true mass market there is a limit to which one will go to serve a customer. After all, it makes no economic sense to give too much time, attention and energy to a single person when there are many others (millions of others) right behind them. “It would just not be fair to everyone else,” the logic goes.

Therefore, interactions tend to be brief. While the hope is that the maximum value possible will be extracted (from their wallet) there is also a feeling that Customer Service Representative (CSR) productivity must be maximized by increasing the number of people they deal with. In this particular frame of mind, the customer is something to be processed, rather than a person to be connected with.

This is fine, as far as it goes, for a large market in which customers have been conditioned over time to be treated in this way. However, in a Caribbean market it’s quite jarring to be treated like this. Recently, on a series of Digicel customer service phone calls I had the overwhelming impression that they were more interested in keeping the call short than in serving my needs. I imagined that some training had been imported from Canada or someplace, and that the operators were “being incentivized” with bonuses linked to lower call-times.


Myth #2: Customers Are Strangers

Of course, in a mass market, there is no way to get to know millions of people. Instead, front- line staff is trained to deliver a kind of “fake-friendliness” that a Caribbean-grown, first-time visitor to Miami often confuses with authentic caring. There is the smile, the cheery greeting, and the well-trained question — “How can I help you?”

However, two seconds after the transaction is over, everything disappears as the “fake-friendliness” is turned on to the next customer and the prior customer melts into the mass of invisible strangers. I remember being amazed when I lived in the US that a store attendant with whom I had a long conversation would, five minutes later, not recognize who I was when I walked passed them in the mall. For them, the interaction was indeed the first and the last encounter.

In the Caribbean, there is a different belief at play, which is much closer to the notion that when I meet someone for the first time it is just a beginning.

In social settings, we Caribbean people are often amazed upon meeting someone for the first time that we have not met before! Sometimes, we insist that we must have met, and commence a playful game of “Where Do I Know You From?” If time and circumstances permit, and we are sure that there has been no prior visual contact, then the next game we play some version of “Who Do We Know in Common?”

If that game fails to yield a result, a warm game of “Who Do You Remind Me Of?” can be used to round out the conversation. By the end, a tremendous amount of information has been shared that allows for a second, future meeting to be one that now takes place between acquaintances, and sometimes friends.

In other words, that first encounter is the first…. and it is understood to be the first of many.

Once again, it’s jarring to run into a Caribbean person who acts as if the customer is a stranger. A few months ago on a flight I ran into a BWIA flight attendant I’ve seen at various fetes for years, and got “fake-friendly” treatment. (I know there could be many explanations for why this happened.) I played along by falling into my US/North American “stranger as customer” mode, for the first time outside of that country — and it felt quite foreign.


Myth #3: Some Customers are More Valuable Than Others

The idea of a retail mass-market conjures up the image of millions and millions of people who are potential customers. The first strategy that the thinking mind employs to deal with the idea of marketing to so many, is to segment these millions into manageable mental buckets.

Once the bucketing starts, the prioritization soon follows as it seems to make good sense to maximize sales by directing more attention to those customers with deeper pockets — all the better to extract more sales for the company. This works to some degree in mass markets as the sheer number of customers prevents much coordinated action to be taken, unless there is the kind of extreme neglect or abuse that leads to class-action lawsuits.

However, it is a mistake to think that our consumer markets in the Caribbean operate in this manner. Our markets are small in number, and located on islands for the most part. There is a fixed number of people to meet and greet with, and no-one is more than 3 degrees of separation away from anyone else. (This is why the game of “Who Do We Know In Common?” can be so fruitful.)

One of my clients has been wondering, in exactly the same way that companies in mass markets do, whether or not the company should shed its “unprofitable” customers. I guess this means that they are considering ending their relationship with them.

However, in our micro-markets you don’t really end relationships. They can be altered, however, and it is much easier to make them worse than it is to make them better. Furthermore, the close-knit nature of our societies means that an unprofitable customer can be more influential than they seem.

It would be a mistake to systematically rid the company of customers, who may well turn out to be the head of a PTA or a Deacon in a large church, or the cousin of the head of conglomerate, or the neighbourhood “teh-teh” (gossip.) In such cases, the profit that can be made from a single customer is only a single measure of who they really are, and their value to the institution. By and large, Caribbean want to do business with people, and not institutions, Conversely, they want to be treated like people also, and do not want to be treated as disposable profit-centres.

Digicel’s entry into Trinidad seems to have engendered the kind of resistance that I can only ascribe to a severe misunderstanding of the market they are dealing with. At the moment, Trinis are unified in a way they have never been before by virtue of gaining a berth in the upcoming World Cup in Germany. Also, TSTT is not quite equivalent to Cable and Wireless. The difference is that TSTT is not a foreign company, being owned by the government, and also that the name TSTT carries within it the name of the country – Trinidad.

The Digicel backlash in Trinidad at the moment is palpable.

On a recent trip I was told by several people that they would never get a Digicel phone, based on the Digicel advertisements in the press and the aggressive recruiting currently underway for local talent. Digicel’s service is not due to become operational until April 2006, and already the news that Digicel is sponsoring Carnival events and bands had some of my friends rolling their eyes with nothing short of disgust.

Of course, I can’t tell whether or not any of the 3 Myths mentioned above were believed in this particular case, but I do know that the Trinis who I heard complaining were not angry at a corporate oversight, but were reacting to something like a personal insult.

Such is the fate of companies that are unable or unwilling to understand the unique nature of our Caribbean markets.


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Living the Good Life


When I’m in Barbados, I’m reminded how lucky I am to be working here in the Caribbean.

I woke this morning at about 6am and went for a swim in the sea just as the sun rose. That by itself is not so unusual, and the fact is that most hotels here in Barbados are right on the water.

As I was swimming I was thinking about the news I heard that a major snow-storm is heading towards the north-east. Memories of a project I once worked on in Toledo, Ohio came to mind…

I also know that many people coming here to the Accra Beach Hotel, have saved for years and months for the opportunity to come to the Caribbean on a vacation. I come here every other week or so, and barely blink an eye.

It made me think of how good life is here in the Caribbean, and how easy it is to convince oneself that the grass is greener on the other side — over there in the US, Canada and England, where most migrating West Indians end up. The tragedy is that most are able to fulfill only the first part of the dream — to leave.

Part 2 of the dream almost always includes some kind of return, and this is where the challenge lies. It’s relatively easy to leave the Caribbean to live outside the region, but quite hard to return.

The reasons aren’t legal, either.

They have more to do with the psyche that develops in the minds of those of us who have left. The result is that a return remains nothing but a dream, which ends up drifting into a permanent stage of being “neither here nor there.” Eventually, the kids become American, Canadian or British, and then they get married and have children who have just about no connection to the homeland. Then the only practical thing to do is to live close to them. And, thus, the dream dies.

If only this were understood before making the decision to leave.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to evaluate the pros and cons of migration. Even worse, I’ve never seen any kind of service, website or book that offers any help for those are thinking about migrating. They inevitably end up making the decision on only partial information.

When they reach the U.S. unfortunately, many fall into the “justify my being here” frame of mind in which they complain about their home country in the most exaggerated way. To hear them talk is to to think that nothing good could ever come from such a place. The irony is, they also have no idea that they are also talking about themselves.

The law of unintended consequences seems to be at play here.

For example, most West Indians moving to the US have no interest in raising their children as African Americans. Being West Indian is different. However, for Black Caribbeans, there is really no choice . The forces they confront at school, the workplace and in the larger society are just too big to resist, and they inevitably leave the accent, the food, the music and the vibe behind.

Yet, it seems that these kinds of questions are not openly asked and answered, and most who do migrate end up saving for months for a one week opportunity to return home to enjoy the beaches that they, and I, took for granted. The sad thing is that this all just an unintended consequence.

I’m trying hard to not take it all for granted.

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Abundance

What does it mean to recognize the abundance that is right around us?

This question is one that I continue to wrestle with, given that recently I’ve heard some very different opinions that I’m feeling the need to sort out. Here are some of the ideas I’ve read recently, put into my own words.

God Didn’t Make No Mistakes
One point of view that I find easy to accept is that the Creator of the Universe didn’t make any mistakes, and that in the world there is a perfect amount of everything. This includes the easy to accept things, such as the number of animals, clouds, atoms, energy, etc.

However, it also includes the harder to accept things, including the things that his creations have made such as crime, murder, rape, etc. Whatever amount there is of these things, are exactly the right amount, and clearly man’s Creator, by extension, made these things also, and allows them to exist.

Individually, also, each person was perfectly made with the exact amount of ability to do some things well, and some other things not so well. For each of us, there is an abundance of Life for each of us to work with, and an abundance of humanity to deal with also.

It may well seem to us that we are not given an unlimited amount of time, but the truth is that time is experienced in the way that space is, which is relative to the person having the experience. Have you ever noticed that when you visit a place that you have not visited since you were small, how much it seems that the space has shrunk? The road I grew up on as a small child seemed like a tremendous highway, until I went back as an adult and saw that it could barely contain two cars side by side.

Time occurs in a similar way — as I grow older, it seems that is flying by from year to year, and I am still in my 30’s!

Some small insects live only a matter of hours or days at best, and somehow I think that they have an experience of having lived a life that is just as full as ours. While I’ve never been a small insect to my knowledge, I imagine that they are quite content with the time they live, and at some cosmic level, it is the perfect amount of time.

Trusting that each component of our lives (tangible or not) exists in exactly the perfect amount has begun to allow me to relax into what some authors call the “suchness” of what is in our lives. This certainly helps in dealing with the challenges of daily life in Kingston!


In Scarcity There is Abundance
The word “lack” is one that is troublesome, and the way we use it seems to create its own mischief.

Is there a lack of fresh water in the ocean? It depends on who is asking the question, and the concern depends on how the word is being used. To a human seeking to find drinking water on a desert island, there would certainly seem to be a lack. To an animal that needs salt water to survive, it would not (I suppose.)

Is there a lack of fresh water in the desert? It also depends on who (or what) is doing the asking.

The fact is that the concept of “lack” occurs inside of a context of “wanting more.” This is quite different from accepting the current amount as perfect and complete, exactly the way they are.

How about scarcity?

The word scarcity can be taken to mean the same as “lack.” At other times, scarcity can be used to denote some reality, or near-reality, such as “there is a scarcity of one kind of fish in the sea, relative to the total number of fish.”

But, scarcity is mostly a relative concept.

When I lived in New Jersey, for each and every cold month of the year, I experienced a scarcity of warm weather. For many, however, the summer heat was oppressive (when it came) and they experienced a scarcity of cold weather for each of the months when the temperature rose above 65 degrees. It was all a matter of perspective. I personally don’t complain about an abundance of warm weather… I blame living in Ithaca, NY for 4.5 years for that.

While I lived in the US, most Americans who heard that I lived in Jamaica would share some positive impression they had of the island and expressed a desire to visit and to stay as long as possible. Conversely, most Jamaicans living in Jamaica have said clearly in opinion polls that 80% of them would migrate to the US if given the chance. The fact that this is the same island does not mean that there are similar experiences of the abundance that exists.

Most people, however, regardless of nationality would agree that there is a scarcity of money in their lives.

However, just because there is wide agreement, does not mean that there is not a different experience that is available. Perhaps, a sound place to start would be with the following: “I have the perfect amount of money right now, down to the penny. The Universe (or God) has not made a mistake in giving me more or less than I have at the moment.”

“Furthermore, the Universe will be sending the perfect amount to me within the next 6 months, 6 years or 66 years, or more.”

Is it possible to see that in the acceptance of the perfect amount available to us, that we can see the abundance of everything in front of us?

For example, a child can easily see the abundance of the days left to live life.
An elderly adult can see the abundance of love that is available to her for the rest of her life.

An Eskimo can see an abundance of plants growing in a tropical backyard.
A gardener can see an abundance of weeds in that same yard.

A Jamaican can see an abundance of ganja growing in his country.
The US’ Drug Enforcement Association (DEA) can see an abundance of illegal drugs in the same country.

A resident can see an abundance of crime in the neighborhood, and an abundance of opportunities to make a difference.
A thief can see an abundance of possible criminal acts.

A mystic can see an abundance of Moments of Now.

It seems that an experience of scarcity only exists when there is an inability to accept completely what exists now. When what is, is accepted fully, then abundance is always present.

In Jamaica at the moment, the country has a per capita murder rate that is in the top three in the world (for countries that are not at war.) There is an abundance of murders, and also an abundance of possible contribution to make, and therefore an abundance of opportunities to be continually fulfilled in life.

In Trinidad at the moment, the kidnapping rate continues at the rate of 4 per week (from my memory.) There is an abundance of opportunities to transform the culture that allows that level.

In poverty, there is an abundance of opportunities to make more income. In wealth, there is an abundance of charities to which a significant contribution can be made.

In prison there is an abundance of time to meditate and discover self. In the hot deserts there is an abundance of sand and heat. In the cold deserts there is an abundance of heat and snow.

The point here is that in life, there is an abundance of chances to live life abundantly. In 2 days of life, there is an abundance of chances for an ant to life its life abundantly.

It all depends on the one doing the living, and the context that then gives rise to a particular experience.


Opportunity Needs Space
At the same time, it seems to be true by definition that scarcity can be interpreted as “space.” And, there is no possibility of growth, expansion and learning if there is no “space” within which growth can occur.

Huh? What does that mean?

A plant needs space around it to grow. A person who knows everything cannot be taught anything. A business that has 100% of the market cannot grow its market share. A room full of people cannot expand by adding more people. A country that has conquered the planet becomes the planet, and ceases to be itself. A breakthrough is impossible if everything that there is to accomplish, has been accomplished.

Opportunity, any opportunity, requires that there be space within which to grow. In other words, if scarcity is seen as nothing more than “space,” then opportunity requires scarcity for it to exist.

Without scarcity, there is no opportunity.

In business, a scarcity of poor customer service leads to an abundance of opportunities to differentiate the business on the level of service. In sports, a scarcity of top teams presents an opportunity to improve and to accomplish a high standard. In life, a scarcity of comfort presents an opportunity for spiritual growth. In the world, a scarcity of poverty gives humans an opportunity to experience growth and expansion.

“Scarcity” can therefore be seen as an opportunity, and a prerequisite for growth. To argue that there should always be more, however, is a recipe for madness, and sets up an expectation that life will never meet.

The truth that is so very difficult to remember is that while life is providing the perfect amount of everything, we are the ones driving ourselves crazy with thoughts that it should another way, other than the way it is.

Krisnamuthy, the philosopher, was once once asked what his secret to happiness is. He replied “I accept what’s happening” (paraphrased.)

Someone else also said “A Master prefers what occurs.” In our world, that could be translated as “A Master prefers what he or she has right now.”

Brilliant.