THE criticism within the circle of loyal Jamaicans seeking solutions for improving the country is that we don’t think big. We chug slowly along with “business as usual” as our guide. We fail to “think big”. When we do think big, we fail to execute. We don’t “act big”.

Despite the broad accuracy of these viewpoints, I have seen examples of Jamaica and Jamaicans thinking and acting big that convince me that we are capable. Still, although I may be accused of asking too much, thinking and acting big will not be enough. Even when we get that part right, we cannot rest. We need to think big, act big, and then think bigger.

Game changer

Many agree that 2010 could be described as a game changer for Jamaica. The JDX was a game changer, and the Dudus extradition was a game changer. The proof lies in the drastic drop in interest rates, and the drastic drop in the murder rate, respectively, as direct results of these big actions. Unfortunately, most intelligent Jamaicans recognise that neither of these was the result of purely local thinking. Arguably we did the JDX and extradited Dudus because someone made us do it. I need not repeat here what the years of waiting to think and act did to our GDP.

Despite their tardiness, these actions simultaneously set the stage for further improvement in the business environment and crime while teaching us a broader lesson about thinking and acting. There is a compounding effect of thinking and acting in an environment defined by thinking and acting.

Thinking and acting

Digicel’s thinking and acting when Jamaica’s telecom industry was being reshaped by some local thinking and acting by the government at the time is a great example. Digicel’s success in Jamaica is well known, and, more importantly, its use of Jamaica as a platform for its global success in places as far away as Papua, New Guinea are clear evidence of how thinking and acting big brings success.

In addition to the benefits to the company, we often neglect to highlight the impact that companies like Digicel have on the country. In developmental terms, Digicel, with the help of telecoms deregulation, the robustness of the Columbus network and the efforts of Columbus’ Flow subsidiary, has contributed to the improvement in key indicators such as access to telephones, access to the Internet, and soon, access to financial services.

Raising our standards and our profile

Beyond developmental indicators, there are also metrics that are much harder to measure. These are 1. Standards, and 2. The Country Profile. Companies like Digicel, Flow, Sandals, NCB, ACS, and others have contributed significantly to both.

The standards implemented at these entities are the types of practices and policies that would make any of their high-performing Jamaican employees excel at any leading North American firm. These organisations raise the standards of the employees, the company’s suppliers, the employees of the suppliers, and the customers. When these firms provide high-quality opportunities, high-performing Jamaicans stay in the country, and, when combined with competitive compensation, high performing Jamaicans and children of Jamaicans come home.

Raising the profile of Jamaica

Business success and human capital development at these companies also do something beyond reversing brain drain. They raise the profile of our country in the world.

While any Jamaican that has ever been to Boys and Girls Champs needed no external validation that Jamaica has the best athletics development programme and tradition in the world, the world didn’t believe it until they saw proof on the global scale. While Jamaica has been outperforming its weight in some ways for many years, the profile of the country was raised exponentially when our athletes dominated the Olympic and World Championships. Similarly, Bob Marley’s high-performing presence on the world stage did not just make him number one in the world, it helped to make Jamaica and Jamaica’s musical product attractive to innumerable buyers of music, plane tickets, hotel rooms, wood carvings in Fern Gully, and Tourist-priced tickets at Dunn’s River Falls.

An article in The Economist’s September 16th, 2010 edition demonstrated the impact of international success on the profile of Jamaica. The topic was Digicel’s high performance as a global cellphone pioneer and had nothing to do with Jamaica as it described Digicel’s foray into the Pacific. Yet, the first line of the article was “When Digicel, a Jamaican mobile-phone company…” The value of Jamaica as a serious business place, the home of successful global businesses received an immeasurable boost.

Lee-Chin puts NCB on the map

The National Commercial Bank provides another example of the results of thinking and acting big. In 2002, when Michael Lee-Chin acquired NCB, the word big would more often precede words like “failure” or “interest rates” than words like “thinking” or “action”.

The 1990’s financial crisis had called for some big thinking that was even bigger than the 80 per cent interest rates that we hear about in the commission of enquiry. It is beyond debate that something needed to be done. One of the properties that FINSAC had trouble selling, despite global road shows, and promises of government support, was the National Commercial Bank. It was an underperforming bank in an underperforming industry, in an underperforming country. Why would anyone want to buy something like that — at any price?

As Mr Lee-Chin signed the agreement, observers used big as a prefix for a choice list of words like “mistake” and “idiot”. Still, despite the doubts, Mr Lee-Chin closed the deal. The NCB recovery began immediately as Mr Lee-Chin simultaneously started the reversal of the country’s brain drain, and implemented the most ambitious IT upgrade that had ever been undertaken by any company in Jamaica. I could say the rest is history, but this story has many lessons.

The Value of thinking big

The big thinking that led to the purchase of NCB was not enough, the bank required big thinking and big action to rescue it from its crisis and to set it up for success. Over the ensuing eight years, NCB would undergo continuous improvement in its operations. NCB would build a reputation as the leader in corporate social responsibility and would continue to hire, train, and retain some of the best performing Jamaicans at all levels of the organisations. Luckily for Jamaica, sometimes these high performers would be attracted away to other companies and continue to bring NCB standards, practices and performance to numerous other companies.

NCB’s big thinking was predicated on being the best. Not just the best in Jamaica, but the best according to global standards. These efforts culminated in NCB surpassing Scotia Bank as the largest bank in Jamaica by both assets and profits. The dedication to high standards has also been demonstrated with NCB winning five of the seven awards for best practices by the Jamaica Stock Exchange in 2010.

This success calls for a celebration doesn’t it? Near-death bank, whose best assets included a papaya farm, rescued from the brink to become a beacon of business performance in Jamaica. Not to mention that the profits are good, the stock price has improved, and the dividends are excellent. But, then again, history has shown that success begets complacency which begets failure. If thinking big and acting big can improve our position, just imagine what thinking big again can do.

NCB is embarking on its biggest thinking to date. A big fish in a small pond is constrained by the pond, unless it can use its strength to jump out of the pond into one with room to grow. The Observer reported on May 29 that NCB is planning to list on a major North American stock exchange. A Jamaican-owned and Jamaican-managed company would like to list on the New York Stock Exchange! Big thinking again? Or is it big… failure, idiot, madman…? If NCB’s performance since 2002 is any indication of potential, this is one big thought that will bring big benefits to a big constituent of people: NCB employees, NCB shareholders, shareholders in every company listed on the JSE and Junior exchange, Jamaican pension funds, and the entire population of Jamaica.

Global Comparators:

We are assured of the extent of Usain’s talent because he is compared to all of the athletes in the world, not just those in Jamaica. Why should NCB be any different? It is only when NCB is measured against its peers in the rest of the world that it will maximise its potential. By listing its shares on a global exchange, NCB will take on the added responsibility of reporting requirements, global analyst reports, demands from international shareholders, and governance standards defined by entities like the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). More work for NCB management, more people to please, but the end result will be a further improvement in performance. Who benefits:

National Commercial Bank: The proposed listing on the Toronto or New York Stock exchange and public offering would raise up to US$175 million in cash. NCB would be able to be more opportunistic in carrying out strategies to improve the business, including acquisitions. The management team of NCB, that already performs at a high level, will be required to do even more to advance accounting, operational and governance standards to meet the additional North American scrutiny into their business activities.

NCB Shareholders: NCB shareholders would benefit as a listing and a capital raise will unlock significant value for NCB. Although NCB, like most of its colleagues on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, trades at a value equivalent to four to five times its earnings and one time the value of its book value (assets minus liabilities), similar banks across Central and Latin America trade at an average of 13 times earnings and two times book value. A successful listing should value NCB more in line with these peers.

The Jamaican Equities Market: Introducing global standards, global metrics, and global liquidity as a realistic goal for Jamaican listed companies will set the standard and encourage all Jamaican companies to mimic the performance of NCB and act in ways that will increase the likelihood of an eventual listing. Additionally, as interest in a Jamaican cross-listed company increases in the global market, so will interest in Jamaican companies and the Jamaican stock market. The increased interest may also provide an excellent means by which the Diaspora can begin to participate in a more targeted way in the investment in the Jamaican economy beyond remittances.

The Jamaican Economy: As shareholders which include individuals, corporations, and Jamaica’s largest and most influential pension funds and their pensioners, begin to see the benefits of an increase in the value of their shareholding, proceeds from share sales and dividends will mean more wealth in Jamaica, and an increase in funds available for investment across all sectors of the economy.

Jamaica: In addition to the direct and indirect byproducts described above, Jamaica will benefit from an NCB listing in a way that goes farther than the pride we feel when a Sandals advertisement airs on CNN or when a Jamaican athlete receives a gold medal at the Olympics. When a Jamaican bank is listed, quoted, and traded on an international exchange, the world will know that Jamaica is truly open for business.

Inspiration

When I read the article on the NCB listing, I was inspired to believe that if a home-grown, home-managed bank in Jamaica could be so bold as to think that it could list on the New York Stock Exchange, Jamaica can and should be similarly bold. Any Jamaican who truly desires that Jamaica be world class should support NCB’s efforts to be world class.

In the fifty years since independence, Jamaica has been flailing around on the brink of an irreversible downward spiral. NCB, and others such as Digicel, have shown me that the solution to Jamaica’s problems was right under our noses. Jamaica needs to think big, act big, and, like the largest bank in Jamaica at the pinnacle of its success, Jamaica can never be satisfied with being “the best so far”. When you have thought big and acted big, it is not time to take a rest, it is time to think big again.