UWI and the Chocolate Factory

by Gerard Best

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Some of us look; some of us see. It’s an old Chinese proverb.

“What that means,” says Arthur Lok Jack, chuckling throatily before interpreting the Oriental aphorism, “is that we’re both in the same position but I see something and you don’t.”

No need to belabour the point about Lok Jack’s vision. His rags-to-riches story, now almost cliché, is evidence enough of the man’s entrepreneurial genius. But can you identify the connection between that Chinese axiom and our Caribbean Luminary?

“My father’s name, really, is ‘Look Jack.’ It started off as ‘Look Jack’ and then somewhere along the line, he dropped one ‘o’.”

Interesting.

That “line”, by the way, is pretty short: his father is first-generation Chinese from China. In fact, if you asked Lok Jack about his own work ethic, the ABIL Chairman would probably mention Confucius.

“There’s a Confucian work ethic, definitely. […] Basically, Chinese by their very nature are great risk-takers and entrepreneurs. But they’re also quite realistic and tend to be very hands-on management,” he said. “I saw it in my father I saw it in all the Chinese communities in Trinidad. Many of the shop-keepers, the laundry owners, the restaurant owners, whatever they do, they’re working right around the clock.”

Environment, education, exposure, work ethic…not ethnicity

I wondered how come the region wasn’t producing more world-class entrepreneurs, and whether that work ethic and family structure were missing components? What are we missing, I asked.

“Experience, knowledge, exposure, a number of things,” Lok Jack said. “But I don’t think it’s the work ethic. Many, many of these managers work very hard. I don’t think a work ethic has anything to do with any particular group or anything like that. As long as a person has decided what their goals are […], then that person will work hard like hell to achieve their goals. […] The ability to go to the next level depends solely upon that person.”

Another key component, said the 2001 Ernst and Young Caribbean Entrepreneur of the Year, was education.

“I think that today tertiary education is extremely important. Although if you look around at people who own businesses in Trinidad, who are at the top rung in business in Trinidad, many of them don’t have tertiary education.”

He would add, “They didn’t have GSBs when I was growing up. I missed that. But this generation has it.”

Generals, generalists and general managers

I had to ask. So do you really need an expensive MBA from the GSB to be a mega-successful businessman?

“No, but it gives you a big leg-up because coming out of there, you understand the nuances of business in a way that normally would have taken you years to learn,” he replied. “And if you’re already working in business, then when you go there, you start to get an understanding of all the different aspects of business.  It creates more General Managers, CEOs, rather than a person who is just working within, say, the Accounting Department as an accountant.”

Lok Jack, who holds an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws (2002) from The University of the West Indies, spoke with confidence about the value of postgraduate business qualification.

“Basically, in an MBA programme, you’re training generalists. […] You’re getting a general feel of how business is run, and how the components of that field come together. It’s more architectural, in other words. You know and you see the design of every single aspect of the business. You’re not a specialist, but you’ll hire the specialist next week.”

I asked whether our institutions shouldn’t be creating Town Planners rather than architects, and Generals rather than generalists, people, like Lok Jack, with an elevated vision of the global battlefield.

“Yes,” he replied, “that’s what I’m talking about. General Manager means you’re the manager-in-general, you’re the top man. You’re not the CFO (the Chief Financial Officer); you’re the CEO, the top man.”

Complementary, not competing

So, by funding The University of the West Indies’ postgraduate business school, you’ve essentially made a substantial investment in creating your own competition, I suggested. Lok Jack disagreed.

“The more managers that we have coming out of the Graduate School of Business, the more managers that we have, actually, to place in various organisations and institutions in Trinidad and Tobago. Therefore our organizations will be strengthened. I don’t see them as competing with me. I see that as complementary, not conflicting.”

Lok Jack, who, as ABIL Chairman, heads one of the country’s leading companies in terms of regional expansion, made another critical observation, “Sure, I’m competing in Trinidad and Tobago but I’m competing in many other markets and I think that what we need to do is get many other Trinidadian businesses running overseas, growing, expanding and so on. I think that that’s what we need to do in a global sense.”

It is to his benefit, Lok Jack explained, to make the whole country and the region, world-class.”

“I think that the more managers we have, the better for the country. That’s what we’re all about. We have a country to build. […] We cannot think short term. We have to take a page from the Far Eastern countries—think long term, think generational.”He cited the huge IT industries of Silicon Valley, California and Austin, Texas as brilliant examples of industry clusters.
“When you go there, you have all the resources. […] You have the infrastructure of knowledge to do with that industry, so that you can easily find people, equipment and everything to do with that industry in one place. You see? They complement each other.”

Philanthropy – a dirty word?

Using that analogy, he explained that funding the GSB was an investment toward developing the managerial infrastructure of the Caribbean region.

“The more business people we can create in this country, the better for the country,” he postulated, adding that, as the region’s business culture grew, the culture of philanthropy would develop.

“I think it’s going to evolve. I mean, every hospital, every university you go to in the United States, has a wing named after a person who has donated funds and left a legacy for their family over time. It leaves an example for other people. It encourages their peers to do the same thing. More than that, it gives the person a great sense of satisfaction.

Inside you feel very good about it.

But businessmen don’t dream in Technicolor, I interjected. They think only in terms of dollars and cents.

“No, that’s the mistake that a lot of people make. […] We’re still treating businessmen separate from the man who, on a Sunday morning, goes to teach kids to play football in the Savannah. What’s the difference? What’s the difference between one and the other? One gives what’s precious to him, which is time. The other gives what’s precious to him, which is money. And he gives his time too. But what is the difference? I don’t know. You give what you can give, but you must give.”