THIS PAST WEEK Trevor “Job” Clarke, activist on behalf of black business passed away, a takeover of Banks Holdings Limited by a St Lucian entity was announced, and Professor Sir Hilary Beckles gave a lecture in which he explained how the economy was designed to keep blacks out of business. Let’s get real about entrepreneurship.
The way some people speak you would expect Jesus to come back in a business suit. Entrepreneurship is spoken about like it is the road to salvation, the alpha and omega of careers, the way, the truth and the light of earning a living.
I don’t want to add to the loose talk and hype surrounding entrepreneurship, but I do believe that the young emerging entrepreneurs have a big part to play in leading Barbados out of its current slump. I call them REBs, Revolutionary Entrepreneurs of Barbados. They can’t follow the model of Donald Trump. This new class of Barbadian entrepreneur must be pioneers of an innovative approach and attitude to entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs have been compared to sharks: aggressive predators with big appetites. In the context of a small economy like Barbados, that kind of approach is harmful. Sharks and predators like that fit in well in deep waters where they have room to operate and a hunting area that easily recovers and replenishes. When that kind of predator ventures near our shores, he destroys the balance of the ecosystem. An entrepreneur with that kind of indiscriminate feeding pattern is like the lionfish invading our reefs. They eat everything in sight at a faster rate than the environment can recover until there is nothing left to eat.
The Revolutionary Entrepreneurial Bajan must be aggressive, but she must also be sensitive to, and protective of, the delicate environment she inhabits. There is a reason small islands don’t usually have large predators. It is not environmentally sustainable.
The traditional business class in Barbados descends directly or indirectly from sharks. This invading species killed off the indigenous inhabitants and then had to import a new breed of prey from Africa. The plantocracy was a beast that would have devoured us all if we did not resist and fight back.
The merchants and business people who transitioned into a free society after emancipation still carried the virus of an enslaver’s mind. The virus was passed on in some measure to the black elites. We are not fully cured of the urge to exploit and undervalue workers. REBs will have to help the society heal from the automatic mistrust and disharmony that lurks between employers and employees. We need a revolution in management style that inspires loyalty and productivity and a feeling of togetherness.
It is not fair or feasible to expect to extract unlimited profit from such a small and limited market. Larger hunting grounds overseas must satisfy our hunger and ambition. We must be comfortable swimming far and wide, hunting among sharks. Like barracudas, smaller but willing to defend ourselves against and compete with sharks.
Sharks are at the top of the food chain and have little competition. For years business sharks could exploit Barbados to their bellies’ content without a care. In a globalized economy the old sharks are being gobbled up and swallowed by bigger sharks from other waters.
If a REB is going to wuk fuh heself, he is gonna have to wuk fuh the benefit of the nation’s sovereignty. Otherwise you juss wukkin fuh a new massa.
The REBs might be small fish comparatively, but it is their knowledge of the environment and their connection to the community that will give them the local edge. Social awareness, community connection and historical context become business assets when competing with foreign behemoths. New broom sweep clean but old broom knows the corners.
Rooted in their own culture, the REBs will be like River Tamarind trees; hard to get rid of. If, however, our young entrepreneurs follow the path of focusing purely on profit and not considering the impact on wider society, they are loosening the soil that their own roots are buried in, making it easy for someone whose roots are from elsewhere to come and dig them up.
At the same time a Revolutionary Entrepreneurial Bajan is rooted in his culture, he is battling it. There are aspects of Barbadian culture that stifle entrepreneurship: authoritarian parenting and teaching styles, an education system that rewards learning by rote and punishes initiative and independence, a sluggish public sector. These are some of the home-grown obstacles a REB must climb.
This is why any young Barbadian getting involved in business now must concern herself with politics. Without a stable, efficient and responsive political system there is no entrepreneurship. There must be the political will to make the changes necessary to encourage a flourishing business culture.
The REB recognizes the he does not have the luxury of just being a business man or woman. A path was paved for the Donald Trumps, Bill Gates and Richard Bransons of the world, by their culture’s political and social activists and pioneering business people. They cleared the way for entrepreneurship to flourish in those societies.
That work must be done here in our own unique way. The guard is changing. We are at the crossroads. The direction of the stereotypical self-centred, profit driven, egotistical entrepreneur unconcerned with society at large will not work for us. Those blessed with the entrepreneurial spirit must also have a large heart, social conscience and broad-mindedness.
The countries where entrepreneurs thrive also have large endowments for the arts and institutes dedicated to social sciences. The non-business cultural foundation of those societies was set long before in history. It is on this stable cultural foundation that business stands. REBs must understand this process in their own society and work together to secure the future viability of their market, their base of operations, their home.
It cannot be business as usual.
Adrian Green was one of those children who would have eaten the first sweet. Email: [email protected]
