Educating Indonesia

I recalled about a movie titled Educating Rita on my first day in Jakarta – in mid 2005 – after five years in Toronto, Canada. Everything seemed more chaotic than when I left in 2000. On my first day at work at one of the top 3 marketing research companies I could immediately ‘smell’ dysfunctional organization with lots of dysfunctional staffs. There seemed to be significant change in work ethic in the workplace – it’s getting worse. When I mentioned about it to my circle of friends, I heard similar stories and issues. There are good and bright people, of course, but they’re outnumbered by the no-action-talk-only kind of people, or people who are only be there to killing time but got paid. The matter becomes worse when the leaders are only thinking about their personal gains – in this case, how fat their pockets will be when they leave the organization. Then came this personal idea in my mind, a personal project called “Educating Indonesia, one person at a time.” Yeah, what we need urgently is educating Indonesia, including our workforce – not only doing technical coaching but educating in order to transforming the overall behaviour of a working person. I know it takes time and it needs our patience, but I hope it will move forward and will make a real change.

So, when I met Pipiet over dinner tonight, and heard her experience in one of ‘used to be’ top international advertising agency, this thought came into my mind again. Geez, we really need educating in workplace as top priority. Leaders need to walk the talk, talented people need to have ‘educating people’ as their personal mission, and average people need to work and try harder and smarter than what they accustomed before. I know it’s not easy – who says life is easy anyway? No pain, no gain, right?

How many times we have to remind ourselves that the world has become global playing field? Only the best will survive – and the best does not mean only the one with the highest IQ but the one with the highest EQ, SQ, and work ethic. I believe in hard work – excellent results don’t come from second-rate effort. Even children that were born with silver spoon in their mouth need to work hard – unless they are only working to maintain the ‘working people’ status.

I quoted Bramann: Education, in other words, is liberation. It is the emancipation of a person from a state of being a mere extension of a given environment to an active agent who can choose who she or he will be: a potential creator of his or her own world.

Oh, man, will I live long enough to see the spectacular change in Indonesia including Indonesia's working place?