No 163: Euthanize the Old, Brainwash the Young

Last Tuesday I attended a meeting in the Philippines hosted by Metropac Water and Maynilad (one of the Philippine’s major water suppliers). Also attending were a number of senior managers from a variety of rural Philippine Water Districts.

For some attendees it was the first time they had met. As an ice-breaker we were all invited to share something that our colleagues didn’t know. All was going smoothly (‘I like to dance’, ‘I have a pet hamster’) until a lovely lady with a larger-than-usual body shape stood up and said with heart-breaking melancholy  ‘One of the things my colleagues don’t know about me is that I used to be sexy’.

This jaw-dropping confession was then followed by a man who stood up and declared ‘Some of my colleagues think I am a homosexual. I am not. ….. Just kidding. Yes I am!’.

My confession that I grow asparagus in my spare time felt rather lame.

The aim of the meeting was to discuss how they could better identify and adopt new technology. It is a problem common to all utilities irrespective of size, location or wealth. Two of my favourite suggestions were that we should Euthanize the Old, and Brainwash the Young. As innovation adoption strategies go, these are more edgy than usual.

The euthanization suggestion was actually made by the eldest person in the room (I don’t think he was volunteering) as a tongue-in-cheek alternative to the problem all utilities experience of having operators who are so set in their ways that they actively resist new innovations. The brainwashing suggestion was another tongue-in-cheek proposal that came out of a discussion about the importance of educating children on how water is treated and cleaned. I also learnt about a newly created organisation called the Philippine Young Water Professionals. This was formed by 5 very engaging (and very engaged) young people in Manila who decided that the best way to make things better was get on and do it themselves. It is a very impressive, and very Philippine, approach.

Also worth noting that within 2 minutes of the official meeting ending there was karaoke playing loudly, with words on the overhead projector and microphones in the hands of enthusiastic (and talented) singers.

For the record, this confess-at-the-start-and-sing-for-joy-at-the-end approach is not how meetings tend to go in London. I like the Philippine style more.