Business Post Contributor
By Nneka Okumazie
In any town, place or community, what unique problems can all the people there solve – challenging elsewhere, or yet to be solved – that could give them an edge beyond their borders? What is the competitive creative advantage of a place, in areas of complex difficulty that makes them outstanding?
There are lots of important things and categories, including knowledge, adoption of progress, change, status, etc. But what really matters is what can these people do or what can this place do that others cannot match?
Communities may or may not have this, but not striving towards it represents a bad core that every other problem feeds from. Though the interconnected world results in general problems, communities with a solving attitude come at problems with a collective intellect to mitigate the impact.
Those from places like this become strong in a way that wherever they go, they tend to seek out new teams where such is possible, or maybe strikeout, in their own way.
There are things to learn, know and do with which to earn, but problems tend to eat up those. There are many communities with people of skill, knowledge, exposure, and craft, but they are unable to do anything different, new, advantageous or lead in any meaningful way. They may seem to know, but what they can all do with what they know changes nothing and goes nowhere.
This bad core continues to keep communities in several nations of the world at the zilch spot. They often have new problems, yet follow the same cycle of blame, as well as point in the wrong direction for a solution, as they are unable to see their core.
For them, problems are worse because it is a new opportunity to take things backwards, with the excuse that no one cares. There is no responsibility among many for progress or ease, everything is blamed on the government, even if they have had different sets of leaders across levels over their recent years.
They forget that it is what most people do, in their own tasks and in how they can contribute to change, that matters more than a top-down approach when there is a biting bad core.
“What should be done about this general problem within this team” is a question they never ask because it is not an attitude they have. There are communities where they have had the same common problems for decades, nothing changes because they distanced themselves and find ways to keep low, how it affects them – individually.
There are things it means for people in every community to be doing well, or have markers of success, mostly by material possessions, for something new, or some old stuff, but their lack of ability to solve problems or paddle progress for themselves or ahead of others, means that what they all achieve may most certainly be meaningless – over time.
[Psalm 103:16, For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.]
