The Summit Begins

It's hard to put an age on John Jonas.  He always has a smile on his face and his top priority in life, outside of his deep spiritual faith, is obviously his family.  They are always together.  They always appear to be having a good time and from what I can see as an outsider he is a man of tremendous patience.  The patience has nothing to do with his family, but with the bombardment of questions and demands for his time coming from the group of aspiring outsourcers who had traveled from all parts of the world to be at this meeting in Boracay.

The meeting starts off with everyone introducing themselves and telling where they are from and what they hope to learn.  We are all sitting outside perhaps 50 yards from sea where the waves are rolling up on the beautiful white sand, but the waves offer no competition for Jonas when it comes to capturing the audiences attention. 

I'm Ahead of the Curve

Jonas encourages the pace as everyone pretty much tells the same redundant story about why they are there.  I am surprised to learn in comparison to most of those in attendance I am a veteran.  I have had outsource employees, 6 of them, for almost a month.  I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I had not been hesitant to hire six Filipinos to work for me sight unseen living halfway around the world and not even know for sure what I was going to have the do.  I had hired my first only two days after I first heard Jonas speak.

After everyone was finished with their introductions Jonas asked the group, "What are you waiting for?  Why haven't you hired your first employee?" 

Suddenly I didn't feel quite as bad.

Loyalty

"The best way to learn is do it," Jonas instructs, and for the next six hours Jonas parts with as much wisdom about mankind as I think I have ever heard in my life.  Much of what he taught should have been elementary.  Things like remembering that we had hired human beings and not slaves. We learned about their culture and the value of honor.  We learned about loyalty and how as a general rule Filipinos were the most loyal people in the world.

We spent three days in Boracay. Some of the younger attendees went diving and sailing. There was no shortage, however, of teaching. In addition to Jonas we heard from other well informed speakers who planted a lot of well intended thoughts in our heads. Hopefully they would remain there for when we really needed the knowledge.

Coming Face to Face With Reality

When I boarded my flight for Davao City from Caticlan, Malay I felt confident I was ready for what was ahead. What had been six employees was now only five. I had brought with me a typical Westerner attitude set a rule that any employee that could not be there for the training sessions while I was going to be there would not have a job. One of my employees was in her last semester of college and had a test to take. I felt like she could reschedule the test if I was traveling half way around the world. After it was too late to do anything about it Jonas told me I was wrong.

"Education is taken very serious here and they don't reschedule tests like they do in the United States," he informed me. "You must be more understanding of the culture if you want your employees to understand you."

I spent two hours thinking about that on the two legs of my flight to the southern most part of the Philippine Islands. I thought about how there were 7,007 islands making up the Philippines and how that in itself must present a host of logistical challenges. I felt like I had been a real jerk and I promised myself I would not make a mistake like that again.

I did not know what to expect. I would soon meet my employees face to face.

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