You can count yourself a true blue Malaysian if you have heard and been stumped by this question. Quaint colloquialism aside, this question captures the very essence of what it feels like when one is truly at one’s wit’s end.

So, now how?

Let’s start at the beginning. The beginning of the year, that is, when this column started with a question, “Can Malaysia regain its competitive edge?” It was a rhetorical one, for Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah had already stated that, based on empirical evidence, Malaysia had been losing its edge. But there is a dark side to this. Not only have we lost our edge, but sadly, not the entire nation is conscious of this fact and some still believe we are an Asian tiger. 

To a certain extent we should be. We are blessed with a strategic geographic location, one recognised by global circumnavigators since the 15th century. We have natural resources, rich fertile soil, a peacefully co-existing multi-cultural society.  Alas, we are not.

So, the first order of the day is to get us all to sit back and reflect on what got us here. Why are we uncompetitive? In “Can Malaysians think?”, I asked if we know how we’ve lost our edge. I postulated that with all the wealth of natural resources we are endowed with, we are losing our most precious resource. We have always known knowledge is power. Now knowledge is also wealth. And we’ve been happily exporting our best and brightest talents, and allowing them to grow wealth for others.

That’s bad enough, but another more dangerous and permanent malaise lurks. Not only are we unable to retain talent — which is bad for the present — we are also failing to develop them, which spells more mediocrity for us in the future. I had asked “What is our true source of competitive advantage?”. The reply is, unequivocally, human capital. Ask any CEO. The only reason one company succeeds on a sustainable basis and another doesn’t is the former’s ability to attract, develop and retain talent. Yet our education standards are slipping, or worse, we are diverging into a two-tier system where the rich enjoy good, private education and the masses don’t. A two-class society is a future no patriotic Malaysian would wish on this country.

The answer to rebuilding and sustaining our sources of advantage is not difficult to formulate but extremely difficult to execute. In “Are we afraid of breaking?”, I applauded the then one-year-old administration of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for its intentions to date, but cautioned that the heart that is afraid of breaking will never learn to dance.

And what if we never take the chance. In “How will the party end?”, one such scenario is envisioned. We could become, as Datuk Seri Idris Jala forewarned, a deeply indebted nation: a country whose citizenry is unhealthily dependent on subsidies and, in the process, eroding our competitive spirit further. This is a high-stakes game and the government that loses the plot, loses it all for the people. That is why (in part to pander to domestic politics as mid-term elections draw nearer) the US  has singled out China’s undervalued renminbi as a key reason for its current economic woes.

But economists, corporate chiefs and the national leadership know better. The US decline and China’s rise is not a matter of imbalanced currency valuation. The real story is China is investing in the true source of competitive advantage: its people. And there are a billion of them. What an almost unthinkably formidable force this will unleash! Since 1998, Beijing has tripled the share of its GDP to education. It has identified its nine top universities and expects them to become the best in the world.

In a recent interview with Time magazine, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao placed great store in his country’s future because he believes “the new generation will invariably surpass the old … The wish and will of the people are not stoppable. Those who go along with the trend will thrive and those who go against the trend will fail”.

The trend demands that we shift our paradigms and make use of every available human capital we have and keep pushing them to improve themselves, their companies and by extension, their country. A generation ago, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad tried to change our mindsets with “Malaysia Boleh!” But still too many of us are “tak boleh”. We still can’t dance, and we are held hostage to that fact. We are afraid to bend our bodies to move more nimbly because we are afraid of breaking. This culture has come to define us. And it was painfully on show when we hosted the Thomas Cup (and got booted out early).

In “What is our culture?”, I said our badminton players were honest enough to own up to lacking a culture of performance. Owning up is important. It is the very first step towards any sort of rehabilitation. We can build from this awareness of our lackadaisical culture, of our eroding standards of education, of the loss of rare and much needed talent.

So, in “Can we make it happen?” I argued that we can. You can smell it in the air. The nation is restless — it is ready for change, and there are still enough pockets of ability (compared with some even more uncompetitive nations around us). It remains for us to have the will to make it happen!

Over the course of the year, this column has drawn several responses, and none more vitriolic when I wrote “Make it happen” because some readers believe we have gone too far down the tubes to rise again. I disagreed and proceeded to ask Malaysians “Have we lost our faith?”.  One only needs to draw a comparison to how the US suffered in the Great Depression. Its situation then was much bleaker but the Americans had faith in FDR’s New Deal. Do Malaysians have faith in our government’s new transformation programmes? We need to, because we need to rise again.

If we, the people, are to follow, we do need leaders who have the courage to lead, to take tough and even painful decisions. In “Do we have the courage?”, I referred to Nelson Mandela’s personal, painful and ultimately, triumphant struggle which provided an excellent analogy. Upon his release, he never asked for revenge. He never went after those who had unjustly punished him. He sought instead to forgive them. He cared only about uniting, forging and growing a new nation. He even put down his own supporter who tried to sow seeds of disunity. In words immortal, he reminds us that “it always seems impossible until it’s done”.

As our leaders find the courage to lead, we need to follow. But “Do we have a plan?” or will we be like Tennyson’s Light Brigade, charging to our deaths following blundered commands. Thankfully not, because we do have a plan, a series of plans to be precise — from the government’s Economic Transformation Programmes to the 10th Malaysia Plan to the New Economic Model — each aimed at transforming a specific part of what ails Malaysia. To complement this national-level transformation, our corporations too have grand plans to be regional, even global, champions. The execution of all of these will not be easy and we will get it wrong sometimes. The ultimate direction, though, is correct and the destination (if we stick to it) must become for all of us a constant if annoying reminder of what we need to keep doing. And we will get there. We have 10 more years or we will fail our own grand pronouncement of being a developed nation.

So, now how?

Strangely enough, for a complex question (or series of questions), the answer is a relatively simple one, and it has two dimensions to it. Be not afraid: just do it.

We said we’d improve the education system. Let’s fix it. We said we’d welcome talents (of any sort, local and foreign) who can grow our economy. Let’s welcome them. We said we’d make it easier for everyone to establish and do business in and with Malaysia. Let’s do it.

We need everyone of us — Malaysians of all ages, creeds and colours, and foreigners who want to contribute — to pull ahead together. And let’s call out those who are not doing their part. Aung Sang Suu Kyi tried to stop the military junta from robbing Myanmar and she is still fighting them. She’s ailing now but I really hope she has inspired her fellow citizens to continue to do so. A generation ago, on the other hand, too many Filipinos stood by and watched Ferdinand Marcos plunder the country, and said nothing. The Philippines is only now — nearly a quarter century after Marcos — re-emerging as a credible economy.

Here we are, in between these once favoured Southeast Asian nations, and fast losing our edge. Thankfully, it’s not too late. We can do something about it. But if we don’t, and Malaysia sinks further, alas, history will remember us as the generation that could but did not stop the slide.

In her achingly profound book of essays, Freedom from Fear, Aung San Suu Kyi wrote “a most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom: condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small daily acts of courage.” We Malaysians, at all levels, can and should do the same, commit small and daily acts of courage!

With this, Vincent Chin will conclude his 42 column. He will return occasionally next year to comment on the latest developments in management and leadership.

This article appeared in Management@work, the monthly management pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 830, Nov 1-7, 2010.