Strategic silence is a powerful tool that entrepreneurs can utilize to enhance their decision-making, negotiation skills, and overall leadership abilities. By taking a moment of silence, entrepreneurs can clear their minds, analyze situations more effectively, and make informed choices. It allows them to listen attentively to their team, customers, and investors, fostering better communication and understanding. Strategic silence also provides entrepreneurs with the opportunity for reflection, innovation, and the generation of fresh ideas. By choosing when to speak and when to remain silent, entrepreneurs can avoid miscommunication and demonstrate strength and control. Embracing strategic silence can ultimately lead to improved business outcomes and success.

Some individuals might be more productive having a team to help them in creating ideas that will allow them to grow their business. This can similarly be effective. But for some of those who might feel too overwhelmed with the massive work load that an entrepreneur carries every day, taking some time off can help generate more powerful strategies to enhance business growth.

Strategic silence can be a powerful tool for entrepreneurs in several ways:
1. Better Decision Making: By taking a moment of silence before making decisions, entrepreneurs can clear their minds, analyze the situation better, and make more informed choices. An effective means of making better decisions is when you have recharged yourself from long hours of work. It is crucial that any individual allow himself to start with a clean slate so that he has the time to analyze situations and come up with new and better ideas.

2. Negotiation: In negotiations, silence can be a strategic tool. It can create pressure on the other party, causing them to reveal more information or make concessions. You may be over-excited to close a deal. Remember, “Haste makes waste”. You should not grab all opportunities presented in front of you. You need to scrutinize the details and determine if it is beneficial in the long-term.

3. Listening: Silence allows entrepreneurs to listen more effectively to their team, customers, or investors. By not immediately responding, they can absorb and understand the information better. You may have a lot of ideas in mind for your business. However, allow your team to voice out their suggestions, too. There may be some points which you have overlooked in certain matters. Listen and understand what your team is telling you. Their contribution may help boost the business if proven to be effective.

4. Reflection and Innovation: Moments of silence can provide entrepreneurs with the opportunity to reflect on their business and come up with innovative ideas. You can’t expect your business to be on a plateau. There is no growth if you are satisfied with where you are now. How do you think Mr. Henry Sy became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Philippines? He did not just focus on having a store selling shoes. Instead, he slowly turned his ordinary shoe business into a phenomenal business empire. Growing slowly, but surely is your ticket to a lifetime of success.

5. Leadership: Strategic silence can also demonstrate strength and control, which are key traits of a successful leader. It shows that the entrepreneur is thoughtful and doesn’t rush into decisions. Making rash decisions only lead to a string of mistakes. And when this happen, it is a waste of time and resources. Even if you think that there needs to have some level of change in the business, careful planning is needed and not just jump into action as soon as you have thought of something.

6. Avoiding Miscommunication: By choosing when to speak and when to remain silent, entrepreneurs can avoid saying something that could be misinterpreted or damage their business. It is important that before you speak your mind in front of anyone, you need to think it over a few times to determine how it would affect the person that you are going to talk to. In that way, you avoid getting into trouble with others.

Remember, strategic silence is not about withholding important information or avoiding communication. It’s about choosing the right moments to speak and to listen, leading to better communication and decision-making.
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If you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts on the column, feel free to send an email to jca.bblueprint@gmail.com. Looking forward to connecting with you!

THAT’S what we can get from the gospel episode of Christ’s disciples buffeted by big waves in the middle of the sea and Christ was just asleep. (cfr. Mt 8,23-27) “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” the disciples woke Christ in terror. But Christ reproached them. “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” he said. Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm, leaving the disciples completely amazed.

In life, we cannot avoid some special or extraordinary storms of trials and challenges. We, of course, should first go to Christ, and instead of being overly terrified or overwhelmed, we should strengthen our faith in the omnipotent providence of God who takes care of everything and who knows how to derive good from whatever evil we can encounter in life. (cfr. Rom 8,28)

We need to realize that our life always has more to offer to us than what we can understand, let alone, cope. In the face of all this, I believe the attitude to have and the reaction to make is to be calm, pray hard, and while we do all we can, we have to learn to live a certain sense of abandonment in the hands of God.

In this life, we need to develop a sportsman’s attitude, since life is like a game. Yes, life is like a game, because we set out to pursue a goal, we have to follow certain rules, we are given some means, tools and instruments, we train and are primed to win and do our best, but defeats can always come, and yet, we just have to move on.

It would be unsportsmanlike if we allow ourselves to get stuck with our defeats and failures, developing a loser’s mentality. That would be the epic fail that puts a period and a finis in an ongoing narrative, when a comma, a colon or a semi-colon would have sufficed.
We need a sporting spirit because life’s true failure can come only when we choose not to have hope. That happens when our vision and understanding of things is narrow and limited, confined only to the here and now and ignorant of the transcendent reality of the spiritual and supernatural world.

This should be the attitude to have. It’s an attitude that can only indicate our unconditional faith and love for God who is always in control of things, and at the same time can also leave us in peace and joy even in the worst of the possibilities.

We have to follow the example of the many characters in the gospel who, feeling helpless in the many predicaments they were in, earnestly rushed to Christ for some succor. They went to him unafraid and unashamed and they got what they wanted.

We have to be sport and adventurous in facing the different conditions of our life. And it would greatly help if we too can have an abiding sense of humor. Otherwise, we would just fall into states of sadness, pessimism and despair which actually are unnecessary and are avoidable.

This we can do if first of all we have a strong and deep faith in God, our Creator and Father. If we have that faith, we know that God holds everything in order through his providence. He takes care of everything, irrespective of how things go. Ours is simply to relate everything to him and to go back to him everytime we go astray especially at the end of the day.

Education is regarded as key to success and a better life. This is why most people seek education for those without are bound to be left in this competitive world. It truly matters that one has the necessary education duly supported by credentials issued by the learning institution that the person had passed through. One cannot just claim as educated without proof of such, usually through school credentials that is obtained by the grit of ones perseverance to earn education. In the quest for knowledge, many learners had imbibed that mistaken notion that the academic fields are far more rewarding than vocational ones.

The belief had led many students to taking courses that lead to academic degrees, setting aside choices that led to vocational skills on the thought that such are second class.

For several decades we have accepted that mistaken notion, egging our students to take biased preferences for degree courses than vocational. Those who could not cope with the rigors of academic studies are bound to return to the first step of the vocational field. In the same manner, those taking vocational courses who later realize the better prospect of finishing an academic degree would be forced to start all over in taking a new course. The situation had caused many students so much waste of time, money and efforts pursuing the aptest course. The great divide between academic and vocational as set by a national college entrance test had deprived many students from taking the right course or vocation that could bring them to success and a better life.

But the mistaken notion had come to pass as our government had taken the better road dubbed as ladderized education. The program affords students usefulness of whatever level of education is attained as there is apt recognition at any stage of the ladder. One taking academic courses is afforded vocational and technical subjects that are integrated in the main course and the same serves as fallback once the student fails to complete the academic ladder. The student may utilize the technical and vocational subjects in obtaining skills accreditation that could be used in finding a decent gainful employment both here and abroad.

Noteworthy is the shift of interest for those who have earned academic degrees seeking technical and vocational skills as a worthy fallback. It cannot be gainsaid that many degree holders are in the class of the unemployed and the underemployed primarily because of lack of opportunities for academic degree holders. The situation is made even worse as the competition among those seeking jobs had become too steep that an academic degree is often still lacking. And there is that question of competence which many degree holders are found bereft, requiring further training despite long years of schooling.

We have reached the time of awakening when we come to the realization that earning an academic degree is not truly worthy of what it promises to bring as technical and vocational skills had turned to be the greater demand in the world of work and global competition.
Comments to alellema@hotmail.com

What we already know doesn’t need to be repeated. Perhaps we must, though, if only to acknowledge our errors and make amends. We are consistently informed that something is wrong with our educational system.

Our standing in these worldwide yardsticks is persistently low, and while we can applaud ourselves for hosting several award ceremonies and producing hundreds of Latin Honor Graduates in addition to numerous high scorers, the ongoing embarrassment of our position is evident.

The link herein attached https://edcom2.gov.ph/edcom-2-releases-year-one-report/:
The Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) released findings during its first year of operation on January 23, 2024.

In its Year One Report entitled “Miseducation: The Failed System of Philippine Education”, the Commission highlighted its findings in twelve out of its twenty-eight Priority Areas, following its first year of work. This is in line with its mandate under RA 11899 to report to Congress its accomplishments, findings and recommendations on a periodic basis.

EDCOM 2 was formally convened on January 23, 2023, and has since initiated a national effort to diagnose the primary challenges leading to poor learning outcomes, together with its Advisory Council, Standing Committee members, and its Technical Secretariat.

The Commission has since conducted extensive research as well as 19 hearings and consultations, 12 focused group discussions, and 23 site visits all over the country, in its mission to “undertake a comprehensive national assessment and evaluation of the performance of the Philippine education sector”.

The report included 40 recommendations of EDCOM, including actions taken by the Commission in the past year.

In Early Childhood Care and Development, EDCOM 2 urged the government to find possible complementarities of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and the Food Stamp Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

To solve dilemmas in textbook procurement, the Commission also recommended that the Department of Education should look into the possibility of procuring books that are already available on the market rather than engaging publishers to develop new ones.

Under its recommendations for Higher Education, the Commission stressed the need to prioritize the poorest of the poor for the Tertiary Education Subsidy.

This is following the Commission’s findings that between 2018 and 2022, the proportion of the grantees of the subsidy that comes from DSWD’s Listahanan 2.0 and 4Ps has declined markedly, from 74% to 31%.

EDCOM 2 also found that teachers continue to bear the burden of about 50 administrative and ancillary tasks, despite efforts to allow them to focus on teaching across many administrations.

We fervently believe that progress will inevitably be made and that significant progress is achievable. Among all the negative news the industry is receiving, the EDCOM II offers a ray of hope.We have to stop bragging about how much better we are and how many honor students we have, even though, in reality, we are not much better off when compared to the world’s lowest achievers.

We hope for a better future for education and urge that, following EDCOM II’s conclusion in 2025, we continue to assist the evolving of that future.