Make the benefits of cooperation worth resolving our differences
Two men trout fishing on a misty Dullstroom morning. One gets a fly hook stuck in his finger, and the other manages to yank it out amid much wincing and gnashing of teeth.
The fishermen were Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer, one the future South African President, the other the National Party’s chief negotiator. Their fishing trip 32 years ago helped shape post-Apartheid South Africa.
It is but one example of a concept that has underpinned progress for literally thousands of years: ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ - a phrase attributed to Greek philosopher Aristotle.
The impact of a brief fishing trip was far greater than any volume of fish caught, and a small hole in Roelf Meyer’s finger was a small price to pay for a friendship forged between two political adversaries.
History is replete with such examples, where a meeting of minds or timely conversation, plugs a gap, thereby catalysing an outcome way beyond what two people alone might achieve.
The unfortunate corollary, of course, is that failure to engage meaningfully is a lost opportunity.
One doesn’t need to look far to see Aristotle’s concept playing out on a daily basis, notably in relation to the current US tariffs debacle.
As we report this week in our newsletter, talks between key US and SA stakeholders have reportedly calmed the trade waters, although the final outcome remains unclear.
What is clear is the transformative power of getting people to connect, or even of identifying who needs to connect.
And sometimes it takes an existential threat to force people to find each other, as was the case with Trump tariffs where some local industry sectors, finding themselves staring down the barrel of balance sheet pain, suddenly found their voice.
Maritime manufacturing is a case in point: Read More - SA’s biggest boat exporter breaks silence on tariffs
Enabling business stakeholders to work together is the lodestar of our work at the Cape Chamber. Through our Network of Networks we connect multiple sectors from across the broad sweep of society.
Proactive engagement of this kind is fundamental to economic progress.
It is worth stating the obvious that people don’t always know how to work together; mistrust and misunderstanding is often at the heart of system bottlenecks and obstacles to growth.
We see our role as identifying these economic roadblocks, and then facilitating constructive dialogue to overcome them.
Our Strategic Dialogue Networks are specifically geared to enable this process. In consultation with our partners we help identify and articulate specific obstacles and needs, in a wide variety of contexts, and we apply business principles in navigating a way of overcoming these obstacles.
The work can be painstakingly slow, difficult, uncomfortable.
But experience suggests it is almost always profitable to resolve problems than to allow them to fester.
In talking past each other, sometimes people miss obvious solutions.
This is how even a painful flyfishing accident could benefit an entire nation.
John Lawson
CEO of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry