In his masterful book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, nobel prize winner n tells us human beings are hard-wired to exaggerate the negative. Kahneman’s research says for reasons that go back to before the stone age, we are programmed to give nine times more prominence to bad news than good.
In an attempt to help our community achieve a better balance, Biznews seeks out uplifting stories, many of which you’ll spot in our Good Hope Project section. One of the best of them, however, has received very little airplay. So we brought former GIBS dean Nick Binedell onto Rational Radio yesterday to put that right.
Binedell and his close friend, former politician Roelf Meyer, are facilitating SA’s Public-Private Growth Initiative, which brings together senior people from business and bureaucracy in two dozen sectors. For the most part they operate under the radar. Binedell says although there’s much to be done, progress is being made.
The former dean told us credit for the project lies with Johan van Zyl, SA’s most successful executive export, who runs Toyota in Europe. After hearing president Cyril Ramaphosa’s Thuma Mina call in January 2018, Van Zyl agitated for the introduction of Japanese MITI’s hugely successful economic development model. And the PPGI was born. If SA does half as well as Japan, the nation will owe the Toyota bossman quite a debt.
