"Brazilians are a little bit ..."

Comment from the Swiss-French-Indian director of IMD, respected business school in Lausanne, Switzerland. Quoted in current issue of "Voce s/a" ("You Ltd"), as part of an article titled "Globalize yourself now !" Dominique Turpin says:

"When I visit Brazilian companies I ask myself how many foreigners are in their boardrooms or senior management. Generally there are just a few. The danger in this practice is that organizations are focused just on their domestic market. That may be ok for now because of the opportunities. But Chinese companies take commodities from Brazil and sell them back to Brazil as an added-value product. This is very dangerous. Brazilian companies should be doing this themselves, otherwise they will lose. Brazilians are a little bit ... I don't mean slow but they are not prepared for global competition. The only way for Brazil to become economically independent is to have strong companies dominating worldwide markets. Brazilians still don't have a global mentality. Everything in Brazil is predictable and comfortable. Executives here need to become more flexible."

I'll give you an example, from my little guy on the street perspective, of this famous inflexibility: we went to the office of an insurance company yesterday. The usual paranoid security in the building's lobby meant that without my passport we couldn't go beyond the threshold. Could you please then give us the phone number of the company, we asked the gum-chewing woman behind the desk ? No, she could not. Why, pray tell ? Because she wasn't allowed to. Yes, but why could she not call up to the company, located a few floors up, and simply ask for their number so we can call them when we get home ?

As always, no meaningful or logical explanation is ever offered. Just as the exorbitant cost of things here is lazily blamed on "taxes", so the impossibility of basic access and communication always boils down to "security". It really is like wading through treacle and there is not the least sign of this pervasive mentality starting to change.

When Brazilians joke, as one did to me the other day, that Brazil must be blessed because it somehow works in spite of all it's shortcomings, I increasingly want to tell them that living in this way is more of a curse: you are merely surviving when you should be thriving.

PS: With thanks, as ever, to P, whose skills as a researcher and translator are indeed a blessing.