I’m Going to Cuba…to Study Business

Paul Taylor Hess is participating in Global Exchange’s upcoming Environmental Protection
and Sustainable Development trip to Cuba. Below Paul shares some of his thoughts as he prepares for this adventure.

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“I’m Going to Cuba…to Study Business” by Paul Taylor Hess

Over the previous two years as part of my MBA in Sustainable Business program at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI), I’ve studied many things pertaining to both business and sustainability. We’ve explored management principles, methods for getting the most out of collaborative teams, principles of sustainability, the Natural Step, the Triple Bottom Line, issues of social and environmental justice facing corporations and communities, finance and accounting, quantitative methods, organizational change, systems thinking and the list could go on.

It has, up to now, been a good mix of theory and practice.

In the hopes of upping the ante on the ‘practice’ side of the equation, BGI students are now in our second year of traveling abroad to see how sustainability works on the ground in other places. So, with one year to go in the program before I walk the MBA walk, I will join about two dozen of my classmates on a two-week study tour to Cuba beginning later this week. We will visit with governmental officials, educators, medical professionals, urban (and rural) farmers, permaculturists, and especially many new entrepreneurs.

We’ll be traveling with the amazing people at Global Exchange, who’ve been traveling to Cuba for about 2 decades and connecting people from the US with people in Cuba in ways that break through the rhetoric (on both sides) and establish deep bonds that promote real understanding.

I’ve already been asked – and will probably be again – why a business school would travel to Cuba in the first place. I mean, aren’t they communists there?

Yes, they are (technically, sort of), but they are also people living in a system essentially up until now devoid of what we in the US would call a “market economy” encouraging people to go into business for themselves for the (theoretical) benefit of the wider economy and society.

This is changing rapidly in Cuba, as evidenced by the 2010 report that 500,000 state employees would be laid off in 2011 and encouraged to start new business ventures and help grow and diversify the economy. This represents just part of the tectonic shifts taking place in Havana and throughout the island as the Castro reign, seemingly, draws to a close.

We travel first and foremost to learn, to establish connections, offer our own insights to Cubans, deepen our understanding of the Cuban people’s different perspectives and the lessons they’ve learned in a starkly different culture and economic system than our own, and (hopefully) begin an ongoing dialog about what makes a business both successful and sustainable, in terms of its own financial survival and its connection to the community that supports it in ways that transcend only financial concerns.

Personally, I am curious about the cultural components of Cuban society that will support (or discourage) new entrepreneurs to step up, roll the dice and take a chance on something new.

How does a system with no history of (X) begin doing (X)? In what ways will the government interact with these new ventures? How will the emergence of an entrepreneurial class change the culture of Cuba? How will the culture (and economic system as it exists today) alter what we in the US expect of entrepreneurs and their start-up businesses? What can we learn about and improve upon in our system when compared closely to Cuba’s?

Stay tuned for more (later in July) about these and other topics.

Here’s the next in a series of posts written by Alexa Stevens, a Tufts University student who is one of seven delegates currently traveling (and writing) in Iran with the Citizen Diplomacy Reality Tour trip:

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Stone-Cold Truths

Sometimes I wonder if all travel isn’t some variation of escape. An escape from somewhere or to something I’m not sure, but a deliberate action of leaving what is known to surround one’s self in the unknown. We had our conference call last week, where the seven of us met each other, over the phone, for the first time. Allow me to explain–our trip is organized by an NGO based out of San Francisco, Global Exchange, and I am one of seven delegates of this tour to Iran.

Everyone spoke of their preparation–Patty, a fund-raiser from Columbia, Maryland, joked about the difficulty of finding a loose-fitting top that would be conservative enough for Iran yet tolerant enough for the heat (highs of 102ºF, lows of 80ºF next week); Rebecca, a freelance writer from Washington DC, talked about the voracious reading she had undertaken, ranging from ancient Persian history to the poetry of the greats–Hafez, Rumi, Ferdowsi–while Tom, a retired attorney from Houston, spoke not of the intellectual preparation he had done, but rather how he was waiting to take it all in once we got there. I spoke of my studies, my scant knowledge of Farsi, and my excitement.

We were all urged to catalogue our preconceptions; write down a few questions we were hoping this trip would answer, or a few hypotheses we would confirm or disprove through the empirical evidence we were sure to gather on this fact-finding mission. This trip, though veiled in the same cloth as a true tourist venture–complete with bilingual native tour guide, bright orange tour bus (or so I hear), and of course us, the American tourists equipped with our guide books, cameras and useless currency–was also supposed to serve as a first-hand educational field guide, footnote to our intellectual conclusions and perceptions.

I get the feeling that in two weeks, upon our return to the US, we are expected to bring back not just souvenirs but true gems of knowledge, which will illuminate our world views, focus our political inclinations and refine our identities.

But I don’t know what my preconceptions are, what I’m hoping this trip will answer, and I’m not quite sure that I’m going to Iran entirely to discover the Iranians and their country. You see, I’m truly hoping to discover more of myself through them. I want to know these people, see this country, connect our worlds, of course–but I’ve invested so much of myself in the study of Iran, what if all my columns of curiosity come crashing down? Truth be told, I’m a little terrified of disappointment; not in Iran, but in myself.

The most common question I get leading up to my departure is the incredulous “Why?” Why would you go to Iran?” And I can’t ever seem to give a coherent answer. I suppose the easiest reason I cite is the default one: oh, its what I’m studying, I’ve been interested in the region for years, I have a few close friends from the Middle East. But I know there must be more to it than that. No one commits them self to studying the foreign if the familiar is truly… Familiar.

Here, in the West, I’m lost. There are so many possibilities–these days, the pressure to be something, to fulfill a professional aspiration, is waning in favor of the pressure to be someone, an intellectual-philosophical-socio-existential aspiration to find yourself and follow your dreams to personal fulfillment. And the prospects are terrifying. There are too many options, too little guidance, too much space, not enough time… We make it far too hard on ourselves, us twenty-somethings on the verge of completing our schooling and venturing into the real world.

So, when I started school I did what I thought was best–I picked something so foreign, so different, I must be defined within it. Studying the Middle East was a way to find myself, to see which truths could be translated across the map and still come back pure. But what if it was all in vain? What if my romantic notions of a country that I already identify with, that I am already enamored with, reveals itself to be like the gems it is famous for (turquoise, in particular is quite prolific in Iran)–beautiful, but impenetrable? There is an element of safety in studying the dissimilar. In conversations with well-intentioned relatives and inquiring friends, the conversation always turns to restrictions, to all the stone-cold realities of Iran today.

I feel protective of the image I’ve built of this place in my head, of what I’ve imagined from books and films–I suppose my perceptions are those of someone who, already committed, begs and pleads that reality confirm her dreams–because if not, she not only loses her knowledge of a place, but of herself.

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Stay tuned. More updates from Alexa coming soon right here on our Reality Tours blog.

My journey does not boast military might nor invasive power; rather, I travel simply with the hope of bringing back knowledge. —Alexa Stevens
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What happens when an American young woman visits Iran for the first time? You can find out as you follow the adventures of Alexa Stevens, a Tufts University student majoring in Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic who is en route to Iran. Alexa is one of seven delegates traveling to Iran with the Citizen Diplomacy Reality Tour trip June 26- July 10, 2011.

Citizen Diplomacy delegates on this Iran trip will explore topics such as:

  • Is the threat of war the best response to Iran’s nuclear program?
  • Is the US media’s portrayal of Iran accurate?
  • How do Iranians feel about the US government and people?

To learn more about this trip, visit this Reality Tours web page.

Alexa will be blogging about her experiences throughout her journey in Iran right here on our Reality Tours blog. As she explains on her own blog, “I always have a story to tell.”

Alexa’s First Post: “Excited and Expectant”

It’s comic how fast fear and anxiety dissipate entirely once routine and order is introduced. Yesterday our itinerary arrived, bringing with it descriptions of the sites we will see (Persepolis, The Friday Mosque, ect.), promises of the smells and tastes we will experience (shay under a 4,000 year old cypress tree, fesenjoon and bademjan in the bazaar) and the alluring dreams of people we might meet.

I can’t tell you just how anxious I was in the weeks between the time I mailed off my passport and yesterday. I had no time to be excited and expectant, instead I pragmatically researched what it might mean for an American to visit Iran.

The preparation for this trip really started a year or so ago, when my newfound interest of the region was strengthened with history books, pop music, a class aptly titled History of Iran—all of this information was gathered sporadically, from a myriad of sources, to help me understand Iran. And so it happened that I fell in love with a country I’d never seen.

But here’s the thing about those conventional courtships, where snippets of information are devoured with the utmost excitement—as the eventual meeting date grows closer, one begins to question just what exactly their enthusiasm has gotten them into.

About a month and a half ago I bought my ticket, and started to focus not on understanding my elusive paramour, but rather to prepare myself to meet it. I scanned the paper, researched the realities of the legal system, mulled over blogs and travel websites, and began to realize that even the most well-intentioned of tourists don’t always follow the rules of the Islamic Republic. I began obsessing, wondering just how much of me–my past, my thoughts, my opinions, my body–was now a public entity.

I’ve travelled far and wide, but I’ve always maintained the luxury of practically complete independence and autonomy, just as I do at home. I felt pathetic, like I was playing into the stereotypical fears of an ignorant, unaware tourist who assumed and generalized without a care in the world. I know better than this—after all, I had already proclaimed my infatuation with this remarkable place! How could I be wavering on the eve of my trip?

The truth is, I’ve never had to reconcile my somewhat romantic dreams of this country with the concrete realities of travelling there. I never thought I’d have to, so I tucked away my illusions of turquoise tiles, the soft, pleasing sounds of Farsi and mouthwatering kabob, along with my knowledge of the dress code, the awareness that the social is the political and the political is the social, and that the privilege of finally meeting that which I’ve fantasized will make reality better than dreams.

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Stay tuned. Tomorrow you’ll find more from Alexa here on our Reality Tours blog.