PERHAPS this was a situation again of two people and one coffin, as one theory goes: Pakistan’s current US-backed dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, did not want to share the space with Benazir Bhutto, and so the latter had to go.

This was certainly the case in 1977, when Brig. Gen. Zia ul-Haq seized power and removed Bhutto’s father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Two years later Zia executed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as “Washington and London watched from the sidelines.” The act, wrote Tariq Ali in his magisterial book The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihad and Modernity, set off a tide of “despotism and lies [that] mutilated a whole generation.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a complex man. He was many things to many people. A veteran journalist once described him as “someone you can define in countless ways…and all of them are true: liberal and authoritarian, fascist and communist, sincere and a liar.” He founded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) “built by the activists of the only popular mass movement the country has known: students, peasants and workers who fought for three months in 1968-69 to topple the country’s first military dictator.”

He was a rooted aristocrat who studied in Berkeley and then in Oxford and who called himself a “Marxist and…a Muslim,” though he would be the first to say he was no saint.

And rightly so: he had many faults and he made serious mistakes while he was in power. But Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s execution by Zia was “a grave injustice,” and it would transform him into a martyr.

Perhaps this is what some who are intent on canonizing Benazir Bhutto are thinking. Death can cauterize all warts; it can erase creases and wipe the slate clean. But what is death when the deceased are determined to live beyond their temporal allocation?

Three days after she was shot dead—with a bomb detonated for good measure—“a conclave of feudal potentates gathered in the home of…Benazir Bhutto to hear her last will and testament being read out.” The whole affair, wrote Ali in an article that came out in The Independent (UK) on the last day of 2007, was nothing less than a “disgusting, medieval charade.”

In her will, Benazir Bhutto transformed the PPP into a family heirloom: she passed on the leadership of the PPP to her venal husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who would run the party “till Benazir’s 19-year-old son, Bilawal, comes of age. He will then become chairperson for life and, no doubt, pass it on to his children.”

There was once a very different Benazir  Bhutto who was welcomed by a million upon her return to Lahore in 1986 “to challenge” Gen. Zia ul-Haq. And there was a different Bhutto daughter who returned to Karachi airport in October 2007 who wanted so much “to demonstrate her popularity to the world and to her political rivals, including those inside her own fiefdom,” the PPP. Despite a whole month of frenetic recruiting by the PPP, only 200,000 lined the streets to welcome her.

The PPP drew from its national machinery and it was not surprising that Bhutto’s organization was able to muster such numbers. But it could do no more, despite the legacy of Bhutto’s fight against the executioners of her father, despite her father’s memory and despite the sheer ugliness of the Musharraf regime, the insurgent judiciary and Pakistani lawyers, and the incendiary anger of Pakistan’s poor.

Perhaps Bhutto’s early abandonment of the reforms that she had promised since her first term had something to do with it, along with the standing corruption cases against Bhutto and Zardari in Valencia and London. Maybe the Geneva magistrate’s conviction of the couple in absentia in 2003, for money laundering and for accepting millions of dollars in bribes from two Swiss companies, had some effect on Bhutto’s mobilizing power. And maybe popular enthusiasm was irrevocably dampened by the widespread suspicion that the couple were involved in the 1996 murder of Benazir’s brother Murtaza, who had become a strident critic of her rule.

In the end none of it mattered. To the US, Pakistan was strategic. Benazir Bhutto could be recycled as a “progressive, reform-minded, more cosmopolitan” face of democracy just as Musharraf had been sold as one of America’s most staunch allies in the war on terror.

But Bhutto is no more.

With only one horse to bet on, America is now forced to reach out to others, including ex-prime minister and Saudi lapdog Nawaz Sharif, an ex-protégé of the vile Gen. Zia who “was brought into politics as the clumsy, dirty boot of the interservices intelligence” of Pakistan, the same institution which largely helped create and finance, using billions of dollars generously provided by the US, groups fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Some would form the Taliban, and some swing out of the orbit of the Afghan jihad to form the Abu Sayyaf, Jema’ah Islamiyah and other assorted specters currently haunting America.

Pakistan’s Continuing Tragedy

PERHAPS this was a situation again of two people and one coffin, as one theory goes: Pakistan’s current US-backed dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, did not want to share the space with Benazir Bhutto, and so the latter had to go.

Bhutto’s death shines light on husband’s money dealings

LONDON—During the stormy years Benazir Bhutto ruled Pakistan, her husband was a top power broker and a prime target of corruption allegations that toppled her.

Want more from Lean Six Sigma?

To help fund innovation and roll out a promising new product line, a multibillion-dollar consumer products manufacturer we’ll call ConsumerCo urgently needed to increase capacity at two of its plants and reduce overall operating costs.

Northwestern Mutual’s Ed Zore on staying relevant to customers

It is relevance, not just innovation, that matters to customers, says Ed Zore, president and CEO of Northwestern Mutual, the 150-year-old insurer that is consistently ranked by Fortune magazine as the most admired company in life and health insurance and is the US market share leader for total individual life insurance premiums.

Clear copy

James Henderson, the Asia-Pacific managing director for printer channel operations of Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd., is fascinated with working with the company as it continues to develop products for today’s consumers.

Winning: What makes a lousy leader?

Q: What is lousy leadership?
Goran Milic, Zagreb, Croatia

A: Now, why would you ask that question? Certainly not because you want to be a lousy leader yourself!

It can only be because you’re checking your instincts about someone you know. Maybe even the person who signs your paycheck.

Maintaining thresholds of performance

For some readers, the new rules of market leadership will be intuitively appealing. To others, they will raise stubborn questions. How can a company offer the best value proposition in the market (read: give its products and services away), and still make more money?

Notes to a tragedy

In the next few weeks we shall witness a torrent of sorrow and regret, as any such horrific loss of life should provoke. But, clearly, the story is unfinished, despite the seeming finality of Benazir Bhutto’s murder.

Authorities pressed doctors to stay mum on Bhutto’s death

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan—Pakistani authorities have pressured the medical personnel who tried to save Benazir Bhutto’s life to remain silent about what happened in her final hour and have removed records of her treatment from the facility, according to doctors.

Lending a hand

At the fringe of Makati’s bustling business center stands the head office of Makati Finance Corp. (MFC), a consumer-finance company that has established a stronghold in the industry for over 40 years.

Winning: A year of pushing hot buttons

About this time last year, we received an e-mail from a reader who asked if we believed America’s competitive success was linked to its relative lack of corruption.

INVESTOR BRIEFING

WATER is still flooding the basement of a shopping mall in the Philippines’ central business district after an explosion in October. At least nine died and more than a dozen businesses were kicked out from their glass-walled shops now wrapped with white-painted boards.

REDUCING POWER COSTS

The government of the Philippines plans to use state funds to address high power rates. Acknowledging it must do something about the rising cost of energy, the government announced that it intends to use more of the state’s gas royalties, National Power Corp. (Napocor) profits and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) fees to reduce electricity charges.

RISING GDP

The Philippines’ robust economy continues to perform well, achieving a GDP growth of 6.6 percent in the third quarter of this year.

Brotherly love

Brother International Philippines believes competition makes business more exciting. And the company thinks there is still a space for one more player in the document-printing market in the country that can provide an alternative.

Winning: Breaking Through Bureaucracy

Q: How do you break through the bureaucracy that damages so many organizations? James Moss-Solomon, Bridgetown, Barbados                 

A: Damages? How about deadens?

PLAYING ALONG

TO many children, Elmo, the much-loved furry red monster from Sesame Street, is more than just a plaything. To children ages two to five years old, Elmo is a trusty playmate—a friend to lug around the playground; one who won’t complain when hugged, pinched or smothered with kisses. For parents, Elmo even makes a good teacher.

TOY TEST 2007

The holidays are just about here, and the toys are piling up in stores, waiting for you to make your list. Of course, even if your wish does come true, you have to hope for the best: That really great-sounding toy might be a piece of junk.

CONSUMER CONFIDENTIAL

This should be the time of year when Santa’s wholesale elves in the toy district in downtown Los Angeles are busy delivering cheap, Chinese-made playthings to consumers and retailers.

Lumads in the new world

It was a minifair compared with the grand bacchanalia that is the Kadayawan Festival that Davao City has come to be known for.

Mission: global customs service

Del Castillo: From what I have gathered, Commissioner Morales is a self-made man in this career; he supported himself through college while working at the Bureau of Customs as a utility man.

No run of the mill success

Management is a practical discipline measured by financial returns and competitive position. But it is easy to forget that success in business ultimately comes from a commitment to personal values. When you look at Metrobank today, the tendency is to focus on its results, its size and its position. It is easy to overlook the elements that shaped its character.

Winning: Private equity’s very public problems

Q: Why are so many private-equity deals blowing up? Alan Engle, Great Neck, New York                 

A: The short answer is that the world has changed (read: the US sub-prime-mortgage mess has erupted). A lot of companies that were once hell-bent on acquiring hot new properties suddenly want out of deals that are starting to look too cold for comfort.

A Queen Stumbles

HIS eyes stared upward as he started with that familiar tuneful articulation about Iloilo at the peak of its grandeur. A few minutes later, his voice turned wobbly as he recounted how the province slipped from prominence. “So we lost our label being the country’s Queen City of the South.”

Teacher’s pet

WHY am I passionate about Vietnam? Because Vietnam has proven to the world that it is possible to simultaneously achieve robust and sustained economic growth with equitable income distribution. 

Putting imagination to work

SOON after World War II, from 1941 to 1945, the Philippines experienced a decade of unprecedented growth in the 1950s, with Manila—despite being the most devastated city during the climactic battle era—slowly regaining its vigor to once again become a center of industrial progress.

Five steps to building your personal leadership brand

You have a personal leadership brand. But do you have the right one?

A leadership brand conveys your identity and distinctiveness as a leader. If you have the wrong leadership brand for the position you have or the position you want, then your work is not having the impact it could.

What Health Consumers Want

Consumers of health care constitute a market that is as diverse as a market can be, yet the idea that companies might profit by segmenting customers to address their varied needs seems almost foreign to the health industry, despite the billions of dollars at stake.

How Bayan got its voice back

Bayan Telecommunications’ Tunde Fafunwa is very enthusiastic nowadays because the Lopez-controlled company has risen from its low point. And the source of his excitement is largely due to the recent introduction of Span, Bayan’s wireless landline service.

Winning: Managing shooting stars

Q: How far should I go to keep a star performer who has an offer to work at a competitor? Hymie Betesh, New York                 

A: Not as far as you’re probably considering, we imagine, given the panic that strikes most managers when a star threatens to shoot out the door.

Lighting the way

Dutch electronics and lighting giant Philips Electronics has been continuously doing business in the Philippines for the past 50 years.

In the name of the people

THIS time around, former Navy officer and neophyte Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV left no room for ambiguity.

In his 2003 debut at the Oakwood mutiny, then-Lt. Senior Grade Trillanes hemmed and hawed about his intentions.

Water Is Life

FOR corporate do-gooders, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is just the start. The new trend among large and well-established corporate organizations is to integrate sustainable-development programs—not just mere philanthropic activities—to their core businesses.

Give your team a challenge they can’t resist

It’s not easy pulling a group of diverse individuals together to work as a team. Barriers abound in the form of fierce territoriality, incentive systems that reward individual rather than collective achievement, and mistrust spawned by an acquisition, merger or major internal restructuring.

Improve your return on returns

Competitive pressures have forced many retailers and manufacturers to liberalize their returns policies in recent years and gladly accept for a refund just about anything customers regret having bought.

A staged solution to the catch-22

Companies launching two-sided platforms—businesses that connect two groups of users, as credit-card companies do—have often subsidized one group to get it to use the platform. This is a risky approach, because it requires a big upfront investment.

Ship shape

For an employee, a company-sponsored overseas trip could mean mostly fun, with, of course, some work in between. For a chief executive of a company, however, it would be the opposite, and most of the time the fun part takes place in between working or not at all.

Winning: Stay the course…especially if it’s a new one

Q: Sometimes companies need to change even when there is not a crisis forcing the issue. In such cases, how do you keep your people excited about a change initiative after its newness has worn off? Trevor Smith, Singapore

A: You have to stay excited yourself. And not just excited, but obsessed.

If I had a hammer

HASHIM squinted before pulling the trigger. Although the 19-year-old is used to holding Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles in the deep jungles of Mindanao three years back, this particularly weapon was new to him.

Big failure, little dreams

CASTELLANA, Negros Occidental—It is already past noon and yet Edelyn Pineda is still lazing around Sitio Odiong here along with her little friends.

The Morning Meeting: Best-practice communication for executive teams

Does your company’s executive team struggle with chronic communication problems and a lack of shared accountability? Many times when my colleagues and I are called in to help out an organization, we find that these two core issues underlie their problems.

Lessons from the leaders of retail loss prevention

Preventing theft, damage and errors such as food spoilage has long been an unyielding and poorly understood problem for retailers. But a few companies stand out in their ability to limit losses, and if every retailer were as successful as they are, the sector could save billions of dollars annually—as much as $27 billion in the United States alone.

The Jock Correlation in business

WITH many sports headlines today trumpeting organizational and solvency issues with various teams and sports associations across the world, there is often an almost missionary zeal to bring to sports a more “business approach.”

Winning: Developing a successful succession plan

Q: What companies would you hold up as examples of succession planning done right? Robert Handfield, Raleigh, North Carolina 

A: It’s sad to say, but your question would be a heck of a lot easier to answer if you had asked for examples of succession planning done wrong. That trend is gaining such ground these days it’s alarming.