Some time ago, I was reading an article by a well-known writer when I was struck by his remarks about an Egyptian ambassador who had just been recalled from one of our larger embassies abroad. After heaping some probably well-earned praise on the ambassador, he quoted a highly placed personality as saying that if it were up to him, he would have kept the ambassador in question on at the same embassy, regardless of the rotation system in force at the foreign ministry, because it was a shame to let the many contacts he had built up go to waste and have his replacement start from scratch. As a man interested in management and culture at one and the same time, I was shocked at this logic, not because it was wrong – indeed, it made sense from a practical point of view – but because it revealed a dangerous facet of the Egyptian mind-set that has been forged over centuries under specific historical and cultural circumstances. The case of the ambassador is far from being an isolated incident. The same logic is invoked whenever a public official shines at his job, the same voices are raised to call for exceptions in the system to accommodate that particular individual. This graphically illustrates that we believe far more profoundly in the role of the individual than we do in the effectiveness of systems in which the individual is only one cog in a complex wheel of interactive and interdependent elements.

    Having lived until the age of twenty-five in a purely Egyptian environment, it was not until I was exposed to different cultures that I realized how vast a difference separated our perception of the respective roles of the individual and the system from that of other societies, most notably those of northern Europe, where the exact opposite logic prevails. While placing a high value on the individual and devoting huge resources to ensuring his formation in the best possible manner, these societies place an even higher value on the system.

    It is hard for most people in our society, who tend to attribute success, efficiency and the achievement of goals to the fortuitous presence of an outstanding individual in a specific post, to realize the disastrous consequences that can flow from such a logic. To count on chance is to suspend all the rules of rationality, while to believe that an outstanding individual must remain in his post because his replacement will have to start from scratch is to give in to a problem rather than attempt to resolve it. Our approach to the issue is a reflection of the discontinuity of our organizational structures and the lack of a coherent strategy governing trends and endeavours in our society. It also works against the social mobility that is essential not only for the promotion of the middle class but for the promotion of society as a whole. Moreover, the approach carries within it the seeds of deeper problems, in that it proceeds from the premise that we are ready not only to pay the high price of dealing with the laws of chance, but to accept whatever results come our way. This is in direct opposition to the rationale governing modern management sciences which, while believing in personal abilities and talents, believes more strongly in systems than in individuals.

    The implication of linking achievements to the fortuitous presence of an outstanding individual in a specific post is that we allow the reins of our lives and future to be controlled by random chance which operates outside the realm of any rational laws. This approach is the exact opposite of that advocated by the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, who believed the future did not exist as such but was the product of our actions in the present. Stressing the importance of existence and the freedom and responsibility of the individual, he believed the future begins in the here and now, more precisely, that what we do today will determine the features of tomorrow. We, on the contrary, make no attempt to shape the features of our future through planning today. Rather, we count on the laws of chance to occasionally throw a few outstanding individuals our way – laws that are the direct antipode of the notions of system and planning.

    This keenness to keep outstanding individuals at their posts indefinitely is a result of one of our main defects, which is the virtual absence of continuity and methodology in our development drive. For development to proceed as a consistent process rather than in fits and starts, mechanisms must be set in place to ensure continuity regardless of changes in names and faces. The argument invoked to justify keeping efficient functionaries at their posts beyond the prescribed period, which is that whoever replaces them will have to begin from square one, is a painful admission of the lack of continuity between generations of individuals. Adding impetus to this argument is the fact that in our society no public official leaving his post will ever praise his successor, unlike his counterparts in the political, economic, cultural, educational and media institutions in advanced societies. Another disadvantage of keeping the same individual at his post indefinitely, however outstanding that individual may be, is that it is not conducive to the social mobility that is the basis for positive interaction in and the progress of any society, as well as a prerequisite for the growth of a strong and broad-based middle class that can lead that society. Moreover, the tendency to believe more in individuals than in the system exposes society to another, even greater, danger. While a culture of systems can keep destructive elements from occupying prominent positions, the same is not true in societies where a culture of individuals prevails. To the same extent that such a culture can promote outstanding individuals to positions of influence, it can also promote destructive and dangerous individuals. In the absence of an effective mechanism to prevent them from reaching a position of influence in time – and time is of the essence here – these negative elements can wreak havoc.

    In addition, our infatuation with a culture of individuals is in direct contradiction with the basic premises of modern management sciences which, while drawing on the best qualities of the individual, give precedence to the big picture, that is, to the framework in which the individual operates, in other words, to the system. In advanced societies, the basic building stone for progress and success is the system, and not, as in the case of underdeveloped societies, a few, albeit exceptionally talented, individuals.

    There is thus a clear dichotomy between the culture of individuals that has been all too manifest in our society for tens of centuries and the culture of systems which developed and put down deep roots in the West before moving on to many other societies that do not belong to western civilization, like Japan and other countries in Southeast Asia, as well as to various societies in Central and Latin America. It is pointless at this stage to make value judgments or to address the issue from an accusatory perspective. Rather, it should be placed in a historical perspective, and seen as the natural result of specific historical and cultural conditions. The question is whether a society governed by a culture of individuals can gradually transform itself into a society of systems. Judging from the experience of many societies, the answer is a resounding yes. These societies transformed themselves through a two-pronged approach, one that set its sights on short-term results and another that aimed at effecting a radical long-term transformation. The first can be summed up in one word, 'leadership', or leading by example, which succeeded to a great extent in imposing a culture of systems on society. The greater achievement, however, was to entrench this culture deep into the collective psyche of society, a feat accomplished through the medium of education. Only education is capable of bringing about a real transformation through curricula designed to minimize the dimensions of subjectivity and promote those of objectivity, the basis of any system or systems.

    Once a culture of systems takes root in society, the issue of specific individuals staying on at their posts is no longer a do-or-die proposition that takes on the dimensions of a military campaign as careerists scheme and manoeuver to remain in place. In a culture of individuals, one of the main concerns of public officials is to fight off potential successors, making for an ugly relationship between incumbents and those they fear will replace them. That is the case in a society like ours, where rivalry for a position often degenerates into smear campaigns in which the predecessor and his successor are intent on blackening each other's reputation and are not above resorting to slander and character assassination to achieve their end. This pattern of behaviour is symptomatic of a general cultural climate in which each official seeks out those who are qualified to step into his shoes at some point down the road and goes all out to undercut their chances of succeeding.

    As a result, we are left with a static situation in which genuine social mobility is replaced by what some call the rotation of elites, a process that is, by definition, opposed to change.