A young entrepreneur and teacher changes the game

“GUESS whom we hired to oversee operations,” says my son Scott, a senior at Xavier School. Last December 2015, for two weeks, Scott and his classmates managed a milkshake booth in the canteen as part of their entrepreneurship class. “Our former teacher said yes!”

Joseph Manguiat, 27, is a bright alumnus who majored in business administration at the University of the Philippines. He worked for a multinational, focusing on the “back-end.” Encouraged by a teacher in his old school, he later taught International Baccalaureate Business Management.

“I am an introvert, but I challenge myself,” says Joseph. “I was nervous at first, stage fright. I did not know if I could interact well with students. On the first day, my first question was: ‘If you had all the money in the world, what would you do with it?’” The class was hooked. My son raved about this young teacher, who made theory come alive. Joseph would intersperse business technicalities with observations from the corporate life. While conversant in the requisite business jargon, he eschewed it in favor of lucid explanations and realistic cases.

Most of all, Joseph listened to his students. When asked, he would take time to consider the query instead of giving a careless answer. Class requirements were considerable, but he encouraged his students, and the majority responded.

Students mourned when their teacher left after a year. Joseph had decided to focus on a potential restaurant enterprise with friends, and to work with his parents in their electronic goods family business.

Family Business

Many of the youth today, particularly the Filipino-Chinese, face pressure—mild or strong, overt or covert—to learn the ropes of the fami- ly business. Joseph was no exception.

His father was not thrilled when the son announced he was going to teach, and the urge to go into business was ever-present.

In the family business, Joseph has to deal with the usual issues of profitability, sustainability, growth. “The family business is so much harder than the corporate world. The systems are not as structured. Traditional ways are hard to break. Sometimes, elders tend to micro-manage.”

Genuine love exists between the parents and the children though, and the fact that Joseph decided to work in the family business (which many young people will not do) is proof.

Joseph recommends a family fund. “Friends tell me that when siblings and relatives in business start quarrelling, a family fund, designated for certain purposes, makes things clearer. Certain expenses, agreed upon beforehand, can be drawn from the family fund, to minimize conflicts over money.”

Pressure

An achiever all his life, Joseph believes that, ironically, he succeeds because he does not pressure himself too much.

“My grades were way higher than those of my siblings’,” he says, “so my parents never pressured me in that way.” He was accepted in all the top universities (and chose UP to lighten the financial burden).

For the prom, his friends chose their own dates, while Joseph was “set up.” He and his date, who would later become his first girlfriend, “enjoyed ourselves the most. My other friends pressured themselves to have a great time with the girls they chose, and were less relaxed.”

Joseph sees this “chill” philosophy in his students. “My top students enjoy learning, with little pressure on grades. So they consistently do well. Others, who were also doing fine, were pressuring themselves too much, or maybe their parents were doing it, that they probably did not enjoy learning as much.”

Which brings us back to why Joseph accepted his students’ invitation to work for them in the first place. “I miss the school. I wanted to reconnect with students and colleagues. When Scott told me, ‘Who better to oversee our booth than the teacher who taught us about business?’ I asked myself, ‘What do I have to lose? I can spare the time. And what, my pride? My boss would be a student I respect. And I’d be hands-on with the front-end.”

“Again, little pressure. The milkshake stall was not put up by my money. The experience was win-win-win. No downsides.”

Joseph helped his students streamline the system, cutting production per milkshake from twominutes to 30 seconds, tripling or even quadrupling sales. More than 200 milkshakes were sold a day, during recess, lunch and dismissal. The business was very much in the black.

“Never stop learning,” he says. Joseph plans to improve aspects of their family business, try automotive journalism, and take a master’s degree in education. His students would applaud. Queena N. Lee-Chua is on the board of directors of Ateneo de Manila University’s Family Business Development Center. Get her book “Successful Family Businesses” at the University Press (msanagustin@ateneo.edu). E-mail the author at blessbook.chua@gmail.com.