How to lead people in embracing change

Even as many organisations continue asking for help with teambuilding, more recently change management has also gone mainstream. While the massive Covid disruption has brought change yet further front and centre, even before the pandemic spread around the world, the 21st century VUCA phenomenon of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity had confirmed constant change as the new normal.

Let us also acknowledge though that this century is certainly not when change first confronted humanity. It was back in 500 BC when the Greek philosopher Heraclitus pointed out that “change is the only constant” – and so it has been, both before and since. Those who assume that changes will be but temporary, or that they will happen without having to manage their consequences sensitively and positively, will surely come to regret behaving like the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand.

So in this article I’ll share something of what I have learned through my work in helping organisations of all kinds with their change management initiatives – including in these last months through some online engagements.

First, we must “start with the end in mind”. Why is change needed? To enable what vision to be actualised, what purpose to be fulfilled? What is it about the present strategy and way of doing things that will prevent the actualisation of the vision and purpose?

“The way we doing things here” is as good a definition of culture as any… and, as Peter Drucker pointed out, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. So what is that culture, what are those values, attitudes and behaviours which would overcome dysfunctionalities in the present culture? And given the gaps between the actual and the aspirational way of doing things, what will it take for people to migrate from the one to the other, in the context of the needed strategy?

I say migrate because change management – like teambuilding – is not something that can be achieved simply by going away to one of those nice lodges in Naivasha for a couple of days. Those who take the subject seriously accept that it involves a journey. Yes, the journey can be launched at such an event. Indeed it’s a good way to do so. And crucial to such a launch is spending time towards its end defining specific follow ups as to who must do what and by when.

To take the process from the necessary to the sufficient – which many stop short of doing – the participants must agree on how progress towards living that new needed way is to be assessed. What periodic feedback will be obtained regarding progress, for instance as in: none / a little / a lot / transformational? How will those involved celebrate what will have changed for the better while continuing to work on remaining challenges? And how will the expectation of ongoing continuous improvement feature?

To my surprise, I have come across clients who were planning to undergo a change management initiative separate from their teambuilding one. But discussing the need for teamwork as a critical change enabler with them, they agreed to merge the two into one. They readily accepted that to build a high performance team in this VUCA environment requires the agility to deal with change; and that where change must be handled, building trust between team members is more critical than ever. Yes, team qualities like agility and trust are essential for supporting change.

The most vital dependency for any change programme is positive, authentic leadership at board and senior management levels. Such leaders must visibly own the process and its purpose, and they must be role models for the target behaviour.

Then, given the fear and anxiety the term “change management” often provokes – however justified or otherwise – the question arises as to whether it’s good to call such initiatives by that name.

How can we nudge mindsets from negative emotions to more uplifting ones, as we encourage those involved to learn and to grow, expanding their competencies and their confidence, helping them become more empowered, recognised and motivated?

Such people will see change not as a threat but rather an opportunity, something to be looked forward to with joy and excitement… while accepting that life comes with its challenges and its ups and downs.

Now wonder Heraclitus concluded over two millennia ago that “since the very nature of life is change, to resist this natural flow is to resist the very essence of our existence”.

It’s wise to accept that you don’t have all the answers

As my readers are aware I am a great advocate for emotional intelligence, in which context I often talk about how we are sometimes challenged to separate how we feel from how we behave. This allows us to act in ways that keep our interactions and relationships positive, by finding the strength to overcome feelings such as anger and hurt, embarrassment and inhibition.

So this recent post on Adam Grant’s LinkedIn page caught my eye: “A core skill of emotional intelligence is treating your feelings as a rough draft. Like art, emotions are works in progress. It rarely serves you well to frame your first sketch. As you gain perspective, you can revise what you feel. Sometimes you even start over from scratch.”

Wise words for those of us who take pride in just “saying what we think”, in “being straightforward”.

So who is Adam Grant? He is an American psychologist and author, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who was made a tenured professor at the amazingly young age of 28.

I was first made aware of Prof Grant by my daughter, after he spoke to the parents and teachers at her children’s school in California where she is a board member, and after which she sent me a recording of his presentation on how to develop a next generation of creatives.

His first advice was to go easy on rules. Rather, share guidelines based on values, recognising those who abide by them and act as role models for them. Indeed the youngsters should be encouraged to challenge existing rules and guidelines, but of course in a respectful and constructive way.

Next he is against specialisation, in either the arts or the sciences – noting that some of the most prominent Nobel Prize winners in the sciences indulged in painting, piano playing, poetry writing and other artistic sidelines. Recognise those who, like the Nobel heroes, excel at creative problem solving in multiple fields.

Both teachers and parents should readily admit that they don’t have all the answers, and they should be encouraged to ask advice from the children, who in turn should feel free to speak up without fear of being unduly criticised. Neither the elders nor the young ones should be afraid to push back, on the understanding that we are all “work in progress”. At home as in school, it’s OK for children to be exposed to and to participate in disagreements, away from the notion that the parent/teacher is “always right”. Being exposed to civil discussion is good for the emotional development and wellbeing of the children.

Grant also asked the parents and teachers to pay attention to how they display their values through their behaviour, both with each other and with the children. And in commenting to their children about their behaviour they should talk about values, nurturing and reinforcing behaviour that is moral, generous and caring.

“Ask your children whom they helped today, how they acted as helpers,” I heard Grant propose. “And get them to reflect on what kind of persons they are; what they did that was creative in the last few days; what made them happy.”

Finally, he cautioned parents and teachers to neither be too soft – which would spoil the children; nor too hard, which would make them feel inadequate and ashamed. Yes, there should be high expectations, and where the children fall short that should not be ignored. But not at the expense of recognising their successes and strengths.

Much of this is incorporated in Grant’s best-selling 2016 book, Originals, which I couldn’t recommend more strongly. For in it he goes much further in explaining how the way we are treated when we are young determines how we develop when we become adults – what kind of activity we seek and enjoy, and how successful and fulfilled we become.

Above all he focuses on what it takes to be bold enough to challenge the status quo, to be a non-conformist creative and to speak up, to stick with your new ideas … and so to be one of the “originals” about whom he writes and whom he celebrates in his book.

Malcolm Gladwell, whose book Talking to Strangers I wrote about some months ago, is one of my favourite thinkers… and I am not surprised that Grant is one of his.

How to make your board exit as smooth as possible

OK, so you’ve served your two terms as a director, and now it’s time to give way to someone else. You’ve enjoyed being in all those board committee meetings with your fellow directors, and you have developed close relations with several of them. You also feel good about the value you have been adding to an organisation with which you have come to associate yourself closely.

You became an ambassador and a champion for the brand, and you were a mentor and coach to several of the staff. If you were the chairman then your sense of ownership was the deeper, your relationship with the CEO the stronger. And now what had come to be an integral part of your life is coming to an end. It will leave a big gap. You will miss the collegial spirit, the sharing and the learning, the celebration of triumphs and breakthroughs… and even the mutual condoling following setbacks and crises.

Having been through numerous such transitions over the years I thought it would be helpful to write about how retiring directors can find ways of dealing with their loss of board positions, and equally how those they will be leaving behind can make their exit much smoother and more graceful than many turn out to be.

As I have thought about the stages one goes through, it occurred to me that they are actually akin to the grieving process. The first instinct is denial, to so wish your time will not be coming to an end that you actually avoid the reality of its imminence. But just as with the loss of a loved one, denial must inevitably give way to acceptance… and so the period of mourning over loss ensues. Eventually, with the further passage of time, the person reaches closure, heals and is able to look back at their years of service on that board with a sense of detached retrospection.

So first, what advice can I give the retiree? Always accept that your appointment was never meant to be for life, that no one is indispensable, and that as one door closes others may open. Keep giving your utmost till the last day of your term, and hand over on the due day with no regrets. Your inner motivation and sense of commitment may have dimmed somewhat, but let this is in no way affect how you perform your duties. Be proud of your legacy, and have others speak well of you.

INNER EMOTIONS

Then, how should the remainers support those who are “rotating out”? Understand that your departing colleagues may indeed be grieving, however stoic they may appear. We are all human, and so our stiff upper lip may hide uncomfortable inner emotions.

Therefore show generous appreciation for where and how they have made a difference, and in addition to expressing this informally it is good to lay on a ceremony, however brief, to acknowledge their contributions with a speech or two and a notional gift through which they can continue remembering their time among you with pleasure.

What I have seen is that in too many situations – not least in the public sector – when your time is up, that’s it. You are immediately disconnected, no one is bothered to tap into your skills or your institutional memory any longer, and it’s as if you never existed.

Some organisations have devised ways of holding on to past leaders so they can continue benefiting from their wisdom, whether as consultants and advisers, or maybe as Fellows. In such “life after death” positions these elders must in no way compete with the directors of the day but be available to complement their roles.

I have found this to be particularly helpful where directors are volunteers, and the best example I can think of is Kenya private Sector Alliance (Kepsa) with its Advisory Council (of which I am a member) and its Foundation.

In conclusion therefore, I invite board directors to appreciate that their outgoing colleagues are normal men and women with normal human emotions, in need of empathy and appreciation as they reach the end of their terms in office. Say farewell nicely, and have them continue to speak well of your organisation.

Building your brand for boardroom role

Just before all public events were cancelled earlier this year I was invited by the Women on Boards Network to run a session on building one’s brand as a board member. It was, as I expected it would be, a lively evening with over 50 bright, engaged women in the room.

How fortunate we are in Kenya to have many women who are already competent directors, plus many more board-ready members of that gender. And how fortunate we are to have an organisation dedicated to developing women to become high-contribution board members and to link them up with organisations seeking such people.

My theme for the evening was about making a contribution, about adding value as a board member. And of course just about everything I shared would have been just the same had I been with a group of men.

The process must start by understanding oneself and appreciating what it is that one is offering. Yet too few of us have indulged in the kind of self-exploration that this requires, and here I quoted Benjamin Franklin, who found that “there are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond and knowing oneself”.

But it is very doable, and I advised the good ladies to start by listing their achievements and the strengths that explain them, without bragging and without undue humility. That establishes (or rather should establish) a base for self-esteem and hence confidence and boldness.

Then, as they look back over how their lives have evolved, to identify their areas of competence, ones that are needed in the board room. Are they a financial guru, a legal eagle? A strategy wonk, a digital wizard? Is their field marketing, or talent management? Are they change champions? Which sectors do they know inside out? Is their hot spot compliance or sustainability? Have they been through challenging mergers or acquisitions? How will they add value in the post-Covid world?

More questions, now more to do with values, attitudes and behaviour. Are they trustworthy and reliable? Emotionally intelligent? Skilled communicators? Thought leaders? Disruptive innovators? Mediators and consensus-builders? Networkers? What is their risk appetite? Are they short-term problem solvers, long-term sustainability builders? And before all that, will they make the necessary time?

I also introduced the Women on Boards group to personality assessments they would benefit from undertaking, helping them to reveal more about their preferences. What role in a board team would they naturally gravitate towards?

In the language of Meredith Belbin, what “team type” are they? A “People person”, who revels in coordinating; being a team worker; or a resource person? An “Action person”, who is a task-focused pushy character; an implementer; or a perfectionist-completer? Or a “Thought person”, who is a creative; a specialist; or someone whose natural home is monitoring and evaluation? Then, are they more of an extrovert or an introvert? Guarded or open? So many questions to help a person position and further build their brand.

I also helped the group I was with to examine their suitability for being the chairperson of a board. Are they the type who can bring people together around common visions and values; run lively and useful meetings to which participants look forward; build relationships with colleagues, management and other stakeholders… and so earn the respect of all concerned?

Good governance requires boards to list the personalities, skills and exposure mix that’s needed for them to fulfill their role holistically as a team. So those seeking directors’ positions must be aware of the gaps that any board wishes to fill and match these with what they are offering.
That’s what Women on Boards Kenya helps with, and so if you are a woman who believes you are ready to sit around one of those board room tables I encourage you to reach out to them.

The last slide from my presentation to the ladies came from a disturbing study which revealed that there are more men named John running big companies in America than all women. More named David too. But at least there are more women than men named Robert or James.
Good luck, ladies, the women on boards cup isn’t yet full, but here in Kenya it is filling reasonably well.

NCIC deals with much more than hate speech

Ah yes, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) – they’re the hate speech guys aren’t they? The ones who hear our politicians stir up their supporters against those of their opponents, and then slap their wrists.

Yes they are in business to hammer hate speech, and it’s definitely what the media love reporting on – the more senior the politician the more prominent the coverage, particularly if such honourables end up in court. But this is but a small proportion of NCIC’s mandate, and the reality is that much more quietly, behind the scenes, they are deeply engaged in bringing conflicted communities together.

How do I know this, despite the almost complete absence of media coverage and hence of public perception regarding this life-beyond-hate-speech?

First, because I supported NCIC with their strategy development in 2011, when I was exposed to their activities up close. Then, more recently I read Alice Nderitu’s book, Kenya, Bridging Ethnic Divides: A Commissioner’s Experience on Cohesion and Integration (which I reviewed in a column of mine on this page exactly two years ago); and now I am a member of NCIC’s Social Cohesion Committee, set up to promote national cohesion at this challenging time of Covid-19.

To learn about the early years of NCIC, I urge you to read the book by Alice Nderitu, who was one of its founder commissioners. In this article though, let me share something about the conflict resolution and peace-building initiatives they are engaged in right now, which I have been hearing about from current commissioners and staff.

First I’ll highlight their approach in Narok, where longstanding societal problems going back to the evictions from the Mau Forest and the feuds between the Kipsigis and the Maasai have led to the violence we have again been witnessing in recent weeks. Here NCIC officers have made their constructive presence felt in a reassuringly impactful way.

Even in this time of Covid they have been travelling to the affected areas, where they held several weeks of consultations with the affected communities and their leaders, listening to the voices of those on the ground so as to understand the issues, and hence building trust and confidence in themselves.

They collaborated with other agencies, benefitting from their expertise and their networks; held public barazas; organised work projects bringing youth together; and through all this started developing a culture of peace rather than of conflict. As a result of their mediation expertise progress has been made, and without needing to resort to judicial intervention. Seeing their contribution has encouraged both government and development partners to reinforce their support for NCIC.

In their mediation efforts in Marsabit they involved professionals, religious leaders, women, elders and students in promoting peaceful ways of resolving the conflicts over boundaries, grazing land, water and related issues, again adopting a multi-agency approach. And similar approaches are under way to resolve the conflicts on the Kakamega-Nandi border.

The NCIC peace soldiers have learned that while conflict is active it is not a good time for them to intervene. During such periods they must leave it to the security forces to calm things down, and it is only then that they can start engaging those involved in dialogue.

They have found that they need to be flexible in how and with whom to intervene, and another principle of theirs is never to over-promise but to keep their word. Ultimately, their mission is to develop cultures of conflict resolution and peace, generating a constructive win-win atmosphere among the locals. This requires great expertise and experience, which fortunately is available within the commission.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is to assess how to involve – and not involve! – the local politicians, for too often they are the very ones who stir up the conflicts to their short term political advantage. It is why the development of grassroots community leadership is so vital, enabling it to become a voice of positive influence.

Realistically, many of the politicians will keep on doing what they’ve always done. And given how their activities whip up emotions that deliberately generate conflict and violence, this becomes natural material for the media to feed on.

Equally, as I wrote at the beginning, for NCIC’s conflict resolution and peace-building to be effective it must be conducted in a low profile way. So please, let us not conclude that just because we aren’t reading about this day-to-day they are only spending their time chasing after hate-speech mongers.

Basic income, free face masks needed in the slums urgently

As the government continues to work out an adequate and fair response to the huge rise in virus infections and accelerating death rate, out of the box thinking is required. Complete area lockdowns hurt socio-economic development, while clearly helping to reduce Covid-19 infections.

Yet reduced development devastates incomes, especially of the poor who even find it difficult to pay for face-masks. It also leads to deaths from hunger and disease, and raises the risk of crime and violence.

Consequently there must be a carefully targeted response to lockdown, coupled with increased personal responsibility. Banning large get-togethers unless all wear face masks covering both mouth and nose is a must. There is no doubt that wearing face masks properly is key to preventing the spread of the disease. Right now only 30 percent (according to our daily tally in our neighbourhood in Nairobi) wear face masks correctly and these are mainly women. At the coast the figure is far lower, at less than five percent.

Thus it is clear that personal responsibility is lacking to wear face masks, even by those who can afford them. A major campaign is required to alert the public in general and poor people especially. Methods of alert so far via television, radio and the press have unfortunately failed — even in sophisticated countries with higher readership and coverage. A new approach must include more social media and increased controls.

The campaign should feature the link between jobs, prosperity, and even lockdown, for each area where face-mask wearing is low or non-existent. Further, facemasks must be made free in the slums, and users coached on the need to wash them daily with soap and water.

Even in the best case scenario income levels will continue to be down, as external factors such as tourist flows suffer because of the pandemic.

But there is a modest solution. Economic activities, especially with incoming tourists, will increase if it is known how serious the government takes the personal responsibility of all Kenyans — as the President has so clearly been showing. Tourists should be encouraged to adopt mask-wearing as part of their own personal responsibility.

The bargain is therefore you do something for me dear tourist, face-masking and social distancing, and we’ll do something for you through ensuring the personal responsibility of our citizens. The latter includes what we are seeing now, the selective opening of hotels, bars and restaurants, with closure immediately invoked should they ignore their responsibilities.

We know of a case where a restaurant and bar owner on the beach pays for his staff out of his own pocket, ensures adequate table and social distancing, sanitises all touchable surfaces continuously, and only keeps negative-tested staff. The risk of infection is very low or non-existent, as the winds blow around his establishment. But he has closed. His staff are on minimal wages, and tourists have cancelled their stays.

The brave attempts to distribute desperately needed food are misguided. Cash is the key and then the poor can buy what they need. They will buy food and thereby stimulate local markets but they will not necessarily buy face masks, so these must be given free on condition of penalties if they don’t.

We noted before that cash transfers to vulnerable families increased mutual support between beneficiaries; reduced tensions; and improved relationships within the community. Even better news is that each Sh1,000 of cash assistance can generate more than double that, most of which will be spent locally. Then, with cash, people were able to buy what they most needed, whether food, rent or other essentials.

A huge difficulty is that corruption has led to most cash distribution schemes failing. There are too many steps to take, with slow and bureaucratic government mechanisms. As we suggested before, a basic income can be sent only to areas where poor people live, distributed via M-Pesa to those with mobile phones. Of course some will have more than one phone and others none — estimated at a mere three percent in the slums. But the sharing culture there would reduce the hardship of the few without.

As insisted before, our technical contacts at mobile phone companies are confident they can identify most poor people in the vicinity of a transmission mast through a technique known as “geo-fencing”. Yes, some people who don’t need the cash would be included. But if distributed after curfew it would exclude passers-by.

Worse, some who desperately need the cash might also be excluded. However, geo-fencing ensures that it is the people in need who do obtain the cash, while corruption can just about be eliminated.

Meanwhile the quest for perfection breeds paralysis. It is better to start now, since cash is desperately needed by the vulnerable. We therefore once more urge the government to urgently consider distributing a basic income for the poor in the slums of Kenya… coupled with a strong emphasis on personal responsibility.

Hopkins is Professor of CSR and co-founder Institute for Responsible Leadership
Eldon is Chairman, The DEPOT and co-founder Institute for Responsible Leadership
Munro is a former UN Senior Policy Adviser on Sustainable Development and MYSA Founder Chairman

Hurdles that hinder growth of insurance scene

Over 40 percent of Kenyans have a bank account, and when one includes the use of mobile money over 80 percent enjoy access to formal financial services. Yet the penetration of insurance in Kenya stands at under 3 percent – and it is not rising. Understandably, many commentators therefore see huge potential for developing this arm of the financial sector, typically quoting South Africa’s penetration rate of 17 percent as a comparison and lamenting the unimaginative use of technology by Kenyan companies.

So why is our penetration so low, and what might be done to increase it? For sure many feel that insurance is “just for the well-off”, “a Nairobi thing”. Others feel the odds of needing to claim on a policy are too low to justify paying the premiums required – defying the whole basis of insurance, which is to collect from the many so as to be able to compensate the few who have legitimate claims to lodge.

I am a relative newcomer to the insurance industry, and for the sake of transparency let me state that a year and a half ago I became the chairman of Occidental Insurance Ltd, having been invited to serve on their board a while before. Through my earlier background in the IT industry I was aware that insurance companies typically lagged other sectors – not least banking – in their use of technology.

Indeed back in the mid-seventies, in my last position in London before coming to Kenya, I was the manager of British computer multinational ICL’s business in the insurance sector. Then and since, my perception was that too many leaders in this sector were less innovative than their counterparts elsewhere, not least in applying the latest that technology could offer.

However the more I have become familiar with the challenges faced by insurance companies here the more I have learned to sympathise with players in this market. Admittedly the case can be made that there are far too many of us, leading to an unhealthy fragmentation of the market. But a further significant factor is that as of December 2018, 92 percent of insurance business was passing through agents (of whom there were 10,000, accounting for 53 percent of business) and brokers (of whom there were 200, accounting for 39 percent).

So only 8 percent of business was handled directly by the insurance companies (down from 12 percent in 2017), with the balance dealt with by intermediaries. Much of what does or does not happen in the industry therefore depends on them, and yet insufficient attention is paid to their practices.

Now despite being highly regulated by the Insurance Regulatory Authority it is generally acknowledged that there is also much indiscipline in the sector, with serious premium undercutting and fraud leading to compromised growth and profitability.

How therefore can insurance companies find the resources needed to invest in research and development, including for acquiring new technology that will better serve both the market and their shareholders? One answer is collaboration, as has already happened with the introduction of data sharing platforms that have led to reduced fraud in the motor and marine classes of insurance.

But more is needed. Two major initiatives in the works are the introduction of the Risk Based Capital rules, designed to ensure capital adequacy and more robust risk management; and the rather more controversial “cash and carry” principle requiring premiums to be paid upfront or at the point at which the cover is issued, in order to ensure that the insurer is able to settle claims appropriately. Alongside these, companies are grappling to implement the consequences of the various stringent International Financial Reporting Standards.

Will these be sufficient to bring about a more sustainable insurance industry? Discussions among industry players are active in our Association of Kenya Insurers, and equally between us and the regulator. More trusting collaboration is needed, and less unhealthy competition.

At the end of June 2020 the capital adequacy measures were due to kick in, and let’s hope that the requirements are adhered to, with appropriate oversight being provided by the regulator. And let’s encourage the regulator to keep going after those who shamelessly undercut their premium rates to gain undue competitive advantage… while jeopardising their ability to pay claims and to be sustainable entities.

Let’s return to quest for a new vision

In my last column I wrote about John Ngumi’s quest for a vision of Kenya, one that will help us emerge from our national malaise and offer a national goal and purpose that can excite and focus us.

Mr Ngumi worried that we live in a time of great cynicism and scepticism, with disbelief in the goodness, wisdom or purpose of anything government says or does, and a belief that those who lead us are uniformly selfish, greedy and immoral. This, he worried, has led us to having low expectations about our future, thanks to diminished national self-belief and self-confidence.

Despite these challenges, Mr Ngumi saw much to feel good about – in ICT, manufacturing, infrastructure development and elsewhere – providing an excellent base from which to galvanise our energies, drive and ingenuity. But for us to believe we must have a sense of purpose, a national ambition, he felt, and so – through me – he called for ideas.

What feedback did I receive from my article? What messages were proposed to inspire us, ones that previous vision statements (as laid out by Mr Ngumi in my article) failed to deliver?

Muriu Ngumi castigated the government for its fixation on numbers – ones like GDP growth and kilometres of road built. He called for not just the delivery of prosperity but alongside it for “a life of dignity”, where our children have a decent education that gives them a chance at a future where families can rely on the healthcare system and have adequate housing; a job to support them and their families; a police force and courts that are fair and protect society; and a government that respects our rights.

In his column that appeared the day after mine – in which he referred to Ngumi and my challenge – Dennis Kabaara laid out what he saw as being required for Kenya’s new normal under Covid-19, a more human “whole of society” view of the future, one that Kenyan families want and that keeps us away from the BBI of “Big Baron Interests”.

Mr Kabaara suggested we must develop a sustainable agriculture sector that provides us with all the food we need. He called for a fulfilment of basic rights that comprise education (including skills for life – as in the new Competency Based Curriculum), health, shelter, water and sanitation.

Next, access to assets and income opportunities, with R&D and innovation centres in counties and their regional blocs. Then participatory governance; and finally security and safety at a family level.

Hindpal Jabbal’s input aligned nicely with these contributions, as he reckoned “the one vision that Kenya lacks is self-reliance”. So he proposed this vision statement: “Kuji Jenga”… referring me to his April 2016 Daily Nation article in which he bemoaned our culture of dependency (along with our corrupt ways and our extreme inequality).

Where does Mike Eldon fit into all this? First, building on the earlier point of going beyond measures such as GDP and length of roads, Muriu Ngumi and I ask the question “So what?”. What is the impact of these outputs, the consequential benefits for the people of Kenya?

How do they lead to shared prosperity, as envisaged in our Vision 2030 but which has so far been, to put it mildly, elusive – now exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis?

I applaud the visionaries, while adding the need for managing the actualisation of their visions. For at least as important as crafting a vision is serious “performance management for results” (my preferred term over M&E). This has been sorely lacking, and partly thanks to the fragmentation of such functions between multiple agencies, each operating in its own silo.

We have the Presidential Delivery Unit, now in the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government; the Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate in the Ministry of Finance and Planning; and the Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat, a semi-autonomous government agency. Surely these should be brought together.

Having said that, more and more of our counties are establishing county delivery units, or service delivery units, and these are becoming increasingly effective in achieving precisely what they were set up to do, enhancing the delivery of services to citizens. And in the emerging economic blocs, in particular the Lake Region one, they are coordinating initiatives between counties to achieve synergy among them.

In Kenya as elsewhere, we must build that more inclusive society, one that reverses the trend towards wealth for the few and allows for universal dignity.

This conversation is far from over. Please let’s keep it going.

Why Kenya needs brand new vision

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From time to time I am fortunate to be exposed to the highly thoughtful, well-informed and articulate WhatsApps of John Ngumi, and his most recent was one of his best. In it he asked for “an idea, a vision of Kenya, that will help get us out of our national malaise, will give us a national goal and purpose that can excite and focus us all”.

With that he took a step back into history, starting with the immediate pre-Independence period, when the national goal and cry was “Uhuru”, regularly interchanged with “Uhuru na Kenyatta”. These reflected a fervent belief that with Independence, and with Jomo Kenyatta freed from imprisonment and leading his people, all would be well for the future.

In the immediate post-Independence years, Ngumi reminded us, the national focus changed to “Uhuru na Kazi”. There may not have been unanimity as to what this actually entailed, and there were fierce ideological battles on what “Uhuru” meant to various groups of Kenyans, some who had benefited and some who had lost out. But there was a consensus that while we had hard work ahead of us to build a nation, we could do it.

The seventies saw malaise, cynicism and anger start getting into the national body politic, a result partly of the political turmoils of the 1960s, but also because of an inevitable sense of let-down as we grappled with nascent nationhood and its challenges.

There was a short-lived attempt to reignite a sense of national purpose through the Mwai Kibaki-led “The Kenya We Want” initiative, which sought to get us focused on the difficult economic years ahead post the 1973 oil price rise and subsequent global recession, acknowledging that we no longer had easy economic options. This never really caught on.

A brief period of optimism in the late 1970s and early 1980s was then followed by a time about which the less said about national visions, dreams and goals, the better.

The Second Liberation of the late 1980s refocused and galvanised Kenyans, eventually leading to the heady days of 2002-3, when all seemed possible. We didn’t really have a galvanising rallying call thereafter. That was not in the character or style of President Kibaki, but we did have a sense of doing things, with Vision 2030 epitomising the calm, somewhat dry, technocratic approach favoured by his administration.
And today? It struck Ngumi that we have reached a period “in which cynicism and scepticism reign supreme, a widespread and almost automatic disbelief in the goodness, wisdom or purpose of anything government says or does, a belief that what’s-in-it-for-me is the ruling ethos among any who get a sniff at public office and power, that those who lead will grab, steal, manipulate all systems and institutions, in order to amass and retain wealth, power and privileges. Truly a dispiriting moment of low expectations, and even lower national self-belief and self-confidence.”

And yet, Ngumi insists, good, positive things are happening all around us. Innovation in the digital and wider IT space. An emerging rediscovery of MSMEs’ potential. A Covid-induced increasing confidence that we actually can manufacture things that we had always assumed had to be imported.

A tentative start, again Covid-induced, to tackling long standing problems such as cleaning up our towns, using initiatives like Kazi Mtaani. A laying down of infrastructure which, no matter how expensively acquired, is there, can be used. A fierce constitutionalism and sense of rights among the citizenry, who increasingly do not hesitate to assert their rights, including resorting to legal action. A growing willingness and determination to hold leaders to account at all levels.

In short, Ngumi is telling us that “Yes We Can”. But not if we don’t believe it. And for us to believe we can we must have a goal, a sense of purpose, a national ambition around which we can galvanise our energies, drive and ingenuity.

YES WE CAN

He doesn’t think “attaining middle income status by 20…” or suchlike will do it for us.

We’ll just yawn cynically, he believes. He would love for us to have a grand ambition, like leading an African Renaissance.

Thabo Mbeki tried that, to general continental indifference.

Obama beat us to Yes We Can. And yet Ngumi feels we need a spark to release all these fierce energies and drive that we have in great abundance, to turn these positively outward towards national goals.

Ngumi concluded his Whatsapp by asking for ideas, and so – with his permission – that’s how I close… for now. Ideas please, readers!

Going about CSR in the tough time of Covid-19

Last week I was invited by Prof Michael Hopkins to speak at one of his CSR Meetup events, these days inevitably online.

Prof Hopkins has been running these for over ten years, and in different countries around the world. Now they are being co-hosted by Globethics, the Geneva-based global ethics network, and my topic was “Corporations connecting with their communities – now and before Covid”.

I spoke from my experience in Kenya regarding CSR, and started by worrying that the perception of some in government, civil society, academia and elsewhere is that as far as the for-profit private sector is concerned, we are only in business for just that – profit. More so now during the Covid crisis, the assumption is that among the budget line items to be most speedily slashed would be the CSR one, and that other aspects of this “treating all stakeholders responsibly” to which CSR speaks would also fall by the wayside.

It is for such reasons that many outside of the private sector assume it has little to offer during this Covid-19 crisis and would not make suitable partners. This is a great shame as, largely coordinated by the umbrella body, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa), lots of its members are contributing in a highly responsible, constructive, generous and coordinated way.

I remembered the troubled times around past elections in Kenya, when Kepsa developed initiatives to support social cohesion through its Mkenya Daima programmes. “They’re just doing it for business continuity,” sneered some from civil society, claiming we were only worried about peace but indifferent to justice… which was quite untrue.

I then drew examples of impactful CSR initiatives from sectors with which I am associated. Like insurance, where the Insurance Regulatory Authority recently got the industry players together to contribute to the Emergency Response Fund for Covid. Like others, we at Occidental Insurance reallocated some of our CSR budget that had been targeting communities directly and applied it into the fund.

Social responsibility is also being seen at KCA University, which has been reaching into nearby slums, both in Nairobi and in Kisumu, to assist vulnerable youth and their parents in multiple ways.

And at water and energy company Davis & Shirtliff, alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals is a no-brainer: SDG 6 seeks universal availability of water, and SDG 7 talks about access for all to clean energy.

The company, through its spread of branches around the region, partners with the surrounding communities and continues to promote these goals in a sustainable way – in fulfilment of its purpose, “To improve people’s lives by providing water and energy solutions across Africa”.

It also partners with its suppliers, and with service organisations such as Rotary, to amplify its CSR impact. Not least in ensuring the sustainability of the water supply by going beyond the mere installation of a borehole to creating a business model with the community that will allow for its maintenance and ongoingness.

Next I spoke more about Rotary, of which I have been a member for many years, turning to an aspect of CSR which although less visible is at least as significant: volunteering. Here we are not talking about the financial inputs to CSR but about all the man and woman hours.

There are around 1,200,000 Rotarians in the world, and a recent survey revealed that in the four-week reference period, between us we volunteered 5.8 million hours, delivering services worth $850 million a year.

CSR initiatives should involve employees of the organisation, whether through in-house projects or external volunteering, including through another dimension of the latter – being active in Professional and Business Member Organisations. Aside from time spent with such bodies benefitting the profession or sector, it inevitably leads to learning and growth on the part of the volunteer, as I have found in all the volunteering to which I have been exposed.

During the discussion time the plight of small-scale farmers and MSMEs was raised, and here I gave credit to large corporates such as Bidco, Coca Cola, Diageo, BAT and others who stimulate the development of bottom-of-the pyramid producers – CSR by another name.

Now more than ever is the time for CSR community engagement, not least for large and medium firms in sectors that have not been pulverised by Covid-19, to be preserved, and with all stakeholders.

Reallocated maybe, but not demolished. The behaviour of those that do so will be remembered favourably long after the crisis has calmed.