Lessons from the character of John McCain

Like millions of others, I witnessed the uplifting memorial service to honour former war hero, senator and presidential candidate John McCain.

Mr McCain’s daughter Meghan was the first to pay tribute to him. “We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness,” she lamented. “The real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly.”

And later, in the most quoted part of her address: “The America of John McCain is generous and welcoming and bold, she is resourceful and confident and secure, she meets her responsibilities, she speaks quietly because she is strong. America does not boast, because she does not need to. The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great.”

Former Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman was next to speak. Mr Lieberman was Republican McCain’s first choice as running mate when he stood for president in 2008, but conservative Republicans were uncomfortable with Mr Lieberman’s support for abortion, so he was not selected.

Among those listening to Mr Lieberman’s personal and at times humorous speech about his friend were the Clintons, the Bushes and the Obamas – the three couples sitting next to each other in the front row, alongside three former vice presidents, Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Joe Biden.

Ninety-nine year old Henry Kissinger followed Lieberman, speaking in his heavy German accent about McCain’s important role in reconciling America and Vietnam following the war – despite having been a prisoner in Vietnam for over five years and being tortured repeatedly.

Now it was the turn of George Bush, eloquent and statesmanlike, and then his successor in the White House, Barrack Obama. Mr Obama revealed that McCain had called him earlier in the year to invite him to speak at his memorial service. A sure sign, winked Mr Obama, of the man’s sense of mischief. “What better way to get the last laugh than to get George and me to say nice things about him to a national audience?”

Earlier, Mr Lieberman had referred to the incident during Mr McCain’s presidential campaign when a woman at a town hall meeting spoke offensively about Mr Obama and Mr McCain told her off. Mr Obama now told us he wasn’t surprised that, as Mr Lieberman had put it, by instinct and without needing to consult anyone, this man who so lacked prejudice did the right thing.

Mr Obama also shared that when he was president, from time to time he would meet with Mr McCain to talk about policies and politics. They certainly didn’t agree on everything, but they learned from each other and they laughed together. “For all our differences, and they were deep, we never doubted that we were on the same team.”

He praised Mr McCain for “always striving to be better, to do better” and, like all the others who spoke before him, Mr Obama wished Americans today could indulge in more of the bipartisan and civilised political engagement (“not small and mean and petty”) that Mr McCain so richly personified. He disparaged those who “appeared brave and tough”, but more likely spoke out of fear.

Each speaker condemned the current divisive and abrasive style of US politics, telling positive stories about the man they were honouring, about how he forgave and sought forgiveness, about how honest, fair and civilised he was. They regretted the way the broader American society had regressed, wishing it could follow the example set by Mr McCain.

But would anything that was said make a difference? Would any of America’s leaders, never mind Mr Trump, behave any differently as a result? I was not holding my breath, and I was right not to. Any more than I do after our National Prayer Breakfasts and similar occasions here, where equally uplifting sentiments are expressed by the high and mighty, only for them to revert to the default aggressive, abusive language immediately they leave the venue.

One commentator asked if some of America’s younger senators would take on Mr McCain’s mantle. And by the way, will any of our younger politicians rise above the lowest common denominator of Kenyan politics? Will our recent “Handshake” take root, overcoming the never-ending divisive campaigning? Or will our politicians and voters continue playing our same dysfunctional games?

Firms grow with systems, vision and inspiration

Some years ago I wrote enthusiastically about John Kotter’s “eight steps to change” that many, including here in Kenya, have followed as a guide to transforming their organisations.

Kotter laid these out in his 1996 book, Leading Change, and then 10 years later, together with Holger Rathberger, he published Our Iceberg Is Melting, that brought the eight steps together as a fable in the style of Who Moved My Cheese?

The iceberg that Harvard guru Kotter wrote about was in Antarctica, home for many years to a colony of penguins. Then one day, a curious bird discovered a worrying crack under the ice.

But at first no one seemed interested. Gradually though, he persuaded penguins of greater emotional intelligence and influence to help the colony overcome its resistance to change — following Kotter’s eight steps.

So its leaders were eventually persuaded that the iceberg was under such threat that if they were to survive they would have to migrate to another location.

I have recommended the book to many people and now, a decade after their penguin fable, I was delighted to see that Kotter has again collaborated with Rathbeger to produce another one, about a large meerkat clan in the Kalahari Desert.

Following years of easy growth, managed through well-defined command-and-control hierarchies and strict job descriptions, with supporting systems and rules, the meerkats were threatened first by a drought and then by deadly vulture attacks.

As things got worse the clan’s harmony disintegrated and the blame game erupted.

The “Alpha” executive team quarreled about possible solutions, and doubted whether they even needed to change their rigid systems.

Suggestions from front-line workers were met with the classic change-averse response: “That’s not how we do it here!” Hence the title of the book.

Nadia, a bright and adventurous meerkat who had been identified as an emerging leader, was so fed up that she left the clan and went in search of new ideas to help her troubled folk.

She discovered a much smaller group that operated with wonderfully participative teamwork and agility.

The meerkats here had developed innovative ways of finding food and evading the vultures, as a result of which their numbers started growing rapidly.

But the more new meerkats arrived to join them the more difficult it became to sustain the informal approach that had worked so well when they were fewer.

While the leadership style remained great, they lacked the robust management systems needed to deal with issues in a disciplined way, and so coordination became impossible and morale and motivation levels collapsed. Things fell apart.

Nadia began thinking about how to combine the best of both worlds: the benefits of the systems that handled the large, disciplined, well-managed clan, along with those of the agile, creative leadership that drove the smaller, informal one.

She returned to her original clan, where she set out to convince its traditional leaders to adopt more of the agility and innovativeness of where she had just come from.

And despite initial resistance, with the expected reasons-why-not mindset, eventually complacency and conservatism declined among enough of them, the organisational pyramid flattened, and with new energy and confidence they succeed in growing and flourishing again despite the ongoing challenges.

The moral of the story is straightforward: as organisations face uncertainty and the increasing complexity that comes with scale, both the disciplined systems of management (without the commonplace stultifying bureaucracy) and the vision and inspiration of leadership are essential.

It need not and should not be either/or: as I have always believed, any good manager must be a good leader and vice versa.

This book, this fable, has spelt it out more clearly and vividly than I have ever seen it attempted before. It concludes with a chapter suggesting how to approach having the cake and eating it, in which we are advised to follow Kotter’s original eight steps to change: create a sense of urgency; build a guiding coalition; form a strategic vision; enlist a volunteer army; remove barriers; generate quick wins; sustain acceleration; and institutionalise the change.

All this must take place without killing off the founding fast, entrepreneurial culture that needs to remain egalitarian, fluid and innovative.

Involve staff in layoff plan to ease feelings

In the last few months I have come across numerous examples of employees who, as a result of a planned restructuring of the organisation in which they work, feel they will be losing out.

They expect to suffer from woes such as diminished seniority, influence, control and prestige — even redundancy, while more practically also worrying about reduced earnings and cramped career prospects.

Why does restructuring occur? It can be because of new market circumstances or technology requirements, and so the need for different skills and attitudes; it can flow from mergers and acquisitions, or just from new leaders with different preferences (hopefully not simply wanting to make their presence felt or to fill key positions with loyalists).

These upheavals can result in a wider or narrower geographical presence, increased or reduced staff numbers, and many other consequences too, all tumbling around together. Then, the larger an organisation becomes the greater the need for multiple reporting relationships within intricate matrix structures; and also for temporary work groups that can respond with agility to new opportunities and challenges.

Inevitably, salary structures and incentive schemes must be revised to align with these changes.

So much volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity: the VUCA thing! No wonder it leaves many perplexed and frustrated. While the fear of impending loss may be misplaced, either way how the people feel is real, and for some the loss may indeed be significant. So like with the loss of loved ones, they will journey through the well-defined stages of grieving: from denial to acceptance to mourning… and hopefully to eventual healing.

People react differently when dealing with loss. Demoralised and demotivated, some may withdraw, perhaps sulk, but not always obviously. The angry and aggressive will resist the new situation, fight back, protest, perhaps sabotage it and disrupt those around them, suppliers and others. Others will rise to the occasion, go with the flow and become reluctant heroes to their bosses and others.

So how can one overcome people’s feelings of loss? How can they be helped to come to terms with it, sacrificing their immediate wellbeing? And how can their bosses and colleagues work with them to mitigate the consequences of these losses? Do they show sympathy? Offer support?

The first requirement from their superiors is to recognise that in any reshuffle there are likely to be losers. Identify who they are, and accept the reality of how they feel. Then find ways of comforting and compensating them.

One company with which I am familiar is planning a restructuring thanks to the ongoing growth of its branch network, and is doing so in a highly participative way. As part of a strategy review meeting of the board and top management, those leading the teams whose jobs will be affected were tasked with proposing how the new structure may look. Brainstorming followed at the meeting, in which the pros and cons of the alternatives were assessed and consensus built around one.

In another organisation I have also been impressed by the leaders, who inspired many of their people to make short-term sacrifices in order to strengthen their personal longer-term prospects while building a more robust future for the whole entity.

The “losers” who perform most nobly today will be duly rewarded in the rosier times ahead, while graceless grumblers will either drop out or be asked to leave.

Much of the stress that accompanies restructuring is caused by a transfer of sales prospects from one part of a company to another. For example, larger projects may be moved to specialised head-office functions, with those in branch offices losing out. So can the branch people still play a role, benefiting from at least a share of such revenues and of the accompanying bonuses?

So my plea is simple. Not because a leader should be “nice”, but in order to keep the workforce together as a cohesive and motivated team, do consider ways of reaching an adequacy of win-win – particularly for those who would otherwise become unhappy and thus less productive losers.

[email protected]

Leadership character can be used positively to empower others

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to be a panelist on NTV’s am Live Friday morning Leadership Forum, and when anchor Debarl Inea told me the theme would be “Leadership Character” I began thinking about how to fill the few minutes I would be given within the programme to present on the subject.

My mind immediately went to the World Cup football match between Colombia and England I had watched a few days before, in which the Colombian players behaved with uninhibited aggression against their opponents, not least when English players looked like striking at goal.

Yellow card followed yellow card, and then a penalty was awarded against the spoilers, showing them that their inability to hold back from manhandling the English players did not pay.

Thanks to the presence of the referee, and hence to bad character being penalised, the more restrained English carried the day. Then, as I drove to Nation Centre for the early morning show, even at that pre-dawn hour I encountered numerous examples of rude driving, and not just by matatus. Gratuitously ignoring priority, lane discipline or any kind of courtesy, wherever such road-hogs saw the opportunity to jump ahead of others they took it, with no second thought.

So finding the strength to hold back from doing the wrong thing became the mantra for my slot about what it takes to be of good character. The next examples I talked about that morning were positive ones, first about the faculty at KCA University.

Just the day before, as chairman of its University Council, I had told the Commission for University Education committee carrying out their five-year audit about how our staff have launched numerous initiatives to become really lean, making great sacrifices in time and money, taking more courses with no extra pay, understanding it was to build a stronger future for the university and for themselves.

They showed great character, as did the university leadership in leading the way and inspiring them to such mature behaviour.

Next I went back to my time as general manager of a British IT multinational in the late seventies, when my mzungu bosses expected me to be the feared macho manager, the Big Man who gave instructions and whose word was law. Somehow, I found the strength to defy them by trusting my people, empowering and supporting them, against the inclinations of my superiors… who therefore saw me as “weak and indecisive”.

Rising to the national level I hammered the kind of win-lose leadership character embraced by the likes of Trump and Turkey’s Erdogan, leaders who lack the strength to hold back from stirring up their bases against “the other”… an approach likely to end up in lose-lose.

I contrasted these disrupters to win-win consensus-builders such as Obama, Trudeau and Macron, who bring their people together around a higher purpose and shared uplifting values. I also praised our local “Handshake” duo, while condemning all our politicians who take the easy way to electoral victory by appealing to ethnic loyalties and treating their supporters “generously”. These supporters meanwhile are fully aware of who would make the better leader, the one who would bring development and improve services. But most lack the strength to hold back from casting their vote for an ethnic posturer, and a cash-spreading one at that.

I concluded by reading the quotation by Henry Ford from the back page of the day’s Business Daily that ‘Quality means doing it right when no one is looking’. (As, by coincidence, was previewed earlier by my fellow panelist Gituro Wainaina.) I and my fellow panelists agreed that it is the leaders above all who must find the strength to hold back from doing the wrong thing, and it is they who must inspire others to do so – ensuring there are rewards for behaving with good character and penalties for falling short.

Around the time I was writing this article I watched a CNN programme on Washington DC in which this quote from Abraham Lincoln featured: ‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.’ Including testing their power to hold back from doing the wrong thing.

Monitoring, evaluating… and then what?

This is an article I wrote for ‘UN Special’, a magazine published by the UN for civil servants.

Click here (link will open in a new window).

Book review: NEW TOME: A journey through Ethiopian churches

And here’s a link to one of my book reviews which was recently published in the East African:

Click here (link will open in a new window).

Write more like you talk to get the message across

When I came to Kenya in the late seventies I was struck by how very differently people here wrote from the way I had been used to in the UK. It was as though I had journeyed back in time to the Edwardian or even Victorian eras of stiffness and formality.

As I wondered why the way I had been brought up to write was so much more relaxed, I same across how “Commercial English” was taught in schools and colleges.

Just as at occasions where formal speeches are delivered, everything was (and to a large extent still is) about being “proper” and observing “protocol”. Never mind among lawyers in court, with their horse-hair wigs and their white bands instead of ties.

No wonder bolder speech-givers, not wishing to waste time, now open with the “All protocols observed” short cut… except that too many still only do so after already having recognised a long list of dignitaries present. (At my cheekiest I have taken this further by launching speeches with “No protocols observed”.)

The formalised writing style is perhaps at its most stultified in minute-writing, as those taking them too often prize convoluted elegance over meaningful, punchy reports.

I experienced a classic case of such “proper” minutes following a recent council committee meeting of a state body of which I have been a council member.

The minutes were presented at the full council that followed, with all the statutory requirements fulfilled but with nothing of the robust brainstorming that had dominated the proceedings included: all that was important had been ignored, leaving only empty expressions of compliance.

In a session on effective written communication I ran a few weeks ago at the Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications I asked the participants how alive their writing was. “How different is the way you write from the way you talk?” I posed, and not surprisingly the reactions were overwhelmingly that their writing was indeed very different, requiring so much more effort.

I then introduced my central message, urging them to write much more like how they talked, to think about dictating what they would otherwise have said: to write conversationally, as though it were a transcript. And for this to happen it was essential that they unlearned what they had been taught in school and college about what was “proper” English.

Here I quoted novelist Elmore Leonard, who claimed: “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” And a further thought came from another novelist, Ray Bradbury: “Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.” Tell a story, I suggested in my last column, which means have your narrative flow, with a good beginning, middle and end.

Next I turned to my experience as an editor, where (particularly for those with “at least a Master’s degree”) I help them simplify their language, using short words in short sentences in short paragraphs. Another quote helped me on my way, from Churchill: “Short words are best.”

I couldn’t have put it more clearly! I talked about using verbs more interesting than “have” and “get”, about keeping to the active rather than passive forms, and I encouraged them to occasionally pose questions that they then answer. Oh, and to sort out the difference between colons and semi-colons.

Not just here, too many people merely aim for adequacy in their writing – more so in this age of texting and tweeting. It’s just to get the basics of a message across, with no thought of quality.

Others, though, feel disrespected if they receive scruffy writing that hasn’t been Spellchecked or proof-read. So as we rush out our texts, whether on our laptops or our phones, it pays to pause and read through what you have written – and not just once. I don’t know about you, but I am frequently surprised by some typo or other issue that had escaped by notice till that extra perusal.

My concluding advice for those at my session was to “Write, write write; keep getting better; and be proud of what you have created.”

Greek philosopher Epictetus put it well: “If you want to be a writer, write.”

Marking a milestone by gleaning lessons from art of storytelling

In my last column I wrote about a storytelling event I co-hosted, and today I hold on to that theme in this my 300th Business Daily article. For as I looked back over the 11 years my column has been running, it occurred to me that what I have actually been doing each fortnight is telling a story.

However old storytelling may be, it is receiving new focus as a powerful but much neglected element of leadership. For instance, in the “Voice of Leadership” programme I conducted with Martin Oduor for the Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communication (in partnership with the Harvard Kennedy School) we included a half-day on the subject, and it was also the theme of one of our webinars.

During that webinar I talked about the President’s Round Table with the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa) I attended in May. The President, Cabinet Secretaries, PSs and other senior government officials were in the room, plus 40 private sector leaders, and it lasted from noon till after six in the evening with no break.

I described how the various speakers told their stories: from the private sector, they advocated for government initiatives that would create a more enabling environment for business, and in return they committed to creating more jobs, exports and the like; and from the government side they explained what was and was not possible.

Guided for much of the day by the President, consensus was then built around agreed actions and outcomes.

My questions to those tuned in to the webinar were “How would you have performed?” and “How would you have prepared in advance?” But they were not there. So how, I asked, will they prepare and perform at the next high level meeting at which they will be presenting, responding or chairing?

Will they, like some did at State House, talk too fast? Be reading their script so they will hardly make eye contact with those they are addressing? Will they hold the microphone too near to or too far from their mouths, or will they allow their voices to project clearly? Will they go on for too long, with too much detail and making too many points, some off target?

Will they make too many requests, insufficiently accompanied by persuasive offers? Or will what they seek be reasonable, and balanced by powerful, credible offers, thus ensuring win-win business cases? Will they show emotional intelligence in how they engage? Or come across as whiners and moaners, as defensive and bureaucratic, crumbling when challenged to strengthen their case?

Will their visual aids strengthen their case, or act as visual distractions? Will their story align with those of their colleagues, as part of an integrated team offering practical proposals and solutions? If the need arises will they protect a subordinate, support a superior? And if they are chairing a session, will they drive the priority agenda, building consensus, summarising succinctly and managing time?

In my State House story, I praised the man whose great leadership inspired and motivated us all: the President. He raised us to a higher level, around a common national vision and healthy values; he allocated work to his own people and to us in the private sector; he called a spade a spade, stimulating the needed difficult conversations and building consensus around agreed stretch targets; and by differentiating between technical and non-technical issues he guided the conversations appropriately.

Many, on both sides, learned important lessons that day, and next time all will be better prepared. They will, I hope, rehearse and role play, so making the best use of the precious time available.

As part of my preparation for helping others to be powerful storytellers – and hence influential leaders – I read The Storyteller’s Secret by Carmine Gallo, author of Talk Like TED. If you are a leader at any level, do yourself a favour and read it too. Also watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu present with impact. You may not agree with everything he says, but he certainly tells his stories with supreme mastery.

Meanwhile, I look forward to telling more of my stories in this column, and I wish you well as you tell yours.

The necessary evil that is compliance

My colleague Frank Kretzschmar and I have been hosting our story-telling Leaders Circles for 12 years. The theme for our most recent event was “The Necessary Evil of Compliance”, a topic increasingly in the forefront of our minds.

Yes, we did include “necessary” before “evil”, acknowledging that, as former Deputy US Attorney-General Paul McNulty put it, “If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance”.

We began by sharing what the theme meant to us, noting that where there is high trust we can be more flexible with compliance.

Everyone must comply with national laws and regulations, we readily agreed, but within organisations with healthy cultures there is scope for making judgements, while keeping a balance between trust and compliance among broader stakeholders.

These days much more work must be done on compliance and integrity matters. It’s like a fashion, said one participant, with audits sometimes carried out in a spirit of suspicion, as “investigations” that assume something is wrong.

It can make you defensive, lead to feelings of bitterness, and an erosion of trust. You know you didn’t do anything wrong, but did you miss something? Life becomes impossible when “Compliance Jihadists” are on the job, “dangerous purists”, we heard.

On the other hand though, one must certainly not be too trusting, and pain can come from relaxing emphasis on compliance, as others related.

One participant, having introduced a regime of strict submission of weekly management accounts, so trusted his people that he relaxed the discipline, later to discover that substantial fraud was taking place.

So compliance is indeed a necessary evil where there is no prevailing culture of integrity. As another of our leaders was once told, “If your audits are not revealing problems they’re probably not doing their jobs properly.”

But compliance can lead to lost opportunities too. In his legitimate efforts to reduce his debtors, a manager in one of the organisations represented so tightened credit that he began losing business.

Here we were reminded of Peter Drucker’s experience, that “people who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year, while those who do make a similar number.”

What still must be handled is impunity: why do we need so many speed bumps here — why not just put up speed limit signs, as happens elsewhere? We know the answer to that: because they would be ignored.

Two of our leaders went to the UK to study, and there they learned about a different code of conduct, making them ethical and complaint in entirely new ways, some that were hard to practice back here.

I talked about the over-specification of procurement Terms of Reference that make comparisons between competitors more straightforward but reduce bidders to commodity providers who compete merely on price.

It precludes the possibility of offering alternatives that may be better or more innovative, risking compliance becoming the enemy of excellence.

And another said there were too many examples of opportunities lost as a result of having had to comply with some conformity. It’s what turns the dynamic to the stale, breeding timidity unless someone has the guts to raise the red flag. Such situations can arise within the family too, he added, and also in religions, leading to fundamentalism.

Then, we must beware of seeing board members as people who merely provide oversight and ensure compliance. Not enough to add value through offering strategic and innovative thinking, inspiring and motivating, acting as champions and ambassadors.

As a result, CEOs too feel the pressure to comply. One such, we were told, had done a great job in the UK of developing learning, growing leaders, helping them accept that sometimes they had to be non-compliant in order to deliver the best product, is no longer in such a position… and is really glad he is no longer there.

We did however acknowledge that we have seen significant benefits of many compliance initiatives, not least through the introduction of technology — as with fairer tax collection, through PINs, the iTax and the e-Citizen system.

Our conclusion? Have enough but not too much compliance. Above all though, do the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.

It’s futile to stand in the way of new technology

Ah, new technology: it threatens and disrupts. It always has and it always will. In 19th century England a group of textile workers known as Luddites destroyed weaving machines to protest against their “fraudulent and deceitful” use that was designed, they alleged, to get round the then labour practices.

Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste as machines would replace them, and over time the term Luddites has come to mean being opposed to new technologies in general.

Another example of “Luddism” comes back to me from my early days in the IT industry in the 1960s and ’70s, when trade unions in many countries aggressively opposed the introduction of computers because they were going to destroy large numbers of jobs – in this case white collar ones.

In 1980s Kenya this was manifested through the imposition of a combined import duty and sales tax of 143 per cent on computers, as they were branded “labour-saving devices”.

The longstanding battle between the unions representing workers in the local tea industry and the tea companies who employ them over the introduction of tea-plucking machines is a further example of the inconvenient meeting the inevitable.

What led me to think about these examples of resisting new technologies is reading The Upstarts by Brad Stone, about how companies like Uber and Airbnb are changing the world.

Stone, the author of The Everything Store – an earlier book on the rise of Amazon – describes in gripping detail how a few extraordinary individuals, filled with creativity and vision, energy and ambition, defiance and obstinacy, have redefined the transport and hospitality industries. Do get hold of The Upstarts (available at the Yaya Centre Bookstop) and follow the roller-coaster ride of the movers and shakers of Uber and of airbnb as breakthrough after breakthrough was followed by setback after setback, in city after city around the world, to the point where now their presence has become accepted as the new normal.

In Kenya our cab drivers launched protests against the Uber phenomenon, and as everywhere else we worried about fairness and about compliance with regulations (now quaintly outdated). We pondered over how the benefits of the mobile-based app should be spread between Uber, its drivers, its passengers and KRA. As we did regarding airbnb and the players in their ecosystem.

In among these weighty issues lies the leadership challenge of how to help the victims of new technology, in whichever century, to deal with and overcome loss, even as others enjoy the benefits of the new paradigm.

So while I love just pressing a few keys on my mobile phone to have a super-friendly low-cost Uber driver pick me up in just a few minutes, I mourn for the old-style cab drivers whose hitherto secure income streams have all but dried up.

No wonder Yellow Cab drivers in New York have been committing suicide, and no wonder hotel owners are pulling their hair out in frustration. In this era of the most rapid, transformative and unpredictable change we have ever witnessed, the underlying long-term leadership challenge is to prepare those they lead to be flexible and agile, able to let go of existing paradigms and to competently and confidently leap into new ones.

This of course must start at the earliest age possible, and it must never fade. It’s good that Kenya’s leaders have got the message, resulting in such strategic initiatives as our new Curriculum Framework, the boosting of technical and vocational training, the dramatic review of the role of universities and the major emphasis on acquiring and using digital skills.

In Kenya, thanks to unusually high levels of energy and curiosity, more of us are able to deal with the challenges of disruption than happens in many other countries. However, very much including in the Western world, far too many are left behind as they lack the skills and attitudes necessary for filling the emerging jobs available in the modern world.

So as we focus on the government’s “Big Four” in the context of our Vision 2030, we must support those who are already fit for purpose and also help those who are not to be so.