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Of
Governance, Leadership And
The African Rennaisance
Mashingaidze
The Board of Directors' role: Strategy and Leadership
In the beginning there was “strategy” and then came
“strategy”, followed by “strategy”. This is key !
Strategic planning can be divided into a long term
strategic plan and short term strategic plans. An author
once wrote that “ … craft a sound strategic plan,
implement it, execute it to the fullest, adjust as
needed; win! But its easier said than done..” A
strategic leader must then be aware of this and be
prepared for some fancy footwork and still aim to win!
To enable organisations to perform, the Board of
Directors must engage in strategic thinking, planning
and implementation. This is about being able to cut
through the complex, often contradictory issues and
demands, to core priorities. And strategic leadership is
about mobilising resources effectively, mobilising
people towards a collective effort, to a common goal.
There are tools that can assist a Board of Directors to
carry out environmental scanning in strategic thinking,
and these are:
The SWOT analysis; this analysis is good for matching
strategy and action.
The PPESTI analysis, which looks at the political, the
physical, economic, social, technological and industry,
or also known as the PESTL, that entails looking at the
political, economic, social, technological and legal
factors in the environment.
I prefer the PESTL that encapsulates the need to look at
the legal environment and its implications on the
operations of the entity. It is somehow a broader
analytical framework.
Strategic Planning Process is a broad subject and many
authors have stated the exercise in different forms.
Essentially it is about defining the following:
Vision
Mission
Values
External environment analysis
Industry characteristics Nature and degree of
competition Industry key success factors.
Opportunities and threats, strengths and weaknesses
Objectives of the organisation
Strategic phase
Resources required
Action plans
Properly explored, use of the above steps can make the
average strategic planning session for a not-for-profit
as good, if not better than a business international
conglomerate doing a similar exercise. In the above
steps, value chain analysis will be done, strategic
group mapping will be done. This approach enables an
examination of all the surrounding factors including the
effects of Globalisation.
Strategic thinking is definitely not new to the
not-for-profit sector. In 1989 Drucker once wrote that
non profit organizations in America were becoming
America's management leaders, in two areas; strategy and
effectiveness of the board. They were supposed to be
practicing what most American businessmen were
preaching, and in the most crucial area the motivation
and productivity of knowledge workers .Drucker opined
that non profits were truly pioneers, working out
policies and practices that the profit oriented business
sector would have to learn from in future. So there
again, Civil Society must continue to lead the pack.
An organisation which is not guided by a “strategy blue
print” is like a ship without a radar.
Here I am not talking about the proverbial “annual
retreat” with a strategy consultant, who comes and takes
the group through a strategy session, whose report
thereafter is left to gather dust in the Chairperson or
Chief Executive Officer's office till the next 'annual
retreat'. Here we are talking of real stuff, as in
rolling up our sleeves, being brutal with ourselves in
self examination, going into the trenches and charting a
way forward. Real stuff in the trenches, not paying lip
service or doing political grandstanding to please
certain stakeholders. Strategic sessions can be held as
often as necessary. In turbulent times I dare say
institutions even have to meet monthly or more often to
strategise.
Leadership is about “breathing” and “living” this
strategy. Living and walking the talk so to speak. Where
necessary taking “detours” so as to eventually reach the
destination! In my part of the world we have known
turbulent times and believe me without strategic
planning at every twist and turn, a number of
organisations have sunk into oblivion. Taking detours
does not mean having to lose the moral and ethical
track, it's about avoiding the potholes so as to reach
the ultimate destination and survive at all costs.
Corporate Strategy
Such a heading tends to mystify the simple. An entity
should sit down within themselves and ultimately walk
through, their strategic focus. The critical questions
to ask themselves are (who are they), (what do they want
to achieve), the organisation's purpose (what it is
for), its values (what it stands for) and the strategy
to achieve its purpose. The vision, mission, values etc
must be clearly understood beyond the generic definition
of these terms. It should be something like:
“We are holding this crystal ball....and we are seeing
beyond us: an institution that will outlive us ….an
institution that will have a life of its own…because we
would have given it a “rock foundation”….. when we are
long gone, the institution even if it has somehow
mutated, must forever be grounded in sound systems and
controls. “
As part of strategic planning, it is important for an
organisation to sit down and with the assistance of an
expert, craft their strategy as stated herein before.
The strategy document must not only be prepared with the
usual generic verbose jargon but must reflect the basic
survival issues of that entity. I am sure readers can
identify with attending trainings or workshops on
strategic planning, where the content, even if delivered
by different presenters sounds the same. And when you go
back to your work place you wonder how on earth, any of
that stuff can take your organisation forward!
The workshops or training sessions do have their role
but the real stuff is on-site, at your work place, where
you get down to basics. A formula that works for NGO 'A'
will not necessarily work for NGO 'B'. That realization
is the beginning of the long walk to prosperity.
Corporate Governance solutions tend to be generic in
nature and the best way forward is to have an
entity-specific solution. Anything less will either stay
on the shelf and never be put to use, or at best the so
called “tick box approach” will be employed and the
whole exercise of formulating a corporate strategy
document would be an exercise in futility, a waste of
resources. The corporate strategy document must be
referred to at every twist and turn. The debate on
Corporate Strategy should remain green, alive and
evolving.
The leadership paradigm
I challenge the leadership within Civil Society to
remember that, a leader should be a good strategist.
Leadership is no mean feat. It is a full time and
onerous job. Leadership cannot, in my view, be
delegated. Ask yourself as a leader; as captain of the
Titanic, if you were sailing it, would you have jumped
when things began to go wrong or would you have tried to
save the ship and the passengers, and worst case
scenario; even sunk with the ship?
.
Dumisani Mashingaidze
dmashingaidze@yahoo.com
**Dumisani, Lawyer and Public Analyst on Leadership
lives in Zimbabwe. She holds a Masters in Business
Administration, with varied work experience, having
worked in Private and corporate legal practice,
International Human Rights, and the Commercial business
sector. Dumisani has a keen interest on Good Corporate
Governance and Best Practice issues.
The
Trial Of Nuhu Ribadu Continues
The Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, had just
announced at his famous “routine” press conference that
Ribadu needed to go back to school, for his own good. He
said that the former Chairman of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission had not only been promoted
out of turn, he had also skipped a compulsory officers'
course, which was a requirement for his post.
While I was writing the book, The trial of Nuhu Ribadu,
settling for a title was a wrestle. Strictly speaking,
Ribadu was not standing trial at the time. In a sense
therefore, the title sounded a bit exaggerated.
The Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, had just
announced at his famous “routine” press conference that
Ribadu needed to go back to school, for his own good. He
said that the former Chairman of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission had not only been promoted
out of turn, he had also skipped a compulsory officers'
course, which was a requirement for his post.
Now, for all that is ripe and fit to pluck, sending a
man back to school can hardly be said to be a trial of
any sort. Right, except that in what is proving to be
Nigeria's longest-running absurdity, the instigators
can't seem to help themselves from putting every foot
wrong. From the first day when Okiro set aside police
rules and the EFCC Act to recommend Ribadu for a course,
and obtained an approval from President Umaru Musa
Yar'Adua, who himself had no basis in any known law for
granting the approval, it's been one bumbling step after
the other. Agents of Yar'Adua's government, apparently
acting with the full knowledge of the president, while
trying hard not to appear so, have proceeded with an
uncommon zeal to pull Ribadu down, and if possible,
destroy him, warts and all.
It's a trial that has proved petty in its objective and
laughable in its incompetence. They demoted Ribadu from
AIG to DCP, but in an attempt to do him in ensnared four
innocent police commissioners in the Presidency, and a
dead police officer, Haz Iwendi, at whose graveside
Okiro had earlier paid a profound tribute. At the EFCC,
Ribadu's former duty post, there has been no let up in
the smear campaign directed at him. Farida Waziri's men
have ransacked his home and office and launched a witch
hunt against all those perceived to be close to him.
Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC operative responsible for
investigating many of the high profile corruption cases
under Ribadu, is in his third month of suspension after
spending three weeks in detention, without trial. They
won't let Magu off the hook unless he agrees to spin the
records to hang Ribadu.
It's almost one year now since Waziri took over, yet the
public is in the dark about any case, of all the pending
cases, that has been followed through to a conviction.
While Ribadu was in school at Kuru, he probably received
more letters from Waziri than all the porters at the
Institute had seen in a long time. The letters, asking
for the most mundane things, from who moved files to who
moved the cheese, were enough to keep Ribadu busy for
the period of his one-year sojourn in Kuru.
The absurdity took a new twist last weekend when the
government the same government that insisted that Ribadu
must return to school for his own good frustrated his
graduation at the National Institute. Before Saturday,
Okiro had sent a signal to the Institute requesting that
Ribadu be brought to him on Tuesday (today). But Okiro
and his paymasters could not wait. They saw to it that
Ribadu was removed from the venue of the ceremonies in a
futile attempt to raise doubts about whether or not he
had actually completed the programme.
Saturday's show of shame was the climax of skirmishes
between Ribadu on the one hand, and Okiro, Waziri and
Company on the other. What do these fellows hope to
achieve? What do they want? We have been told that
Ribadu's tenure as EFCC chairman was a disaster for due
process and the rule of law; that former President
Olusegun Obasanjo used him to fight his dirty political
wars; and that the war on corruption under Obasanjo was
too selective to make any sense. Perhaps there is some
truth in this. Loquacious and sometimes abrasive in his
style, Ribadu sometimes gives the impression that he
would not let the facts get in the way of nailing a
suspect or that he was too blind to see cases of
corruption where those involved were serviceable to
Obasanjo.
Apart from this weakness in style for which I criticised
him before and still do now, there were institutional
problems with the EFCC, ranging from the constitution of
the board (out of the 22 members of the board, only five
are non-government appointees) to the rather omnibus
powers given to the agency in managing and disposing
assets belonging to suspects. Yet, those who want
Ribadu's head on a platter are not interested in
righting the institutional wrongs to make the agency
more effective or in giving him any credit for his
achievements. As at December when he was sidelined, the
EFCC had prosecuted over 400 cases and obtained over 120
convictions, including the conviction of some of the
biggest fraudsters in the $242m case that led to the
collapse of the Brazilian bank.
It is instructive that none of the convicts who have
accused the EFCC of selective justice has claimed
wrongful conviction. It was during Ribadu's tenure that
the Paris-based watchdog, Financial Task Force, removed
Nigeria from its blacklist and opened an inflow of
capital that has strengthened the financial muscle of a
number of banks and private businesses. The country's
improved ranking on Transparency International's index
is also largely attributable to the foundation laid on
Ribadu's watch at the EFCC.
But Okiro, Waziri and Company are unlikely to be
impressed. They work for the Attorney General of the
Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa,
who reportedly vowed from his first day in office to
“clip Ribadu's wings.” He appears to have succeeded now,
but would obviously not stop until he has crushed
Ribadu's wings. That is the only thing that will bring
true joy to the Iboris, the Sarakis, the Baloguns and
the Babangidas the untouchable godfathers of Aondoakaa
whom Ribadu dared to call to account.
We don't know what is next. Yesterday, a statement from
the Vice President's office authorised the release of
Ribadu's certificate and promised an investigation into
the nonsense at Kuru on Saturday. But I guess everyone
knows that Yar'Adua's government worships at the altar
of Janus, the legendary double-faced Roman god. For a
president who spends more time in bed than on the
presidential seat, there's no telling what's next on the
cards. Never was a government so thoroughly at the
disposal of vested interests than this one. Anyone in
doubt should read Sonala Olumhense's article, titled,
Nigeria surrounded, published in The Guardian on Sunday.
It's not Ribadu that is on trial Nigeria is on trial;
and by the way, that should have been the title of my
book..
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