Leadership Quote of the Day!

 

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WEAK leadership is WORSE than bad leadership. Nonetheless, in all circumstances LEADERSHIP is ESSENTIAL. No organization, no one can do without it! Good leadership gives direction, energizes purpose and generates results. Bad leadership takes an arrogant, more often ignorant, position, gives poor direction, blames others and enables others to do the same. People know where the good and the bad leader stands and take action accordingly. However, a WEAK leader confuses everybody. A weak leader is absent, directionless, visionless and clueless in decision making. And, is the root cause of the worst pandemic an organization can find itself in - pandemic for pandemonium.

Salo.

Great Employees do things differently

 

Good employees work hard, Great employees employ themselves.

Allan Bukusi

The Poverty of Research in Africa?

 

The Poverty of Research in Africa

I recently attended a workshop urging and equipping lecturers to conduct research and publish their findings. The mood in the room was, “Oh please don’t take us back there, we passed our exams and got our certificates! We don't need to go through that pain again? We are not complaining we earn enough to survive - just leave us be!”. The outstanding issues were not only the lack of enthusiasm and motivation to write, research and publish, but the significant lack of confidence and capacity to do so. Nonetheless, statistics show that Africa produces less than 1% of modern global research output! If research is equivalent to innovation, then Africa is indeed poor. This caused me to reflect on why “research” so poorly cast in the attitudes of so many would be researchers. Many students view the writing of their research thesis or dissertation as the last barrier between them and graduating with a masters of doctorate degree. The purpose of research is clearly cast as a requirement for graduation. Once the nightmare is passed and the deed is done, the results are put on the shelf. Many a graduate and lecturer will have nothing more to do with either the shelf or the research. Of course university poverty and the poverty of the prevailing socio-economic circumstances also contribute to the problem. If lecturers can earn a salary by certification, let it be. So how do we get our cream of our scholars to write original papers?

One of the reasons that research has such a lowly output in Africa is because it is thrust upon bewildered students and supervisors in post graduate courses with no premonition of its reality all through their education up until their second degree. In their second degree it is introduced as a new subject and at the doctoral level it is assumed that (by now) you really should know how to do it. While the problems of poor supervision, lack of resources, student dropout rates and academic impediments to the process are well known (in Kenya the Commission for University Education CUE, has pointed them out numerously alongside many other independent publications), corrective measures to right these issues can only be described as, “too little too late”. It is only after poor enrollments in the light of rising graduate dropouts and extended terms of registry do university administrations venture to look at the problem from a financial standpoint.

But what exactly is research and why is it necessary? Research is the ability to methodically investigate the universe. It is the competence to resolve environmental paradoxes, explore and exploit hidden opportunities, create new understanding of issues and circumstances and synthesize solutions to the myriad challenges of human existence. It calls for discipline, diligence and determination without a promise of expected outcomes. Research requires the development and maturity of the capacity of curiosity, investigation, experimentation, exploration, problem solving, analysis, comparison, the courage to venture and the will to search for and create new knowledge (sometimes counter what is known) and knowhow to resolve complex and persistent life challenges. These are NOT skills you suddenly HAVE at the registration desk of a doctoral program. These skills and competencies need to have been ingrained, explained, promoted and valued long before one thinks of enrolling in a postgraduate program.

However, education systems and programming in Africa simply do not provide for the appreciation of new knowledge and know how. Knowledge in is a locked box. Nursery, Primary and secondary school programs are closed knowledge systems designed to ensure selective breeding by elimination of those who cannot recall what is in the box. Error is defined as thinking outside the box or failure to think inside the box. Students are simply not allowed to think differently. To venture a different opinion from the teacher (who obtained that opinion from his teacher) is to fail the exam! So to suddenly ask a student, who has successfully subscribed to rote learning for two decades, to think freely or independently, is to explode his worldview of himself and knowledge and deflate his confidence in the light of its presentation and interpretations of himself and the universe as logos, ethos and pathos!

Seeds of research need to be planted early and require the early, middle and long rains to obtain a good harvest late in the year. In other words, the conceptualization of theoretical and applied research and the seeds and practice of research and research methods need to begin in nursery school to inspire belief in the process of open exploration of knowledge and experimentation in primary and secondary school to develop student confidence to participate in, conduct and teach research at university. The poverty of research is hardly an institutional problem it is a systemic challenge that needs to be addressed right from the fundamental design and formulation of the purpose of education as a strategic reserve of national development. Not everyone needs to become a researcher, but everyone needs to know how to go about it to better their own circumstances.

Allan Bukusi

The ABCs of Human-Relations!

 

The ABCs of Human-Relations!

The ABC of managing human relations is about understanding where controversy is likely to arise and how best to control it. Let us start with A-Activity; whenever you are around another person it is most likely your primary engagement will be around an activity - whether you are standing at the bus-stop waiting for a matatu, doing house chores or working in the office on an assignment. The activity will most likely govern the nature and length of the relation. The trick, if you like, is to focus on the activity and not worry too much about the other person unless the activity is not going as planned, then you can discuss the activity and usually relations can continue without a hitch. Level A does NOT require much emotional investment to be performed with excellence. Nonetheless, with a select number of people like your teammates, partner and office colleagues with whom you associate in close and repeated activities level B-Being is often engaged.  Again the majic here is to understand that personhood, personality and preference has subtle, covert impact on interpersonal relations and requires a consious measure of self-awareness AND repect of anothers other-awareness competence.  At level B the balance is knowing who you are, what you like, when you like it and how you like it done with RESPECT to another person who has their own line of preferences, priorities and pursuits. Understanding that the other persons’ preferences may not always align with yours is a homing point of maturity. But creating an understanding about routines and roles in common activities or assignment giving preference to peoples strengths, interests and negotiated roles can multiply group participation, productivity, performance and enhance peaceful relations.

Then there is C-Complementarity. I use the long word to help you pause at this point! Because, while the line between A & B is close, C is a quantum leap. in another closeted space of interpersonal relations. C is a choice and should as far as is practical (is not always so) be a pre-meditated choice. It is the type of relation that is structured around expectations like business contract, marriage, professional teamwork or substantive partnership usually between willing parties. But being willing is not always enough to manage the peaceable relations, because these kind of relations require much more than comfortable co-existence. There are commitments and obligations to be followed through (happily or unhappily). The success key to C is submission to the other. In other words, in line with the agreement one willingly surrenders the power of unilateral action with regards to the commitment. Complementarity exponentially accelerates the benefits of the commitment to all parteis. This means studying others and complimenting their actions with further actions that align to common goals and agreements of the commitment. Do not enter into any contract if you are not willing to submit yourself to it. Let me pause and allow you to think about the possible positive outcomes of complimentarity in relations…

... before I tell you about the existence of D and E which I deliberately did tell you existed at the beginning. Most people (me included) do not (want) to enter relations contemplating D or E outcomes.  Relations sometimes come into D-Difficulties in a complex mix of activities, preferences, intentions, obligations, expectations and entangled commitment. One might say that such relations are headed south. Not neccesarily, but in that case they can be repaired if interested parties are willing, able and committed to working through the ABCs of managing the relations of the day or the hour. No relationship remains on a continuous high that could be achieved with a doping component, imbibing copius excessive amounts of alchohol or other self imparing or numbing substances. However, mending D-relations can take time and effort that is why it is possible to arrive at chronic or irreconcilable differences. At such a point in relations it may be wise to enact the E-exit clause.  In contractual obligations, shrewed businessmen wisely include this clause even though they are the best of friends. They realize that an exit, (sometimes not a nice option) may be caused and required by circumstances in or beyond their control. Relations form, reform, grow and change. In some cases, where irreconcilable differences prevail or are endured for sustained a period and may be injurious to one or other, it may be prudent to consider preserving the long term value, safety, health and happiness of the relations. In such depths it may be wise for either or both parties to exit such relations in order to survive and live to fight another day. Indeed, there are things that cannot be forced like love, culture, heritage or biological DNA. Anyway, at some point, anyone deserves a holiday. The ABCDE model may find use in counselling, negotiations and generally managing interpersonal relations by keeping relational boundaries marked, complexities well appreciated and personal territories respected in all spaces of human engagement and interaction.

Allan Bukusi

 

Kenya, Africa; A Fork in the Road - Political Administration of National Economics

 

 

Kenya, Africa; A Fork in the Road - Political Administration of National Economics

Every post-modern independence economy in Africa faces a fork in the road. Before we describe the fork in the road there are two paradoxes we need to dispel about national management.  The first is the claim that the “modern independence” paradigm is the beginning of African nations. It is a myth and myopic monologue that border on insulting the history and collective intelligence of the continent. There have been kingdoms, chiefdoms and fiefdoms in Africa managed by indigenous leaders long before the tribal European world wars I, II & III. The second, is the presumption that acceptance into the global economic paradigm is the object, dream and desire of all the African people and is regulated by foreign nations. Those who subscribe to this view you will dismiss and disparage every local solution to any global challenge.

This brings me to the fork in the road in the management of the economy. It is between politics and professionals.  There is no doubt that political solutions secured post-modern nationhood (having read the first paragraph you will understand my emphasis on “post” as there was a “past”). Political mobilization was, prior to postmodern independence, a primary and successful agent of change. Nonetheless, it is this success that is the bane of nations economic management. At the fork in the road of modern independence, the new nations urgently needed technocrats to run government. However, politics has been unwilling to cede power in the postmodern independence era and continues run a complex, multifaceted economy with a political administration with a blinkered focus on winning the next election. A poor man remains poor in every political dimension or dispensation as exploitable political capital in vigrously reheresed and shouted manifestoes. However, a poor man’s transformation requires technical intervention. Nonetheless, intellectuals often put frenetic energy into “defining” economies as democratic or communist. And when the findings do not quite fit either paradigm they are termed socialist (presumably a mix of both) that that somehow incorporates the primacy of the people in national management instead of the popularity of the party. If this fix still doesn’t work, Western academics have been known to extend political definitions beyond simple interpretation – adding left, right and center to the confusing nomenclature. The question one might ask is, does politics define poverty or politics define poverty?  Many in Africa still believe that politics is the cure to poverty long past the fork in the road - a fairytale that has been long dispelled by progress in the East.

Just ahead, in the fork in the road, you can tell the nations that still hold to politics as a panacea to a plethora of economic nighmares. These nations have installed limited vision political administrations to manage government pandering to myth that global advancement is a solution to local problems. In the minority, just up ahead in the fork in the road, are those nations that define advancement as the empowerment of the people and call on professional management to advance the disposition of their people. The biggest contribution of politics up to the fork in the road, was and still is, to secure the nation. But just up ahead, after the fork in the road there is a greater need for technical administrations to manage the nation.  

Allan Bukusi

Guard your Life Force

 

Guard your Life Force

A few years ago I was struck for six by a combination of socio-economic pressures that are familiar to most men and lay on my back for a while with an opportunity to consider how all of this came to be. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out, quite by accident, that I could do something about it! The first of great import, was to withdraw from unhealthy company. Although it had nothing to do with me, I noticed that the company of a good book, meditation, peace and quiet does more miracles to the restless soul than much of the unending humoring’s of men and women. While western medication concentrates on managing heart conditions, African medicine is focused on the stomach. These two theories are not unrelated. Indeed, there is a connection between the vagnus nerve and whatever emotional im/balance the body is going through. You may be familiar the term, “gut feeling”. It is something like that. Like your body tells you what is and is not working for you. Well without going into high science let me tell you what else I found out.

Second, lying down to rest is a good thing, but getting up to walk is a healing. Developing the discipline of exercise is a very powerful body relief – after the exercise that is. Before the exercise routine the thought of it is a mountain of unbelief.  If you stay down, you are out for the count. When you get up you can go another round – seriously. It sort of does not make sense, but it is profound. The third is really ridiculously basic; You are what you eat. Believe me, there is food the puts you down and food that picks you up. There is food you should and should not eat. The first thing healers put you on is a food diet. Actually, they first check what you have been eating. I discovered that meat and eggs keep my stomach grounded for hours while vegetables tend to clean things up that are stuck in the gut. You may want to listen to your body and find out what dulls your system and what peps it up. Fourth, impressively, is a good night’s sleep. Some people try to squeeze in a few hours in the day to compensate for the night. But I think there a logic to the assigned continuous nocturnal session. It used to be said that, “early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealth and wise”. The most important word that wistful wisdom left out was SLEEP as a necessity, program and dedicated initiative. Sleep is about reflective calibration, regeneration, regulation and holistic rejuvenation of the whole body life force. Some people like to fight over hours. The truth is, do it enough for you. If you don’t, I guarantee, you will get out of bed with and carry a headache through the day. That will make you more tired and less inspired for the next day. Not because you did not sleep, but because you did not sleep enough. There are many reasons why people don’t sleep. Sort them out. It is too precious an energy source to lose.  

The fifth is how heavy you are. When I say heavy; I mean you could be 70Kg and too heavy and 70Kgs and overweight. There is a measureable relationship between your height and your weigh, though your gym instructor may have different ideas. But keeping an eye on your weight can do you wonders. The trick is to find out what works for you. For example, if you are having trouble carrying your body for a kilometer (this actually happened to me) or walking up a flight of stairs, that may suggest a poor correlation between your bone structure, body fat and muscle content. Amazingly, when I am lighter in weight I feel alert and more energetic than when my weight inches up by one too many kilos. Checking my weight weekly I found out that 71-73kgs works for me. Below that my trousers fall down and my shirts begin to hang, but when my weight gets to 75Kgs, I am wheezing about everything and totally out of sync. While there are weight critics who rant about getting rid of overextended body parts, I think it would be better to sell the benefits of carrying your own weight- then, at least, we all don’t have to look like superman. Sixth, is water. I don’t have much to say about this one, but your body is made up of about a 70-80% water balance. When you mess with that balance you are very likely to have toilet problems. Discipline around water consumption is a great debate. As to whether 6-8 liters, cups or glasses (where people have glasses) per day will give you the benefit of a smooth skin I do not know. But like I said, I personally, do not have anything to say here. I cannot keep a water routine. It is flat, tasteless and boring, unless I am sweating after a workout. So I drink a modest amount of non-poisonous fluid as I can during the day and use the toilet experience as a regulator for control of more or less and timings of my water intake.

Finally, seventh, because it runs through everything said before is; the work, will, purpose and spirituality in its broadest sense – based on the understanding that life is a privilege and not a past time. You notice, I started this essay with the words “combination of socio-economic pressures”. That means resolution of the complexity of addressing these pressures is far from simplistic. In the same vein that the weight you may be carrying is a combination of issues, it is important to go through the process of reflection, identification, isolation and action to address, overcome and eliminate the combinational impact of these pressures takes both time and effort. Rebalancing a life after enduring a career or lengthy season of a unique combination of socio-economic pressures is easier said than done. Not to mention the murkiness of disentangling your life from today’s sexy, manic, rapid results, artificial intelligence solution frames and belief systems like “losing weight in week”, “how to fall sleep enough in seconds”, “how to earn, without working”, “how to get your friends to like you”, “fake it until you make it” – world, is a major confusion in itself! But the real challenge here is regaining control of your life force, self-healing, restoration or body balancing, yin and yang, yoga – or whatever you want to call it. The real lasting change is in consciously managing your lifestyle. That takes personal study, application and consistency over time. A few weeks, months and years of sober application.

Allan Bukusi

Note: the author is not a medical expert and offers an opinion from experiential and social observation only.

Work through the problem

 

Sometimes you have to work through the problem and not try to solve it.