THE BIG FIVE

 

THE BIG FIVE

The Kenya Tourism Board uses the concept of the BIG FIVE to brand the country offering in the tourism sector around the world. Tourists are easily able to evaluate the quality of their safari experience by measuring it against whether they saw a lion, leopard, elephant, black rhinoceros, and African buffalo (BIG FIVE) during their visit. It is both a star attraction and benchmark of the tourism package. The beauty about the BIG FIVE concept is that it easily fits in one hand and is uncomplicated by the clutter of “interesting” details and easy to remember. However, the truth is if you get to see the BIG FIVE, you will have passed through and experienced every aspect of the national tourism ecosystem in the process of you journey. You will have passed through grasslands, seen birds, rivers, hotels…  and been exposed to the whole offering of the safari experience. The BIG FIVE concept, just like a good slogan, is not to explain everything, but rather to capture the main idea making the experience attractive, impressionable and unforgettable. As you journey through this book you will see and experience the BIG FIVE, listed below, over and over again in different settings and contexts. They will make reading this book a memorable experience. 

1. Setting valuable goals

The first is setting valuable goals. Though smart goals may be clearly defined and precise, they may not be valuable. Valuable goals are not only smart, but they must be aspirational inspirational, motivational and to some extent impossible set on the border of doability. Like my high school moto; Nothing but the Best is not only aspirational, but personal and challenging, engaging both accountability and integrity, emphasizing virtue and setting a minimum standard of character that propels one to seek out and pursue a just cause and not just reward. Valuable goals resonate with the words of Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, the First lady President of Liberia; If your dreams don't scare you, they are not big enough. A “value-able” goal is a call to action.

2. Progress is to pursue the impossible. 

As Nelson Mandela, the first post-apartheid president of South Africa, said; it always seems impossible until it is done. Anyone in leadership has a standing duty to make progress. Progress is usually marked by a quantum leap, impracticability and a “never been done before” agenda. Whenever you reach that point, know you are on the frontier of human advancement, discovery, innovation and excellence and opportunity to make a permanent difference in the history of your organization or service to mankind. At this point the onus fall upon you to expand the boundaries of human existence. Roger Bannister ran the mile in under four minutes in 1952 Olympics. In 2019, Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon (42 kms) in under 2 hours (1:59:40.2). There are many more such events with great teams supporting them including Neil Armstrong’s visit to the moon in 1969. These publicly celebrated achievement inspire hope in many other unpublicized areas of human endeavor and help direct human destiny. But everyone has the potential to make progress in whatever circumstances they are.

3. People are more than followers!

People are much more than followers, they are leaders, inventors, teachers, students, implementors... fathers, mothers …. capable of so much more than you imagine! They are gods with the power to create. They are people first, not numbers of inventory. Befriend them, deploy them wisely and they will do for you what you could never do for yourself. As a leader you can do very little without them. Submission and loyalty are follower virtues without which leadership is powerless!

4. Taking action: it is not enough to dream, think or even plan without taking action. 

Brain Tracy reminds us that “Amateurs discuss strategy, professionals arrange for logistics”. Miracles are good things, they happen occasionally, but you will be surprised how they often come about after substantive work. Winning the lottery happens infrequently to a very small number of people. However, accomplishing anything, on the main, is not a guessing game or a past time, it is a full-time engagement. Throughout history kingdoms have been built by effort, service and sacrifice; Nonetheless, they are brought down by pleasure, ease and vice. The moment leisure takes prominence over effort the end is near. 

5. The little finger of ethical success

The little finger of ethical success is a bothersome, but essential component to attaining celebrated success. There is a moral component to every achievement. They do not sin against humanity. Success should never be a crime scene. We learn from the life of Mahatma Gandhi that; “ethics makes it right”. 

Excerpt from Leading Transcendent Change Scheduled for March 2024

The Hockey Stick of Human Development

 

The Hockey Stick of Human Development 

For millennia and more, in A Very Short History of the World, humanity preoccupied itself with survival, migration and dominion in an effort to justify residency of the earth against natures harsh untamed environment. The very challenge of existence was driven by a search for God and meaning, religion, customs and tradition that evolved into cultures that governed the lives of a people in their perspective of the known world. Indeed, a true story is only as good as its perspective. Up until the middle of the second millennium A.D., humanity labored long and hard developing The Origins of Political Order to create community, society and government. Humanity paced itself on a gentle incline with the locus of development isolated in independent Babelous ethnic kingdoms, cultures and civilizations dotted on continents around the world. Nonetheless, When We Ruled, became a mantra for the epitome of human achievement in philosophy, arts, science architecture, trade, government and supremacy of military campaign as kingdoms fought for dominance and control of wealth and resources in their limited interaction with their neighbors. However, as sea travel and empire building took center stage, the world, as a globe, began to gather a collective momentum of renaissance learning and change in the formulation of a global culture. The writing of The Evolution of Management Thought, captures the migration of the European agrarian economy between 1400-1700 AD to the industrial revolution driven by factory production and capitalism in the 1800s. The dramatic change to centralized institutional enterprise created the “corporation”, the “worker”, the “entrepreneur”, “investors”, the “manager” and the “business executive”. At the time, The Wealth of Nations, the signature tune of capitalism, coincided with the declaration of independence of the United States of America from its colonial legacy. America rang the bell of freedom and shipped the seeds of globalization around the world. Africa provided free slave labor to the agrarian revolution in the foundry of capitalism and supplied valuable raw material to Europe at negligible cost of administrative and military occupation during The Scramble for Africa. Organization designers, Henri Fayol, Alfred Sloan and their peers supplied the leadership thinking that enabled unprecedented levels of human production. The hockey stick of human development took a dramatic turn after two intra-European ethnic conflicts, World War I & II, enjoined intercontinental participation in in the early 1900s. From then on, the race for global dominance was on. But it also signaled the death of parochial empires in the worlds’ east, west, north and south. However, with the installation of global socio-economic architecture provided by the League of Nations, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, gave rise to global corporations. In other words, poverty became a product of dysfunctional human development. And the earth suddenly became a very small place. It became impossible to remain isolated or even independent, one had to be “aligned” to some direction. The earth suddenly became a very small place. It became impossible to remain isolated or even independent, one had to be aligned. But then too, it became practical that an isolated event in one part of the world could catapult major change in another corner of the globe. The age of technology and communication coupled with advances in health and education steeply changed the trajectory of human development as the rate of the rate of change became exponential bringing with it, on a massive scale, hitherto unknown phenomena such as pollution, deforestation and rising sea temperatures. These effects were engineered by the capability humanity has developed to disorient, displace and destroy at a rate much faster than nature has the ability to replenish. The hockey stick of human development suddenly became complicated by the character of human engagement with nature. By the time Carson was writing the Silent Spring in 1962 it was clear that nature was hitting back. Paradoxical as it may seem, in addition to celebrating the complexities of achievement brought on by technology and socio-economic advancement, humanity must now pacify nature for continued tenancy of the earth.  However, the nature of the leadership challenge is no longer localized it is globalized.  The study of Leadership to find models beyond the sufficiency of big man theory, trait and charisma to lead the world out of this new crisis, developed intellectual models such as path to goal, situational analysis and transformational leadership theory, behavioural, situational, contingency, transformational, adaptive and systems theory to help manage the complexity and chaos of our present world. Even though the world has entered turbulent and disruptive periods of change where organizations are challenged to find ways of Delivering and Sustaining Breakthrough Performance, the next phase of human development calls for leaders who will conscientiously evaluate the costly impact of short-term expediency versus long term survival to set organizations and humanity on a course to ethical, sustainable, socio-economic enterprise. The challenge is not partial to the east, the west, the north or the south. The costs are no longer local. Consequences are global. 

Allan Bukusi, Nov 2023

Excerpt from Leading Transcendent Change Scheduled for March 2024

Vindu Vichenja'nga!

 

Vindu Vichenja'nga!

Vindu vichenja'nga - Is tongue-in-cheek idiomatic phrase was coined during the 2022 general elections in Kenya to explain the changing political landscape. It captured the accompanying uncertainty among voters about which candidates would be elected to office by an electorate whose loyalty seemed to be constantly shifting. In English the phrase roughly means “things change… and then keep changing”. Puny as it may seem, the phrase does capture the essence, dynamics and nature of the global and local socio-economic turbulence being experienced in our world today. Business men and women set out to achieve clearly crafted visions with accompanying strategic plans to support their intentions. However, the next morning the government introduces a substantive new tax that in effect wipes away 50% of the companies’ anticipated profits over a five-year plan period. Simply put, in spite of the surprise, standard strategic planning tools do not allow for disruptive environmental change. nonetheless, the term “dynamic strategy” does obtain both context and meaning in a world that is constantly changing.  

Vindu vichenja'nga - reminds us that change is not static and that change in and of itself keeps changing inspiring further change. You can’t get too comfortable with where you are if you want to get through to the future. A leader must look for a transcendent vantage point, like an eagle rising above a storm to surmount and survive the turbulence in the market place.  There is a saying, “You cannot see the picture if you are in the frame”. Sitting in the frame only adds confusion to the complexity of whatever challenge it is you are facing.  Since ancient times, army generals first worked to capture high ground from which they could strategically direct the war efforts taking place in the valley below. Similarly, leaders, in exercising that ancient wisdom, need to seek out vantage points that allow them to tactically direct operations on the ground and ensure their businesses survive and thrive in today’s turbulent world. 

Vindu vichenja'nga, also presents us with a major challenge to lead changing change! We are urged to not just observe change or lead through change, but change ourselves to transcend environmental change. In other words, while things will always keep changing, we must find a way to arrive at our desired goals in spite of those changes. We cannot use change as an excuse for failure. Thus, even when the weather changes or market conditions shift and a new president is elected, we must find a way to get the children through school! But we also find this powerful change metaphor in the transcendent leadership of the founding fathers of modern African nations. They looked beyond the conundrum of colonialism to create a new moral state of existence for generations to come. 

Preview excerpt from

Leading Transcendent Change 

Scheduled for March 2024

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What is this book about?

 

Natures challenge of unchecked global warming, effects of pollution and water scarcity are forcing nations to make costly self-preserving decisions they did not consider important half a century ago. Governments are seriously talking about the weather, and urgently investing in earth stewardship policies and values they ignored as inconsequential not too long ago. International business practice is adrift with powerful undercurrents of protectionism, exploitation, subsidies and trade barriers alongside the power struggles of technology, politics and brazen survival economics. Disruptive events like wars, drought and other disasters create overnight market shifts the produce what economist call the “butterfly effect”. In theory, the flutter of this tiny insects’ wings in an isolated part of the world can cause tidal waves half way around the globe. At the local level unstable economic performance, lacklustre policy formulation, numbing poverty and a lack of foresight force political administrations to restart the economy with every election cycle rendering strategic planning a nightmare. Meanwhile, everyone in industry, businesses, traders and the stock market are looking for signals of near-term (given up in long-term) direction to get an idea where to invest their funds, determine which products to sell and yearn for stable raw material and input prices to hopefully predict realistic profit margins. The problem is the signals keeps changing. The impact of this global and local (glocal) environmental turbulence hits the leader mid-stride in the course of his or her executive duties having made a commitment to the employer to deliver the organisation goals - the board is earnestly waiting for a premium return on its investment. However, under these conditions, failure to achieve goals may not be as much due to a lack of the leaders’ competence as much as it is because the goal posts keep shifting and the world won’t stand still long enough to get a clear shot at goal.

The purpose of this book is to empower leaders (readers) with an understanding of how to navigate turbulent environmental conditions. It provides them with a tool kit to successfully navigate the ever changing global and local landscape as it impacts organisation survival and growth, business operations and profitability, leadership team effectiveness and powering employee performance in a volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world. 

It is about placing in the hands of a leader skills to navigate work related business challenges that arise due to the environmental impact and fallout facing organisations in VUCA conditions. It is about developing skills to avoid knee-jerk reactions to regular and irregular organisation problems and reducing the amount of time spent firefighting crisis. It’s about studying the environment and making reflective and strategic decisions that transform a business to fare better in the face of prevailing environmental change. This book is about revising business objectives in order to realize transcendent performance. It's about people and the culture that drives them. It’s about business renewal and organisation sustainability. It’s about making leaders out of followers and “following leaders”. It is about engaging our God given gifts of ideation, innovation and creativity to resolve persistent and pervasive problems. But then again, it’s about unravelling complex problems as opportunity for growth. One could also say it is about adopting a transcendent leader mindset that enables business transformation and organisation success. In a nutshell, I would say that is what this book is about.   

Scheduled for March 2024

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