Leadership Quote of the Day!

 

frustration...

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.

Look down from the Balcony

 

The Balcony

Most people who go to a party enter the hall through the front door and are usher themselves onto the dance floor of chitchat. They hurriedly say hello to old friends, graciously introduce themselves to new and sidestep boring associates with corner of the eye precision as they strategically work their way around the room to the real person they came to see. After that contact has been made, the party either begins or they are free to leave. Very few people take interest or make an effort to go to the balcony. After all there are energy-sapping stairs to negotiate which take energy and time to escalate - not exactly the life of the party! While this happens at parties It is much the same in the office, at workplace and even family where you go to make your connections for the day and then leave. But what really happens in the balcony or gallery? and who goes there?  

Many Leadership consultants, they also call them gurus - a more religious term, have written about the strategic vantage point the balcony provides for business organization and management. From the balcony you can see who comes in and goes out -without them seeing you. From the balcony you can observe the various cliques in the room. You can observe the systematic routine of waiters, cleaners and security personnel engaging their craft with professionalism and poise. From the balcony you can observe the lovers and those who have been forced to come. If you take your time you can tell which stories are being told in the various groups and predict with mint accuracy the collisions, collusions and consequences are going to happen next in various corners of the room within a few minutes. By sending a note to the cooks, the musicians and lighting affects you can actually dictate the mood of all the guests in the room. If you are keen enough you can influence the evening like the conductor or an orchestra or execute the vantage of a military general. For those who have watched spy movies like double Agent 007, Nikita, Luke Skywalker or Black Panther, you will notice that the best place to enter a party is not the front door, but the balcony. The balcony holds the power of intervention, intention and strategic innovation. The most influential negotiations take place there - everyone else is on the menu!

In case you think that the balcony is only for some people and not for others, you are mostly mistaken. With time we all get moved to the balcony at some stage of life and grudgingly or diplomatically take up our place in the house of lords and watch parliamentarians make laws with predictable outcomes with no power to change what may take place. In the balcony we gasp in both awe and horror with a great deal of soothsaying wisdom - some of which we could have used when we were on the dancefloor. But now as a supervisor, manager, father, mother, friend, enemy, relative or retired CEO we must watch the party from the balcony. The power to change things is gone. It is a sort of numbing experience to know that you can do nothing about your own past, wayward offspring, global warming, the atomic bomb, genetic engineering, systematic evil or world war 4, 5 and 6! It is out of your hands. But it certainly need not be a place of dead pan sorrow - DESIDERATA is quite helpful here. The party will go on until you take your place in the sand.

Here are somethings you can do though; when you are at the party, take some time to go check out the balcony. It might make you a better dancer. If you are in the balcony, periodically come down and enjoy the show. Not everyone needs to know what you know. So next time you enter a room scan the balcony. Know that there have been people there before you. You might see their pictures on the wall, but remember too that there are many more who will come after you. Take the words of a wise teacher; enjoy the moment and don’t worry overmuch about tomorrow. I heard the Chinese say, the past is gone, the future is unknown, but the present is a gift! Treasure every moment you get in the hall.

Allan Bukusi

 

Complete the MIssion !!!

 

Complete the Mission !!!

I never got to be a soldier. But maybe that was because I never got a chance to join the army when I had the right age, height and body weight. However, not being a soldier has never deterred me from embarking on missions and setting goals and playing roles as best as I could. In fact, most of my school, personal life and working career has been a series of missions. A mission is about embarking on a quest to accomplish something or achieve some simple result or difficult objective – like mission impossible! A mission is primarily a personal undertaking, but may involve others to a tertiary degree. In other words, "the buck stops with me" as the Americans would say. There are times when I have had to give up a mission, but it never felt good. The only consolation was that I gave my best and therefore I was able to walk away from the field with my head held high and head into the next battle. Life is a mission. Some people say it is a “calling”. Some people give it a funny name like “bucket list”. Guys who want to sound knowledgable talk about "purpose". It is a very fulfilling pursuit, but not everyone is easily drawn to this taxing war. Some people just never set sail – never journey beyond the comfort of the door -  never join the army.

However, as life would have it, there are enough distractors and detractors that are commissioned to ensure you do not pursue your mission; the neighbor next door plays loud music, you would rather relax than study for your exams, and then there is the interesting time consuming new… (fill in the blank) that takes you wandering away from your mission. In the army it is called ‘a walk of love” or AWOL or something like that. In such an event information somehow gets to central command that there is nothing happening on a particular battle front because a solder has gone AWOL. This is when MISSION CONTROL takes over and calls the soldier to order. Hopefully the wayward man, woman, mind, body, soul or spirit is restored with a modest admonition. Sometimes it takes more than that – a court martial. Managers are good at enforcing that, mission control, that is.

Like I said, life is a mission and at times you find yourself wandering around in circles and promising yourself that you will get back in line as soon as you have finished doing “this and that” or when you have completed “one or two things” as they say in some parts of Africa. Unfortunately, all these excuses end up using stray bullets or more accurately wasting bullets and precious other resources. And you don’t want to not complete the mission. So if you are still with me, here are the BIG FOUR; don’t lose focus! say NO a little more often! do the work- stay with the discipline, keep the faith! and ultimately, you must separate yourself to complete the mission!

 Allan Bukusi

 

from Certificate-to-Doctrate; A Corporate Journey

 

from Certificate-to-Doctorate: A Corporate Journey

The first five lessons I picked up along the way...

When I tried to enter the corporate world from a teaching job, at the beginning of my working life, I was rebuffed for more than two years! Nobody took my Bachelor of Science in Physics as serious corporate competence. Later on I would learn that some of the greatest CEOs in Kenya, such as Michael Joseph of Safaricom, had Science qualifications as their entry points to an illustrious corporate career. However, at the time the market could not read the way I was thinking and rebuffed by attempts. 

So I had to go to night school while teaching for another year to prove my competence at the illustrious Kenya Institute of Management, enrolling for a certificate in business administration. Small qualification, but it opened the door for me to join Sean G. Hawkins (we called him SGH) at KHI Training. As they say, the rest in this story! My entry into the corporate world was not dramatic, but in that process I learned some major lessons. Lesson number one; a certificate is important! It opens people’s eyes. It makes them look. I later followed that small certificate with more insignificant correspondence (todays online) courses in accounts, management, personnel & Industrial relations, time management, presentation skills... Needless to say those seemingly insignificant certificates leap frogged and fortified my position as a corporate trainer, business strategist and human resources consultant. 

Of course my mentor saw my potential long before I fully understood how the corporate world worked. He sent me on a one-week training program with real CEOs and Senior managers on a Strategy Development & Implementation course conducted by an Ashley Management College consultant back in the 80's one month after I joined the company! Lesson number two; get yourself a mentor who can see further than you can imagine! You may not agree with your mentor, but if they can see 20 to 30 years ahead of you, you will thank them later, much later, after you have enjoyed what they tried to get you to appreciate back then!  

At some point in my career, I wondered, as most people do,"how I got here?". I looked back and began to see what my mentor may have seen in me. He leveraged on my five years teaching experiences and diploma together with my passion for management and bet that I would make a trainer in time. He was not wrong. Lesson number three; leverage your background and basic skills to give you a career distinction, blend and inimitable character. 

No experience, education, exposure or expertise is wasted, unless you make it a waste of your time. I remember the one and a half years I spent working as an accounts clerk after high school in the basement of a government office. I hated the job with a passion! That was then. Later in life I would start my own business. Guess what knowledge base I pulled out of the dustbin? You guessed it. Yes, Book keeping! I am by no means an accountant, but I know enough to keep cash flows going as a lifeline of a succesful business!  Lesson number four; learn from what you do NOT enjoy! 

At some point early in childhood, I got this idea that I could be a writer. However, there was no evidence in the ungainly preteen to that effect back then. To date I really cannot boast of anything beyond a C-grade in English literature throughout my entire education.  But I was so convinced of this interest and consuming passion, that since Ms. Kinuthia’s grade 5 English class at Nairobi Primary School (NPS) more than 40 years ago, I have never stopped writing - this or that. I never gave up writing because of my grades! I wrote for the love of writing, “writing for writing sake”! Fast forward. To date, I have written a few research and academic papers, a few books and the essay you are now reading! There is a song about this, "Children hold on to your dreams", by the Wee Gees - look it up. It will inspire you and change the way you think about how your childhood aided your career! Lesson number five; Never let go of your passion. Not every skill you have can or will be certified by an education program. Some of those lateral skills are invaluable to keeping you alive on your corporate journey. It is what headhunters call , “added advantage”, like another language or interest in “swimming” if you are gunning for a career in the hotel industry. These five lessons, I think, were entry requirements. Let me know if you find them helpful. I will pen some more later as the journey continues…    Go for it!       

Allan Bukusi

Leadership Vs Management

 

...Leadership asks, "Where do you want to go?" Management answers,  "This is how to get there!"

AB

The Spirit of Wisdom

 

The spirit of wisdom

The reason why people in Africa associate wisdom with old people is not because they are old, but because wisdom itself is old. It looks down on the present and the future. Ideas may be new, repeated, fashionable and true, but wisdom is as old as the hills. If you can calculate the age of the hills and valleys, then you will understand how old wisdom really is. Wisdom is as ancient as the days of time.

Allan Bukusi

God provides;

 

God provides; the rest of us must Work.

Allan Bukusi

Woman of Faith

 

Professor Faith Wariara Nguru

Character, courage, capacity, counsel and commitment came in a deceptive, diminutively statured package that wielded power gently. Six hours of tribute was not enough to eulogize, describe or celebrate the accomplishments of a life that belies its age and contribution in time.

I thought I knew you; but, I did not know of you. Humility hid a prodigious authority under the cloak of duty, meekness, faithfulness and integrity. In you I find that loyalty has a new meaning in leadership; double deputy, assistant, secretary, commissioner, mentor, preacher, big sister, friend, wife, mother, peacemaker and professor. That testimony is not mine. It is from far and wide; in the news I heard coming from the NEWS. From important people before whom I could never stand.

A gift of light is gone in the night. No, I never really knew you. But now that it is night, I remember the light. You were so small, yet such a great soul. Gone quietly without a fight, Having done all with all thy might; for one you loved both day and night. What more could I say. Your maker must be proud of you. There is a new light in heaven. Fare thee well Woman of Faith. Fare thee well Faith, fare thee well.  

Allan Bukusi

It's Time for Leadership Beyond the Leader

 

The performance of the second generation post-colonial amalgam of modern nation administrations in Africa was tied to the experiential reality of its leaders rather than the institutional capacity of its polity. Each leader believed they were better than the former and certainly superior than the other leaving little room for the wisdom of consensus to emerge on any matter under the sun. This meant that the potential of these nations always remained greater than their performance.

This may be a good sign though, in that leadership in Africa, can only improve as demanded by its polity over time. Indeed, in another two generations it may seem quite odd that leadership in African ever displayed the political morass that is perhaps characteristic of  the present. A great hope, but a good hope nonetheless.

As both the empowerment and expectations of the people buoy each other in voice, deed and increasing demand, leadership will be forced to deliver higher levels of institutional performance rather than depend on the fragility of its leaders. This is leadership beyond the leader. Depending on the fragility of the person rather than the purpose and function of the position is bound to be a disappointing show in the short run and an ill-advised choice in the long run.

Allan Bukusi

How to Start a Business on the Road to Nowhere?

 

The truck raced through the winding dusty road in the middle of nowhere. Every other weekend it ferried goods from who knows where to there and back. The people in the hills used to tell what day it was from the trucks subsonic roar and toxic dust cloud that could be seen billowing from miles around. Nothing else exciting passed that way on any other day. The spot was marked by a dip and a top, but that was all there was to see in between the savannah to the right, the grassland to the left and the cliff drop from the top into the vast valley below. The road, though untarmacked was the shortest, most convenient route to there and back. The driver had no interest in the space, but it was an ideal place to make a short call in the bushes before descending from the top of the hill into the rambling plains. 

But if you stood still for a day or two you might notice a thing or two. Some distance away was a watering hole for the local pastoral clan. The combined cattle harvested the wild grass and kept it trim and gleaming in the hot sun into the horizon on their circular sweeping weekly route from one season to the next. As fate would have it, the local women too competed for the water on a daily basis, just a little upstream hidden among a small group of trees. The shaded washing arena was not too far away from a dilapidated primary school, where students came with bare foot shrieks combing the grass from the hills all around to the tin roofed learning pens that did not quite fit the term class room. The children raced through the plains to the gong of an old tractor axle, hung on a tree, that no one knows whence it came. One strike of the gong could be heard for miles around. The shrill student races took place in the warm morning rays that wake up the sun and then back to the hills in the midafternoon serenade just before sundowner. Some teachers rode bicycles; a wonder of technology to the pure young minds devoid of tablets.

In this unlikely space came the mogul. He set up camp a few meters away. Just visible from the dusty road. In a dusty shack held together with chewing gum he settled down to watch and wave at the crowd that passed by at various points in the day. They all pointed at him, his shack and then at their heads. They actually thought he was mad. But everyone minded their own business and told everyone else to do the same and keep their distance. Nothing, for sure, could come out of this – whatever it was. The safe place to be was in the hills.  

But by and by, as children will be, they stopped by. The moguls first installation was some pencils and sweets. The sweets were free, but the pencils, for school, were for a very small fee. His first enthusiastic customers set the hills ablaze with the written word, in the breeze, on the backs of trees and at the watering hole. The mogul added scented soap to his box of tricks. Soon the word was out and the womens' water route incorporated an optional D-tour for a piece of beauty and dobi at the price of a bar. It did not seem to matter that the mogul who sold the bar lived in a dilapidated shack by the side of a dusty road to nowhere. 

So day by day the children passed by for pencils and sweets and the women were guaranteed a clean sheen and clothes shine from across the road. The herders on their weekly rounds realized that the shack was not moving and so hung around in the hills to watch the daily traffic swills. But the hills were cold at night and when they heard that the mogul had matches in his box of fixes, they sent down their own to make sure they had a light for the night. And so it went on. The truck continued to race on its regular round, but it no longer caught the attention of the people in the hills. 

And so it went on the children running to and from school buying pencils and books, the women drawing water buying soap and a drop of paraffin to light the candles at night. In fact, at night, the once dark hill side was quite bright. The herders came for matches and gum and the teachers bought some pens, chalk and read recycled newspapers as they pumped their bicycles on the way home. The place had become quite a crowd. One day the lorry stopped by to find out what was going down. The lorry pledged to come by with salt and sheets next time round and so began the commercial town of nowhere.     

The town began, not because the mogul had set up a shack, but by doing so he had changed the daily round of those he found and, of course, he was going nowhere.  In time the shack became two and three. A place where one could stop  for oil and grain, and if the herders were good, you could get a cup of milk. The lorry round now announced new stock and its stops became market days when herders sold their cattle while everyone else made quite some noise throughout the day. Interestingly, nobody remembers the name of the man who started the place, but I think he must have been called pioneer or something near.

How life had changed in that place. But it is not because the mogul had anything to sell, rather he touched, changed and transformed the people’s daily round on the road to nowhere. If you really want to start a business, you must be prepared to take the road to nowhere until it becomes somewhere.

Allan Bukusi

Another Season in the Sun

 

.... Another season in the sun, another chance to begin again. Another time to make a difference, another time to bring hope – again. Another reason to live. Another time of gain, another time of pain, another time of grace and gratitude. What you are about to begin - you have begun. Consider what you can create with time, talent and treasure; none of these you will take away, nor will they come to you again. Be wise for all that remains of these is memories of the same.

The journey round the sun is guaranteed, but our time here is decreed. So make time for all there is to do in life; to work, to laugh, to be and be quiet, to play, to pray and sometimes to cry. If you know love; cherish it, share it; sacrifice. Hate is an open gate; walk past it, away from it. Seek peace with all your heart. Some things you must leave behind and some things you have to know anew. But in some things you must have the courage to begin on a new journey around the sun. It is not a new sun; but a new you. There are things you need to forgive, but others you must forget. Don't get stuck, though you may fear, never fail to start again. It is the only thing that life offers; another chance, another day, one more sun. History is past, but you are here, yet to be; become! Write your story.

What is the purpose?.. Perhaps the question is really, what is your purpose? Think of the blessing you must be, and how this is a gift of the Divine.  Don’t, your time waste; but know that, there are some who must fulfill this curse. And when all is said and done; hope again, be again and live again. It is all you have got to go on another trip around the sun.

Happy New Year, another season in the sun.

Allan Bukusi, 2025