By Dr Joseph Bonsu-Akoto
Transformation: The idea of transformation is to concentrate our strength against our competitor’s relative weakness (Bruce Henderson). Transformation involves changing many of our assumptions and principles of management as well as how our institutions get things done. To be effective, our institutions must redefine the job descriptions and specifications. We want our people to run the institutions as if they were their own.
To transform or reengineer administrative processes requires us to start from scratch in making fundamental assumptions, to reject much of the conventional wisdom abundant in all organizations, and to “think out of the box” by looking for ways to initiate changes of magnitude through innovation. We need to start from scratch in making assumptions because a lot of things have changed since the beginning of this century. To begin the redefinition process one might ask the fundamental questions: “When were the processes currently being used designed?” and, “Can we design a better process given the technology (including the educated workforce) we now have and/or will have shortly?”
Reengineering requires that work be organized around outcomes, not tasks. The outcome is to sustain our economy and perform the functions conducive enough to win the hearts of our stakeholders.
Performing the functions from the view point of the outcome will put a very different focus on most existing job descriptions which almost always are simply lists of task to be performed. The availability of computer-based data and expertise provides opportunities for our workers to do more for themselves. Life is full of lousy options (General P. X. Kelly). Strategic planning is the key to our success for survival as a great nation. Having just plans are not the answer to sustaining our economy in the 21st century.
Dale McConkey once said: “Plans are less important than planning.” He is right. Plans are static, whereas “planning is about doing things today to make us better tomorrow because, the future belongs to those who make the hard decisions today” (Eaton Corporation). “Tomorrow always arrives. It is always different. And even the mightiest nation is in trouble if it has not worked on the future. Being surprised by what happens is a risk that even the largest and richest nation cannot afford, and even the small nation for that matter need not run” (Peter Ducker). If we don’t invest for the long run, there is no short run. For that matter, planning for improvement must be ongoing to achieve our mission for success, because an organization is not defined by its name, statutes, and so on but by its mission.
Only a clear definition of the mission and purpose of the organization makes possible clear and realistic objectives. Peter Drucker was right when he said that “the business mission is so rarely given adequate thought is perhaps the most important single cause of business frustration. In addition, the vision must not be forgotten in the midst of all things. “An organization vision could help us to focus, direct, motivate, unify, and even excite the organization into superior performance” (John Keane). “Where there is no vision, the people perish”. To attain the necessary mission and vision, strategic planning is essential. One possible outcome of a formal planning process is that the need for new policies will be identified. To former U.S. Senator, Patrick Moynihan, “public policy is what a government chooses to do or not to do”. Policy is the statement of goals and intentions with respect to a particular problem or asset of problems. With proper strategic policy, our chances for success increase.
Implementation: Successful strategy/policy implementation requires the leaders’ support, discipline, motivation, and hard work from all concerned individuals associated with the program formulation or the policy. It is sometimes frightening that a single individual can sabotage policy or strategy-implementation efforts irreparably. Formulating the right policies or strategies is not enough, because leadership issues considered central to implementation include matching organizational or national structure with the policy for the strategy, a climate conducive to change, creating a strategy-supportive culture, managing stakeholders’ relationships, adapting operations processes, and managing scares resources.
Establishing annual objectives, devising policies, and allocating resources are central implementation activities common to all organizations, including governments. In addition, it is equally true that “the greatest strategy or policy is doomed if implemented badly” (Bernard Riemann). Strategy is not something we can nail together in slapdash fashion by sitting around a conference table (Terry Haller). It is a must to be an action oriented that is supported and understood by the leadership, because, “weak leadership in the organization can wreck the soundest strategy” (Sun Zi).
Why Do Policies Fail?
There is no clearcut answer one can give. Nevertheless there are several variables to failure. But chief among them is failure to learn. An individual who fails to learn from experience is forever lost in a chaotic world. He repeats his/her errors. Worse still, he has no way of navigating among the rocks and shoals of life. One direction is as good or as bad as another. He can make no sense out of his world because he is unable to use his past experience to do better in the future.
But the second reason for failure is our major concern. That is, lack of proper evaluation to ascertain the impact of the strategy/policy after implementation. “While strategy or policy is a word that is usually associated with the future, its link to the past is no less central. Life is lived forward but understood backward. Leaders may live strategy or policy in the future, but they understand it through the past” (Henry Mintzberg). It is evaluation that brings out the understanding and action for corrective measures.
Evaluation: The evaluation of a strategic planning system should begin by answering the following questions:
Are decisions really affected, or different because of the process?
Does the process work?
The senior administrator, the operational administrators, the planning committee, the planning sup¬port staff, and organization or perhaps system-wide personnel or a consultant should be involved in the evaluation process. A variety of formal and informal methods that solicit feedback from the entire institution may be utilized.
Evaluation makes it as easy as possible for leaders to revise their plans and reach quick agreement on the changes to policy or strategy required. “Unless strategy is performed seriously and systematically, and unless policy makers are willing to act on the results, energy will be used up defending yesterday. No one will have the time, resources, or will to work on exploiting today, let alone to work on making tomorrow” (Peter Drucker).
Evaluation can be related to a compass bearing in achieving objectives. To Peter Drucker, “objectives are not a railroad timetable. Rather they can be compared to a compass bearing by which a ship navigates. A compass bearing is firm, but in actual navigation, a ship may veer off its course for many miles. Without a compass bearing, the ship would neither find its port nor be able to estimate the time required to get there”. Particularly in today’s global village, no nation or organization can afford to make a mistake in their implementation effort. It is human nature to make decisions based on emotion, rather than on fact. But nothing could be more illogical than failure to perform an evaluation.
Strategy (policy) evaluation allows an organization to shape its own future, rather than allowing it to be constantly shaped by remote forces that have little or no vested interest in the well-being of the stakeholders. Evaluation would help the governmental units to identify or predict, in process, defects in the procedural design or its implementation, to provide information for the pre-programmed decisions, and to maintain a record of procedural events and activities.
It can also help our institutions to relate outcome information to objectives and to context, input, and process information.
Leadership: Leadership inspires loyalty, persistence, and the desire to grow and learn. It challenges the group, to fulfill its potential and achieve its dreams and visions. Treating employees as adults, empowering them, and creating true cooperatives are equally essential for our institutions to transform the old ways to new dynamic employment relationship.
Employee empowerment must not be limited to work methods but must also include the broader set of rules that defines the procedural justice pattern within the organization, in addition to strategic policy decisions. Without this, the employees’ perception of cooperation will be too narrow. The purpose of empowerment must go beyond “giving employees the feeling of participation” to a true sharing of power in the organization.
Empowerment is not just listening to employees but allowing them to make decisions about their work and the organization’s operations. In other words, empowerment means that we put the decision where the work is performed and that the individuals themselves control the process.
All the same, the new employment relationship requires that employees be self-reliant and active in defining their future. Gone is the paternalism of yesterday. Each party in the employment relationship must be asked to focus on defining their needs and taking responsibility for meeting them through ethical grounds.” If an organization is not based on ethical grounds, it is of no benefit to society and will, like other unethical combinations, pass on into oblivion” (C. Max Killan).
Addressing Auxiliary Issues: As the process of transformation gets fully under way, many other issues that require attention may be recognized, such as policy/procedure development, ongoing education and training requirements. The degree of change required for reengineering is significant and ongoing. Not only will much policy and most procedure need to be rewritten, the basic style of how such documents are presented will need to be substantially modified.
As the timeframe for decision-making decreases due to enhanced communications capabilities and increased constituents/stakeholders’ expectations, policies and procedures must support the frontline worker’s efforts. Significant limits have been placed on what such people were allowed to do; this must change. As the number of knowledge workers grows, the level of detail usually found in current procedures will no longer be relevant and could be detrimental.
Finally, processes and systems will change much more frequently in the transformed institution than in the past; thus, policies and procedures will also change often, and will have to be readily accessible online. Reengineering leads to organizations that are capable of learning. The need to understand how organizations learn and to accelerate that learning is more important than ever before. For this to occur, ongoing training and education of the entire workforce should take place by the consultants if possible.
“In life, nothing is what it seems”. We should take a deeper rethink into our philosophy, attitude, and our disposition and it will save us a world of doom. Each and everyone can make a difference in nation building. Let us perform our duties as if it is our own business. “ Life is a path and by meekness and goodness will the path be left in the sands of time.” What about your path? Can yours be remembered?
In closing, we will borrow from Albert Schweitzer: “I don’t know where you will go or what you will do, but the ones among you that will be most happy will be those who serve”. In addition, Reinhardt added his “two-quarters”-“especially happy will be those who serve the public, well and faithfully”. We will say, rewards will go to those that will serve the public well and faithfully by doing those things that serve the greater “public’s best interest” but not just “public interest” in an ethical manner.
Dr. Joseph B. Akoto, is Operations Management and Strategic Planning Consultant. Formerly, Management Support Advisor at MHHS, Cayman Islands and a Co-Author of State and Local Fiscal Structures and Fiscal Stress; Standard Health Insurance Fee for the Cayman Islands; Changes in Cayman Islands Labor Market –Trends, Implications and Solutions. E-mail: akoto.joseph2009@yahoo.com | 
