Will the new NDP deliver?
The new national development plan
IS there an elephant in the room in the form of comparison with the previous national development plan (NDP) published in 2017? Will the new NDP execute and deliver differentiated new value over and above the previous?
This is the first of two parts on the impact of siloed thinking on the new 3-5-and 20-year national development plan. We’ll look at part two next Tuesday.
Breaking down silos continues to be one of the most important problems we need to tackle. Not simply breaking them down but also integrating the broken-down pieces into a cohesive solid base for daily functionality, operations, and policy and decision making.
While the previous NDP didn’t seem to have done that successfully, the “new NDP” has the potential to do just that: break down the silos.
Organisations pin success on “breaking down silos”
My journey with breaking down silos began over two decades ago providing consultancy and solutions for some of Australia’s largest and some significantly smaller organisations. Those experiences began with understanding business strategy, tactics and processes whether the engagement was with European telcos and banks, Asian telcos, the Bavarian Government in Germany, the very best American telcos and retailers, Aussie and Kiwi banks, telcos, retailers, consumer goods manufacturers and international airlines.
So, the commencement of Fiji’s new NDP consultations compels my contribution through this column. To that end, my experiences over almost three years at a major Fijian consumer goods manufacturer influences to a significant extent the thinking presented here.
If you’re familiar with this column you will know business-first is what is recommended here and that translates neatly into the new NDP exercise.
DPM and Minister of Finance on the new NDP
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Hon. Biman Prasad said the new “National Development Plan will be a comprehensive and realistic document and will be the blueprint for the future.” He said it would facilitate practical solutions to the social and economic sector that the Coalition Government will implement to ensure Fiji’s lasting progress that will result in fostering lasting national unity and shared vision to advance our nation.”
Public consultations on 38 areas The basis of consultations are 38 separate fact sheets or chapters that form the new whole-of-nation NDP draft. The fact sheets provide a summary of the 38 areas of “focus” such as “Rule of Law and Justice”, the “Outsourcing Industry” and “Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection”.
Elephant in the room?
But is there an elephant in the room in the form of comparison with the previous NDP published in 2017? Will the new NDP provide differentiated new value over and above the previous NDP?
DPM Professor Biman Prasad said the Coalition Government’s new NDP will build on the outcomes of the Economic Summit, the Fiscal Review Committee report, the Education Summit outcomes, and other plans. We could perhaps add to that national budget and the Voluntary National Review (VNR) of our commitment to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
If you have even a cursory perusal of the draft new NDP, Economic Summit communique, the Fiscal Review Committee report, Education Summit, VNR and Budget and the 38 fact sheets of the draft new NDP, the National Digital Strategy, you’d be hard pressed to see where and how all of these come together as a cohesive direction. To differentiate from the 2017 version on the actual successful execution of the 3-5-20 year plan.
These reports and ideas and fact sheets are essentially silos if not integrated and could potentially, upon execution, create new silos and thus inadvertently exacerbate the challenge of uniting the nation and going forward as one.
From elephant in the room to raging bull in a China shop
Differentiated execution — breaking down and integrating the various and multiple silos is an issue in most organisations and no doubt will present complex challenges to the Strategic Planning Office. In addressing the 2017 NDP elephant in the room, they may find themselves dealing with a raging bull in a China shop assuming the aim is to deliver differentiated new value through effective execution of the new NDP. What needs to be fixed that is not broken?
We may need an integrated 3-5-20 year plan spanning whole-of-nation in addition to and supported by feedback to the 38 individual, siloed fact sheets.
Chief executives, senior management and officials are typically entrenched — convinced that their areas are uniquely different than the rest of the organisation.
They truly believe, without malice, with no sinister motives, that their autonomy is the key to success, never mind that success for many has been elusive.
Don’t fix what’s not broken? That translates easily to more of the same. Many believe that coordination and integration is cumbersome and wasteful. They truly believe that they actually know that as a consequence of failed projects and programmes. But take a close look at today’s supporting strategies in the private and public sector and you will find they clearly are thinking global, and not purely within their silos to gain efficiencies and effectiveness.
Strategic planning office has a distinct advantage
Hon Prasad made an astute decision to retain and put at the head of his team the incumbent permanent secretary of Finance, Mr Shiri Gounder, head of strategic planning Mr Kamal Gounder, and chief policy advisor Dr Neelesh Gounder. The experience they bring dates back to the drafting and publication of 2017 National Development Plan which would surely be invaluable to the current exercise.
They will need all their experience when considering responses to the 38 fact sheets. Seventeen SDGs, and the several reports and recommendations and how they will encompass most of the nation’s aspirations. How will we gain economies of scale, unification of effort, and effective execution without integration? With silos in action? Well, that experience will go a long way toward cohesion.
Autonomy of silos not always a good thing
Silo executives believe autonomy is critical to their success and they have a professional and emotional stake in their freedom to do their own thing. They resist efforts to what they believe is a reduction of their freedom of action. Functional silos believe that theirs is the most effective and so should receive most of the budget independent of how they would spend it.
Those with limited access to silobased spending because their silos failed to successfully communicate, and coordinate will be at a severe competitive disadvantage which will become increasingly obvious. But the truth is that they likely share the same issues and problems that can be solved by the same solutions across multiple silos. Take for example ICT (Information Communications Technology). How would any one of the siloed 38 fact sheets fare if it took a special proposition to the Ministry of Communications with a request to setup their own, nonshared IT infrastructure and software applications?
If you’re “Fact Sheet — Tourism” contributing 40 per cent to Fiji’s GDP, $3.3billion to the economy and employing 120,000 people, you’re very likely to get a good hearing as a silo. If you’re “Fact Sheet – Sugar”, your silo contributed one percent to the country’s GDP. Prior to the declining performance, the industry contributed around 4 percent to GDP. For the same amount of cane per tonne since 2002, production has fallen from over 300,000 to around 150,000 tonnes. What chance, as a silo are you going to get equal footing with tourism?
And of course, there would be a range of expectations across the 38 areas.
Silos weaken whole-of-organisation competencies
In this climate of talent flight and lack of skilled resources, silos weaken the whole organisation’s competencies. The quality of local talent, expertise, specialised support and management sophistication tends to be dispersed and weak when operating within their own silos autonomously.
Once upon a time, many of these functions could be delegated to external partner agencies, segmentation studies and constituent surveys. Arguably, those days are long gone. And in the timeframes of the NDP it is definitely dead. Today in an online world, organisations need to leverage tools such as digital, CRM programs, social networking, blog management, marketing, organisational management, public relations.
All of this needs more than ever to be integrated and guided by organisational vision and direction. It simply does not make sense for silo groups to create their own set of assets and skills. In fact it usually is not feasible as our silos will lack scale.
Further the redundancy of having multiple staff with similar skills if we can ever get there, will impact through high cost and inefficient and limited opportunities for career advancement and growth of specialised skills. In that context, the case for centralised groups becomes compelling.
Silos operating autonomously are often lacking in functional skills and often processes and seasoned advice. Too often, silos left on their own to develop management processes are vulnerable to mediocrity.
Road to success - non rigid silos
Organisations not limited by rigid silos can be more successful at rolling out services and new programmes, across whole-of-government, wholeof-nation. Integration and collaboration can support functional silos by offering best practice ideas and tactics to smaller silos. Robust cooperation and communication across silos is the first line of attack across silo barriers.
Communication provides access to knowledge and practices across the whole organisation through learnings of constituents, citizen insights, channel dynamics and technologies will be enhanced if the eyes and ears of silos are harnessed.
When cooperation is not considered by design and it is difficult to implement successfully, synergistic programs are not likely to emerge and even less likely to be successfully implemented.
What’s not broken that needs to be fixed — people?
From a technology perspective that’s a relatively easy question to answer. Difficulties in communication and cooperation are usually impacted by two related factors. The first is absence of motivation to work with other organisational groups. Silo reporting structures and appraisal systems are both tied to personal, individual advancement and compensation and are defined within the silo.
In most instances there is simply no incentive to collaborate with other silos or even to reach out with ideas or information. Passing on ideas is usually seen as inconvenient. And this can be attributed to the danger that doing so will make their counterparts performance better and thereby reduce the relative performance of their own. So, collaboration involves that even worthwhile collaboration will run into execution breakdown. Even if it does succeed then potentially it will not be adequately recognised and thus kills motivation. Changing the motivation usually required a change in culture and values.
Another factor is the need to change organisation structure and processes to support the culture of being a team player at the highest level of abstraction, the big picture level. And that means cross-silo teams and effective information systems, and data driven insight to enable cohesive cross-silo initiatives.
Integrating with the national digital strategy
Creating these underlying processes and infrastructure will represent a significant challenge.
How would you rate your confidence out of 10 that the new NDP will make for differentiated new value over and above the 2017 plan? New value that ensures, as DPM Prasad said, “Fiji’s lasting progress that will result in fostering lasting national unity and shared vision to advance our nation.”
One thing I’d advocate for is that at the very least, the Ministry of Financeled National Development Plan and the Ministry of Communications-driven National Digital Strategy are integrated as a team from the very top - a foundation supporting the 38 NDP areas of focus.