Tough at the top
If you want to transform any organisation, you need to start with a change in leadership
In the wake of the local elections, commentators have expressed their opinions on the performance of the ANC and how the party needs to carry out some self-assessment to determine what went wrong. All organisations go through peaks and valleys. We are not short of examples of organisations that faced deterioration, if not extinction, but managed, through proper leadership, to reclaim their glory.
IBM’s turnaround, led by Lou Gerstner, is a good example. Nissan, facing a similar challenge — huge losses and an ocean of debt — brought in Carlos Ghosn to change its fortunes.
Locally, after a failed takeover attempt by Nedbank, Jacko Maree led Standard Bank to great success. The most current story is that of Pick n Pay. The company brought in Richard Brasher to turn its fortunes around. Similarly, Sipho Maseko has done a sterling job at Telkom.
What is common about all these stories? It took the board or the shareholders to heed the proverb that the fish rots from the head. If you want to transform any organisation, you need to change its leadership.
Some organisations prefer to bring in someone from outside with fresh thinking. Some opt to promote from within, arguing that the internal appointee will hit the ground running and know the company culture. Each approach has an upside and a downside.
If one were to regard a country as an organisation, the same principles would apply.
The ANC is an organisation that, arguably, has had a good record, but has delivered poor results in recent times. And the shareholders (voters) have voiced their dissatisfaction and threatened to appoint a new leader. The question facing the ANC is: what’s next?
Various comments in the media, including from senior party members, suggest the organisation has to appoint (elect) a new leader.
Irrespective of which option the ANC takes with respect to its leadership, what is clear is that it also needs a turnaround strategy — and it has less than three years in which to execute that strategy before the most important of shareholder meetings: the 2019 national elections.
At the heart of any strategy is the customer — in this case, the citizens. In all the examples outlined above, the leader had to engage with customers to understand their needs and identify critical success factors.
In their book, Strategy That Works: Closing the Gap Between Strategy and Execution, Cesare Mainardi and Paul Leinwand suggest five steps:
Commit to an identity. The party is not short of plans, but it has become difficult to establish what it really stands for.
Translate the “strategic” into the “everyday”. Build crossdepartmental capabilities that deliver on set goals. Splitting the departments of energy and minerals was a bad decision.
Put culture to work. What are the positive cultural elements in the organisation that should be reinforced? Will the movement deal with corruption in all earnestness?
Cut costs to grow. Allocate resources to what matters most based on intent. Government is already spending a lot of money on education, but the results have been disappointing. The newly elected mayors are all promising to allocate resources to poor areas.
Shape the future. Take the lead, set the pace and be proactive. The ANC wasted one of its most precious opportunities. For a long while, it was “guaranteed” votes. During this period it should have made unpopular decisions in the short term for long-term gain.
Some would argue that a government is different from a commercial entity. This may be the case, but the principles are the same — they should just be adjusted to fit the context.
Lee Kuan Yew did it in Singapore; the Rwanda story, with President Paul Kagame at the helm, is still unfolding; and Vietnam is making huge progress. Will the ANC also be a learning organisation?