Since the advent of man on planet earth, society has been on the move. Politically, the patriarchal system gave way to several other forms of government such as oligarchy, autocracy and so forth, to the presently widely acclaimed democracy. Economically, man has moved from subsistence agriculture in hamlets to complex economic systems in big cities with skyscrapers. And we can say similar for education, marriage and religion. At the base of all of these changes/developments is technology.

In our present life-time, we have seen the introduction of the computer which phased out the typewriter. We have seen the inception of the Internet and how it has developed over such a relatively short time to revolutionise business and other social interactions. We can talk of the mobile phone, the television, the radio and the like which have equally had their respective development and impact. It is my belief that Management has been affected the most by these technological advancements. Hence, management has to continually fine-tune its principles and practices to reflect the dynamics of technology. The new-age challenges call for new-age management practices. And we need to begin making those changes today if the private sector would live up to its task as the engine of growth.

In this article, I will attempt to discuss briefly just six of such management practices that have to be challenged (in some subsequent articles I will take a re-look at some of them in more detail).

Management Practices that Must Change

• Abolish Alienation and Encourage a Family/Citizenship Culture
• Rid Yourself of Unnecessary Bureaucracy and Hierarchies
• Embed Elements of Democracy in Management
• Avoid Making a Fetish of Enterprise Information
• Effectively Harness the Web with Management
• Avoid Nostalgically Holding On to Tradition

The first critical area I want us to look at relates to human resources:

Management has to abolish alienation and encourage an atmosphere of family and citizenship in the work-place. Karl Marx in his postulation of Alienation identified four types of alienation in labour under capitalism. These are: Alienation from self, alienation from others, alienation from product and alienation from production. For the purposes of our discussion, I will limit my application to alienation from others, from product and from production.

If you are alienated from others, you are made to adopt the “dog-eat-dog” mentality. My dear late Joseph Hill of Culture fame (a Reggae music band) put it this way: “Dog a go nyam dog ina city”. What does it mean? That you are made to see your fellowman/woman as, not a fellow human being with feelings and a need for love like yourself, but a competitor! Thus in such an environment where everyone is seeking to lop others off the corporate ladder as they climb up, how can a genuine sense of family and citizenship be created in the work-place? And in the absence of such an atmosphere, how can employees give of their best for the attainment of the common corporate goal?

Also, is it not true that in most organizations, there is alienation of the worker from the product, i.e. its design and production are appropriated by the capitalist class (top management) and escape the worker’s control? In that case, how can management expect commitment from the modern informed employee?

Further, alienation from production means that the worker is alienated from the act of production itself; that work boils down to an endless sequence of discrete, repetitive, trivial, and meaningless motions, offering little, if any, intrinsic value. He just performs his task, gets paid and goes home. His creative prowess is hardly tapped. Hence work becomes boring and stressful.

However, where the employer and the employee collaborate in management processes and practices, employees come to feel a part of production rather than alienated. Management should thus give employees a wide latitude of discretion in creativity and production in order to make them more responsible and make work more meaningful; not just a means of living, but fun! That way, a corporate family and citizenship culture is fostered—that proud feeling of being part of the success story. And this would in turn tell positively on productivity and growth.

Management must further encourage the sharing of ideas and mutual support among employees to achieve the overall corporate goal, instead of mutual suspicion and lack of trust as is prevalent in many organizations today in Africa and the world over. If such a collaborative environment is created, employees see each other, not as competitors, but as partners working together for the common good. And that would unleash creativity and innovation which will ultimately lead to aggregate wealth creation in the private sector.

Second, management must rid itself of unnecessary bureaucracy and the fixation to hierarchies. It is amazing how we all hate bureaucracy and yet we all enjoy practicing it! The reason? It makes us feel ‘important’ and ‘indispensable’. And it is surprising to note that bureaucracy in the private sector if Africa is so rife that one may wonder if the governments ministries, departments and agencies (MDA’s) are even saintly.

So how can we deal with this problem? Simple, Flat organization! Does this sound chaotic or amorphous? Or even simplistic? Before you conclude let us consider the following:

Taking lessons from the fields of theology and politics: Do you know one reason why there are so many splinter religions springing up? And from politics, do you know why many Africans seek to uphold the tenets of democracy? Well, the underlying reason is this: Since no man wants to be ruled over by their fellowman, it becomes only natural for the ruled to also desire to rule or at least, enjoy some ‘guaranteed freedoms’ in their ruled state.

Hence, when a religion that has leaders with wealth, power and influence offers its adherents who desire to ‘climb’ up to the status of such leaders limited or no opportunities to do so, the one that believes he too has a good grasp of the Scriptures simply decides to break-away and start his own, and the cycle continues. Similarly, the politically-aware individual who believes he has something to offer but can only do that with political power will advocate democracy so he can at least have a say and, at most, even win power. Otherwise, the result would be struggle for power which can lead to political instability.

What is the lesson we draw? Organisations that desire to maintain a certain corporate citizenship and stability do well to remember that top management is no longer the repository of wisdom. Hence all should have equal opportunities and be commensurately rewarded. And that the exclusion of well-informed employees from the decision-making process only leads to human capital hemorrhage, resulting in loss of valuable creative and innovative minds since these will either seek better opportunities elsewhere or start their own business.

In terms of control and supervision, the effectiveness of the bottom-up approach can be replicated in the flat organization. This is demonstrated in the provision of social amenities for communities.  When community members are involved in the decision-making process, it becomes easier to enlist their participation in the project and its subsequent maintenance. Similarly, if employees contribute to setting standards of control and discipline that must be met in the organization they develop a checks-and-balances system which is mutually acceptable and binding on all.

Also, with the abolition of formal hierarchies and top-to-bottom chain of command, leaders become primus inter pares (first among equals). Hence anybody can check anyone. And where the unanimous belief is that a particular person is incorrigibly bent on running the system aground, he/she is kicked out. Period!

Peer-pressure is stronger than a top-bottom chain of command. Positive peer pressure is thus a better method to instill discipline and control. But this can only succeed if the base is solid: communalism and citizenship, coupled with mutual respect. I want to use a personal experience I had at the university to explain this:

On one occasion, I misused electricity. While I do not remember how exactly I did that, I do remember the reprimand I had from my room-mate who was in level 100 while I was in 400. His father was working at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). My father used to work at the Volta River Authority (VRA), the main power producer in Ghana. And I personally had a stint with the VRA. Thus when he saw what I was doing, all he said was “Jules, you know we both have something to do with electricity in one way or the other. So please, let us be exemplary in its use”. That was enough. And that lesson has stayed with me all these years. That demonstrates the power of positive peer-pressure for control and discipline purposes.

However, this kind of management works best with small-medium-sized organisations. Yet this does not preclude larger ones from employing it. What they need to do is split up the organization into smaller and pliable entities.

Colossal organizations with so much impersonality like the city only breed sloth, mediocrity and ineptitude. This is mainly because they encourage social loafing. They are also less inspiring and can even cause some employees to develop depression and related health problems. However, when an organization is disaggregated into smaller units, team members become closer and the leader is better in tune with each one’s strengths and weaknesses and is therefore better able to provide good leadership with purpose.

Third, elements of democracy must be embedded in management. And conflicts should be encouraged rather than despised. We all appreciate the freedoms enshrined in our democratic dispensation in our respective countries, such as the freedoms of speech and expression. If we do and seek all legal means to guard them, why should they be missing in our corporate institutions? We all know that as fallible beings none of us is the absolute epitome of wisdom—from the board director to the cleaner. If that is so, then we should all have an equal say in the way things are ran in the company irrespective of one’s social, economic or educational background; and that without fear.

That may lead to disagreements some times. However, disagreements are always inevitable and even sometimes good—i.e. disagreements that are genuine and not those that are hostile or worse yet sinister. In an environment where everyone is free to disagree and everyone respects one another’s views, when a consensus is reached with some conceding and others compromising without feeling inferior or vanquished and the others superior or victorious, ideas are better managed and implemented with all in the group passionately supporting a common course for the good of the organization. In other words, conformity is desired rather than extracted and cohesion is more readily achieved.

Further, in an environment of openness where there are disagreements and divergence with no one taking others’ comments personal, creativity and innovation are unleashed, leading to wealth creation and development. And this is feasible when all-and-sundry, as mentioned above, contribute to setting standards of control and discipline that must be met in the organization and a system of checks and balances exist.

Fourth, avoid making fetish of enterprise information. Information systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning, Enterprise Content Management and Business Intelligence should make information available across the enterprise to every employee. While for purposes of order it is proper to assign roles and responsibilities, information regarding such assignments should not be held to the chest of the assignees and their relevant bosses only, as it pertains in many organizations today. While some information may be arguably classified, in today’s age of information, it is extremely crude if in the event of a sick leave or other unforeseen occurrence, certain decisions cannot be made by other employees simply because a particular “officer” is not available. That is an out-moded form of administration. And over the years, if only we could keep tabs on the cost such mishaps, we would realise how much valuable resources, both material and human, that have gone waste. If we continue to make fetish of enterprise information at departmental levels and otherwise, we would only be hampering the development of the private sector and enhancing poverty.

Fifth, the Web must be effectively harnessed with management to streamline production. Apart from creating information laissez-faire, such information should be accessible over the web from every corner of the globe. This will enable employees of the enterprise to work effectively from any location at any given time. It is high time we started to disabuse our minds that business can only happen from a specific location and at a given time. Has the pandemic taught us any lessons? When management begins to effectively utilise the Web in this manner, it will ease traffic on our roads, reduce environmental pollution, reduce stress in employees and improve their life expectancy, reduce loss of resources through days off as a result of sickness and the benefits go on and on…. In effecting these changes, we would be challenging some traditional practices that are inimical to today’s private sector organization.

Sixth, avoid nostalgically holding on to tradition, the status-quo! In Africa, we say “the tradition goes on”. No wonder our palm-wine tappers still employ the same technology our forefathers used 3000 years ago. And even though our local gin/rum  can easily out-class the Vodkas, it is still un-exportable largely due to low-tech distillery and deodorizing. While some aspects of tradition define identity, which is a very important ingredient in branding, dogmatically sticking to tradition that is counter-productive only leads to ineptitude, to say the least. Just as strategy-making should be fluid, the status-quo should be regularly challenged by-the-second in order to meet changing needs and demands.

In many private sector organizations in Africa, even when consultants help executives to see that their business processes and practices are outmoded, they still maintain that change will be difficult. The reason is that change calls for hard work and they are just satisfied with the way things are ran. After all, their daily bread and relatively comfortable life-style are assured and retirement is just around the corner. “So why the stress?” they say. So they wait until things get out of hand before they start to act.

This explains why there is so much lack of creativity in many sectors of our economy and marketing in particular. For instance, it amazes me when I think about the fact that it is estimated that in Ghana for example, only about 20% of the bankable population is actually banking. And instead of our banks finding innovative means of roping in the remaining 80 percent, they only compete with each other for the 20%, wasting resources and stifling economic growth. Majority of marketing managers have become what I call ‘lotto professors’, running endless raffles, turning their customers into greedy people. Is this the kind of value we want to promote in our society? If this is not sloth and ineptitude, someone please email me and tell me what it is.

The challenges facing the private sector in Africa are enormous, and it takes a cast-iron stomach to brave them. But they are not insurmountable. Granted, there are things that government and other stake-holders should be doing to promote it. However, we in the private sector need to purge ourselves of obsolete management practices and attitudes in order to find our feet. And until that is done, even the best of business environments cannot help matters. Now is the time then to start since it will not take just one day to make that change. Let us talk openly about it and discuss the way forward. As I conclude, please join me in adopting the chorus of Michael Jackson’s ‘Man in the Mirror’: I’m Starting With The Man In The Mirror…. I’m Asking Him To Change His Ways….. And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer…. If You Wanna Make The “Private Sector” A Better Place Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change!

The author is CEO/Managing Partner at Soleil Consults (US), LLC, a Strategy, Management and ICT firm.