Reflection, Reinvention, And Winning At Sixty-Five: A Field Note For Nigeria’s Next Chapter

The Founder of TEXEM and Senior Lecturer astatine Sheffield Business School. I pen this nonfiction with a humble consciousness of work hoping to lend to this captious nationalist sermon of proffering actionable insights to federation building. This nonfiction is informed by insights gleaned  from my engagements with much than 1,000 leaders globally successful the past twelvemonth and adjacent to a gross of this fig 15 years aft I founded These Executive Minds (TEXEM) successful the UK.

Sixty-five years aft independence, Nigeria stands astatine a crossroads that is some sobering and promising. The sobering portion is familiar. Too galore citizens acquisition nationalist services that get precocious oregon not up to par. Firms look a cocktail of inflation, logistics friction, and regulatory uncertainty. Civil nine carries dense loads wherever ceremonial systems falter. The promising portion is quieter but powerful. In the past twelvemonth I person sat with much than a 1000 leaders successful ministries, agencies, boardrooms, factories, start-ups, cooperatives, and classrooms from Kano to Lagos to Abuja and cities successful different emerging and developed countries. The appetite I person encountered is not for caller slogans. It is for practices that nutrient compounding improvements citizens tin feel. My contention is that the leaders who volition determination Nigeria guardant successful the adjacent decennary volition practise 3 disciplines with rigour: reflection that rebuilds spot and sharpens judgement, reinvention that converts constraints into plan choices, and winning that scales what works and protects it from erosion.

Reflection indispensable travel archetypal due to the fact that advancement without spot seldom survives the quality rhythm and much importantly does not pb to sustainable inclusive impact. In galore of our institutions determination is an inherited shortage of confidence. People discount statements earlier they perceive them. Officials are assumed to beryllium evasive until proven otherwise. In this context, the astir strategical enactment a person tin instrumentality is to marque the logic of decisions disposable and testable. I person watched imperishable secretaries and main executives displacement the somesthesia successful a country by explaining the trade-offs down a argumentation oregon a pivot successful 2 pages of plain English, past inviting situation earlier the implementation program is final. That tiny ritual does much than inform. It signals that citizens and unit are not audiences but partners successful judgement. Rwanda’s acquisition with nationalist show contracts for officials is instructive due to the fact that it illustrates however disposable targets and dependable follow-through tin alteration the narration betwixt leaders and citizens. Nigeria does not request to transcript the mechanics to clasp the principle. We tin statesman with published prime notes that authorities priorities, the reasons for those priorities, and the measures by which occurrence volition beryllium judged.

Reflection besides requires information for truth. In utilities, hospitals, and agencies I often conscionable talented professionals who knew occupation was coming but said thing due to the fact that it did not consciousness harmless to bash so. The outgo of that soundlessness is measured successful failed projects, work outages, and avoidable controversy. A humble organization wont tin reverse this dynamic. Start ceremonial meetings by asking for the pieces of atrocious quality that nary 1 has voiced. Reward the messenger alternatively than the fixer. In a bluish h2o committee I watched however this signifier reduced the fig of last-minute crises and improved relationships with suppliers who were yet proceeding astir risks aboriginal capable to help. Psychological information is not a fashionable idea. It is simply a governance advantage.

Strategy is the adjacent frontier of reflection. Plans that effort to delight everyone extremity up straining everyone. Strategy is not an inventory of hopes but the courageousness to choose. What distinguishes Ethiopia’s aboriginal concern zones, contempt each the imperfections, is not simply the infrastructure but the prime to ore connected a tiny fig of sectors wherever jobs could beryllium created rapidly and learning could compound. Nigeria has excessively often pursued breadth without depth. A commissioner who commits to a two-page connection of wherever the authorities volition vie successful transport oregon health, however it volition triumph there, and what volition beryllium near speech this year, has already precocious execution. The powerfulness of this clarity lies successful however it enables different actors to align. Suppliers, investors, and civilian nine tin lone complement a nationalist docket they tin see.

Foresight completes reflective leadership. Oil shocks, currency swings, (though the second 2 person been rather unchangeable successful the past six months) import disruptions, and clime accent are not surprises. They are conditions of the game. The organisations that navigate them good bash not foretell the future. They rehearse it. In Vietnam, which has climbed the manufacturing ladder implicit the past 2 decades, regular script exercises allowed managers and officials to pre-commit to responses erstwhile proviso chains wobbled. In our discourse the aforesaid disciplin...