Common Sense not with us anymore
Robert McKenzie’s response to Alan M Webers’ “Three Rules for These Time” on Conversation Starter at Harvard Business Publishing.
Dear Alan,
I am in total agreement with you! For too long the class room has taught management as if it were all about economic performance, shareholder value, and the share price of publically traded companies. But sadly:
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
Knowing when to come in out of the rain; Why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn’t always fair; and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (management, not necessarily shareholders, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of CEOs taking big bonuses, at a time when markets performed poorly and employees were told that their efforts were not enough. Common Sense lost ground when shareholder value was seen as the most important thing and left employees wondering their self worth. It declined even further when self-centered decisions were made which resulted in massive failure and the production supervisors and operations managers’ gets blamed. Common Sense lost the will to live as businesses became greedy and went after pre-tax profit at whatever cost.
Common Sense took a beating when businesses asked regulators to give them more control to achieve supernatural levels of efficiencies, some would argue that most governments are still trying to determine the meaning of the word efficiency
Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason… He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame and I’m A Victim.
SOURCE: Harvard Business Publishing
If common sense were to be here with us; most of the problems we have entangled ourselves with in recent times especially the credit crunch debacle and others would have been averted.
We will all miss common sense.
Adieu!!!
Assessing Nigeria’s Readiness for Government 2.0: NITDA’s role
Transforming governments is not easy. While technology alone cannot transform governments, governments today cannot transform without technology. In the fast paced world of technology, new approaches constantly extend the boundaries of what is possible.
The pace of change is evidenced by the fact that terms like SOA, WOA, community sourcing, cloud computing, software-as-a-service, and Web 2.0 that seem almost common place today, were not in the lexicon only a few years ago. It would be good to step back and take a dispassionate view of where the practice of government is heading. … World Bank
Preambles:
Transformational government is taking root in the heart of government’s relationship with its citizens and businesses alike as well as within government. Governments are realising that in today’s information based environment; there is an overwhelming need for transformation in its processes and procedures toward rendering quality, efficient and cost effective services to its clients wherever they are regardless of time and space. Read more »
President Yar’Adua’s 7 Point Agenda - Lest We Forget
THE 7 POINT AGENDA OF THE YAR’ADUA ADMINISTRATION
1. Energy: We need to solve the problem of power and energy – National Council on Energy to drive the energy policy and advice on power, energy and gas… energy emergency to be declared.
2. Security: Treating security as a critical Infrastructure.
3. Wealth Creation: 70% of all revenue comes from oil; need to keep this focused and extended to other areas.
4. Education: Need to address the various problems in the education sector.
5. Land Reform: To provide proper ownership and give a chance to take the land to capital market.
6. Mass Transit: To develop capacity for mass movement of goods and people.
7. Niger Delta: To implement the master plan already developed. Read more »
Nigeria: food crisis, crude oil and biofuels
You cannot but agree with me that these three things are amongst the biggest issues on most seminars, conferences, discuss and activities in around governments, agencies and international organisations in recent times.
Nigeria as a country is having its own share of the attention in many facets.
Food Crisis:
Nigeria no doubts have got too many mouths to feed; and have been making efforts to satiate the mouths, both those that are genuinely hungry and the gluttons amongst us.
The government in Nigeria through the Minister of Agriculture came with the magic wand to inform us that ‘government in a bid to stem the impending food crisis was going to embark on massive importation of rice’ to the tune of some ridiculous amount. As usual, it was greeted with a lot of opposition and in its usual reversal mode; government reveresd itself. Read more »
Funding Nigerian Universities
The funding of Nigerian Universities is at its all time low, despite the purported efforts of successive governments, not much can be shown for the efforts. Therefore, there is an urgent need for stakeholders in the country’s education sector to align their different objectives to rescue the University system from total collapse.
An apsect of fundraising is captured below;
The big issues here therefore, are; what is different from the Nigerian case and that of the UK and other places (?) Are there no corporately responsible companies in Nigeria (?) Are we lacking of wealth benefactors and formal students OR Are the universities not blessed with them (?)These questions are begging for our answers for a start. What is your take?