I was inspired to write this article because of three things that happened to me in the last few weeks. Firstly, I wasn’t very impressed with the under-communication from the Estate Residents Association EXCO on the issue of a new transformer in my estate, especially since we have been in the dark for the last three weeks. In a separate event, a client told a class of 40 co-participants at one of my workshops that the article I wrote sometime last year on ‘Why our transformational change efforts may fail”, must have reached the attention of President Buhari and his advisers, as he saw elements of the Balanced Score Card which I had proposed in the article reflected in the “thematic areas” upon which the President hinged his 2016 budget. Finally, I spoke to my mother who lives in the United States and she said she enjoys reading a particular on-line newspaper from Nigeria because of their elaborate coverage of the corruption trials and how sharing that information in a very powerful way could be a veritable tool for transformation.
So, why are these three separate incidents important: Well, the first reminded me again of how easy it is for some leaders, however good their intentions are to focus all their energy on “doing” and almost ignore completely the important part of communicating and carrying people along. Typically, such results-oriented leaders are people and sometimes camera-shy, and think that the most important thing is to do the work. They fail to appreciate like Professor Emeritus at Harvard, John Kotter has found, that: under-communicating the vision is one of the easiest ways to ensure that your transformational change efforts fail. My friend’s kind words regarding my previous article flattered me – in reality I doubt if the President and his men read my article, I reckon that they are seasoned technocrats who belong to the same strategy-alignment school of thought as my friend and I do, but even the smartest people in the world need reminders from time to time. Finally, Mrs Barrow (she has always been a source of great insights for me): her comments about the corruption trials are exactly what I will like to build this article upon and will set the tone for my my suggestions to President Buhari and his men.
So, if I were the President, what will I do differently to stop under-communicating the anti-corruption vision? Firstly, I will recognize the truth behind John Kotter’s 8 Step change model and move beyond just the actions. I know the old saying that actions speak louder than words, and there is a temptation to just focus on the action and hope that they would be enough. Unfortunately, they aren’t – you see, when leaders fail to communicate the vision in as many powerful and compelling ways as possible, the change they wish to achieve cannot take root in the hearts and minds of the people, and cannot be instituted in culture. When managing a big project like Nigeria or any other project that is undergoing significant transformational change, a lot of effort has to be made in carrying the people along through deliberate and well-intentioned communication aimed at institutionalizing the change in the culture.
If I were the President, to create that culture of anti-corruption, I will ask NTA and Multi Choice (examples of the two largest TV networks in Nigeria) to give me a dedicated TV channel each. We will call it Anti-Corruption TV and each day we will show the trials of all the people currently being prosecuted (live or recorded). In between the airings of these trials there will be a lot of vox-pops (sampling the opinion of the common man and woman on the streets and in offices) on the issues raised in the trials and on corruption generally in Nigeria. To further put “fire” in the hearts of Nigerians, during the intermissions between the trials and vox-pops, we will show the horrific costs and consequences of corruption – dilapidated roads and dangerous road accidents; hospitals that are a mere shadow of themselves, and gory pictures and statistics regarding avoidable deaths in Nigeria; pensioners who have died on long queues and other examples of the painful hardships that Nigerians have had to endure because of corruption. The channels will also air lots of public enlightenment campaign adverts, comic strips and short dramas that take the message of corruption to the grass-roots. Finally, I will engage mystery-shoppers for a “Candid-Camera” show where we will actually tape unsuspecting civil servants and members of the public in various acts of indiscipline (giving and accepting bribes, beating traffic lights and throwing paper from ATMs on the ground rather than into the baskets the banks have provided). You see I grew up in Festac Town in Lagos in the 1980s when a new layout there was nick-named “Cocaine Avenue”. I remember that there was a lot of talk about how we have a cocaine trafficking problem, but it seemed that no one was actually involved in the illicit trade – since everyone openly condemned it. Today, we have a corruption problem that everyone agrees is bad, and it seems like every Church-going and Mosque-going Nigerian is not corrupt or it is only those “big men’ that are corrupt. The Candid Camera show will bring some reality to this cancer that is destroying our society and show how even we the “common men and women” are adding immeasurably to this rot.
Overall, the idea is simple – we need to err on the side of over-communicating if we want this change to take root in the hearts and minds of Nigerians and become a real culture issue. Actions alone won’t be enough, lest we take a chance that this anti-corruption crusade may only get rid of one set of miscreants today and create many more in the future.
Omagbitse Barrow FCA
