TILDA MMEGWA, a Thought leader on Performance Intelligence, in this interview highlights the contributions of Performance Intelligence value chain in building efficient organisations and the efforts of the initiative to help embed the performance intelligence value chain within the public and private sector organisations. EXCERPT
What are the objectives of International Performance Intelligence conference and how do you hope to achieve such objectives?
The International Performance Intelligence conference was launched to: support the private and public sector organisations in their journey to fully embracing the Performance Intelligence Value Chain articulated in Q1 above; expose and equip organisations with the most current tools, strategies and methods within the PI Value Chain; provide the Common platform for Policy makers and executors to meet and share ideas on how best to boost performance; train the public and private sector workforce on Performance Intelligence Value Chain and how to use the associated tools, strategies and methods to increase productivity; bring to the fore and discuss case studies from around the world that demonstrate how various comparable organizations and nations have metamorphosed from non-performing to high performing by meticulously embracing the PI Value Chain; help position private and public sector organizations to boost productivity and become consistently top performing.
What have been the successes and challenges of the Performance Intelligence (PI) initiative so far?
The PI initiative was launched in Nigeria in 2013. The first Performance Intelligence conference, held on May 20th, 2014 in Eko hotel, Lagos, recorded great testimonials. Delegates were quoted to have said “The Performance Intelligence Conference should be held in Nigeria annually!”
In success terms, many private and public organizations that attended the conference and those we have engaged with outside the conference have increasingly embraced the gospel of the Performance Intelligence (Pi) Value Chain and the associated tools, strategies and methods. Lagos State Government, for instance, was the host state of the first conference and has since then embarked on implementing various segments of the Pi Value Chain and the associated tools, strategies and methods including hosting an in-plant Performance Intelligence Conference, which was held on December 14th, 2015. These steps would position Lagos State in achieving its vision of becoming the megacity.
In terms of challenges, in every change, there will be the first adapters, the laggards and the ones in-between. Some organisations we have engaged with are still waiting on the fence. This means that increased efforts are required to bring them on-board. Greater concern, however, is that there are a lot of untapped potentials within these organisations and accessing those potentials will boost both the organizational and national performance. We need ‘all hands on deck’ in ensuring that the entire public and private sectors in Nigeria meticulously embrace the PI Value Chain in its entirety.
Education is important in producing better performance in both the private and public sectors, how is International Performance Intelligence Initiative contributing in this regard?
The focus for educational institutions should be in understanding the competencies students need to be equipped with in order to get jobs and perform well in the marketplace.
One of the sub-themes to be discussed at the upcoming 2016 Performance Intelligence conference, on Feb 23-24 in Hilton Hotel Abuja, is: “Tomorrow’s workforce: Ensuring Proper alignment between education and the marketplace.”
We believe that the underlying content of this topic will help educational institutions re-define, enrich and expand their programmes to ensure that students in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions do not JUST go to school to learn Technical/Functional competencies but that they are also equipped with marketplace-focused Enabling competencies and Entrepreneurial skills that would help them get jobs (either as employees or entrepreneurs) and perform well in the marketplace.
This alignment between education and the marketplace will help enrich educational programmes, reduce capital flight associated with citizens fleeing overseas in search of better education, proactively prepare students for the workplace, reduce graduates unemployment, boost productivity of individuals and organization’s/nation’s overall performance.
While educational institutions can boast of Technical/Functional competencies, there is GAP in embedding appropriate marketplace-focused Enabling competencies. This GAP is what the International Performance Intelligence Initiative comes to fill using appropriate tools, strategies and methods designed for educational institutions.
Could you assess the Performance Intelligence level of public and private sectors in Nigeria over time and why do you think the nation has performed that way in both sectors?
Assessing the Performance Intelligence level in any sector, public or private, focuses on understanding the entire Performance Intelligence (PI) value chain, which begins with evaluating the underlying root factors that drive policies, strategies and continues with the execution phase: defining expected outcomes, understanding the link between expected outcomes, those root factors and how those expected outcomes should be clearly communicated to policy and strategy executors.
Ensuring alignment of capabilities of an executor and the expected outcome assigned to him/her, refining the underlying performance culture within which the executors implement policies, ensuring that objective performance measurement and resource allocation tools are in place, by which executors appraise their performance vis-à-vis the expected outcome, enforcing the willingness of the executors to objectively hold themselves accountable for results and establishing the manner by which the Supervisors reward performance and sanction non-performance.
Any organisation or nation that meticulously follows the PI Value Chain from beginning to the end ultimately excels in high productivity. The difference between a top performing nation and a non-performing nation lies in the manner in which the PI-Value-Chain is either respected or abused.
In Nigeria, the private sector organisations seem to have better understanding of PI value chain and have increasingly been thriving to respect it though some are yet to fully embrace it as there are still some elements of subjectivity in performance management and they have not fully embedded the tools, strategies and methods within the PI value chain hence resulting in such issues as: Untapped organisational potential, alarming cases of recruitment errors, Job Alignment Errors, Poor Reward and Sanction system etc. Also, some private sector organizations sometimes ‘lose their guard’ and so sleep into poor performance. This is the case with many private sector organisational failures. Other times, the tools, strategies and methods used within the PI Value Chain become obsolete as they are not adequately updated to align with the demands of the very dynamic operating environment. It is critical that even the organisations that are performing well consistently conduct health check and update their tools, strategies and methods to avoid the risk of obsolescence and the associated organizational failure.
For the public sector, more mileage has been achieved in policy making and less recorded in execution due to such factors as political influences and political unwillingness that lead to negligence of critical components of the PI Value-Chain. Increased effort needs to be made within the public sector to first fully embrace the PI Value Chain and then consistently conduct health check and update their tools, strategies and methods to avoid the risk of Obsolescence and the associated institutional failure. This decision to fully embrace the PI Value Chain was made by the Dubai government in 1997. And the meticulous implementation of the PI Value Chain led to the Dubai public sector out-performing its private sector. The Dubai success story offers lots of lessons to all nations including Nigeria.
There is tendency that participants who attend conference of this nature are faced with issues of execution in the long run, how do we avoid this going forward?
The Performance Intelligence initiative goes beyond mere conference. It provides a comprehensive action plans that involves some pre-conference activities, extensive impartation of knowledge during conference/training and post-conference initiatives that provide the support required for delegates to transfer knowledge from training room to workplace with appropriate objective impact measurements and evaluation. The PI initiative, therefore, does not just train but it also provides the post-training support required to achieve high on-the-job performance impact.
Concerned stakeholders are expected at this years’ conference, what are other major highpoints participants should expect at the conference?
The 2016 Performance Intelligence conference comes up on Feb 23-24.
With the theme: “Performance Intelligence: The Route To Building Institutional Greatness” the conference will expose and discuss world class strategies and hands-on implementation tools and performance measurement methods that would help drive excellent performance in public and private sectors of the economy. This conference promises to give delegates an amazing experience. Some major highlights include: Well thought out sub-themes that address the key needs in the economy; Equip delegates with toolkit to boost performance; Opportunity to have one-on-one time with our highly experienced performance intelligence practitioners; Business-impacting networking opportunities; Extensive pre-conference activities including demos on some performance intelligence tools; Provide great business opportunities for management consulting firms to expand their knowledge refocus their offerings for better results and enlarge their prospects list.
