USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: BEYOND THE 2014 NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY AWARDS

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From: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 16:16:25
To: <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>
Subject: BEYOND THE 2014 NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY AWARDS

BEYOND THE 2014 NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY AWARDS

Ayo Olukotun

Two recent events, one national the other global have re-launched the dwindling national conversation on how best the country can move from our current drooling work habits to enhanced productivity. The first event is last week's National Productivity Day Celebration and Conferment of National Productivity Awards in Abuja; while the second is the publication of a global ranking by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) based on the productivity of their employees.
One may not like global rankings if only because they tend to freeze the current pecking order of haves and have-nots while reinforcing the harshly competitive mindset of neo-liberal capitalism in which the fittest survive and the laggards are sentenced to obscurity. But like them or not, league tables are taken seriously by decision makers and institutions globally while the data from them inform planning. Obviously therefore they are worth discussing. This latest table disclose that Germany harbours the world's most productive employees hence giving that country more reasons to celebrate outside its world cup soccer pre-eminence. Next to Germany is France, somewhat surprisingly in view of its well known leisure habits and then the United States, reputed for long working hours.
One of the key insights from the table is that productivity is not necessarily a function of long working hours even though they share boundaries; the old refrain about being busy doing nothing warns us that a healthy work-life balance is more effective than many hours of unrelieved labour. As creative writers and inventors have long taught us recreation interspersed with long hours of work can be immensely valuable in yielding inspiring initiatives or in reopening channels of blocked creativity.
Predictably, Nigeria and much of Africa remain at the back waters of productivity league tables. And this brings us to the recent Productivity Awards organised by the National Productivity Centre. It is a good thing for what it is worth for the centre to have kept up the awards which began in the 1990s. It is more important however that the annual event does not become a hollow ritual or be captured by the national penchant for awards, decorations and diadems for the high and mighty. This year's awards were made to National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Kano state Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Kastina Primary Healthcare Development Agency and the Minister of Aviation Osita Chidioka. Although the Centre insists that a 'rigorous process' preceded the selection of awardees, it may be helpful as a value setting procedure to make clear the criteria undergirding the choices. This will be more in line with President
Goodluck Jonathan's admonition at the occasion that "we must develop a high productivity mindset with a view to developing an institutionalisation of a culture that accelerates growth in all sectors of our economy."
Obviously, it takes more than productivity awards to get Nigerians, long used to a culture of easy money for little work, to embrace the productivity mindset mentioned by Jonathan. Our slouching work ethics manifest in too many holidays, a subculture of idle gossip engulfing hours of work, protracted strikes preceded by long warning strikes and a lack of punctuality to meetings. To be sure, some of these are related to infrastructural hitches such as the slightly improved but still inadequate power supply and to long hours spent in traffic in some of our cities. Nonetheless however, we can do much more as a people to embrace a new productivity ethic more so in the light of our aspiration to become a player on the world stage. Browse through the biographies of great achievers and you will invariably find that outstanding diligence is a propeller of stardom. Take for example, Mariser Mayer, Chief Executive of Yahoo, who famously works almost 130 hours
a week, which means that she gets only a few hours of sleep per day. She refreshes and rejuvenates avoiding burnout however by taking week long vacations every four months. Most readers are of course familiar with America's legendary and iconic popular culture personality, Oprah Winfrey, who was Forbes magazine's, "most powerful celebrity of 2013". What may be less well known about her is the crazy long hours of work which underwrote her rise from lowly beginnings to one of the world's most famous and productive women.
When we talk about productivity, hard to measure though it is, we are reminded about rates of goal accomplishment, the quality of effort and the cost incurred in reaching goals. Educational institutions which graduate students every 3 years instead of annually cannot be said to be productive whatever the underlying causes of their truncated calendar. Similarly, parastatals that undertake projects of doubtful worth at ten times the actual cost undoubtedly score low on productivity. Pushed to its limits, prodigious productivity is properly speaking about excellence; and excellence does not occur randomly without motivation or in environments that are disabling to achievement.
We gain further insight into making the nation more productive by considering the annual reports of the World Economic Forum on global competitiveness. The handful of countries that have consistently occupied the top 10 positions are those that emphasise innovation, technological readiness and feature public institutions with a high degree of efficiency, trust and transparency. These qualities do not mushroom in the wild but in climes which make them major priorities of public policies. Nigeria, considering its enormous potentials and current high growth rate is viewed with interest despite its political vicissitudes as a magnet of foreign investment and fast paced development. To realise its projected global status, the nation must re-invent its productivity culture.
Two years back for example, the Federal government introduced Performance Contracts through which it intended to hold ministers and other functionaries to minimum standards of productivity. Waxing eloquent at the signing of these contracts, Labaran Maku, Information Minister, described the event as, "historic, since no government leader had held ministers down to quantifiable indices of performance much less follow through with sanctions for non-performance." It will be uncharitable to describe the contract as another abandoned project but a return to an enhanced productivity ethos will obviously include dusting the contracts up with a view to enforcing them; the exigencies of an approaching election notwithstanding.
Workers do not become more productive in an institutional void or outside of qualitative organisational cultures which reward diligence and penalise laziness. We must use every occasion therefore to signal that we are serious about grooming a productivity culture. This will include for example, reframing the basis for conferring national honours on individuals and our national merit system. Consider for example, that one of Africa's most productive and celebrated historians, Professor Toyin Falola is yet to be honoured by his own country and typifies like several other distinguished Nigerians the tale of a prophet without honour in his homeland.
To end on a positive note: we can mention the recent outstanding performance of the Health Minister and his team as well as Lagos state government in bringing the nation back from the precipice of a major Ebola outbreak to one of low key risk status as an example of impressive productivity that should be held up for emulation.

Prof Olukotun is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies at Lead City University, Ibadan. ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236












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