KENNEDY BUHERE
Africa-Press – Kenya. Recently, Kikuyu MP and National Assembly Majority leader Kimani Ichung’wah stated that Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok rarely leaves Nairobi to visit the countryside.
Ichung’wah argued that the PS hardly visited schools to better understand the problems they face.
The remarks brought to mind an incident in which President Jomo Kenyatta reportedly gave marching orders to a minister in his Cabinet who happened to attend a baraza relating to a different ministry from his own.
Kenyatta reportedly asked the minister, “Who is doing your work in your office in Nairobi now that you are here? This function doesn’t belong to your ministry. Go back to Nairobi!”
An instructor shared this story during a leadership training session at the Kenya School of Government in 2012.
This story is probably apocryphal. It, however, illustrates an important point: that leadership, thinking and visioning are primarily developed at the headquarters of organisations or institutions and not in the field.
It is at the headquarters that strategy is developed to address emerging issues, problems, challenges and crises—an environment similar to what the military calls a war room. A war room is where weighty matters are discussed before a final decision is made. The field is where those decisions are implemented.
The civil service has experienced civil servants who implement the strategy—the thinking and visioning—aimed, in the context of education, at improving access, equity and the quality of education that children receive at the school level.
Civil servants collect information from heads of schools regarding everything that impedes access, equity and the quality of education. The officers provide critical briefs that reach the desk of the Principal Secretary and ultimately the Cabinet Secretary for deliberation.
Suffice it to say that although field visits are important, what happens at headquarters—in terms of the seriousness with which information from the field is handled—is equally critical to managing education across the country.
Strategy meetings involving all the heads of technical staff and support staff on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis are essential. Technical staff are in continuous communication with field staff. The information they prepare ahead of strategic meetings is invaluable. This is a treasure trove of information that can, without equivocation, address the setbacks the country faces in ensuring that all children, regardless of their social condition, receive equal educational opportunities.
If the volume of information headquarters receives from the field is handled perfunctorily, the teething problems schools face will also be handled perfunctorily. Headquarters needs to invest time, energy and serious thought into these reports. An honest and bold look at the issues in the war room or boardrooms is what ultimately addresses the problems that the media publishes.
A field visit in the absence of serious handling of reports from the field amounts to little more than hot air. It is a waste of resources.
Nonetheless, it is critical that leaders of organisations leave their offices and visit the field. Such visits should be planned so that staff in the field expect a visit from the Cabinet secretary or principal secretary at systematic, pre-approved or scheduled times. I find this kind of field engagement more cost-effective than sporadic or unplanned visitations. It provides the leadership from Nairobi with the opportunity to address issues more comprehensively and thoroughly than spontaneous visits.
However, unplanned meetings are also valuable in themselves. Tom Peters, a management consultant, calls unplanned visits Management by Wandering Around (MBWA).
Peters says MBWA is “more or less a metaphor… for being in touch… for not losing touch with your employees, your vendors, your customers or what have you.”
It is probably in this context that Ichung’wah spoke. He likely meant that by getting out of Nairobi, Prof Bitok would better grasp what is impeding learners’ access, equity and the quality of education.
The visitations are important. They enable leaders to appreciate the constraints facing the delivery of educational services. Leaders can also see for themselves the progress of learner attainment of the knowledge and skills prescribed in the curriculum.
This happens in other educational systems. In the USA, for example, it is not unusual for the President to visit a school and inspect learning. When President George W Bush received news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, he was visiting Emma E Brooker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, to take part in a reading demonstration.
Education Secretary William Bennett carried out countrywide tours throughout his tenure as President Ronald Reagan’s Education Secretary, indicating that he and the Department of Education would continue keeping public attention focused on education and schools. Bennett went to the core of education: content and character—the elements in the curriculum that shape the minds, hearts and souls of a nation’s children.
While visiting the field is important, it has drawbacks. My long experience and observations in the civil service have convinced me that too much “wandering around” is counterproductive. The work of a manager or leader is primarily office-based. When you have many high-level tasks on your desk, wandering in the countryside is a waste.
Canadian management theorist Henry Mintzberg argues that managers have multifaceted roles. They are 10 in number, broadly grouped under interpersonal, informational and decisional roles.
Many critical roles of a manager or leader suffer when managers stay away from the office for too long under the MBWA approach. While countryside visitations are important, they deny the manager the time needed to gather intelligence that can potentially affect their Ministry, Department or Agency. A manager best gathers intelligence from internal and external sources, seeking to identify problems and opportunities for service improvement at delivery points.
It is this information that provides contextual understanding for what he sees on the ground whenever he decides to go there.
There are strategic stakeholders who need to consult or confer with the Cabinet Secretary or the Principal Secretary. Heads of Department must also routinely consult the boss before they deal with a matter, before they take it to his desk, meeting or action. Consultations of this nature are impossible when the boss is “wandering around” in the countryside.
The work of strategic impact on the institution suffers.
When a leader is constantly in the field, staff may begin to feel micromanaged. They may conclude that the leader does not trust them.
Even when you visit, do not repeatedly go to the same places. Visit places that need you most, where severe issues and problems exist. It is said that Napoleon Bonaparte visited battlefronts that were more vulnerable to enemy fire, not those already firmly under control, in order to inspire troops.
During field visits, you see only a small part of a much larger situation that remains hidden. A manager or leader, therefore, risks making hasty decisions based on limited observation. Such decisions, when applied across the board, can do more harm than good to the entire MDA.
Decisions with wider implications must be carefully deliberated. Leaders must return to the war room—to Nairobi, to headquarters—to consult all relevant stakeholders before making a final decision.
Former President Mwai Kibaki advised against roadside declarations of policy. Unstructured field visits often lead to hasty decisions.
Source: The Star
