Educate the kids. Turn on the electricity.
A strategy for South Africa’s future is as simple as that. Allow me to explain why. I’ve been doing a lot of work recently on the concept of strategy, in both business and military history and have come to a couple of conclusions.
First, I must acknowledge two guides: GIBS’ Dean, Professor Nick Binedell – you would probably have heard of him as he’s one of the foremost voices in South Africa on both topics. Then someone you may not have come across, called Stephen Bungay, author of a critically important work called The Art of Action. Bungay draws primarily from the annals of military history and then applies his findings to business.
Between them, they’ve shown me that a good strategy sets a clear and measurable target and that having announced it, great leaders make sure their generals and colonels and captains cascade it downwards and get out of the way. Feedback is required back up the chain and plans are adapted again and again as they unfold, usually by the people on the ground who are carrying out the tasks.
Bungay it is who explains the work of two 19th Century German generals – von Clausewitz and von Moltke. The former introduced the concept of ‘Friktion’ – literally, friction, which is what happens when anyone tries to implement a plan at any level. We run into other people, other companies, other interpretations of what we want to achieve and then our actions have outcomes that are different from what we anticipated.
Friction is why almost every corporate strategic plan ever developed is problematic, at best, or simply a failure. Or, as Mike Tyson so famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth!” It’s also why every Five Year Plan cooked up by the various Soviet and Communist regimes all failed – people are people, and not robots. People produce friction.
It was von Moltke, however, who realised that the way around friction is to empower officers in the field (in his case) to make decisions on the spot, during a battle. They would need to have an intense awareness of the situation around them, but particularly during a battle, when people are shooting at you, you don’t have time to phone back to headquarters and ask for instructions and refer back to The Great Plan. Make your decision on the spot, all the while remembering the broader strategic goal.
Von Moltke used this to great effect during the Franco-German war of 1870-71 and then made it a core principle of the German army. Bungay argues that this is why Field Marshal Rommel was so effective in the Western Desert during World War II. Both Rommel and his commanders knew the overall strategy backwards and framed independent decisions accordingly, often a long way from base.
So what has this got to do with South Africa?
First off, hands up anyone who has actually read the National Development Plan?
Hmmm, I thought so – very few of you indeed. Those that have read it, please quote it back to me? What’s that? You can’t remember half of it, can you?
Which is von Moltke’s exact point: a plan is only of any use if you can remember exactly what it is when you’re under fire from the enemy and can use it to make your decisions.
In other words, as a nation, South Africa needs something very simple which we can rally around, and which we can use to make decisions. Hence my suggestion of the two “E’s” – Education and Electricity.
For most of the second half of this year, I’ve been working with a wide range of companies in a number of sectors and these two themes have emerged again and again. Perhaps most important is electricity. We simply cannot expand our economy, grow GDP, create new businesses and with those, new jobs, without additional electricity.
But almost as important, this kind of economic expansion will need workers with much higher skills than we have at the moment. Hence the cry for education.
Set this as strategy and suddenly certain decisions would become clear. For example, if we’re prioritising electricity, NUMSA would not have been allowed to disrupt the building of Medupi and Kusile. Sorry, boys – it’s a matter of national strategic importance: if you work here, no strikes. Tax policy might be formulated to incentivise private feeder programmes into the national grid. Or companies could be encouraged to cut usage. Preferential contracts for aluminium smelters might be reconsidered. There are dozens of variations on this theme.
If we were prioritising education, it would be equally simple. Again, sorry SADTU – you’re in a national priority sector, so no strikes. Tax breaks for companies that take on apprentices or accept interns or similar. Ordinary citizens with education to be encouraged to teach at night school and pass on their skills.
Two beacons and only these two beacons against which all other things would be measured. Then there would be no need for micro-managing because the strategy is clear. The President asks each member of the Cabinet: what are you doing about Education and about Electricity? The Cabinet Ministers ask their DGs, and so on. Company CEOs all know the score – only two words are sung – Education and Electricity.
Stop at a petrol pump. Go into a shop. Drop by a school or a university. Wherever you go, you ask the question: what are you doing about either Education or Electricity or both?
The answers would never be the same, nor would you want them to be. But when all read together, we would have a nation with a remarkably solid foundation on which to build a future and a shared understanding of where that future came from.
That’s what really good strategy can achieve.
Now, say after me: Educate the kids. Turn on the electricity.