“Day Break Cafe” (read – Rum Shop) some random evening and “Supa” was there belting out his old hits while the patrons mostly ignored him. Fast forward 6 months or so and “de bong-sin” start. Fast forward again and Supa has a remarkable return to rejuvenate the Carnival.

Seeing him on First Up touched some deep emotions in me. Just recently regarded as a “druggy” singing for a hit .. he is now singing a hit and sharing the absolute joy of achievement. Supa’s continued recovery will provide an inspiration to the hundreds of people of all ages who daily struggle to remain sober in our country. Big thanks to his team and family and may the force be with you on this sweet/bitter journey.

“The 10,000 hour rule” is what Malcolm Gladwell proposes as the key to becoming an expert.  His book “Outliers” is gripping, exciting yet frightening.  It frightens me because of the realization that if I worked 5 hours each day for 5 days each week, it would take me approximately 9 years to become an expert.  Try saying that to any number of “experts” in our society and you’ll be laughed out-of-town. In this population of arm-chair experts, once you have access to an inner circle you can present yourself as an expert, no credentials required.

From Gladwell’s perspective, the process of becoming an expert requires time and significant effort. There is no short-cut along the road to excellence.  There are key questions to be considered. For instance, How to communicate to John and Mira TnT that excellence is our only option?  How can we turn-on our population to the realization that for TnT to be respected or treated as a major player on the world stage, we have to be experts in everything we choose to do?        
The only place to start is with the vision.  That might sound dogmatic and obvious, but if we don’t know where we are going then we are unlikely to have a pathway to get there. Unfortunately our vision changes every time a new political party takes over the governance of the country.  Successive governments with few exceptions, find it necessary to throw out whatever was done before and start something new even if it is simply to take the old idea and re-brand it to something that appears new.  Someone commented recently that in other countries, politics is viewed like running a relay where you “pass the baton but in Trinidad [and Tobago], you start over the race”.  In re-starting the race there is continuous upheaval and often unnecessary change.  The ultimate result is a colossal waste of money which can be used to improve health care and education.     
By way of example, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company was established in 2006 with the mandate to develop the film industry.  For the past 6 years, they have been doing their jobs and attaining significant success.  If we judge by the increasing demand to view local films at the annual Film Festival, the increasing number of on -location requests to shoot films in this country and indeed the recent success of Lisa Wickham’s documentary “Forward Home”, then something is working here.  
If this was a private sector initiative, the Board of Directors would be in continued huddle to seek a sustainable way forward.  They would be asking critical questions like: “What has worked for us?” “What can we replicate?”  “Is there a “Best Practice” emerging here?”
In their 6 years of existence the Film Company has put in 10,000 hours and more, so Gladwell may have been inclined to call them experts in their area.  Dismantling such a successful company may not be a good idea.  A private sector approach suggests that you strengthen their capacity and increase their resources.  Any other approach would mean starting over.  Imagine having to start over to build your 10,000 hours.           
There is an underlying issue here that goes beyond the mere dismantling of one company. It’s the need to delink the development of the country from the politics of the day.  Projects and initiatives with the potential to serve the common good must not be held ransom or to the whim and fancy of politicians.  They must be allowed to flourish even if they were spawned from opposition politics.  The country’s development must not be stymied simply because there is a different political party in power.  That level of short sightedness is rather unfortunate.
After 50 years of independence, the time has come for us to establish a mechanism through which the views of citizens can be meaningfully canvassed and used to inform decision-making in critical areas.  In a population of 1.3 million, the pool of talent runs dry very quickly.         
On the individual level, the time has come for us to engage in meaningful debate about political philosophy and a range of other concepts which impact our lives.  There is a recognition that the world has moved far along from the edict that we never discuss politics and religion.  Indeed, it is such discussions that foster understanding  promote change and soften positions.            
Great communicators know that one way to understand the enemy is through communication.   

By Dennise Demming – Public Relations and Training Consultant 

Walk along any street and consider that each business establishment represents an untold story of someone’s dreams and aspirations. The statistics suggest that for each business that is standing, there are 9 that have failed … closed their doors … gone bust. That failed business is a representation of the smashing of another person’s dreams and aspirations. Businesses which survive, do so because of someone’s courage and passion to persevere despite the odds. For a limited number of persons in our society, entrepreneurship is the most natural thing to do because they grew up with business being discussed around the kitchen table. If it was not about the impact of the weather on crops, it was the impact of strike on the port or the impact of the walk out by customs officers.

Some entrepreneurs grew up to the hum of business and while no one was saying you have to become an entrepreneur, the spirit of entrepreneurship was so pervasive that they made an automatic choice at the appropriate stage of their lives. Their mindset was conditioned daily to think of business and to seek solutions to business problems. Conversely, they were trained to see business as a solution to problems. There is the story of a business being spawned because of a mother’s need to import suitable foods for her lactose intolerant child.

Additionally, this small grouping also has access to easy funding simply because of who they are and the resources that are available to them.

But what happens to the other hundreds of persons who choose the role of entrepreneurship? It is a long, treacherous pot hole filled road which requires careful navigation.  

There are 3 huge “pot holes” to be navigated: Self Doubt, Cash Flow and Bureaucracy.

The first pot hole is called “self doubt” which is reenforced by everything some people have been exposed to or learned. It begins in school where young people are encouraged to absorb and regurgitate so that, by the time they leave school, they are still asking what to do and when to do it. The thought of taking the initiative and making decisions is just not second nature. This mind set is even more paralysing because of the risk the entrepreneur is about to take by striking out on her own. And as if personal self doubt is not enough, the business person then has to cope with employees who want continuous direction in order to get anything done. There is no easy resolution to this problem because this attitude of “self-doubt” exists at all levels from top business executives, government officials all the way through to the bottom rung of the organization. This need for direction will take a long time to be changed.

The second pot-hole is “money”. Your first approach to the bank is likely to result in anxiety because of what is required just to open a business account. If you have cash, then it’s easy but if you need funding then the business opportunity can easily pass you by before the bank approves the overdraft or grants the loan. As a result of this level of bureaucracy and red tape, small businesses typically obtain their funding for start-up and early stage growth from a combination of the founder’s savings, credit cards and investments by family and friends. In several cases, the entrepreneur and or directors will even cook up a story to take a personal loan. These factors make for tremendous insecurity. Despite the hype and high profile media coverage, very few small firms secure venture capital funding. Banks, by the very nature of their business, are resistant to the high-risk loans which many small businesses represent. Additionally, potential entrepreneurs often lack the business savvy to be able to articulate what they need using business jargon. They are also often inexperienced in presenting a well-thought out long-range alternative plan to cover emergencies and other contingencies. All of these factors lead to the slow response by the financial sector to small businesses. There is really no easy solution to the pot hole of “money”.

A third pot hole is the one called “bureaucracy”. With a low threshold of $250,000.00, the small business is required to function like any multi million dollar business. The business must become VAT registered, pay National Insurance, PAYE, Green Fund and Business Levy. This just adds layers of institution and bureaucracy requiring an accounts department if only to keep on top of the forms. Ironically, this figure is less than what some top CEOs earn so there is a need to reconsider and really ask the question: “to what extent is this a barrier to entry into the small business sector”?

A fourth pot hole and one which might be unique to Trinidad and Tobago is the continued and unrelenting rise in “crime”. Nearly every business has been affected by crimes such as housebreaking, larceny, violent crime, road rage and white-and blue-collar crime within businesses. To my mind petty crimes upon the business include using the stationery for non business related purposes; staying in the office until late to prepare for an examination and using the resources of the business for any non related activity. Oh no! You may cry, that’s not a crime, but it is!

Incidents of crime impact the psyche of the organization and all employees. If we are to achieve the goal of a highly productive society then, we must be able to maintain a crime free environment.

Everyone thrives in an environment where people trust the system, where people genuinely live the notion of an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. Despite the size of the business, it a remarkable kind of person called the entrepreneur who has kept her doors open despite the odds. Small businesses far outnumber big business. The time has come for more emphasis to be placed on the needs of the small business because ultimately, the small business is in a better position to respond to the fast paced changes in our communities.

 

Is your approach to measuring sustainability the same as your approach to measuring your return on investment? This is a question that should keep business leaders awake ALL night. The answer is rooted in the longer term view of the business. Are your health, safety, security and environmental management requirements clearly articulated? Do your people at all levels connect the dots between the activities they are engaged in on a daily basis and the ability of their great, great grand children to survive on this island? Are the business’ decisions being made with the longer term view in mind or are we driven by the next bonus, incentive initiative or opportunity for mobility?

At its core the challenge of establishing an organization’s HSSE excellence agenda as a path-way to sustainability is walking a tight-rope which balances short-term and long-term requirements. This challenge is made even more intense because the culture which surrounds the organization is characterized by lawlessness, short-termism and perfecting the art of the “work around”.

Caribbean societies and those defined as developing countries were organized to focus on the immediate exploitation of natural resources. Our societies were never organized with a longer term vision in mind. Unfortunately in the 50 odd years that we have taken charge of our development, little action has been taken to change this method of operation so we continue to operate in a manner that is not sustainable.

Global organizations have historically acted in their own interest and taken the minimalist approach to issues of sustainability. In the past 10-15 years, the compass has been shifting towards a more meaningful approach to sustainability and the global alignment of operating practices. There is now heightened demand for balancing economic outcomes with sustainable practices. In the Harvard Business School working paper “The Impact of a Corporate Culture of Sustainability on Corporate Behaviour and Performance” by Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou, and George Serafeim, the authors provide evidence that: “High Sustainability companies significantly outperform their counterparts over the long-term, both in terms of stock market and accounting performance. The outperformance is stronger in sectors where the customers are individual consumers, companies compete on the basis of brands and reputation, and in sectors where companies’ products significantly depend upon extracting large amounts of natural resources”.

If we escalate this notion and look at national indicators, there is an exciting growing movement promoting the need to change the big national indicator from (Gross Domestic Product) GDP to (Gross National Happiness) GDH. This movement was given a significant boost when the former French President in 2008 established a Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. The headline from that report quotes President Sarkozy, as saying that GDP ignored other factors vital to the well-being. He urged business leaders “to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being”.

A similar movement has been exploding in the small land locked country of Bhutan located between India and China, where they King has challenged the notion that the more we produce the happier we will be and is using GDH to determine the success of his country.

Household incomes in Bhutan remain among the world’s lowest however life expectancy increased by 19 years from 1984 to 1998, jumping to 66 years. The country which requires that at least 60 percent of its lands remain forested, welcomes a limited stream of wealthy tourists and exports hydropower to India.

“We have to think of human well-being in broader terms,” said Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley, Bhutan’s home minister and ex-prime minister. “Material well-being is only one component. That doesn’t ensure that you’re at peace with your environment and in harmony with each other.”

Herein lies a whole different notion of how to define sustainability and what are the key indicators. When workers connect the dots between their daily contribution, the firms profitability and their family’s long-term happiness, their productivity is guaranteed to rise to unprecedented heights.

The current mode of mass consumption is simply driving consumers to want more and more. Why should one country use enough resources to power a ski slope in a desert while another country struggles with greater than 60% unemployment figures?

A recent sound bite on television showed a former executive from the motor car industry questioning the evidence about global warming. A visit to another executive’s home showed a fully air-conditioned house. With the launch of every new mobile device, you need a different charger, shell, etc. Business leaders have to re-design the consumption model and cater for cradle to cradle design and innovation. The world cannot continue to feed the consumption habit. At some point citizens will rail against the fact of 25% of global resources is being consumed by 5% of the population.

The major challenge is how to balance economic development with the emotional and spiritual well-being of people. That’s the real challenge of HSSE excellence as a path-way to sustainability.

Every time I hear the response “no problem” I worry. We have become known as a society where life is free and easy. Couple this “no problem” attitude with the notion that Trinidad & Tobago is a place where there is little planning, a short memory and lack of continuity and you spell disaster. Someone recently described our electoral process as an opportunity to start over the race rather than hand over the baton. I could not provide a counter argument when I reflected on the number of things we have started over without even a consideration for the human, economic or social cost. From 2009 to date, 3 different men have occupied the post of Commissioner of Police of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and with each of them a new approach to our biggest scourge.

In just over 3 months we changed an entire traffic system without putting it to its severest test, the opening of the school term. In a way, we don’t even know what were the lessons learned. We can’t really say what was successful or not successful about the plan. The entire system was just tossed out the window.

There’s a common thread between these two examples and that is the absence of citizen participation in important decisions. The days of autocratic decision making are over. It seems that as the level of complexity increases, there is a greater need for citizen engagement to solve our problems.

What would have happened if focus groups were held to hammer out solutions for the St. James traffic problem. Maybe we would have found out that we needed to put in pedestrian crossings at specific intervals or that the taxi route needed to cater for business clusters or that “reduce speed zones” should have been implemented. While it would be legitimate to make the accusation that all of this is the clarity of hindsight my point is that we continue to disregard the views of our citizens. Communication is not at the centre of our strategies. It is absent from the implementation plans.

When communication is included it is seen as a one way activity in which advertisements are placed in the media, mailers delivered in post boxes and pronouncements made by dignitaries. That is not communication, that is just an opportunity for some inept people to make quick money.

Communication requires and includes significant feedback from the target audience or the persons who will be impacted by your decision making. Today’s world of instant communication requires the deployment of a range of strategies to elicit feedback. People want to understand what is being done and how it will affect them. If we communicate our intentions openly more people will have an opportunity to respond and put their points of view up for consideration. Just as politicians go door to door to seek support at election time there are issues for which they must go house to house to canvass opinions.

This abandoned traffic plan has left a sour taste for everyone and the lessons need to be considered.

Some of the things I have learned are that leaders must understand their authority. If it was clearly understood that the change required legislative authority then, the timing should have spanned a period for the plan to be tested both during the vacation and when school is in session so that sufficient data would have been gathered.

Leaders must remember that the power of the people is paramount. Who were the opinion formers in this exercise and how could they have been engaged? Clearly some key opinion formers were not included and their views were strong enough to shut down the experiment.

Leaders must remember that in the world of social innovation, money is the currency with least value. While the officials had enough budget to replace signs, repaint roads and install traffic lights, the people on the ground had the power to halt the experiment. Social currency is the most valuable currency when it comes to social change.

What saddens me is that after 3 months of the population trying to learn a new system, listening to arguments for and against and significant investment, we don’t know what would have worked or what would not have worked.

Turning to the crime pandemic, it is clear that this problem will not be solved by increasing the spend. It is worrisome that the media reported that there was a spontaneous protest as a result of the alleged slaying of a young man by the police. Is this a variation of the “Dudus Coke” scenario which played out in Jamaica where the community was prepared to shelter a gangster?

It is a well substantiated theory that successful police work can only be accomplished by community involvement. Police rely on communities to get information. If the trust indicators for police continue to decline then the bandits will continue to win. The “Laventille” branded communities will not simply disappear nor will the gun toting bandits. There must be a plan for engaging the communities which host them. People must be engaged and encouraged to take back their communities. It is a false sense of security to feel that you can lock out the bandits behind burglar proofing and gated communities.

Maybe the most important indicator is that our leaders must by their actions communicate that a level playing field exists in the war against crime. There must be no suggestion that the law is being applied according to your proximity to the centre of power.

By Dennise Demming – Public Relations and Training Consultant

Worth a read http://ow.ly/do4Dq
http://jezebel.com/5936160/the-official-guide-to-legitimate-rape?fb_action_ids=10151140486590854&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366

Todd Akin, Republican Senate nominee and member of the House Science, Space and Technology committee, said pregnancy from rape was “really rare” because “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Check this page http://jezebel.com/5936160/the-official-guide-to-legitimate-rape?fb_action_ids=10151140486590854&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366

This is not a line from a lover’s quarrel it is a reflection of the corporate conversations that occur daily. Talented employees often leave organizations because they do not feel valued. They feel that they are being taken for granted and their opinions are not considered. This view is supported by research done by the US based Corporate Leadership Council which reports that 67 percent of employees who intend to leave their organizations feel that they are not valued. Listening or not being heard is one of the key indicators.

When employees feel they are not being valued they vote with their feet. Unfortunately the pattern is repeated in the next organization because corporate communications is generally low on the list of priorities and listening is not a core value.

Some organizations believe that producing a glossy newsletter means that they are communicating effectively. This is such a misguided notion. An analysis of these newsletters often reveals an absence of clear objectives resulting in a publication which reflects the viewpoint of management with little regard for what the employees think or say.

Corporate communications must be at the forefront of the move to ensure a strategic, holistic approach to having meaningful corporate conversations throughout the organization. The cornerstone of effective corporate communications is a system which ensures feedback.

It is no understatement that people feel valued when they believe others are listening. When they perceive that the organization is not listening they experience a significant “disconnect” and leave.

Technology provides us with the opportunity to take a multi disciplinary approach to employee communications.

Maybe the oldest and most abused instrument is the employee survey. Before undertaking a survey you must know what will be done with the results. If the end use is not in the proposal then the survey may be ill advised. Too often organizations conduct employee communications surveys or audits and end at the data gathering stage. This is a recipe to develop cynicism. Employees need to know the results of surveys and subsequently need to be part of the implementation. Well structured surveys can give management excellent insight into the real issues from the perspective of employees and provide the framework for continuing healthy dialogue.

If the survey provides a snapshot of views at a point in time, then ongoing feedback mechanisms provide real time responses to actions taken by management. This means that management can be nimble and responsive based on instant employee feedback.

By definition, management is aware of changes which are on the way long before they are communicated to employees. The announcement is therefore often couched in terms which appear to be cold, uncaring and autocratic. Changing the style of the announcement can work wonders for the receivers of the information.

A common example of a quick feed back system is the use of voice mail. The down side of this is the fact that originating numbers can be traced. This however is not an insurmountable problem.

Another way of obtaining feedback is to encourage written responses. The key is that the organization must act on the reponses or talented people will leave.

Ongoing feedback narrows the gap between what management feels is in the hearts and minds of employees and what is actually in their hearts and minds.

As a final strategy, exit and post exit interviews provide information which would be otherwise lost to the organization. As an additional benefit, this also provides an opportunity to enhance the corporate memory of the organization. When employees leave, they carry with them informal information which can prevent organizations re-inventing the wheel.

To capture the data, the methodology and approach must be consistent. It is not a task to be carried out simply to satisfy a requirement. It might therefore be appropriate to engage a third party from outside of the organization to conduct these interviews.

Linking these tactics to the overall communications strategy means taking action and where this is impossible providing employees with suitable explanations. If this sounds like a lot of work, then rightly so because improving corporate communications has the potential to retain talented employees and positively impact the bottom line.

Organizations intent on maintaining their competitive advantage must ensure that listening becomes a core value.

One caveat, listening without action is merely passing time, listening with action is ensuring organizational survival. Nobody actually says “Listen or I’ll leave” they just leave and that’s expensive.

By Dennise Demming – Public Relations and Training Consultant