Very poignant analysis and I would even go further to say that this attitude affects even the private sector companies. I have some Gambian colleagues who have started businesses in the Gambia and have expressed frustrations with their employees' attitude toward work, and many have privately told me that they would rather hire non-Gambians living in the country such as Senegalese, Sierra Leoneans, and others.
Yaya Jallow
----------------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:33:54 -0400
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Fwd: Gambian attitude towards work: The Genesis of underdevelopment
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Very thought provoking piece from the pages of The Gambia Journal
>
> Letter To The Editor
>
> Gambian attitude towards work: The Genesis of underdevelopment
> By Abdoulie Sallah
> Apr 11, 2007, 14:19
>
> Sometimes you tend to wonder why a country so promising and full of
> potentials is failing the dynamics of development. In most cases one is tempted to
> think that there are limited resources to trigger socio-economic development.
> But then I tend to pose the question what if the Gambia a small but great
> country was endowed with more resources? Was this equation going to create more
> socio-economic opportunities and advancement or was it going to be a
> catastrophic downturn? Conventional wisdom will opine that if you cannot efficiently
> and effectively manage a village, then how can you be expected to manage a
> city? The bottom-line argument here is that if one’s attitude towards the
> management of small resources is lackadaisical and dysfunctional, then how is it
> expected of one to manage bigger resources? A wiseman once stated that ‘a
> vision without an action is a mere dream and an action without a vision is a waste
> ’ but I will rephrase this and say that great skills, expertise and
> experience without appropriate execution is a waste and a means to self-destruction.
> This been said, I am not unmindful that the Gambia has produced and will
> continue to produce very hardworking sons who will always remain a source of
> inspiration to future generations.
> A significant root to the development of underdevelopment in the Gambia can
> be traced back to the attitude of most of its workforce. Have you ever
> wondered why almost 60% of the employable population still remain unemployed and
> why nearly 70% of the population are depending on 30% of the population? Most
> people will tell me well the government of the day is not doing enough. But
> then I will ask you who the government is? Does it not constitute our fathers,
> mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, friends and acquaintances? And if this
> is the case then are we not part of the government? The point here is that we
> must stop using the government as a scapegoat for everything that is wrong
> and for the failings of our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends and
> ourselves. Malcolm X the great civil right activist once stated that ‘you
> cannot be blind with patriotism so much so that you cannot face reality, wrong is
> wrong no matter who does it or says it’. Henceforth we as Gambians need to
> take a critical look at ourselves and re-evaluate our contributions towards the
> dynamics of underdevelopment in our great and noble motherland and the first
> and foremost thing we need to take a hard look at is the attitude of the
> workforce. The attitude we have towards work will determine how successful we
> become as a nation because even if we have everything by our side and don’t
> possess the right attitude we will still fail. Even the expectation of a divine
> intervention will not help without the right attitude because over and over
> again we do hear the adage ‘God only help those who help themselves’ and God
> Himself has mentioned in the Qu’ran that He will not change the condition of a
> nation (people) until they change it for themselves or make an effort to
> change it.
> It is now time to call a spade a spade. Although there are pockets of
> individuals who are very hardworking, honest, disciplined and sincere, however I
> will not hesitate to say that most officials and ordinary people are very lazy,
> dishonest, undisciplined, and greedy and lack dignity and integrity. They
> have no concept of direction and advancement and are thus sent wallowing into
> the ocean of opportunism by the winds of materialism. Have you ever taking time
> to visit offices during working hours in the civil service, government
> departments and para-statals? You will be surprise at what you see or may be not
> because you may have been groomed by this system. Whilst you may find a very
> sizeable amount of hardworking people stick to their desks proving very
> productive, the majority are usually found wondering in Alice’s land. What do I see
> upon visiting offices? Well I see people sleeping in their offices when they
> should be working; I see people forming their own chitchat forums mainly
> full of gossips, slandering and backbiting; I see people using what belongs to
> the offices for their own personal gains; I see people playing music and
> dancing; I see people trying to make love in the office; I see people signing in
> and in a matter of seconds signing out for the rest of the day; I see people
> been abuse even though they are the righteous ones; I see people who have no
> responsibilities other than going from office door to office door just lying
> and seeking favours; I see people who cannot even spell their names occupying
> positions of responsibilities and authority because they are the wives,
> daughters, sons, brothers and sisters of the ‘big’ people; I see people with no
> job roles; I see people abusing the trust and confidence of the Gambian
> people; I see people who make themselves so inaccessible to other people even
> though they are there to serve the needs of those people; I see people who condemn
> injustice during the day and condone it during the night; and I see much
> more.
> Has is ever happened to you when you were the most qualified person for the
> job but because you have no contacts or coming from a poor family background,
> you lost the job? Has it ever happened to you when you were due for
> promotion due hard work and merit but because someone is affiliated with a party or
> an individual, they get the promotion? Have you ever been dismissed for
> telling the truth? Have you ever worked in an office where it is a taboo to
> challenge decisions, be rationale about ideas and be truthful about reality? Have
> you ever been isolated, discriminated and harassed because you work hard,
> because you are disciplined, because you are sincere, because you are honest and
> because you want to see justice and transparency? Have you ever been
> blacklisted, defamed or caricatured because you try to be creative and innovative
> about you job?
> Today the culture of the workforce in the Gambia is castrating development
> and causing an impotence to progress. Nowadays you will have to know somebody
> or have a contact to get the job done or have a transaction successfully
> completed. There is a lack of professional code of conduct and even if there is
> any, then people override it and use it to their own advantage- that is
> getting favours from each other. One day whilst in the Gambia having a discussion
> with a friend of mine, he related a very sad story about a woman. This poor
> woman from the province area (around Central River Region) sadly lost her
> husband who had served the Gambia all throughout his life. All she needed was the
> pension of her husband to maintain the family. She came all the way to Banjul
> for this simple transaction, which probably should not have taken even a
> week. Unfortunately for her she was referred to different departments before
> been finally redirected to the department she started from. Her case was dragged
> for over three months and as if this was not enough it was not still
> resolved. It was a friend of the woman who new my friend that asked my friend to
> help the woman even though my friend was in a totally separate department. He
> knew somebody in the other department and asked that individual to help the
> poor woman’s case and afterwards it took less than a week for the woman to get
> what was entitled to her. Why should this be the norm? Why does she have to
> suffer before claiming what was entitled to her? Why should it take longer
> than usual to resolve her case? Why should it be a favour for her case to be
> sorted? What would have been her fate if no one tried to help her? And just how
> long would it have taken after the three months to get her case sorted out
> without any form of intervention?
> This situation reflects an undesired metamorphosis of socio-economic
> development supported by the pillars of venomous social reassurances. In a very
> intensely competitive world, gone are the days when you will sit and just do what
> you have been asked to do without involving any form of innovation and
> creativity and going that extra mile to explore other avenues in order to create
> more opportunities. Time and again I do hear management gurus saying that a
> good worker creates more work in an efficient and effective way. However, if
> this is to be applied to the Gambia, then we are thousands of miles away from
> having good workers because the minority of good workers in the Gambia today
> have been heavily overshadowed by the bad workers and there efforts
> neutralised, thus making it very difficult to distinguish the good from the bad and
> the bad from the ugly. Our attitude towards work should not be about sitting
> down and waiting to be told what to do and when to do it, instead it should be
> one that is proactive; one that is target driven and success oriented; it
> should be one that is action-oriented and disciplined.
>
> The way forward
> I have always told people and my students that whenever you criticise
> people, systems or ideologies, don’t leave them hanging like that because it will
> cause you to be a victim of the very thing you criticise, thus offer
> constructive alternatives. This is exactly what I intend to do in this section. It
> will be very unwise of me to claim that my solution or alternative is universal
> and that it is the only solution. In fact what I am about to offer is not a
> means to an end nor is it a beginning to an end. All it will do will be to
> create a beginning to the magnetisation of other ideas and thoughts for a way
> forward.
> Undoubtedly change will be the foremost thing to be put into the equation
> and not only change but a change that is swift and radical. First of all, a
> needs analysis needs to be conducted in every department, para-statal, and also
> in the civil service, using the matrix analysis framework. It so happens that
> most offices and departments are overloaded with people who needn’t be
> there, thus causing a limbo in operations particularly cost. Most people in
> organisations, departments and offices don’t even have a job description and don’t
> play any roles within their organisations or departments. Conducting needs
> analysis will enable organisations and departments to identify their
> resources, and the quality and quantity of the personnel they would need to operate.
> People only become idle and lazy when they have absolutely nothing to do or
> think about. People should have enough work to keep them busy for the required
> number of hours they are expected to stay in their offices and not having to
> stay in their offices for eight hours just to be given a ten minute piece of
> work for the whole day. The needs analysis will also weed out the unwanted
> people thereby saving cost for the departments and organisations. Although this
> may be seen as harsh and a repetition of the retrenchment of workers as in
> the days of the Economic Recovery Programme, however the difference is that
> cost saved will be reinvested into the best, most qualified and hardworking
> workers instead of repaying debts. In addition, this will create a very
> competitive atmosphere where people will learn to value their jobs and always want to
> make a difference in the workplace. Similarly, conventional wisdom on
> motivation will reveal that the better the people are paid, developed and given the
> right resources, the more likely they will excel and bring about desired
> results.
> In addition, another mechanism that can be used to overcome the Gambian
> attitude or work culture is the introduction of systems that will monitor and
> hold accountable each and every individual within organisations and departments.
> Here I am not talking about the ‘police organisation’ or the ‘CCTV’
> organisation where freedom to be innovative or creative is restraint and where
> people’s privacy is invaded under the pretext of organisational policies and
> procedures. Rather I am referring to systems that will lay solid foundations for
> work ethic and professionalism, thus allowing people to work professionally
> but also be held responsible for their actions. I am not also talking about
> systems that will condone the blame culture or bureaucracy, but systems that
> will promote transparency, efficiency and effectiveness. I am talking about
> systems that will ensure that even the organisation or department driver or
> cleaner knows the strategic objectives of the organisation/department and know
> how their roles contribute to the overall attainment of the strategic goals. It
> is sad to note that even most middle level managers in the Gambia know
> neither the mission nor the objectives of their respective organisations. How then
> does one expect them to perform meaningfully towards the achievement of such
> objectives? What has happened to performance management? What has happened
> to employee development review? What has happened to employee supervision?
> What has happened to employee mentoring? What has happened to appraisal? How
> many of these systems are fully and regularly utilised? Well if people don’t
> have the technical know-how, how can they be expected to do it? This leads me to
> my next point.
> Capacity building or development always proves to be very valuable.
> Developing the expertise and technical know-how of your employees is an investment
> worthwhile both in the short and long runs. Unfortunately in the Gambia this
> valuable area of investment is abused and totally alienated. It is the norm and
> practice in Gambian departments and organisations that capacity building and
> development is used as a mechanism for seeking and returning favours. People
> are nowadays sent to trainings, workshops, seminars, conferences, and
> further studies not because they are the most suitable and qualified individuals,
> but because they simply lick the backside of the ‘boss’. This has created a
> phenomenon where the ‘boss’ becomes the hungry predator searching for its
> preys in the vast ocean of opportunism, eventually turning the employees into
> opportunistic preys. Thus you will have to do everything the boss says or else
> you be held in solitary confinement where you will never see the beaming rays
> of training and development. Another criteria for eligibility that is
> usually considered when it comes to training and development is personal
> affiliation with the ‘big boss’ or the ‘bigger boss’. Sometimes the boss, the big
> boss and the bigger boss are so greedy that they let nothing leak down to the
> underdogs, even though they may not need it but because of the allowances and
> par-diems attached. Recommendations for further training and development must
> be critically assessed and attached to the needs of the organisation or
> department. Robust selection criteria that are open and transparent must be put in
> place allowing little or no space for managerial discretion. May be having a
> selection committee comprising of sections of the organisation or department
> will not be a bad idea. The purpose of this committee will be to scrutinise
> proposals coming from senior management with reference to training and
> development and scan selected individuals against set criteria. This is neither
> bureaucracy nor work overloading, it is simply accountability.
> Finally, a new approach towards public management must be introduced; one
> that is independent and free from politicisation; one that is very competitive
> and customer oriented; one that involves consultation with the very people
> whose needs need to be served; one that is target driven; and one that is
> accountable to all stakeholders. I do not mean privatisation here but something
> like a competitive and non-commodified alternative to capitalist corporations
> who are target driven and profit oriented. The delivery of public services
> must be measured, planned, evaluated and above all accounted for. I am not
> saying that it is wrong to do favours for people, but it must not be the
> foundation for professionalism and certainly not the corner stone for the delivery of
> public services.
> The Gambia is a small and peaceful country that has social values. Social
> systems are good for development and as a result must be valued and treasured.
> I am saying we must learn to help each other; I am saying we must learn to
> lend a hand; I am saying we must learn to support each other; I am saying we
> must change our attitude towards work if we are to reach the pinnacle of
> advancement; I am saying we must not base our decisions and work ethics on social
> delusions but rather on informed rationality guided by a sense of social
> justice.
>
> By
> Abdoulie Sallah
> PhD Student
> University of Leicester School of Management (UK)
>
>
>
>
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