I commented yesterday on Peter Drucker, the Austrian-born
American management consultant,
educator,
and author,
whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of
the modern business corporation.
He is perhaps best known as the leader in the development of management education,
and his invention of the concept known as ‘management by
objectives’. And an outspoken admirer of the SA, USA- He
wrote something which I often used in introducing business students to
effective management, reminding them that a key strength lies in the unpaid
resource faithfulness of their millions of committed volunteers. "The most
effective organisation in America," said Peter Drucker,"is the Salvation Army.
Not the most effective NGO, or not-for- profit ... the most effective
organisation or business, anywhere, full stop.”
The most accurate measure is to actually look at
– to study the way people behave – not what they tell you, but what they do.
Critical and meaningful assessment can only come from those persons ‘who have
walked, talked, laughed, cried and lived among them’.
Drucker, who died almost a decade, and as
insightful and prophetic as he was, had only limited knowledge about the
Internet or what it would become. There's little chance even he could have
imagined how our lives would be affected since then, and continues to be,
daily.
Thankfully many Drucker disciples continue to
speak. “In many organizations”, says a Drucker Institute blogger, “there is a
gap in terms of what the culture is as stated and what the culture is as
actually lived. The influential piece of the culture to the largest extent is
going to be the culture as it is lived, not the culture as it is stated,” he
stresses.
Rich Barton, the co-founder of several companies
that endeavor to make information as widely available as possible, and who also
sits on the board of the lawyer- and doctor-review website Avvo, is a key
avocate of transparency.
Barton says, “What I tell people is, if it can be . . .
known it will be known,” While Barton’s efforts have been
directly largely at the external marketplace it applies equally to the FSAOF’s
internal focus. Just how transparent should the SA be with their own employees,
officers, soldiers, adherents and supporters; the several millions who have
pledged a mutually covenanted loyalty.
Would the information released by the several SA
offices on the HH fiasco earn kudos from Drucker or be dismissed as
disingenuous?
There are several levels of transparency
requiring consideration here. The most basic is being clear on the SA’s
mission, as well as the goals of each ministry/business unit. Greater
transparency and potential for support occurs only when the reasons behind the
mission goals are made clear and lived out daily, in concert, across borders,
—for example, how they contribute to our organization’s core purpose.
Radical transparency goes even further, and can
provide dignity, integrity and fairness, respecting. It includes opening up the
financials, that part needed to stifle gossip, pundits, insider critics and
even nosy outsiders. The Drucker Institute’s blog suggests that transparency is
a most potent way to build trust among both employees and other stakeholders.
“The key breakdown”, says Peter Drucker, “is a
lack of communication” —a problem that he well
understood. “Balancing change and continuity requires continuous work on
information,” he wrote. “Nothing disrupts continuity and corrupts relationships
more than poor or unreliable information.”
The person, whose house is in a far-away land
across the seas, has an amazingly familiar ring of logic and bush life
familiarity wrote:
“A lot is being made of the corruption in
Zimbabwe territory, and cited as part of the reason why Dr Thistle was
"dismissed so summarily because of the broken human relationship between
him and the Zimbabwean TC due to fiscal irregularities. The actions of
Commissioner Chigariro were considered by senior leaders, including General
Linda Bond and our new General, and found to be acceptable, given her cultural
roots. She was not disciplined as far as we can see - just sidelined to another
territory and also (inexplicably) given a (small) part in the election
procedures of the new General - himself the child of a Zimbabwean upbringing,
who again understands the culture of that country. And Major Dean Pallant,
another 'child' of Zimbabwe, has been given a leading role in the
'investigation' of the whole issue. Surely even those at the top of the
leadership can see how ‘incestuous’ this would appear to the outsider –
'insiders' can - and questions have already been asked as to how can they
possibly have an impartial view?
Again, much has been said about how their
involvement has called into question their integrity and impartiality, but how
can it not do so?
One has to ask, though, are they involved
through personal choice, or appointed? If it is by personal choice, they are
foolish indeed, because the emotions aroused through the continuation of this
saga are not being assuaged by their continuing efforts. Indeed, to my mind
they are making the situation worse.
My question is this - why, as a converted
Christian, saved from sin and charged with being a Christian example to the
flock, weren't the Commissioner's actions considered by the IHQ group according
to biblical standards, and not by the cultural ethics of the country? That's
how the New Testament church dealt with problematical issues and issues of
church discipline. Surely we should all try to live by the standards Jesus
taught, and not by what is secularly deemed to be acceptable?
Christianity should be beyond nationalism and
its culture. We all live in what is largely a secular society, but we try to
live by Christian rules. The Bible tells us we should be ‘in the world, but not
of it’. There are things we just don’t do, because of our Christian witness.
And
why, as a naturalised Zimbabwean, who also knew, loved and lived in the
Zimbabwean culture, were the actions of Dr Thistle not given the same
consideration as those of the Commissioner? It was he who called into question
her integrity in this matter.
Comment to FSAOF Blog article; Tuesday, 29
October, 2013
Sven Ljungholm
Sven Ljungholm
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