Development Solutions Consultancy

• What is it? Enhancing Personal Success through Employment
• Where? Equator Hotel, Arusha, Tanzania
• When? 29th & 30th November 2012
• Daily start and end times? 9:00AM to 4:30PM (with breaks in-between)

Ever since the Government of Tanzania introduced the open performance review and appraisal system (OPRAS) nearly two decades ago, implementation has fallen short of expectations.

Rate of implementation by public organizations has been extremely slow, and where there have been attempts to implement the system, implementation has been poor. There is no single government institution that can stand out as having implemented OPRAS successfully. Why is this? What are employees themselves saying about OPRAS implementation?

In the course of working with various public organizations, we have interviewed a large number of employees and Management in an attempt to find out what they perceive as constraints of implementing OPRAS. They pointed out the following issues constraining OPRAS implementation:

• OPRAS is based on ability to measure outputs yet it is not easy to measure outputs. Some work cannot be measured.
• OPRAS is too time consuming to implement.
• Government did not stress its implementation.
• Management not supportive.
• There is pervasive culture of working by tradition.
• OPRAS is not well understood.
• Management lack expertise on OPRAS. Continue reading...

Too often organizational objectives are incorrectly set in too many strategic plans. It is all too common to see organizational objectives set as achievement of processes. It is not unusual to encounter objectives such as a “certain Policy Developed”, “Production Improved”, or “Staff Training Implemented” to the extent that it is pertinent and important to ask the questions: What are organizational objectives? How can they be set?

Obviously, objectives can be set for different purposes but at the level of an organization objectives must be statements of the level or quantity of results that must be achieved by an organization in a particular period and which address the needs of the beneficiaries of the services provided by the organization. Beneficiaries of services are otherwise called customers. Results must, therefore, be a certain level of service to be delivered to customers in a particular period. As such organizational objectives are not only outward looking in nature but are also achievements that benefit people outside the organization. Continue reading...

It’s quite interesting when you think about it that 97% of the world population controls about 3% of the wealth. It’s sad but most of our university educational systems set us up to compete for 3% of the wealth. The rich 3% live on a philosophy that says, “Observe the masses and do the opposite.” In other words successful people don’t follow the crowd; they tend to question what’s common and mostly do just the opposite. They tend to do what’s uncommon and therefore also live an uncommon life.

Uncommon people understand that trying harder isn’t necessarily a solution to achieving more. It may not offer any real promise for getting what you want out of life. In fact, sometimes, it’s a big part of the problem. They believe it’s more worthwhile spending more time developing your strengths rather than spending more time improving your weaknesses. We all have weaknesses but uncommon people tend to manage their weaknesses, and then continually develop and master what they are good at. They believe that you cannot be anything you want to be, but you can be a lot more of who you already are. Continue reading...

In the recent years succession planning has become a topical issue in the circles of public organizations in Tanzania. It is a result of unprecedented large numbers of employees retiring at about the same time without proper planning for their replacement. Not only was the need to employ new staff created but also a seniority gap. The gap between the level of existing staff and the seniority of job positions falling vacant was big. This has called for urgent measures to upgrade skills of employees and to ensure public organizations develop succession plans.

As is always the case, for every problem there is an opportunity. The opportunity created by the need for succession planning should be utilized not only to recruit staff but also to improve management and leadership systems. Improved management and leadership systems would ensure maintaining optimal organizational staffing and availability of conducive work environment for employees to give their best performance. Achieving this depends on the extent succession planning is properly conducted because succession planning is not about planning per se. It is about developing effective management and leadership systems. Continue reading...

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” - Henry David Thoreau

One common trait among many successful people from different walks of life is focus. Focus is when clarity, concentration, and action converge to make a specific result in the present. Our ability to consistently focus on the right targets, keeps us in the direction of our vision. Therefore, whatever you want out of life comes down to your ability to focus. Your ability to focus actually aids you in overcoming challenges faster than you can imagine.

If you want certain results badly enough, you have the power to make them happen, no matter what other people say and no matter how tough the odds appear to be at first. The path towards great accomplishment, demands that you do certain things even if you don’t like them. Successful people maintain their focus and do the things they have to do because they know the end result is worth the price. Continue reading...

I have heard it many times during my sessions of working with employees in public organizations. They cynically say that they also want to be promoted so that they can do nothing but earn more money. They contend that their bosses get them to do everything while they sit down and read newspapers. To them, to become a “boss” which means manager or supervisor is to do nothing and get paid more. Such argument sometimes implies that anybody can be a “boss” because a “boss” simply “delegates” everything to their juniors so that they can chat with visitors, friends, make telephone calls and attend meetings. Of course everybody knows that this should not, theoretically, be true but how does this contention come about? Are the junior employees trying to say something but no one is listening? How could such a situation have developed?

On the surface this looks like a ridiculous argument because, after all, every one has a job description. To argue that someone could be doing nothing while everyone has a job description seems to be far fetched. However, a closer examination of the work environment suggests that the statement from junior employees could bear some truth. Experience shows that in many cases job descriptions are so brief and broad that it requires highly experienced people to translate them into actionable duties and tasks. Continue reading...

Leadership is the capacity to influence people through inspiration. This inspiration is generated by passion whose source is a value based vision. When you have passion, you can inspire people and when you inspire people, you can influence them. Just, what is passion and how is it related to leadership?

Passion is a compelling emotion or feeling that gives us energy. It so happens whenever we have passion, we seem to get this stamina that stays with us all the time and does not go away. We experience passion whenever we are enjoying what we are doing. When we become passionate about what we do, we strive to achieve what we desire. If our desire to lead people so that they can grow and become more by performing to their best, we begin to build influence with the people we work with. Continue reading...

For any organization, effective leadership and management are crucial for ensuring organizational success. Not only do these processes ensure that organizations focus on doing the right things but also on doing them right to the best advantage and impact on their customers.

Realizing this, the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (TATO) commissioned us to conduct Leadership and Management Training for its members.

The prestigious umbrella organization, TATO, has a total of over 250 members who are either tour operators or tourist hotels. As tour operators are, in most cases, also tourist hotel operators, these constitute the majority of members with hotel operators per se constituting about ten percent. The training was developed for company executives and senior managers following identification of training needs conducted by TATO. Continue reading...

As part of the public service reforms, the government has been pushing, with little success for over a decade, the implementation of an open employee performance appraisal system. Despite efforts to have the system implemented by government ministries and parastatal organizations, there is hardly any public organization that has fully implemented it, which can stand up as an example to be emulated. This failure begs the obvious question: why has implementation not taken root despite the talk? To answer this question it is important to understand that an employee performance appraisal is just a cog in a wheel; in order for it to succeed, there are other supporting systems that ought to be put in place too.

There are two key supporting systems or pre-requisites for the effective implementation of an open and objective employee performance appraisal system that have not been fully met under the current implementation environment. It is virtually impossible to implement the current employee performance appraisal system if these pre-requisites are not met. The first pre-requisite is the institutionalization of work planning at the individual employee level. Continue reading...